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Gary Edwards

BENGHAZI - THE BIGGEST COVER-UP SCANDAL IN U.S. HISTORY? - WAS BENGHAZI A CIA GUN-RUNNI... - 0 views

www.libertynews.com/...r-insurgents-fighting-in-syria

Benghazi Benghazigate Benghazi-coverup

shared by Gary Edwards on 09 May 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 09 May 13
     
    "LibertyNEWS.com - Editorial Team Special Report It's never fun to admit you've been lied to and duped. There is no comfort in realizing a high-level group in government has conned you. The wound created from such a realization would be deep and painful when paired with extraordinary insult when you realize the cons are people you not only trusted, but people who are tasked with protecting your rights, your liberty, your life. When these people betray you, you're in trouble - big trouble. Unfortunately, we believe America is being betrayed by powerful individuals tasked with our protection. These people are found in the White House, the Congress, the CIA and other government entities - and they're lying to you. Then they're covering it up on an epic scale, in a never-before-seen manner. Here are the basics of what the schemers in government and the complicit media would like for us all to focus on and buy into: Why wasn't there better security at the consulate (keep this misleading word in mind) in Benghazi? Why didn't authorization come to move special forces in for protection and rescue? Why was an obscure video blamed when everyone knew the video had nothing to do with it? Did Obama's administration cover-up the true nature of the attacks to win an election? Truth is, as we're starting to believe, the above questions are convenient, tactical distractions. And truth is, answers to these questions, if they ever come, will never lead to revelations of the REAL TRUTH and meaningful punishment of anyone found responsible. Rep. Darrell Issa knows this, members of the House Committee investigating the Benghazi attacks know this, the White House knows this, and much of the big corporate media infrastructure knows it, too. How do they know it? Because they know the truth. They know the truth, but cannot and/or will not discuss it in public. Here are the basics that we (America, in general) should be focusing on, but aren't: Why do media
Paul Merrell

U.S. Caves to Russia on Syria - Won't Continue Protecting Al Qaeda - 0 views

www.washingtonsblog.com/...tinue-protecting-al-qaeda.html

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Syrian war negotiations Russia al-Nusrah

shared by Paul Merrell on 13 Sep 16 - No Cached
  • On Friday, September 9th, America’s Secretary of State John Kerry, and Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, came to an agreement on Syria, for the second time. (The previous agreement fell apart). Like the first ‘cease-fire’, this one concerns the ongoing occupation of many parts of Syria by foreign jihadists, who have been hired by America’s allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar, in order to overthrow Syria’s President, Bashar al-Assad. (It’s nothing like a democratic revolution there; it’s a war over pipelines.)The main sticking-point in these negotiations has been much the same as it was the first time around: America’s insistence that Russia and Syria be prohibited from bombing Al Qaeda in Syria, which is the international group under the name of “Al Nusra” there. The United States has not tried to protect ISIS in Syria — only Al Nusra (and their subordinate groups), and it protects them because Nusra has provided crucial leadership to the jihadist groups that the United States finances in Syria for overthrowing and replacing Assad. Whereas the U.S. government doesn’t finance all of the jihadist groups in Syria (as the allied royal owners of Saudi Arabia and of Qatar do), the U.S. does designate some jihadist groups as ‘moderate rebels’, and this second round of cessation-of-hostilities will protect these groups (but this time not the Nusra fighters who lead them) from the bombings by Syria and by Russia. This new agreement is a complex sequence of sub-agreements laying out the means whereby Syria and Russia will, supposedly, continue to bomb Nusra while avoiding to bomb the U.S.-financed forces in Syria. Now that the U.S. has 300 of its own military advisors occupying the parts of Syria that the U.S.-sponsored jihadists control, Nusra will (presumably) no longer be quite so necessary to America’s overthrow-Assad campaign.
  • In the joint announcement on Friday night in Geneva, Secretary Kerry said, “Now, I want to be clear about one thing particularly on this, because I’ve seen reporting that somehow suggests otherwise: Going after Nusrah is not a concession to anybody. It is profoundly in the interests of the United States to target al-Qaida — to target al-Qaida’s affiliate in Syria, which is Nusrah.”
  • Gareth Porter bannered on February 16th, “Obama’s ‘Moderate’ Syrian Deception”, and he reported that, “Information from a wide range of sources, including some of those the United States has been explicitly supporting, makes it clear that every armed anti-Assad organization unit in those provinces is engaged in a military structure controlled by Nusra militants. All of these rebel groups fight alongside the Nusra Front and coordinate their military activities with it,” and he stated that “instead of breaking with the deception that the CIA’s hand-picked clients were independent of Nusra, the Obama administration continued to cling to it.” Porter was pretending that the U.S. leadership originated at the CIA, instead of at the White House — which was actually the case. The CIA was simply doing what the U.S. President wanted it to do there. Porter continued his upside-down attribution of leadership and responsibility in the matter, by adding that, “President Obama is under pressure from these domestic critics as well as from Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other GCC allies to oppose any gains by the Russians and the Assad regime as a loss for the United States.” In no way was/is it obligatory for the U.S. President to adhere to “domestic critics” and “GCC [royal Arabic] allies,” much less for him to be ordered-about by his own CIA — quite the contrary: “The buck stops at the President’s desk.” Obama isn’t forced to hire and promote neoconservatives to carry out his foreign policies — he chooses them and merely pretends to be blocked by opponents.
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  • On February 20th, Reuters headlined “Syrian opposition says temporary truce possible, but deal seems far off”, and reported that, “A source close to peace talks earlier told Reuters [that] Syria’s opposition had agreed to the idea of a two- to three-week truce. The truce would be renewable and supported by all parties except Islamic State, the source said. It would be conditional on the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front no longer being attacked by Syrian government forces and their allies.” In other words: up till at least that time, the U.S. was still at one with the Sauds’ insistence upon protecting Al Qaeda in Syria. On March 1st, Steve Chovanec headlined, “Protecting al-Qaeda”, and he made clear that the group that Obama was backing, the Free Syrian Army (so named with assistance from their CIA minders), were almost as despised by the Syrian people as were ISIS itself. Citing a Western polling firm’s findings, he noted that, “According to a recent poll conducted by ORB, it was found that most Syrians more or less hold both ISIS and the FSA in equal disdain, 9% saying the FSA represents the Syrian people while 4% saying that ISIS does. The similarity in [Syrians’] opinion is reflective of the similarity in [those two groups of jihadists’] conduct.” Furthermore, as I have noted, both from that polling-firm and another Western-backed one, the vast majority (82%) of Syrians  blame the U.S. for the tens of thousands of foreign jihadists who have been imported into their country, and 55% of Syrians want Assad to be not only the current President but their next President, as a consequence of which the U.S. government refuses to allow Assad to run for the Presidency in the next election. (Indeed, that’s largely the reason why Obama has been trying to overthrow Assad and replace him with a jihadist government, like the Sauds.)
  • Clearly, the U.S. Government’s top objective in Syria is to overthrow Assad, whereas the Russian Government’s top objective there is to prevent America’s allies from seizing the country. As Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has well explained and documented, the U.S. CIA has been trying ever since 1949 to overthrow Syria’s government and replace it with one that the Sauds (and etc., including U.S. oil, gas, and pipeline companies) want. So, this is normal American foreign policy. This doesn’t mean that our Presidents have to behave this way — only that they do (even if the U.S. ‘news’ media don’t report it, and many U.S. ‘historians’ likewise ignore it decades later).
Paul Merrell

Swedish Troops to join faux anti ISIS Alliance in Iraq | nsnbc international - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...aux-anti-isis-alliance-in-iraq

war & peace ISIL Iraq Syria Sweden U.S.-foreign-policy

shared by Paul Merrell on 09 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • The Swedish government announced on Thursday that Sweden will deploy armed forces to Iraq to support military operations against the Islamic State, a.k.a. ISIS or ISIL. The terrorist organization is known to be overtly and covertly funded and armed by members of the so-called “coalition against the Islamic State”. The deployment of 35 Swedish troops is a minimal contribution but has, nonetheless maximum political effect. That is, that the Scandinavian country lends its political credence to the: “the fight against ISIS“ narrative.
  • Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstöm and Defense Minister Peter Hultquist were quoted in the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter (Daily News) as saying that “Cooperation against terrorism is the key to success. Sweden will continue to support these common efforts”. The two ministers added that Sweden could eventually expand its mission to 120 troops. The Scandinavian country has a population of about 9.7 million. Political and Legal Implications; Crimes against Peace: To understand the political implications one has to understand the genesis of the war on Syria, why and how it spread to Iraq, related energy-security planning, as well as the direct support of ISIS via NATO member States, Saudi Arabia, as well as other Middle Eastern countries. One also has to understand that the so-called “moderate opposition” and ISIS effectively have the same utility and that arms are transferred in-between the diverse mercenary brigades in the region. None of the above is mentioned in any of the Swedish mainstream media.
  • War Planned Years in Advance: In June 2013 the senior French Statesman and former Foreign Minister Roland Dumas said during an appearance in the French TV channel LPC that top-British officials had asked him, in 2009, if he wanted to participate in ousting the Syrian government with the help of “rebels”. That was years before the first “protests” erupted in 2011: (nsnbc audio archives) Dumas said:
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  • “I am going to tell you something. I was in England two years before the violence in Syria on other business. I met with top British officials, who confessed to me, that they were preparing something in Syria. … This was in Britain not in America. Britain was organizing an invasion of rebels into Syria. They even asked me, although I was no longer Minister of Foreign Affairs, if I would like to participate. Naturally, I refused, I said I am French, that does not interest me. … This operation goes way back. It was prepared, preconceived and planned… in the region it is important to know that this Syrian regime has a very anti-Israeli stance. … Consequently, everything that moves in the region…- and I have this from a former Israeli Prime Minister who told me ´we will try to get on with our neighbors but those who don´t agree with us will be destroyed. It is a type of politics, a view of history, why not after all. But one should  know about it”. The Islamic State, a.k.a. ISIS or ISIL has its origin in the Unites States, the UK’s, NATO’s and Middle Eastern NATO allies’ attempt to introduce Al-Qaeda into Iraq as a pretext for the U.S.-led military presence in the country.
  • War For Oil – By Foreign Funded Mercenary Brigades. Details about the genesis of ISIS have been published in the nsnbc international article entitled “ISIS Unveiled: The Identity of the Insurgency in Syria and Iraq”. ISIS initially launched its assaults against Syria via Turkey and Jordan.
  • In 2012 the Iraqi government under the then Prime Minister al-Maliki deployed troops to Iraq’s al-Anbar province to stem up for the trafficking of weapons, munitions and fighters via old smuggling routes to Syria’s oil-rich Deir Ez-Zour province where ISIS had gained a foothold. The al-Maliki government’s initiative made it necessary to re-route much of that traffic via Jordan, where the U.S. JSOC, CIA, USAID and other organizations had established a joint command and intelligence structure with the “opposition” at the Ramtha Air Base as well as in the border town Al-Mafraq. April 22, 2013 the European Union (EU) lifted its ban on the import of Syrian oil from “rebel-held territories”. The export of Syrian oil to Turkey has since then more than doubled. In June 2014 nsnbc international’s editor-in-chief met a person from within the inner circle around the former Lebanese PM and multi-billionaire Saad Hariri. The meeting took place in the Danish capital Copenhagen.
  • Concerned about that the war was developing into a regional war that eventually also would engulf Lebanon the whistleblower presented evidence to support his claim that the final decision to launch the invasion of Iraq with ISIS brigades was made on the sidelines of the Atlantic Council Energy Summit in Turkey on November 22 -23, 2013. He added that ISIS operations via Turkey are run via the U.S. Embassy in Turkey, involving Ambassador Riccardione.
  • Also in 2013, U.S. Senator John McCain met with the then Free Syrian Army (FSA) chief Salim Idriss, ISIS leader al-Badri, a.k.a al-Baghdadi and Caliph Ibrahim in a safe house in the Syrian city of Idlib, near the Turkish border. In 2014 over 5,000 the fighters of the so-called “moderate opposition” groups which are supported by the United States and others would join the ranks of ISIS. ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusrah are currently fighting side-by-side for control over the Damascus suburb and Palestinian refugee camp Yarmouk at the outskirts of the Syrian capital Damascus. The deployment of Swedish troops, regardless how small or symbolic the contingent is, constitutes, arguably, a crime against peace committed by Margot Wallström and Peter Hulquist as it is implausible that the two Swedish Ministers are unaware of the above mentioned information that is readily available in the public domain.
Paul Merrell

U.S. sees Syria rebels in political, not military solution: Asharq al-Awsat newspaper |... - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...a-rebels-idUSKBN0IG0PV20141027

war & peace Syria ISIL U.S.-foreign-policy Syrian-opposition

shared by Paul Merrell on 01 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • The United States does not expect Syrian rebels it plans to train to fight Islamic State militants to also take on President Bashar al-Assad's forces, but sees them as a crucial part of a political solution to end the war, the Asharq al-Awsat newspaper quoted a senior U.S. official as saying. The United States, which is leading an international coalition bombing Islamic State in Syria, has said it wants to train and equip "moderate" rebels to fight the militant group which has seized tracts of land in Syria and neighboring Iraq.Asked whether those rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) units would ultimately go on to fight Syrian government forces, John Allen, the U.S. representative to the coalition, told the Asharq al-Awsat daily:
  • "No. What we would like to see is for the FSA and the forces that we will ultimately generate, train and equip to become the credible force that the Assad government ultimately has to acknowledge and recognize.""There is not going to be a military solution here," he added, in comments published at the weekend on the newspaper's English language website.
  • The Free Syrian Army is a term used to describe dozens of armed groups fighting to overthrow Assad but with little or no central command. They have been widely outgunned by Islamist insurgents such as Islamic State.Rebel fighters have voiced frustration with the U.S.-led approach to fighting Islamic State. They say Washington and its Arab allies are too focused on quashing the militant group at the expense of confronting Syrian government forces, which many rebels still see as the ultimate enemy.The Syrian air force has ramped up its own bombing campaign on insurgent-held areas since the U.S-led air strikes began last month, increasing rebel fears that the government is profiting from the distraction of the coalition campaign.
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  • Allen said there was a need to build up the credibility of the moderate Syrian opposition at a political level, adding that it was normal for rebel forces to clash with the Syrian military as they seek to defend their territory and families."But the intent is not to create a field force to liberate Damascus — that is not the intent," Allen, a retired U.S. general, told the newspaper."The intent is that in the political outcome, they must be a prominent - perhaps the preeminent voice - at the table to ultimately contribute to the political outcome that we seek," he said at the start of a Middle East tour.U.S. President Barack Obama said last month he wanted to train and equip Free Syrian Army rebels to "strengthen the opposition as the best counterweight to the extremists" and to prevent U.S. troops from being dragged into another ground war.
  • "The outcome that we seek in Syria is akin to the (anti-Islamic State) strategy that fits into a much larger regional strategy and that outcome is a political outcome that does not include Assad," Allen said.The United Nations says more than 191,000 people have been killed since the start of the Syrian uprising against Assad's rule in 2011. Rights groups say the actual figure is higher.
Paul Merrell

The Forever War on Creators.com - 0 views

www.creators.com/...the-forever-war.html

war & peace Syria ISIL Obama

shared by Paul Merrell on 13 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • The strategy that President Obama laid out Wednesday night to "degrade and ultimately destroy the terrorist group known as ISIL," is incoherent, inconsistent and, ultimately, non-credible. A year ago, Obama and John Kerry were straining at the leash to launch air strikes on Syrian President Bashar Assad for his alleged use of chemical weapons in "killing his own people." But when Americans rose as one to demand that we stay out of Syria, Obama hastily erased his "red line" and announced a new policy of not getting involved in "somebody else's civil war." Now, after videos of the beheadings of two U.S. journalists have set the nation on fire, the president, reading the polls, has flipped again. Now Obama wants to lead the West and the Arab world straight into Syria's civil war. Only this time we bomb ISIL, not Assad.
  • Who will provide the legions Obama will deploy to crush ISIL in Syria? The Free Syrian Army, the same rebels who have been routed again and again and whose chances of ousting Assad were derided by Obama himself in August as a "fantasy"? The FSA, the president mocked, is a force of "former doctors, farmers, pharmacists and so forth." Now Obama wants Congress to appropriate $500 million to train and arm those doctors and pharmacists and send them into battle against an army of jihadist terrorists who just bit off one-third of Iraq. Before Congress votes a dime, it should get some answers. Whom will this Free Syrian Army fight? ISIL alone? The al-Nusra Front? Hezbollah in Syria? Assad's army? How many years will it take to train, equip and build the FSA into a force that can crush both Assad and ISIL?
  • "Tell me how this thing ends," said Gen. David Petraeus on the road up to Baghdad in 2003. The president did not tell us how this new war ends. If Assad falls, do the Alawites and Christians survive? Does Syria disintegrate? Who will rule in Damascus? The United States spent seven years building an army to hold Iraq together. Yet when a few thousand ISIL fighters stormed in from Syria, that army broke and fled all the way to Baghdad. Even the Kurdish peshmerga broke and ran. What makes us think we can succeed in Syria where we failed in Iraq. If ISIL is our mortal enemy and Syria its sanctuary, there are two armies capable of crushing it together — the Syrian and Turkish armies. <a onClick="return adgo(5541,10783,this.href);" href="http://adserver.adtechus.com/adlink/3.0/5235/1297475/0/170/ADTECH;cookie=info;loc=300;key=key1+key2+key3+key4;grp=13579" target="_blank"><img src="http://adserver.adtechus.com/adserv/3.0/5235/1297475/0/170/ADTECH;cookie=info;loc=300;key=key1+key2+key3+key4;grp=13579" border="0" width="300" height="250"></a> But Turkey, a NATO ally, was not even mentioned in Obama's speech. Why? Because the Turks have been allowing jihadists to cross into Syria, as they have long sought the fall of Assad.
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  • Now, with the Islamic State holding hostage 49 Turkish diplomats and their families in Mosul, Ankara is even more reluctant to intervene. Nor is there any indication Turkey will let the United States use its air base at Incirlik to attack ISIS. In Iraq, too, thousands of ground troops will be needed to dig the Islamic State out of the Sunni cities and towns. Where will these soldiers come from? We are told the Iraqi army, Shia militia, Kurds and Sunni tribesmen will join forces to defeat and drive out the Islamic State. But these Shia militia were, not long ago, killing U.S. soldiers. And, like the Iraqi army, they are feared and hated in Sunni villages, which is why many Sunni welcomed ISIL. A number of NATO allies have indicated a willingness to join the U.S. in air strikes on the Islamic State in Iraq. None has offered to send troops. Similar responses have come from the Arab League.
  • But if this is truly a mortal threat, why the reluctance to send troops? Some of our Arab allies, like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the Gulf Arabs, have reportedly been providing aid to ISIL in Syria. Why would they aid these terrorists? Because ISIL looked like the best bet to bring down Assad, whom many Sunni loathe as an Arab and Alawite ally of Iran in the heart of the "Shia Crescent" of Tehran, Baghdad, Damascus and Hezbollah. For many Sunni Arabs, the greater fear is of Shia hegemony in the Gulf and a new Persian empire in the Middle East. Among all the nations involved here, the least threatened is the United States. Our intelligence agencies, Obama, says, have discovered no evidence of any planned or imminent attack from ISIL. As the threat is not primarily ours, the urgency to go to war is not ours. And upon the basis of what we heard Wednesday night, either this war has not been thought through by the president, or he is inhibited from telling us the whole truth about what victory will look like and what destroying the Islamic State will require in blood, treasure and years.
  • Paul Merrell on 13 Sep 14
     
    Pat Buchanan wants to hear from Congress before Obama starts another war. 
Paul Merrell

Al Nusrah Front, Western-backed rebels overrun key regime base south of Damascus - The ... - 0 views

www.longwarjournal.org/...al_nusrah_front_free_2.php

war & peace Syria Al-Nusrah Al-Qaeda FSA-joint-military-operations

shared by Paul Merrell on 26 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • In the past two days, Syrian rebels overran a base belonging to Brigade 82 of the Syrian Army in the southern province of Deraa. The Brigade 82 facilities, which sit close to the town of Sheikh Maskeen and a highway connecting Damascus with Jordan, were considered a key part of the Assad regime's defenses
  • A number of insurgency groups have posted videos and photos online showing their fighters taking part in the assault on the base. The Al Nusrah Front, al Qaeda's official branch in Syria, and the Islamic Front, an alliance of Islamist groups, are among them. Ahrar al Sham, an al Qaeda-linked organization, leads the Islamic Front. Screen shots and photos from the Al Nusrah Front and the Islamic Front are included at the bottom of this article. Western-backed rebels, including fighters from the First Army, also participated in the raid on the Brigade 82 base. The First Army issued a statement before the operation was launched saying its men were going to take part in the rebels' new southern offensive. The First Army also released a statement afterwards saying that the base had fallen.
  • A leader of the First Army identified as Colonel Saber Safar spoke with Reuters about the significance of the base falling into rebel hands. "This advance will help us cut supply routes of the regime forces in the south from their supplies in the north to be able to eventually take over Deraa city," Safar told Reuters, which described the First Army as "a major faction of Western-backed rebels in the 'Southern Front' grouping." In early January, Asharq Al Awsat reported that the First Army was formed by three rebel groups, each of which had operated as part of the Free Syrian Army. Asharq Al Awsat described the three groups that make up the First Army as "moderate rebel factions," which said they wanted to "unify all FSA factions under a joint military command." The publication cited a commander in the group as saying that they would not only fight Bashar al Assad's regime and its proxies, but also work to contain the growing influence of extremists, meaning the Al Nusrah Front. The battle for Brigade 82's base, however, shows that the First Army and other "moderate" rebels continue to cooperate with al Qaeda and its extremists allies in southern Syria. Several pictures and screen shots of other rebels taking part in the raid are published
  • Paul Merrell on 26 Jan 15
     
    Here we go folks, photographic evidence that the U.S.-backed, funded, supplied, and armed Free Syrian Army is running joint military operations with Al-Nusrah, the official wing of Al-Qaeda in Syria, against the Syrian government. Both Al-Nusrah and Al-Qaeda are formally listed as "terrorist organizations" by the U.S. State Department and the U.N. and supporting them is a criminal act in the U.S. and forbidden by a U.S.-sponsored U.N. Security Council Resolution. This has been going on for well over a year, but this is the first time I have seen photographic evidence. 
Paul Merrell

M of A - The "Salafist Principality" - ISIS Paid Off To Leave Mosul, Take Deir Ezzor? - 0 views

www.moonofalabama.org/...ul-and-to-take-deir-ezzor.html

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy ISIL Mosul Deir-Ezzor U.S. Saudis deal

shared by Paul Merrell on 17 Oct 16 - No Cached
  • On September 20 I wrote about the likely reason for the willful U.S. bombing attack on a critical Syrian army position in Deir Ezzor: Two recent attacks against the Syrian Arab Army in east-Syria point to a U.S. plan to eliminate all Syrian government presence east of Palmyra. This would enable the U.S. and its allies to create a "Sunni entity" in east-Syria and west-Iraq which would be a permanent thorn in side of Syria and its allies. ... The U.S. plan is to eventually take Raqqa by using Turkish or Kurdish proxies. It also plans to let the Iraqi army retake Mosul in Iraq. The only major city in Islamic State territory left between those two is Deir Ezzor. Should IS be able to take it away from the isolated Syrian army garrison it has at least a decent base to survive. (Conveniently there are also rich oil wells nearby.) No one, but the hampered Syrian state, would have an immediate interest to remove it from there. There are new signs that this analysis was correct.
  • Yesterday the Turkish President Erdogan made a remark that points into that direction. As the British journalist Elijah Magnier summarized it: Elijah J. Magnier @EjmAlrai Erdogan: #Turkey will participate in #Mosul just like it did in #Jarablus.Army doesn't take orders from #Iraq PM who should know his limits. 4:06 AM - 11 Oct 2016 "Like Jarablus" was an interesting comparison. The Turks and their proxies took Jarablus in center-north Syria from the Islamic State without any fight and without any casualties from fighting. ISIS had moved away from the city before the Turks walked in. There obviously had been a deal made. That's why I replied this to Magnier's tweet above: Moon of Alabama @MoonofA The Turks will pay off ISIS in Mosul to leave early just like they did in Jarablus? 5:58 AM - 12 Oct 2016
  • Three hours later this rumor from a well connected Syrian historian and journalist in London answered that question: Nizar Nayouf @nizarnayouf Breaking news:Sources in #London say:“#US& #Saudi_Arabia concluded an agreement to let #ISIS leave #Mosul secretly& safely to #Syria"! 9:28 AM - 12 Oct 2016 Erdogan predicts that his troops and proxy forces will march into Mosul just like they marched into Jarablus: In a peaceful walk, without any fight, into a city free of Jihadis. The Saudis and the U.S. arranged for that. The U.S. bombed the most important SAA position in Deir Ezzor so that ISIS, now with the help of its cadres from Mosul, can take over the city. A nice place to keep it holed up in east-Syria until it can further be used in this or that imperial enterprise.
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  • A good plan when your overall aim is to create an obedient mercenary statelet in the center of the Middle East. As the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency wrote in 2012: 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. But this plan requires to fight the Syrian and Russian air-forces which will do their utmost to defend the SAA group and the 100-200,000 ISIS besieged Syrian civilians in Deir Ezzor. The the U.S. and its allies may be willing to do that. A well known British Tory member of parliament already made noise that British fighter jets should be free to shoot down Russian planes in Syria. The U.S. had claimed that British planes took part in the Deir Ezzor ambush. The defenders of Deir Ezzor lack their own air defenses. The Russian systems at the Syrian west-coast can not reach that far east. The Syrian system are mostly positioned to defend Damascus and other cities from attacks by Israel. Russia recently talked about delivering 10 new Pantsyr-S1 short-to-medium range air defense systems to Syria. At least two of those should be airlifted to Deir Ezzor as soon as possible.
  • UPDATE: I was just made aware of a recent speech by Hizbullah leader Nasrallah who smells the same stinking plot: Sayyed Nasrallah said that the Americans intend to repeat Fallujah plot when they opened a way for ISIL to escape towards eastern Syria before the Iraqi warplanes targeted the terrorists’ convoy, warning that the same deceptive scheme is possible to be carried out in Mosul.
  • All the .mil conspiracy theory folks (me) knew why those ships were sent into the straits. The only thing we couldn't figure out was what kind of false flag the U.S. would use to Tomahawk Yemen because nobody would believe the Houthis would be dumb enough to fire on a U.S. missile cruiser. They hate the U.S., but have no reason to rattle our cage THAT much. They fired on the UAE-contracted Swift because it was bringing armor and weapons to Saudi puppet Hadi's forces in Yemen. Attacking a U.S. missile destroyer accomplishes absolutely nothing for them. When the Houthis heard the USS Mason and Nitze were attacked, they thought it was a joke. They denied any such attack as preposterous, asking the obvious question: "Why the hell would we ever do that? But it gets a little better for us in tinfoil hat land. This post by someone looking for images of deleted Tweets sums it up nicely: https://twitter.com/teddy_cat1/status/786333929309556736 Few hours before Reuter's announcement of a U.S. Navy destroyer came under missile attack off Yemen on Sunday, Saudi official accounts on tweeter like Journalist Fahd Kamely and Saudi-24 News had tweeted that the Royal Saudi Naval Forces targeted what they thought to be an Iranian ship for suspicion of supplying Houthis with weapons! They immediately deleted their tweets following this announcement, but many people have saved a picture for those tweets before being deleted and since then are circulating them on tweeter...
  • So we know the U.S. Navy lied when they said the missiles came from Yemen. The RSNF most likely did launch the missiles and used the 'Iranian arms smuggling' as a cover story in case anyone noticed. The U.S. destroyers were never targeted or in danger, but probably did use the occasion to test their anti-missile defenses. All this set up the false flag, providing Obama and excuse to order the U.S. Navy to Tomahawk the Yemeni coastal radars at the behest of some pissed-off UAE emir (likely a Clinton Foundation donor).
  • Paul Merrell on 17 Oct 16
     
    There are other signs that the U.S. made this slimy deal with the Saudis and that it is being implemented. I'll post other links. And I've seen other confirmation that the UK has authorized its pilots to down Russian aiircraft. Meanwhile, Turkey's Erdogan has commanded that Mosul is to become a Sunni Arab city and has forbidden Shi'ite Militia form participating in the "battle" for Mosul. Today, MSM is full of news about the launch of the Iraqi attack on Mosul. But no mention of the deal to allow ISIL to escape into Syria, of course. Make no mistake: this is the U.S. launching ISIL against Russia, Syria, Iran, and Hezbollah in Syria. With the added bonus of being able to claim that this time, they trained the Iraqi Army correctly, as it walks into Mosul against only token resistance. Smoke and mirrors. This is U.S. war against Russia.
Paul Merrell

Syrian moderate rebel "spymaster" slams CIA for 'ignoring' detailed intel on Isil since... - 0 views

www.telegraph.co.uk/...-intel-on-Isil-since-2013.html

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy ISIL sandbagging

shared by Paul Merrell on 18 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • The "spymaster" of a key moderate Syrian rebel group has accused the CIA of failing to act on reams of detailed intelligence his network has been supplying the US on Isil since 2013 - including GPS coordinates of its leaders and headquarters. The Free Syrian Army’s spy chief insisted proper use of the intelligence his agents provided from within Isil’s ranks, and often at grave risk to their life, could have critically damaged the jihadist group on several occasions. Speaking to Le Monde in Turkey, “M”, as the French newspaper dubbed the man for security reasons, said: “From the moment Daesh (the Arab acronym for Isil) had 20 members to when it had 20,000, we have shown everything to the Americans. When we asked them what they did with this information, they always gave evasive answers, saying it was up to their decision-makers”. The Free Syrian Army, or FSA, was founded by a group of defected Syrian Armed Forces officers and soldiers in July 2011, and received backing from Britain and the US for its moderate line.
  • In the summer of 2014, while Isil besieged Mossul in Iraq, “M” helped devise a secret plan presented to the Americans to rout Isil from northern Syria on the Azaz-Alep line. The plan was detailed street by street, hour by hour, and included the precise itinerary of fighters and their refuelling points. “In every village held by Daesh, knew the number of armed men, where their offices and hideouts were. We had located snipers and mines, we knew where the local emir slept, the colour of his car and even the brand. From a tactical and strategic point of view, we were ready,” he said. However, the Americans failed to give the green light, he said. “They were reluctant to provide us satellite images. They said their planes couldn’t help once the fighting with Isil started. All they offered us was to get rid of a few obstacles before the start of the offensive,” he said. He then provided the US with details of the Isil command structure in Raqqa, from the emir to those in charge of checkpoints and pages of GPS coordinates. “That was a year and a half ago and Raqqa is still the capital of Daesh,” he said.
  • Paul Merrell on 18 Mar 16
     
    Why, it's almost as though the U.S. government doesn't want to really hurt ISIL. 
Paul Merrell

U.S. Military and Intelligence Officials to Obama: "Assad NOT Responsible for Chemical ... - 1 views

www.globalresearch.ca/...5348576

war & peace Syria false-flag must-read

shared by Paul Merrell on 06 Sep 13 - No Cached
  • MEMORANDUM FOR: The President FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) SUBJECT: Is Syria a Trap? Precedence: IMMEDIATE We regret to inform you that some of our former co-workers are telling us, categorically, that contrary to the claims of your administration, the most reliable intelligence shows that Bashar al-Assad was NOT responsible for the chemical incident that killed and injured Syrian civilians on August 21, and that British intelligence officials also know this. In writing this brief report, we choose to assume that you have not been fully informed because your advisers decided to afford you the opportunity for what is commonly known as “plausible denial.” We have been down this road before – with President George W. Bush, to whom we addressed our first VIPS memorandumimmediately after Colin Powell’s Feb. 5, 2003 U.N. speech, in which he peddled fraudulent “intelligence” to support attacking Iraq. Then, also, we chose to give President Bush the benefit of the doubt, thinking he was being misled – or, at the least, very poorly advised.
  • The fraudulent nature of Powell’s speech was a no-brainer. And so, that very afternoon we strongly urged your predecessor to “widen the discussion beyond …  the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic.” We offer you the same advice today. Our sources confirm that a chemical incident of some sort did cause fatalities and injuries on August 21 in a suburb of Damascus. They insist, however, that the incident was not the result of an attack by the Syrian Army using military-grade chemical weapons from its arsenal. That is the most salient fact, according to CIA officers working on the Syria issue. They tell us that CIA Director John Brennan is perpetrating a pre-Iraq-War-type fraud on members of Congress, the media, the public – and perhaps even you. We have observed John Brennan closely over recent years and, sadly, we find what our former colleagues are now telling us easy to believe. Sadder still, this goes in spades for those of us who have worked with him personally; we give him zero credence. And that goes, as well, for his titular boss, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who has admitted he gave “clearly erroneous” sworn testimony to Congress denying NSA eavesdropping on Americans.
  • That Secretary of State John Kerry would invoke Clapper’s name this week in Congressional testimony, in an apparent attempt to enhance the credibility of the four-page “Government Assessment” strikes us as odd. The more so, since it was, for some unexplained reason, not Clapper but the White House that released the “assessment.” This is not a fine point. We know how these things are done. Although the “Government Assessment” is being sold to the media as an “intelligence summary,” it is a political, not an intelligence document. The drafters, massagers, and fixers avoided presenting essential detail. Moreover, they conceded upfront that, though they pinned “high confidence” on the assessment, it still fell “short of confirmation.”
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  • There is a growing body of evidence from numerous sources in the Middle East — mostly affiliated with the Syrian opposition and its supporters — providing a strong circumstantial case that the August 21 chemical incident was a pre-planned provocation by the Syrian opposition and its Saudi and Turkish supporters. The aim is reported to have been to create the kind of incident that would bring the United States into the war. According to some reports, canisters containing chemical agent were brought into a suburb of Damascus, where they were then opened. Some people in the immediate vicinity died; others were injured. We are unaware of any reliable evidence that a Syrian military rocket capable of carrying a chemical agent was fired into the area. In fact, we are aware of no reliable physical evidence to support the claim that this was a result of a strike by a Syrian military unit with expertise in chemical weapons. In addition, we have learned that on August 13-14, 2013, Western-sponsored opposition forces in Turkey started advance preparations for a major, irregular military surge. Initial meetings between senior opposition military commanders and Qatari, Turkish and U.S. intelligence officials took place at the converted Turkish military garrison in Antakya, Hatay Province, now used as the command center and headquarters of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and their foreign sponsors.
  • Senior opposition commanders who came from Istanbul pre-briefed the regional commanders on an imminent escalation in the fighting due to “a war-changing development,” which, in turn, would lead to a U.S.-led bombing of Syria. At operations coordinating meetings at Antakya, attended by senior Turkish, Qatari and U.S. intelligence officials as well as senior commanders of the Syrian opposition, the Syrians were told that the bombing would start in a few days. Opposition leaders were ordered to prepare their forces quickly to exploit the U.S. bombing, march into Damascus, and remove the Bashar al-Assad government The Qatari and Turkish intelligence officials assured the Syrian regional commanders that they would be provided with plenty of weapons for the coming offensive. And they were. A weapons distribution operation unprecedented in scope began in all opposition camps on August 21-23. The weapons were distributed from storehouses controlled by Qatari and Turkish intelligence under the tight supervision of U.S. intelligence officers.
  • We hope your advisers have warned you that retaliation for attacks on Syrian are not a matter of IF, but rather WHERE and WHEN. Retaliation is inevitable. For example, terrorist strikes on U.S. embassies and other installations are likely to make what happened to the U.S. “Mission” in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012, look like a minor dust-up by comparison. One of us addressed this key consideration directly a week ago in an article titled “Possible Consequences of a U.S. Military Attack on Syria – Remembering the U.S. Marine Barracks Destruction in Beirut, 1983.”
  • Paul Merrell on 06 Sep 13
     
    This report by Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity is almost certainly the most credible report contradicting the White House's "intelligence summary" that included zero evidence supporting the claim that Syrian government forces had unleashed the August 21, 2013 chemical attack in Ghoutu, near Damascus and less than five miles away from the just-arrived UN investigative team.  Spread it far and wide. 
  • Gary Edwards on 06 Sep 13
     
    Wow!! The cover-up of this false flag operation designed to get us into another civil war is incredible. Yet the truth continues to leak out. The ruling elites must be so pissed right now. The Internet is changing the world balance of power - in real time no less. And we are witness. Awesome stuff Paul.
Paul Merrell

Syria war: new push against Assad being planned, reports suggest | World news | theguar... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...al-effort-southern-front-assad

war & peace Syria U.S. foreign policy

shared by Paul Merrell on 13 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • After months of battlefield stalemate in Syria, a flurry of reports from Washington, Jerusalem, Amman and the Gulf suggests a major new clandestine effort is under way to open up a "southern front" against the regime of Bashar al-Assad.Central to the mooted plan is a renewed push to provide Syria's badly divided and often ineffectual moderate, secular rebel groups with additional funding, upgraded weapons and intelligence support.What use they may make of such support, if indeed it fully materialises, remains to be seen.The initiative, as reported in the region, is set against a backdrop of secret talks in the US last month between Susan Rice, Barack Obama's national security adviser, and Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the Saudi interior minister in charge of covert action programmes in Syria.According to the usually well informed Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, spy chiefs from Jordan, Turkey, Qatar and other regional countries also attended the discussions, focused on making a "stronger effort" to help the rebels.
  • After months of battlefield stalemate in Syria, a flurry of reports from Washington, Jerusalem, Amman and the Gulf suggests a major new clandestine effort is under way to open up a "southern front" against the regime of Bashar al-Assad.Central to the mooted plan is a renewed push to provide Syria's badly divided and often ineffectual moderate, secular rebel groups with additional funding, upgraded weapons and intelligence support.What use they may make of such support, if indeed it fully materialises, remains to be seen.The initiative, as reported in the region, is set against a backdrop of secret talks in the US last month between Susan Rice, Barack Obama's national security adviser, and Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the Saudi interior minister in charge of covert action programmes in Syria.
  • According to the usually well informed Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, spy chiefs from Jordan, Turkey, Qatar and other regional countries also attended the discussions, focused on making a "stronger effort" to help the rebels.This meeting has been linked in turn to last month's launching by the Free Syrian Army (FSA) of what they termed a spring offensive in the south of Syria. The offensive began days after they received new US weapons funding that may eventually total $31.4m (£18.9m), rebel commanders said.After holding back for months owing to fears that new arms might fall into the hands of al-Qaida affiliates, unidentified American officials said Congress had given closed-door approval in January for renewed cash for light weapons intended for the moderate, secular opposition in the south.The new US funding supposedly augments a fresh push by Gulf states to finance rebel operations in the southern region of Syria, which are ultimately aimed at Damascus. More than $1bn has been disbursed since last summer, much of it for weapons purchases in eastern Europe, according to Gulf government sources quoted by regional media.
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  • Detailed media reports claim the operational plans, supply routes and tactics for the new push are being overseen by a secret international operations command centre in Amman staffed by military officials from 14 countries, including the US, Britain, Israel and Arab states opposed to the Assad regime."Rebel fighters and opposition members say the command centre, based in an intelligence headquarters building in Amman, channels vehicles, sniper rifles, mortars, heavy machine guns, small arms and ammunition to Free Syrian Army units," the Abu Dhabi-based National newspaper reported.Jordan denies the existence of the centre and of reportedly CIA-run rebel training facilities in northern Jordan.
Paul Merrell

Report: Syria transported chemical weapons to Iraq | JPost | Israel News - 0 views

www.jpost.com/...hemical-weapons-to-Iraq-326141

war & peace Syria FSA Iraq WMD

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Sep 13 - No Cached
  • Syria has moved 20 trucks worth of equipment and material used for the manufacturing of chemical weapons into neighboring Iraq, the Lebanese daily Al-Mustaqbal reported on Sunday. The government in Baghdad has denied allegations that it is helping the Syrian government conceal chemical stockpiles.
  • The report came just a day after the United States and Russia struck a deal stipulating that Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime would destroy its chemical arsenal to avert an American military assault.The newspaper reported that the trucks crossed the boundary separating Syria with Iraq over the course of Thursday and Friday. Border guards did not inspect the contents of the trucks, which raises suspicions that they contained illicit cargo, according to Al-Mustaqbal.Al-Mustaqbal, a publication that has long been affiliated with anti-Syrian political elements in Lebanon, quoted a spokesperson for Iraq's interior ministry, Saad Maan, as saying that security forces were deployed along the border and were checking all vehicles coming into the country.
  • "Iraq today is not Saddam Hussein's Iraq," he said. "It is not an Iraq which resorts to the use of chemical weapons against its own people or against its neighbors." "These accusations are all rumors and are useless and no one believes them," he said.Last week, the head of the Free Syrian Army told CNN that opposition intelligence indicated Assad was moving chemical arms out of the country."Today, we have information that the regime began to move chemical materials and chemical weapons to Lebanon and to Iraq," General Salim Idriss told CNN."We have told our friends that the regime has begun moving a part of its chemical weapons arsenal to Lebanon and Iraq. We told them do not be fooled," Idris told reporters in Istanbul."All of this initiative does not interest us. Russia is a partner with the regime in killing the Syrian people. A crime against humanity has been committed and there is not any mention of accountability."
  • Paul Merrell on 16 Sep 13
     
    In other variants of this propaganda, the WMD being shipped to Iraq are the same WMD that Saddam Hussein supposedly hid in Syria so that the invading U.S. and U.K. troops wouldn't find them. The Free Syrian Army has itself been caught before wielding chemical weapons against the Syrian government and its citizens. Low credibility even on this tamer version, although it can't be ruled out at this point. 
Paul Merrell

U.S. suspends aid to Syrian rebels after Islamists seize warehouses - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...3-af0d-4bb80d704888_story.html

war & peace Syria Jordan FSA Special-Forces

shared by Paul Merrell on 13 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • The U.S. government said Wednesday that it has suspended delivery of nonlethal aid to Syria’s rebels because an Islamist group has taken control of the warehouses where the supplies were stored, a seizure that exposed the rapidly shrinking authority of the moderate opposition factions backed by the United States and its Western allies. The United States continues to supply humanitarian aid to Syrian civilians affected by the long-running conflict, and officials indicated that a covert program to provide small arms and ammunition to rebels in the southern part of the country was ongoing.
  • The recently created Islamic Front, which seized control of the warehouses, includes the biggest Islamist factions in Syria. The front’s expanding presence, and the fact that it is not affiliated with al-Qaeda, may leave the United States with little choice but to work with it, if Washington hopes to retain any influence over Syria’s opposition, analysts and rebel leaders say.
Paul Merrell

US switches military aid from rebels in the north to new pro-US security zone against A... - 0 views

www.debka.com/...security-zone-against-Al-Qaeda

war & peace Syria Jordan FSA Special-Forces

shared by Paul Merrell on 13 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • The US and UK announced Wednesday the suspension of non-lethal military aid to the Syrian opposition in the northern part of the country after Free Syrian Army bases near the Turkish border were seized by a new Islamist front. debkafile reports that that was only part of the rationale for pulling the last rug from under the feet of the moderate Syrian rebel wing holding the border with Turkey.  debkafile’s military and intelligence sources report exclusively that Washington decided to switch its military support, such as it is, from the North to a pro-American security sector which is being carved out in the South by the US and Britain. The aid will be transferred to the Syrian rebels they trained in Jordan to man the sector, under the supervision of two US war rooms established in the northern Jordanian town of Irbid. The two war rooms fall under the head of the US Special Operations Command, Adm.  William Harry “Bill” McRaven, who is headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida.
  • An American general, whose identity is kept secret, is posted on the spot. His job, supported by a team of US officers, is to operate the two war rooms and assign their tasks to the 11,000 American special forces and air force troops personnel posted in the Hashemite Kingdom. Their primary mission, as laid down by the White House in Washington in a directive to the Pentagon, is to run the rebel units charged with taking control of the security zone, which runs south of Damascus, west to the Syrian border with Lebanon, southwest to its border with Israel including the Syrian Golan, south to its border with Jordan and east to its border with Iraq. This wedge of land covers about one-tenth of Syrian territory. Washington has designed this zone to distance Al Qaeda’s Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS (The Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham) from Syria’s borderlands with Jordan, Israel and Lebanon – and prevent them coming close to Damascus. By this security enclave, the US also contributes to shoring up Syrian central government in the capital, including that of Bashar Assad, against Al Qaeda encroachments from the east.
  • Paul Merrell on 13 Dec 13
     
    Looks like the U.S. is about to unleash the mercenaries and Special Forces that it has assembled in Jordan along the Syrian border. Apparently Obama has decided that to abandon the Free Syrian Army in northern Syria.  (The Debkafile publication is Israeli and reputedly has close ties with Israel's intelligence agencies.) 
Paul Merrell

Turkey Plans to Invade Syria, But to Stop the Kurds, Not ISIS - The Daily Beast - 0 views

www.thedailybeast.com/...to-syria-widening-the-war.html

war & peace Syria Turkey invasion Kurds

shared by Paul Merrell on 30 Jun 15 - No Cached
  • Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is planning a military intervention into northern Syria to prevent Syrian Kurds from forming their own state there, despite concerns among his own generals and possible criticism from Washington and other NATO allies, according to reports in both pro- and anti-government media. In a speech last Friday, Erdogan vowed that Turkey would not accept a move by Syrian Kurds to set up their own state in Syria following gains by Kurdish fighters against the so-called Islamic State, or ISIS, in recent weeks. “I am saying this to the whole world: We will never allow the establishment of a state on our southern border in the north of Syria,” Erdogan said. “We will continue our fight in that respect whatever the cost may be.” He accused Syrian Kurds of ethnic cleansing in Syrian areas under their control.After the speech, several news outlets reported that the president and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu had decided to send the Turkish army into Syria, a hugely significant move by NATO’s second-biggest fighting force after the U.S. military. Both the daily Yeni Safak, a mouthpiece of the government, and the newspaper Sozcu, which is among Erdogan’s fiercest critics, ran stories saying the Turkish Army had received orders to send soldiers over the border. Several other media had similar stories, all quoting unnamed sources in Ankara. There has been no official confirmation or denial by the government.
  • The reports said up to 18,000 soldiers would be deployed to take over and hold a strip of territory up to 30 kilometers deep and 100 kilometers long that is held by ISIS. It stretches from close to the Kurdish-controlled city of Kobani in the east to an area further west held by the pro-Western Free Syrian Army (FSA) and other rebel groups, beginning around the town of Mare. This “Mare Line,” as the press calls it, is to be secured with ground troops, artillery and air cover, the reports said. Yeni Safak reported preparations were due to be finalized by next Friday. There has been speculation about a Turkish military intervention ever since the Syrian conflict began in 2011. Ankara has asked the United Nations and its Western allies to give the green light to create a buffer zone and a no-fly area inside Syria to prevent chaos along the Turkish border and to help refugees on Syrian soil before they cross over into Turkey. But the Turkish request has fallen on deaf ears.
  • The daily Hurriyet reported Erdogan and Davutoglu wanted to “kill two birds with one stone” with a military intervention along the Mare Line. One aim would be to drive ISIS away from the Turkish border, depriving the jihadists of their last foothold on the frontier and thereby cutting off supply lines. Such a move would tie in with the U.S. strategy to contain and weaken ISIS.A second goal of the operation would be closer to Ankara’s own interests. The English-language Hurriyet Daily News quoted one source saying there was a need to  “prevent the PYD from taking full control over the Turkish-Syrian border,” and also to create a zone on Syrian territory rather than in Turkey to take in new waves of refugees.But the military is reluctant, the reports said. Generals told the government that Turkish troops could come up against ISIS, Kurds, and Syrian government troops and get drawn into the Syrian quagmire. Retaliation attacks by ISIS and Kurdish militants on Turkish territory are another concern.
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  • Finally, the soldiers pointed to the international dimension. The military leadership told the government that the international community might get the impression that Turkey’s intervention was directed against Syria’s Kurds, the newspaper Haberturk reported.Turkey’s NATO partners, some of whom have deployed troops operating Patriot missile defense units near the Syrian border to shield member country Turkey against possible attacks from Syria, are unlikely to be happy with a Turkish intervention.
Paul Merrell

Turkey denies allegations it tipped off al Qaida abductors | McClatchy DC - 0 views

www.mcclatchydc.com/...article32378286.html

war & peace Division30 Turkey betrayal

shared by Paul Merrell on 28 Aug 15 - No Cached
  • The Turkish government Tuesday denied accusations by Syrian rebels that its intelligence service had tipped off an al Qaida-linked group that then abducted the commander and 20 members of a U.S.-trained group of Syrian fighters about to confront the Islamic State.In a statement to McClatchy, which first reported on Monday the allegations from multiple Syrian rebel groups that the Nusra Front had been alerted by the Turkish government, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s office said it denied “the allegations in the strongest terms possible. The idea that Turkey, a key supporter of the Train and Equip Program, would seek to undermine its own interests in Syria is ludicrous.” The statement was attributed to a senior member of the prime minister’s office.The dispute centers around the arrival into Syria of the first 54 members of a program by a coalition of anti-Islamic State members – including the U.S., Jordan, the United Kingdom and Turkey – to train and equip carefully vetted Syrian rebels for the fight against the Islamic State in Syria. The so called “T&E” group is part of a moderate Syrian rebel group known as Division 30, which has drawn members from a variety of units that were once under the umbrella of the Free Syrian Army. The FSA led the initial military uprising against the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad before being eclipsed by a number of jihadist and Islamist groups, including the Islamic State.
  • On July 29, the 54 fighters and their commander, Col. Nadim Hassan, arrived in Azaz, along the Turkish border, where they were immediately abducted or attacked by the Nusra Front. Hassan and about 20 of his men remain held by Nusra, which has declared the group an American front designed to target Islamists, despite the group’s repeated insistence that it would only participate in operations against the Islamic State, which Nusra, despite sharing a common ideology and origins in al Qaida in Iraq, also fights.
  • The United States has frequently clashed with both the Syrian opposition and Turkey over the role of Islamist groups in the Syrian civil war. But many of America’s allies in the region and inside Syria have been loath to cut ties to the groups and continue to cooperate with them both politically and on the battlefield. The Turkish prime minister’s statement added that – despite a widespread belief among other Syrian rebel groups and many regional analysts that it has cooperated with Nusra in the past – it considers Nusra a terrorist organization and has no official contact. “We regard the claims as part of a defamation campaign against Turkey,” the statement said. “In the past, we have repeatedly stated that the government of Turkey designates and treats al Nusra Front as a terrorist organization. There has been absolutely no change in our policy toward the organization.”EDITORS: STORY CAN END HERESpeaking on the condition of anonymity, a Turkish intelligence official said that the breakdown in security, which left the future of the $500 million training program in grave doubt, was the result of members of Division 30 openly advertising their movements on social media.
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  • “Everyone was talking about that (deployment,)” the official said. “Many groups on the ground, the (Islamist) opposition all were talking about when and how (the T&E) might enter Syria. There might be resentment because the incoming forces had good money, education and training. No one wanted them to be successful.”But Turkey itself has long criticized the T&E program for not only being too small in scale but for only focusing on the Islamic State, an argument repeated by Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu in a televised statement Tuesday evening, who said the abduction of the group proved that Turkey’s concerns were justified.“Now it is seen that Turkey’s (thesis) appears justified on T&E,” he told reporters. “We have been saying for a long period that in order to fight against (the Islamic State), the T&E program alone will not be enough, but can be a supportive element.”
Paul Merrell

Saudi Increases Arms Supplies to 3 Syrian Terrorist Fronts - 0 views

en.alalam.ir/...1747047

war & peace Syria Russia U.S.-foreign-policy UK France Germany turkey Qatar Saudis

shared by Paul Merrell on 11 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • Saudi Arabia is ramping up its supplies of lethal weaponry to three different rebel groups in Syria in response to the Russian airstrikes on Syrian rebels, British media reported, citing a Saudi government official in Riyadh. The official, who was speaking on condition of anonymity, said supplies of modern, high-powered weaponry including guided anti-tank weapons would be increased to the Arab-and Western-backed rebel groups fighting the forces of Syria's President Bashar Assad, the BBC reported on Friday. He did not rule out supplying surface-to-air missiles to the rebels, a move resisted by many in the West for fear that they would fall into the hands of ISIL and end up being used to shoot down warplanes of the US-led coalition or even civilian airliners. He said the weapons would go to three rebel alliances — Jaish al-Fatah (Army of Conquest), the so-caled Free Syrian Army (FSA) and the Southern Front.
  • On October 2 the United States and its allies — Britain, France, Germany, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia — urged Russia to end its airstrikes against the forces of the so-called “moderate opposition” in Syria, warning this would further escalate the conflict and lead to a new weave of extremism and radicalism in the war-torn country.
Paul Merrell

The Engineered Destruction and Political Fragmentation of Iraq. Towards the Creation of... - 0 views

www.globalresearch.ca/...5386998

war & peace Iraq ISIL Mosul U.S.-foreign-policy

shared by Paul Merrell on 15 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • The Capture of Mosul:  US-NATO Covert Support to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) Something unusual occurred in Mosul which cannot be explained in strictly military terms. On June 10, the insurgent forces of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) captured Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, with a population of close to 1.5 million people.  While these developments were “unexpected” according to the Obama administration, they were known to the Pentagon and US intelligence, which were not only providing weapons, logistics and financial support to the ISIS rebels, they were also coordinating, behind the scenes, the ISIS attack on the city of Mosul. While ISIS is a well equipped and disciplined rebel army when compared to other Al Qaeda affiliated formations, the capture of Mosul, did not hinge upon ISIS’s military capabilities. Quite the opposite: Iraqi forces which outnumbered the rebels by far, equipped with advanced weapons systems could have easily repelled the ISIS rebels. There were 30,000 government forces in Mosul as opposed to 1000 ISIS rebels, according to reports. The Iraqi army chose not to intervene. The media reports explained without evidence that the decision of the Iraqi armed forces not to intervene was spontaneous characterized by mass defections.
  • Iraqi officials told the Guardian that two divisions of Iraqi soldiers – roughly 30,000 men – simply turned and ran in the face of the assault by an insurgent force of just 800 fighters. Isis extremists roamed freely on Wednesday through the streets of Mosul, openly surprised at the ease with which they took Iraq’s second largest city after three days of sporadic fighting. (Guardian, June 12, 2014, emphasis added) The reports point to the fact that Iraqi military commanders were sympathetic with the Sunni led ISIS insurgency: Speaking from the Kurdish city of Erbil, the defectors accused their officers of cowardice and betrayal, saying generals in Mosul “handed over” the city over to Sunni insurgents, with whom they shared sectarian and historical ties. (Daily Telegraph,  13 June 2014) What is important to understand, is that both sides, namely the regular Iraqi forces and the ISIS rebel army are supported by US-NATO. There were US military advisers and special forces including operatives from private military companies on location in Mosul working with Iraq’s regular armed forces. In turn, there are Western special forces or mercenaries within ISIS (acting on contract to the CIA or the Pentagon) who are in liaison with US-NATO (e.g. through satellite phones).
  • Under these circumstances, with US intelligence amply involved, there would have been routine communication, coordination, logistics and exchange of intelligence between a US-NATO military and intelligence command center, US-NATO military advisers forces or private military contractors on the ground assigned to the Iraqi Army and Western special forces attached to the ISIS brigades. These Western special forces operating covertly within the ISIS could have been dispatched by a private security company on contract to US-NATO.
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  • In this regard, the capture of Mosul appears to have been a carefully engineered operation, planned well in advance. With the exception of a few skirmishes, no fighting took place. Entire divisions of the Iraqi National Army –trained by the US military with advanced weapons systems at their disposal– could have easily repelled the ISIS rebels. Reports suggest that they were ordered by their commanders not to intervene. According to witnesses, “Not a single shot was fired”. The forces that had been in Mosul have fled — some of which abandoned their uniforms as well as their posts as the ISIS forces swarmed into the city. Fighters with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), an al-Qaeda offshoot, overran the entire western bank of the city overnight after Iraqi soldiers and police apparently fled their posts, in some instances discarding their uniforms as they sought to escape the advance of the militants. http://hotair.com/archives/2014/06/10/mosul-falls-to-al-qaeda-as-us-trained-security-forces-flee/
  • A contingent of one thousand ISIS rebels take over a city of more than one million? Without prior knowledge that the US controlled Iraqi Army (30,000 strong) would not intervene, the Mosul operation would have fallen flat, the rebels would have been decimated. Who was behind the decision to let the ISIS terrorists take control of Mosul? Had the senior Iraqi commanders been instructed by their Western military advisers to hand over the city to the ISIS terrorists? Were they co-opted?
  • The formation of the caliphate may be the first step towards a broader conflict in the Middle East, bearing in mind that Iran is supportive of the Al Maliki government and the US ploy may indeed be to encourage the intervention of Iran. The proposed redivision of Iraq is broadly modeled on that of the Federation of Yugoslavia which was split up into seven “independent states” (Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia (FYRM), Slovenia, Montenegro, Kosovo). According to Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, the re division of Iraq into three separate states is part of a broader process of redrawing the Map of the Middle East.
  • US forces could have intervened. They had been instructed to let it happen. It was part of a carefully planned agenda to facilitate the advance of the ISIS rebel forces and the installation of the ISIS caliphate. The whole operation appears to have been carefully staged.
  • In Mosul, government buildings, police stations, schools, hospitals, etc are formally now under the control of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). In turn, ISIS has taken control of military hardware including helicopters and tanks which were abandoned by the Iraqi armed forces. What is unfolding is the installation of a US sponsored Islamist ISIS caliphate alongside the rapid demise of the Baghdad government. Meanwhile, the Northern Kurdistan region has de facto declared its independence from Baghdad. Kurdish peshmerga rebel forces (which are supported by Israel) have taken control of the cities of Arbil and Kirkuk. (See map above) Concluding Remarks There were no Al Qaeda rebels in Iraq prior to the 2003 invasion. Moreover, Al Qaeda was non-existent in Syria until the outset of the US-NATO-Israeli supported insurgency in March 2011. The ISIS is not an independent entity. It is a creation of US intelligence. It is a US intelligence asset, an instrument of non-conventional warfare.
  • Was the handing over of Mosul to ISIS part of a US intelligence agenda? Were the Iraqi military commanders manipulated or paid off into allowing the city to fall into the hands of the ISIS rebels without “a single shot being fired”. Shiite General Mehdi Sabih al-Gharawi who was in charge of the Mosul Army divisions “had left the city”. Al Gharawi had worked hand in glove with the US military. He took over the command of Mosul in September 2011, from US Col Scott McKean. Had he been co-opted, instructed by his US counterparts to abandon his command?
  • The ultimate objective of this ongoing US-NATO engineered conflict opposing Maliki government forces to the ISIS insurgency is to destroy and destabilize Iraq as a Nation State. It is part of an intelligence operation, an engineered process of  transforming countries into territories. The break up of Iraq along sectarian lines is a longstanding policy of the US and its allies. The ISIS is a caliphate project of creating a Sunni Islamist state. It is not a project of the Sunni population of Iraq which historically has been committed to a secular system of government. The caliphate project is a US design. The advances of ISIS forces is intended to garnish broad support within the Sunni population directed against the Al Maliki government The division of Iraq along sectarian-ethnic lines has been on the drawing board of the Pentagon for more than 10 years.
  • The above map was prepared by Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters. It was published in the Armed Forces Journal in June 2006, Peters is a retired colonel of the U.S. National War Academy. (Map Copyright Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters 2006). Although the map does not officially reflect Pentagon doctrine, it has been used in a training program at NATO’s Defense College for senior military officers”. (See Plans for Redrawing the Middle East: The Project for a “New Middle East” By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, Global Research, November 2006)
  • The Western media in chorus have described the unfolding conflict in Iraq as a “civil war” opposing the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham against the Armed forces of the Al-Maliki government. (Also referred to as Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) or Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)) The conflict is casually described as “sectarian warfare” between Radical Sunni and Shia without addressing “who is behind the various factions”.  What is at stake is a carefully staged US military-intelligence agenda. Known and documented, Al Qaeda affiliated entities have been used by US-NATO in numerous conflicts as “intelligence assets” since the heyday of the Soviet-Afghan war. In Syria, the Al Nusrah and ISIS rebels are the foot-soldiers of the Western military alliance, which oversees and controls the recruitment and training of paramilitary forces.
  • The Al Qaeda affiliated Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) re-emerged in April 2013 with a different name and acronym, commonly referred to as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The formation of a terrorist entity encompassing both Iraq and Syria was part of a US intelligence agenda. It responded to geopolitical objectives. It also coincided with the advances of Syrian government forces against the US sponsored insurgency in Syria and the failures of both the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and its various “opposition” terror brigades. The decision was taken by Washington to channel its support (covertly) in favor of a terrorist entity which operates in both Syria and Iraq and which has logistical bases in both countries. The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham’s Sunni caliphate project coincides with a longstanding US agenda to carve up both Iraq and Syria into three separate territories: A Sunni Islamist Caliphate, an Arab Shia Republic, and a Republic of Kurdistan.
  • Whereas the (US proxy) government in Baghdad purchases advanced weapons systems from the US including F16 fighter jets from Lockheed Martin, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham –which is fighting Iraqi government forces– is supported covertly by Western intelligence. The objective is to engineer a civil war in Iraq, in which both sides are controlled indirectly by US-NATO. The scenario is to arm and equip them, on both sides, finance them with advanced weapons systems and then “let them fight”.
  • The Islamic caliphate is supported covertly by the CIA in liaison with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkish intelligence. Israel is also involved in channeling support to both Al Qaeda rebels in Syria (out of the Golan Heights) as well to the Kurdish separatist movement in Syria and Iraq.
  • First published by GR on June 14, 2014.  President Barack Obama has initiated a series of US bombing raids in Iraq allegedly directed towards the rebel army of the Islamic State (IS). The Islamic State terrorists are portrayed as an enemy of America and the Western world. Amply documented, the Islamic State is a creation of Western intelligence, supported by the CIA and Israel’s Mossad and financed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar. We are dealing with a diabolical military agenda whereby the United States is targeting a rebel army which is directly funded by the US and its allies. The incursion into Iraq of the Islamic State rebels in late June was part of a carefully planned intelligence operation. The rebels of the Islamic state, formerly known as the ISIS, were covertly supported by US-NATO-Israel  to wage a terrorist insurgency against the Syrian government of Bashar Al Assad.  The atrocities committed in Iraq are similar to those committed in Syria. The sponsors of IS including Barack Obama have blood on their hands.
  • The killings of innocent civilians by the Islamic state terrorists create a pretext and the justification for US military intervention on humanitarian grounds. Lest we forget, the rebels who committed these atrocities and who are a target of US military action are supported by the United States. The bombing raids ordered by Obama are not intended to eliminate the terrorists. Quite the opposite, the US is targeting the civilian population as well as the Iraqi resistance movement. The endgame is to destabilize Iraq as a nation state and trigger its partition into three separate entities.
  • Paul Merrell on 15 Jun 14
     
    The destabilization and fragmentation of Israel's neighboring nations has indeed been on the Zionist/Neocon drawing board for a very long time. http://goo.gl/Z1gdoA In the Mideast, it's important to remember that there are no significant Islamist forces that are not under the control of the U.S. or its allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The Iraqi Army's withdrawal of the two divisions from the defense of Mosul is indeed curious. In that regard, Col. Peters' map of a future Mideast is almost certainly more than a coincidence. 
Paul Merrell

AL tabled UNSC Resolution on the Middle East likely to fail absent a US-U-Turn | nsnbc ... - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...ely-to-fail-absent-a-us-u-turn

Arab-League Palestine Gholan-Heights Sheba-Farms UNSC-Resolution

shared by Paul Merrell on 11 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • The Arab League announced that it would re-table a draft resolution at the UN Security Council on Monday, calling for an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian and other Arab territories including the occupied Syrian Golan and the Lebanese Sheba Farms. The Arab League’s draft resolution calls for a full Israeli withdrawal from all of the territories Israel occupied during the 1967 war. That is, Palestinian territories including East Jerusalem, the Israeli occupied Syrian Golan as well as the Israeli occupied, Lebanese Sheba Farms area in southeastern Lebanon.
  • The Arab League perceives the draft resolution as part of a policy based on the notion that a resolution of the Israel – Palestinian conflict only can be found within the framework of a comprehensive resolution that includes other issues which arose as a consequence to the 1967 war. In December 2014 the UN Security Council rejected a similar, Jordanian-sponsored draft resolution that called for a full Israeli withdrawal within two years. The resolution was endorsed by eight concurrent votes, falling one vote short of the minimum of nine votes. Had the resolution received the necessary nine votes, stated the U.S. State Department, the United States would have made use of its veto right at the Security Council. It were the victors of WWII who “endowed themselves” with the veto right, practically subjugating all other UN member States to the political will of the permanent UN Security Council members.
  • The rejection of the draft resolution, in December, prompted the President of the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority to accede to some 20 international treaties, including the Rome Statute. On April 1, Palestine will become a member to the United Nations’s International Criminal Court (ICC). Neither the U.S., Russia, China or Israel have made their citizens subject to prosecution by the ICC.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Al-Khadoumi points out that Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, in 2013, stated that “Israel and the Golan are part and parcel” and that the “international community” should settle the question about sovereignty over the Golan within the framework of an Israel – Palestinian agreement. Besides open announcements about plans to permanently annex the Syrian Golan, Israel has been supporting Jabhat al-Nusrah and other al-Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood(FSA and co.) brigades via the Golan since 2012. In 2013 Israel’s covert support of the insurgents was leaked to the press by an Austrian UNDOF officer. By February 2014 the administration of Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu launched a PR campaign to sell the support of the Islamist mercenary brigades under “humanitarian cover”. (see video)
  • By October 2014 Israel’s direct cooperation and State sponsorship of Jabhat al-Nusrah, the so-called Free Syrian Army and other mercenary brigades resulted in the withdrawal of UNDOF troops from a 12 – 16 km wide corridor in the buffer zone. (see UNDOF map above) The withdrawal has since then facilitated the direct interaction between Israeli military and intelligence and the foreign-backed mercenaries, using the Golan Heights as well as the Israeli occupied, Lebanese Sheba Farms area as launching pads for transgressions against Syria and Lebanon. Absent a U-turn in U.S. policy with regard to Israel and Syria, notes Al-Khadoumi, it is highly implausible that the re-drafted Security Council resolution will pass, or that it won’t be vetoed by the United States.
  • Paul Merrell on 11 Mar 15
     
    There is a possibility that the U.S. may abstain from voting and allow the resolution to pass. The Obama Administration was considering such a move even before the flap over Netanyahu's speech to Congress because of Israel's refusal to negotiate in good faith for a 2-state solution. And if ever there was a situation crying out for a smackdown of Israeli government, it was Netanyahu's speech.   
Paul Merrell

Reports: "Israeli Soldier Killed As Syrian Army Targets Gunmen In al-Quneitra" | nsnbc ... - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...-targets-gunmen-in-al-quneitra

war & peace Syria Israel FSA IDF-officer-killed

shared by Paul Merrell on 13 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • According to reports by the Almayadeen News Agency and the Al-Akhbar News Agency, an Israeli officer was shot and killed, a few days ago, “during a meeting between Israeli officers and officials of the Free Syrian Army” in al-Quneitra city, southwest of Syria. The reports allege the officer was among a number of Israeli commanders who met with leaders of the “Free Syrian Army” a few days ago, including Abu Osama an-Na’imi, who was also killed in the incident.
  • They said the officer; referred to as “Johnny,” was killed when Syrian soldiers targeted a site belonging to the Free Syrian Army in the al-Fitian town, in the Quneitra suburb. According to the Almayadeen report, the Israeli commander, in addition to Abu Osama and, a Jordanian officer, were planning to attack Daraa and al-Quneitra to obstruct the Syrian army after it managed to advance into the area for the first time since mid-February. In addition, the Al-Akhbar News Agency in Lebanon said it is likely that the Israeli commander was in charge of communications in a unit of the Givati Israeli Brigade, and was allegedly “involved in training armed fighters in Syria on advanced communication systems.” Al-Akbar quoted unnamed senior sources stating that the location where Israel said its officer “was injured by a live round” is relatively far from areas of clashes; therefore, “it is possible Israel is preparing to declare the death of its soldier without defining a clear geographical location.
  • Paul Merrell on 13 Mar 15
     
    Israel is having problems with keeping its role in the Syrian War quiet.
Paul Merrell

Let Congress Vote on Iraq War III - 0 views

www.informationclearinghouse.info/article39450.htm

war & peace Iraq Syria ISIL Congress

shared by Paul Merrell on 19 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • the demand of Sens. Tim Kaine and Rand Paul — that before Obama takes us back to war in Iraq, or into a new war in Syria, Congress must debate and authorize this war — is a constitutional and political imperative. The questions Congress needs to answer are obvious and numerous. Who exactly is our enemy? ISIS only, or Assad, Hezbollah and Iran as well? Will our involvement be restricted to air power — fighter-bombers, gunships, cruise missiles, drones? Or should the president be authorized to send U.S. ground troops to fight? If we are to be restricted to air power, is it to be confined to Iraq, or can it be used in Syria — and against Assad as well as ISIS? If U.S. combat troops cannot be used, what are the prospects of expelling ISIS from Iraq? And if we should drive them out, what is the probability they will come back as soon as we leave, especially if we have left them in control of northern Syria? Is annihilation of ISIS the only permanent solution? How long and bloody a war would that require? Will the president be authorized to coordinate war planning with Tehran? And if Assad is to become our de facto ally, should we end our support for the Free Syrian Army and negotiate an armistice and amnesty for the FSA?
  • Congress must be forced to debate and vote on this war, first, so we can hold them accountable for what is to come. Second, so we can force them to come to consensus on just what kind of outcome in this region is acceptable, and attainable, and at what cost. What will victory look like? What will be the cost in blood and treasure? How long are we prepared to fight this war, an end to which does not today seem to be anywhere in sight? How reasonable is it to expect that the Kurdish peshmerga and an Iraqi Army that fled Kirkuk, Fallujah and Mosul, will be able to recapture the Sunni regions of Iraq? Finally, why is this our fight, 6,000 miles away, and not theirs?
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