New York Post, Saturday, November 14, 2020
nypost.com
These young sleuths
weren’t kidding around.
A group of 6-year-olds as-
sisted in a police investiga-
tion in Germany by sketch-
ing for cops a scene (right)
involving a hit-and-run
driver whom they wit-
nessed smashing through a
road barrier.
Police in the western Ger-
man city of Hamm hailed
the four youngsters —Luisa, Romy, Celina and
Luis — for the drawings
they say are officially “part
of the investigation file.”
The youngsters were on
their way to their elemen-
tary school Wednesday
morning when they spotted
the rogue motorist in a
black car crash into the bar-
rier and flee.
“The driver with short
blond hair didn’t care aboutthe damage caused and kept
driving,” police wrote in a
Facebook post.
Once at school, they re-
ported the incident to their
teacher, who notified the
authorities. The kids
sketched out two different
scenes based on their mem-
ory showing the at-large
driver in the vehicle. Police
posted the images to Face-
book. Natalie MusumeciPolice kiddie sketch artists
China will strike back
against any moves that un-
dermine its core interests,
its Foreign Ministry said on
Friday after US Secretary of
State Mike Pompeo said
that Taiwan “has not been a
part of China.”
China calls Taiwan the
most sensitive and impor-
tant issue in its ties with the
United States and has been
angered by the Trump ad-
ministration’s stepped-up
support for the Chinese-
claimed island, such as
arms sales.
Speaking in a US radio in-
terview on Thursday, Pom-
peo said: “Taiwan has not
been a part of China.”
“That was recognized
with the work that the Rea-
gan administration did to
lay out the policies that the
United States has adhered
to now for 3½ decades,”
he said.
The United States is
bound by law to provide
Taiwan with the means to
defend itself and officially
only acknowledges the Chi-
nese position that Taiwan is
part of it, rather than ex-
plicitly recognizing China’s
claims.
Speaking in Beijing, min-
istry spokesman Wang
Wenbin said Taiwan was an
inalienable part of China
and that Pompeo was fur-
ther damaging Sino-US
ties. ReutersPompeo
‘Taiwan’
furor
The Tunisian suspect in
an Islamic extremist knife
attack that killed three peo-
ple in a French church had a
photograph in his phone of
the perpetrator of another
attack that shocked France:
the killing of a school-
teacher who was beheaded
after he showed caricatures
of the prophet of Islam to
his class, anti-terror prose-
cutors said Friday.
Also found in the phones
of the 21-year-old arrested
after the Oct. 29 church at-
tack in Nice was an audio
message that described
France as a “country of un-
believers” and photos relat-
ing to the Islamic State
group. APFrench
slay links
By eBony BowdenUS defense officials routinely
misled President Trump into be-
lieving the American troop count
in Syria was a lot lower than it ac-
tually is, a retiring US diplomat
said in a bombshell interview this
week.
“We were always playing shell
games to not make clear to our
leadership how many troops we
had there,” James Jeffrey, US spe-
cial representative for Syria en-
gagement, said in an interview
with Defense One.
In October 2019, Trump ordered
the withdrawal of US troops from
northern Syria — a decision con-
troversial among lawmakers, de-
fense officials and diplomats.
Pentagon officials convinced the
president to leave approximately
200 troops behind to protect oilfields in the country’s east that
were at risk of falling under ISIS
control, Jeffrey said.
However, the real number of
troops in northeast Syria is “a lot
more than” the 200 Trump agreed
to leave behind, Jeffrey said, with
some officials putting the number
as high as 900.
“What Syria withdrawal? There
was never a Syria withdrawal,” Jef-
frey told the publication.
“When the situation in northeast
Syria had been fairly stable afterwe defeated ISIS, [Trump] was in-
clined to pull out,” he went on.
“In each case, we then decided
to come up with five better argu-
ments for why we needed to stay.
And we succeeded both times.
That’s the story,” he said.
According to a Washington Post
report published in October 2019,
Pentagon officials unhappy with
the withdrawal appealed to
Trump’s interest in oil to convince
him not to withdraw troops.
“This is like feeding a baby itsmedicine in yogurt or applesauce,”
one US official familiar with the
deliberations said.
Jeffrey, who was the US ambas-
sador to Iraq and Turkey under
President Barack Obama and a
deputy national security adviser
to President George W. Bush, was
a signee of the infamous “Never
Trump” letter from GOP security
officials opposing the new presi-
dent. But the diplomat said he was
actually impressed by Trump’s
Middle East record and is now
pushing the incoming Biden ad-
ministration to adopt it.
“Nobody really wants to see
President Trump go, among all
our allies [in the Middle East],” he
said. “The truth is President
Trump and his policies are quite
popular among all of our popular
states in the region. Name me one
that’s not happy.”Syria in-the-dark ops
Military intel: Since President Trump’s 2019
withdrawal order, US military officials have misled
him and maintained a strong presence in northern
Syria by hiding troop counts and movements.Pentagon fooled
prez on troop count
AFP via Getty ImagesFacebook