Group items matching

in title, tags, annotations or url

Everyone has noticed the contradiction of those who recently characterized the Islamic Emirate as "freedom fighters" in Syria and who are indignant today faced with its abuses in Iraq. But if that speech is incoherent in itself, it makes perfect sense in the strategic plan: the same individuals were to be presented as allies yesterday and must be as enemies today, even if they are still on orders from Washington. Thierry Meyssan reveals below US policy through the particular case of Senator John McCain, conductor of the "Arab Spring" and longtime partner of Caliph Ibrahim.

ohn McCain is known as the leader of the Republicans and unhappy 2008 US presidential candidate. This is, we will see, only the real part of his biography, which serves as a cover to conduct covert actions on behalf of his government. When I was in Libya during the "Western"attack, I was able to view a report of the foreign intelligence services. It stated that, on February 4, 2011 in Cairo, NATO organized a meeting to launch the "Arab Spring" in Libya and Syria. According to this document, the meeting was chaired by John McCain. The report detailed the list of Libyan participants, whose delegation was led by the No. 2 man of the government of the day, Mahmoud Jibril, who abruptly switched sides at the entrance of the meeting to become the opposition leader in exile. I remember that, among the French delegates present, the report quoted Bernard-Henry Lévy, although officially he had never exercised functions within the French government. Many other personalities attended the symposium, including a large delegation of Syrians living abroad.

Emerging from the meeting, the mysterious Syrian Revolution 2011 Facebook account called for demonstrations outside the People’s Council (National Assembly) in Damascus on February 11. Although this Facebook account at the time claimed to have more than 40,000 followers, only a dozen people responded to its call before the flashes of photographers and hundreds of police. The demonstration dispersed peacefully and clashes only began more than a month later in Deraa. [1] On February 16, 2011, a demonstration underway in Benghazi, in memory of members of the Islamic Fighting Group in Libya [2] massacred in 1996 in the Abu Selim prison, degenerated into shooting. The next day, a second event, this time in memory of those who died by attacking the Danish consulate during the Muhammad cartoons affair, also degenerated into shooting. At the same time, members of the Islamic Fighting Group in Libya ,coming from Egypt and coordinated by unidentified, hooded individuals, simultaneously attacked four military bases in four different cities. After three days of fighting and atrocities, the rebels launched the uprising of Cyrenaica against Tripolitania [3]; a terrorist attack that the western press falsely presented as a "democratic revolution" against "the regime" of Muammar el-Qaddafi.

Exactly one year ago Obama proposed to take Bashar Al Assad to the woodshed because he had allegedly unleashed a vicious chemical attack on his own citizens. That was all pretext, of course, because even the CIA refused to sign-off on the flimsy case for Assad’s culpability at the time—-a reluctance corroborated since then by the considerable evidence that hundreds of Syrian civilians were murdered during a false flag operation staged by the rebels with help from Turkey. The aim of the rebels, of course, was to activate American tomahawk missiles and bombers in behalf of “regime change”, which was also the stated goal of the Obama Administration. Now the White House is threatening to bomb Syria again, but this time its “regime change” objective has been expanded to include both sides! In 12 short months what had been the allegedly heroic Sunni opposition to the “brutal rule” of the Assad/Alawite minority has transmuted into the “greatest terrorist threat ever”, according to the Secretary of Defense.

Adding to this blinding farce is the warning of Syria’s Foreign Affairs minister that Obama should please to request permission before he rains destruction from the sky on the Opposition—-that is, the opposition to the very same Damascus regime which the White House has vowed to eradicate. Needless to say,  the Washington apparatus is having nothing to do with aiding the enemy of its new enemy:

In fact, there is apparently an option emerging from the bowels of the war machine that calls for an odd/even day plan to bomb both sides, thereby making clear that Washington is an equal opportunity spanker. Apparently, whether you use a 12th century sword or 20th century attack helicopter as a means of rule, you will be bombed by the “indispensable nation”, as Obama put it, adding that “no other nation can do what we do”. Well, that involves some “doing”. According to AP, it appears that Syrian airstrikes are imminent, but could be carried out under the odd/even day plan: “In an effort to avoid unintentionally strengthening the Syrian government, the White House could seek to balance strikes against the Islamic State with attacks on Assad regime targets.” Is any more evidence needed that Washington has gone stark raving mad than even the possibility that such an absurd option could  be under consideration? Has not the imperial city on the Potomac become so inured to its pretensions of global hegemony and to instant resort to deployment of its war machine that any semblance of rationality and coherence has been dissolved?

The Islamic State is a determined, skilful, and lethal enemy. Defeating it again will require hard fighting and strong diplomacy. It will be a massive undertaking, both militarily and politically. It will certainly require a dramatic expansion of air strikes throughout Iraq and Syria. It will also require the deployment of thousands of American forces - primarily Special Forces - to engage directly with moderate Sunnis in both countries and train the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and the Syrian moderate opposition. Effective trainers must fight alongside those they are training in order to sustain their respect and trust. Americans must work directly with local tribes to help them survive against the lethal threat that the Islamic State poses. In Syria, the US must help moderate Sunnis fight Bashar al-Assad while strengthening them against other violent Islamist forces as well. In Iraq we must once again help rebuild trust between the central government and the tribes. None of these tasks can be accomplished from 30,000 feet.

large explosion in a Sudanese ammunition warehouse last Friday was the result of an Israeli attack targeting weapons intended for Hamas, and not a fire, as claimed by the government, an Arab daily reported on Monday

Sudanese Intelligence had claimed that the explosion, which took place in a military training camp in Al-Gaili, north of the capital Khartoum, early Friday morning, was caused by “a local fire.” A Sudanese army spokesman, A-Sawarmi Khaled Sa’ad, said the explosion had no connection to “external hands, or a domestic act of sabotage.” But unnamed Sudanese sources told the London-based daily Al-Arab that Sudan was merely trying to cover the tracks of its cooperation with Hamas, as President Omar Al-Bashir tries to convince the United States and Arab Gulf states that his country is no longer a sponsor of terrorism. Bashir, the daily reported, met with Hamas’s political bureau chief Khaled Mashaal in the Qatari capital, Doha, two weeks ago.

It would not be the first time that Israel reportedly struck Sudanese territory in a bid to preempt the delivery of weapons to Hamas. Three airstrikes carried out in March 2009 destroyed a convoy of trucks in western Sudan reportedly carrying long-range Iranian missiles to the Gaza Strip. A mysterious explosion in the Yarmouk weapons plant in Khartoum in October 2012, which killed four people, was also believed to be the result of an Israeli airstrike targeting arms destined for Hamas. Al-Arab noted that the official Sudanese narrative regarding Friday’s incident was contradictory. The government spoke of a local fire that was quickly put out, but eyewitnesses reported hearing a loud explosion followed by a surge of flames. In addition, a statement issued by the intelligence claiming no injuries or damage contradicted an army communique which reported six men injured in the blast.

The Israeli military on Wednesday completely destroyed the al-Wafa rehabilitation and geriatric hospital in the eastern Gaza City neighborhood of Shujaiya after weeks of missile strikes on the hospital and the forced evacuation of the patients, caregivers and hospital staff last week. The Israeli daily Haaretz reported that the Israeli military claimed the hospital buildings were “being used as a Hamas command center and rocket-launching site.” However, the hospital director, Dr. Basman Alashi, says that Israel has targeted the hospital based on false and misleading claims.

The original BBC Video Report was published by BBC Russian Service on July 23, 2014. In a bitter irony, The BBC is censoring its own news productions.  Why did BBC delete this report by Olga Ivshina? Is it because the BBC team was unable to find any evidence that a rocket was launched in the area that the Ukrainian Security Service (“SBU”) alleges to be the place from which the Novorossiya Militia launched a “BUK” missile? Or is it because every eyewitness interviewed by the BBC team specifically indicated the presence of a Ukrainian military aircraft right beside the Malaysian Airlines Boeing MH17 at the time that it was shot down?

Or is it because of eyewitness accounts confirming that the Ukrainian air force regularly used civilian aircraft flying over Novorossiya as human shields to protect its military aircraft conducting strikes against the civilian population from the Militia’s anti-aircraft units?

Check out this story by AP and compare the lame, pathetic and self-evident nonsense of these so-called "intelligence officials" offer with the hard fact based presentation of the Russian Air Force Chief of Staff. Here is the full article with my comments in blue. WASHINGTON (AP) — Senior U.S. intelligence officials said Tuesday that Russia was responsible for "creating the conditions" that led to the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, but they offered no evidence of direct Russian government involvement. The intelligence officials were cautious in their assessment, noting that while the Russians have been arming separatists in eastern Ukraine, the U.S. had no direct evidence that the missile used to shoot down the passenger jet came from Russia. The officials briefed reporters Tuesday under ground rules that their names not be used in discussing intelligence related to last week's air disaster, which killed 298 people. The plane was likely shot down by an SA-11 surface-to-air missile fired by Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, the intelligence officials said, citing intercepts, satellite photos and social media postings by separatists, some of which have been authenticated by U.S. experts. But the officials said they did not know who fired the missile or whether any Russian operatives were present at the missile launch. They were not certain that the missile crew was trained in Russia, although they described a stepped-up campaign in recent weeks by Russia to arm and train the rebels, which they say has continued even after the downing of the commercial jetliner.

In terms of who fired the missile, "we don't know a name, we don't know a rank and we're not even 100 percent sure of a nationality," one official said, adding at another point, "There is not going to be a Perry Mason moment here." White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said the U.S. was still working to determine whether the missile launch had a "direct link" to Russia, including whether there were Russians on the ground during the attack and the degree to which Russians may have trained the separatists to launch such a strike. "We do think President Putin and the Russian government bears responsibility for the support they provided to these separatists, the arms they provided to these separatists, the training they provided as well and the general unstable environment in eastern Ukraine," Rhodes said in an interview with CNN. He added that heavy weaponry continues to flow into Ukraine from Russia following the downing of the plane. The intelligence officials said the most likely explanation for the downing was that the rebels made a mistake. Separatists previously had shot down 12 Ukrainian military airplanes, the officials said.

The officials made clear they were relying in part on social media postings and videos made public in recent days by the Ukrainian government, even though they have not been able to authenticate all of it. For example, they cited a video of a missile launcher said to have been crossing the Russian border after the launch, appearing to be missing a missile. But later, under questioning, the officials acknowledged they had not yet verified that the video was exactly what it purported to be. Despite the fuzziness of some details, however, the intelligence officials said the case that the separatists were responsible for shooting down the plane was solid. Other scenarios — such as that the Ukrainian military shot down the plane — are implausible, they said. No Ukrainian surface-to-air missile system was in range. (That is a lie as proven by the Russian satellite imagery and signal intercepts which prove that they Ukies had plenty of batteries freshly brought right next to the combat zone even though the Novorissians had just one Su-25 close air support aircraft in their entire inventory) From satellites, sensors and other intelligence gathering, officials said, they know where the missile originated — in separatist-held territory — and what its flight path was. But if they possess satellite or other imagery of the missile being fired, they did not release it Tuesday. A graphic they made public depicts their estimation of the missile's flight path with a green line. The jet's flight path was available from air traffic control data.

Kyung-wha Kang, Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator, stated that at least 18 medical facilities, including five UNRWA health clinics, had been hit by airstrikes and shelling since the beginning of the fighting.  The seven-year blockade had destroyed Gaza’s economy, with high unemployment rates and growing dependence on international assistance.  The United Nations was feeding 67 per cent of the population.  The international community and the parties to the conflict had to live up to their obligations.  Lance Bartholomeusz, Director of Legal Affairs of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, said that by yesterday evening, 22 July, approximately 118,000 Palestinians had sought refuge in 77 UNRWA schools.  That was about 6 per cent of the population of Gaza and double the peak in UNRWA shelters during the 2008 to 2009 conflict.  The conflict had not spared UNRWA premises.  Makarim Wibisono, Special Rapporteur for the situation of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, speaking on behalf of the Coordination Committee of the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council, said in addition to at least 599 Palestinians killed, the destruction of numerous houses had left several thousand families homeless.  At the same time, the right of the Palestinian people to resist occupation could not justify the launching of thousands of rockets and mortars directed against Israeli civilians. 

NAVI PILLAY, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said since Israel announced its military operation “Protective Edge” on 7 July, Gaza had been subjected to daily intensive bombardment from the air, land and sea, employing well over 2,100 air strikes alone.  The hostilities had resulted in the deaths of more than 600 Palestinians, including at least 147 children and 74 women.  As in the two previous crises in 2009 and 2012, it was innocent civilians in the Gaza Strip, including children, women, the elderly and persons with disabilities, who suffered the most.  According to preliminary United Nations figures, around 74 per cent of those killed so far were civilians, and thousands more had been injured.  Hundreds of homes and other civilian buildings, such as schools, had been destroyed or severely damaged in Gaza, and more than 140,000 Palestinians had been displaced.  Two Israeli civilians had also lost their lives and between 17 and 32 others had been reported injured as a result of rockets and other projectiles fired from Gaza, and 27 Israeli soldiers had been killed during military operations in Gaza.  The indiscriminate firing by Hamas and other armed groups of more than 2,900 rockets and mortars from Gaza continued to endanger the lives of civilians in Israel, and Ms. Pillay once again condemned such indiscriminate attacks.  It was unacceptable to locate military assets in densely populated areas or to launch attacks from such areas.  However, international law was clear - the actions of one party did not absolve the other party of the need to respect its obligations under international law.

he also warned that the current situation in Gaza overshadowed the backdrop of heightened tensions in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem and expressed concern about a significant rise in incitement to violence against Palestinians, including through social media.  Only those responsible for criminal acts could legitimately be punished, she said, individuals should not be subject to collective penalties. 

There are several brief points worth noting about all of this: (1) For those who ask “what should be done?,” has the hideous aftermath of the NATO intervention in Libya – hailed as a grand success for “humanitarian interventions” – not taught the crucial lessons that (a) bombing for ostensibly “humanitarian” ends virtually never fulfills the claimed goals but rather almost always makes the situation worse; (b) the U.S. military is not designed, and is not deployed, for “humanitarian” purposes?; and (c) the U.S. military is not always capable of “doing something” positive about every humanitarian crisis even if that were really the goal of U.S. officials? The suffering in Iraq is real, as is the brutality of ISIS, and the desire to fix it is understandable. There may be some ideal world in which a superpower is both able and eager to bomb for humanitarian purposes. But that is not this world. Just note how completely the welfare of Libya was ignored by most intervention advocates the minute the fun, glorious, exciting part – “We came, we saw, he died,” chuckled Hillary Clinton – was over.

(2) It is simply mystifying how anyone can look at U.S. actions in the Middle East and still believe that the goal of its military deployments is humanitarianism. The U.S. government does not oppose tyranny and violent oppression in the Middle East. To the contrary, it is and long has been American policy to do everything possible to subjugate the populations of that region with brutal force – as conclusively demonstrated by stalwart U.S. support for the region’s worst oppressors. Or, as Hillary Clinton so memorably put it in 2009: “I really consider President and Mrs. Mubarak to be friends of my family.” How can anyone believe that a government whose overt, explicit policy is “regime continuity” for Saudi Arabia, and who continues to lend all sorts of support to the military dictators of Egypt, is simultaneously driven by humanitarian missions in the region? (3) “Humanitarianism” is the pretty packaging in which all wars – even the most blatantly aggressive ones – are wrapped, but it is almost never the actual purpose. There are often numerous steps the U.S. could take to advance actually humanitarian goals, but those take persistence and resources, and entail little means of control, and are thus usually ignored in favor of blowing things and people up with Freedom Bombs.

(4) Note how even the pretenses of constitutional democracy are now dispensed with: there is a reasonable legal debate over legality, but in essence: the President has the power to order bombing of Iraq because he decides it should happen. (5) Perhaps having Israel and the U.S. simultaneously bombing Arabs in different countries – yet again – will create some extremely negative consequences?

And why did Islamic State, formerly ISIS, become winners? Because the "West" regimented, schooled, trained, logistically helped and weaponized most of IS's Takfiri goons with a mission at hand: to destroy Syria. The "West" lauded them as "Syrian rebels". Freedom fighters. Washington even promoted Jabhat al-Nusra (the official al-Qaeda franchise in Syria, and a "terrorist organization", according to the State Department) as "good" jihadis, as well as the preferred Saudi combo, the Islamic Front.

The House of Saud, directly and indirectly, and the proverbial wealthy Gulf Cooperation Council donors are the Mom and Dad of ISIS. All duly vetted/approved by the industrial-military-Orwellian-Panopticon complex. And yet "Assad must go" had other ideas for Syria. He didn't go. He and his army resisted and counter-attacked. So the original mission in Syria morphed across the (non-existent) desert border towards Iraq. ISIS kept expanding - via extortion, kidnapping, captured oil fields, tribal smuggling networks.

How convenient that IS strategy is totally divide and rule. Totally balkanization of Iraq. Totally mum on Israel's slow-motion ethnic cleansing of Gaza. Totally useful in wagging the (beheading) dog to make the world forget about Gaza. Moroever, IS/ISIS strategy, stripped to the bone, is Pentagon manual; clear, hold and build - then expand (to an area larger than Great Britain). It's even Pentagon manual redux - as in building "coalitions of the willing" (see the alliance with "remnants" - Rummy talk - of the Saddam regime propelling their northern Iraq summer offensive.) How convenient that the mighty Orwellian/Panopticon complex satellite maze could not identify a long convoy of gleaming white Toyotas crossing the desert towards their summer conquests. And how convenient that a Briton beheading an American - what a "special relationship" plot twist! - fully sanctions the Return of Iraq Bombing ("for months", in Obama's words); more strikes; more drones; perhaps more boots on the ground; perhaps, in the near future, a Syria extension. IS also took over Tikrit, the birthplace of Saddam, in their summer adventure. Now Baghdad's military are trying to take it back. IS welcomed them with minefields, booby-trapped buildings, an array of snipers and hardcore mortar fire. How convenient that Obama's "humanitarian" bombs are not involved in R2P ("responsibility to protect") Saddam's birthplace. What really matters is the US consulate in Erbil, scores of CIA operatives and vast Big Oil interests in Iraqi Kurdistan.

If the West bombs Islamic State militants in Syria without consulting Damascus, the anti-ISIS alliance may use the occasion to launch airstrikes against President Bashar Assad’s forces, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said. “There are reasons to suspect that air strikes on Syrian territory may target not only areas controlled by Islamic State militants, but the government troops may also be attacked on the quiet to weaken the positions of Bashar Assad’s army,” Lavrov said Tuesday. Such a development would lead to a huge escalation of conflict in the Middle East and North Africa, Lavrov told reporters in Moscow after a meeting with the foreign minister of Mali. Moscow is urging the West to respect international law and undertake such acts only with the approval of the legitimate government of a state, Lavrov said. “Not a single country should have its own plans on such issues. There can be only combined, collective, univocal actions. Only this way can a result be achieved,” he said.

His comments came shortly after Washington announced plans to go on the offensive against the Islamic State jihadist group. The US military has already launched over 100 airstrikes against militant targets in Iraq, including a new series that the military said killed an unusually large number of Islamic State fighters, AP reported.

Moscow has repeatedly voiced its readiness to cooperate with Washington in countering terrorism, Lavrov said. Secretary of State John Kerry, in response, has proposed that the US, Russia and countries in the region cooperate to work out “a balance of interests so that they could eliminate terrorism threat,” he added. “However, this hasn’t got beyond words,” Lavrov said.

When flight MH17 was hit with a missile over eastern Ukraine on July 17, US officials immediately blamed pro-Russian separatists for bringing the plane down. Secretary of State John Kerry said the evidence “obviously points a very clear finger at the separatists,” using “a system that was transferred from Russia.” The preliminary evidence — including photographs allegedly showing a Buk system in the area where the aircraft was shot down, satellite imagery supposedly showing a missile plume that trailed back to separatist-controlled territory, and intercepts of separatists purportedly discussing the shooting — supported Kerry’s assertion, but was at best circumstantial (Kerry himself called it “extraordinary circumstantial evidence”), and in the case of the missile plume, has not been made public. Doubts have been raised about the veracity of the initial MH17 story, particularly by independent journalist Robert Parry, who claims that a reliable (though anonymous) source told him that US satellite imagery actually suggests the flight was shot down by a Buk battery under the control of Ukrainian forces. Parry’s reporting initially suggested that the battery fired on MH17 accidentally, or due to carelessness on the part of its crew, but he has since reported (based on additional anonymous sourcing) that the attack may have been a deliberate attempt to assassinate Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was returning from the World Cup in Brazil that day and whose plane may have resembled MH17 in both physical appearance and flight path.

Obviously Parry’s story suffers from its reliance on anonymous sources and the lack of any publicly available evidence supporting it. However, it remains a plausible alternative to the Western narrative about MH17, in large part due to the failure of the US government to bolster the initial circumstantial evidence it raised against the separatists with anything more substantive (it claims doing so would compromise its intelligence-gathering capabilities). Parry is certainly not the only journalist to notice this failure, as shown by a heated July 25 exchange between AP reporter Matt Lee and State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf. As Gawker’s Matthew Phelan points out, the evidence that has been made public so far is hardly impressive considering the massive US intelligence apparatus that is supposed to be investigating what really happened to MH17. Yet for the most part, American mainstream news outlets have hardly challenged the US’ official MH17 story.

Others have publicly raised questions. A group of former intelligence and foreign service officials called Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) released a public memo on July 29 to President Obama via Parry’s website. The authors argued that “the charges against Russia should be rooted in solid, far more convincing evidence” and asked that “if you [Obama] indeed have more conclusive evidence, you will find a way to make it public without further delay.” VIPS has also critiqued Colin Powell’s February 2003 speech to the UN Security Council making the case for the Iraq War, the Obama administration’s unwillingness to investigate and prosecute those behind the Bush-era torture program, and last year’s plans to launch cruise missile strikes against Syria. Granted, some of this group’s claims have been seriously challenged. In any case, if VIPS demand for more conclusive evidence seemed premature early on, their demands seem considerably more reasonable now that Russia’s supposed culpability in MH17′s downing has been used to justify additional US and EU sanctions. Yet there has still been no effort by the Obama administration to release more substantive evidence to support allegations of the separatists’ culpability. Gawker spoke to members of VIPS, who argued that given all the assets that must have been sent to eastern Ukraine in the midst of the ongoing fighting, the US government probably has substantial evidence showing what really happened to MH17. They also said that the seriousness of the deteriorating US-Russia relationship warranted releasing that evidence even if doing so would compromise intelligence-gathering operations. “We’re talking about the possibility of an armed confrontation with Russia. I mean, you couldn’t think of higher stakes,” retired CIA analyst Ray McGovern told Gawker.

(Reuters) - Saudi Arabia has agreed to host training camps for moderate Syrian rebels as part of President Barack Obama's broad strategy to combat Islamic State militants who have taken over parts of Syria and Iraq, U.S. officials said on Wednesday. The agreement, outlined by Obama's aides on the night of his speech to the American people laying out his expanded campaign against the Islamist group, appeared to reflect the depth of Saudi concern about Islamic State's threat to the region. Obama announced he had authorized stepped-up U.S. airstrikes in Iraq and for the first time would extend the aerial assault into Syria, where he also vowed to beef up support for moderate rebels fighting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. U.S. officials said a critical component of the plan to train and equip the Syrian insurgents, who have received only modest American backing so far and have failed to coalesce into a potent fighting force, was the Saudis' willingness to allow use of their territory for the U.S. training effort.

"Now what we have is a commitment from the kingdom of Saudi Arabia ... to be a full partner with us in that effort, including by hosting that training program," a senior U.S. official told reporters in a conference call. The Saudi decision came to light after Obama spoke by phone earlier in the day with Saudi King Abdullah. Saudi Arabia, the main Arab Sunni power in the region, was dismayed last September when Obama backed off air strikes against Assad's forces over the use of chemical weapons, and had pressed Washington to do more to strengthen the poorly organized moderate Syrian rebels. "Both leaders agreed that a stronger Syrian opposition is essential to confronting extremists like (Islamic State) as well as the Assad regime, which has lost all legitimacy," the White Housesaid. The Obama administration wants the Syrian rebels to play a role in the fight against the stronger Islamic State forces inside Syria. U.S. officials declined to specify where on Saudi territory the rebels would be trained. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, on a Middle East mission to drum up support for a coalition against Islamic State, is due to fly from Amman to Saudi Arabia on Thursday. He will have talks there with senior officials from Egypt, Turkey, Jordan and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which comprises Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates,Kuwait, Oman and Qatar. Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, is unnerved by the rapid advance of Islamic State this year and fears it could radicalize some of its own citizens. Arab League foreign ministers agreed on Sunday to take all necessary measures to confront Islamic State.

ISTANBUL, Turkey — A diplomatic crisis looms. Turkey, a key U.S. ally and the only NATO member that borders areas controlled by ISIS jihadists in Syria and Iraq, is in a prime location to hit the extremists next door. But it prefers not to. Instead, Ankara is seeking a low-profile role—so low as to be almost invisible—in the international alliance that Washington is building up against the so-called caliphate, and that fact is undermining the American strategy to strike back against the terrorists President Barack Obama deems “unique in their brutality.”  

Washington, obviously aware of the problem, is working overtime to get some sort of concrete supportive commitments from the Turkish government for a strategy in which American airpower supports regional armies with boots on the ground to crush the ISIS forces. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel visited Ankara on Monday; Secretary of State John Kerry is expected in the Turkish capital Friday. But background briefings to the Turkish press suggest that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his government will refuse to give the United States more than the bare minimum of support: It won’t allow the Americans to attack from NATO air bases in Turkey and it will decline to let Turkish troops take part in combat operations. Before traveling to Turkey, Kerry tried to downplay Ankara’s reluctance, despite the fact that the NATO ally refused to sign a joint declaration of Arab and other states outlining the battle against ISIS in a meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Kerry said Turkey was dealing with some “sensitive issues,” according to the BBC.

Following talks by Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu with top military and diplomatic officials on Wednesday, the newspaper Yeni Safak, which often reflects the government line, reported that Turkey would opt for a “passive” role in the fight against ISIS in Syria. Other news reports said Turkey would strengthen controls along the Syrian border and open its air space and its air force bases for logistical operations and for humanitarian flights—for example to save the lives of U.S. pilots—but not for the expected attacks on ISIS targets. Direct participation of Turkey’s modern air force in the attacks is out of the question as well.

The New York City Police Department (NYPD) has reportedly put their officers on high alert after a video attributed to the Islamic State of Syria and Iraq (ISIS) was tweeted on social media threatening law enforcement in the US, France, Australia, and Canada. This video posted by an alleged ISIS spokesperson, was followed by the message: “Strike their police, security, and intelligence members, as well as their treacherous agents.” Interestingly, the video tweeted was a “re-release [of] a September 2014 message”.

One mainstream media outlet claims to have “obtained” an instructional email from an unidentified member of the Sergeants Benevolent Association (SBA) stating: “If you are assigned to a fixed post, do not sit together in the RMP [police car]. At least one officer must stand outside the vehicle at all times. Pay attention to your surroundings. Officers must pay close attention to approaching vehicles . . . Pay close attention to people as they approach. Look for their hands.” At the time, the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published similar warnings to police departments in the US, warning that the message “is consistent with previous threats that ISIS and others, including al Qaeda, have issued.” In October of last year, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton commented speaking at the Economic Club reiterating the US intelligence community’s cries about the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Clinton said: “It’s a serious threat because this is the best-funded, most professional, expansionist jihadist military force that we have ever seen. This is far more advanced and far richer than al-Qaeda ever was.”

The Israeli intelligence agency Mossad has broken ranks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, telling U.S. officials and lawmakers that a new Iran sanctions bill in the U.S. Congress would tank the Iran nuclear negotiations. Already, the Barack Obama administration and some leading Republican senators are using the Israeli internal disagreement to undermine support for the bill, authored by Republican Mark Kirk and Democrat Robert Menendez, which would enact new sanctions if current negotiations falter. Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee  -- supported by Republican Senators Lindsay Graham and John McCain -- is pushing for his own legislation on the Iran nuclear deal, which doesn't contain sanctions but would require that the Senate vote on any pact that is agreed upon in Geneva. The White House is opposed to both the Kirk-Menendez bill and the Corker bill; it doesn't want Congress to meddle at all in the delicate multilateral diplomacy with Iran.

Israeli intelligence officials have been briefing both Obama administration officials and visiting U.S. senators about their concerns on the Kirk-Menendez bill, which would increase sanctions on Iran only if the Iranian government can't strike a deal with the so-called P5+1 countries by a June 30 deadline or fails to live up to its commitments. Meanwhile, the Israeli prime minister’s office has been supporting the Kirk-Menendez bill, as does the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, ahead of what will be a major foreign policy confrontation between the executive and legislative branches of the U.S. government in coming weeks. Evidence of the Israeli rift surfaced Wednesday when Secretary of State John Kerry said that an unnamed Israeli intelligence official had said the new sanctions bill would be “like throwing a grenade into the process.” But an initial warning from Israeli Mossad leaders was also delivered last week in Israel to a Congressional delegation -- including Corker, Graham, McCain and fellow Republican John Barrasso; Democratic Senators Joe Donnelly and Tim Kaine; and independent Angus King -- according to lawmakers who were present and staff members who were briefed on the exchange. When Menendez (who was not on the trip) heard about the briefing, he quickly phoned Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer to seek clarification. Barrasso told us Tuesday that different parts of the Israeli government told the delegation different things. “We met with a number of government officials from many different parts of the government. There’s not a uniform view there,” he said.

Menendez is so livid at the administration, he decried its efforts to avert Congressional action on Iran at the hearing, telling Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken: “You know, I have to be honest with you, the more I hear from the administration in its quotes, the more it sounds like talking points that come straight out of Tehran.” Tuesday night, Obama threatened to veto the Kirk-Menendez bill if it passes Congress. Wednesday morning, House Speaker John Boehner responded by announcing that Netanyahu has accepted his invitation to address a joint session of Congress on Feb. 11, just as Congress is likely to be embroiled in a legislative fight over both bills. Boehner told fellow Republicans that he was specifically inviting Netanyahu to address the threat posed by radical Islam and Iran. Netanyahu is expected to deliver full-throated support for sanctions. The administration is upset that Netanyahu accepted Boehner’s invitation without notifying them, the latest indication of the poor relationship between the Israeli government and the White House. Two senior U.S. officials tell us that the Mossad has also shared its view with the administration that if legislation that imposed a trigger leading to future sanctions on Iran was signed into law, it would cause the talks to collapse.

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Thursday that controversial government surveillance programs helped foil a terror attack on the Capitol, just blocks from where he lives in Washington.“The first thing that strikes me is we would never have known about this had it not been for the FISA program and our ability to collect information on people who pose an imminent threat,” Boehner said at a news conference at the joint House and Senate GOP retreat here.He gave no further details of the alleged plot, other than saying that it was uncovered shortly after the FISA program came into effect.

Boehner said the foiled terror attack in Washington, as well as a plot against his life by an Ohio bartender, surfaced this week as Congress looks to reauthorize sections of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).“We live in a dangerous country, and we get reminded every week of the dangers that are out there,” Boehner said, mentioning last week’s deadly attacks in Paris.

EW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices roared back from six-year lows on Friday, rocketing more than 8 percent as a record weekly decline in U.S. oil drilling fueled a frenzy of short-covering. In a rally that may spur speculation that a seven-month price collapse has ended, global benchmark Brent crude shot up to more than $53 per barrel, its highest in more than three weeks in its biggest one-day gain since 2009. The late-session surge was primed by Baker Hughes data showing the number of rigs drilling for oil in the United States fell by 94 - or 7 percent - this week. Earlier gains were fueled by reports of Islamic State militants striking at Kurdish forces southwest of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.

Poised for a bounce many thought was overdue, short traders raced to cover their positions on fears that the rout, sparked by massive U.S. shale crude supplies, was nearing its end. "The rig count drop was a lot more than people expected and it really got the market going," said Phil Flynn, analyst at Price Futures Group in Chicago. According to Baker Hughes, the decline in oil drilling rigs was the most since it began keeping records in 1987. With drillers having idled about 24 percent of their oil drilling rigs since the summer, some traders may be betting that an anticipated slowdown in U.S. oil production is nearer than expected.

Some are not convinced that the sell-off in oil is over. The rout began in June when Brent peaked at over $115 a barrel and accelerated in November after OPEC refused to cut its production. "There was a lot of short-covering before the month end from people wanting to take profit from the $40-odd lows, so it's not surprising that we rallied," said Tariq Zahir, managing member at Tyche Capital Advisors in Laurel Hollow in New York. But it will take a while for production to respond to lower drilling. "This doesn't change the fundamental outlook in oil. We are still about 2 million barrels oversupplied." Production from OPEC, or the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, rose in January to 30.37 million barrels per day (bpd), a Reuters poll showed, a sign that key members of the group were resolute about defending their market share. A Reuters poll shows oil prices may post only a mild recovery in the second half of the year, with prices still averaging less in 2015 than during the global financial crisis. (OILPOLL) Joseph Posillico, senior vice president of energy futures at Jefferies in New York, also warned of a short-term, short-covering rally that could be quickly reversed. "This is just the market being the market and we could give these all back in the next few sessions."

The Iraqi military launched a major campaign to take back a key city from the self-proclaimed Islamic State over the weekend—a move that caught the U.S. “by surprise,” in the words of one American government official.The U.S.-led coalition forces that have conducted seven months of airstrikes on Iraq’s behalf did not participate in the attack, defense officials told The Daily Beast, and the American military has no plans to chip in.Instead, embedded Iranian advisers and Iranian-backed Shiite militias are taking part in the offensive on the largely Sunni town, raising the prospect that the fight to beat back ISIS could become a sectarian war. The news is the latest indication that not all is well with the American effort against the terror group. On Friday, U.S. defense officials told The Daily Beast that a planned offensive against the ISIS stronghold of Mosul had been indefinitely postponed. Over the weekend, an American-backed rebel group in Syria announced that it was dissolving, and joining an Islamist faction.

Then there was the unexpected battle for Tikrit. Over the weekend, a reported 30,000 troops and militiamen—mostly Shiites —stormed the Sunni dominated city of Tikrit, former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s hometown and the symbolic birthplace of his three decades of repressive practices against the majority Shiite population.U.S. officials were largely left in the dark of the planning and timing of the operation, defense officials said. The Pentagon said Monday it was not conducting airstrikes in support of the Tikrit offensive because the Iraqi government did not ask for such help.The U.S. had seen the prospect of strikes in Tikrit for a while but the timing and nature of the attack “caught us by surprise,” one government official explained to The Daily Beast.

The depth of Iranian involvement and the dearth of U.S. engagement in the battle for Tikrit suggested the coalition-led campaign did little to weaken Iranian influence on Iraqi security. Two U.S. defense officials told The Daily Beast that Iranian troops were firing Iranian artillery  “in the vicinity of” the Iraqi military campaign. And there were several reports that Major General Qassem Soleimani, the shadowy commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s overseas operation arm, is also on the ground near Tikrit. The Iraqi decision to cut out the U.S.-led coalition turned the war against ISIS in Iraq into a dual track approach—one carried out by the U.S.-led coalition another directed by the Iranians. Each has its own military strategy.

According to an Israeli media report, Saudi Arabia has agreed to let Israeli warplanes fly over Saudi territory to save fuel while attacking Iranian nuclear sites, the latest indication of how the two former enemies have developed a behind-the-scenes alliance that is reshaping geopolitics in the Middle East.“The Saudi authorities are completely coordinated with Israel on all matters related to Iran,” a European official in Brussels told Israel’s Channel 2 in a report broadcast on Tuesday and described in other Israeli media outlets.

Riyadh’s only condition was that Israel make some progress in peace talks with the Palestinians, a stipulation that may be mostly cosmetic so the Saudis can save face with other Arab states without really interfering with an Israeli flyover to strike Iran.Disclosure of this Israeli-Saudi military cooperation also comes as the United States and five other world powers rush to finish an agreement with Iran to curtail but not eliminate its nuclear program, which Iran says is only for civilian purposes. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to appear before the U.S. Congress on March 3 to undercut President Barack Obama’s negotiations.The reported Saudi permission for Israeli warplanes to take a shorter route to bomb Iran also suggests that Netanyahu may be laying the groundwork for his own plans to attack the Iranian nuclear sites if the international negotiations are successful. Netanyahu has denounced a possible deal as an “existential threat” to Israel.