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Assad has gone. It's not confirmed where to. Damascus airport and the state TV station are under rebel control. His regime still controls Latakia and Tartus in a small coastal strip. There was a report that the state's reserves of foreign currency and gold were moved to Latakia a few days ago.

Sednaya prison near Damascus, the main slaughterhouse where Assad's enemies were 'disappeared', has been surrounded. The guards have surrendered and prisoners are leaving. Syrians are saying this is bigger than the fall of the Berlin wall. A more important goal than seizing the presidential palace.

Finding the guy might take a while.

Plucky Brits may also have played a role by designing the gun. It hasn't been found but from the CCTV the cops think it might be a B&T Station Six 9. Which is a modern Swiss copy of the Welrod, which was an almost silent assassin's pistol developed by the SOE for its agents in WW2.

Original Welrod https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoWE8wiBtgU

Modern B&T. Noise at 6:12. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tOMY83CF5I

The SOE secret weapons boffins were based near Welwyn and gave many of their designs a code name beginning with Wel. There was the Welgun, Welbum, Welbike, Welfreighter and Welman. (Plus the Normgun, named after a bloke called Norman.)

https://bt-usa.com/products/station-six-9/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Station_IX

Solving the crime by studying grainy security camera pics which have been colourised and enhanced makes as much sense as saying the twin towers were demolished by the CIA because you watched the video of them collapsing.

Conspiraloon thread >>>

I got stuck in Damascus for one night in the 80s because of a cancelled flight. Security checks involved being jostled by short angry men, puffed up in their tight shirts, who turned out my gf's bags and held up her underwear, tampons etc for the amusement of those present.

Marriage to Assad is a sweet deal. Free eye tests. He drives an Audi.

Actors who can only manage one expression. Charlton Heston. Aidan Gillen. Kenneth Branagh. Steven Seagull. It's a long list but they're all I can think of for now.

Seems like only yesterday the rebels were being wiped out and Assad had pretty much won. But now he's finished. His family have left the country.

No. And the Syrian army is so woeful that the Russians were easily the best soldiers in the fight. Assad no doubt has an emergency exit plan. But would his helicopter be shot down? Will his own people switch sides and stop him getting on it? There must have been a torrent of defections and desertions for the rebels to have moved so fast.

Dirty commie.

Syrian rebels are 10 km from Damascus. Will Assad get the Gaddafi treatment?

20 years ago some were getting 750k or 1 mil per annum. Long hours though. (I used to get Harley Street gossip from a private nurse.)

Who is the most tone deaf, Welby or Wallace?

If Biden hadn't been presidential candidate, Hunter's grifting wouldn't have been an issue.

It is another degradation of public office.

I agree with you, as does Edward Luce in the FT https://www.ft.com/content/b45e0749-46f3-47ba-a0a8-eaae69a49bcd The ROW must be thinking that democracy is all faked. Joe is a foolish dodderer. He should have reined in Hunter years ago. And he should have stepped aside early to facilitate a primary. He's effing useless. All I'm saying is that I can understand why he wants to stop Hunter going to jail. But all things considered, shouldn't the Dems have found a better candidate in 2020? I liked the apparently unelectable Liz Warren.

How might this affect Ukraine? Were it not for the pardon, maybe Trump would have tried to blackmail Zelensky again. And maybe that's another reason why Biden did it.

Hunter's an addict with MH problems. The circus of being pursued by Trump's justice department plus a spell in prison would wreck his life and health, maybe kill him. There've been so many deaths in Biden's family. And the Dems were never going to forgive him for undermining their election chances. So why not put his family first? He can have a quiet retirement, trying to be a good father and grandfather. Maybe he'll even be able to keep Hunter on the straight and narrow.

Biden didn't have much to lose. His reputation and legacy were already trashed. So he thought he might as well trash them a bit more to keep his son safe. Understandable.

I forgot to ask whether he ever drove one. It wouldn't have suited him, he was too big and beefy. F150 plus a Glock in the waistband...that was his style.

Won't be long before someone reports him to social services for having his child's face all over his IG.

I used to know a guy from Soviet East Germany. He left school to do an apprenticeship as a stonemason. There was a poster of a Golf Cabriolet on the back of the toilet door. Every day he'd sit staring at it. He decided he had to be in the society which had such things. So he volunteered for military service. He knew he would be conscripted eventually, but by volunteering as a teenager and presenting himself as a faithful Communist he was able to choose which bit of the army to serve in. So he joined the border guard. He learned where the mines were and was able to cross the border. (One of his colleagues also tried, but stepped on a mine.) He got to New York just when there was a craze for rich people to have a custom stone fireplace in their apartment. Not many people had his stonemasonry skills so he made a ton of money. One of his customers asked him to go to Florida and supervise the building of a beachfront mansion. One mansion job led to the next. His last mansion was on a private island. He stayed on to manage the island, which is when I met him. A nice cushy job with a free house, a company pickup and a company boat. He had quite a firearms collection (including a Kalashnikov) and plenty of space in which to shoot them.

Nail on head. Freelancing = grovelling for ever.