White House press secretary Jay Carney said Monday that Chief of Staff Dennis McDonough and other senior officials knew of the general nature of the report but decided to keep the president in the dark about the report’s finding that the IRS had targeted conservative groups for extra tax scrutiny.

Carney said it was the White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler’s judgment that the matter should not be told to the president, and that she conveyed this sentiment to senior staff.

DAMASCUS, Syria – Russian President Vladimir Putin says he’s supplying the long-range anti-aircraft missile S-300 to Syria despite pleas from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry not to do so, according to a report in Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

Putin argued that the S-300 is a “defensive” weapon and will help stabilize the region.

In June 2012, Syria was supposed to receive the S-300s but the contract was canceled due to Western political pressure. The announcement is intended to show Moscow’s support for al-Assad at all costs.

Putin’s rebuff of Netanyahu and Kerry comes following two separate Israeli airstrikes on Syria this month, with a promise of more if Jerusalem believes that Syrian weapons transfers to Hezbollah will continue.

The two initial airstrikes, however, were launched from Israeli aircraft in Lebanese airspace, with the first strike hitting a convoy of what are said to have been advanced weapons for Hezbollah.

Hezbollah already is assessed to have quite an arsenal of missiles from Syria, which has served as a conduit for Iran to pass them along to its proxy.

Two days following that attack, Israel launched a second airstrike – again from Lebanese air space – on a military research facility on a high hill overlooking Damascus.

The second airstrike brought a Syrian threat to retaliate, declaring that the airstrikes were an “act of war” and prompting Syrian charges that the Israelis were working with the Syrian opposition. Those rebels currently are embroiled in a civil war against the Syrian government.

Sources believe, however, that Syria won’t retaliate and, given the state of its military, such retaliation is considered remote.

Yet, Israeli officials already have served warning that they will continue airstrikes against any target they perceive as weapons destined for Hezbollah in Lebanon, with the prospect that continued shipments of weapons could mean Israeli effort to topple al-Assad’s government. That prospect also could set off the Russians.

The launching of Israeli airstrikes brought protests from Lebanon and the United Nations, saying that such incursions into Lebanese airspace were contrary to United Nations Resolution 1701.

Lebanon lacks any kind of air defenses, including ground-to-air anti-aircraft missiles, although Iran, whose presence is very much evident in Lebanon and is closely allied with the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad, has offered such assistance.

Informed sources say that Russia intends to ship four batteries of the S-300s which have from 100 to 150 simultaneously deployable, guided anti-aircraft missiles.

Sources say that once deployed, they will be manned by Russian military “advisers,” since the Syrians are not technically prepared to operate such advanced and complicated systems. They say Israel therefore could hurt Russians should there be more strikes.

This shipment of S-300s is yet a further indication of Russia’s commitment to al-Assad, despite rumors that the Russians are seeking an alternative to his leadership of Syria in an effort to bring stability to the country for Moscow’s own geostrategic purposes.

It is a further indication that the Russians believe that al-Assad has the upper hand in the civil war against the armed opposition, which appears to be increasingly disorganized with internal disputes over leadership and direction.

In addition, Iran and Hezbollah fighters increasingly are assisting al-Assad’s government forces in training and leadership for the beleaguered Syrian armed forces.

Putin wants to give al-Assad more time and to stop any foreign intervention or outside supply of weapons to the Syrian opposition, and to prevent the establishment of a no-fly zone.

For the rest of this report and other Intelligence Briefs, please go to Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin:

• Syria/Washington/Europe: Signs of caving</a
• Qatar/Syria: Doha had arranged kidnapping
• United States: Records may not break rules
• United States: Ill-prepared for EMP attack

Keep in touch with the most important breaking news stories about critical developments around the globe with Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin, the premium, online intelligence news source edited and published by the founder of WND.

For the complete report and full immediate access to Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin, subscribe now.

WASHINGTON – As the Obama administration comes under increasing pressure to get more involved militarily in Syria to overthrow the embattled regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a new Harvard University study has calculated the past and future costs for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

According to the study, those two wars will cost the United States a staggering $4 trillion to $6 trillion.

While the study points out that $2 trillion already has been spent for each of the two wars, this is only a fraction of the total costs for the long-term commitments and the expenses for medical care and disability benefits to veterans that will have to continue for decades.

The initial $2 trillion to fight the wars in Iran and Afghanistan came from borrowed money.

“The decision to finance the war operations entirely through borrowing has already added some $2 trillion to the national debt, contributing about 20 percent of the total national debt added between 2001 and 2012,” the report said.

In addition to waging the actual conflict, these costs include spending on medical care for the wounded soldiers and repairs and replacement of military equipment for them.

The study also points out that this cost includes an increase in military benefits which the Bush administration initiated in 2001. Costs to cope with veterans’ rising health care and disability are expected to rise over the next 40 years.

To date, there have been some 2.5 million service men and women who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation New Dawn and Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.

There were 6,658 U.S. military fatalities as of March 8, 2013, which didn’t include contractors, coalition partners, Iraqi and Afghan partners and civilians, according to the study.

By September 2012, some 1.56 million U.S. troops had returned home and left active duty, thereby becoming eligible for veterans medical care and benefits.

These veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are using VA medical services and applying for disability benefits at much higher rates than in previous years, a development which has created a tremendous backlog in processing claims.

The bottom-line price tag of up to $6 trillion also includes the continuing costs for nation-building in both countries that will be ongoing for many years to come.

“The large sums borrowed to finance operations in Iraq and Afghanistan will also impose substantial long-term debt servicing costs,” the study added.

The Iraqi war ended in December 2011 while the Afghanistan war is to wind down by the end of 2014. In both cases, the U.S. is expected to continue expenditures to try and ensure the stability of both countries through training and equipment.

The Harvard report is called “The Financial Legacy of Iraq and Afghanistan: How Wartime Spending Decisions Will Constrain Future National Security Budgets.”

Keep in touch with the most important breaking news stories about critical developments around the globe with Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin, the premium, online intelligence news source edited and published by the founder of WND.

For the complete report and full immediate access to Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin, subscribe now.

Efforts to bring about such decentralization, however, may inadvertently create 47 equally corrupt county systems, the Obama administration has acknowledged.

Obama, through the U.S. Agency for International Development, nonetheless intends to dole out upwards of $50 million in U.S. taxpayer funds to help the Kenyans get it right, according to contracting documents that WND discovered via routine database research.

One potential obstacle to accomplishing the task is the relatively recent discovery of significant oil resources in Kenya, USAID says.

Corruption, therefore, could magnify due to the lack of transparency between the government and the “land and extractive industries.”

The new Kenyan Constitution and related legislation raise the issue of transparency; however, they contain “few if any specific mechanisms” to guarantee it.

USAID is wasting no time in preparing for the five-year endeavor, known as the Harmonized Assistance for Devolved Institutions Project, or AHADI – which means “promise” in Kiswahili.

The agency will meet in Nairobi May 30 with private vendors potentially interested in securing AHADI contracts. The anticipated official execution of the project is the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2013.

USAID says it has learned from prior experience that decentralization, when successfully implemented, can create a “more responsive, open and pluralistic government,” the agency points out in the AHADI Statement of Work.

On the other hand, decentralization “also runs the risk of systemic failure that further exacerbates the problems that it was intended to alleviate – often leading to a frustrated populace and a re-centralization of power.”

“This is nowhere more true than in the Kenyan context,” it says.

This planned diffusion of power – which USAID calls “devolution” – stands to alleviate conflict, improve service delivery and empower Kenyan citizens, according to USAID.

“It could just as easily exacerbate ethnic tension, worsen service delivery and reinforce corruption and unaccountable governance,” the agency admits.

The hiring of a contractor to advise Kenyan county governments is intended to help Kenyan authorities avoid such pitfalls.

The selected company will be tasked with improving a targeted number of county governments, ensuring that the systems are “more informed, capable, transparent, accountable and open to the participation of its citizens – especially historically marginalized groups,” the Statement of Work says.

The contractor also will advise county officials on how to work more cooperatively with each other and with the national government.

While the devolution process aims to more closely connect the Kenyan government with its citizens – thereby increasing transparency and accountability – “it also provides new entry points and opportunities for corruption, and could easily replicate old national patterns of obfuscation, unresponsiveness and unaccountability at the local level.”

The AHADI program is one of several new endeavors that the Obama administration is pursuing in Kenya.

As WND recently reported, Obama is embarking upon a nationwide reading project that aims to improve the skills of children in tens of thousands of Kenyan schools.

Similarly, the administration earlier this year launched new peace initiatives in and around Kenya, despite acknowledging that chronic cattle rustling and other cultural practices – such as killing rivals “to prove their manhood or impress young women” – might impede progress.

WND last year reported Obama administration spending and projects in Kenya had become so voluminous that USAID had to hire more contractors to oversee endeavors other providers already carried out across the African nation.

USAID, in its own words, had admitted that the “overall USAID/Kenya program has increased rapidly and exponentially, outstripping workforce resources available to effectively perform assessments and rigorous analyses … track results … manage recordkeeping, and other project development and program office functions.”

According to a Statement of Work for the USAID/Kenya program-support initiative, the agency acknowledged the level of U.S.-financed Kenyan operations has outpaced Washington’s ability to adequately manage it.

After WND’s reporting, USAID in turn eliminated public access to documents about the unwieldy portfolio of Kenyan projects, which included a formal plan to manipulate Kenyan and global media.

One day 7-year-old Johnny said to his father, “I really want to get married.”

“Oh, do you?” chuckled his dad. “So, do you have someone special in mind?”

“Yes, Grandma.”

“Did you just say you want to marry my mother?” the amused dad exclaimed. “Now, that’s a problem.”

“How so?” replied Johnny. “You married mine!”

Got a great joke you want to share with the world? Write it up in the WND Laughlines forum. Who knows? It might be selected as the WND Joke of the Day – and your wildest dreams will come true.

In an exclusive March 20 report with updates on March 24, March 25 and April 10, WND revealed the vast “Quds” site. Iranian scientists are trying to perfect nuclear warheads at this underground facility previously unknown to the West.

According to WND’s source, an officer who has been assigned to the regime’s Ministry of Defense, the site, approximately 14 miles long and 7.5 miles wide, consists of two facilities built deep into a mountain along with a missile facility housing over 380 missile silos/garages that is surrounded by barbed wire, 45 security towers and several security posts.

The most significant information provided by the source is that the regime has succeeded in not only enriching to weapons grade but has converted the highly enriched uranium into metal.

Moreover, the source said, successfully making this metal neutron reflector indicates the final stages for a nuclear weapons design that would be a two-stage, more sophisticated and much more powerful nuclear bomb. Regime scientists are also working on a plutonium bomb as a second path to becoming nuclear-armed, the source said, and they have at this site 24 kilograms of plutonium, which is sufficient for several atomic bombs. The scientists are at the last stage of putting together a bomb warhead, he said.

The nuclear weapon-effects test expert, who could not be named but who served at the U.S. Defense Nuclear Agency and who inspected more than 200 tunnel structures of Russian nuclear test sites as well as Russian operational facilities and silos, viewed the imagery of Iran’s new secret facility.

“The site is similar to a common approach by several other nuclear-capable countries which have used advanced design in hardening these types of tunnels or garages for a quick deployable system,” he said. “I understand exactly what Iran has at the site … (including) a very important part of the structures … the apparent hardened underground stub tunnels for secure storage of mobile systems which can be quickly moved to launching sites.”

Become a part of the investigative reporting team uncovering the truths about Iran, and get author Reza Kahlili’s “A Time to Betray” about his life as a double agent inside Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

“… the overheads indicate there are many apparent tunnel portals designed to hold a weapon and/or an operational controlling element (support system) for the weapons, an indication of an advanced design for a quick deployable nuclear weapons system capable of surviving retaliation, very much similar to what the U.S. had in mind in the 1960s in its major confrontation with the Soviet Union. … And it is very scary because its defeat may not be as easy as attacking it with a couple bombers, even if they have nuke weapons. This layout is very scary because it is … ready for the operational weapon systems to be installed, and then they are ready to take on the world.”

The source said there is close collaboration among Iran, North Korea and key figures in China in working on the nuclear warheads and that he will soon reveal detailed information of this collaboration, along with the plans and the timing for both Iran and North Korea to arm their missiles with nuclear warheads. The source emphasized that the world does not have much time but the time for negotiations with the Islamic regime is over.

Other experts also viewed the imagery.

“(The satellite images) suggest the possibility that Iran may in fact be further along in its nuclear weapons program than is generally assumed,” said David Trachtenberg, who for 30 years served in the national security policy field and who, as principal deputy assistant secretary of defense, played a leadership role in nuclear forces and arms control policy. “It is clear they have gone to great lengths to bury and protect high-value assets at this site, which also complicates the possibility of direct military action and illustrates the risks of allowing years to pass while hoping diplomacy will work.

GoogleEarth 12-2012 Image, Quds secret nuclear facility

“An accelerating train is harder to slow and takes longer to stop. These images reinforce my concern that Iranian nuclear progress is accelerating. The more emphatically the U.S. declares its determination to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons state, the harder it may be to ensure that outcome.”

Fritz Ermarth, who served in the CIA and as chairman of the National Intelligence Council, reviewed the satellite photos and said, “(This) imagery strongly suggests that Iran is working on what we used to call an ‘objective force’ … a deployed force of nuclear weapons on mobile missiles, normally based in deep underground sites for survivability against even nuclear attack, capable of rapid deployment.”

“This open-source analysis by itself illustrates that Iran is very serious about building survivable facilities for its nuclear enterprise,” said Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, the executive director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security, a congressional advisory board. Pry, who has served with the House Armed Services Committee and in the CIA, also reviewed the imagery and added, “The location of the site amid an Iranian missile armory, protected by a vast array of defensive and offensive missiles, is consistent with the intelligence reporting that the site is for the final stages of nuclear weapons development. The complex appears to be the most heavily protected site in Iran.”

“Reza Kahlili (who revealed the Quds site) has provided the West with one of the most critical pieces of evidence of the Iranian government’s drive to break out its nuclear development into a fully operational capability,” said Maj. Gen. Thomas G. McInerney (Ret.). “All the red lines have been crossed. Beware America, Israel and the West, a nuclear Iran is here!”

The U.N. nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, said last week that a 10th round of talks with Iran over Tehran’s efforts to develop nuclear weapons had failed.

It’s just one of the questions persisting around the al-Qaida-affiliated terror attack in Benghazi that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. As time has passed since the targeted attack last Sept. 11, issues appear to have become more – not less – obscured.

It was Rice who went on national television shows – repeatedly – shortly after the ambassador’s death was announced, and said that the Muslim mob was enraged by the online video about Mohammad.

That story since has been thoroughly debunked, and the filmmaker was jailed, although it was on unrelated probation violations.

Rice has maintained that she was simply repeating “talking points” given to her by the Obama administration when she appeared on a series of network phones to explain what had happened and why.

But a probe by WND shortly after the White House released 100 pages of emails related to the Libyan attacks has shown that Rice and members of her personal staff in fact played a central role in developing those talking points.

WND found that Rice’s press secretary, U.S. United Nations Mission spokeswoman Erin Pelton, and Rice’s Deputy U.N. Ambassador Rosemary DiCarlo both played roles in formulating the Libyan talking points.

Ironically, while the White House promoted the email “document dump” as a move for transparency, a close examination showed exactly the opposite. The identities of numerous administration officials were purged in countless emails. Both senders’ and recipients’ names were repeatedly redacted. And entire documents referred to in several emails were replaced by blank pages.

More than 25 percent of the documents released by the White House had been “sanitized,” leaving the reader with a critically incomplete picture of what transpired during the Benghazi attacks and the days shortly thereafter.

Among those questions is the disposition of U.S. forces in the immediate region, who might have been called upon in an emergency.

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CIA Director David Petraeous and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta have differed on the troop availability issue.

Controversy also remains on what security conditions existed at the U.S. compound prior to the attacks and attempts to address them.

And what role did Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta play as the crisis unfolded? And what was President Barack Obama doing during the crisis?

Even after a formal State Department investigation the chain of command and those in charge still remain unclear.

At the U.S. United Nations mission, only Ambassador DiCarlo’s name is plainly revealed.

Mission spokeswoman Pelton and Rice’s involvement was only confirmed after a WND investigation.

Both U.S. officials were contacted by email and telephone. The emails and phone calls were not returned..

Rice’s press office directed questions to the White House, which also had no comment.

The transcripts released by the White House showed that Pelton was in direct contact with CIA, Defense Department, State Department and National Security Council officials in “refining” the talking points for Rice.

The “working group” spent more than two days “refining” what Rice would or would not say before the Sunday morning talk shows.

The “changes” went far beyond the “one or two (minor edits)” that White House Press Secretary Jay Carney had previously spoken about.

The controversial YouTube video which allegedly sparked demonstrations at the U.S. embassy in Cairo, in turn sparking the Libyan attacks, is given little initial play inside the “working group” though that approach later changed.

What remains unclear is the identity of the party or parties who first believed that the Libyan attacks were spontaneous and not planned.

That concern was repeated by former U.S. United Nations Ambassador John Bolton who told WND:

“One question that remains unanswered us where the story about the Mohammed YouTube video arose? The congressional committees need to pursue that inquiry.” Bolton said.

In another development reported today, CNS News noted that while a senior adviser to Obama, Dan Pfeifer, said Obama was kept “up to date” on the terror attack, officials have refused to give details or provide documentation.

He declined to answer questions from Fox News Sunday about what the president was doing or where he was on that night.

And it was the New York Times that said the State Department plans by late summer to send dozens of additional diplomatic security agents to certain embassies and install millions of dollars in fire-survival gear and surveillance cameras.

The report said the price tag for the better security was at $1.4 billion for the “most urgent needs.”

It was Obama, who while not provide a lot of details about the attack, said Congress must step up and pay for the recommendations regarding security.

At Christian Broadcasting Network, there was a report that Secretary of State John Kerry said the Obama administration will do everything possible to protect U.S. diplomats serving overseas, vowing to spare no expense in the effort.

“The dangers of diplomacy are not unique to this moment in time: our diplomatic missions didn’t become dangerous that night in Benghazi,” Kerry told a group of State Department trainees.

“We are working to upgrade our capacities. We’re bringing on more security personnel, we’re enhancing our training, we’re putting more Marines at our high threat diplomatic posts, and we’re making sure that their first responsibility is protecting our people, not just classified materials,” said Kerry.

WND reported earlier Stevens was in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012, the day he died in that terrorist attack, because Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ordered him there.

That’s according to an exclusive statement given to WND by the attorney representing Gregory Hicks, the former State Department deputy chief of mission and chargé d’affairs who was in Libya at the time of the attack.

Victoria Toensing, legal counsel to Hicks, told WND that Clinton had given Stevens direct instructions to prepare the CIA compound in Benghazi to be upgraded to the status of a U.S. diplomatic mission and Stevens, in complying with Clinton’s wishes, was in Benghazi the first time he had the opportunity to do so, cognizant of the need to visit the site before the end of the fiscal year, on Sept. 30, 2012.

“Stevens was in Benghazi because Clinton told him to go there,” Toensing explained.

Hicks’ attorney also charged the Accountability Review Board, or ARB, headed by Ambassador Thomas Pickering and Admiral Michael Mullen, was a cover-up designed to contain blame for the Benghazi terror attack at a level below Clinton in the State Department.

The unclassified ARB final report on the tragedy on page 18 states: “Ambassador Stevens was scheduled to remain in Benghazi until September 14, and his visit was timed in part to fill the staffing gaps between TDY [Temporary Duty Assignment] principal officers as well as to open an American Corner at a local school and to reconnect with local contacts.”

Hicks testified to the House oversight committee that in direct contrast to this ARB claim, the State Department in Washington was fully aware of the plans Stevens made to go to Benghazi, the reasons he was going there, and his planned activity while there.

“The ARB unclassified final report was incomplete in that the reason for Stevens being in Benghazi was known to Hicks, but the ARB ignored the testimony Hicks gave on this point,” Toensing further explained to WND.

Hicks elaborated on this point by commenting to the House oversight committee that when he told the ARB the reason Stevens went to Benghazi, Pickering looked visibly upset and asked, “Does the 7th floor [where the office of Secretary of State Clinton is located] know about this?”

So far, there have been dozens of key issues about the tragedy for which there have been no answers from Obama administration officials:

• What did you know, and when did you know about the standoff occurring in Benghazi?
• Why did President Obama declare publicly in initial comments only hours following the Benghazi attack that it indeed was a terrorist attack but later in a CBS interview backtracked by saying that it was too early to determine whether it was a terrorist attack?
• Were Obama and Clinton informed at the time the attack was unfolding? If so, what orders did Clinton give to seek to secure the facility?
• Was Clinton in direct contact at any time with the Secretary of Defense to determine what Special Forces were available to lend assistance? Was she also in contact with the director of the Central Intelligence Agency to ascertain whether he had any assets in the area to rush to the assistance of the beleaguered facility?
• If she had not been informed at the time of the attack, at what level in the Department of State were officials informed and what action, if any, was ordered and with whom in the Defense Department and at CIA were they in contact?
• Who were the State Department officials aware of the pre-911 security requests from Ambassador Christopher Stevens and other U.S. personnel in Libya?
• What was Stevens doing in Benghazi without his usual security detail, especially since he had written earlier to the State Department on the poor security at the facility, considering the already dangerous environment of Libya?
• Why were his repeated requests for security either ignored, or turned down?
• Since warnings are issued by the State Department on every anniversary of 9/11 to all posts to heighten security, why wasn’t it done at Benghazi, especially since the ambassador was traveling to the facility on a mission known by the State Department and CIA?
• Why weren’t U.S. forces directed to be sent in, in light of a statement by the U.S. commander for Africa, Gen. Carter Ham, that he had the capabilities and was ready to go but never directed to go. Why is that?
• Why was a U.S. Marine fast action team out of Rota, Spain, told to take off their uniforms before going in to rescue the ambassador and the other three Americans? Why did the military conclude that the military couldn’t do anything? Why didn’t the accountability board even look at that? Why did CIA have such a large detail at the safe house location?
• Why did Under Secretary of State for Management Patrick F. Kennedy withdraw from Libya’s capital a 16-member special operations forces detachment that was assisting with security, a decision which was made two weeks prior to the Benghazi attack?
• What was the rationale for Kennedy’s decision in light of frequent appeals by Stevens for enhanced security, as he expressed increasing concern about the deteriorating security environment in Libya and the fact that the Libyan government itself was not in a position to provide adequate security at the U.S. embassy or consulate in Benghazi?
• Considering the increasing volatility in Benghazi and the fact that the consulate there was in an isolated position, why did the State Department and the CIA keep it open?
• There were reports that the two former SEALs – Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty – killed in attempting to protect the ambassador and the consulate were contractors for CIA and their main purpose was to work out of a safe house not far from the consulate, ostensibly to inventory various weapons, some of which separate reporting says were then transferred to the opposition forces in Syria. In light of this prospect, why wasn’t more security in place to protect the few CIA contractors who were there?
• In such a high-risk security environment, why was security for the consulate provided by Libyans? Did they stick around to provide security for the consulate once the attack began?
• Since they may not have, there also are indications that some of those providing security at the consulate either tipped off the terrorists or somehow pinpointed where in the consulate to attack, as well as identify the location of the safe houses where U.S. personnel escaped once the attack began. What has the State Department investigation revealed as to collusion with the terrorists by local Libyans charged with providing security for the consulate?
• Why was the FBI barred for 24 days from going to the consulate to secure evidence when reporters were given ready access and had obtained sensitive information which was later turned over to U.S. authorities?
• We were told that four State Department officials involved in the decision-making process on security were removed or resigned. We now learn that isn’t true. Why did the State Department lie about the status of those in State Department management responsible for this security debacle?
• In light of the Benghazi experience, has there been any effort by the Obama administration in close coordination with the Defense Department and CIA to revise operational procedures to ensure that quick-reaction armed resources are available much sooner in future instances of impending or actual attack on U.S. facilities abroad?

In it was September when WND broke the story that Stevens played a central role in recruiting jihadists to fight Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, according to Egyptian security officials.

According to the 39-page report from independent investigators probing the attacks at the diplomatic facility, the U.S. mission in Benghazi was set up without the knowledge of the new Libyan government, as WND reported.

WND also exclusively reported the facility may have violated the terms of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which governs the establishment of overseas missions. Like most nations, the U.S. is a signatory to the 1961 United Nations convention.

And WND reported in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, Rice may have deliberately misled the public when she went on television news shows and called the facility that had been targeted a “consulate.”

Citing Arab intelligence sources last week, WND was first to report that some S300 missile batteries reached Syria two weeks ago.

At the time, Israeli security sources said there was no information to support the Arab claim.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been leading efforts to block the S300 sale, flying to Russia last week to meet with President Vladimir Putin on the matter as well as other security concerns.

Now the Israel media is quoting the London-based Arab paper Al-Quds Al-Arabi, which claimed the S300 missiles are currently in Syria under Russian supervision. The report claimed the missiles are not yet operational.

Israel’s Channel 2 further reported Syrian soldiers completed their training on the S300 on Russian soil.

Read all about what Russia is telling Jerusalem regarding more airstrikes.

Speaking to WND yesterday, the same Arab intelligence sources who first claimed some S300 batteries were already delivered to Syria now say other advanced Russian anti-aircraft missiles arrived in Syria in the last few days.

The sources said a Russian delivery of 9K720 Iskander missiles reached Syria last week. The system is an older version of the S300.

Asked about the latest report, Israeli security officials did not immediately comment on the matter.

S300 missile batteries are able to intercept manned aircraft and guided missiles.

The Wall Street Journal first reported that Syria has been making payments on a 2010 agreement with Russia to purchase four batteries for $900 million, with delivery expected within three months.

The Journal reported the S300 package included six launchers and 144 operational missiles, each with a range of up to 200 miles.

Crews frantically searched the wreckage and were only beginning to get a sense of the destruction. Hospitals reported several dozen injured.

“The whole city looks like a debris field,” said Mayor Glenn Lewis of the city of Moore, which appeared to be hardest hit.

At Plaza Towers Elementary School, the tornado tore the roof off, and authorities kept hysterical parents back because it was too loud to hear screams for help. A teacher told NBC affiliate KFOR that she draped herself on top of six children in a bathroom to shelter them.

It was not clear how many children were trapped. Students in fourth, fifth and sixth grade were evacuated to a church, but students in lower grades had sheltered in place, KFOR reported. More than two hours after the tornado struck, several children were pulled out alive.

Romans 8:28