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France and Germany on Wednesday announced moves intended to choke off cash flowing to the Islamic State, and said they would encourage the other 26 European Union nations to do the same when they meet next week.The French finance minister, Michel Sapin, said that in the wake of recent terrorist attacks in Paris, Mali, Egypt and Beirut, Lebanon, “we must act more quickly and more decisively.”The moves announced by Mr. Sapin included immediate efforts to speed up a crackdown on money laundering that had been scheduled to take effect in 2017. A faster and fuller exchange of banking data is needed in a world where even three hours’ notice could allow the authorities to foil a terrorist plot, Mr. Sapin said after talks with his German counterpart, Wolfgang Schäuble.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that Israeli forces operate in Syria from “time to time.” It is the first public recognition of Israel’s military involvement in its neighboring war-torn country. The Israeli leader said that forces carry out operations to prevent weapons transfers to Lebanon, where Iranian-backed Shiite militant group Hezbollah—which went to war with Israel in 2006—operates, and to stop southern Syria becoming a front against Israel. "We operate in Syria from time to time to prevent it from becoming a front against us, a second terror front against us," Netanyahu said at the Galilee Conference in the northern Israeli city of Acre, the Associated Press reported.

He added: "We are also acting of course to prevent the transfer of deadly weapons from Syria to Lebanon in particular and we will continue to do so.” Netanyahu did not elaborate further on Israeli operations in Syrian territory but Israeli forces have carried out airstrikes against a number of regime targets this year and have also attacked Hezbollah fighters—allies of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad— operating on its border. Israeli intelligence service Mossad has also been linked with the 2008 assassination of top Hezbollah commander Imad Mugniyah in Damascus. Other Israeli strikes in Syrian territory have been widely reported since the onset of the Syrian civil war in March 2011. The Israeli military acknowledged this year’s strikes but Israeli officials have never publicly admitted to the country’s involvement within Syrian territory.

A petition calling for Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump to be barred from entering the UK has gathered more than 370,000 names, so MPs will have to consider debating it.The petition went on Parliament's e-petition website on Tuesday. It was posted in response to Mr Trump's call for a temporary halt on Muslims entering the United States. Chancellor George Osborne criticised Mr Trump's comments but rejected calls for him to be banned from the UK.A counter-petition, set up on Wednesday, saying Mr Trump should not be banned as it would be "totally illogical" has attracted more than 9,000 signatures. Any petition with more than 100,000 signatures is automatically considered for debate in Parliament.

In other developments: Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has stripped Mr Trump of his status as a business ambassador for Scotland. Aberdeen's Robert Gordon University has revoked Mr Trump's honorary degree, which he received in 2010 in recognition of his achievements as an entrepreneur and businessman. One of the Middle East's largest retail chains, Lifestyle, has withdrawn Donald Trump products from its shelves following his comments.

Sub Categories: » HOMEPAGE / WORLD/ MIDEASTSaturday,December 12 2015, Your time is 1:49:10 AMMIDEAST >Putin orders military to take tough action against threats in Syria MOSCOW - Agence France-PressePrint Page Send to friend » Share on FacebookRussian President Vladimir Putin addresses the audience during an annual meeting at the Defence Ministry in Moscow, Russia, December 11, 2015. REUTERS PhotoPresident Vladimir Putin on Dec. 11 ordered his forces in Syria to take tough action against any threats, speaking two weeks after Turkey shot down a Russian warplane in the war-torn country."I order you to act as tough as possible," he told a defence meeting in televised remarks.     "Any targets threatening the Russian grouping or our land infrastructure should be immediately destroyed."   "I would like to warn those who would once again try to organise some sort of provocations against our servicemen," he said in a thinly veiled threat to Ankara.

Putin's call for a tougher military response is also likely to cause concern among monitors who have repeatedly accused Russia of conducting an indiscriminate bombing campaign and killing civilians in Syria.   Russia has been carrying out air strikes in the war-ravaged nation at the request of President Bashar al-Assad since the end of September, while a US-led coalition is conducting its own campaign targeting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).      Earlier this week Russia said it hit IS targets with missiles fired from a submarine in the Mediterranean for the first time since launching the campaign on September 30.     Putin rejected claims that Russia is using the Syrian campaign, which also saw the military fire off cruise missiles from warships in the Caspean Sea, to showcase its top weapons to the West.   "Our actions there are not guided by some unclear abstract geopolitical interests, nor are they guided by a desire to practice and test new weapons systems which is of course important in itself," Putin said at the defence meeting.   "The most important thing is not this. The most important thing is to prevent the threat to Russia itself."   Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, for his part, said ISIL jihadists now control 70 percent of Syrian territory, putting their number at 60,000.

Translated from Arabic language Alrai Media (thanks to the reliable Fort Russ Russian news site), the senior Syrian officer at the operations room is quoted as saying: “Soon Syria will announce that any country using the airspace without coordinating with Damascus will be viewed as hostile and [we] will shoot the jet down without warning. Those willing to fight terrorism and coordinate with the military leadership will be granted safe corridors.” This may seem like a dangerous escalation. American fighter jets have been bombing Syrian territory since September 2014, having carried out thousands of air strikes allegedly against the Islamic State (IS) terror group (also known by its Arabic name Daesh). Since the Paris terror attacks last month, France has stepped up its air strikes in Syria too. In the past week, Britain and Germany parliaments have voted for their air forces to join the other NATO members in aerial operations. The US-led bombing coalition in Syria also includes Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Russia is the only country whose military aircraft are legally deployed in Syria because Moscow has the full consent of the Syrian government. All the others do not have consent from Damascus. So we have at least seven foreign powers deploying their warplanes to bomb Syrian territory – all in violation of international law.

It is irrelevant whether the US-led alliance claims to be fighting terrorists, or whether they claim it is in “self-defence” as France, Britain and Germany are. The Germany justice minister Heiko Maas, speaking after the Bundestag voted for military action this week, claimed that the United Nations Security Council resolution passed last month in the wake of the Paris attacks makes the German intervention legal. That UNSC resolution does not specifically sanction military action. In any case, the ultimate legal criterion is the position of the Syrian state authorities. Western governments and their media have done everything to discredit, demonise and delegitimise the Syrian government. That’s part of the US-led criminal enterprise for regime change in Syria. But the fact remains, Syria is a sovereign state fully entitled the legal rights of all other UN members. If the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad – which is the internationally recognised governing authority of Syria and retains its seat at the UN – does not consent to foreign military intervention, then that intervention is illegal, as Moscow and Damascus have repeatedly pointed out. Syria, with the S-300 missile system supplied by its Russian ally, now has the technical means to defend its borders and airspace from all intruders. It also has the legal right to defend the inviolability of its territory. After all, US President Barack Obama invoked this right with regard to Turkey after the shoot-down of the Russian Su-24. Obama said Turkey had “every right to protect its skies” (even though the evidence shows that the Russian fighter jet did not breach Turkish territory). In other words: what’s good for Turkey is good for Syria, as for any other nation.

Now, some might say it is a reckless move for Syria to train its skies with the powerful S-300. If a US, French, British or German warplane is shot down then that may ignite a full-on war with the American NATO military alliance. Russia would inevitably be dragged into the fight, which could slide into a world war between nuclear powers. But hold on a minute. That logic amounts to the US and its allies using such fear as a weapon to disarm others and to prevent sovereign states from exercising their rights. Such a dynamic is a blank cheque for powers to bully and oppress others. As Russian President Vladimir Putin has said time and again, the issue is one abiding by international law. Without respect for international law then the world resorts to the law of the jungle and barbarism, as Putin said in his recent state of the nation speech. What we have seen in recent years since the US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001-2003 is the wholesale erosion of sovereignty. This has involved the overt deployment of military force and the covert use of “asymmetric war”, says American political analyst Randy Martin (who writes at crookedbough.com).

Turkey has told the Reuters news agency that Russia has stopped work on its nuclear power plants.  In reality, the Turks are exaggerating.  The Russians haven’t really stopped—they have really only slowed down. It is another piece in the intensifying conflict that has enveloped Russia and Turkey over the downing of a Russian AU-24 slow moving bomber by a Turkish F-16 fighter jet. The nuclear deal began in 2013. The Turks promised to pay $20 billion and the Russian nuclear company Rosatom promised to build four 1,200 megawatt nuclear electrical power plants in Turkey. The first plant was scheduled to be opened in 2019, but from the very outset things have not run on schedule.  One reason is that the project confronted international regulatory problems.

The Russians have done this before—only with Iran.  They slowed down on the original proposal, Iran took the Russians to the World Court, and sued them. They wanted their nuclear plants.

Now, because of their experience with Iran, Russia realizes that stopping entirely would prove costly. Huge disincentives and penalties are built into the contract.  And Turkey has already started shopping around for someone else to finish the nuclear job. Good luck. Here is the crux of the problem and why Turkey can never win in this conflict with Russia. Turkey is almost totally dependent on imported energy. They have been counting on these nuclear plants and should be conducting back-door diplomatic negotiations to resurrect the deal , but they do not appear to be doing that. Tensions between the Turks and Russians do not seem to be dissipating. So much so that Russia has also stopped importing Turkish fruits and vegetables. The reason they give is poor Turkish sanitation and hygiene, but the real reason is because the jet shot down the bomber. This isn’t  just a case of no more Turkish pistachio nuts or dates. Turkish fruits and vegetables account for 20 percentof Russia’s total fruit and vegetable consumption. This is a huge loss for the Turkish economy.  A $4 billion annual loss in fruit and vegetable revenue. Russia has said they will easily make up the loss by importing more from Iran and Israel.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi on Friday instructed the Foreign Ministry to lodge an official complaint to the UN Security Council over the deployment of Turkish troops in northern Iraq.A statement by Abadi's office said the incursion by Turkish troops "is blatant violation of the provisions and principles of the UN Charter and a violation to the sovereignty of the Iraqi state, which happened without the knowledge and consent of the Iraqi authorities."Iraq demands the UN Security Council "to shoulder its responsibilities and orders Turkey to withdraw its troops immediately, and to ensure unconditionally withdrawal to the internationally recognized border between the two countries," the statement said.

On Thursday, an Iraqi foreign ministry spokesman said that Iraq has contacted the five permanent member states of the UN Security Council for condemning Turkey's deployment of troops on Iraqi soil.He also said that Iraq demanded an Arab League extraordinary session to "discuss the consequences of the Turkish breach (to Iraqi sovereignty) and adopt an Arab stance against it."Iraq's latest move came a day after the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that withdrawing Turkish troops from Iraq is out of the question and that the Turkish soldiers are in Iraq as part of a training mission."Turkish troops in Mosul are not there as combatants; they are trainers. Their numbers may vary depending on the size of Kurdish Peshmerga troops. It is out of the question, for now, to pull them out," he said.The crisis between the two countries sparked last Friday when reports said a Turkish training battalion equipped with armored vehicles was deployed near the city of Mosul to train Iraqi paramilitary groups in fighting the ISIL terrorist group.Mosul, the capital of Nineveh province, has been under ISIL control since June 2014.

Baghdad has insisted that the Turkish troops had no authorization from the Iraqi government and thus demanded their withdrawal, while Ankara called the troops only a routine rotation of the trainers.

“I’ve shown photos taken from space and from aircraft which clearly demonstrate the scale of the illegal trade in oil and petroleum products,” Vladimir Putin told reporters earlier this month on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Antalya. Putin was of course referencing Islamic State’s illicit and highly lucrative oil trade, the ins and outs of which we’ve documented extensively over the past two weeks: The Most Important Question About ISIS That Nobody Is Asking Meet The Man Who Funds ISIS: Bilal Erdogan, The Son Of Turkey's President How Turkey Exports ISIS Oil To The World: The Scientific Evidence ISIS Oil Trade Full Frontal: "Raqqa's Rockefellers", Bilal Erdogan, KRG Crude, And The Israel Connection Turkey’s move to shoot down a Russian Su-24 warplane near the Syrian border afforded the Russian President all the motivation and PR cover he needed to expose Ankara’s alleged role in the trafficking of illegal crude from Iraq and Syria and in the aftermath of last Tuesday’s “incident,” Putin lambasted Erdogan. “Oil from Islamic State is being shipped to Turkey,” Putin said while in Jordan for a meeting with King Abdullah. In case that wasn’t clear enough, Putin added this: “Islamic State gets cash by selling oil to Turkey.”

To be sure, it’s impossible to track the path ISIS oil takes from extraction to market with any degree of precision. That said, it seems that Islamic State takes advantage of the same network of smugglers, traders, and shipping companies that the KRG uses to transport Kurdish crude from Kurdistan to the Turkish port of Ceyhan. From there, the oil makes its way to Israel and other markets (depending on which story you believe) and if anyone needs to be thrown off the trail along the way, there’s a ship-to-ship transfer trick that can be executed off the coast of Malta. The maneuver allegedly makes the cargoes more difficult to track.  Some believe Erdogan’s son Bilal - who owns a marine transport company called BMZ Group - is heavily involved in the trafficking of Kurdish and ISIS crude. Most of the ships BMZ owns are Malta-flagged.  In light of the above, some have speculated that Turkey shot down the Su-24 in retaliation for Russia’s bombing campaign that recently has destroyed over 1,000 ISIS oil trucks. Here’s what Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoub said on Friday:

“All of the oil was delivered to a company that belongs to the son of Recep [Tayyip] Erdogan. This is why Turkey became anxious when Russia began delivering airstrikes against the IS infrastructure and destroyed more than 500 trucks with oil already. This really got on Erdogan and his company’s nerves. They’re importing not only oil, but wheat and historic artefacts as well." Al-Zoub isn’t alone in his suspicions. In an interview with RT, Iraqi MP and former national security adviser, Mowaffak al Rubaie - who personally led Saddam to the gallows - said ISIS is selling around $100 million of stolen crude each month in Turkey. Here are some excerpts:  “In the last eight months ISIS has managed to sell ... $800 million dollars worth of oil on the black market of Turkey. This is Iraqi oil and Syrian oil, carried by trucks from Iraq, from Syria through the borders to Turkey and sold ...[at] less than 50 percent of the international oil price."   "Now this either get consumed inside, the crude is refined on Turkish territory by the Turkish refineries, and sold in the Turkish market. Or it goes to Jihan and then in the pipelines from Jihan to the Mediterranean and sold to the international market.”

Saudi Arabia has issued invitations to 65 Syrian opposition figures to attend a conference in Riyadh to try to unify their positions ahead of proposed Syrian peace talks, Saudi newspapers reported on Tuesday.Asharq Al Awsat and Al Hayat said no date has yet been set for the Riyadh meeting, but quoted unnamed sources as saying it could take place next week.Asharq Al Awsat quoted Ahmad Ramadan, a member of the Syrian National Coalition (SNC) opposition group, as saying that the Saudi foreign ministry had “invited 65 figures to attend the conference in Riyadh”.He said 20 members of the coalition, which is based outside Syria, had been invited, along with seven from the National Coordination Body, an internal opposition group.Another 10 to 15 places were allocated to rebel leaders and 20 to 25 to independents, business leaders and religious figures, the paper quoted Ramadan as saying.

Saudi Arabia, a main supporter of opposition groups seeking to topple President Bashar Al Assad, has said it was in contact with them about the conference, which comes after an international agreement to launch talks between the government and the opposition by January 1.The Riyadh meeting marks an attempt to bring together groups whose disunity has been a long-standing obstacle in seeking a peaceful solution to the nearly five-year conflict that has killed more than 250,000 people and displaced millions.US Secretary of State John Kerry held talks in Abu Dhabi with UAE officials and Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al Jubeir last week to discuss ways of bringing the opposition together.Al Hayat newspaper quoted NCB co-chairman, Hassan Abdul Azim, as saying he had sent a list of 22 nominees, including the head of the Kurdish Democratic Union, Saleh Muslim.Muslim had said earlier last month that Syrian Kurds need political and military representation at the opposition conference in Riyadh.

“We have received additional information confirming that the oil controlled by Islamic State militants (ISIS) enters Turkish territory on an industrial scale. We have every reason to believe that the decision to down our plane was guided by a desire to ensure the security of this oil’s delivery routes to ports where they are shipped in tankers.” –Russian President Vladimir Putin, Paris, 11-30-15

In candid remarks to the Russian media, Putin implicated the US in the downing of the Su-24 stating that the US military was briefed on the warplane’s flight path and then immediately passed along that information to Turkey. Here’s what he said: “We told our US partners in advance where, when at what altitudes our pilots were going to operate. The US-led coalition, which includes Turkey, was aware of the time and place where our planes would operate. And this is exactly where and when we were attacked. Why did we share this information with the Americans? Either they don’t control their allies, or they just pass this information left and right without realizing what the consequences of such actions might be. We will have to have a serious talk with our US partners.” Putin’s damning remarks have not appeared in any of the western media. The censorship of this information is similar to the blackout of comments Putin made just two weeks earlier at the G-20 summit where he announced that “40 countries” are financing ISIS including members of the G-20.

Here’s an except of Putin’s bombshell announcement: “I provided examples based on our data on the financing of different Islamic State units by private individuals. This money, as we have established, comes from 40 countries and, there are some of the G20 members among them,” Putin told the journalists. “I’ve shown our colleagues photos taken from space and from aircraft which clearly demonstrate the scale of the illegal trade in oil and petroleum products. The motorcade of refueling vehicles stretched for dozens of kilometers, so that from a height of 4,000 to 5,000 meters they stretch beyond the horizon,” Putin added, comparing the convoy to gas and oil pipeline systems.” (Putin: ISIS financed from 40 countries, including G20 members, RT)

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday accepted Russia's long-standing demand that President Bashar Assad's future be determined by his own people, as Washington and Moscow edged toward putting aside years of disagreement over how to end Syria's civil war. "The United States and our partners are not seeking so-called regime change," Kerry told reporters in the Russian capital after meeting President Vladimir Putin. A major international conference on Syria would take place later this week in New York, Kerry announced. Kerry reiterated the U.S. position that Assad, accused by the West of massive human rights violations and chemical weapons attacks, won't be able to steer Syria out of more than four years of conflict. But after a day of discussions with Assad's key international backer, Kerry said the focus now is "not on our differences about what can or cannot be done immediately about Assad." Rather, it is on facilitating a peace process in which "Syrians will be making decisions for the future of Syria." Kerry's declarations crystallized the evolution in U.S. policy on Assad over the last several months, as the Islamic State group's growing influence in the Middle East has taken priority.

President Barack Obama first called on Assad to leave power in the summer of 2011, with "Assad must go" being a consistent rallying cry. Later, American officials allowed that he wouldn't have to resign on "Day One" of a transition. Now, no one can say when Assad might step down. Russia, by contrast, has remained consistent in its view that no foreign government could demand Assad's departure and that Syrians would have to negotiate matters of leadership among themselves. Since late September, it has been bombing terrorist and rebel targets in Syria as part of what the West says is an effort to prop up Assad's government. "No one should be forced to choose between a dictator and being plagued by terrorists," Kerry said. However, he described the Syrian opposition's demand that Assad must leave as soon as peace talks begin as a "nonstarting position, obviously."

Earlier Tuesday in the Kremlin, Putin noted several "outstanding issues" between Russia and its former Cold War foe. Beyond Assad, these include which rebel groups in Syria should be allowed to participate in the transition process and which should be deemed terrorists, and like the Islamic State group and al-Qaida, combatted by all. Jordan is working on finalizing the list of terrorist vs. legitimate opposition forces. Representatives of Syria's opposition themselves hope this week to finalize their negotiating team for talks with Assad's government. The U.S., Russia and others hope those talks will begin early next year. Appearing beside Kerry, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov hailed what he described as a "big negotiating day," saying the sides advanced efforts to define what a Syrian transition process might look like.

Would you be willing to defend your country against a foreign invasion? That’s all Putin is doing in Syria. He’s just preempting the tidal wave of jihadis that’ll be coming his way once the current fracas is over.  He figures it’s better to exterminate these US-backed maniacs in Syria now than face them in Chechnya, St Petersburg and Moscow sometime in the future.  Can you blame him? After all, if Washington’s strategy works in Syria, then you can bet they’ll try the same thing in Beirut, Tehran and Moscow. So what choice does Putin have? None. He has no choice.  His back is against the wall. He has to fight.  No one in Washington seems to get this. They think Putin can throw in the towel and call it “quits” at the first sign of getting bogged down. But he can’t throw in the towel because Russia’s facing an existential crisis.  If he loses, then Russia’s going to wind up on the same scrap heap as Afghanistan, Iraq or Libya. You can bet on it. So the only thing he can do is win. Period. Victory isn’t an option, it’s a necessity.

Of course they’ve noticed. Everyone’s noticed. Everyone knows Washington is on the warpath and its leaders have gone stark raving mad. How could they not notice? But all that’s done is focus the mind on the task at hand, and the task at hand is to whoop the tar out of the terrorists, put an end to Washington’s sick little jihadi game, and go home. That’s Russia’s plan in a nutshell.  No one is trying to cobble together the long-lost Soviet empire. That’s pure bunkum.  Russia just wants to clean up this nest of vipers and call it a day. There’s nothing more to it than that. But what if the going gets tough and Syria becomes a quagmire? That doesn’t change anything, because Russia still has to win. If that means sending ground troops to Syria, then that’s what Putin will do. If that means asymmetrical warfare, like arming the Kurds or the Yemenis, or the Taliban or even disparate anti-regime Shiites in Saudi Arabia, then he’ll do that too. Whatever it takes. This isn’t a game, it’s a fight for survival; Russia’s survival as a sovereign country. That’s what the stakes are. That’s not something Putin takes lightly.

The reason I ask this now is because, on Tuesday, Secretary of State John Kerry is scheduled to attend an emergency meeting in Moscow with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov to discuss issues that are too sensitive to reveal to the public. There’s a lot of speculation about what the two men will talk about, but the urgency and the secrecy of the meeting suggests that the topic will be one of great importance. So allow me to make a guess about what the topic will be. When Kerry arrives in Moscow tomorrow he’ll be rushed to meeting room at the Kremlin where he’ll be joined by Lavrov, Putin, Minister of Defense Sergey Shoygu and high-ranking members from military intelligence. Then, following the initial introductions, Kerry will be shown the evidence Russian intelligence has gathered on last Sunday’s attack on a Syrian military base east of Raqqa that killed three Syrian soldiers and wounded thirteen others. The Syrian government immediately condemned the attack and accused US warplanes of conducting the operation. Later in the day,  Putin delivered an uncharacteristically-harsh and threatening statement that left no doubt that he thought the attack was a grave violation of the accepted rules of engagement and, perhaps, a declaration of war.

srael's defence minister said on Tuesday there was not enough evidence to prosecute the suspects in a deadly arson attack on a Palestinian home in the occupied West Bank in July. Moshe Yaalon told army radio he considered the firebomb attack in the village of Duma - which killed a toddler and his parents and left another child severely burned - a "Jewish terrorist act".

He added, however, evidence was still lacking nearly five months after the July 31 firebombing, despite the recent arrests of suspects in the case.

"We know who is responsible for this terrorist act, but do not have enough proof yet to try them," Yaalon said. Israel has come under heavy pressure to try those responsible for the deadly firebombing, with rights groups questioning the slow pace of investigations and contrasting it to the swift reaction often following alleged Palestinian attacks. On December 3, Israeli authorities said they had arrested a number of Jewish suspects over the attack. They have not been publicly identified and there has been no indication they have been charged. "Indictments are a rarity when Israeli soldiers or settlers resort to violence against Palestinians and investigations can last for years before being closed, absolving perpetrators of any wrongdoing," Brad Parker, attorney and international advocacy officer at Defence for Children International - Palestine, told Al Jazeera after the arrests.

Russian planes carried out 71 sorties and 118 air strikes against Islamic fighters in Syria over the past two days compared to just one air strike by the US-led coalition – and this single strike, against a mortar position, was the first for four days. The Russian air campaign in Syria is far more intense than the US-led attempt to contain the “Islamic State” (Isis) that has focused on helping the Syrian Kurds and attacking Isis-controlled oil facilities in eastern Syria. Countries affected by the Syrian conflict sense that its nature is changing and are seeking new strategies to take account of this. 

The US says it will increase the number of its air strikes and possibly make limited use of special forces to target Isis leaders. The problem for the US is that, aside from Syrian-Kurdish Peoples’ Protection Units (YPG), which number about 25,000 fighters, it does not have an effective partner on the ground in Syria capable of identifying and giving the coordinates of targets to attack. Russia is providing an air force for the Syrian army, the largest military force in Syria and one which, unlike the Kurds, is not confined to one corner of the country.   Turkey is seeking an effective way to respond to two developments in Syria this year that are much against its interests. One is the start of Russian air strikes in support of President Bashar al-Assad on 30 September which makes Turkey’s policy of removing the Syrian leader, even if he is to be allowed to stay for a transition period, look unrealistic. The Russian presence also makes any direct Turkish military intervention increasingly risky. All attention in Turkey is on the parliamentary elections on 1 November, but last Sunday there was an ominous clash in Tal Abyad, a town on the Syrian-Kurdish border captured by the YPG from Isis in June, in which Turkish forces twice opened fire with machine guns on the Kurdish paramilitaries. Nobody was injured, but the Turkish Prime Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, confirmed that the Turkish army had targeted the YPG. He said that Turkey would not allow the Syrian Kurdish force “to go west of the Euphrates and that we would hit it the moment it did. We hit it twice.” 

Although it is not playing much of a role in the election, Turkey’s policy towards the war in Syria has been a complete failure. Its aim was to get rid of Mr Assad and his regime, but both are still power. Even more seriously, whatever Ankara’s intentions at the start of the conflict in 2011, it did not dream that four years later the Syrian Kurds, 10 per cent of the Syrian population, would have established a de facto state they call Rojava in north-east Syria which runs along half of Turkey’s 550-mile Syrian Kurdish border.  Furthermore, the mini-state is tightly controlled by the PYD, the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) with whom the Turkish army has been fighting since 1984.

After weeks of political wrangling, the Iraqi parliament finally agreed to allow Russia to launch air strikes against the terrorist Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Iraq, paving the way for the involvement of a powerful new combatant in an already complex battleground in a move that will likely incense the US.

Russia's foray into Iraq has created another quandary for the US, which has agreed to build a line of communication with Russia to avoid inadvertent incidents in the air between the two air forces that are operating in the same theater for the first time since World War II. Hakim al-Zamili, the head of the defense and security committee of the Iraqi parliament, announced on Monday that Iraq had struck a deal with Russia to launch operations against ISIL targets in the country. According to a report by Russian news agency Sputnik, once the air strikes are under way, ISIL fighters who might seek safe haven in Iraq after fleeing strikes in Syria will not find safety in Iraq. With the agreement, Russia aims to cut the supply lines of ISIL between Iraq and Syria. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi had previously said Iraq might seek Russia's help against ISIL if Russian air strikes prove to be effective in Syria. Baghdad's appeal to Moscow has irked the US, which reportedly told the Iraqi government that it would have to choose between the US and Russia in the fight against ISIL. In a visit to Baghdad last week, US Chief of General Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford told Iraqi officials that possible Russian air operation would make it almost impossible for the US to continue its military campaign.

France, Germany and Russia boost their cooperation in the fight against terrorist brigades in Syria. French President Francois Hollande and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to share intelligence while Germany deploys six Tornado reconnaissance jets to Syria.

French President Francois Hollande met his Russian counterpart in Moscow on Thursday. Hollande and Putin gave a joint press conference, saying that France and Russia agreed to exchange intelligence data about Islamic State (a.k.a. ISIS, ISIL or Daesh) and other jihadist insurgencies in Syria. President Hollande stated: “What we agreed, and this is important, is to strike only terrorists and Daesh (Islamic State) and to not strike forces that are fighting terrorism. We will exchange information about whom to hit and whom not to hit”.

Putin also stressed that the Syrian Arab Army is playing a key role in combating terrorism in Syria and that it is impossible to successfully fight terrorism in Syria without the Syrian Arab Army’s role on the ground. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, for his part said that Russia was ready to participate in steps to close the Turkish – Syrian border to avoid that terrorist brigades receive supplies via Turkey. Russian – Turkish relations have been stressed since a Turkish F-16 recently shot down a Russian Su-24 front-line bomber over Syrian airspace. Turkey’s President R. Tayyip Erdogan, who received some criticism from Turkey’s NATO partners has according to the Russian Presidency asked for a meeting with President Putin to be held on November 30. A formal request came reportedly through the Foreign Ministry. With Germany also entering the Syrian anti-terrorism theater, one can see a shimmer of a French, German, Russian cooperation, not unlike to the so-called Normandy Four format that has brought about the Minsk Accord and a ceasefire in Ukraine.

The downing of a Russian fighter jet by Turkey highlights the growing danger posed by a pattern of provocative military behavior by Moscow, U.S. and European security officials said Tuesday, calling for a revival of military-to-military talks between Russia and NATO that were shelved last year. The first-ever shoot-down of a Russian plane by a member of the Western alliance comes after months of brinkmanship by Russian forces on several continents and a series of NATO responses, including stepped-up military exercises, that have placed the former Cold War foes on a footing that at times has looked just short of war.Story Continued Below NATO leaders themselves seemed anxious to find a way to turn down the temperature after a Turkish F-16 destroyed a Russian Su-24 that Turkey claimed had crossed over from Syria. Turkish leaders called it at the least the fourth such incursion in recent weeks, while Russia maintains it did not breach Turkish airspace.

On Capitol Hill, Rep. Mike Turner, an Ohio Republican and a member of the Armed Services Committee who also serves as president of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, said in a statement: "I echo NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg's sentiments calling for all NATO partners to deescalate tensions and focus on the fight against ISIL." Others from across the spectrum viewed the disputed incident as a potential opportunity to de-escalate what has increasingly become a dangerous game of cat and mouse. Some security experts said NATO and Russia should convene a special forum that was established expressly for the two sides to hold military discussions. The forum has atrophied since the alliance cut off most ties over Moscow's annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in March 2014. "The way the Russians have behaved in the last 18 months, sending submarines into harbors, simulating nuclear bombing missions against NATO countries, flying their aircraft without transponders, and having incursions into Turkish air space, something was going to happen," said Ivo Daalder, who stepped down as the U.S. ambassador to NATO in 2013. "Because we don't have mechanisms to talk about this there is a danger that this could lead to escalation."

A collection of former defense and foreign ministers of Britain, Poland, Russia, Germany, Turkey and France also reissued their call Tuesday to use the NATO-Russia Council, codified in 2002, to hammer out a broad agreement to "prevent accidental incidents or miscalculations leading to an escalation of tension and even confrontation." Two former NATO secretaries general endorsed the position. The stakes were already high before Tuesday. NATO reported more than 400 intercepts of Russian aircraft in 2014 — four times as much as the year before. Russia also reported that it has detected twice as many NATO fighter aircraft flying near its borders in 2014 than in 2013 — more than 3,000 in all.

Every branch of the United States Military is worried about climate change. They have been since well before it became controversial. In the wake of an historic climate change agreement between President Obama and President Xi Jinping in China this week (Brookings), the military’s perspective is significant in how it views climate effects on emerging military conflicts.

At a time when Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bush 41, and even British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, called for binding international protocols to control greenhouse gas emissions, the U.S. Military was seriously studying global warming in order to determine what actions they could take to prepare for the change in threats that our military will face in the future. The Center for Naval Analysis has had its Military Advisory Board examining the national security implications of climate change for many years. Lead by Army General Paul Kern, the Military Advisory Board is a group of 16 retired flag-level officers from all branches of the Service. This is not a group normally considered to be liberal activists and fear-mongers.

This year, the Military Advisory Board came out with a new report, called National Security and the Accelerating Risks of Climate Change, that is a serious discussion about what the military sees as the threats and the actions to be taken to mitigate them. “The potential security ramifications of global climate change should be serving as catalysts for cooperation and change. Instead, climate change impacts are already accelerating instability in vulnerable areas of the world and are serving as catalysts for conflict.”

“We have mobilized 65 countries to go after ISIL,” Mr. Obama told reporters while on a trip to Turkey, using an acronym for the group. “The United States has built and led a broad coalition against ISIL of some 65 nations,” he said several days later.“The United States, France and our coalition of some 65 nations have been united in one mission — to destroy these ISIL terrorists,” he added a few days after that.The president has sought to evoke the sort of grand coalition the United States led in World War II. But when it comes to the war part of the war against the Islamic State, the 65-member coalition begins to shrink rapidly down to a coalition of just a handful.

As of Nov. 19, the United States had conducted 6,471 of the 8,289 airstrikes against the Islamic State, according to the Pentagon. American warplanes carried out about two-thirds of the strikes on Iraqi territory and 95 percent of those on Syrian territory. Australia, Canada, France and Jordan have conducted strikes in both countries. Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Britain have participated just in Iraq, while Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates have participated just in Syria.That leaves more than 50 other coalition members that have never been directly involved in the air campaign. Some early participants, like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Jordan and the U.A.E., have not conducted a strike in months. While France has stepped up its strikes since the Paris attacks, Canada’s new prime minister is sticking to his vow to pull its six CF-18 fighter jets out of the bombing campaign, although Canadian surveillance and refueling aircraft may stay with the mission.

The Obama administration considers just 24 of the countries to be part of the core group that meets quarterly. The Italians are training Iraqi police officers, the Germans and Emiratis are working with 20 countries to stabilize war-torn areas, and 18 countries are training Iraqi and Kurdish military.But many others seem included in the membership rolls because they have adopted policies protecting their own security. Countries like Kuwait and Tunisia have broken up Islamist cells. Sweden is speeding up legislation to curb the abuse of Swedish passports and to criminalize foreign fighters. Albania approved a national strategy to combat violent extremism. Other members include Luxembourg, Montenegro, Iceland, Taiwan, Singapore, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Latvia, and Kosovo.

Coming up soon in LobeLog, an actual Canadian will analyze the implications for Canada’s Middle East policy of Monday’s victory of the Liberal Party’s Justin Trudeau over Prime Minister Stephen Harper in the parliamentary elections. For now, however, it’s worth noting that Bibi Netanyahu cannot be happy with the results. Without predicting what Trudeau will do, it’s clear that Bibi has just lost a very important international ally in Ottawa and within the Group of Seven (G-7).