Author Archives: News Sources

U.S. carry out 90% of airstrikes in anti-ISIS operation

AFP reports: Arab and other allied countries have carried out about 10 percent of the nearly 2,000 air raids against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria since early August, US defense officials said.

US warplanes have conducted 1,768 air strikes since August 8, while other coalition aircraft have carried about 195 air raids against the IS jihadists, defense officials told AFP, citing a tally through Sunday.

The numbers, which for the first time shed light on the participation of Arab coalition partners, reflect the dominant role of the US military in the air campaign.

But Pentagon officials have insisted the role for Arab and European partners is likely to grow over time.

The Arab states involved in the operation in Syria — Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — have been reluctant to divulge details of their participation in the air strikes.

But for Washington and the West, the presence of the Arab countries has carried crucial symbolism in the fight against the Sunni extremists of the Islamic State group.

France, Belgium, Britain, Denmark, the Netherlands and Australia have committed aircraft for the effort in Iraq, though their presence has been on a small scale so far. [Continue reading…]

And how much value can be attached to CENTCOM data when Kobane and Ayn Al Arab — the same city — are listed separately?

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Most of ISIS’s ammunition was made in the U.S. and China

The New York Times reports: In its campaign across northern Syria and Iraq, the jihadist group Islamic State has been using ammunition from the United States and other countries that have been supporting the regional security forces fighting the group, according to new field data gathered by a private arms-tracking organization.

The data, part of a larger sample of captured arms and cartridges in Syria and Iraq, carries an implicit warning for policy makers and advocates of intervention.

It suggests that ammunition transferred into Syria and Iraq to help stabilize governments has instead passed from the governments to the jihadists, helping to fuel the Islamic State’s rise and persistent combat power. Rifle cartridges from the United States, the sample shows, have played a significant role.

“The lesson learned here is that the defense and security forces that have been supplied ammunition by external nations really don’t have the capacity to maintain custody of that ammunition,” said James Bevan, director of Conflict Armament Research, the organization that is gathering and analyzing weapons used by the Islamic State.[Continue reading…]

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A Syrian revolutionary speaks out: Here’s what the world should know

Huffington Post: At first look, Farouq Al Habib would seem an unlikely revolutionary. He wears thick, round glasses and speaks with a distinguished and professional air. A banker by trade, he is fluent in Arabic, French, and English. He holds a BA in economics, an MA in international business, and a doctorate in business administration. And in 2011, he founded the Homs Revolutionary Council and helped to lead the Syrian Revolution.

Habib doesn’t look like the “Syrian rebels” depicted on TV or in newspapers. He is not dressed in military gear, and there is no gun strapped to his person — but Habib is quick to note that the Syrian Revolution did not begin with guns or war cries. It began peacefully, with protesters marching unarmed through the streets, with Syrians in the wake of the Arab Spring demanding their own democracy.

Thinking back to the beginning — to 2011, when he stood with “hundreds of thousands of Syrian people marching in the streets, peacefully, carrying the flags of the independence of Syria and calling for freedom and democracy” — that, Habib said, “is the Syrian people. That is the real Syrian people.”

Habib was forced to flee to Turkey in 2013 when the Assad regime threatened his life, he said. But he is still active in helping those inside the country. Today, Habib is the coordinator and program manager for the White Helmets, a search-and-rescue unit operating to save civilian lives inside Syria. The more than 1,000 volunteers who make up the White Helmets are trained by the Red Cross, and the Syria Campaign, a nonprofit registered in the U.K., coordinates fundraising efforts for the group. [Continue reading…]

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‘I am not a spy. I am a philosopher’ — 125 days in an Iranian prison

Ramin Jahanbegloo writes: The heavy steel door swung closed behind me in the cell. I took off my blindfold and found myself trapped within four cold walls. The cell was small. High ceiling, old concrete. All green. An intense yellow light from a single bulb high above. Somehow I could hear the horror in the walls, the voices of previous prisoners whispering a painful welcome. I had no way of knowing whether they had survived. I had no way of knowing whether I would. So many questions were crowding my mind. I heard a man moaning. It was coming through a vent. I realized that he must have been tortured. Would I be tortured, too?

I was, and am, a philosopher, an academic. Life had not been easy for Iranian intellectuals, artists, journalists, and human-rights activists since the election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in 2005. As a thinker on the margin of Iranian society, I was not safe, and so, rather than stay in Iran, I had accepted a job offer in Delhi, India. I had come back to Tehran for a visit. On the morning of April 27, 2006, I was at Tehran’s Mehrabad airport to catch a flight to Brussels, where I was to attend a conference. I had checked in my luggage and gone through security when I was approached by four men. One of them called me by my first name. “Ramin,” he said, “could you follow us?”

“I’ll miss my plane,” I said.

“We just want to ask you a few questions.”

People around us were watching, but nobody moved. I realized that I had no choice but to go with them.

I was placed in a car. Two of the men got in the front; the other two climbed in the back with me between them. They pushed my head down, and the car headed toward an airport garage where another car was waiting. With fewer witnesses around, the men were more aggressive now, pulling me out of the first car and throwing me into the second. They pushed my head down again, and this time one of them covered it with his jacket, which smelled of rotten onions. It had a hole in it, so that I could see out of one of the side windows. As the car sped away, one of the men said into a walkie-talkie: “We have the package. The package is arriving.”

For the first time, I realized that my life was in danger. I knew that in the early years of the Islamic regime, many people had been taken away and executed without notice or trial. Their mutilated bodies were found in the suburbs, and the police pretended to look for the assassins. Those abductors were similar to the men surrounding me—intelligence officers who picked up intellectuals and activists and killed them on the spot. I panicked. An agitated voice kept escaping me, though I was not aware of speaking. It echoed, bouncing around the car, falling back into my throat and escaping again. “Where are you taking me? Where are you taking me?” And the simple, hollow reply, “Shut up!” over and over again. [Continue reading…]

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ISIS adapts to U.S. airstrikes, holds territory and advances in American tanks, killing Kurds


A Wall Street Journal report shows that while the Pentagon claims that it has been successful in “disrupting” ISIS, what is much more obvious is the ease with which the organization has thus far adapted to the U.S.-led air campaign.

A U.S. official is quoted saying: “We’re not trying to take ground away from them [in Syria]. We’re trying to take capability away from them.”

And as the population of Kobane has witnessed, the U.S. is not even trying hard to prevent ISIS conquering new territory.

Islamic State fighters have reacted swiftly to the threat of airstrikes over the past weeks, moving out of captured military bases and government buildings in Syria, relocating weapons and hostages, and abandoning training camps, according to residents and rebels in the areas the militants control. In Syria and Iraq, they took down many of their trademark black flags, and camouflaged armed pickup trucks. They also took cover among civilians.

They also have maintained much of their financing and recruiting capability and continued to crack down on local populations, anti-regime activists and rebels in Syria said. At the same time, they publicized a series of beheadings of Western hostages.

In addition to holding territory after they came under attack, they pressed on with an ambitious offensive on the Syrian city of Ayn al-Arab, also known as Kobani, close to the border with Turkey.

Analysts said the U.S. is having a hard time getting intelligence to act on, and, as a result, a fraction of sorties flown have resulted in bombings.

Syrian anti-Assad activists and members of the Western-backed Free Syrian Army said the U.S. is overestimating the impact it has had on Islamic State. Some residents living in areas controlled by the group in Syria maintain that the air campaign has had little effect.

Militants began moving weaponry and leadership away from their bases immediately after the U.S. announced in September it would strike targets in Syria, activists and rebels said. By mid-September, residents of Raqqa—Islamic State’s de facto capital in northeastern Syria—said the city was emptied of the group’s senior leadership.

“We used to see commanders around the city. But since the announcement [that airstrikes would begin], they’re gone,” said one Raqqa resident.

However, an official from one U.S. ally in the Persian Gulf defended the success of the strikes so far, saying they had slowed the militants’ advance in both countries and was slowly degrading their financing infrastructure.

“ISIS will have a big problem when winter starts,” said one aid worker who provides relief in the eastern province of Deir Ezzour.

“They gained some popularity by distributing [a monthly stipend] of gas to the population and lowering prices. They won’t be able to do that.”

An Islamic State member interviewed via Skype said strikes by the Syrian regime have been more damaging than the U.S.-led assaults, and claimed the group’s production and refining of oil—a major revenue source — continues.

Christopher Harmer, a defense analyst at the Institute for the Study of War in Washington, said the U.S. is having a hard time getting actionable intelligence. As a result, he estimated only about 10% of the sorties being flown by the U.S. and its partners have dropped bombs.

“ISIS is not really structured in such a way as to be vulnerable to airstrikes,” he said. “They don’t have a lot of static targets. We can bomb a building here, a building there, a tank here, a truck there. But ISIS fighters are very good at intermingling with the civilian population.”

U.S. officials have said the strikes have had a high degree of accuracy.

One U.K. defense expert said that the coalition so far has struck mostly static targets, when the better way to hamper the group’s mobility is attacking fighters moving from one area to another.

“What air power can do is cut down on that mobility,” said Michael Clarke, the director at the Royal United Services Institute, an independent think tank on defense and security. “But it’s not evident at the moment that the coalition of air power has succeeded in doing that.”

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ISIS enters city. ‘Everyone in Kobane is in danger’

Middle East Eye reports: Two flags of Islamic State (IS) militants seeking to take the Syrian town of Kobane were flying on the eastern side of the town on Monday afternoon, eyewitnesses reported.

The flags, black with the Arabic lettering of the group, were seen by an AFP photographer, from the Turkish side of the border as well as an Al Aan TV reporter from an unknown location.

One was flying on top of a building on the eastern side of Kobane. Another was seen being planted by a man on the crest of a hill on the eastern edge of the town.


Idris Nahsen, the deputy foreign minister of Kobane region, told reporters by telephone that he could not confirm if IS militants were inside parts of the town. [Continue reading…]

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Two British jihadis thought to be among scores of prisoners traded by Turkey for hostages captured by ISIS

The Daily Mail reports: Two British jihadists are thought to have been among scores of prisoners handed back to Islamic State by Turkey in return for the release of diplomats.

Former grammar school pupil Shabazz Suleman, 18, and Hisham Folkard, 26, are understood to be among as many as 180 fighters exchanged by Turkey in the deal.

In return, the terror group has released 46 Turkish citizens and three local Iraqi staff who were captured when IS stormed the Iraqi city of Mosul five months ago.

The Times has seen a leaked list of names, including the two Britons, that has been confirmed by IS sources.

It is not known whether the two British men were captured by Turkish forces during fighting or whether they had been trying to escape Islamic State.

Shabazz Suleman, 18, a pupil at the Royal Grammar School in High Wycombe, had reportedly given his parents the slip to cross the border while on holiday in Turkey. He had a place lined up at a top university after achieving good A-level results this summer.

He had previously travelled to the Syrian border with an aid convoy last summer.

The deal is understood to have been brokered through complex talks with tribes and rebel militia.

Three French citizens, two Swedes, two Macedonians, one Swiss, and one Belgian are also believed to have been part of the exchange. [Continue reading…]

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Syria-to-Ukraine wars send U.S. defense stocks to records

Bloomberg reports: Led by Lockheed Martin Corp., the biggest U.S. defense companies are trading at record prices as shareholders reap rewards from escalating military conflicts around the world.

Investors see rising sales for makers of missiles, drones and other weapons as the U.S. hits Islamic State fighters in Syria and Iraq, said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Chicago-based BMO Private Bank. President Barack Obama approved open-ended airstrikes this month while ruling out ground combat.

“As we ramp up our military muscle in the Mideast, there’s a sense that demand for military equipment and weaponry will likely rise,” said Ablin, who oversees $66 billion including Northrop Grumman Corp. and Boeing Co. shares. “To the extent we can shift away from relying on troops and rely more heavily on equipment — that could present an opportunity.”

Bombardments of Islamic State strongholds added to tensions this year that include U.S.-led sanctions on Russia for backing Ukrainian rebels and China’s feuds with neighbors over disputed South China Sea islands. The U.S. also is the biggest foreign military supplier to Israel, which waged a 50-day offensive against the Hamas Islamic movement in the Gaza Strip. [Continue reading…]

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ISIS hostage Abdul-Rahman Kassig: ‘I’m pretty scared to die’

NBC News reports: An Army Ranger-turned-aid worker held hostage by ISIS militants in Syria admitted to his parents he was “pretty scared to die” but also urged them to “seek refuge and comfort” from his humanitarian work.

Abdul-Rahman Kassig — who was born Peter but changed his name when he converted to Islam last year — wrote in a letter received by his parents on June 2 he was “praying every day” in captivity but was “not angry.” He added: “I am in a dogmatically complicated situation here, but I am at peace with my belief.”

Excerpts from his heartfelt letter were released in a statement late Sunday by his parents, Ed and Paula Kassig of Indianapolis, explaining how their 26-year-old son had traveled to Lebanon work as a medic before making a “spiritual journey” to become a Muslim. “We feel a need to more fully tell that story to the world,” the statement said. [Continue reading…]

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U.S. air strikes in Syria targeted French intelligence officer who defected to al Qaeda

McClatchy reports: A former French intelligence officer who defected to al Qaida was among the targets of the first wave of U.S. air strikes in Syria last month, according to people familiar with the defector’s movements and identity.

Two European intelligence officials described the former French officer as the highest ranking defector ever to go over to the terrorist group and called his defection one of the most dangerous developments in the West’s long confrontation with al Qaida.

The identity of the officer is a closely guarded secret. Two people, independently of one another, provided the same name, which McClatchy is withholding pending further confirmation. All of the sources agreed that a former French officer was one of the people targeted when the United States struck eight locations occupied by the Nusra Front, al Qaida’s Syrian affiliate. The former officer apparently survived the assault, which included strikes by 47 cruise missiles. [Continue reading…]

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The seeds of failure in Syria and Ukraine were planted long ago

Kennette Benedict writes: In September the United States, along with European and Middle Eastern partners, deployed air power to destroy the radical forces that are occupying territory on the Iraqi-Syrian border. And in his September 24 speech to the UN General Assembly, US President Barack Obama harshly criticized Moscow for seizing Ukrainian territory and backing separatists, saying that “we will impose a cost on Russia for aggression.”

Though more than 1,000 miles apart, these two foreign policy challenges for the United States have much in common. For the sake of civilians — ordinary people trying to make a living, feed their children, and live with a modicum of dignity — we all hope that efforts to end violent conflict in the Middle East and Ukraine will succeed. But Washington’s approach to both problems is ad-hoc and may be much too late. Without new institutions of regional governance, economic integration, and cultural dialogue, these efforts will likely fail to bring about peace and stability.

By “too late” I mean years and even decades too late. That’s because the two major foreign policy debacles the United States faces today could have been avoided by building new institutions when the opportunity first presented itself at the end of the Cold War.

In the 1990s, though, the US foreign policy community fell into intellectual disarray. The hostilities between the United States and the Soviet Union had seemed nearly immutable, and ideological positions blinded even intelligent analysts to the need for a far-reaching post-Cold War plan. Very few had been contemplating what would be needed once the USSR collapsed. There were no plans to help build former Soviet societies after years of economic stagnation and environmental neglect, as there had been for Germany and Japan after World War II. Nor were proposals for international cooperation to prevent future schisms and new “cold wars” given much thought. The national security and foreign policy establishments in the United States and Europe did not undertake any thoroughgoing reviews or take seriously any new ideas that went beyond the already-existing United Nations. [Continue reading…]

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Air strikes against ISIS are not working, say Syrian Kurds

The Guardian reports: Isis fighters have pushed to within little more than a mile of the centre of the city of Kobani, undeterred by western air strikes which are proving ineffective, a leading Kurdish official in the city has said.

Fighting between the Islamist militants and Syrian Kurds continued unabated despite another volley of coalition air strikes in and around the Kobani enclave, Idris Nassan, Kobani’s “foreign affairs minister”, told the Guardian.

“There are fierce clashes between Isis and YPG [People’s Defence Corps] fighters, at the moment mainly to the south-east of the city. Isis now stands at two kilometres from the city centre,” Nassan told the Guardian by phone. “I can hear the bombs and shells here.”

According to Nassan, the situation was “under control for now”, but he underlined that air strikes had not deterred a further Isis advance.

“Air strikes alone are really not enough to defeat Isis in Kobani,” he stressed. “They are besieging the city on three sides, and fighter jets simply cannot hit each and every Isis fighter on the ground.”

He added that Isis had adapted their tactics to military strikes from the air. “Each time a jet approaches they leave their open positions, they scatter and hide. What we really need is ground support. We need heavy weapons and ammunition in order to fend them off and defeat them.” [Continue reading…]

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The violence of faith cannot be exorcised by demonising religion

John Gray reviews Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence, by Karen Armstrong: Not long after the Iranian Revolution of 1979, in which Ayatollah Ruhollah Kho­meini became supreme leader, a US official was heard to exclaim: “Who ever took religion seriously?” The official was baffled at the interruption of what he assumed was an overwhelmingly powerful historical trend. Pretty well everyone at the time took it for granted that religion was on the way out, not only as a matter of personal belief, but even more as a deciding factor in politics. Secularisation was advancing everywhere, and with increasing scientific knowledge and growing prosperity it was poised to become a universal human condition. True, there were some countries that remained stubbornly religious – including, ironically, the United States. But these were exceptions. Religion was an atavistic way of thinking which was gradually but inexorably losing its power. In universities, grandiose theories of secularisation were taught as established fact, while politicians dismissed ideas they didn’t like as “mere theology”. The unimportance of religion was part of conventional wisdom, an unthinking assumption of those who liked to see themselves as thinking people.

Today no one could ask why religion should be taken seriously. Those who used to dismiss religion are terrified by the in­tensity of its revival. Karen Armstrong, who cites the US official, describes the current state of opinion: “In the west the idea that religion is inherently violent is now taken for granted and seems self-evident.” She goes on:

As one who speaks on religion, I constantly hear how cruel and aggressive it has been, a view that, eerily, is expressed in the same way almost every time: “Religion has been the cause of all the major wars in history.” I have heard this sentence recited like a mantra by American commentators and psychiatrists, London taxi drivers and Oxford academics. It is an odd remark. Obviously the two world wars were not fought on account of religion . . . Experts in political violence or terrorism insist that people commit atrocities for a complex range of reasons. Yet so indelible is the aggressive image of religious faith in our secular consciousness that we routinely load the violent sins of the 20th century on to the back of “religion” and drive it out into the political wilderness.

The idea that religion is fading away has been replaced in conventional wisdom by the notion that religion lies behind most of the world’s conflicts. Many among the present crop of atheists hold both ideas at the same time. They will fulminate against religion, declaring that it is responsible for much of the violence of the present time, then a moment later tell you with equally dogmatic fervour that religion is in rapid decline. Of course it’s a mistake to expect logic from rationalists. More than anything else, the evangelical atheism of recent years is a symptom of moral panic. Worldwide secularisation, which was believed to be an integral part of the process of becoming modern, shows no signs of happening. Quite the contrary: in much of the world, religion is in the ascendant. For many people the result is a condition of acute cognitive dissonance. [Continue reading…]

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Coalition risks loss of support in Syria unless it clarifies its aims

Hassan Hassan writes: As the US-led offensive against ISIL inside Syria enters its 10th day today, there already appears to be a growing public backlash in Syria against the campaign. The scepticism about the air strikes emanates from the lack of clarity over the real aims and objectives of the offensive. Five reasons can be identified for this cynicism, which should be addressed if the air strikes are to lead to a positive outcome.

The first one is that the air strikes do not offer any clear endgame. This lack of clarity over what to expect from the air strikes has led Syrians to interpret the signals they have received so far. Bashar Al Assad, for example, is not only spared the air strikes, but he also has more time to bomb civilian areas, given that the pressure against his forces in Hama and eastern Aleppo has been reduced significantly. This is creating an impression that the Assad regime is a de facto partner in the US coalition, despite all the rhetoric to the contrary.

Another reason is the economic consequences of the air strikes. On Tuesday, the Pentagon announced that most of the oil refineries controlled by ISIL in Syria have been destroyed. These refineries will prevent ISIL from generating further revenues in Syria, which will also affect ISIL in Iraq, as much of the refined oil is transferred to the other side of the border.

However, these refineries, even before ISIL’s arrival in eastern Syria, have served as a lifeline for local communities.

Oil refineries have helped the population in Deir Ezzor to survive starvation after they were isolated between the Iraqi authorities across theborder, on one hand, and the regime on the other. These refineries were the latchkeys of a full-fledged war economy that helped to operate water-pumping engines to irrigate lands far from the Euphrates river. Without them, the situation in Deir Ezzor would have been much worse. Destroying these refineries will not affect ISIL, which had stopped operating them days before the air strikes began, as much as it will affect families living there. [Continue reading…]

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British Muslims unite in fury at ISIS murder of Alan Henning

The Guardian reports: British Muslims have expressed fury and anguish in the wake of the brutal killing of Alan Henning by Islamic State (Isis) militants, as the family of the Salford taxi driver said they were “numb with grief” at news of his murder.

Many in the UK Muslim community had been hoping the aid convoy volunteer might be freed on the eve of the Islamic festival of Eid al-Adha. Vigils had been held in his home town and more than 100 high-profile Islamic leaders had appealed for him to be released. But the posting of a gruesome video on Friday night, appearing to show his beheading, ended hopes and unleashed a torrent of condemnation.

Harun Khan, deputy secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain – the largest Islamic organisation in the UK, representing more than 500 organisations – said: “Yesterday was a huge day of significance because it was the day when people will seek forgiveness and salvation. It’s a time of peace, this was really shocking to a lot of people. If Isis really wanted to win the propaganda war, they would have released Alan. They are not really Islamic: nobody recognises them, and they are hijacking the religion.” [Continue reading…]

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Syrian Kurdish leader visits Turkey as ISIS advances on Kobane

Rudaw reports: The leader of Syria’s largest Kurdish group, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), whose fighters are battling an advance by Islamic State militants in the north of the country, has held talks with officials in the Turkish capital, local media reported.

Friday’s visit by Salih Muslim was the first to Turkey in more than a year and could suggest a softening of Ankara’s stance as it comes under increasing pressure to intervene militarily against jihadist militants who have laid siege to the Syrian town of Kobane near the Turkish frontier.

Turkish media reported the PYD leader had not met directly with the Turkish government but had held talks with officials from the country’s intelligence agency.

Since Muslim’s last visit to Turkey in July 2013, tensions between Ankara and the PYD, which has close links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Turkey, have flared.

Turkey views the PYD as an extension of the PKK, which for three decades has fought the Turkish state for more autonomy, and says it is allied with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad who Ankara wants to see overthrown. It is also wary of territorial gains made by Kurdish groups in northern Syria, fearing this could lead to eventual self-rule, emboldening Turkey’s Kurds.

The PYD has accused Turkey of aiding Islamist militants inside Syria, a charge Ankara denies, and of obstructing efforts by Kurdish militias to defend towns along the Turkish border.

In an interview with Reuters last week, Muslim said he had called on Western states to provide weapons to his embattled fighters but that help had not arrived because, “Turkey and other countries are preventing this because they don’t want the Kurds to be able to defend themselves”. [Continue reading…]

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