NEWS SUMMARY-INTELLIGENCE REPORT SUNDAY 4/7-MONDAY 4/8/2019

(WORK IN PROGRESS WITH STORIES ADDED, UPDATES EDITING AS ABLE THROUGH MONDAY MORNING)


United States military forces stationed in Libya have been pulled out of the country.   The United Nations also moving personnel out of the country as the Libyan National Army forces press their attack on the US-UN backed government that controls a small part of the country mostly around the capital city of Tripoli.

A Libyan source has posted a video of a US Marine landing craft leaving shore near a diplomatic neighborhood on the western side of Tripoli.    The video is embedded and can be viewed at this link.....HERE

The government in Tripoli says that 21 have been killed, 27 wounded in fighting near the city.

General Khalifa Haftar's forces say they've lost 14 in the fighting.

Both Haftar's Libyan National Army and the Goverment of National Accord have used air strikes in the fighting.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo calling for and end to fighting and for negotiations between the warring factions.

As early as Monday, the United States is expected to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran as a "terrorist organization".    The IRGC is an elite force of land, sea and air units within Iran's armed forces.

Some IRGC units are stationed outside Iran in locations like Syria and the "terrorist organization" designation will give the United States legal grounds to take military action against the elite Iranian military units.

Seven were killed in a rocket attack early Sunday morning on a town in Syria's Hama Province.    The attack coming from the jihadists in neighboring Idlib Province, who have repeatedly violated a deconfliction zone established there.

The Syrian Army fired back at jihadist positions.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin meeting Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan Monday in Moscow.

A Russian news agency (RIA) reports Erdogan is saying he will discuss  possible Turkish military operation in Syria when he meets Putin.

Two attackers died and two were arrested in eastern Saudi Arabia according to the Saudi "Al-Arabiya" television channel.  The group targeting a checkpoint were apparently from the Shiite Muslim minority in the majority Sunni Muslim country.

President Trump's assessment of Tuesday's election in Israel is that it:

"will be close"

Trump speaking at the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas Saturday.

While there were shouts of "Bibi" in the crowd the President said that the leaders of the two parties vying for first place, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Likud and former Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Benny Gantz of Blue and White, were both good men.

The challenge after the election will be to form a coalition with smaller parties to achieve 61 seats in the 120 seat parliament.

In a bid to take support from smaller conservative parties Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he will annex Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria preferably with the support of the United States.

One concern of the smaller parties like the New Right Party of Education Minister Naftali Bennett and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked is that around 90 percent of Judea and Samaria appear set to be given to the Palestinians under President Trump's "Deal of the Century" plan reportedly set to be unveiled on May 15th.

Meanwhile, Benny Gantz led a motorcycle ride through central Israel Sunday.   A photo at the link...

HERE

One possibility in the election's aftermath could be a combining of the two major parties to lessen the power of the smaller, mostly conservative parties.

Ayelet Shaked of the New Right Party told Channel 20 TV in Israel:

"We must preserve the right-wing ideological parties-because without us this will be a leftist government"

Early voting underway at Israeli military bases Monday.

Supporters of Wikileaks continuing to express their concern about Julian Assange, the Wikileaks founder, being kicked out of the Ecuadorean Embassy in London.     They expect Assange to be arrested by British police and extradited to the United States.


Video from early Monday morning shows a car with four plainclothes police apparently inside it parked outside the embassy building....LINK


Video from London earlier Sunday shows two armed British police officers entering the embassy Sunday.....LINK

Here at home US Secretary of Homeland Security Kirsten Nielsen resigning with Kevin McAleenan, US Customs and Border Protection Commissioner, taking over as Acting Secretary.

White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney says that the House Democrats will "never" see President Trump's tax returns.    The House Ways and Mean Committee is seeking six years of Trump tax returns.

Commenting on the situation in a CNN interview Sunday, Democrat presidential candidate Bernie Sanders says his tax returns for this year will soon be released adding:

"we do not have investments in Saudi Arabia"

Another one of the Democrats running for President, former Congressman Beto O'Rourke, told a town hall meeting in Iowa that the US-Israel relationship is "one of the most important relationships that we have on the planet" that:

"must transcend partisan politics and must also transcend a racist Prime Minister who warns against Arabs voting"

In Sudan protesters increasing pressure on President Omar al-Bashir coming in large numbers over the weekend and beginning a sit-in protest at army headquarters in the capital of Khartoum.

They want the army to help them remove the President from office.    The army maintaining neutrality during the months of street protests leaving suppression of the protesters up to police.

LATE WORD EARLY MONDAY IS THAT ARMED INDIVIDUALS MOVED IN WITH TEAR GAS AND EVEN LIVE AMMUNITION ON THE THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE WITH SOME SOLDIERS COMING OUT TO HELP FEND THE ATTACKING SECURITY FORCES OFF.

UNCONFIRMED REPORTS OF CASUALTIES IN TWO REPORTED ASSAULTS ON THE PROTESTERS BY THE 'INTELLIGENCE SERVICE' AND OR 'STATE MILITIA'.  ON SOCIAL MEDIA IT IS BEING SAID FIVE WERE KILLED.

THE AFP NEWS AGENCY REPORTING THAT MILITARY UNITS ARE DEPLOYED ALONG WITH BARRICADES IN THE AREA.

In Australia today a sudden nationwide coordinated protest by animal rights activists targeting slaughterhouses and a major intersection in Melbourne which was blocked by some 100 protesters during rush hour.

38 arrests made there.   One of the many protests involved 20 people chaining themselves to equipment at a slaughterhouse west of Brisbane.   Nine charged with tresspassing there.

A full roundup on the story from ABC in Australia at the link......HERE

Canada's opposition leader says he's been threatened with a libel suit from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for saying Trudeau interfered the prosecution of the construction-engineering firm SNC-Lavalin.

Andrew Scheer of the Conservative Party says Trudeau's lawyer sent him a letter received on March 31st.

Scheer says he stands by his views on the matter and urges Trudeau to go ahead with a libel suit, but he thinks the letter is more a bluff and an attempt at intimidation.

And that's the way it really is on this Monday morning April 8th, 2019.