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by Tyler Rabbit » Mon Sep 29, 2014 2:48 am
by 82_28 » Mon Sep 29, 2014 3:42 am
by 82_28 » Mon Sep 29, 2014 3:55 am
by seemslikeadream » Tue Jan 20, 2015 8:19 am
Israel’s Syria Strike: Is it trying to Help al-Qaeda vs. Hizbullah & Iran?
By Juan Cole | Jan. 20, 2015 |
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) —
There are several questions around the Israeli helicopter gunship strike on Mazari` al-Amal in Syria’s Quneitra Province, which killed Hizbullah personnel and an Iranian general. First, what were the latter doing there? Second, why did Israel strike them?
The Israeli cover story, that Hizbullah was planning attacks inside Syria from Quneitra, does not make any sense to me. Hizbullah does not control the Syrian territory abutting Israel. Rather, the Golan and much of Quneitra province have fallen to the al-Qaeda affiliate, the Support Front (Jabhat al-Nusra) and a patchwork of other rebels, including some moderates. The Syrian army and its Lebanese and Iranian allies have been pushed northeast toward Damascus, and their counter-offensive this winter failed miserably. Hizbullah does control territory on the Lebanon-Israel border. So if the strike was out of fear of Hizbullah machinations against Israel, why hit them relatively deep in Syrian territory where they couldn’t do anything to Israel, rather than on the Lebanese border where they could?
Two explanations for the Israeli strike on Mazari` al-Amal occur to me:
1. It was merely opportunistic. The Israeli government has a vendetta with the Mughniya family, which Israeli forces pushed out of their farms in what is now northern Israel in 1948 (there were 7 Shiite villages that were erased in northern Israel). Imad Mughniya was assassinated in 2008 in Damascus, likely by Israeli intelligence, after a career as a sanguinary guerrilla who fought the Israeli occupation of south Lebanon 1982-2000. His son Jihad had recently emerged as a capable Hizbullah commander and was among those killed on Sunday. Hizbullah is notoriously penetrated by moles for Israel, and if one of them specified Mughniya’s location and that of an Iranian general, the Israelis may have felt that the opportunity was too good to pass up.
2. The Israelis are deliberately trying to throw the war to al-Qaeda by weakening Syrian defenses southwest of Damascus and helping the radical Support Front take territory nearer Damascus. Why they would want to do this is not clear (you’d think they’d be upset to have al-Qaeda as their direct neighbor in Golan, as they do now. They are always complaining about having Hamas-controlled Gaza as a neighbor but they aren’t fazed by having al-Qaeda as one?)
So personally I think the explanation that they just had an opportunity to take out people they saw as dangerous to them or to their goals in the long term is the more likely one. But they have at least to be all right with the likely outcome that al-Qaeda has been strengthened on their borders.
The Christian-owned Lebanese newspaper an-Nahar asks the essential question, of what in the world Hizbullah commanders and a general of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards were up to in Quneitra Province (southwest of Damascus) near the Syrian part of the Golan Heights (part of Golan has been occupied by Israel since 1967).
The answer is that they were trying to roll back advances by al-Qaeda/Support Front and its radical and moderate de facto allies, southwest of the capital and near the border with Israel. As a result, an-Nahar reports, the rebel forces said they welcomed any strike on Hizbullah, from no matter where it originated (i.e. even if it was from their common enemy, Israel). A leader of the moderate Brigades of the Sword of Syria said the foreign Lebanese Hizbullah had come into Syria to help the al-Assad regime massacre the Syrian people.
A Syria Press bureau reporter and the Syrian activist Maher al-Hamdan told An-Nahar that Mazari` al-Amal, where the Lebanese and Iranians were located, is between the districts of al-Mashati and Hadar to the north, Tel al-Ahmar and `Ain al-Nuriya to the south, rebel-held Taranja to the west, and Nab` al-Fawwar and `Ain al-Nuriya to the east. It is a fertile agricultural region, inhabited by only about 100 persons. (Quneitra is a province southwest of the capital of Damascus, the southern 80% of which has fallen to al-Qaeda and the northeastern 20% of which is still in regime hands).
The area has a Syrian government military barricade belonging to the 220th unit of military security. Al-Hamdan said that the weapons there are machine guns and heavy artillery, and the Israeli strike targeted these Syrian forces, which are the first line of defense for the Bashar al-Assad regime.
The Israeli raid, then, was not limited to hitting Hizbullah, since this area is considered a target rich environment for Israel. Al-Hamdan remarked that the area had military equipment of Russian provenance to spot drones, as well as Russian advisers, a Hizbullah military unit, and Iranian Revolutionary Guards tasked with protecting the Russian advisers.
In the past 6 months, the regime had lost 80% of Quneitra province as well as the entirety of the Syrian-held portion of the Golan Heights, to al-Qaeda/Support Front and its allies. And then last October rebels took al-Hara and its strategic hilltop, Tel al-Hara. At the same time, the rebels captured modern Russian military equipment there. The al-Assad government then sent troops into the region in a counter-offensive.
The Damascus regime rushed to build military posts in Tel al-Sha`ar and Tellat Ahmar, as well as forward operating bases in Mazari` al-Amal and nearby places. Some 24 Syrian garrisons were reinforced in this way after the fall of Tel al-Hara, and the regime made an attempt to recover its lost territory in the area, supported by Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Hizbullah.
The counter-offensive failed, so the regime adopted a defensive posture in the area to protect the 20% of Quneitra province that had not fallen. Hizbullah commander Jihad Mughniya was in charge of this defensive effort.
An-Nahar’s sources allege that in addition to the 5 Hizbullah personnel and the one Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) commander killed, One Russian expert was lightly wounded, and 13 Hizbullah and IRGC personnel were wounded.
There had been no battles in Quneitra for about 20 days between the regime and al-Qaeda and other rebel forces, after the al-Assad loyalists had failed to take the town of al-Baath. The al-Assad forces had occasionally shelled al-Qaeda positions.
—-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfBS0aBayrU
by 8bitagent » Tue Jan 20, 2015 4:25 pm
by 8bitagent » Wed Jan 21, 2015 2:20 am
Shiite Houthi rebels overtook the presidential palace in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, on Tuesday, marking what a government minister called "the completion of a coup."
"The President has no control," Minister of Information Nadia Sakkaf told CNN as clashes raged.
President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi was thought to be in his private residence at the time -- not in the palace. There were reports of clashes near the residence.
And the Prime Minister's residence was under attack from the street, Sakkaf said.
The regime still controlled the city of Aden, and it closed the port of Aden as well as roads leading into and out of Sanaa, according to Yemeni state TV, which is controlled by the government.
by seemslikeadream » Wed May 13, 2015 5:11 am
Smuggled documents enough to indict al-Assad, say investigators
Prosecution prepared for possible war crimes after Syrian documents produce enough evidence
Wed, May 13, 2015, 09:08
First published:
Wed, May 13, 2015, 08:33
Prosecution cases have been prepared against president and senior members of his regime for possible war crimes tribunal Smuggled Syrian documents enough to indict Bashar al-Assad, say investigators.
A three-year operation to smuggle official documents out of Syria has produced enough evidence to indict President Bashar al-Assad and 24 senior members of his regime, according to the findings of an international investigative commission.
The prosecution cases against the Syrian leaders focus on their role in the suppression of the protests that triggered the conflict in 2011. Tens of thousands of
suspected dissidents were detained
, and many of them were tortured and killed in the Syrian prison system.
The evidence has been compiled for the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA), made up of investigators and legal experts who formerly worked on war crimes tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda and for the international criminal court (ICC).
They worked with a team of 50 Syrian investigators who have carried out the dangerous task of smuggling regime documents out of the country. So far one investigator has been killed, another severely wounded, and several have been detained and tortured by the regime.
The commission is funded by western states including the UK, US, the EU, Germany, Switzerland, Norway, Canada and Denmark.
The evidence has been collected and prosecution cases have been prepared in anticipation of a war crimes tribunal being established in the future. Russia has used its UN security council veto to block any investigation of the Assad regime in the international criminal court or the creation of an ad hoc court for Syria. However, a string of recent military setbacks and infighting in the upper echelons of the Syrian government have increased the chances that Assad could eventually fall and his regime be brought to justice.
Three prosecution cases
The CIJA is currently investigating the conduct of the war by both the regime and extreme opposition groups, but it has already completed the preparation of three prosecution cases. The first focuses on the institution at the top of the regime’s chain of command, the Central Crisis Management Cell (CCMC), and names, among others, Assad, Mohammad al-Shaar, the minister of the interior, and Mohammed Said Bekheitan, an assistant secretary of the Ba’ath party and the head of the CCMC in the first six months of the operation, from March to the end of September 2011.
The second case centres on the organ directly below the CCMC, the National Security Bureau (NSB), which includes the heads of the four main intelligence and security agencies. The third case involves the Deir ez-Zor security committee, chaired by the provincial head of the Ba’ath party, which also controlled the intelligence agencies in the neighbouring Raqqa governorate.
The remaining 22 officials named in the CIJA prosecution cases have been identified to governments but not yet publicly.
Earlier inquiries have implicated the Syrian regime in war crimes, including a
UN commission in December 2013
which found that “the evidence indicates responsibility at the highest level of government, including the head of state”.
However, the head of the CIJA, Bill Wiley, said its work was distinct as it had produced legal briefs, including a summary of the facts, supporting evidence, and applicable law, essentially ready to go to court.
“The UN commission is not concerned with individual criminal responsibility, so it is not preparing dossiers for prosecution. That’s not their fault, it’s just not their mandate. They have a broader brush, including social, minority and women’s rights. We are focused on international criminal humanitarian law and individual criminal responsibility,” Wiley said.
The CIJA’s findings are based primarily on captured documentary evidence. In its headquarters in a western capital, which cannot be identified for security reasons, it has accumulated half a million pages of orders and reports sent up and down the chain of command from the CCMC to the governorates and districts, ordering mass arrests and detentions for offences as nebulous as “discussing the events in a negative manner”.
Abandoned government buildings
The CIJA has a team of investigators in each governorate, who have sought to collect paperwork from the regime’s military, security and intelligence agencies, usually after government buildings have been abandoned or seized by opposition fighters. The documents then have to be smuggled out, often through checkpoints controlled by the army or by extremist opposition groups likely to detain or kill anyone found working for a western organisation.
The chief investigator, Adel (a pseudonym), has come close to being killed on several occasions. “The work has caused a lot of stress in my family,” he said in an interview in a Gulf capital. “There are long absences and constant fear. But I still believe in the cause of justice. I hope one day to see a court that would try the senior leadership and hold it accountable for the crimes committed.”
The CIJA has also carried out nearly 400 interviews, many of them with insider defectors, but Wiley - a Canadian former infantry officer who served as an investigator on the Yugoslav and Rwandan courts, as well as on the ICC - said the paperwork was the starting point for the CIJA cases against the regime.
“The big thing from the beginning was document acquisition and smuggling,” he said. “That was the key.”
A separate investigation into war crimes committed by extremist opposition groups relies more on insider witness testimony as well as analysis of publicly available material including propaganda and witness videos, more than 470,000 of which have been downloaded and archived by the CIJA. They are being analysed and annotated by Syrian refugees working for the commission.
Several western judiciaries have been in contact with the CIJA seeking support for prosecutions on both sides where there is a local link to a suspect. But a comprehensive accounting of regime conduct would most likely have to wait for a change of government in Damascus or a change of heart in the UN security council.
Guardian Service
Israel prepares for a post-Assad phase in neighboring Syria
May 11, 2015
Beirut, Lebanon – Spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Alon Ben-David, said Sunday that the military intelligence service are working on the preparation of a list of targets that are likely to be struck inside Syria, after a possible fall of the Assad regime.
Israel is concerned about the opposition party that may replace Assad regime in case of the latter’s downfall.
In remarks published by the Israeli newspaper of Maariv, in its Sunday’s edition, Ben-David said that the leadership of the Israeli Air Force, in cooperation with the Military Intelligence Service, is working on setting a list of targets to be struck in case jihadists take over power in Syria.
Ben-David also stressed in his remarks that the pro-Assad Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Lebanese Hezbollah militia have recently failed to make any progress in southern Syria.
He pointed out that the Syrian regime and the ruling elite are only in control of a few neighborhoods of the capital Damascus, which turned into an easy target for the armed opposition’s attacks, forcing many of the Alawite families (of the Assad sect) residing in Damascus to move toward the coastal region.
“The Israeli military intelligence confirms that the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s ability to protect the Syrian regime has dramatically declined, making the Israeli military command more cautious of a sudden fall of the Syrian regime which will let battle-hardened jihadist groups rule near the Israeli border,” Ben-David added.
Two weeks ago, Israel bombed a number of military brigades of the Syrian regime army in the “Third Division” of the Quteifa area (40 km north of Damascus), which contained strategic depots for long-range Scud missiles.
Reporting by: Mohammed Salman
Source: ARA News
Inspectors in Syria Find Traces of Banned Military Chemicals
By SOMINI SENGUPTA, MARLISE SIMONS and ANNE BARNARDMAY 12, 2015
International inspectors have found traces of banned toxic chemicals in at least three military locations in Syria, four diplomats and officials said, less than two years after President Bashar al-Assad agreed to dismantle the country’s chemical arsenal.
Traces of sarin, a nerve agent, were found in drainage pipes and in artillery shells in two places, and traces of another banned toxin, ricin, were found in a third location, a scientific research center, according to a United Nations diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential reports from the inspectors.
The discovery of the small amounts of banned materials, first reported by Reuters, comes as Syrian government forces are being accused of continuing to bombard insurgent-held areas with chlorine bombs.
Taken together, the recent events raised troubling questions for international inspectors about whether Damascus was violating the terms of a deal brokered by Russia and the United States in 2013 that forestalled an American military strike. The Syrian government was held responsible for a series of chemical weapons attacks, including a deadly sarin attack near the capital, before that accord.
A Western diplomat briefed on the findings by the inspectors from the global Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said that while there was no clear evidence of new use or production of forbidden chemicals, “the strong suspicion is they are retaining stockpiles which are being held back.”
“This, and the open defiance in using prohibited chlorine bombs, is indicative of bad faith from the beginning,” the diplomat said.
A violation of the deal struck to eliminate Syria’s chemical arsenal would undermine President Obama’s single claim to policy success in Syria, where four years of war has displaced nearly half the country, killed more than 200,000 people and shown no sign of abating. It could also embarrass Russia, Mr. Assad’s most powerful military and diplomatic patron.
Already there was mounting evidence that Mr. Assad’s forces had violated the terms of the international treaty banning use of chemical weapons — and signed as part of the deal facilitated by Washington and Moscow — by dropping jerry-built chlorine bombs on insurgent-held areas. While the Syrian government has denied using chlorine or any chemical as a weapon, only the government has access to the helicopters that witnesses say are being used, and rescue workers say the pace of such attacks has increased in some areas.
Now, inspectors are trying to determine the significance of the new findings of small amounts of banned agents, which do not necessarily indicate a lingering weapons program and were described by some diplomats as being perhaps less troublesome than the charges that the Syrian government is dropping barrel bombs loaded with chlorine. The inspectors, whose last tour ended on April 3, are expected to seek answers from Syrian officials during a visit beginning Sunday.
An investigation into both allegations could put even more pressure on Mr. Assad during a renewed push to find a negotiated settlement to the conflict that could lead to his removal from office. On Tuesday, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Mr. Assad’s most powerful ally, met with Secretary of State John Kerry in Sochi, Russia, to discuss Syria, and Staffan de Mistura, the United Nations special envoy for Syria, continued a new round of talks in Geneva. Both sets of talks are aimed at re-energizing the search for an elusive political solution.
At the United Nations, the Security Council has been hamstrung on chemical weapons, as Syria’s allies contend that the allegations are part of a political campaign against Mr. Assad by Western governments, including the United States, that have called for his ouster. Evidence of chemical weapons remains a fraught issue for global public opinion more than a decade after false claims of an Iraqi chemical weapons program were used to justify the American invasion that deposed Saddam Hussein.
The detection of traces of banned chemicals were revealed as the Security Council confronted the charges about the use of a more mundane chemical, chlorine, which is not a banned substance but whose use in weapons is forbidden under international law. Government opponents, doctors and rescue workers contend that Syrian forces are increasingly using chlorine in bombs dropped from aircraft.
Inspectors found last year that chlorine had been used in battle in violation of international law. But with Syria’s ally Russia wielding a Security Council veto, the joint mission of the global monitoring organization with the United Nations was not mandated to investigate who had used it. In recent days, the United States has sought to establish a United Nations mission to determine who is responsible.
As for the new discovery of traces of banned chemicals, it is not necessarily a ground for punitive action by the Security Council, officials said. There is no evidence that banned materials were used in weapons after Syria signed the treaty, or that Syria possesses sufficient quantities to use in future weapons.
What is clear is that the Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons, the international group that enforces the chemical weapons convention, has sent its team of inspectors eight times to Syria. The body is still seeking to clarify gaps in the government’s required official declarations about the location and amounts of its toxic stockpiles and the nature and scope of activities at weapons sites.
What steps the Security Council might take depend on what the monitoring organization’s inspectors conclude about why the traces were there.
“To have some gaps in the initial declaration is quite common,” the diplomat said. “To have them persist after a year and a half I find a little odd. It should have been cleared up now.”
At an executive council meeting of the international monitoring group on May 7 in The Hague, attendees were told that one or more facilities in Syria had not been inspected because the government said security problems prevented access, according to diplomats who attended.
The United States ambassador to the organization, Robert Mikulak, told the group that there were “gaps and inconsistencies” in Syria’s declaration of its weapons, according to a copy of his speech.
“Progress continues to be agonizingly slow in destroying all of the remaining chemical weapons facilities,” he said.
He added: “It is the duty of this council — and of its technical secretariat — to ensure that the facts about use of chemical weapons are determined and made known. Silent toleration is not an acceptable option.”
Two other United States officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the reports, confirmed the United Nations diplomat’s account that traces of two banned agents were used.
A former United States official added that small amounts of banned agents might be less problematic than large amounts of chlorine.
“Traces usually means just that — traces,” the official said of the other banned chemicals.
A spokesman for the international monitoring organization in The Hague pointed out that the chemical weapons treaty, which Syria signed in October 2013, required Syria to declare the precise locations of facilities that were part of its chemical weapons program, as well as the nature and scope of the activities.
The spokesman added that his colleagues were “continuing to work with the Syrian Arab Republic to clarify their declaration,” though he said he could not divulge details of the “operational verification matters” because of confidential provisions in the treaty.
Is Syria's war edging towards an outcome?
By Jim Muir
BBC News
13 May 2015
A ceasefire could leave the dominant groups in control of large parts of Syria
Syria's war
Syria's President Bashar al-Assad has dismissed recent battlefield reverses as just part of the ups and downs of a long-term war involving thousands of battles, and says victory remains inevitable.
His Lebanese ally Hezbollah, led by Hassan Nasrallah, whose fighters are playing a key role alongside Syrian government forces fighting the rebels, agrees that losing one round does not mean losing the war.
He too dismisses speculation about the future of the regime as tendentious psychological warfare.
But the outlook for the embattled Syrian leader undoubtedly looks grimmer now than at any time over the past two years.
Some of his adversaries and critics believe he is already gasping on the ropes and that there could be a sudden dramatic collapse at almost any moment.
Nusra Front fighter in Jisr al-Shughour (25/04/15)
Rival rebel groups demonstrated new-found co-operation on the battlefield in Idlib
Even some of his core constituents - and many ordinary citizens in Damascus and elsewhere - were deeply unsettled by recent regime losses, especially in the north-western province of Idlib, where the regional capital fell at the end of March to a rebel alliance, followed shortly by the strategic town of Jisr al-Shughour.
The regime had fought hard to retain those assets. Dismay at their loss became so widespread that Mr Assad clearly felt the need, for the first time since the war began four years ago, to say something publicly to acknowledge the setbacks and shore up morale.
It had been badly shaken by a widely-viewed leaked video showing a popular commander at Jisr al-Shughour, Col Suheil Hassan, known as "The Tiger", begging his superiors on his mobile phone to send ammunition and help.
There were fears that the losses in Idlib province could open the way for a rebel thrust into Latakia province, the coastal heartland of the Alawite minority community to which the president and his family belong.
Growing pressure
Setbacks in the south, including the rebel's capture of the main crossing-point on the Jordanian border at Nassib, compounded the feeling that the balance had tilted dangerously.
Some military analysts believe the regime, crippled by manpower shortages too severe for Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed Shia forces to compensate, is already preparing to shorten its defence lines by pulling out of the south and other areas deemed non-core, which could even include the government-controlled half of Aleppo in the north.
There are signs that pressure is building up within the regime.
Syrian Defence Minister Fahd Jassem al-Freij (right) with troops near Damascus (06/05/15)
Syria's president has acknowledged recent setbacks but has vowed to recover
"It's coming apart at the seams," said one diplomat. "They are starting to turn on each other like hungry wolves."
Two top security and intelligence generals, Rustum Ghazali and Ali Mamluk, have recently fallen victim to the tension.
Ghazali, head of the Political Security Directorate, was reported to have died in hospital last month after being beaten up by the bodyguards (apparently including Hezbollah operatives) of a rival general, Military Intelligence chief Rafiq Shahada.
Gen Mamluk, director of the National Security Bureau (NSB), has also been out of circulation for some time, reportedly sidelined because he, like Ghazali, resents Iran's pervasive influence in his country, the key issue that seems to be causing ructions.
Rebel reorganisation
Towards the end of 2012, the fall of Damascus - and the regime - seemed imminent and inevitable.
But it didn't happen. The situation turned around quite rapidly, and it wasn't long before a motley jumble of rebel groups were being pushed back on various fronts.
Could another such turnaround happen again now?
Anything is possible. But some of the givens in the equation have changed, ominously from the regime's point of view, in a way that convinces many observers that the situation has changed and a new phase is under way.
Major rebel factions, and their outside backers, have for the past several months been pulling together rather than fractiously competing as before.
This was translated fairly rapidly into the advances at Idlib and elsewhere.
The mainly Islamist but non-"Islamic State" rebel groups welded themselves together into a "Victory Army" for the Idlib operations. They have set up a similar front in the Qalamoun area, and also for Aleppo.
Running out of options
Lying behind this is a triangular rapprochement between the main regional powers backing the rebel factions: Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar, who had long been working at cross purposes.
The Saudis in particular seem to have taken on a new sense of purpose after the accession of King Salman in January, taking a tougher and more proactive role against what they see as Iranian encroachment in the Arab arena, notably in Yemen and Syria.
If that cohesion and drive can be maintained and developed by the rebels' outside backers, it would be seriously bad news for Mr Assad.
Hezbollah funeral in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley (05/05/15)
Support from Iran and Hezbollah has been a lifeline for the regime
When the tide seemed to be coming in about him two-and-a-half years ago, he managed to turn things around by going to Moscow and Tehran and persuading his allies there to give him what he needed to stay in business.
The Russians provided arms and diplomatic support. The Iranians opened the financial sluices to the tune of billions of dollars a year; financed, armed and trained local National Defence Forces militia; and provided huge military support, both directly through advisers and by organising the involvement of Hezbollah from Lebanon and other Shia fighters from Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
But those cards have been played, and seem to be fraying.
Hezbollah made a huge difference, but it cannot be everywhere and fight all the regime's battles for it, as Idlib showed.
Nor is Iranian bounty endless. Tehran is heavily squeezed by sanctions and low oil prices, hence its willingness to seek a deal with the Americans and others over its nuclear ambitions.
"It's all about pressure on Iran," said a Western diplomat closely following Syrian affairs. "The message is: 'You're out of money, and you can't win the war.'"
'Grand Deal'
The absence of further rabbits to pull out of the hat is why some diplomats are cautiously hopeful that the low-key peace consultations launched in Geneva by the UN special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, might just bear fruit.
He is hoping to report progress back to the UN Security Council around the end of June - the same date set for the Iranian nuclear negotiations to produce a final detailed agreement.
The Saudis and their Gulf partners fear that if such an accord is sealed, it will give Iran the leeway and finances to intensify its regional ambitions.
Civilians in shock after an attack in Aleppo (12/05/15)
More than 200,000 people have been killed in more than four years of the war
But some others believe it is - or could be - implicitly linked to a prospective easing of tensions over Syria, Yemen and the regional Sunni-Shia rift, speculating that US President Barack Obama - who holds unusual talks with the Gulf Co-operation Council leaders in Washington this week - may want to engineer a "Grand Deal" as his legacy achievement.
Under that rosy scenario, the Iranians would take on the task of removing Mr Assad and his top security circle and assuring a smooth transition to someone who could negotiate a settlement on behalf of what is left of the regime.
If the balance on the ground in Syria really has shifted, both Tehran and Washington might see that as in their interest. Neither wants to see a regime collapse and a sudden rush of more or less extremist Sunni Islamist elements to fill the vacuum.
By using their unique influence and penetration in Damascus to engineer the removal of Mr Assad and a transition to a figure acceptable as an interlocutor to the rebels and their regional backers, for whom the demise of the hated ruler is a must, the Iranians could at least hope to secure the "useful" parts of Syria rather than lose everything.
The Americans have just launched a programme to train and and equip 15,000 carefully-vetted "moderate" rebel fighters over the next three years - but with the war against Islamic State much more in mind that confronting the regime.
So far, a mere 90 recruits have been approved to embark on the project, which is widely regarded as belated, misplaced and doomed. It certainly risks being outpaced by events.
Common interests
The Americans have never wanted the rebels to overthrow Mr Assad and win the war. Their aim has been to use rebel pressure to induce the ruler to step aside and make way for a stable political settlement and transition.
If Iran has drawn the conclusion that that would be the only way to save its investment and its corridor to its Hezbollah proxy in Lebanon, there could be a convergence of interests, as has happened against Islamic State in Iraq.
Delegates at Geneva II peace conference (22/01/13)
The search for a diplomatic solution to the conflict has so far been futile
Any ceasefire would leave Syria effectively divided into five zones of influence or control, some overlapping: areas held by government forces; "moderate" rebel forces; the Islamist al-Nusra Front and its allies; the extremist Islamic State; and the Kurds.
If the removal of President Assad and his circle somehow paved the way for a truce between rebels and a regime under new management, all four of the non-IS forces could be motivated to go after the militants.
The only major city in Syria controlled by IS is Raqqa, its headquarters. Analysts believe that if the other forces banded together under a joint operations room with US-led coalition air support, it would not take more than a few months to clear the militants out.
That may seem like extreme fantasy now, but steadily-building pressures are likely to produce scenarios that are hard to predict.
All the major powers involved in Syria, including the US, Russia and Iran, are heavily focused on defeating "terrorism" and the Sunni militants of IS.
Saudis v Iranians
But one increasingly crucial question is whether the Saudis and their allies would go along with that scenario, or whether they are determined to keep pushing to bring about a Sunni Islamist regime in Damascus as part of a broader strategy to confront Iranian penetration in the Arab world, as in Yemen.
The US and its Saudi-led Sunni GCC allies seem to have fundamentally different strategic perceptions of Iranian influence in the region.
American strategy seems confused, half-heartedly supporting the Saudi bombing of Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen while themselves bombing IS on the same side as Iranian-backed militia in Iraq.
Saudi King Salman bin Abdul Aziz (centre) and Barack Obama in Riyadh (27/01/15)
Saudi Arabia sees Iran as part of the problem, and not the solution, in Syria
In Lebanon and Iraq, and tacitly in Syria, Western policy in general tends to see Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies as holding the line against the more virulent virus of IS-style Sunni extremism.
But for the Saudis and their allies, Iranian "outreach" and IS extremism are two sides of the same coin, each playing off the other.
"The GCC countries do not want the agreement on the first bomb [the nuclear issue] to be considered a certificate of good conduct enabling Iran to get the necessary tools to protect and enlarge the second bomb [Iranian regional ambitions]," as the Saudi-owned paper al-Hayat put it.
If no political breakthrough occurs to change the course of events, the prospect seems likely to be one of continued attrition of regime and allied forces, falling increasingly back on Damascus, Homs, Hama and the Latakia coast, with internal pressures mounting explosively, unless Bashar al-Assad can somehow pull off another coup by persuading his Iranian and Russian supporters to step up their transfusions.
But most analysts rule out an outright collapse of the Alawite-dominated regime.
As one put it: "They have nowhere to collapse to."Key excerpts
Syria: Mapping the conflict
Syria's President Bashar al-Assad has dismissed recent battlefield reverses as just part of the ups and downs of a long-term war involving thousands of battles, and says victory remains inevitable.
His Lebanese ally Hezbollah, led by Hassan Nasrallah, whose fighters are playing a key role alongside Syrian government forces fighting the rebels, agrees that losing one round does not mean losing the war.
He too dismisses speculation about the future of the regime as tendentious psychological warfare.
But the outlook for the embattled Syrian leader undoubtedly looks grimmer now than at any time over the past two years.
Some of his adversaries and critics believe he is already gasping on the ropes and that there could be a sudden dramatic collapse at almost any moment.
Nusra Front fighter in Jisr al-Shughour (25/04/15)
Rival rebel groups demonstrated new-found co-operation on the battlefield in Idlib
Even some of his core constituents - and many ordinary citizens in Damascus and elsewhere - were deeply unsettled by recent regime losses, especially in the north-western province of Idlib, where the regional capital fell at the end of March to a rebel alliance, followed shortly by the strategic town of Jisr al-Shughour.
The regime had fought hard to retain those assets. Dismay at their loss became so widespread that Mr Assad clearly felt the need, for the first time since the war began four years ago, to say something publicly to acknowledge the setbacks and shore up morale.
It had been badly shaken by a widely-viewed leaked video showing a popular commander at Jisr al-Shughour, Col Suheil Hassan, known as "The Tiger", begging his superiors on his mobile phone to send ammunition and help.
There were fears that the losses in Idlib province could open the way for a rebel thrust into Latakia province, the coastal heartland of the Alawite minority community to which the president and his family belong.
Growing pressure
Setbacks in the south, including the rebel's capture of the main crossing-point on the Jordanian border at Nassib, compounded the feeling that the balance had tilted dangerously.
Some military analysts believe the regime, crippled by manpower shortages too severe for Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed Shia forces to compensate, is already preparing to shorten its defence lines by pulling out of the south and other areas deemed non-core, which could even include the government-controlled half of Aleppo in the north.
There are signs that pressure is building up within the regime.
Syrian Defence Minister Fahd Jassem al-Freij (right) with troops near Damascus (06/05/15)
Syria's president has acknowledged recent setbacks but has vowed to recover
"It's coming apart at the seams," said one diplomat. "They are starting to turn on each other like hungry wolves."
Two top security and intelligence generals, Rustum Ghazali and Ali Mamluk, have recently fallen victim to the tension.
Ghazali, head of the Political Security Directorate, was reported to have died in hospital last month after being beaten up by the bodyguards (apparently including Hezbollah operatives) of a rival general, Military Intelligence chief Rafiq Shahada.
Gen Mamluk, director of the National Security Bureau (NSB), has also been out of circulation for some time, reportedly sidelined because he, like Ghazali, resents Iran's pervasive influence in his country, the key issue that seems to be causing ructions.
Rebel reorganisation
Towards the end of 2012, the fall of Damascus - and the regime - seemed imminent and inevitable.
But it didn't happen. The situation turned around quite rapidly, and it wasn't long before a motley jumble of rebel groups were being pushed back on various fronts.
Could another such turnaround happen again now?
Anything is possible. But some of the givens in the equation have changed, ominously from the regime's point of view, in a way that convinces many observers that the situation has changed and a new phase is under way.
Major rebel factions, and their outside backers, have for the past several months been pulling together rather than fractiously competing as before.
This was translated fairly rapidly into the advances at Idlib and elsewhere.
The mainly Islamist but non-"Islamic State" rebel groups welded themselves together into a "Victory Army" for the Idlib operations. They have set up a similar front in the Qalamoun area, and also for Aleppo.
Running out of options
Lying behind this is a triangular rapprochement between the main regional powers backing the rebel factions: Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar, who had long been working at cross purposes.
The Saudis in particular seem to have taken on a new sense of purpose after the accession of King Salman in January, taking a tougher and more proactive role against what they see as Iranian encroachment in the Arab arena, notably in Yemen and Syria.
If that cohesion and drive can be maintained and developed by the rebels' outside backers, it would be seriously bad news for Mr Assad.
Hezbollah funeral in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley (05/05/15)
Support from Iran and Hezbollah has been a lifeline for the regime
When the tide seemed to be coming in about him two-and-a-half years ago, he managed to turn things around by going to Moscow and Tehran and persuading his allies there to give him what he needed to stay in business.
The Russians provided arms and diplomatic support. The Iranians opened the financial sluices to the tune of billions of dollars a year; financed, armed and trained local National Defence Forces militia; and provided huge military support, both directly through advisers and by organising the involvement of Hezbollah from Lebanon and other Shia fighters from Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
But those cards have been played, and seem to be fraying.
Hezbollah made a huge difference, but it cannot be everywhere and fight all the regime's battles for it, as Idlib showed.
Nor is Iranian bounty endless. Tehran is heavily squeezed by sanctions and low oil prices, hence its willingness to seek a deal with the Americans and others over its nuclear ambitions.
"It's all about pressure on Iran," said a Western diplomat closely following Syrian affairs. "The message is: 'You're out of money, and you can't win the war.'"
'Grand Deal'
The absence of further rabbits to pull out of the hat is why some diplomats are cautiously hopeful that the low-key peace consultations launched in Geneva by the UN special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, might just bear fruit.
He is hoping to report progress back to the UN Security Council around the end of June - the same date set for the Iranian nuclear negotiations to produce a final detailed agreement.
The Saudis and their Gulf partners fear that if such an accord is sealed, it will give Iran the leeway and finances to intensify its regional ambitions.
Civilians in shock after an attack in Aleppo (12/05/15)
More than 200,000 people have been killed in more than four years of the war
But some others believe it is - or could be - implicitly linked to a prospective easing of tensions over Syria, Yemen and the regional Sunni-Shia rift, speculating that US President Barack Obama - who holds unusual talks with the Gulf Co-operation Council leaders in Washington this week - may want to engineer a "Grand Deal" as his legacy achievement.
Under that rosy scenario, the Iranians would take on the task of removing Mr Assad and his top security circle and assuring a smooth transition to someone who could negotiate a settlement on behalf of what is left of the regime.
If the balance on the ground in Syria really has shifted, both Tehran and Washington might see that as in their interest. Neither wants to see a regime collapse and a sudden rush of more or less extremist Sunni Islamist elements to fill the vacuum.
By using their unique influence and penetration in Damascus to engineer the removal of Mr Assad and a transition to a figure acceptable as an interlocutor to the rebels and their regional backers, for whom the demise of the hated ruler is a must, the Iranians could at least hope to secure the "useful" parts of Syria rather than lose everything.
The Americans have just launched a programme to train and and equip 15,000 carefully-vetted "moderate" rebel fighters over the next three years - but with the war against Islamic State much more in mind that confronting the regime.
So far, a mere 90 recruits have been approved to embark on the project, which is widely regarded as belated, misplaced and doomed. It certainly risks being outpaced by events.
Common interests
The Americans have never wanted the rebels to overthrow Mr Assad and win the war. Their aim has been to use rebel pressure to induce the ruler to step aside and make way for a stable political settlement and transition.
If Iran has drawn the conclusion that that would be the only way to save its investment and its corridor to its Hezbollah proxy in Lebanon, there could be a convergence of interests, as has happened against Islamic State in Iraq.
Delegates at Geneva II peace conference (22/01/13)
The search for a diplomatic solution to the conflict has so far been futile
Any ceasefire would leave Syria effectively divided into five zones of influence or control, some overlapping: areas held by government forces; "moderate" rebel forces; the Islamist al-Nusra Front and its allies; the extremist Islamic State; and the Kurds.
If the removal of President Assad and his circle somehow paved the way for a truce between rebels and a regime under new management, all four of the non-IS forces could be motivated to go after the militants.
The only major city in Syria controlled by IS is Raqqa, its headquarters. Analysts believe that if the other forces banded together under a joint operations room with US-led coalition air support, it would not take more than a few months to clear the militants out.
That may seem like extreme fantasy now, but steadily-building pressures are likely to produce scenarios that are hard to predict.
All the major powers involved in Syria, including the US, Russia and Iran, are heavily focused on defeating "terrorism" and the Sunni militants of IS.
Saudis v Iranians
But one increasingly crucial question is whether the Saudis and their allies would go along with that scenario, or whether they are determined to keep pushing to bring about a Sunni Islamist regime in Damascus as part of a broader strategy to confront Iranian penetration in the Arab world, as in Yemen.
The US and its Saudi-led Sunni GCC allies seem to have fundamentally different strategic perceptions of Iranian influence in the region.
American strategy seems confused, half-heartedly supporting the Saudi bombing of Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen while themselves bombing IS on the same side as Iranian-backed militia in Iraq.
Saudi King Salman bin Abdul Aziz (centre) and Barack Obama in Riyadh (27/01/15)
Saudi Arabia sees Iran as part of the problem, and not the solution, in Syria
In Lebanon and Iraq, and tacitly in Syria, Western policy in general tends to see Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies as holding the line against the more virulent virus of IS-style Sunni extremism.
But for the Saudis and their allies, Iranian "outreach" and IS extremism are two sides of the same coin, each playing off the other.
"The GCC countries do not want the agreement on the first bomb [the nuclear issue] to be considered a certificate of good conduct enabling Iran to get the necessary tools to protect and enlarge the second bomb [Iranian regional ambitions]," as the Saudi-owned paper al-Hayat put it.
If no political breakthrough occurs to change the course of events, the prospect seems likely to be one of continued attrition of regime and allied forces, falling increasingly back on Damascus, Homs, Hama and the Latakia coast, with internal pressures mounting explosively, unless Bashar al-Assad can somehow pull off another coup by persuading his Iranian and Russian supporters to step up their transfusions.
But most analysts rule out an outright collapse of the Alawite-dominated regime.
As one put it: "They have nowhere to collapse to."
A new cooperation on Syria
Saudi Arabia's Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, left, and his uncle King Salman. (Jim Bourg/Reuters)
By David Ignatius Opinion writer May 12 at 8:12 PM
On the eve of a meeting between Arab leaders and President Obama to discuss Middle East security, developments in Syria could bolster the opposition’s campaign to topple the regime there.
Driving the opposition push in Syria is a new working relationship between Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, the key backers of the rebels in northern Syria. Those countries had been at loggerheads since the Syrian revolution began in 2011, and their internecine quarrels and proxy wars were debilitating for the opposition. Conversely, their new alliance has bolstered the opposition’s chances — and led to major gains on the battlefield.
The partnership on Syria appears to have been brokered in part by Sheik Tamim Bin Hamad al-Thani, the emir of Qatar, the Persian Gulf leader who has the closest relations with Turkey. The rapprochement also seems to reflect a change in policy by King Salman, the new Saudi monarch who has moved his country toward closer cooperation with Qatar and Turkey after years of enmity during the reign of his predecessor, King Abdullah.
By pumping weapons to Syrian rebels across the Turkish border, the three countries have forged a new opposition coalition known as the Army of Conquest, which has made significant gains over the past two months in Idlib province and other areas in the northwest. The regime army, loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, appears to be exhausted after four years of fighting and no longer able to hold some contested ground.
Assad’s difficulties are linked to the wider Middle East situation because of his dependence on Iran. As the Obama administration has sought a nuclear deal with Iran, its Arab allies have moved to challenge Tehran and its proxies more openly, first by military intervention against the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen and now by the bolder policy in Syria. Iran and its Shiite allies are facing significant pressure from the emboldened Sunnis, arguably for the first time in decades.
A tricky problem is that the rebels have been fighting alongside a group called Jabhat al-Nusra, which is an affiliate of al-Qaeda. Sources said Tuesday that it’s likely that in coming days a Jabhat al-Nusra faction will split publicly from al-Qaeda and join the Army of Conquest. At that point, there could be a tipping point in the north, with a broad coalition allied against both the Assad regime and the Islamic State. Jordan and Israel have developed secret contacts with members of the Jabhat al-Nusra group along their borders.
Another potential game-changer is a new U.S. willingness to support a no-fly zone along the Turkey-Syria border. This haven, backed by U.S. air power, would allow some refugees to return home while providing a staging area for an expected assault by a U.S.-trained new Syrian army, whose first units have just been formed, against the Islamic State’s capital in Raqqa.
Russia’s role will be important in the evolving Syrian drama. Secretary of State John F. Kerry visited Russia this week for talks with President Vladimir Putin that included a possible Russian role in a political transition away from the Assad regime. Putin has long resisted any deal that makes Assad’s departure a precondition for peace talks, but that position may be weakening.
Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey have all been cooperating in trying to cultivate new leaders from Assad’s Alawite minority who could lead the country during a transition. Those contacts have accelerated in recent days, despite the regime’s attempts to crush any Alawite rivals.
Assad’s position is weakening sharply. The latest sign of regime disarray is that Gen. Ali Mamluk , one of the intelligence chiefs in his inner circle, has been placed under house arrest in Damascus. This follows the recent death of Gen. Rustom Ghazali, another of Assad’s intelligence satraps.
Qatar’s role in encouraging a Saudi-Turkish rapprochement could also improve the situation in Libya. There, the Qataris and Turks have been supporting the Muslim Brotherhood affiliate known as “Libyan Dawn,” while the Saudis, Egyptians and Emiratis have backed the Tobruk parliament and the allied forces of Gen. Khalifa Haftar. But sources said Libyan Dawn has agreed to cooperate with Haftar in fighting Islamic State extremists. The Saudis, too, are said to be tentatively supporting a U.N. mediator’s negotiations in Morocco to form a Libyan transitional government.
Against this turbulent and fast-changing regional background, Obama will hold talks with Gulf leaders, on Wednesday at the White House and the next day at Camp David. Because of the absence of King Salman and some other rulers, the senior leaders present will be the Qatari emir and his Kuwaiti counterpart. After four years of a bloody stalemate in Syria, the leaders will at least be able to discuss the possibility of change.
by seemslikeadream » Thu May 14, 2015 7:47 am
MAY 14, 2015
The Proxy War President
Syrian War Set to Re-Explode
by SHAMUS COOKE
The Syrian war stalemate appears to be over. The regional powers surrounding Syria — especially Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, and Jordan — have re-ignited their war against the Syrian government. After over 200,000 dead and millions of refugees, the U.S. allies in the region recently re-committed to deepening the war, with incalculable consequences.
The new war pact was made between Obama’s regional darlings, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, who agreed to step up deeper military cooperation and establish a joint command in the occupied Syrian region of Idlib.
Turkey and Saudi Arabia are now openly backing Islamic extremists under the newly rebranded “Conquest Army.” The on-the-ground leadership of this “new” coalition consists of Jabhat al-Nusra — the “official” al-Qaeda affiliate — and Ahrar al-Sham, whose leader previously stated that his group was the “real al-Qaeda.”
The Huffington Post reports:
“The Turkish-Saudi agreement has led to a new joint command center in the northeastern Syrian province of Idlib. There, a coalition of groups — including Nusra and other Islamist brigades such as Ahrar al-Sham that Washington views as extremist — are progressively eroding Assad’s front. The rebel coalition also includes more moderate elements of the Free Syrian Army that have received U.S. support in the past.”
The article admits that the Free Syrian Army — that Obama previously labeled as “moderates” and gave cash and guns to — has been swallowed up by the extremist groups.
This dynamic has the potential to re-engulf the region in violence; deep Saudi pocketbooks combined with reports of looming Turkish ground forces are a catastrophe in the making.
Interestingly, the Saudi-Turkish alliance barely raised eyebrows in the U.S. media. President Obama didn’t think to comment on the subject, let alone condemn it.
The media was focused on an odd narrative of Obama reportedly being “concerned” about the alliance, but “disengaged” from what two of his close allies were doing in a region that the U.S. has micromanaged for decades.
It seems especially odd for the media to accept that Obama has a “hands off” approach in Syria when at the same time the media is reporting about a new U.S. program training Syrian rebels in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey.
It’s inconceivable that Obama would coordinate deeply with Turkey to set up a Syrian rebel training camp on Turkish soil, while at the same time be “disengaged” from the Turkish-Saudi war coalition in Syria.
One possible motive behind the fake narrative of “non-cooperation” between Obama and his Turkish-Saudi allies is that the U.S. is supposed to be fighting a “war on terrorism.”
So when Turkey and Saudi Arabia announce that they’re closely coordinating with terrorists in Syria — like al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham — Obama needs an alibi to avoid being caught at the crime scene. He’s not an accomplice, simply “disengaged.”
This is likely the reason why Obama has insisted that his new “moderate” rebels being trained in Turkey will fight ISIS, not the Syrian government. But this claim too is ridiculous.
Is Obama really going to throw a couple hundred newly-trained “moderate” Syrian rebels at ISIS while his Turkish-Saudi allies focus all their fire on the Syrian Government? The question answers itself.
The media has made mention of this obvious conundrum, but never bothers to follow up, leaving Obama’s lame narrative unchallenged. For example, the LA Times reports:
“The White House wants the [U.S. trained rebel] proxy force to target Islamic State militants, while many of the Syrian rebels — and the four host nations [where Syrian rebels are being trained] — want to focus on ousting Syrian President Bashar Assad.”
The article simply shrugs its shoulders at the irreconcilable. The article also fails to mention that Obama’s “new” training camps aren’t new at all; he’s been arming and training Syrian rebels since at least 2012, the only difference being that the “new” training camps are supposedly meant to target ISIS, compared to the training camps that were openly used to target the Syrian government.
Here’s the LA Times in 2013:
“The covert U.S. training [of Syrian rebels] at bases in Jordan and Turkey began months before President Obama approved plans to begin directly arming the opposition to Syrian President Bashar Assad, according to U.S. officials and rebel commanders.”
This is media amnesia at its worse. Recent events can’t be understood if the media doesn’t place events in context. In practice this “forgetfulness” provides political cover to the Obama administration, shielding his longstanding direct role in the Syrian war, allowing him to pretend to a “passive,” “hands off” approach.
When it was reported in 2012 that the Obama administration was funneling weapons to the Syrian rebels, the few media outlets that mentioned the story didn’t bother to do any follow up. It simply fell into the media memory hole. After the weapons funneling report came out, Obama incredulously stated that he was only supplying “non lethal” support to the rebels, and the media printed his words unchallenged.
Consequently, there was no public discussion about the consequences of the U.S. partaking in a multi-nation proxy war against Syria, a country that borders war ravaged Iraq.
In 2013 when Obama announced that he would be bombing the Syrian government in response to a supposed gas attack, the U.S. media asked for no evidence of the allegation, and strove to buttress Obama’s argument for aggression.
And when Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh wrote an article exposing Obama’s lies over the aborted bombing mission, the article didn’t see the light of day in the U.S. media. Critically thoughtful voices were not welcome. They remain unwelcome.
In 2015 direct U.S. military intervention in Syria remains a real possibility. All the conditions that led to Obama’s decision to bomb Syria in 2013 remain in place.
In fact, a U.S. intervention is even more likely now that Turkey and Saudi Arabia are fighting openly against the Syrian government, since the Saudi-Turkish alliance might find itself in a key battle that demands the special assistance that only the U.S. air force can offer.
Unsurprisingly, there has been renewed discussion of a U.S. enforced “no fly zone” in Syria. ISIS doesn’t have an air force, so a no fly zone would be undeniably aimed at the Syrian government to destroy its air force. The new debate over a “no fly zone” is happening at the same time as a barrage of new allegations of “chemical weapons” use are being made against the Syrian government.
If a no fly zone is eventually declared by the Obama Administration it will be promoted as a “humanitarian intervention, that strives to create a “humanitarian corridor” to “protect civilians” — the same rhetoric that was used for a massive U.S.-led NATO bombing campaign in Libya that destroyed the country and continues to create a massive refugee crisis.
As the Syrian war creates fresh atrocities the Obama administration will be pressured to openly support his Saudi-Turkish allies, just as he came out into the open in 2013 when he nearly bombed the Syrian government.
History is repeating itself. But this time the stakes are higher: the region has already been destabilized with the wars in Iraq, Libya, and Syria, and the regional conflicts have sharpened between U.S. allies on one hand, and Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Russia on the other.
Such a volatile dynamic demands a media willing to explain the significance of these events. The truth is that Obama has been a proxy war president that has torn apart the Middle East as badly as his predecessor did, and if the U.S. public remains uninformed about developing events, an even larger regional war is inevitable.
by Occult Means Hidden » Thu May 14, 2015 8:42 am
by zangtang » Thu May 14, 2015 1:28 pm
by seemslikeadream » Fri May 15, 2015 10:49 am
Our Next Mideast War – Syria
by Patrick J. Buchanan, May 15, 2015
Jeb Bush has spent the week debating with himself over whether he would have started the war his brother launched on Iraq.
When he figures it out, hopefully, our would-be president will focus in on the campaign to drag us into yet another Mideast war – this time to bring down Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria.
While few would mourn the passing of the Assad dynasty, there is a problem: If Assad falls, a slaughter of Christians will follow and the battle for control of Damascus will be between the Syrian branch of al-Qaida, the Nusra Front, and the crazed terrorists of the Islamic State.
Victory for either would be a disaster for America.
Where is the evidence of an unholy alliance to bring this about?
Turkey, which turned a blind eye to ISIS volunteers slipping into Syria, has aided the Nusra Front in setting up its own capital in Idlib, near the Turkish border, to rival the ISIS capital of Raqqa.
In the fall of Idlib, said Bashar Assad, "the main factor was the huge support that came through Turkey; logistic support, and military support, and of course financial support that came through Saudi Arabia and Qatar."
Why would Turks, Saudis and Qataris collude with Sunni jihadists?
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan detests Assad. The Saudis and Gulf Arabs are terrified of Shiite Iran and see any ally of Tehran, such as Assad, as their mortal enemy.
This also explains the seven weeks of savage Saudi bombing of the Houthi rebels, who dumped over a U.S.-Saudi puppet in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, then seized the second and third cities of Taiz and Aden.
But while the Houthis bear no love for us, they have been fighting al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. Thus, the Saudi bombing has given AQAP, the most dangerous terrorist foe we face, freedom to create sanctuaries and liberate hundreds of fellow terrorists from prison.
The Israelis seem to be in on the game as well. While they have taken in rebels wounded on the Golan Heights and returned them to their units, there are reports of Israel aiding the Nusra Front with intelligence and even air strikes.
This week, an Israeli official bluntly warned that Hezbollah has amassed 100,000 short-range rockets capable of striking northern Israel, thousands of which could hit Tel Aviv. The rockets are said to be hidden in Shiite villages in southern Lebanon.
Israel is preparing, writes The New York Times’ Isabel Kershner, "for what it sees as an almost inevitable next battle with Hezbollah."
As Hezbollah has been the most effective fighting ally of Assad, an Israeli war on Hezbollah could help bring Assad down.
But, again, who rises if Assad falls? And who else, besides Christians and Alawites, starts digging their graves?
As one might expect, Sen. Lindsey Graham is all in. Late in April, he declared, "Assad has to go. … We’re going to have to send some of our soldiers back into the Middle East."
Graham is willing to commit 10,000 U.S. ground troops.
"I would integrate our forces within a regional army. There is no other way to defend this nation than some of us being on the ground over there doing the fighting."
Wednesday, The Washington Post laid out the game plan for war on Syria. While we cannot create a NATO with kings, emirs, sheiks, and sultans, says the Post,
"[T]here is a way that Mr. Obama could serve both the U.S. interests and those of the Gulf allies: by attacking the Middle East’s most toxic, and destabilizing force, the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria. Syria’s dictatorship is Iran’s closest ally in the region, and its barbarity opened the way for the rise of the Islamic State. Recently, it has suffered battlefield reverses, in part because of increased Gulf aid to rebel forces.
"If Mr. Obama were to … create safe zones in northern and southern Syria for the rebels, the balance could be tipped against Damascus and Tehran – and U.S. allies would have tangible reason to recommit to U.S. leadership."
Consider what is being recommended here.
The Post wants Obama to bomb a Syrian nation that has not attacked us, without congressional authorization – to aid rebels whose most effective fighters are al-Qaida and ISIS terrorists.
And we’re to fight this war – to nullify ultra-rich but unhappy Gulf Arabs?
Obama must also "do more about Iranian aggression," says the Post.
But against whom is Iran committing aggression?
In Syria, Iran is backing a regime we recognized until a few years ago, that is under attack by terrorist rebels we detest. In Iraq, Iran is backing the government we support, against ISIS rebels we detest.
Bottom line: A U.S. attack on Syria is being pushed by the War Party to propel us into a confrontation with Iran, and thereby torpedo any U.S. nuclear deal with Iran.
Cui bono? For whose benefit?
by conniption » Sun May 17, 2015 7:09 am
RT
US special forces kill senior ISIS commander in Syria raid - DoD
Published time: May 16, 2015
Reuters/Wathiq Khuzaie
US special operations forces have conducted a military operation in eastern Syria, targeting a senior Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) commander and his wife, the US defense secretary has announced. The terrorist leader was killed in the raid.
Abu Sayyaf, a senior Islamic State leader, was killed by US forces, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Saturday, adding the terrorist was involved in the group's military operations, as well as helping to direct its "illicit oil, gas and financial operations."
"During the course of the operation, Abu Sayyaf was killed when he engaged US forces," National Security Council spokesperson Bernadette Meehan said.
The raid in eastern Syria's al-Amr was carried out at the direction of President Obama, the Defense Department said, and also targeted the Islamic State commander's wife, Umm Sayyaf.
The woman, also suspected of being an active IS member, was captured by US forces.
It is now being decided where to bring her from custody in Iraq, according to Meehan.
"The president authorized this operation upon the unanimous recommendation of his national security team and as soon as we had developed sufficient intelligence and were confident the mission could be carried out successfully and consistent with the requirements for undertaking such operations," Meehan added.
The dead militant leader was a Tunisian citizen. Washington informed the country’s government after the raid against him was carried out, Reuters reported, citing a US official.
It is believed Abu Sayyaf may have been in contact with IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, CNN reported, adding that the US military managed to capture some of the terrorist's communications equipment.
No US military were killed or injured in the operation, the US Defense officials reported. A Yazidi woman, who had apparently been held as a slave, was also rescued.
Another dozen fighters were killed in an overnight US raid, an American official speaking on condition of anonymity told Reuters on Saturday.
Special forces based out of Iraq flew into Syria on Friday night by helicopter. Meehan says the operation was conducted "with the full consent of Iraqi authorities" and "consistent with domestic and international law."
The White House didn’t coordinate the military raid with the Syrian government, the US spokesperson said. "Nor did we advise them in advance of this operation," Meehan added, saying "the Assad regime is not and cannot be a partner in the fight against ISIL [the Islamic State]."
Earlier on Saturday, Syria's state media reported that 40 Islamic State militants, including an ISIS "oil minister" Abu Taym Saudi were killed by the Syrian army in the country's east. Media reports said the terrorist leader was responsible for oil-related affairs in the Omar oil field in the strategic town of Mayadin, which has been under the control of the extremists since July 2014.
The Syrian media report was later called a mistake by a group tracking the Syrian civil war, Reuters reported. According to Rami Abdulrahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the Syrian news had incorrectly taken credit for the US special forces’ operation.
US-led airstrikes have been targeting the militants positions since September last year. Earlier this month, a monitoring group claimed that dozens of Syrian civilians were killed in just one day of the airstrikes.
President Bashar Assad has repeatedly pointed out that the US military operations in Syria are an illegal intervention, violating the sovereignty of the country, as it has not been authorized by a UN Security Council resolution.
by seemslikeadream » Sun May 24, 2015 1:11 am
2012 Defense Intelligence Agency document: West will facilitate rise of Islamic State “in order to isolate the Syrian regime”
May 19, 2015 by Brad Hoff 25 Comments
https://levantreport.files.wordpress.co ... 64&h=634On Monday, May 18, the conservative government watchdog group Judicial Watch published a selection of formerly classified documents obtained from the U.S. Department of Defense and State Department through a federal lawsuit.
While initial mainstream media reporting is focused on the White House’s handling of the Benghazi consulate attack, a much “bigger picture” admission and confirmation is contained in one of the Defense Intelligence Agency documents circulated in 2012: that an ‘Islamic State’ is desired in Eastern Syria to effect the West’s policies in the region.
Astoundingly, the newly declassified report states that for “THE WEST, GULF COUNTRIES, AND TURKEY [WHO] SUPPORT THE [SYRIAN] OPPOSITION… THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY OF ESTABLISHING A DECLARED OR UNDECLARED SALAFIST PRINCIPALITY IN EASTERN SYRIA (HASAKA AND DER ZOR), AND THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THE SUPPORTING POWERS TO THE OPPOSITION WANT, IN ORDER TO ISOLATE THE SYRIAN REGIME…”.
The DIA report, formerly classified “SECRET//NOFORN” and dated August 12, 2012, was circulated widely among various government agencies, including CENTCOM, the CIA, FBI, DHS, NGA, State Dept., and many others.
The document shows that as early as 2012, U.S. intelligence predicted the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS), but instead of clearly delineating the group as an enemy, the report envisions the terror group as a U.S. strategic asset.
While a number of analysts and journalists have documented long ago the role of western intelligence agencies in the formation and training of the armed opposition in Syria, this is the highest level internal U.S. intelligence confirmation of the theory that western governments fundamentally see ISIS as their own tool for regime change in Syria. The document matter-of-factly states just that scenario.
Forensic evidence, video evidence, as well as recent admissions of high-level officials involved (see former Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford’s admissions here and here), have since proven the State Department and CIA’s material support of ISIS terrorists on the Syrian battlefield going back to at least 2012 and 2013 (for a clear example of “forensic evidence”: see UK-based Conflict Armament Research’s report which traced the origins of Croatian anti-tank rockets recovered from ISIS fighters back to a Saudi/CIA joint program via identifiable serial numbers).
The newly released DIA report makes the following summary points concerning “ISI” (in 2012 “Islamic State in Iraq,”) and the soon to emerge ISIS:
Al-Qaeda drives the opposition in Syria
The West identifies with the opposition
The establishment of a nascent Islamic State became a reality only with the rise of the Syrian insurgency (there is no mention of U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq as a catalyst for Islamic State’s rise, which is the contention of innumerable politicians and pundits; see section 4.D. below)
The establishment of a “Salafist Principality” in Eastern Syria is “exactly” what the external powers supporting the opposition want (identified as “the West, Gulf Countries, and Turkey”) in order to weaken the Assad government
“Safe havens” are suggested in areas conquered by Islamic insurgents along the lines of the Libyan model (which translates to so-called no-fly zones as a first act of ‘humanitarian war'; see 7.B.)
Iraq is identified with “Shia expansion” (8.C)
A Sunni “Islamic State” could be devastating to “unifying Iraq” and could lead to “the renewing facilitation of terrorist elements from all over the Arab world entering into Iraqi Arena.” (see last non-redacted line in full PDF view.)
_____________________________________________
The following is excerpted from the seven page DIA declassified report (bold-facing is my own):
R 050839Z AUG 12
…
THE GENERAL SITUATION:
A. INTERNALLY, EVENTS ARE TAKING A CLEAR SECTARIAN DIRECTION.
B. THE SALAFIST [sic], THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD, AND AQI ARE THE MAJOR FORCES DRIVING THE INSURGENCY IN SYRIA.
C. THE WEST, GULF COUNTRIES, AND TURKEY SUPPORT THE OPPOSITION; WHILE RUSSIA, CHINA AND IRAN SUPPORT THE REGIME.
…
3. (C) Al QAEDA – IRAQ (AQI):… B. AQI SUPPORTED THE SYRIAN OPPOSITION FROM THE BEGINNING, BOTH IDEOLOGICALLY AND THROUGH THE MEDIA…
…
4.D. THERE WAS A REGRESSION OF AQI IN THE WESTERN PROVINCES OF IRAQ DURING THE YEARS OF 2009 AND 2010; HOWEVER, AFTER THE RISE OF THE INSURGENCY IN SYRIA, THE RELIGIOUS AND TRIBAL POWERS IN THE REGIONS BEGAN TO SYMPATHIZE WITH THE SECTARIAN UPRISING. THIS (SYMPATHY) APPEARED IN FRIDAY PRAYER SERMONS, WHICH CALLED FOR VOLUNTEERS TO SUPPORT THE SUNNI’S [sic] IN SYRIA.
…
7. (C) THE FUTURE ASSUMPTIONS OF THE CRISIS:
A. THE REGIME WILL SURVIVE AND HAVE CONTROL OVER SYRIAN TERRITORY.
B. DEVELOPMENT OF THE CURRENT EVENTS INTO PROXY WAR: …OPPOSITION FORCES ARE TRYING TO CONTROL THE EASTERN AREAS (HASAKA AND DER ZOR), ADJACENT TO THE WESTERN IRAQI PROVINCES (MOSUL AND ANBAR), IN ADDITION TO NEIGHBORING TURKISH BORDERS. WESTERN COUNTRIES, THE GULF STATES AND TURKEY ARE SUPPORTING THESE EFFORTS. THIS HYPOTHESIS IS MOST LIKELY IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE DATA FROM RECENT EVENTS, WHICH WILL HELP PREPARE SAFE HAVENS UNDER INTERNATIONAL SHELTERING, SIMILAR TO WHAT TRANSPIRED IN LIBYA WHEN BENGHAZI WAS CHOSEN AS THE COMMAND CENTER OF THE TEMPORARY GOVERNMENT.
…
8.C. IF THE SITUATION UNRAVELS THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY OF ESTABLISHING A DECLARED OR UNDECLARED SALAFIST PRINCIPALITY IN EASTERN SYRIA (HASAKA AND DER ZOR), AND THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THE SUPPORTING POWERS TO THE OPPOSITION WANT, IN ORDER TO ISOLATE THE SYRIAN REGIME, WHICH IS CONSIDERED THE STRATEGIC DEPTH OF THE SHIA EXPANSION (IRAQ AND IRAN)
8.D.1. …ISI COULD ALSO DECLARE AN ISLAMIC STATE THROUGH ITS UNION WITH OTHER TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS IN IRAQ AND SYRIA, WHICH WILL CREATE GRAVE DANGER IN REGARDS TO UNIFYING IRAQ AND THE PROTECTION OF ITS TERRITORY.
by Elvis » Sun May 24, 2015 4:22 pm
by seemslikeadream » Fri Jun 26, 2015 7:54 am
Turkey’s Troubling War on Syria
June 25, 2015
In Syria, the war to overthrow the secular government in Damascus has attracted Islamic militants from around the world, but they have relied on funding and support from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and – perhaps most importantly – Turkey, where an election reflected growing popular resistance to this war policy, writes Rick Sterling.
By Rick Sterling
The June 7 parliamentary election in Turkey could have a huge impact on the conflict in Syria. The invincible image of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been cracked. There is a real chance that the election might lead to substantive change in Turkish foreign policy promoting the war in Syria.
Even though Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) won the most votes, they lost their majority in parliament and must now find a coalition partner, as Turkey’s new parliament was seated for the first time on June 23. Now begins the political bargaining and negotiations to form a governing coalition.
syria-map
Depending on the outcome, Turkey may stop or seriously restrict the flow of weapons and foreign fighters through its territory into Syria. If Turkey does this, it would offer a real prospect for movement toward negotiations and away from war in Syria. Why? The Syrian war continues because Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, the U.S., France, the UK and others are spending billions of dollars annually to fund the armed opposition and sustain the war in violation of the UN Charter and international law.
Closely allied with Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood, Turkey has been the primary path for weapons and foreign fighters in Syria. ISIS has depended on export of oil and import of weapons and fighters through Turkey. Al Qaeda’s Jabhat al Nusra, Ahrar al Sham and other armed opposition groups have depended on weapons and foreign fighters coming in via Turkey for attacks on northern Syria including Syria’s largest city, Aleppo.
The following examples show the extent of Turkish involvement in the war on Syria:
–Turkey hosts the Political and Military Headquarters of the armed opposition. Most of the political leaders are former Syrians who have not lived there for decades.
–Turkey provides home base for armed opposition leaders. As quoted in the Vice News video “Syria: Wolves of the Valley”: “Most of the commanders actually live in Turkey and commute in to the fighting when necessary.”
–Turkey’s intelligence agency MIT has provided its own trucks for shipping huge quantities of weapons and ammunition to Syrian armed opposition groups. According to court testimony, they made at least 2,000 trips to Syria.
–Turkey is suspected of supplying the chemical weapons used in Ghouta in August 2013 as reported by Seymour Hersh here. In May 2013, Nusra fighters were arrested in possession of sarin but quickly and quietly released by Turkish authorities.
–Turkey’s foreign minister, top spy chief and senior military official were secretly recorded plotting an incident to justify Turkish military strikes against Syria. A sensational recording of the meeting was publicized, exposing the plot in advance and likely preventing it from proceeding.
–Turkey has provided direct aid and support to attacking insurgents. When insurgents attacked Kassab Syria on the border in spring 2014, Turkey provided backup military support and ambulances for injured fighters. Turkey shot down a Syrian jet fighter that was attacking the invading insurgents. The plane landed 7 kilometers inside Syrian territory, suggesting that Turkish claims it was in Turkish air space are likely untrue.
–Turkey has recently increased its coordination with Saudi Arabia and Qatar. This has led to the recent assaults by thousands of foreign fighters on Idlib and Jisr al Shugour in northern Syria. Armed with advanced weaponry including TOW missiles, and using suicide bomb vehicles, the armed groups overran Syrian armed forces defending both cities. The assaults were facilitated by Turkey jamming and disrupting Syrian radio communications.
–Turkey has facilitated travel into northern Syria by extremist mercenaries from all parts of the globe including Chechen Russians, Uyghur Chinese, Europeans, North Africans, South Asians including Indonesians and Malaysians. The assault on Jisr al Shugour was spearheaded by Chinese Uyghur fighters and suicide bombers crossing over from Turkey with tanks and heavy artillery.
–Turkey itself has provided steady supply of recruits to the Islamic State. Like other countries which have had citizens indoctrinated with Wahhabi fanaticism, they have done little or nothing to limit the indoctrination or restrict emigration for ‘jihad’.
–Finally, Turkey has permitted the supply of huge quantities of car bomb ingredients (ammonium nitrate fertilizer) to the Islamic State. On May 4, the New York Times reported these shipments at the Turkish border. Sixteen days later ISIS overran Ramadi in an assault that began with 30 car bombs with ten reportedly the size of the Oklahoma City bombing.
–As part of its continuing effort to draw the U.S. and NATO into direct participation in the war on Syria, Turkey is an active player in various propaganda campaigns. For example, the “White Helmets” or “Syrian Civil Defence” are trained and supplied in Turkey. Some of the videos purportedly from Syria are likely filmed in Turkey at their training site. White Helmets and Syrian Civil Defence are both creations of the West and join with Turkey in calling for a “No Fly Zone.”
Turkish Repression
The AKP government has vigorously tried to suppress information about the extent of Turkey’s support of the war on Syria. They have resorted to repression and intimidation such as:
–Turkish authorities have charged four regional prosecutors with attempting to topple the government. Their “crime” was to insist on the inspection of four trucks headed from Turkey to Syria. The trucks contained weapons and ammunition in violation of Turkish law. The trial of the four prosecutors is ongoing, 18 months after the inspection.
–Turkish authorities arrrested seven high ranking military officers over the inspection of trucks taking weapons and fighters to Syria.
–Turkish authorities banned social media and news outlets from reporting on arms shipments through Turkey to Syria. Twitter and Facebook accounts that talked about the shipments where shut down. Erdogan went on to threaten to “eradicate” Twitter.
–Turkish President Erdogan threatened two life-term sentences for the editor of Hurriyet daily newspaper for publicizing support of the armed opposition in Syria by Turkey’s intelligence agency MIT.
–A whistle-blowing MIT (intelligence agency) officer who opposed the agency’s collusion with terrorism in Syria was arrested, convicted and imprisoned. After two years he managed to escape and tell his story. The blockbuster account was broadcast on Turkey’s OdaTV and later translated into English and published here.Former Turkish Officer’s Revelations on Subversive Operations of the Turkish Intelligence Agency MIT Against Syria
By Heba Delacres
Global Research, March 23, 2015
The Arab Source 1 March 2015
print 530 80 6 799
kataskopos-mit-turkey
Currently on the run from Turkish prison system, former officer Önder Sığırcıkoğlu asserts he wasn’t out for money: “I took action to save my identity, my honour and my conscience.”
“I abducted the mass murderer Colonel Harmoush and turned him over to Syria”
Lt Col Hussein al-Harmoush was the most senior defector from the Syrian Arab Army early in the Syria conflict. He fled to Turkey in June 2011 where he proceeded to set up a so-called Free Officers Movement to overthrow the Syrian government. His ambitions were short-lived. He disappeared from Hatay Altınözü camp on 29 August together with Mustafa Kassoum, a gym instructor who had been passing himself off as an Army Major. Two weeks later Harmoush was on Syrian TV, confessing to his crimes and to Turkey’s complicity.
After a frenzied investigation, Turkish security rounded up several people, and seven individuals were tried for the ‘crime’ of returning Harmoush to Syria. The most senior among them, Önder Sığırcıkoğlu, a 19-year veteran of Turkey’s Intelligence Agency MIT, was handed a 20-year sentence. After 32 months incarceration at Osmaniye prison, Sığırcıkoğlu made his escape while being transferred to another facility and was able to leave Turkey clandestinely. The following is Part 1 of his revelations to Ömer Ödemiş for leading Turkish news site OdaTV. (Part II follows below.)
Önder Sığırcıkoğlu has harsh words for Turkey’s Syria policy. He had been assigned by MIT early on to screen arrivals during the initial refugee onslaught:
“I interviewed thousands in those early days. The first group of refugees consisted of about 250 who crossed the border to Turkey’s Altınözü. Their Syrian handlers were law student Seri Hammodi and taxidriver Abdusselam Sadiq. These two were in constant contact with international media, Al Jazeera and others, propagandizing and agitating that the refugees had been forced to flee Syria because of violent oppression. The tales they told were fabrications, but they were campaigning to sway public opinion and secure funding from Turkey, the U.N., Gulf countries and international institutions.”
138 KILLED AFTER SURRENDERING TO HARMOUSH
Sığırcıkoğlu points out that the earliest arrivals came equipped with Thuraya satellite phones and with laptops. His first encounter with Harmoush wasn’t long afterwards:
“In 10 or 11 June 2011 we received an MIT communique noting the arrival of a dissident Syrian Lt.Colonel in the camp. We were tasked with drawing up a report on his involvement in military operations. Upon inquiry I identified the Lt.Colonel in question to be Hussein al-Harmoush, the leader of the armed opposition in Jisr al-Shughour and instigator of the clashes there. He disclosed in the interview that he was a fundamentalist sunni, a Russia-trained explosives specialist last assigned to the engineering department of the 11th army division in Homs. Harmoush had been in constant conflict with his superiors over his strict Islamism and had played a leading part in organizing the armed opposition in Jisr al-Shughour. He recounted how they neutralized Syrian security personnel and captured Jisr al-Shughour’s post office, and how they set off an explosive device of Harmoush’s making at the premises of the military unit. Survivors of the explosion were forced to surrender to the forces of Harmoush who, in his own account, had 138 of them summarily executed.”
MASS MURDERERS GLORIFIED
As Harmoush described in gory detail how he had ordered the notorious massacre that saw the River Orontes run red with the blood of untold victims, Sığırcıkoğlu went cold with horror and disgust:
“I was appalled, and felt lost. The agency I worked for was coddling and glorifying these mass murderers. We were consorting with bloodthirsty thugs raising havoc in a friendly neighbouring country. We were housing and sheltering them, handing them safe phones, and helping their forays in and out of Syria.
Sığırcıkoğlu put in request after request for a transfer elsewhere. But his command of Arabic language and his familiarity with the region was too valuable to his superiors. His requests were denied.
NOT FOR MONEY
In two more years Sığırcıkoğlu would have made it to senior rank in the agency. But his mind was made up. “I planned out the abduction of Colonel Hussain Harmoush, and asked for help from a few trusted contacts. Once they agreed, I put Harmoush in my car and handed him to friends who delivered him to Syria. The murderer had to stand trial in his home country and answer for the hundreds of innocents he massacred. I wasn’t out for money. To smear my name they are spreading rumors that I was paid $100,000 for this action. In fact I was receiving nearly TL 7000 monthly salary at the time. I owned a house, a car; I had a good life. I’d never ruin all that for just $100,000. Besides, there’s no truth to the claim that Syrian government had put out a reward for Harmoush. Nothing of the sort. I took action to save my identity, my honour and my conscience. I acted out of my convictions against AKP’s policies. I feel no remorse. Turkish government’s policies constitute a betrayal of the Syrian people and I stood up against it. Supporting murderers against a country that had been a historical friend was not my lawful duty.”
THOUSANDS OF JIHADIS SET UPON SYRIA
As the campaign against Syria expanded, planes brought in thousands of murderers and jihadis to Hatay from where they were dispatched over Yayladağı and Reyhanlı to Syria to commit further massacres, says Sığırcıkoğlu: “It was a daily routine. Thousands were brought to Turkey illegally, without passports, from undisclosed points of origin; and they were helped across the border into Syria. Some of it I witnessed, some I was directly involved in. An agency charged with upholding security was working to undermine security in another country. I had lost all faith in my job. Shiploads of weapons arrived at Iskenderun port, were loaded in containers and transported by trucks to Reyhanlı to be slipped into Syria. I didn’t want to be a part of it. So I took a stance regardless of personal consequences.”
“CHRISTIANS TO BEIRUT, ALAWITES TO THE GRAVE”
Sığırcıkoğlu’s Arabic accent hinted at his Alevi origins, and that immediately put Harmoush’s hackles up. “Harmoush and his men were Sunnis and very sectarian about it,” says the former agent. “When I called them in for an interview, they declared they wouldn’t be ordered around by an Alevi. Carrying out my duty was a constant struggle. They frequently put up the inflammatory chant ‘Christians to Beirut, Alawites to the grave,’ and attempted provocation saying ‘keep Alevi doctors and nurses away, they will only mistreat us.’ These men were trying to carry their sectarian bigotry over into Turkey. I requested to be transferred from Hatay with a report that explained all these problems, but I was turned away.”
TRAITORS TO BE REVEALED
Sığırcıkoğlu is firm in his stance against AKP’s Syria policy. Determined to name the informers and the secret witnesses who testified against him, he is also prepared to expose in detail where and how jihadi murderers are given passage into Syria, how the weapons are transported, and what instructions he was given by his superiors pertaining to these dark operations.
Interview conducted by Oda TV; Translation: @Alamet0
* * *
Part 2 of the interview with Turkish Intelligence Agency MIT veteran
By HEBA DELACRES, March 1, 2015 Al-Masdar Al-‘Arabi (The Arab Source)
Sentenced to a 20 year prison term for handing mass murderer Lt. Col. Hussein al-Harmoush back to Syria, Turkish Intelligence Agency MIT veteran Önder Sığırcıkoğlu escaped prison and fled from Turkey. This is Part 2 of the interview he gave to Ömer Ödemiş for leading Turkish news site OdaTV.
MURDERERS WERE TRANSPORTED BY OFFICIAL VEHICLES
From March to August 2011 Önder Sığırcıkoğlu interviewed over 4 thousand Syrians, drawing up fact sheets on each for his agency. He was tasked with keeping regular contact especially with the renegade military residents of the camps set up in Hatay. However the officer corps that was being put together included pretenders as well.
“Mustafa Kassoum whom I seized together with Harmoush was not of military origin. But he was adept at feeding a stream of lies and fantasies to international backers to collect money,” says Sığırcıkoğlu. “An instructor in Syria in his earlier life, Kassoum became a leader of some significance in the course of the revolts and played an outsized part in the chaos that gripped the country. We suspected he was connected to certain Arab intelligence agencies all along. We also knew that he was pocketing the donations he collected on behalf of the militants.”
INCURSIONS INTO SYRIA CONTROLLED BY MIT’S ADANA OFFICE
Sığırcıkoğlu explains that all incursions of jihadi murderers from Turkey to Syrian territory was organized by the Adana regional office of MIT. “The office was given advanced notice on groups preparing for a raid. Once the order came down, agency workers were assigned to facilitate the passage in utmost secrecy. I gather Hatay office has been boosted recently to take on most of these dealings. We usually borrowed non-military official vehicles. Most of the time we got the vehicles from AFAD – the Disaster and Emergency Management Department. When we were short of official cars we rented some, again in AFAD’s name. Great care was taken to avoid a military display and to put a civilian face on all this activity.”
ABANDONED FACILITIES USED FOR LOGISTICS
The outskirts of Reyhanli town is dotted with scores of abandoned buildings and facilities almost all of which are used as logistic centers for militants’ supplies, says Sığırcıkoğlu. “The old Monopoly Administration warehouse within Reyhanli proper also serves the same purpose,” he notes. “Supplies brought over from other regions were collected in these centers until they were transferred to final destinations over Reyhanli, Yayladag or Kilis borders. Again, the military nature of the shipments were carefully kept under cover.”
HATAY TEEMING WITH SPOOKS
It’s no wonder that the region has become a magnet for intelligence operatives from all over the world. “American, British, Jordanian, Saudi, you name it,” says Sığırcıkoğlu. “Hatay is teeming with spooks from all of them. In fact we determined that Turkish journalist and academician Mehmet Y. who made regular trips in and out of Syria was working for German intelligence. Hatay became the spook capital of the world. Every intelligence agency you could think of opened up shop in Hatay. Some are involved in public relations while others work to shape events, contacting and trying to steer various terror groups to their own purposes. Many of these are based in Kusakli village which has become out of bounds for civilians.”
WEAPONS FROM ALBANIA AND FORMER YUGOSLAVIA
Weapons were primarily brought in by ship. Sığırcıkoğlu remembers seeing a lot of armament that had previously been used in Libya. “There appeared to be a preference for brands from non-EU countries. Weapons of Albanian or former Yugoslavian origin were brought in, for example, and were dealt out to salafi terror gangs.” Indeed, I personally saw reports that mentioned I.K.86 bullets. I.K. is the acronym for Igman-Konyits, former Yugoslavian weapons and munitions factory in present-day Bosnia.
“All transportation and transfers were organized by MIT Adana Regional Directorate, under full knowledge of the then regional director Nihat B. and his deputy Mücahittin K. But there have been occasions when Ankara bypassed the regional directorate and carried out some operations over one-to-one connections with figures on the ground,” Sığırcıkoğlu states.
DIRECT PHONE LINES FOR KEY PLAYERS
“Beginning from early August 2011, departmental managers and senior employees from MIT Strategic Intelligence Department and Counter-Espionage Department came to Hatay for private meetings with high level opposition organizers, particularly with the founders and top names of the Free Syrian Army. Figures they met included Harmoush, Riad al Asad and Ahmed Hijazi among others. I found out about this from the grapevine as well as some of their written exchanges. Ankara was now bypassing us and establishing direct connections. The Ankara team also gave their contacts special mobile phones so they could communicate over a hotline. When these guys neglected to check their phones, Ankara prompted us to go and warn them to respond to the calls.”
HEYSEM TOPALCA LONG AN MIT CONTACT
Asked about the notorious Heysem Topalca, Sığırcıkoğlu replies he has known this criminal for years. “Topalca used to be a cab driver and smuggler who operated between Turkey and Syria. He had long been an MIT contact, but not a figure of any significance. My superiors blew him out of proportion. He was one of the leaders of the Bayir Bucak Turkmen group, a radical. From what I gather, he has gained more importance after my time.”
PREPARED TO TESTIFY IN INTERNATIONAL COURTS
Önder Sığırcıkoğlu has no regrets for his daring feat. He insists he would take the same action today if he was faced with the choice:
“I acted out of conscience… I couldn’t be an accomplice to the massacres… Handing a mass murderer back to his home country is not a crime in my view. I was betrayed by some of the friends I set out with. The identities of the secret witnesses are known to me. I was sentenced, and now I’m a wanted man with a red notice over my head. So be it. I am prepared to testify in international courts of justice, to state in full detail everything I did, witnessed, or know about. AKP government has defied international law to support terror networks against Syria. I am ready to do anything to expose the malignant support and to see those responsible pay for their crimes.”
Translated by: @Alamet0
Was an American Journalist Murdered?
As seen in the examples above, Turkish AKP authorities have aggressively tried to suppress information on the involvement in Syria. If they have been that aggressive with Turkish journalists, prosecutors and military officers, how far might they go against a foreign journalist working for Iran’s Press TV?
The American-born journalist Serena Shim died just days after she documented the use of World Food Program trucks to transport foreign fighters to the border with Syria and into ISIS territory. After learning that Turkish intelligence was looking for her, Serena Shim was so concerned that she expressed her fear on television.
Two days later, Serena Shim’s car was hit head-on by a cement truck. The driver of the cement truck disappeared but was later found. There are many discrepancies about what happened. The first reports indicated the truck and driver left without stopping. Then the driver and truck were located, and then photos appeared showing a collision.
While some Turkish security services have preemptively exonerated the driver of the cement truck, the local prosecutor has filed charges against the driver, accusing him of causing death through negligence. There are many suspicious aspects, not least is the fact that the cement truck’s wheels are angled toward the car, not away as one would expect with a vehicle trying to avoid collision.
The death of American journalist Serena Shim, and her factual investigative reporting on Syria and Turkey, stands in sharp contrast with the sensational media accounts about the “kidnapping” of NBC reporter Richard Engel. That event turned out to be a hoax contrived by “rebels” to manipulate American political opinion.
With the complicity of individual reporters and mainstream media, the fraud was successful. The bias in mainstream western media is further demonstrated by the almost complete media silence about the death of Serena Shim and her important journalistic work.
Turkey’s Election
For the past 13 years, Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) has had majority control of Turkey’s parliament. In the recent election, AKP’s share of the popular voted plummeted 10 percent and they lost their parliamentary majority. The results are a clear rebuff to Erdogan and AKP policies.
Sixty percent of voters went against AKP, splitting the vote among the three alternative parties. The pro-Kurdish and Leftist People’s Democratic Party (HDP) burst onto the scene capturing 13 percent of the votes and equaling the number of parliamentary seats captured by the rightist and anti-Kurdish National Movement Party (MHP). The main opposition party is the social democratic Republican Peoples Party (CHP) with 26 percent of the vote.
Over the coming weeks, AKP will try to form a coalition government with one or more of the alternate parties. However it won’t be easy. The natural bedfellow would be the anti-Kurdish and rightist MHP but they are demanding the resumption of a corruption trial against AKP leaders including Erdogan’s son Bilal. That trial would probably lead back to President Erdogan himself so it seems unlikely AKP will ally with MHP.
The three alternative parties could form a coalition to govern without AKP, but it’s hard to imagine the staunchly anti-Kurdish MHP allying with the pro-Kurdish HDP. If a majority coalition cannot be formed within 45 days, the Turkish constitution requires a rerun of the election.
Even with severe repression and intimidation, the Turkish public is aware of Turkey’s policy supporting war on Syria. One consequence of the war has been almost 2 million immigrant refugees with the dispersal of many throughout Turkey, providing cheap labor and adding significantly to the unemployment problem.
In addition, there have been terrorist attacks in the border region and an escalation of corruption and repression as external money and weapons have flooded the area en route to Syria. The war against Syria has been widely unpopular and played a significant role in the election.
–All the opposition parties called for change in Turkey’s foreign policy.
–Criticism of Erdogan and Davutoglu’s policy even comes from within the AKP membership: “Many believe that one reason for the AKP’s dismal showing in the 2015 elections is its policy on Syria.”
–The head of the main opposition party (CHP) says Turkey will start controlling the border and stop the flood of arms and fighters into Syria.
The coming weeks will indicate how Turkey moves forward: Will AKP manage to form a coalition government with one of the opposition parties? Or will there be another election?
Will Turkey start enforcing the border and stop shipments of arms to the armed opposition as demanded by the leader of the main opposition party? This would be a huge change in the dynamics within Syria. Without a rear base of constant and steady support, the armed opposition would be forced to rely on its own resources rather than those of foreign governments. This armed opposition would quickly wither since they have very little support base within Syria.
Since the election, there are already signs of a shift in the balance. Kurdish forces recently captured ISIS’ important border crossing at Tal Abyad. This has been the main route of weapons, fighters and supplies between Turkey and the Islamic State’s ‘capital’ at Raqqa in eastern Syria.
Past Year and the Future
Thirteen months ago, it looked like the war in Syria was starting to move toward resolution. The last remaining armed opposition in the “capital of the revolution” Homs reached reconciliation and withdrew from the Old City of Homs in May 2014. On June 3, 2014, the election in Syria confirmed substantial support for the government.
Since then, we have seen dramatic changes. On June 10, 2014, ISIS surged through western Iraq and captured the city of Mosul and huge quantities of American armaments including tanks, rockets, humvees, etc. That led to the creation of the “Islamic State” and expansion in eastern Syria including Tabqa Air Base where hundreds of Syrian soldiers and ISIS fighters died.
This past spring saw the coalescing of numerous foreign and Islamist groups into the Jaish al Fatah (Army of Conquest) supported by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. With high-powered TOW anti-tank missiles and thousands of shock troops they were able to overtake both Idlib and Jisr al Shugour near the Turkish border.
ISIS and the Army of Conquest are both dependent on the Turkish supply line. If that is closed off or seriously restricted, it will dramatically change the situation. With the prospect of losing the base of support in Turkey, will the opposition try something desperate to draw the U.S. and NATO into the conflict directly?
The Turkish people have indicated they want to stop their government’s war on Syria. If their will is respected, it should lead to restricting and stopping the foreign funding and promotion of the conflict. If Turkey stops the flood of weapons and foreign fighters into northern Syria, it will be following instead of violating international law. This will give peace a chance in Syria.
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