Group items tagged

As the Obama administration began to provide heavy weaponry to Harakat al-Hazm, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy published an analysis hailing Harakat Hazm as “rebels worth supporting,” going so far as to say that the group was “a model candidate for greater U.S. and allied support, including lethal military assistance.” That error was not as egregious as the appeal by three members of the DC foreign policy establishment “smart set” (including one former senior Bush administration National Security Council official) who argued in the pages of the January issue of Foreign Affairs for U.S. engagement with another Syrian “rebel” group, Ahrar al-Sham.

Earlier this week I reported on Harakat al-Hazm, which was the first of the “vetted moderates” to receive U.S. anti-tank weaponry earlier this year. Harakat al-Hazm is reportedly a front for the Muslim Brotherhood as well as Turkey and Qatar, its Islamist state sponsors. An L.A. Times article was published this past Sunday from the battle lines in Syria. The reporter recounted a discussion with two Harakat al-Hazm fighters who admitted, “But Nusra doesn’t fight us, we actually fight alongside them. We like Nusra.” Despite a claim by the L.A. Times that Harakat al-Hazm had released a statement of “rejection of all forms of cooperation and coordination” with al-Nusra Front, I published in my article earlier this week an alliance statement signed by both Jabhat al-Nusra and Harkat al-Hazm forging a joint front in Aleppo to prevent pro-Assad forces from retaking the town.

At the same time U.S.-provided FSA weapons caches were being mysteriously raided by ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra, one of the senior FSA commanders in Eastern Syria, Saddam al-Jamal, defected to ISIS. In March, Jabhat al-Nusra joined forces with the FSA Liwa al-Ummah brigade to capture a Syrian army outpost in Idlib. Then in early July I reported on FSA brigades that had pledged allegiance to ISIS and surrendered their weapons after their announcement of the reestablishment of the caliphate. More recently, the FSA and Jabhat al-Nusra teamed up last month to capture the UN Golan Heights border crossing in Quneitra on the Syria/Israel border, taking UN peacekeepers hostage. But the Free Syrian Army is not the only U.S.-armed and trained “rebel” force in Syria that the Obama administration is having serious trouble keeping in the “vetted moderate” column.

At the time their article appeared, however, Ahrar al-Sham was led by one of al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri’s top lieutenants and former Bin Laden courier, Mohamed Bahaiah (aka Abu Khaled al-Suri). This is why the article was originally subtitled “An Al-Qaeda affiliate worth befriending.” Giving too much of the game away for non-Beltway types, that subtitle was quickly changed on the website to “An Al-Qaeda-linked group worth befriending.” That dream of “befriending al-Qaeda” was dealt a major blow earlier this week when a blast of unknown origin killed most of Ahrar al-Sham’s senior leadership. Bereft of leadership, many analysts have rightly expressed concern that the bulk of Ahrar al-Sham’s forces will now gravitate towards ISIS and other terrorist groups.

While a McClatchy article on the explosion laughably claimed that the dead Ahrar al-Sham’s leaders represented the group’s “moderate wing” who were trying to come under another fictional “vetted moderate” alliance to obtain the next anticipated flood of U.S. weapons, others have observed that tributes to the dead leaders have poured in from al-Qaeda leaders for their “moderate wing” allies. This is what the D.C. foreign policy establishment has reduced itself to when it comes to Syria — cozying up to al-Qaeda (or Iran and Assad) in the name of “countering violent extremism,” namely ISIS, and entertaining each other with cocktail party talk of “moderate wings” of al-Qaeda. As my colleague Stephen Coughlin observes, our bipartisan foreign policy establishment has created a bizarre language about Iraq and Afghanistan to avoid the stark reality that we lost both wars. This is the state American foreign policy finds itself in on the 13th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks by al-Qaeda.

As congressional Republicans and Democrats alike will undoubtedly rush in coming days to throw money at anyone the Obama administration deems “vetted moderates” to give the appearance of doing something in the absence of a sensible, reality-based strategy for understanding the actual dynamics at work in Syria and Iraq, an urgent reexamination of who the “vetted moderates” we’ve been financing, training and arming is long overdue. It is also essential to know to whom the State Department has contracted the “vetting.” This is especially true as ISIS leaders are openly bragging about widespread defections to ISIS amongst FSA forces that have been trained and armed by the U.S. Predictably, the usual suspects (John McCain and Lindsey Graham) who have been led wide-eyed around Syria by the “vetted moderate” merchants and have played the administration’s “yes men” for a fictional narrative that has never had any basis in reality will undoubtedly hector critics for not listening to their calls to back the “vetted moderate” rebels last year when they could have contained ISIS — an inherently false assumption. These usual suspects should be ashamed of their role in helping sell a fiction that has cost 200,000 Syrians their lives and millions more their homes while destabilizing the entire region. Shame, sadly, is a rare commodity in Washington, D.C.

Notwithstanding Obama’s siren call for immediate action, Congress should think long and hard before continuing to play along with the administration and D.C. foreign policy establishment’s “vetted moderate” fairy tale and devote themselves to some serious reflection and discussion on how we’ve arrived at this juncture where we are faced with nothing but horribly bad choices and how to start walking back from the precipice. As we remember the thousands lost on that terrible day thirteen years ago, truly honoring their memory deserves nothing less.

Background: The Stop Arming Terrorists bill prohibits U.S. government funds from being used to support al-Qaeda, ISIS or other terrorist groups. In the same way that Congress passed the Boland Amendment to prohibit the funding and support to CIA backed-Nicaraguan Contras during the 1980’s, this bill would stop CIA or other Federal government activities in places like Syria by ensuring U.S. funds are not used to support al-Qaeda, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, ISIS, or other terrorist groups working with them. It would also prohibit the Federal government from funding assistance to countries that are directly or indirectly supporting those terrorist groups. The bill achieves this by: Making it illegal for any U.S. Federal government funds to be used to provide assistance covered in this bill to terrorists. The assistance covered includes weapons, munitions, weapons platforms, intelligence, logistics, training, and cash. Making it illegal for the U.S. government to provide assistance covered in the bill to any nation that has given or continues to give such assistance to terrorists. Requiring the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) to determine the individual and groups that should be considered terrorists, for the purposes of this bill, by determining: (a) the individuals and groups that are associated with, affiliated with, adherents to or cooperating with al-Qaeda, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, or ISIS; (b) the countries that are providing assistance covered in this bill to those individuals or groups. Requiring the DNI to review and update the list of countries and groups to which assistance is prohibited every six months, in consultation with the House Foreign Affairs and Armed Services Committees, as well as the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Requiring the DNI to brief Congress on the determinations.

[i] Levant Front (U.S. backed, via the MOC in Turkey) is working under an Ahrar al Sham led umbrella group: http://www.understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/December%202%20EDITS%20COT_2.pdf ; U.S. support for Levant Front: http://carnegie-mec.org/diwan/57605?lang=en ; CIA groups cooperated with Jayesh al-Fateh http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/01/19/the-cia-s-syria-program-and-the-perils-of-proxies.html; U.S. weapons arriving in Syria through covert, CIA-led program, via Saudi Arabia and Turkey; CIA can provide support http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-syria-obama-order-idUSBRE8701OK20120802

Background: The Stop Arming Terrorists bill prohibits U.S. government funds from being used to support al-Qaeda, ISIS or other terrorist groups. In the same way that Congress passed the Boland Amendment to prohibit the funding and support to CIA backed-Nicaraguan Contras during the 1980’s, this bill would stop CIA or other Federal government activities in places like Syria by ensuring U.S. funds are not used to support al-Qaeda, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, ISIS, or other terrorist groups working with them. It would also prohibit the Federal government from funding assistance to countries that are directly or indirectly supporting those terrorist groups. The bill achieves this by: Making it illegal for any U.S. Federal government funds to be used to provide assistance covered in this bill to terrorists. The assistance covered includes weapons, munitions, weapons platforms, intelligence, logistics, training, and cash. Making it illegal for the U.S. government to provide assistance covered in the bill to any nation that has given or continues to give such assistance to terrorists. Requiring the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) to determine the individual and groups that should be considered terrorists, for the purposes of this bill, by determining: (a) the individuals and groups that are associated with, affiliated with, adherents to or cooperating with al-Qaeda, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, or ISIS; (b) the countries that are providing assistance covered in this bill to those individuals or groups. Requiring the DNI to review and update the list of countries and groups to which assistance is prohibited every six months, in consultation with the House Foreign Affairs and Armed Services Committees, as well as the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Requiring the DNI to brief Congress on the determinations.

The collapse of the insurgent front prompted the front commanders, most of which work in liaison to U.S. Special Forces, to deploy an elite force that should prevent the Syrian Army, at all costs, from gaining access to the Jobar Entrance, and from gaining control over the Jobar area. The majority of the insurgent crack forces came from Liwa-al-Islam with some additional troops from Jabhat al-Nusrah. The commanding officer of the elite forces was a Saudi national who is known by the name Abu Ayesha, whom eyewitnesses from Ghouta later identified as Abu Abdul-Moneim. Abdul-Moneim had established a cache of weapons, some of which had a tube-like structure, and others which looked like big gas bottles. The cache was located in a tunnel in the Eastern Ghouta district of Damascus. Reports about this tunnel and the weapons cache emerged in international media, after the son of Abdul-Moneim and 12 other fighters lost their lives there, because they mishandled improvised chemical weapons and caused a leak in one of them. Besides Abu Abdul-Moneim, the supreme leader of the Liwa-al-Islam and commander of their chemical weapons specialists, Zahran Alloush took personal charge of the elite troops and chemical weapons specialists who were operating under his direct command. Liwa-al-Islam has, along with other al-Qaeda brigades, the capability to manufacture and launch primitive, but none the less very deadly chemical weapons. The chemical weapons which Zahran Alloush had delivered to Damascus were most likely from al-Qaeda’s (ISIL) chemical weapons stockpiles in Iraq.

In early September 2013, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif stated, that Iran had sent a memo to the White House via the Swiss Embassy in Tehran. Tehran had reportedly informed the USA that handmade articles for chemical weapons, including Sarin gas, were being transferred to Syria. The White House failed to respond. Having to hold the Jobar Entrance and the Jobar district of Damascus “at any cost to maintain any hopes of launching a successful, major military assault on Damascus”, the insurgent commanders decided to launch a chemical weapons attack to halt the advance of the Syrian Arab Army. The political and military opposition and core members of the international alliance behind them had already decided that chemical weapons should be used in August – September. The large scale use of chemical weapons should justify renewed calls for a military intervention. Intelligence about this decision transpired in June.  nsnbc international issued several reports in late June and early July, warning that the insurgents would use large scale chemical weapons attacks in August or September.

The decision to launch the chemical weapon on 21 August was most likely based on two considerations. That the use of chemical weapons was already planned. That the Jobar Entrance should be defended at all costs. The final decision, made by Zahran Alloush may in fact have been predetermined together with his U.S. – Saudi liaison officers. Launching a chemical weapons attack would allow the USA, UK and France, to call for military strikes against Syria and to turn the tide. Also, Russian and Syrian intelligence sources described the weapons which were used in the attack as rockets which were altered so as to carry chemicals, launched by Liwa-al-Islam. The projectiles were most likely fired from a flatbed.

There is a growing and substantial amount of evidence that indicates direct U.S. and Saudi involvement in the chemical weapons attack. To begin with one merely has to answer the fundamental question “Who Benefits”, and the answer is definitely not “the Syrian government”. In fact, the  Federal German Intelligence Service (BND) claims that it has intercepted phone calls between Syrian officers and the Syrian High Command. The BND is convinced that none of the Syrian forces have used a chemical weapon. Leaving alone any moral considerations, the domestic and international repercussions were foreseeable and there would not have been any strategic benefit for the Syrian Army or the government.

Also, the involvement of Saudi Arabia ultimately points towards Washington and the White House. The involvement of Liwa-al-Islam in the chemical weapons attack establishes a strong chain of circumstantial evidence to the Saudi Intelligence Chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan. The supreme leader of Liwa-al-Islam and commander of the groups’ chemical weapons specialists, Zahran Alloush, has been working for the then Saudi Intelligence Chief Prince Turki al-Faisal in both Afghanistan and Yemen in the 1980s. Since the 1990s, Alloush was involved in the Salafist – Wahabbist terrorist networks in Syria which led to his arrest by Syrian intelligence. He was released in early of 2011, when the Assad administration granted a general amnesty. Immediately after his March 2011 release from prison, Zahran Alloush began receiving substantial funds and weapons from Saudi intelligence, which enabled him to establish Liwa-al-Islam as a de facto Saudi Arabia sponsored mercenary brigade under the auspices of the Saudi Interior Ministry.

Saudi funding enabled Alloush to establish the Liwa-al-Islam as a major fighting force in Syria. The group gained fame due to risky, high-profile attacks. On 8 July 2012, the group carried out a bomb attack against the headquarters of Syria’s National Security Council in Rawda Square, Damascus. The group succeeded in assassinating several high profile members of Syria’s security establishment, including the Deputy Minister of Defense and brother-in-law of President Bashar al-Assad, Assaf Shawkat, Defense Minister Dawoud Rajiha, Hassan Turkmani, a former Defense Minister and military adviser to then Vice-President Farouk al-Sharaa.

"No one on the ground believes in this mission or this effort”, a former Green Beret writes of America’s covert and clandestine programs to train and arm Syrian insurgents, “they know we are just training the next generation of jihadis, so they are sabotaging it by saying, ‘Fuck it, who cares?’”. “I don’t want to be responsible for Nusra guys saying they were trained by Americans,” the Green Beret added. ... Murphy states bluntly: “distinguishing between the FSA and al-Nusra is impossible, because they are virtually the same organization. As early as 2013, FSA commanders were defecting with their entire units to join al-Nusra. There, they still retain the FSA monicker, but it is merely for show, to give the appearance of secularism so they can maintain access to weaponry provided by the CIA and Saudi intelligence services. The reality is that the FSA is little more than a cover for the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra. ... It is one thing when Russia says somesthing, but another when Reuters, WSJ, and independent German and U.S. subject experts report this as facts. The first can be shunned as "Putin lies" but the others are extremely hard to refute. The Russians are right. The U.S. did not separate the "moderate rebels" from al Qaeda, as it had agreed to in the ceasefire agreement, because the "moderates" and al-Qaeda are the same. The "moderates" are al-Qaeda. This was not unknown. The 2012 Defense Intelligence Analysis said as much. The CIA of course knew this all along. But the Saudi tool heading the CIA, John Brennan, can not admit such as his masters in the Gulf are also the ones who finance al-Qaeda. They buy the weapons Brennan's people hadn over to al-Qaeda. The "end-user" according to this certificate for a weapon buy in Ukraine is Saudi Arabia. But who will believe that the Saudi dictators need for example 100 obsolete T-55 tanks? The weapons on the certificate, for an estimated $300-$500 million, are obviously for al-Qaeda in Yemen and in Syria. (Did Joe Biden or his son, both heavily engaged in Ukraine, get a provision from the deal?)

As the facts accumulate how long can the New York Times and Washington Post keep up with their propaganda claims. One has to admit, they really try their best. Unfortunately for them, their best is only mediocre. The NYT today found out that Vladimir Putin Relishes His Role as Disrupter. How does the NYT know what Putin "relishes"? The reporter did not ask Putin himself. But he did ask some knowledgeable experts with insight into Putin's inner mind and those assured the author that this is indeed the case. They know exactly how Putin feels. They are Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director and Robert Kagan, leading voice of of the neocons and Clinton promoter. Some "experts". Add that to dozens of stories on how "Russia indiscriminately bombs civilians/hospitals/bakeries in east-Aleppo" but never hits any "rebels" because none occur in these stories at all. A recent NYT piece of that kind had 14 "voices" in it. Eight belonged to various propagandists associated with the "White Helmets", four were "western" diplomats, one Syrian government official and a Russian spokesperson were quoted at the end. No Russian military and no one from west-Aleppo, where by far most people in the city live under government protection and daily rocket hail by the "rebels", were even asked. But all those tales we hear about the devilish Russians MUST be true! Even the 7 years old Bana Alabeb now tweets from east-Aleppo about her tragic fate under indiscriminate Russian assaults. This in perfect English and with an excellent WiFi and Internet connection as her many "White Helmets" photo attachments and her videos attest. But the whole city is devastated and in ruins she says, with phosphor bombs going off right in front of her house.

But Bana is a very responsible little lady: Bana Alabed @AlabedBana Dear world, it's better to start 3rd world war instead of letting Russia & assad commit #HolocaustAleppo 1:53 PM - 29 Sep 2016 Here "mother" phoned up the Daily Mail for an "exclusive" and assures us that this is all true. The Telegraph has her in a slideshow with sad music and the Guardian promotes her too. Another Gay Girl in Damascus media fail. In 2011 the Guardian also was part of that scam. If that 7-year old girl is in east-Aleppo and not in Denmark or the UK, I must be on Mars. No sane reader will take such a stunt serious. What Public Relation company came up with this sorry flimflam? Like the "moderate rebels" fantasy, such tales and the nonsense the "White Helmet" propaganda outlet distributes, are starting to fail. The UAE's National, a well established international newspaper, recently dug a bit around the White Helmet's creator, a "former" British military agent working for Gulf defense interests. That does not sound charitable. This is noticeable report, even as it still lacks any details, as it is the first in a major paper that shows some auspiciousness against that outlet. The Obama administration's lies about the "moderate rebels" are now openly discussed in major media. The propaganda of #HolocaustAleppo (isn't abusing the holocaust meme anti-semitic?) is turning into a laughing stock.

Russia is upping its stake in Syria. Additional Russian SU-24, SU-25 and SU-34 jets are arriving. Nearly 6,000 Russian soldiers are on the ground. The CIA's  al-Qaeda "rebels" are losing in east-Aleppo and are in stalemate and under pressure elsewhere. They will be bombed to smithereens. A few new BM-21 multiple missile launchers and heavier anti-air artillery was delivered to them. But those are just band-aids on lethally bleeding wounds. Even MANPADs will not change the situation one bit. The U.S., the Saudis and especially Brennan's CIA have lost that fight. Will Obama and Kerry admit it? Or will they throw another Hail Mary and do something crazy?

The alliance consists of a number of mostly Islamist factions, including the Nusra Front, al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate; Ahrar al-Sham, another large group; and more moderate rebel factions that have received covert arms support from the intelligence services of the United States and its allies. The Telegraph, in an early October article complaining that Russia was bombing “non-ISIL rebels,” similarly noted that the Army of Conquest (bombed by Russia) “includes a number of Islamist groups, most powerful among them Ahrar al-Sham and Jabhat al-Nusra. Jabhat al-Nusra is the local affiliate of al-Qaeda.” Even the Voice of America noted that “Russia’s main target has been the Army of Conquest, an alliance of insurgent groups that includes the al-Nusra Front, al-Qaida’s affiliate in Syria, and the hard-line Islamist group Ahrar al-Sham, as well as some less extreme Islamist groups.”

In other words, the claim from the anonymous Saudi official that the BBC uncritically regurgitated — that the Saudis are only arming the Army of Conquest but no groups that “include” the Nusra Front — is self-negating. A BBC reader, Ricardo Vaz, brought this contradiction to the BBC’s attention. As he told The Intercept: “The problem is that the Nusra Front is the most important faction inside the Army of Conquest. So either the Saudi official expected the BBC journalist not to know this, or he expects us to believe they can deliver weapons to factions fighting side by side with an al Qaeda affiliate and that those weapons will not make their way into Nusra’s hands. In any case, this is very close to an official admission that the Saudis (along with Qataris and Turkish) are supplying weapons to an al Qaeda affiliate. This of course is not a secret to anyone who’s paying attention.” In response to Vaz’s complaint, the BBC did not tell its readers about this vital admission. Instead, it simply edited that Saudi admission out of its article. In doing so, it made the already-misleading article so much worse, as the BBC went even further out of its way to protect the Saudis. This is what that passage now states on the current version of the article on the BBC’s site (emphasis added): He said those groups being supplied did not include either Islamic State (IS) or al-Nusra Front, both of which are proscribed terrorist organizations. Instead, he said the weapons would go to the Free Syrian Army and other small rebel groups.

So originally, the BBC stated that the “Saudi official” announced that the regime was arming the Army of Conquest. Once it was brought to the BBC’s attention that the Army of Conquest includes the al Qaeda affiliate Nusra Front — a direct contradiction of the Saudi official’s other claim that the Saudis are not arming Nusra — the BBC literally changed the Saudi official’s own statement, whitewashed it, to eliminate his admission that they were arming Army of Conquest. Instead, the BBC now states that the Saudis are arming “the Free Syrian Army and other small rebel groups.” The BBC simply deleted the key admission that the Saudis are arming al Qaeda.

But what this does highlight is just how ludicrous — how beyond parody — the 14-year-old war on terror has become, how little it has to do with its original ostensible justification. The regime with the greatest plausible proximity to the 9/11 attack — Saudi Arabia — is the closest U.S. ally in the region next to Israel. The country that had absolutely nothing to do with that attack, and which is at least as threatened as the U.S. by the religious ideology that spurred it — Iran — is the U.S.’s greatest war-on-terror adversary. Now we have a virtual admission from the Saudis that they are arming a group that centrally includes al Qaeda, while the U.S. itself has at least indirectly done the same (just as was true in Libya). And we’re actually at the point where western media outlets are vehemently denouncing Russia for bombing al Qaeda elements, which those outlets are  manipulatively referring to as “non-ISIS groups.” It’s not a stretch to say that the faction that provides the greatest material support to al Qaeda at this point is the U.S. and its closest allies. That is true even as al Qaeda continues to be paraded around as the prime need for the ongoing war. But whatever one’s views are on Syria, it’s telling indeed to watch the BBC desperately protect Saudi officials, not only by granting them anonymity to spout official propaganda, but worse, by using blatant editing games to whitewash the Saudis’ own damaging admissions, ones the BBC unwittingly published. There are many adjectives one can apply to the BBC’s behavior here: “Objective” and “neutral” are most assuredly not among them.

On the other side Hammond wants to sell more weapons to Saudi Arabia despite its abysmal human rights record: In an interview with Newsnight, Mr Hammond was asked if he would like to see the current £5.4billion of weapons trade with Saudi Arabia increase. He replied: “We’d always like to do more business, more British exports, more British jobs and in this case very high end engineering jobs protected and created by our diplomacy abroad.” So there is the Hammonds "pragmatic solution" - the UK will support the Saudi position on the terrorist groups Ahrar al Shams, which is related to and closely cooperating with al-Qaeda, and the Saudis will buy more British weapons. There is only a slight problem. The framework submitted by the October 30 conference, excerpted above, agreed of the fundamental "secular character" for the Syrian state. But even a now revisionist Ahrar al-Shams insists that Islamic law must the constitutional base of Syria. A state build on Islamic law is certainly not "secular". Unless of course one redefines what secular means. And that is exactly what Hammond, hearing the cash register ringing, now proposes: While Mr. Hammond declined to offer any details on which groups could eventually take part in political negotiations, his comments suggested that the West might be prepared to back Sunni Islamist groups with close ties to allies, including Saudi Arabia. “What we mean by a secular constitution, and what people in the Muslim world will understand by secular will be two different things,” Mr. Hammond said.

British orientalism at its finest: The Salafi jihadists of Ahrar al-Shams are not "terrorists" because the Saudis will buy more British weapons. A Syria based on Islamic law will be "secular" because those [censored] Arabs don't even know what that means. Maybe the U.S. should also offer to buy more British weapons? Foreign Minister Hammond would than surely recognize that the terrorists the U.S. supports in Syria are "moderate enough" hardline Islamists to fit his deranged definition of "secular".

Hadi Abdullah, friend of the designated al-Qaeda terrorist Muhaysini, just received the 2016 Press Freedom Price from the CIA/Soros financed "regime change" influence operation Reporters Without Borders. Might this mean that Hadi Abdullah is himself a CIA assets? He would not be the first such "journalist" in Syria. Obama, obviously as a direct consequence of the Trump election, now ordered the Pentagon to wage war on al-Qaeda in Syria just as the Russians do. This after five years of nearly unlimited U.S. support for al-Qaeda and its "moderate" Syrian affiliates. It is not yet know what new orders, if any, Obama gave to the CIA. Will the CIA follow these policies or will it (again) try to counter the Pentagon policies in Syria? It is unusual that the WaPo report above about this new direction includes no commenting voice from the CIA. Why is such missing? Russia and Syria will welcome the new Obama policies should they come to fruit on the ground. Hillary Clinton had planned and announced to widen the conflict in Syria and with Russia and Iran. Obama would surely not have acted against such policies if she had been elected. But with Trump winning and thereby a new policy on the horizon he now changed course to a direction that will provide "continuity" when Trump takes over. Not only is Trump kicking a black family out of its longtime limewashed home, he also ends U.S. government support for the disenfranchised Jihadis in Syria and elsewhere. This even months before taking office. He really is the menace we have all been warned about.

UPDATE: This interview in today's WSJ confirms that Trump is still in the pro-Syrian/anti-Jihadist camp that is opposed to Obama's original policy: Donald Trump, in Exclusive Interview, Tells WSJ He Is Willing to Keep Parts of Obama Health Law He said he got a “beautiful” letter from Russian President Vladimir Putin, adding that a phone call between them is scheduled shortly. ... Although he wasn’t specific, Mr. Trump suggested a shift away from what he said was the current Obama administration policy of attempting to find moderate Syrian opposition groups to support in the civil war there. “I’ve had an opposite view of many people regarding Syria,” he said. He suggested a sharper focus on fighting Islamic State, or ISIS, in Syria, rather than on ousting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. “My attitude was you’re fighting Syria, Syria is fighting ISIS, and you have to get rid of ISIS. Russia is now totally aligned with Syria, and now you have Iran, which is becoming powerful, because of us, is aligned with Syria. … Now we’re backing rebels against Syria, and we have no idea who these people are.” If the U.S. attacks Mr. Assad, Mr. Trump said, “we end up fighting Russia, fighting Syria.”

The political demands the conference agreed upon include non-starters for negotiations like the demand that the Syrian President Assad would leave within 6 weeks of the negotiations start. There was also this illuminating word game: Islamist delegates objected to using the word “democracy” in the final statement, so the term “democratic mechanism” was used instead, according to a member of one such group who attended the meeting. The Ahrar al-Sham delegate at the meeting signed the deal while the Ahrar al Sham bigwigs, who took not part, damned the deal and announced they were completely against it. They demand an Islamic State in Syria that would follow their militant Salafi line of believe. Hubbard again: Ben Hubbard ‏@NYTBen Re: @Ahrar_Alsham2. It's main delegate did not walk out. Before meeting ended, members not present released statement announcing withdrawal. The session's moderator said Ahrar delegate was not aware of statement by his group until later, but did sign the final communiqué. Then Ahrar members like @aleesa71 and @a_azraeel complained on Twitter, suggesting a split between military and political leaders.

The Saudi and Qatari Wahhabi rulers want Ahrar al Sham to be part of any future solution in Syria. They hired "western" think tanks like Brookings Doha to propagandize that Ahrar is "moderate". But Ahrar can not be "moderate" when it is fighting together with al-Qaeda and kills civilians because they are "unbelievers". It is now in an uncomfortable position. If it takes part in a peace conference with the Syrian government its Jabhat al-Nusra ally will roast it, if it doesn't take part its Saudi and Qartari financiers will fry it. Since the start of the war on Syria no unity has been achieved in the opposition of the Syrian government. The U.S., in form of the CIA head John Brennan, teamed up (again) with al-Qaeda while the State Department tried to sponsor more "moderates". The ensuing chaos continues today. To prevent further blowback from this nonsense strategy will obviously require a change towards a position that supports the Syrian government. It is doubtful that the U.S. is capable of such foresight and flexibility.

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.

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.

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 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.

Nusra wants to use northern Syria as base for the new group. It launched offensives against Western-backed groups who have been vetted by the U.S. to receive military support.In the northern province of Idlib it seized territory from the Syria Revolutionaries' Front led by Jamal Maarouf, forcing him to flee. Last week it went after another mainstream group, Harakat Hazzm in Aleppo province, forcing it to dissolve itself.The U.S. State Department said the end of Harakat Hazzm would have an impact on the moderate opposition's capabilities in the north.But if Nusra is dissolved and it abandons al Qaeda, the ideology of the new entity is not expected to change. Golani fought with al Qaeda in Iraq. Some other leaders fought in Afghanistan and are close al Qaeda chief Ayman Zawahri. "Nusra had to pledge loyalty to Sheikh Zawahri to avoid being forced to be loyal to Baghdadi but that was not a good idea, it is time that this is abandoned," said a Nusra source in Aleppo. "It did not help Nusra and now it is on the terrorist list," he said.

And everyone else, the UN, the Holy See, the House of Saud, are just onlookers, even as several players, from the EU to India, China and Japan, can think of nothing but finally normalizing everything with Iran. The Syrian government, for its part, will be in Montreux; it had agreed to the conference long ago. Yet President Assad Laid down ; he will not 'Leave' , as President Barack Obama US demanded The. He will not Let the foreign-Sponsored 'Opposition' Take over. And he may even contest the next presidential elections. Assad went for the jugular when he said Geneva 2 Should be About His own 'War on Terror' . Terror, incidentally, widely supported by the West. So under this perspective, even Washington needs Assad not to go. The bottom line is that the only players who really want Assad to go are the House of Saud and the House of Thani in Qatar. Many in the West have now Realized Assad must Fight to Stay 'the Terrorists' .

What's even more farcical is what Ford may have told the SNC stalwarts - still subject to much debate across the Middle East. If Ford really Said That Bandar Bush's Strategy has Been A Total Failure (in Fact turning Syria into an Al-Qaeda Hub) then this points to the Obama Administration, for All Practical Purposes, Sharing the Same Objective as Assad's: Fighting 'Terror' . Still, Geneva 2 will not 'Solve' anything. Iran and Russia will keep supporting Damascus. The desert wasteland from Syria to Iraq will keep being occupied by Bandar Bush-supported and Gulf-supported hardcore sectarian jihadis. The war will keep spreading deeper into Lebanon. The government in Damascus won't collapse. The refugee crisis will soar. And the West Will Keep Striking A pose of Being Concerned with 'Terror' .