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ECHELON: NSA's Global Electronic Interception - 0 views

web.archive.org/...echelon-dc.htm surveillance state NSA ECHELON Five-Eyes Duncan-Campbell NSA-history
shared by Paul Merrell on 24 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • 12 August 1988  Cover, pages 10-12   Somebody's  listening  . . . and they don't give a damn about personal privacy or commercial confidence. Project 415 is a top-secret new global surveillance system. It can tap into a billion calls a year in the UK alone. Inside Duncan Campbell on how spying entered the 21st century . . .  They've got it taped In the booming surveillance industry they spy on whom they wish, when they wish, protected by barriers of secrecy, fortified by billions of pounds worth of high, high technology. Duncan Campbell reports from the United States on the secret Anglo-American plan for a global electronic spy system for the 21st century capable of listening in to most of us most of the time   American, British and Allied intelligence agencies are soon to embark on a massive, billion-dollar expansion of their global electronic surveillance system. According to information given recently in secret to the US Congress, the surveillance system will enable the agencies to monitor and analyse civilian communications into the 21st century. Identified for the moment as Project P415, the system will be run by the US National Security Agency (NSA). But the intelligence agencies of many other countries will be closely involved with the new network, including those from Britain, Australia, Germany and Japan--and, surprisingly, the People's Republic of China. New satellite stations and monitoring centres are to be built around the world, and a chain of new satellites launched, so that NSA and its British counterpart, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) at Cheltenham, may keep abreast of the burgeoning international telecommunications traffic.
  • Both the new and existing surveillance systems are highly computerised. They rely on near total interception of international commercial and satellite communications in order to locate the telephone or other messages of target individuals. Last month, a US newspaper, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, revealed that the system had been used to target the telephone calls of a US Senator, Strom Thurmond. The fact that Thurmond, a southern Republican and usually a staunch supporter of the Reagan administration, is said to have been a target has raised fears that the NSA has restored domestic, electronic, surveillance programmes. These were originally exposed and criticised during the Watergate investigations, and their closure ordered by President Carter. After talking to the NSA, Thurmond later told the Plain Dealer that he did not believe the allegation. But Thurmond, a right-wing Republican, may have been unwilling to rock the boat. Staff members of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence said that staff were "digging into it" despite the "stratospheric security classification" of all the systems involved. The Congressional officials were first told of the Thurmond interception by a former employee of the Lockheed Space and Missiles Corporation, Margaret Newsham, who now lives in Sunnyvale, California. Newsham had originally given separate testimony and filed a lawsuit concerning corruption and mis-spending on other US government "black" projects. She has worked in the US and Britain for two corporations which manufacture signal intelligence computers, satellites and interception equipment for NSA, Ford Aerospace and Lockheed. Citing a special Executive Order signed by President Reagan. she told me last month that she could not and would not discuss classified information with journalists. But according to Washington sources (and the report in the Plain Dealer, she informed a US Congressman that the Thurmond interception took place at Menwith Hill, and that she p
  • A secret listening agreement, called UKUSA (UK-USA), assigns parts of the globe to each participating agency. GCHQ at Cheltenham is the co-ordinating centre for Europe, Africa and the Soviet Union (west of the Ural Mountains). The NSA covers the rest of the Soviet Union and most of the Americas. Australia--where another station in the NSA listening network is located in the outback--co-ordinates the electronic monitoring of the South Pacific, and South East Asia.
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  • During the Watergate affair. it was revealed that NSA, in collaboration with GCHQ, had routinely intercepted the international communications of prominent anti-Vietnam war leaders such as Jane Fonda and Dr Benjamin Spock. Another target was former Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver. Then in the late 1970s, it was revealed that President Carter had ordered NSA to stop obtaining "back door" intelligence about US political figures through swapping intelligence data with GCHQ Cheltenham.
  • ince then, investigators have subpoenaed other witnesses and asked them to provide the complete plans and manuals of the ECHELON system and related projects. The plans and blueprints are said to show that targeting of US political figures would not occur by accident. but was designed into the system from the start. While working at Menwith Hill, Newsham is reported to have said that she was able to listen through earphones to telephone calls being monitored at the base. Other conversations that she heard were in Russian. After leaving Menwith Hill, she continued to have access to full details of Menwith Hill operations from a position as software manager for more than a dozen VAX computers at Menwith which operate the ECHELON system. Newsham refused last month to discuss classified details of her career, except with cleared Congressional officials. But it has been publicly acknowledged that she worked on a large range of so-called "black" US intelligence programmes, whose funds are concealed inside the costs of other defence projects. She was fired from Lockheed four years ago after complaining about the corruption, and sexual harassment.
  • he largest overseas station in the Project P415 network is the US satellite and communications base at Menwith Hill. near Harrogate in Yorkshire. It is run undercover by the NSA and taps into all Britain's main national and international communications networks (New Statesman, 7 August 1980). Although high technology stations such as Menwith Hill are primarily intended to monitor international communications, according to US experts their capability can be, and has been, turned inwards on domestic traffic. Menwith Hill, in particular, has been accused by a former employee of gross corruption and the monitoring of domestic calls. The vast international global eavesdropping network has existed since shortly after the second world war, when the US, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand signed a secret agreement on signals intelligence, or "sigint". It was anticipated, correctly, that electronic monitoring of communications signals would continue to be the largest and most important form of post-war secret intelligence, as it had been through the war. Although it is impossible for analysts to listen to all but a small fraction of the billions of telephone calls, and other signals which might contain "significant" information, a network of monitoring stations in Britain and elsewhere is able to tap all international and some domestic communications circuits, and sift out messages which sound interesting. Computers automatically analyse every telex message or data signal, and can also identify calls to, say, a target telephone number in London, no matter from which country they originate.
  • If Margaret Newsham's testimony is confirmed by the ongoing Congressional investigation, then the NSA has been behaving illegally under US law--unless it can prove either that Thurmond's call was intercepted completely accidentally, or that the highly patriotic Senator is actually a foreign spy or terrorist. Moreover NSA's international phone tapping operations from Menwith Hill and at Morwenstow, Cornwall, can only be legal in Britain if special warrants have been issued by the Secretary of State to specify that American intelligence agents are persons to whom information from intercepts must or should be given. This can not be established, since the government has always refused to publish any details of the targets or recipients of specific interception warrants.
  • Both British and American domestic communications are also being targeted and intercepted by the ECHELON network, the US investigators have been told. The agencies are alleged to have collaborated not only on targeting and interception, but also on the monitoring of domestic UK communications. Special teams from GCHQ Cheltenham have been flown in secretly in the last few years to a computer centre in Silicon Valley near San Francisco for training on the special computer systems that carry out both domestic and international interception.
  • The centre near San Francisco has also been used to train staff from the "Technical Department" of the People's Liberation Army General Staff, which is the Chinese version of GCHQ. The Department operates two ultra-secret joint US-Chinese listening stations in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, close to the Soviet Siberian border. Allegedly, such surveillance systems are only used to target Soviet or Warsaw Pact communications signals, and those suspected of involvement in espionage and terrorism. But those involved in ECHELON have stressed to Congress that there are no formal controls over who may be targeted. And I have been told that junior intelligence staff can feed target names into the system at all levels, without any check on their authority to do so. Witnesses giving evidence to the Congressional inquiry have discussed whether the Democratic presidential contender Jesse Jackson was targeted; one source implied that he had been. Even test engineers from manufacturing companies are able to listen in on private citizens' communications, the inquiry was told. But because of the special Executive Order signed by President Reagan, US intelligence operatives who know about such politically sensitive operations face jail sentences if they speak out--despite the constitutional American protection of freedom of speech and of the press. And in Britain, as we know, the government is in the process of tightening the Official Secrets Act to make the publication of any information from intelligence officials automatically a crime, even if the information had already been published, or had appeared overseas first.
  • Paul Merrell on 24 Oct 14
     
    From the original series of ariticles * in 1988 * that first brought the Five Eyes' nation's ECHELON surveillance project to light. But note the paragarph about the disclosure during the Watergate scandal (early 1970s) about domestic digital surveillance of antiwar leaders and Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver.    
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Britain Used Spy Team to Shape Latin American Public Opinion on Falklands - The Intercept - 0 views

firstlook.org/...gchq-argentina-falklands surveillance state GCHQ Falklands dirty-tricks
shared by Paul Merrell on 03 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • Faced with mounting international pressure over the Falkland Islands territorial dispute, the British government enlisted its spy service, including a highly secretive unit known for using “dirty tricks,” to covertly launch offensive cyberoperations to prevent Argentina from taking the islands. A shadowy unit of the British spy agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) had been preparing a bold, covert plan called “Operation QUITO” since at least 2009. Documents provided to The Intercept by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden, published in partnership with Argentine news site Todo Notícias, refer to the mission as a “long-running, large scale, pioneering effects operation.” At the heart of this operation was the Joint Threat Research and Intelligence Group, known by the acronym JTRIG, a secretive unit that has been involved in spreading misinformation.
  • The British government, which has continuously administered the Falkland Islands — also known as the Malvinas — since 1833, has rejected Argentine and international calls to open negotiations on territorial sovereignty. Worried that Argentina, emboldened by international opinion, may attempt to retake the islands diplomatically or militarily, JTRIG and other GCHQ divisions were tasked “to support FCO’s [Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s] goals relating to Argentina and the Falkland Islands.” A subsequent document suggests the main FCO goal was to “[prevent] Argentina from taking over the Falkland Islands” and that new offensive cyberoperations were underway in 2011 to further that end. Tensions between the two nations, which fought a war over the small archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean in 1982, reached a boil in 2010 with the British discovery of large, offshore oil and gas reserves potentially worth billions of dollars.
  • While the full extent of JTRIG’s tactics used in the Falklands mission is unclear, the scope of JTRIG’s approved capabilities offers an idea of what may have been done. The group, first revealed last year by NBC News and The Intercept, has developed various techniques — including “false flag” operations, sexual “honey traps,” and implanting computer viruses — to collect intelligence, plant propaganda and diminish or discredit opponents. As reported in The Intercept last year, JTRIG “has developed covert tools to seed the internet with false information, including the ability to manipulate the results of online polls, artificially inflate pageview counts on web sites, ‘amplif[y]’ sanctioned messages on YouTube,” and plant false Facebook wall posts for “entire countries.” According to a study of the group by the U.K.’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL), “the language of JTRIG’s operations is characterized by terms such as ‘discredit,’ promote ‘distrust,’ ‘dissuade,’ ‘deceive,’ ‘disrupt,’ ‘delay,’ ‘deny,’ ‘denigrate/degrade,’ and ‘deter.’” The unit’s activities generally break down into two symbiotic categories: online Human Intelligence, or HUMINT, and “effects operations.” Online HUMINT is the collection of information on human targets through passive tracking or overt interaction with a target through an alias. These operations may sometimes be in support of, or in conjunction with, covert MI-6 agents on the ground.
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  • Effects operations are used to disseminate deception and disruption online. A full catalog of JTRIG’s capabilities as of 2012 can be seen here. Operation QUITO, the group’s operation to support the Foreign Office’s “goals relating to Argentina and the Falkland Islands” is called a “pioneering effects operation.” That operation, still in the planning stages, had undergone “a significant amount of prep work” and was “almost complete” as of 2009.
  • GCHQ’s mission regarding the Falkland Islands also appears to extend beyond just Argentina and involve regional leaders and attitudes. A November 2011 workshop on “Mission Driven Access” gathered staff to “build on pioneering work already done” and tried to develop new ideas for real world scenarios. One such scenario: “GCHQ has consistently underperformed on Brazil, with growing concerns that [South] American attitudes on the Falklands are swinging behind Argentina. A forthcoming Ministerial visit to Chile provides an opportunity to counter the trend. The Foreign Office are looking for advice.”
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The Daily Bell - 9/11 Fourteen Years Later - 0 views

www.thedailybell.com/...berts-911-Fourteen-Years-Later 911 911-Conspiracy-facts
shared by Gary Edwards on 15 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • The Official Version of 9/11 goes something like this: Directed by a beardy-guy from a cave in Afghanistan, nineteen hard-drinking, coke-snorting, devout Muslims enjoy lap dances before their mission to meet Allah. Using nothing more than craft knifes, they overpower cabin crew, passengers and pilots on four planes. And hangover or not, they manage to give the world's most sophisticated air defence system the slip. Unfazed by leaving their "How to Fly a Passenger Jet" guide in the car at the airport, they master the controls in no-time and score direct hits on two towers, causing THREE to collapse completely.
  • The laws of physics fail, and the world watches in awe as asymmetrical damage and scattered low temperature fires cause steel-framed buildings to collapse symmetrically through their own mass at free-fall speed, for the first time in history. Despite their dastardly cunning and superb planning, they give their identity away by using explosion-proof passports, which survive the destruction of steel and concrete and fall to the ground where they are quickly discovered lying on top of the mass of debris.
  • Meanwhile in Washington Hani Hanjour, having previously flunked Cessna flying school, gets carried away with all the success of the day and suddenly finds incredible abilities behind the controls of a jet airliner. Instead of flying straight down into the large roof area of the Pentagon, he decides to show off a little. Executing an incredible 270 degree downward spiral, he levels off to hit the low facade of the Pentagon. Without ruining the nicely mowed lawn and at a speed just too fast to capture on video.
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  • In the skies above Pennsylvania  Desperate to talk to loved ones before their death, some passengers use sheer willpower to connect mobile calls that would not be possible until several years later. And following a heroic attempt by some to retake control of Flight 93, the airliner crashes into a Pennsylvania field leaving no trace of engines, fuselage or occupants except for the standard issue Muslim terrorist bandana.
  • During these events President Bush continues to read "My Pet Goat" to a class of primary school children.
  • In New York World Trade Center leaseholder Larry Silverstein blesses his own foresight in insuring the buildings against terrorist attack only six weeks previously. 
  • In Washington The Neoconservatives are overjoyed by the arrival of the "New Pearl Harbor," the necessary catalyst for launching their pre-planned wars.
  • Gary Edwards on 15 Oct 15
     
    "Millions of refugees from Washington's wars are currently over-running Europe. Washington's 14-year and ongoing slaughter of Muslims and destruction of their countries are war crimes for which the US government's official 9/11 conspiracy theory was the catalyst. Factual evidence and science do not support Washington's conspiracy theory. The 9/11 Commission did not conduct an investigation. It was not permitted to investigate. The Commission sat and listened to the government's story and wrote it down. Afterwards, the chairman and cochairman of the Commission said that the Commission "was set up to fail." For a factual explanation of 9/11, watch this film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsoY3AIRUGA&feature=youtu.be. Here is an extensive examination of many of the aspects of 9/11: http://www.luogocomune.net/site/modules/sections/index.php?op=viewarticle&artid=167. Phil Restino of the Central Florida chapter of Veterans For Peace wants to know why national antiwar organizations buy into the official 9/11 story when the official story is the basis for the wars that antiwar organizations oppose. Some are beginning to wonder if ineffectual peace groups are really Homeland Security or CIA fronts. The account below of the government's 9/11 conspiracy theory reads like a parody, but in fact is an accurate summary of the official 9/11 conspiracy theory. It was posted as a comment in the online UK Telegraph on September 12, 2009, in response to Charlie Sheen's request to President Obama to conduct a real investigation into what happened on September 11, 2001."
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'High probability' Russian flight was bombed, says UK foreign secretary | World news | ... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...ombed-says-uk-defence-minister war & peace Russia airliner bombing ISIL U.S.-foreign-policy
shared by Paul Merrell on 13 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • There is a “high probability” that a bomb planted by an Islamic State supporter brought down the Russian airliner which crashed over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula just over a week ago, according to Britain’s foreign secretary. Drawing one of the most explicit links yet between Isis and the incident, Philip Hammond said that this did not necessarily mean that the attack was directed from the group’s headquarters in Syria. Rather, he said: “It may have been an individual who was inspired by Isis who was self-radicalised by looking at Isis propaganda and was acting in the name of Isis without necessarily being directed.” Hammond’s comments, made during an interview with CNN, came as US sources reportedly suggested that Russian communications intercepted by US intelligence agencies show Russia also believes the plane to have been brought down by a bomb.
  • The intercepts are among pieces of evidence leading US officials to suspect that a device planted on Metrojet Flight 9268 exploded shortly after the Airbus A321 took off from the resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh, according to a report by Reuters. All 224 passengers and crew were killed when the plane crashed in the desert on 31 October on the way to St Petersburg, Russia. Egypt and Russia have yet to formally announce the cause of the disaster although both have publicly dismissed as premature US and British assessments that a bomb likely was responsible.
  • Paul Merrell on 13 Nov 15
     
    I'd be equally inclined to suspect that it was a CIA or Mossad false flag operation that planted the bomb to cause backlash against Putin in Russia for the Russian intervention in Syria. 
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US Treasury Sued over Donations for Settlements - nsnbc international | nsnbc internati... - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...over-donations-for-settlements war & peace Israel settlements litigation tax-free-donations
shared by Paul Merrell on 31 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • A lawsuit has been filed in a US court seeking to stop non-profit groups from sending billions of dollars worth of tax-exempt donations to support illegal Israeli settlements and the Israeli army.
  • A group of American citizens filed the suit on December 21 against the US Department of Treasury, claiming about 150 non-profits have sent an estimated $280bn to Israel over the past two decades. The lawsuit claims, according to Al Jazeera, that the donations were “pass-throughs” and “funnels” to support the Israeli army and the illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. The lawsuit claims that certain non-profit groups (including the Falic Family Foundation, FIDF (Friends of the Israeli Defence Force), American Friends of Ariel, Gush Etzion Foundation, American Friends of Har Homa, and Hebron Fund) directly contributed, tax-exempt, to violations of US law and international law, subverted US foreign policy, and contributed to countless crimes and human rights abuses targeting Palestinians. The Treasury Department, which has 60 days to respond to the lawsuit, declined to comment, stating in an email to Al Jazeera: “We don’t comment on pending litigation.”
  • Paul Merrell on 31 Dec 15
     
    It's a lawsuit that's decades overdue. Israel's colonization of Palestine is a war crime forbidden by the Nuremberg Principles and the Fourth Geneva Convention, and through the Constituion's Treaty Clause, stand on the same footing as federal statutes. Encouraging war crimes through tax exemption is not a sustainable position for U.S. government in litigation. On the other hand, we have three Zionist Jews on the Supreme Court, so who knows. But if that tax exemption is lost in the U.S., look for similar government decisions in Europe.  
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Brazil Refuses Israeli Settler as Diplomatic Envoy - International Middle East Media Ce... - 0 views

www.imemc.org/74388 war & peace Israel Palestine Brazil settlements ambassador
shared by Paul Merrell on 01 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • Brazil’s reluctance to accept an Israeli ambassador who is a West Bank colonist has set off a diplomatic crisis and led to concerns in the Israeli government that the clash could encourage pro-Palestinian activism against it.
  • The appointment four months ago of Dani Dayan, a former head of the Jewish colony movement, did not go down well with Brazil’s left-leaning government, which has supported Palestinian statehood in recent years. Most world powers deem the "Jews-only" colonies on Palestinian land as illegal. The regime’s previous ambassador, Reda Mansour, left Brasilia last week and the Israeli government said on Sunday that Brazil risked degrading bilateral relations if Dayan was not allowed to succeed him. “Israel will leave the level of diplomatic relations with Brazil at the secondary level if the appointment of Dani Dayan is not confirmed,” Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely told Israel’s Channel 10 TV, saying Dayan would remain the sole nominee. She said Israel would lobby Brasilia through the Brazilian Jewish community, confidants of President Dilma Rousseff and direct appeals from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
  • Brazilian government officials declined to comment on whether Rousseff will accept the nomination of the Argentine-born Dayan. But one senior Foreign Ministry official said: “I do not see that happening.”
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  • The official, who asked not to be named because he was not authorised to speak on the matter, said Israel would have to choose a different envoy because the choice of Dayan has further worsened relations that turned sour in 2010 when Brazil decided to recognise Palestinian statehood in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, which Israel occupied in a 1967 war and colonised. Israel quit Gaza in 2005 but claims occupied Jerusalem as its “indivisible capital” and wants to keep swathes of West Bank colonies under any eventual peace deal with the Palestinians.
  • Brazil’s government was also angered by the announcement of Dayan’s appointment by Netanyahu in a Twitter message on August 5 before Brasilia had been informed, let alone agreed to the new envoy as is the diplomatic norm. Over the weekend, Dayan went on the offensive to defend his nomination, telling Israeli media that Netanyahu’s government was not doing enough to press Brazil to accept him. Dayan said not doing so could create a precedent barring colonists from representing Israel abroad.
  • Israel has a considerable role in providing avionics technology for Brazil’s aerospace and defense industry. Celso Amorim, a former Brazilian foreign and defence minister, said on Friday that the diplomatic dispute over Dayan’s appointment showed that “it is time the Brazilian armed forces reduced their dependence on Israel.”
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Germany rejects own spy agency's criticism of Saudi Arabia - Yahoo News - 0 views

news.yahoo.com/sm-saudi-arabia-153602211.html war & peace Germany Saudis BND-report
shared by Paul Merrell on 08 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • The German government on Friday rejected the findings of a damning report on Saudi Arabia by its own spy agency and called Riyadh a key partner in regional conflict resolution.
  • The highly unusual spat between the chancellery and foreign ministry on one side and the BND foreign intelligence service on the other hand erupted when the latter on Wednesday released a report accusing Saudi Arabia of a destabilising shift in foreign policy. "The until now cautious diplomatic stance of the older members of the leadership of the royal family is being replaced with an impulsive policy of intervention," it said. In particular, the BND focused on the role of Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman who holds the defence portfolio and other powerful posts.The BND said he and his father King Salman, who acceded to power in January, appeared to want to establish themselves as the "leaders of the Arab world" by advancing a foreign policy agenda "with a strong military component as well as new regional alliances".
  • German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said Friday it was crucial that Berlin has a "coherent position" on the role of Saudi Arabia in the region."The assessments by the BND that were published do not reflect this coherent position," Seibert said."Those who want progress on the pressing issues in the region -- and there are many -- need constructive relations with Saudi Arabia," he said."Those who say that do not deny that there can be differences of opinion and differences in our political systems. But Saudi Arabia is a very, very important factor in the region."He highlighted Saudi Arabia's participation in meetings in Vienna aimed at finding a political solution in Syria and plans to host a meeting of opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
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  • Foreign ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer insisted that Berlin had a "good and trusting" relationship with the BND in the analysis of the Middle East.But he said the role of the BND, which reports to the chancellery, was to provide "information that the government requests" and "not to supply journalists with information". Mohammed bin Salman has largely spearheaded Riyadh's handling of the war in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia is leading a coalition supporting the government against Iran-backed Shiite Huthi rebels.Rights groups have repeatedly criticised the strikes, saying they have hit areas where there are no military targets.Nearly 5,000 people have been killed in the war, more than half of them civilians, according to UN estimates.
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M of A - Sistani Orders Turkey Out Of Iraq - Syria Oppo-Conference Fails - 0 views

www.moonofalabama.org/...ria-oppo-conference-fails.html war & peace Iraq Turkey invasion peace-talks Ahrar-al-Sham
shared by Paul Merrell on 14 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • After the U.S. invasion of Iraq the U.S vice consul Paul Bremer tried to install a handpicked Iraqi government.  The top Shia religious authority in Iraq, Grand Ajatollah Sistani, demanded a democratic vote. The issue was thereby decided. There was no way the U.S could have circumvented Sisitani's edict without a massive revolt by the 65% of Iraqis who are Shia and mostly follow his advice. Bremer had to fold. Now Ajatollah Sistani takes position against the Turkish invasion of Iraq: Iraq's top Shi'ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, called on the government on Friday to show "no tolerance" of any infringement of the country's sovereignty, after Turkey deployed heavily armed troops to northern Iraq. Sistani's spokesman, Sheikh Abdul Mehdi Karbala'i, did not explicitly name Turkey, but a row over the deployment has badly soured relations between Ankara and Baghdad, which denies having agreed to it. ... "The Iraqi government is responsible for protecting Iraq's sovereignty and must not tolerate and side that infringes upon on it, whatever the justifications and necessities," Karbalai'i said in a weekly sermon. The issue is thereby decided. Turkish troops will have to leave or will have to decisively defeat all Shia of Iraq (and Iran). If Erdogan were smart he would now order the Turkish troops stationed near Mosul to leave Iraq.
  • The Russian President Putin also increased pressure on Turkey: President Vladimir Putin on Friday ordered Russia's armed forces to act in an "extremely tough way" in Syria to protect Russian forces striking Islamic State targets there. "Any targets threatening our (military) group or land infrastructure must be immediately destroyed," Putin said, speaking at a Defence Ministry event. Note to Erdogan: Beware of funny ideas...
  • There was some Syrian opposition conference yesterday in Saudi Arabia were the Saudis tried to bribe everyone to agree on a common position. But the conference failed. Some 116 delegates took part under "international guidance" of their various sponsors. A spokesperson for the al-Qaeda aligned Ahrar al Sham, which closely cooperates with the al-Qaeda entity Jabhat al Nusra in Syria, also took part. No women were present. The conference resulted in the decision to hold another conference. The 116 delegates at the conference decided to select 33 delegates for a conference which would decide on 15 delegates to confer and maybe take part in some negotiations with the Syrian government side. The NYT's Ben Hubbard, who was there, tweeted: Ben Hubbard @NYTBen ...The meeting created yet another new opposition body, a high commission, meant to oversee negotiations. There was debate about how large it should be and what proportion should represent armed groups. Final was 32, changed after meetings to 33. Those 33 now tasked with choosing a 15 person negotiating team. So, yeah, umbrella groups making a new umbrella.
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  • 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.
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UK 'moving towards' military intervention against IS in Libya: Government source | Midd... - 0 views

www.middleeasteye.net/...ntion-against-libya-2047783197 war & peace UK Libya
shared by Paul Merrell on 14 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • The United Kingdom may soon begin bombing the Islamic State in Libya, following on from the recent decision to carry out air strikes against the group in Syria.A government source told the Daily Telegraph on Friday that the UK is “moving in the direction” of launching military action in war torn Libya, where IS has emerged out of a civil war that has paralysed the country since a revolution in 2011 overthrew long-time leader Muammar Gaddafi.“Things are moving in that direction. We are taking it one step at a time,” the source said.Ministers at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office told the Telegraph that they are “extremely concerned” by the rise of IS in Libya and want to intervene in the troubled North African country.Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said it is important “to keep an eye on Libya”, according to the Telegraph.Militants proclaiming affinity with IS have taken control in the central Libyan city of Sirte, and have carried out attacks across the country, including in the capital Tripoli and in the eastern town of Derna, where they have an ongoing presence.
  • Support for intervention in Libya is growing across Europe, with French Prime Minister Manuel Valls on Friday demanding that IS be confronted in Libya.“We are at war, we have an enemy, that we must fight and crush in Syria, in Iraq, and soon in Libya too,” he said.France has already sent reconnaissance plans over Libya to monitor militias battling on the ground for control of Africa’s largest oil reserves.The fear among Western officials is that IS may establish a presence along Libya’s Mediterranean coast in order to launch attacks against Europe.The group has already claimed responsibility for numerous attacks on European soil, including a string of massacres in Paris last month that saw 130 people killed.Middle East Minister Tobias Ellwood recently told MPs: “We are working closely with international partners to develop our understanding of its (IS’s) presence and how to tackle it there.”But any intervention in Libya will be dependent on a national unity government being formed. At the moment there are two rival administrations – one in the east and the other in Tripoli – who are vying for control, backed by opposing military forces waging war on the ground.
  • “There needs to be a recognised government in place in Libya that can ask us for help,” the government source told the Telegraph. “Then we will do whatever we can to help them deal with IS.”The rival Libyan parliaments have committed to signing a UN-backed deal to form a unity government next week. However, there remains staunch opposition to the agreement in both camps, with analysts suggesting a rushed deal will do little to bring a sustainable end to Libya’s civil war.
  • Paul Merrell on 14 Dec 15
     
    Down the Libya rabbit hole once more?
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Syria Right to Hit NATO Warplanes - 0 views

sputniknews.com/...ia-nato-planes-cunningham.html war & peace Syria sovereignty NATO airstrikes S-300
shared by Paul Merrell on 09 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • 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).
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  • “The use of proxy military force by the US and its NATO allies has been seen in regime-change operations in Libya, Syria and Ukraine, combined with media propaganda campaigns and economic sanctions,” says Martin. “A key strategy here by the Washington-led powers is to erode sovereign rights of designated enemy states.” The deployment of so-called Islamist terror groups to destabilise Syria as with neo-Nazi paramilitaries in Ukraine is all part of the West’s asymmetric warfare. For whatever reason, the US bombing coalition is claiming that it is combating the IS jihadists in Syria. However, the evidence shows that Western “combat” efforts in Syria are very late in coming and not very effective, indicating a lack of commitment to genuinely defeat the terror network.
  • There is also reason to believe that the NATO rush to bomb IS oil smuggling routes in Syria is really motivated by a need to cover up the tracks of Western collusion with the terror groups. The American CIA and British MI6, along with Turk military intelligence, have been implicated in running the terror “rat lines”. Russian intelligence is lifting the lid on this sordid racket. Western air strikes without the approval of the Syrian government are not only illegal, they lack credibility in their stated aim. But either way, the imperative here is that Syria re-establishes its sovereignty and the principles of international law. If Syria is lost, then Western state sponsored banditry and terrorism will only escalate. Russia is already being targeted by the West’s asymmetric warfare, as is Iran and China. Therefore, a line has to be drawn. And with Russia’s military support, Syria has the power to do just that. From now on, NATO warplanes violating Syrian territory should be put on notice. Keep out or get shot down.
  • Paul Merrell on 09 Dec 15
     
    I'm not seeing that Syria has much else in the way of choices. It's either re-establish its sovereignty rights or completely lose control of its airspace.My guess is that this winds up with some kind of deal that enables NATO to keep flying missions in Syria but requires more cooperation and coordination with Syria and Russia. Which will have the neocons and neolibs in Washington, D.C. screaming for a lynch mob.
  • Paul Merrell on 10 Dec 15
     
    On the reasons that Syria has to take this hard "line in the sand" to protect its sovereignty, see Tony Cartalucci at http://journal-neo.org/2015/12/07/americas-creeping-war-in-syria/ and the analysis by The Saker at http://thesaker.is/week-nine-of-the-russian-intervention-in-syria-the-empire-strikes-back/ Add in the facts that Turkey has already invaded Syria to establish a firebase in order to protect its Syrian oil smuggling racket (and ISIL supply lines) and that Turkey has massed an entire heavy armored division on the Syrian border poised for full-scale invasion. See http://southfront.org/turkey-invaded-syria-captured-tal-ziyab/ and http://southfront.org/turkey-is-ready-to-invide-syria-concentrated-1000-units-of-military-equipment-at-the-border/ So far it's an incremental invasion, perhaps probing to see how Syria and Russia will react. The answer: a line in the sand on any more NATO flights over Syria.
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TASS: Military & Defense - Pentagon warns Russia's against arming its warplanes in Syri... - 0 views

tass.ru/840554 war & peace Syria Russia SU-34 air-to-air-missiles U.S.-foreign-policy
shared by Paul Merrell on 02 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • Russia’s arming its Su-34 warplanes in Syria with air-to-air missiles can only complicate an already difficult situation in Syria’s airspace, Pentagon spokesperson Michelle Baldanza told TASS on Monday.
  • "Such systems will further complicate an already difficult situation in the skies over Syria and do nothing to further the fight against ISIL [the former name of the terrorist group Islamic State which is outlawed in Russian] as they have no air force," she said. "·We expect that if Russia follows through, they will abide by our Memorandum of Understanding regarding flight safety and not direct this system against Coalition aircraft." On Monday, spokesman for the Russian Aerospace Forces Colonel Igor Klimov said Russia’s Sukhoi Su-34 fighter-bombers (NATO reporting name: Fullback) had for the first time taken, in addition to bombs, short-and medium-range air-to-air missiles on combat mission in Syria. "The Russian Su-34 fighter-bombers today have for the first time taken on combat mission not only the OFAB-500 air bombs and KAB-500 guided bombs, but also short-and medium-range air-to-air missiles. The planes are equipped with missiles for their defence," Klimov said. According to him, the missiles "are equipped with target seeking devices and are capable of hitting air targets within the range of 60 kilometres."
  • Paul Merrell on 02 Dec 15
     
    Sheesh! The U.S. objects to Russian warplanes carrying defensive missiles.  
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Russian Air Force Annihilated Militants In Area Where Su-24 Was Shot Down. Erdogan Orde... - 0 views

www.globalresearch.ca/...5491436 war & peace Syria Russia Turkey fighters
shared by Paul Merrell on 26 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • Information has come from  Syrian sources that last night (24.11) the Russian Aerospace Defence Forces struck with massive attacks on the positions of militants (including Turkomans) in the region where the Russian Su-24 was brought down. The source reported that most likely nothing remains of the militants who shot down the Russian MI-8 . No detailed information has arrived yet. Meanwhile, there has appeared information that the Turks are not putting their fighters in the air after the majority of them were lit up by Russian radar (the S-300 and, according to early reports, possibly the S-400). After the statement of the Ministry of Defense of Russia, Turkey is afraid that their planes can be destroyed when approaching the border. In this regard the Syrians reported that the Russia air-space forces can begin the full-scale destruction of camps in the border territory, and also annihilate the retreating militants and the fuel trucks which are moving towards Turkey.
  • Erdogan did not receive the hoped-for support from NATO. Erdogan has acknowledged that if the Russian plane even violated the border of Turkey, this was for only for 17 seconds, which means that the Turkish Air Force, on purely physical grounds, could not have reacted to it if the provocation was not prepared in advance. This figure of 17 seconds appears in NATO reports. Members of NATO have been ambiguously treating Erdogan’s action. At present it is difficult to judge how the situation will develop. While it is obvious that Erdogan is attempting to back off, it is already too late, as Vladimir Putin gave to understand at a meeting with the king of Jordan. Most likely Turkey did not expect such a severe reaction from Russia.
  • Paul Merrell on 26 Nov 15
     
    Turkey is now one big no-fly zone for its air force. Cool, if true.
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BBC Protects U.K.'s Close Ally Saudi Arabia With Incredibly Dishonest and Biased Editing - 0 views

theintercept.com/...y-dishonest-and-biased-editing war & peace MSM BBC lies pro-war propaganda
shared by Paul Merrell on 27 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • The BBC loves to boast about how “objective” and “neutral” it is. But a recent article, which it was forced to change, illustrates the lengths to which the British state-funded media outlet will go to protect one of the U.K. government’s closest allies, Saudi Arabia, which also happens to be one of the country’s largest arms purchasers (just this morning, the Saudi ambassador to the U.K. threatened in an op-ed that any further criticism of the Riyadh regime by Jeremy Corbyn could jeopardize the multi-layered U.K./Saudi alliance). Earlier this month, the BBC published an article describing the increase in weapons and money sent by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf regimes to anti-Assad fighters in Syria. All of that “reporting” was based on the claims of what the BBC called “a Saudi government official,” who — because he works for a government closely allied with the U.K. — was granted anonymity by the BBC and then had his claims mindlessly and uncritically presented as fact (it is the rare exception when the BBC reports adversarially on the Saudis). This anonymous “Saudi official” wasn’t whistleblowing or presenting information contrary to the interests of the regime; to the contrary, he was disseminating official information the regime wanted publicized. This was the key claim of the anonymous Saudi official (emphasis added):
  • The well-placed official, who asked not to be named, 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 al-Assad and his Russian, Iranian and Lebanese allies. 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 three rebel alliances — Jaish al-Fatah (Army of Conquest), the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and the Southern Front.
  • So the Saudis, says the anonymous official, are only arming groups such as the “Army of Conquest,” but not the al Qaeda affiliate the Nusra Front. What’s the problem with this claim? It’s obvious, though the BBC would not be so impolite as to point it out: The Army of Conquest includes the Nusra Front as one of its most potent components. This is not even in remote dispute; the New York Times’ elementary explainer on the Army of Conquest from three weeks ago states:
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  • 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.
  • Paul Merrell on 27 Oct 15
     
    Glenn Greenwald riffs on BBC's latest cover-up on behalf of the U.S. allies backing for al-Nusrah.
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Eurozone crosses Rubicon as Portugal's anti-euro Left banned from power - Telegraph - 0 views

www.telegraph.co.uk/...ro-Left-banned-from-power.html banksters Portugal coup-government
shared by Paul Merrell on 25 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • Portugal has entered dangerous political waters. For the first time since the creation of Europe’s monetary union, a member state has taken the explicit step of forbidding eurosceptic parties from taking office on the grounds of national interest. Anibal Cavaco Silva, Portugal’s constitutional president, has refused to appoint a Left-wing coalition government even though it secured an absolute majority in the Portuguese parliament and won a mandate to smash the austerity regime bequeathed by the EU-IMF Troika.
  • He deemed it too risky to let the Left Bloc or the Communists come close to power, insisting that conservatives should soldier on as a minority in order to satisfy Brussels and appease foreign financial markets.
  • Democracy must take second place to the higher imperative of euro rules and membership. “In 40 years of democracy, no government in Portugal has ever depended on the support of anti-European forces, that is to say forces that campaigned to abrogate the Lisbon Treaty, the Fiscal Compact, the Growth and Stability Pact, as well as to dismantle monetary union and take Portugal out of the euro, in addition to wanting the dissolution of NATO,” said Mr Cavaco Silva.
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  • “This is the worst moment for a radical change to the foundations of our democracy. "After we carried out an onerous programme of financial assistance, entailing heavy sacrifices, it is my duty, within my constitutional powers, to do everything possible to prevent false signals being sent to financial institutions, investors and markets,” he said. Mr Cavaco Silva argued that the great majority of the Portuguese people did not vote for parties that want a return to the escudo or that advocate a traumatic showdown with Brussels. This is true, but he skipped over the other core message from the elections held three weeks ago: that they also voted for an end to wage cuts and Troika austerity. The combined parties of the Left won 50.7pc of the vote. Led by the Socialists, they control the Assembleia.
  • The conservative premier, Pedro Passos Coelho, came first and therefore gets first shot at forming a government, but his Right-wing coalition as a whole secured just 38.5pc of the vote. It lost 28 seats.
  • The Socialist leader, Antonio Costa, has reacted with fury, damning the president’s action as a “grave mistake” that threatens to engulf the country in a political firestorm. “It is unacceptable to usurp the exclusive powers of parliament. The Socialists will not take lessons from professor Cavaco Silva on the defence of our democracy,” he said. Mr Costa vowed to press ahead with his plans to form a triple-Left coalition, and warned that the Right-wing rump government will face an immediate vote of no confidence. There can be no fresh elections until the second half of next year under Portugal’s constitution, risking almost a year of paralysis that puts the country on a collision course with Brussels and ultimately threatens to reignite the country’s debt crisis. The bond market has reacted calmly to events in Lisbon but it is no longer a sensitive gauge now that the European Central Bank is mopping up Portuguese debt under quantitative easing.
  • Paul Merrell on 25 Oct 15
     
    The banksters just dropped the pretense of democracy in Portugal.  For additional analysis, see http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-pantomime-of-democracy-portugals-coup-against-anti-austerity/5484375
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Afghan Holocaust, Afghan Genocide - 0 views

sites.google.com/...afghanholocaustafghangenocide war & peace Afghanistan csualties stats genocide holocaust Iraq Palestine
shared by Paul Merrell on 09 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • This site is dedicated to informing people about the ongoing, US Alliance-imposed Afghan Holocaust and Afghan Genocide that as of 2012 is associated with post-2001 violent and non-violent avoidable deaths totalling 7.2  million and Afghan and Pashtun refugees totalling 5-6 million – an Afghan Holocaust ( a huge number of deaths) and an Afghan Genocide as defined by Article 2 of the UN Geneva Convention (see: http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide/convention.html ) which states: “In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”Also utterly ignored by Neocon American and Zionist  Imperialist (NAZI)-perverted and subverted Western Mainstream media are the 1.2 million people who have died world-wide since 9-11 due to US Alliance restoration of the Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry from 6% of world market share in 2001 to 93% in 2007, the breakdown (as of 2015)  including 280,000 Americans, 256,000 Indonesians, 68,000 Iranians, 25,000 British, 14,000 Canadians, 10,000 Germans, 5,000 Australians and 500 French.
  • As of January 2014  deaths from the Afghanistan War include approximately 7 million violent and non-violent excess deaths of Indigenous Afghans since 2001 and 3,417 US Alliance deaths (see: http://icasualties.org/oif/ ).As of January  2014 it is estimated from the latest UN Population Division data that in Occupied Afghanistan post-invasion non-violent excess deaths total 5.5 million.  Assuming expert US-Australian advice that the level of violence has been 4 times lower in the Afghan War than in the Iraq War where the ratio of violent deaths to non-violent avoidable deaths was 1.5 million/1.2million = 1.25, then post-invasion violent deaths in Afghanistan can be estimated at 1.25 x 5.5 million/4 = 1.7 million. Post-invasion violent and non-violent avoidable deaths total 5.5 million plus 1.7 million = 7.2 million; and post-invasion under-5 infant deaths total 3.0 million (90% avoidable and due to US Alliance war crimes in gross violence of the Geneva Convention – Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War demand that an Occupier must supply life-sustaining food and medical requisites “to the fullest extent of the means available to it” (see: http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/y4gcpcp.htm ) but according to the WHO (see: http://www.who.int/countries/en/ ) the “total annual expenditure on health per capita” permitted in Occupied Afghanistan is $50 as compared to $8,608 in Occupier US, $3,322 in Occupier UK, $4.086 in Occupier France, $4,371 in Occupier Germany  and $3,692  in Occupier racist, white Apartheid Australia).  
  • There are 3-4 million Afghan refugees plus a further 2.5 million Pashtun refugees generated in NW Pakistan by the obscene war policies of war criminal Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Obama – this carnage involving 4.5 million post-invasion violent and non-violent excess Afghan deaths constitutes an Afghan Holocaust and an Afghan Genocide as defined by Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention (see: http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide/convention.html ).
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  • As of January 2014  2009 it was estimated from the latest UN Population Division data that in Occupied Afghanistan post-invasion non-violent excess deaths totalled 5.5 million and post-invasion violent deaths totalled 1.7 million (this based on assuming expert US-Australian advice that the level of violence has been 4 times lower in the Afghan War than in the Iraq War).
  • The US Alliance restored the Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry from about 6% of world market share in 2001 to 93% in 2007 (see UNODC World Drug Report 2007: http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/WDR-2007.html and World Drug Report 2009: http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/WDR-2009.html   and World Drug Report , Opium/heroin market, 2009: http://www.unodc.org/documents/wdr/WDR_2009/WDR2009_Opium_Heroin_Market.pdf ).
  • About 0.1 million people die from opiate drug-related causes each year (see Australian National Drug Research Centre: http://db.ndri.curtin.edu.au/media.asp?mediarelid=40 ; UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), “Addiction, crime and insurgency. The transnational threat of Afghan opium”, 2009: http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/Afghanistan/Afghan_Opium_Trade_2009_web.pdf ) and hence about 0.8 million have died since the invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, of whom about 90%, i.e. 0.9 x 0.8 million = 0.7 million people, have died as a result of the huge expansion of the Afghan opium industry under US Alliance occupation. In 2005 in the US, of 18,347 deaths due to narcotics and psychodysleptics, 12, 262 were due to heroin (2,011), other opioids (5,789) or methadone (4,462) (see Health E-stat, “Increases in poisoning and methadone-related deaths: United States,1999-2005 “: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/poisoning/poisoning.pdf  ) . Given the over 90% contribution of the US restoration of the Taliban-destroyed opium industry to world illicit heroin production, and the interconnectedness and effective indistinguishability of "Afghan-derived heroin" from the "pool" of other abusively-used opiates, one can accordingly crudely estimate 0.9 x 12,262 persons/year x 8 years = 88,286 US opiate drug-related deaths (0.9 x 2,011 deaths/year x 8 years = 14,479 heroin-related deaths) connected with the aftermath of the US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.
  • Global deaths from violent priorities and ignoring Developing World poverty. Professor John Holdren (Professor of Environmental Policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University; Director of the Woods Hole Research Center;  recent Chairman of the American Association for the Advancement of Science) identified nuclear weapons, poverty and global warming as the three biggest threats facing Humanity (see: http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2007/0216am_holdren_address.shtml ). The US military budget is now about $1 trillion per annum (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States ) and 2001 Economics Nobel Laureate and former World Bank Chief Economist, Professor Joseph Stiglitz (Columbia University) has estimated that the accrual cost (long-term committed cost as opposed to the shirt-term budgeted cost) of the Iraq War is about $3 trillion (see: http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2007/s2236161.htm and “The Three Trillion Dollar War” by Joseph Stiglitz). In 2009, funds for war had been equally distributed between Iraq and Afghanistan, which each received $700 million. But in 2010, the bulk of the funds - $1.2 billion dollars will go to Afghanistan (see: http://www.defencetalk.com/afghan-war-costs-to-overtake-iraq-in-2010-pentagon-18679/ ). The budgeted cost from Congress of the Afghan War is estimated to have been $38 billion (see: http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=16570
  • Poverty results in the deaths of 16 million people annually (including 9.5 million under-5 year old infants) from deprivation and deprivation exacerbated disease (2003 data; see Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007). yet high female literacy, good governance, good primary health care and a modest increase in economic security could abolish this global avoidable mortality holocaust. It is estimated that the simple expedient of increasing the per capita of all countries to about $1000 would cost only $1.4 trillion, roughly the annual global “defence” budget and about 2.65 of global GNP (2003) ( p169,  Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”). Global deaths from worsening climate genocide. Both Dr James Lovelock FRS (Gaia hypothesis) and Professor Kevin Anderson ( Director, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Manchester, UK) have recently estimated that fewer than 1 billion people will survive this century due to unaddressed, man-made global warming – noting that the world population is expected to reach 9.5 billion by 2050, these estimates translate to a climate genocide involving deaths of 10 billion people this century, this including 6 billion under-5 year old infants, 3 billion Muslims, 2 billion Indians, 0.5 billion Bengalis, 0.3 billion Pakistanis and 0.3 billion Bangladeshis (see “Climate Genocide”: http://sites.google.com/site/climategenocide/ ).
  • US Alliance war policies in a swathe of countries from Occupied Haiti to Occupied Afghanistan and NW Pakistan, coupled with similarly greedy and  racist US Alliance global warming policies, oppose and prevent global equity and will ultimately kill 10 billion non-Europeans this century.
  • Paul Merrell on 09 Jan 16
     
    Nauseating statistics. Site also has stats for Palestine and Iraq.
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Russia Deploys Fleet Off Syria - Says U.S. Preparing for Possible Attack - 0 views

www.informationclearinghouse.info/50135.htm war & peace Syria Mediterranian Russia U.S. naval-deployments
shared by Paul Merrell on 29 Aug 18 - No Cached
  • The Russian Ministry of Defence said on Monday it had noticed Washington was building up its military forces in the Middle East in preparation for what Moscow feared was a possible strike on Syrian government forces, Russian news agencies reported. Major-General Igor Konashenkov was quoted by agencies as saying that the USS Ross, a guided-missile destroyer, had entered the Mediterranean on Aug. 25 armed with 28 Tomahawk cruise missiles capable of hitting any target in Syria.
  • Up to 13 Russian warships have crossed the Bosphorus toward Syria so far this week as tensions between the U.S. and Syria continue to rise, according to ship spotters based in the Bosphorus Strait. Now in Med Sea: CG Marshal Ustinov DDG Severomorsk DDG Yaroslav Mudryy FFG Admiral Grigorovich FFG Admiral Essen FFL Pytlivyy FSG Vyshniy Volochek FSG Grad Sviyazhsk FSG Velikiy Ustyug LST Orsk LST Nikolay Fil'chenkov MS Turbinist MS Valentin Pikul SS Kolpino SS Velikiy Novgorod — Capt(N) (@Capt_Navy) August 25, 2018 Russia ramping up its presence in the eastern Med for the conclusion of #Syria campaign: Rejoining Russian Navy’s Mediterranean deployment after 85 days, #ВМФ Project1135M #ЧФ BSF Krivak II frigate Pytlivy 868 transited Bosphorus towards Med en route to #Tartus. pic.twitter.com/56XWIWstKK — Yörük Işık (@YorukIsik) August 24, 2018 The deployment of the Russian fleet comes as the U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to strike the Syrian Army ahead of the long-awaited battle of Idlib. Syria, Turkey, Russia and U.S. are about to square off in the northern Syria city with millions of civilians in the crosshairs.
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Russian options against a US attack on Syria | The Vineyard of the Saker - 0 views

thesaker.is/s-against-a-us-attack-on-syria war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Syria Russia Aleppo military-options Saker must-read
shared by Paul Merrell on 10 Oct 16 - No Cached
  • The tensions between Russia and the USA have reached an unprecedented level. I fully agree with the participants of this CrossTalk show – the situation is even worse and more dangerous than during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Both sides are now going to the so-called “Plan B” which, simply put, stand for, at best, no negotiations and, at worst, a war between Russia and the USA.
  • In theory, these are, very roughly, the possible levels of confrontation: A military standoff à la Berlin in 1961. One could argue that this is what is already taking place right now, albeit in a more long-distance and less visible way. A single military incident, such as what happened recently when Turkey shot down a Russian SU-24 and Russia chose not to retaliate. A series of localized clashes similar to what is currently happening between India and Pakistan. A conflict limited to the Syrian theater of war (say like the war between the UK and Argentina over the Malvinas Islands). A regional or global military confrontation between the USA and Russia. A full scale thermonuclear war between the USA and Russia During my years as a student of military strategy I have participated in many exercises on escalation and de-escalation and I can attest that while it is very easy to come up with escalatory scenarios, I have yet to see a credible scenario for de-escalation. What is possible, however, is the so-called “horizontal escalation” or “asymmetrical escalation” in which one side choses not to up the ante or directly escalate, but instead choses a different target for retaliation, not necessarily a more valuable one, just a different one on the same level of conceptual importance (in the USA Joshua M. Epstein and Spencer D. Bakich did most of the groundbreaking work on this topic).
  • The main reason why we can expect the Kremlin to try to find asymmetrical options to respond to a US attack is that in the Syrian context Russia is hopelessly outgunned by the US/NATO, at least in quantitative terms. The logical solutions for the Russians is to use their qualitative advantage or to seek “horizontal targets” as possible retaliatory options. This week, something very interesting and highly uncharacteristic happened: Major General Igor Konashenkov, the Chief of the Directorate of Media service and Information of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation, openly mentioned one such option. Here is what he said: “As for Kirby’s threats about possible Russian aircraft losses and the sending of Russian servicemen back to Russia in body bags, I would say that we know exactly where and how many “unofficial specialists” operate in Syria and in the Aleppo province and we know that they are involved in the operational planning and that they supervise the operations of the militants. Of course, one can continue to insist that they are unsuccessfully involved in trying to separate the al-Nusra terrorists from the “opposition” forces. But if somebody tries to implement these threats, it is by no means certain that these militants will have to time to get the hell out of there.” Nice, no? Konashenkov appears to be threatening the “militants” but he is sure to mention that there are plenty of “unofficial specialists” amongst these militants and that Russia knows exactly where they are and how many of them there are. Of course, officially, Obama has declared that there are a few hundred such US special advisors in Syria. A well-informed Russian source suggests that there are up to 5’000 foreign ‘advisors’ to the Takfiris including about 4’000 Americans. I suppose that the truth is somewhere between these two figures.
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  • So the Russian threat is simple: you attack us and we will attack US forces in Syria. Of course, Russia will vehemently deny targeting US servicemen and insist that the strike was only against terrorists, but both sides understand what is happening here. Interestingly, just last week the Iranian Fars news agency reported that such a Russian attack had already happened: 30 Israeli, Foreign Intelligence Officers Killed in Russia’s Caliber Missile Attack in Aleppo: “The Russian warships fired three Caliber missiles at the foreign officers’ coordination operations room in Dar Ezza region in the Western part of Aleppo near Sam’an mountain, killing 30 Israeli and western officers,” the Arabic-language service of Russia’s Sputnik news agency quoted battlefield source in Aleppo as saying on Wednesday. The operations room was located in the Western part of Aleppo province in the middle of sky-high Sam’an mountain and old caves. The region is deep into a chain of mountains. Several US, Turkish, Saudi, Qatari and British officers were also killed along with the Israeli officers. The foreign officers who were killed in the Aleppo operations room were directing the terrorists’ attacks in Aleppo and Idlib.” Whether this really happened or whether the Russians are leaking such stories to indicate that this could happen, the fact remains that US forces in Syria could become an obvious target for Russian retaliation, whether by cruise missile, gravity bombs or direct action operation by Russian special forces. The US also has several covert military installations in Syria, including at least one airfield with V-22 Osprey multi-mission tiltrotor aircraft.
  • Another interesting recent development has been the Fox News report that Russians are deploying S-300V (aka “SA-23 Gladiator anti-missile and anti-aircraft system”) in Syria. Check out this excellent article for a detailed discussion of the capabilities of this missile system. I will summarize it by saying that the S-300V can engage ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, very low RCS (“stealth”) aircraft and AWACS aircraft. This is an Army/Army Corps -level air defense system, well capable of defending most of the Syrian airspace, but also reach well into Turkey, Cyprus, the eastern Mediterranean and Lebanon. The powerful radars of this system could not only detect and engage US aircraft (including “stealth”) at a long distance, but they could also provide a tremendous help for the few Russian air superiority fighters by giving them a clear pictures of the skies and enemy aircraft by using encrypted datalinks. Finally, US air doctrine is extremely dependent on the use of AWACS aircraft to guide and support US fighters. The S-300V will forces US/NATO AWACS to operate at a most uncomfortable distance. Between the longer-range radars of the Russian Sukhois, the radars on the Russian cruisers off the Syrian coast, and the S-300 and S-300V radars on the ground, the Russians will have a much better situational awareness than their US counterparts. It appears that the Russians are trying hard to compensate for their numerical inferiority by deploying high-end systems for which the US has no real equivalent or good counter-measures.
  • There are basically two options of deterrence: denial, when you prevent your enemy from hitting his targets and retaliation, when you make the costs of an enemy attack unacceptably high for him. The Russians appear to be pursuing both tracks at the same time. We can thus summarize the Russian approach as such Delay a confrontation as much as possible (buy time). Try to keep any confrontation at the lowest possible escalatory level. If possible, reply with asymmetrical/horizontal escalations. Rather then “prevail” against the US/NATO – make the costs of attack too high. Try to put pressure on US “allies” in order to create tensions inside the Empire. Try to paralyze the USA on a political level by making the political costs of an attack too high-end. Try to gradually create the conditions on the ground (Aleppo) to make a US attack futile To those raised on Hollywood movies and who still watch TV, this kind of strategy will elicit only frustration and condemnation. There are millions of armchair strategists who are sure that they could do a much better job than Putin to counter the US Empire. These folks have now been telling us for *years* that Putin “sold out” the Syrians (and the Novorussians) and that the Russians ought to do X, Y and Z to defeat the AngloZionist Empire. The good news is that none of these armchair strategists sit in the Kremlin and that the Russians have stuck to their strategy over the past years, one day at a time, even when criticized by those who want quick and “easy” solutions. But the main good news is that the Russian strategy is working. Not only is the Nazi-occupied Ukraine quite literally falling apart, but the US has basically run out of options in Syria (see this excellent analysis by my friend Alexander Mercouris in the Duran).
  • The only remaining logical steps left for the USA in Syria is to accept Russia’s terms or leave. The problem is that I am not at all convinced that the Neocons, who run the White House, Congress and the US corporate media, are “rational” at all. This is why the Russians employed so many delaying tactics and why they have acted with such utmost caution: they are dealing with professional incompetent ideologues who simply do not play by the unwritten but clear rules of civilized international relations. This is what makes the current crisis so much worse than even the Cuban Missile Crisis: one superpower has clearly gone insane. Are the Americans crazy enough to risk WWIII over Aleppo? Maybe, maybe not. But what if we rephrase that question and ask Are the Americans crazy enough to risk WWIII to maintain their status as the “world’s indispensable nation”, the “leader of the free world”, the “city on the hill” and all the rest of this imperialistic nonsense? Here I would submit that yes, they potentially are.
  • Paul Merrell on 10 Oct 16
     
    This is a must-read. We are at a perilous moment in history.
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TASS: Military & Defense - Syrian army finds UK and US chemical agents at depots captur... - 0 views

tass.com/960607 war & peace Syria U.S.-foreign-policy UK-foreign-policy gas-weapons terrorism™
shared by Paul Merrell on 18 Aug 17 - No Cached
  • DAMASCUS, August 16. /TASS/. Chemical agents found at arms depots abandoned by militants suggest they were delivered to terrorists in Syria from the United States and the United Kingdom, Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said at a press conference in Damascus on Wednesday. "All the special means that have been found include hand grenades and rocket projectiles for grenade launchers, which are supplied with CS and CN irritant agents [they are shown in transparencies]. The discovered chemical munitions shown in the transparency were produced by Federal Laboratories on the US territory. And the chemical agents were produced by Cherming Defence UK and NonLethal Technologies (the USA)," Mekdad said.
  • According to the Syrian deputy foreign minister, the chemical agents were found at terrorists’ depots both in Aleppo and in liberated districts in the eastern suburb of Damascus. As Mekdad said, in compliance with article 5 of the convention on the prohibition of chemical weapons, the use of irritant agents is allowed only for fighting riots. They are prohibited for use as warfare means. "Therefore, it can be said with confidence that the United States and the United Kingdom, and also their allies in the region, are rendering all possible support to terrorist organizations active in Syria, thus violating the convention on the prohibition of chemical weapons. They are supplying terrorists not only with conventional arms but also with banned chemical agents," Mekdad said.
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India to buy Russian S-400 systems despite Washington's warnings - report - RT World News - 0 views

www.rt.com/...india-buy-s-400-systems-russia war & peace S-400 India Turkey U.S.-foreign-policy
shared by Paul Merrell on 03 Jun 18 - No Cached
  • ndia decided to proceed with the long-anticipated $5.5 bln deal to purchase Russia’s S-400 surface-to-air missile units despite  the US saying the purchase may affect the relations between Washington and New Dehli. According to the Hindustan Times, India’s Defense Ministry is to ask the apex Cabinet Committee to approve the purchase of the five S-400 Triumf systems, thus  finalizing the agreement.The deal is set to go through despite the fact that the Trump administration warning New Delhi of the possible ramifications of India’s intention to cultivate military ties with Russia, that would imminently jeopardise its relations with the US.Chairman of the U.S. Arms Service Committee Mac Thornberry has said that “the acquisition of this technology will limit, the degree with which the United States will feel comfortable in bringing additional technology into whatever country we are talking about.”In case the purchase officially goes through, the Trump administration's reaction might go as far as punishing India for violating the sanctions imposed against Russia.
  • India’s decision to rely on the Russian-made S-400 systems that have drawn a lot of interest from international buyers, could jeopardize sales of US-built Predator drones and Patriot missile defense systems. Though the US has been talking up the effectiveness of Patriots, the missile has reportedly been less than effective when used recently by Saudi Arabia.According to NATO classification, S-400 Triumf is Russia's most advanced air defense hardware, boasting unique and unparalleled capabilities. Capable of firing three types of missiles create a layered defense, the S-400 integrates a multifunction radar, autonomous detection and targeting systems, missile launchers and command posts. It can bring down aircrafts as well as missiles at the range of up to 400km.
  • India is not the only country that has been experiencing tough pressuring from Washington. The US has been very explicit in its criticism of its "strategic partner", Turkey and its deal with Russia to purchase the S-400 systems.According to State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert, Washington is seriously concerned about the fact Turkey as a NATO member would choose to purchase weapons not made in the US. In a bid to pressure Ankara, Assistant US Secretary Wess Mitchell said that unless Turkey backed out, the purchase "could lead to sanctions.”Testifying before the House Foreign Relations committee last week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the US was making efforts to “keep the Turks in a place where they will never acquire the S-400.”Moreover, US lawmakers introduced a bill which would virtually ban F-35 deliveries to Turkey to punish it for its increased "hostility.” The US has also criticized Ankara over the announcement it would look elsewhere in case Washington failed to deliver the F-35s.
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Iran considers deploying ground forces to counter US intervention in Syria: Reports | M... - 0 views

www.middleeasteye.net/...ention-syria-reports-779276464 war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy invasion Russia ground-troops
shared by Paul Merrell on 10 May 17 - No Cached
  • Iran's foreign ministry condemned Israel's incursions into Syria on Saturday as reports suggested Iran was mulling deploying ground forces to counter a potential US-led intervention in the country.Israeli jets struck an area near the International airport in Damascus on Thursday, reportedly an arms depot operated by the Lebanese Hezbollah militia."There was no doubt that the inroads were aimed at weakening Syria's legitimate government and in line with reinforcing Takfiri (supposedly apostate Muslim] terrorists who have moved closer to the annihilation and defeat in the battlegrounds day by day," Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi said, according to the Fars news agency.
  • The comments follow reports by the Tabnak news agency, which is affiliated to a former commander of the powerful Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), indicating that Iran has growing concerns about increasing US military activities on Jordan's northern border.The article said that Israel's strikes on Syria could be the beginning of a major offensive against the country by a coalition including Israel, the US and Arab states."There are increased activities in southern Syria that indicate preparations for an attack through Jordan and Israel and [with the help of] armed groups," it read.Another article in the same news agency said that Russian and Iranian military officials had informed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that they stood ready to send ground forces to intervene in the country in case of such a situation.Journalist Asaad Hanna tweeted earlier this month that US forces had been positioned and were standing by on the southern Syrian border with Jordan special forces. Another report in the Al-Hayat outlet also indicated a joint force was preparing to enter southern Syria from Jordan, albeit ostensibly with the aim of combating the Islamic State.
  • Iran rallied to the defence of its ally in Syria following the crackdown on anti-government demonstrators in 2011.The IRGC has lost more than a thousand fighters in Syria, fighting against opposition forces backed by the US, Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
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  • Primarily, though, the Assad government sees Jordan behind the scheme, along with the US, as a means of securing the frontiers for both the kingdom and Israel.Reports have also indicated that US troops have begun amassing on Syria's northern border.
  • Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis also said on Friday that US troops were deployed along the border."We continue to urge all the parties involved to focus on the common enemy, which is ISIS," he told reporters, referring to the Islamic State group.The surge in US troops along the northern and southern borders of Syria has worried Damascus and Tehran primarily because of a recent dramatic turn around in the Trump administration's policy on the country, which saw air strikes launched against Shayrat airbase following a chemical weapon attack against rebels in Idlib.
  • Paul Merrell on 10 May 17
     
    World War III unfolding? Russia to counter with ground troops?
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