Published on March 7, 2016 Comments 5Reports: Anti-ISIS revolt in Raqqa, terrorists deserting their Syrian capital

RAQQA — Residents of Raqqa, the heart of the Islamic State (IS), are reportedly uprising against the jihadist group as a result of their hostile treatments and brutalities.

Arab media reported that there have been heavy confrontations in Raqqa between IS militants and the residents of the city due to IS’s ill treatment towards the people.

Abu Ali Tunsi, a prominent IS leader and a number of his men were reportedly killed in those confrontations, according to the information obtained from the area.

A group of 200 militants have abjured IS in the last two days in Raqqa, and the IS jihadists have tightened the security measures and increased the number of checkpoints in the city, fearing the attacks by the residents and the abjured group, according to sources from Raqqa.

In a recorded video [see below], a man appears talking to the cameraman saying they have given up on IS due to the inhumane treatment meted out to the people by IS militants and “executing everyone they suspect.”

A large number of men, abandoned IS, and are appearing in the footage walking hastily seemingly running away from IS.

Al Alam reports:

Residents of the Syrian city of Raqqa, occupied by ISIS, on Sunday clashed with the terrorists and flown Syria’s flags in the city, witnesses said.

Syria’s flags had been flown in five neighborhoods of Raqqa, according to the witnesses. The residents took to the streets in two neighborhoods, killing a ISIS terrorist.

The witnesses added that on Saturday there were armed clashes between the the terrorists, after a group of some 100 terrorists tried to desert the city.

The city of Raqqa is the main city occupied by ISIS. It has been under control of the terrorists since August 2014. Currently the Syrian army, as well as the Kurdish militias are carrying out offensives to liberate the city from ISIS, which is outlawed in many countries, including the United States and Russia, Sputnik reported.

This may all seem very far-fetched, but don’t fall for the Russian propaganda – Lieutenant-Colonel Simon West, branch chief at the Nato centre in Riga, has got it all figured out: Putin is planning on using Eastern Europe as a bulwark against the encroachment of “liberal democracies”.

I sometimes think I’m imagining it, but when I drove into the office today, the radio switched from music to a Russian news programme”

Lt. Col. Simon West

That’s right – while he sometimes doubts his sanity (who can blame him?) he quickly changes his mind when a Russian news programme comes on the radio….in Latvia.

I wish this was satire. I wish I was joking. But this:

My cleaner is sure they are coming, as I am sure many Latvians are.” West pauses, staring at the map. “I dunno, he’s mischievous,” he adds of Putin. “I’ve got a feeling of expectation that something is going to happen.”

Is beyond parody.

 

Yellow Phosphorus, Starvation in Madaya, and BBC Fakery

by Craig Murray

Cameron’s “moderate rebels” – Saudi supplied Wahhabi jihadists – have this past 48 hours been bombing civilian areas of Aleppo with yellow phosphorus.

The BBC, which went to such extraordinary lengths to fake reports of chemical attacks by Assad, has not reported these genuine chemical attacks at all. Probably because it is too difficult to explain not just why Cameron’s allies are using chemical weapons – and who gave them the chemical weapons – but also why these “friendly” jihadists are attacking Cameron’s other allies, the Kurds, all during a ceasefire.

This video of Robert Stuart is a must see. Let me pin my colours to the mast and say that I am absolutely convinced that the BBC did deliberately and knowingly fake evidence of chemical attacks.

The most egregious BBC propaganda this year has been about the “starvation” of the town of Madaya. The BBC seem to have taken the most glaring example down from YouTube so I can’t embed it. But here on the BBC’s own website you can see the report which claims the Syrian government are deliberately starving civilians in the siege of Madaya. There then appear a string of genuinely heart-rending clips of starving children. The only problem is that none of that footage was shot in Madaya at all, and if you listen very, very carefully you will be able to work out the BBC does not directly affirm that it was. Then we have real comedy at 1 min 30s in, when genuine citizens of Madaya appear to verify their starvation in the shape of four women who are – there is no kind way of saying this – distinctly fat. If double chins are a proof of starvation, then things must be pretty bad.

It is clever propaganda because careful analysis of the text reveals a story very different to the overall picture being deliberately portrayed. Just after the women appear, the reporter slips in that the hardship is caused by hoarding by rebels – i.e. it is actually David Cameron’s moderate forces, not the government, who are causing suffering to the civilians. But you would have to be following very closely and analysing very carefully to pick up on that.

The BBC really has become one of the more outrageous vehicles of government propaganda on the international scene.

http://off-guardian.org/2016/03/10/yellow-phosphorus-starvation-in-madaya-and-bbc-fakery/

 

The Syrian Kurdish militia YPG accused rebel groups fighting President Bashar al-Assad's forces of shelling a mainly Kurdish area with chemical agents.

Civilians had been hit with "chemical material believed to be phosphorus with a yellow colouring", a statement from the YPG said.

YPG fighters have been battling Islamist extremists for weeks in and around the north Syrian city of Aleppo, an increasingly bloody epicentre of the country's five-year civil war.

 

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/651183/Syria-civil-war-Islamist-rebels-yellow-phosphorus-chemical-agent

 

Obama is a smart guy. Putin is smarter than him. So Obama is playing a game of faint damnation with praise of Putin. I guess Putin could not care less but he might play the game as long as he gets what he wants and counteracts the American bullshit...

In an interview for the Atlantic to be published in April, Obama says:

 

 

“Putin acted in Ukraine in response to a client state that was about to slip out of his grasp. And he improvised in a way to hang on to his control there,” he said. “He’s done the exact same thing in Syria, at enormous cost to the well-being of his own country.”

“Real power means you can get what you want without having to exert violence. Russia was much more powerful when Ukraine looked like an independent country but was a kleptocracy that he could pull the strings on,” Obama told The Atlantic.

 

BULLSHIT. In Ukraine, the US has exerted an influence that is sneaky and dishonest. The "removal" of the former President of Ukraine was ORCHESTRATED IN THE US, by the US for the US, by using "agents provocateurs, CIA infiltrators and thugs to take over the power in Ukraine. The thugs still rule in Ukraine. At least Putin is honest. He says what he wants and does not shy from saying so. The fact that he tilted the scales in Syria is no mean feat as well as showing the US duplicity. So Obama has to belittle Putin to aggrandise his own crappy failure into a smart plan.

see toon at top.

 

Readers may remember when, with a defense authorization bill in debate last June, two congressmen advanced an amendment banning military assistance to “openly neo-Nazi” and “fascist” militias waging war against Ukraine’s eastern regions. John Conyers and Ted Yoho got two things done in a stroke: They forced public acknowledgment that “the repulsive neo-Nazi Azov battalion,” as Conyers put it, was active, and they shamed the (also repulsive) Republican House to pass their legislative amendment unanimously.

Obama signed the defense bill then at issue into law just before Thanksgiving. The Conyers-Yoho amendment was deleted but for a single phrase. The bill thus authorizes, among much, much else, $300 million in aid this year to “the military and national security forces in Ukraine.” In a land ruled by euphemisms, the latter category designates the Azov battalion and the numerous other fascist militias on which the Poroshenko government is wholly dependent for its existence.

An omnibus spending bill Obama signed a month later included an additional $250 million for the Ukraine army and its rightist adjuncts. This is your money, taxpayers, should you need reminding. As Obama signed these bills, the White House expressed its satisfaction that “ideological riders” had been stripped out of them.

No, you read next to nothing of this in any American newspaper. Yes, you now know what the often-lethal combination of blindness and arrogance looks like in action. Yes, you can now see why American policy in Ukraine must fail if this crisis is ever to come to a rational, humane resolution.

read more: http://off-guardian.org/2016/03/12/good-old-american-dollars-funding-nazi-forces-of-the-ukrainian-government/

 

The United States and France have warned the Syrian regime against trying to disrupt the fragile ceasefire as the warring sides prepare for fresh peace talks to end the brutal five-year conflict.

Key points:

• US, France warn Syrian regime against disrupting peace talks
• Peace talks are to resume Monday
• Bashar al-Assad's fate is still divisive

The UN-brokered indirect negotiations are due to start on Monday in Geneva, in the latest international push to try to end a war that has killed more than 270,000 people and forced millions from their homes.

After talks with European allies in Paris, US Secretary of State John Kerry hit out at comments by his Syrian counterpart that removing President Bashar al-Assad would cross a "red line" in the negotiations.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault went further, describing Walid Muallem's comments as a "provocation" and a "bad sign" for the attempts to find peace.

Mr Kerry warned Syria and its allies Russia and Iran against "testing boundaries" or lessening their compliance with a fragile February 27 truce brokered by Washington and Moscow that has largely held despite each side accusing the other of violations.

While analysts say much has changed since the last round of talks collapsed in February, the fate of Mr Assad and the holding of elections with 18 months remain huge obstacles to peace.

Mr Muallem said in Damascus on Saturday: "We will not talk with anyone who wants to discuss the presidency … Bashar al-Assad is a red line."

Mr Kerry said the Syrian minister was "clearly trying to disrupt the process [and] clearly trying to send a message of deterrence to others.

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-14/us-france-warn-syrian-regime-ahead-of-new-peace-talks/7243656

 

No, John Kerry. The red line is a red line and that's that. You are on the other side of it and your own red line is that you want him to be gone, like Gaddafi in Libya... See the result: CRAP. 

 

From Robert Fisk

 

 

Just before I left Syria last month, a tall and eloquent Franco-Lebanese man walked up to me in a Damascus coffee shop and introduced himself as President Bashar al-Assad’s architect. It was his task, he led me to understand, to design the reconstructed cities of Syria. 

Who would have believed it? Five years after the start of Syria’s tragedy – and within six months of this, remember, the regime itself trembled and the Western powers, flush with dangerous pride after destroying Gaddafi, predicted the imminent fall of the Assad dynasty – the Syrian government is preparing to rebuild its towns and cities.

It’s worth taking that embarrassing trip down memory lane to the early spring and summer of 2011. The US and French ambassadors visited Homs to sit amid tens of thousands of peaceful demonstrators calling for the overthrow of the Assad government. EU diplomats were telling the political opposition not to negotiate with Assad – a fatal mistake, since the advice was based on the false assumption that he was about to be overthrown – and journalists were gathering with rebels in eastern Aleppo for the inevitable march of liberation on Damascus.

The government army was ordered to shoot down demonstrators. Hence the brief but ultimately hopeless dawn of the “Free Syrian Army”, many of them deserters who are now slowly returning to the ranks or drifting off home with the regime’s tacit permission. But there were signs from the very start that armed groups were involved in this latest manifestation of the Arab awakening. 

In May 2011, an Al Jazeera crew filmed armed men shooting at Syrian troops a few hundred metres from the northern border with Lebanon but the channel declined to air the footage, which their reporter later showed to me. A Syrian television crew, working for the government, produced a tape showing men with pistols and Kalashnikovs in a Deraa demonstration in the very early days of the “rising”.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syrian-civil-war-five-years-on-2011-bashar-al-assad-isis-iran-conflict-a6929186.html

Great to see that Robert Fisk is still telling it like it is... Our own mediocre media is full of embedded lazy journalist ready to swallow the official crap the governments of Europe and of the US are telling us about their meddling in Syria... The involvement of Saudi Arabia is also telling of their dishonest purpose.

 

 

This has led many to question whether this withdrawal is for real. Putin ordered the pullout to start on Tuesday, but gave no end date. Equally, it has been made clear that the Hemeimeem airbase outside Latakia from which Russia has launched its air raids will remain in use. It is not known how small the “small contingent” that will remain behind will be, and it will almost certainly still involve advanced air defence systems. Additionally, now the infrastructure is in place, nothing is to stop Russia from redeploying even more quickly and unexpectedly than in late September.

 

But there is good reason to believe Putin’s announcement is to be taken seriously. For while it is true the mission of defeating Isis has not been accomplished, nobody who has taken the most cursory glance at the map of where Russian bombs landed would have believed this to be the real mission. Even the goal of propping up the Syrian state institutions to keep Bashar al-Assad in power and prevent the kind of power vacuum seen in Libya and Iraq after their leaders were deposed was secondary, according to many analysts.

“Nobody wanted to deal with Russia after Ukraine, and the goal of the Syria campaign was to force the west to deal with Russia again,” said independent military analyst Alexander Golts. “This has happened, and now they are getting out of the conflict with minimal losses. I think it’s a pretty brilliant tactical move.”

read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/14/russia-exit-syria-vladimir-putin-military-tactical-move

 

In what could be one of the worst failures of the Pentagon’s program to arm Syrian rebels, several bases with American weapons, armored vehicles and US-trained fighters were plundered by Al-Nusra Front. The jihadists and “moderate rebels” are blaming each other for the attack.

Division 13 of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), which had received both US weapons and training, on Sunday said it was attacked by Al-Nusra Front militants – radical Islamist fighters affiliated with Al-Qaeda. The jihadists looted the FSA group’s depots in the town of Maarrat Al-Nuuman in Syria’s Idlib province.

Though it has widely been reported that weapons and dozens of Division 13 fighters have been captured, there are conflicting accounts of how much the jihadists could actually carry. Some media reports claimed that the haul included US-supplied TOW anti-tank missiles, firearms and ammunition, and unspecified armored vehicles, including a tank. The rebel group’s chief has denied they have lost anti-tank missiles, telling AFP that only “light weapons” have been taken.

Moreover, up to 40 Division 13 fighters have been taken hostage and four killed, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has said, though the remote “sources on the ground” routinely cited by the UK-based organization are often hard to verify.

Adding to the rebel group’s dismay, Al-Nusra was also the first to release an online statement – blaming Division 13 for provoking the attack. In turn, the rebels denied attacking Al-Nusra and accused them of an unexpected armed assault on a checkpoint, set up at the request of the local population.

The reason reportedly given by the US-backed group as to why they couldn’t have attacked the Islamists? Too weak for the job.

The feud between the militant factions, once close allies in fighting Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces, has been brewing for some time, according to AP. Al-Nusra has recently suppressed demonstrations and arrested protesters in the city of Idlib, and reportedly replaced the tricolor of the Syrian rebels with the black Al-Qaeda flag there.

read more: https://www.rt.com/news/335476-syria-nusra-loots-pentagon-rebels/

 

This was predictable... even as if wished by the US...

 

 

The first pilots arrived back in Russia from Syria on Tuesday, to the strains of bombastic military marches, cheering and a “mission accomplished” vibe provided by breathless state television reporters.

The Syrian adventure, or at least the television portrayal of it, has shown off a new, confident Russian military. Millions of Russians watch nightly bulletins in which their heroic fighter pilots drop precision bombs on terrorist targets, and while there has been no great public enthusiasm for engagement in Syria, it has enhanced the image of the military among Russians, and surprised foreign observers.

“We’d all expected after an initial flurry of activity we’d start seeing planes falling out of the sky or needing repairs. But they managed to keep up a schedule and keep the supply chain functioning. It was classic Russian style: a bit inelegant, a bit ad hoc, but it worked,” said Mark Galeotti, professor of global affairs at New York University and currently based in Moscow.

The patriotic tone and the boasts of mission success have been polished for domestic consumption. There has been a major divergence between the stated goal of fighting Isis and the reality of where in Syria Russia’s bombs have fallen.

read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/15/syrian-mission-restores-pride-in-russian-military-after-years-of-decay

 

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This is a bit of pfaffula from either a disingenuous or ill-informed journalist, relying on reports from the USA's own deficiency about the state of the Russian defence systems. I have been looking at it for quite a while and as we see here acknowledged, the Russians have good gear. Their flying objects are already equivalent to what's still on the drawing board at Lockheed. That they have a bit of pride in what they can do is understandable and now some people are saying the retreat is because Putin has run out of cash.

 

The Russians have been rebuilding and modernising their arsenal for at least 20/30 years. This is not a new occurrence. It takes about 30 years for the US to improve its own.

Instead of doing a "mission accomplished" alla American and then get bogged down by a "power vacuum" which demanded enormous amount of cash to reconstruct something that ended up looking like a botched up dunny job, like Iraq under US "occupation", Putin made sure that the country's public and governmental structures were still intact and able to fight the "insurgency" with a bit more morale.

And this "retreat"by the Russians does not mean they wont come back... They have countered the US sloppy diplomacy/rebel support to a point which would greatly annoy the US and the Europeans, who a) did not see it coming and b) by now have no idea what Putin's next move is going to be.

He will smile. 

 

 

The Qatar-Turkey pipeline is a proposed natural gas pipeline running from the Iranian-Qatari South Pars / North Dome Gas-Condensate field towards Turkey, where it could connect with the Nabucco pipeline to supply European customers as well as Turkey. One route to Turkey is via Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Syria,[1][2] and another is through Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq.[3][4] Syria's rationale for rejecting the Qatar proposal was said to be "to protect the interests of [its] Russian ally, which is Europe's top supplier of natural gas."[1]

In 2012 an analyst cited by Ansa Mediterranean suggested that Qatar's involvement in the Syrian civil war was based in part on its desire to build a pipeline to Turkey through Syria:

"The discovery in 2009 of a new gas field near Israel, Lebanon, Cyprus, and Syria opened new possibilities to bypass the Saudi Barrier and to secure a new source of income. Pipelines are in place already in Turkey to receive the gas. Only Al-Assad is in the way. Qatar along with the Turks would like to remove Al-Assad and install the Syrian chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood. It is the best organized political movement in the chaotic society and can block Saudi Arabia's efforts to install a more fanatical Wahhabi based regime. Once the Brotherhood is in power, the Emir's broad connections with Brotherhood groups throughout the region should make it easy for him to find a friendly ear and an open hand in Damascus." [5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar-Turkey_pipeline

 

The Islamic State group (IS) has suffered a double setback, with the Pentagon saying the militants' second-in-command was killed in a US raid and Syrian troops recapturing the ancient citadel in Palmyra.

Pentagon chief Ashton Carter announced the killing of Abd ar-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli, referring to him as Haji Imam and describing him as the group's top finance officer.

He was alternatively known as Abu Alaa al-Afri, who was thought to have been killed in May 2015.

"We are systematically eliminating ISIL's cabinet," Mr Carter told reporters, referring also to the killing early in the month of Omar al-Shishani, the man known as "Omar the Chechen" who was effectively IS' defence minister.

"The momentum of this campaign is now clearly on our side."

Mr Carter declined to say whether al-Qaduli had been killed by a drone strike or in a bombing raid involving manned aircraft.

Nor would he specify whether the attack occurred in Syria or Iraq, though he said that any action in Iraq would only have been taken with Iraqi Government approval.

The US Justice Department had offered a bounty of up to $US7 million for information leading to al-Qaduli.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-26/syrian-military-recaptures-citadel-of-palmyra-from-is/7277392

----------------

So Assad's troops are winning...

 

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has welcomed the Syrian army’s recapture of Palmyra from Daesh terrorists, expressing hope that the Damascus government will try to rebuild and protect the UNESCO-listed city.

Addressing a press conference in the Jordanian capital, Amman, Ban said “the extremist terrorists, they have been not only killing brutally people, they have been destroying human civilizations.”

“We are encouraged and fortunate” that Syrian soldiers regained control of Palmyra, said the UN chief, stressing he was also encouraged that Syria’s government “will try to not only preserve and protect, but try to restore” the site.

‘Russia to stand by Syria’

In another development, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered felicitations to his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad on the liberation of the ancient city of Palmyra after weeks of army operations against Daesh terrorists.

“In a conversation with the Syrian president, Vladimir Putin congratulated his colleague on Syrian forces liberating the city of Palmyra from terrorists, noting the importance of preserving this unique historic city for world culture,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Putin added that his country’s armed forces would continue to assist the Damascus officials in the battle against terrorism and help them “rid their land from extremist groups” despite the partial pullout of Moscow’s military contingent from Syria.

During the conversation, the Russian leader also emphasized “the importance of preserving this unique historic city for world culture,” Peskov added.

Assad, in turn, “praised the help given by the Russian space and air forces,” stressing that “successes such as the liberation of Palmyra would be impossible without Russia’s support,” Peskov added.

In a separate phone call, Putin also exchanged views with UNESCO chief Irina Bokova about the fate of Palmyra, according to the Kremlin official.

http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2016/03/27/457833/Syria-Russia-Putin-Assad-Palmyra-Kremlin-Peskov

Meanwhile:

A striking feature of the Isis victory in May last year was that its fighters were able to advance without being bombarded by US aircraft because the US did not want to be accused of doing anything that would help the Assad government, whom it accused of never fighting Isis. The claim was in part propagandistic since the Syrian army had suffered a series of defeats at the hands of Isis in 2014 as was shown by Isis atrocity videos in which Syrian soldiers taken prisoner are shown being decapitated or shot. 

Western governments and the Syrian opposition accused Russia of focusing solely on non-Isis targets during its air campaign in support of the Syrian army. In reality, the Russians launched air strikes on whatever elements of the armed opposition that were the greatest threat to Syrian army positions in all parts of the country. These included air attacks in northern Latakia province, around Aleppo and east of Homs and Hama. At the high point of its advance last year, Isis was able to threaten the main north-south M5 highway linking Damascus and Homs and, more recently, briefly cut the alternative route linking Homs to Aleppo.

 

read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syrian-armys-recapture-of-palmyra-may-mean-isis-has-lost-the-battle-but-its-not-lost-the-war-yet-a6955521.html

 

 

Why is David Cameron so silent on the recapture of Palmyra from the clutches of Isis?

In the end, it was the Syrian army - and its Hizballah chums from Lebanon, and the Iranians, and the Russians - who drove the Isis murderers out of Palmyra
Robert Fisk
The biggest military defeat that isis has suffered in more than two years. The recapture of Palmyra, the Roman city of the Empress Zenobia. And we are silent. Yes, folks, the bad guys won, didn't they? Otherwise, we would all be celebrating, wouldn't we?

Less than a week after the lost souls of the 'Islamic Caliphate' destroyed the lives of more than 30 innocent human beings in Brussels, we should - should we not? - have been clapping our hands at the most crushing military reverse in the history of Isis. But no. As the black masters of execution fled Palmyra this weekend, Messers Obama and Cameron were as silent as the grave to which Isis have dispatched so many of their victims. He who lowered our national flag in honour of the head-chopping king of Arabia (I'm talking about Dave, of course) said not a word.

As my long-dead colleague on the Sunday Express, John Gordon, used to say, makes you sit up a bit, doesn't it? Here are the Syrian army, backed, of course, by Vladimir Putin's Russkies, chucking the clowns of Isis out of town, and we daren't utter a single word to say well done.

When Palmyra fell last year, we predicted the fall of Bashar al-Assad. We ignored, were silent on, the Syrian army's big question: why, if the Americans hated Isis so much, didn't they bomb the suicide convoys that broke through the Syrian army's front lines? Why didn't they attack Isis?

“If the Americans wanted to destroy Isis, why didn't they bomb them when they saw them?” a Syrian army general asked me, after his soldiers' defeat  His son had been killed defending Homs. His men had been captured and head-chopped in the Roman ruins. The Syrian official in charge of the Roman ruins (of which we cared so much, remember?) was himself beheaded. Isis even put his spectacles back on top of his decapitated head, for fun. And we were silent then.

Putin noticed this, and talked about it, and accurately predicted the retaking of Palmyra. His aircraft attacked Isis - as US planes did not - in advance of the Syrian army's conquest. I could not help but smile when I read that the US command claimed two air strikes against Isis around Palmyra in the days leading up to its recapture by the regime. That really did tell you all you needed to know about the American "war on terror". They wanted to destroy Isis, but not that much.

So in the end, it was the Syrian army and its Hizballah chums from Lebanon and the Iranians and the Russians who drove the Isis murderers out of Palmyra, and who may - heavens preserve us from such a success - even storm the Isis Syrian 'capital' of Raqqa. I have written many times that the Syrian army will decide the future of Syria. If they grab back Raqqa - and Deir el-Zour, where the Nusrah front destroyed the church of the Armenian genocide and threw the bones of the long-dead 1915 Christian victims into the streets - I promise you we will be silent again.

Aren't we supposed to be destroying Isis? Forget it. That's Putin's job. And Assad's. Pray for peace, folks. That's what it's about, isn't it? And Geneva. Where is that, exactly?

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/why-is-david-cameron-so-silent-on-the-recapture-of-palmyra-from-the-clutches-of-isis-a6955406.html

 

Read from top...

 

 

From Eric Zuesse

 

The Syrian National News Agency headlined on February 26th, “Gold deal between United States and Daesh [ISIS]” and reported that:

 

Information from local sources said that US army helicopters have already transported the gold bullions under cover of darkness on Sunday [February 24th], before transporting them to the United States.

The sources said that tens of tons that Daesh had been keeping in their last hotbed in al-Baghouz area in Deir Ezzor countryside have been handed to the Americans, adding up to other tons of gold that Americans have found in other hideouts for Daesh, making the total amount of gold taken by the Americans to the US around 50 tons, leaving only scraps for the SDF [Kurdish] militias that serve them [the US operation].

Recently, sources said that the area where Daesh leaders and members have barricaded themselves in, contains around 40 tons of gold and tens of millions of dollars.

 

Allegedly, “US occupation forces in the Syrian al-Jazeera area made a deal with Daesh terrorists, by which Washington gets tens of tons of gold that the terror organization had stolen, in exchange for providing safe passage for the terrorists and their leaders from the areas in Deir Ezzor where they are located.”

ISIS was financing its operations largely by the theft of oil from the oil wells in the Deir Ezzor area, Syria’s oil-producing region, and they transported and sold this stolen oil via their allied forces, through Turkey, which was one of those US allies trying to overthrow Syria’s secular Government and install a Sunni fundamentalist regime that would be ruled from Riyadh (i.e., controlled by the Saud family). This gold is the property of the Syrian Government, which owns all that oil and the oil wells, which ISIS had captured (stolen), and then sold. Thus, this gold is from sale of that stolen black-market oil, which was Syria’s property.

The US Government claims to be anti-ISIS, but actually didn’t even once bomb ISIS in Syria until Russia started bombing ISIS in Syria on 30 September 2015, and the US had actually been secretly arming ISIS there so as to help ISIS and especially Al Qaeda (and the US was strongly protecting Al Qaeda in Syria) to overthrow Syria’s secular and non-sectarian Government. Thus, whereas Russia started bombing ISIS in Syria on 30 September 2015, America (having become embarrassed) started bombing ISIS in Syria on 16 November 2015. The US Government’s excuse was “This is our first strike against tanker trucks, and to minimize risks to civilians, we conducted a leaflet drop prior to the strike.”

They pretended it was out of compassion — not in order to extend for as long as possible ISIS’s success in taking over territory in Syria.

(And, under Trump, on the night of 2 March 2019, the US rained down upon ISIS in northeast Syria the excruciating and internationally banned white phosphorous to burn ISIS and its hostages alive, which Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama had routinely done to burn alive the residents in Donetsk and other parts of eastern former Ukraine where voters had voted more than 90% for the democratically elected Ukrainian President whom Obama’s coup in Ukraine had replaced. It was a way to eliminate some of the most-undesired voters — people who must never again be voting in a Ukrainian national election, not even if that region subsequently does become conquered by the post-coup, US-imposed, regime. The land there is wanted; its residents certainly are not wanted by the Obama-imposed regime.)

America’s line was: Russia just isn’t as ‘compassionate’ as America. Zero Hedge aptly headlined “’Get Out Of Your Trucks And Run Away’: US Gives ISIS 45 Minute Warning On Oil Tanker Strikes”. Nobody exceeds the United States Government in sheer hypocrisy.

The US Government evidently thinks that the public are fools, idiots. America’s allies seem to be constantly amazed at how successful that approach turns out to be.

Indeed, on 28 November 2012, Syria News headlined “Emir of Qatar & Prime Minister of Turkey Steal Syrian Oil Machinery in Broad Daylight” and presented video allegedly showing it (but unfortunately providing no authentication of the date and locale of that video).

Jihadists were recruited from throughout the world to fight against Syria’s secular Government. Whereas ISIS was funded mainly by black-market sales of oil from conquered areas, the Al-Qaeda-led groups were mainly funded by the Sauds and other Arab royal families and their retinues, the rest of their aristocracy. On 13 December 2013, BBC headlined “Guide to the Syrian rebels” and opened “There are believed to be as many as 1,000 armed opposition groups in Syria, commanding an estimated 100,000 fighters.”

Except in the Kurdish areas in Syria’s northeast, almost all of those fighters were being led by Al Qaeda’s Syrian Branch, al-Nusra. Britain’s Center on Religion & Politics headlined on 21 December 2015, “Ideology and Objectives of the Syrian Rebellion” and reported: “If ISIS is defeated, there are at least 65,000 fighters belonging to other Salafi-jihadi groups ready to take its place.” Almost all of those 65,000 were trained and are led by Syria’s Al Qaeda (Nusra), which was protected by the US.

In September 2016 a UK official “FINAL REPORT OF THE TASK FORCE ON COMBATING TERRORIST AND FOREIGN FIGHTER TRAVEL” asserted that, “Over 25,000 foreign fighters have traveled to the battlefield to enlist with Islamist terrorist groups, including at least 4,500 Westerners. More than 250 individuals from the United States have also joined.” Even just 25,000 (that official lowest estimate) was a sizable US proxy-army of religious fanatics to overthrow Syria’s Government.

On 26 November 2015, the first of Russia’s videos of Russia’s bombing ISIS oil trucks headed into Turkey was bannered at a US military website “Russia Airstrike on ISIS Oil Tankers”, and exactly a month later, on 26 December 2015, Britain’s Daily Express headlined “WATCH: Russian fighter jets smash ISIS oil tankers after spotting 12,000 at Turkish border”. This article, reporting around twelve thousand ISIS oil-tanker trucks heading into Turkey, opened:

 

“The latest video, released by the Russian defence ministry, shows the tankers bunched together as they make their way along the road. They are then blasted by the fighter jet.”

 

The US military had nothing comparable to offer to its ‘news’-media. Britain’s Financial Times headlined on 14 October 2015, “Isis Inc: how oil fuels the jihadi terrorists”. Only America’s allies were involved in this commerce with ISIS — no nation that supported Syria’s Government was participating in this black market of stolen Syrian goods. So, it’s now clear that a lot of that stolen oil was sold for gold as Syria’s enemy-nations’ means of buying that oil from ISIS. They’d purchase it from ISIS, but not from Syria’s Government, the actual owner.

On 30 November 2015 Israel’s business-news daily Globes News Service bannered “Israel has become the main buyer for oil from ISIS controlled territory, report”, and reported:

 

An estimated 20,000-40,000 barrels of oil are produced daily in ISIS controlled territory generating $1-1.5 million daily profit for the terrorist organization. The oil is extracted from Dir A-Zur in Syria and two fields in Iraq and transported to the Kurdish city of Zakhu in a triangle of land near the borders of Syria, Iraq and Turkey. Israeli and Turkish mediators come to the city and when prices are agreed, the oil is smuggled to the Turkish city of Silop marked as originating from Kurdish regions of Iraq and sold for $15-18 per barrel (WTI and Brent Crude currently sell for $41 and $45 per barrel) to the Israeli mediator, a man in his 50s with dual Greek-Israeli citizenship known as Dr. Farid. He transports the oil via several Turkish ports and then onto other ports, with Israel among the main destinations.

 

After all, Israel too wants to overthrow Syria’s secular, non-sectarian Government, which would be replaced by rulers selected by the Saud family, who are the US Government’s main international ally.

On 9 November 2014, when Turkey was still a crucial US ally trying to overthrow Syria’s secular Government (and this was before the failed 15 July 2016 US-backed coup-attempt to overthrow and replace Turkey’s Government so as to impose an outright US stooge), Turkey was perhaps ISIS’s most crucial international backer. Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s leader, had received no diploma beyond k-12, and all of that schooling was in Sunni schools and based on the Quran. (He pretended, however, to have a university diploma.) On 15 July 2015, AWD News headlined “Turkish President’s daughter heads a covert medical corps to help ISIS injured members”. On 2 December 2015, a Russian news-site headlined “Defense Ministry: Erdogan and his family are involved in the illegal supply of oil”; so, the Erdogan family itself was religiously committed to ISIS’s fighters against Syria, and they were key to the success of the US operation against Syrians — theft from Syrians. The great investigative journalist Christof Lehmann, who was personally acquainted with many of the leading political figures in Africa and the Middle East, headlined on 22 June 2014, “US Embassy in Ankara Headquarter for ISIS War on Iraq – Hariri Insider”, and he reported that the NATO-front the Atlantic Council had held a meeting in Turkey during 22-23 of November 2013 at which high officials of the US and allied governments agreed that they were going to take over Syria’s oil, and that they even were threatening Iraq’s Government for its not complying with their demands to cooperate on overthrowing Syria’s Government. So, behind the scenes, this conquest of Syria was the clear aim by the US and all of its allies.

The US had done the same thing when it took over Ukraine by a brutal coup in February 2014: It grabbed the gold. Iskra News in Russian reported, on 7 March 2014, that “At 2 a.m. this morning … an unmarked transport plane was on the runway at Borosipol Airport” near Kiev in the west, and that, “According to airport staff, before the plane came to the airport, four trucks and two Volkswagen minibuses arrived, all the truck license plates missing.” This was as translated by Michel Chossudovsky at Global Research headlining on 14 March, “Ukraine’s Gold Reserves Secretly Flown Out and Confiscated by the New York Federal Reserve?” in which he noted that, when asked, “A spokesman for the New York Fed said simply, ‘Any inquiry regarding gold accounts should be directed to the account holder.’” The load was said to be “more than 40 heavy boxes.” Chossudovsky noted that, “The National Bank of Ukraine (Central Bank) estimated Ukraine’s gold reserves in February to be worth $1.8 billion dollars.” It was allegedly 36 tons. The US, according to Victoria Nuland (Obama’s detail-person overseeing the coup) had invested around $5 billion in the coup. Was her installed Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk cleaning out the nation’s gold reserves in order to strip the nation so that the nation’s steep indebtedness for Russian gas would never be repaid to Russia’s oligarchs? Or was he doing it as a payoff for Nuland’s having installed him? Or both? In any case: Russia was being squeezed by this fascist Ukrainian-American ploy.

On 14 November 2014, a Russian youtube headlined “In Ukraine, there is no more gold and currency reserves” and reported that there is “virtually no gold. There is a small amount of gold bars, but it’s just 1%” of before the coup. Four days later, Zero Hedge bannered “Ukraine Admits Its Gold Is Gone: ‘There Is Almost No Gold Left In The Central Bank Vault’”. From actually 42.3 tons just before the coup, it was now far less than one ton.

The Syria operation was about oil, gold, and guns. However, most of America’s support was to Al-Qaeda-led jihadists, not to ISIS-jihadists. As the great independent investigative journalist Dilyana Gaytandzhieva reported on 2 July 2017:

 

In December of last year while reporting on the battle of Aleppo as a correspondent for Bulgarian media I found and filmed 9 underground warehouses full of heavy weapons with Bulgaria as their country of origin. They were used by Al Nusra Front (Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria designated as a terrorist organization by the UN).” 

 

The US had acquired weapons from around the world, and shipped them (and Gaytandzhieva’s report even displayed the transit-documents) through a network of its embassies, into Syria, for Nusra-led forces inside Syria. Almost certainly, the US Government’s central command center for the entire arms-smuggling operation was the world’s largest embassy, which is America’s embassy in Baghdad.

Furthermore, On 8 March 2013, Richard Spenser of Britain’s Telegraph reportedthat Croatia’s Jutarnji List newspaper had reported that “3,000 tons of weapons dating back to the former Yugoslavia have been sent in 75 planeloads from Zagreb airport to the rebels, largely via Jordan since November. … The airlift of dated but effective Yugoslav-made weapons meets key concerns of the West, and especially Turkey and the United States, who want the rebels to be better armed to drive out the Assad regime.”

Also, a September 2014 study by Conflict Armaments Research (CAR), titled “Islamic State Weapons in Iraq and Syria”, reported that not only east-European, but even US-made, weapons were being “captured from Islamic State forces” by Kurds who were working for the Americans, and that this was very puzzling and disturbing to those Kurds, who were risking their lives to fight against those jihadists.

In December 2017, CAR headlined “Weapons of the Islamic State” and reported that “this materiel was rapidly captured by IS forces, only to be deployed by the group against international coalition forces.” The assumption made there was that the transfer of weapons to ISIS was all unintentional.

That report ignored contrary evidence, which I summed up on 2 September 2017 headlining “Russian TV Reports US Secretly Backing ISIS in Syria”, and reporting there also from the Turkish Government an admission that the US was working with Turkey to funnel surviving members of Iraq’s ISIS into the Deir Ezzor part of Syria to help defeat Syria’s Government in that crucial oil-producing region. Moreover, at least one member of the ‘rebels’ that the US was training at Al Tanf on Syria’s Jordanian border had quit because his American trainers were secretly diverting some of their weapons to ISIS. Furthermore: why hadn’t the US bombed Syrian ISIS before Russia entered the Syrian war on 30 September 2015? America talked lots about its supposed effort against ISIS, but why did US wait till 16 November 2015 before taking action, “’Get Out Of Your Trucks And Run Away’: US Gives ISIS 45 Minute Warning On Oil Tanker Strikes”?

So, regardless of whether the US Government uses jihadists as its proxy-forces, or uses fascists as its proxy-forces, it grabs the gold — and grabs the oil, and takes whatever else it can.

This is today’s form of imperialism. Grab what you can, and run. And call it ‘fighting for freedom and democracy and human rights and against corruption’. And the imperial regime’s allies watch in amazement, as they take their respective cuts of the loot. That’s the deal, and they call it ‘fighting for freedom and democracy and human rights and against corruption around the world’.

That’s the way it works. International gangland. That’s the reality, while most of the public think it’s instead really “fighting for freedom and democracy and human rights and against corruption around the world.” For example, as RT reported on Sunday, March 3rd, about John Bolton’s effort at regime-change in Venezuela, Bolton said: “I’d like to see as broad a coalition as we can put together to replace Maduro, to replace the whole corrupt regime,’ Bolton told CNN’s Jake Tapper.”

Trump’s regime wants to bring clean and democratic government to the poor Venezuelans, just like Bush’s did to the Iraqis, and Obama’s did to the Libyans and to the Syrians and to the Ukrainians. And Trump, who pretends to oppose Obama’s regime-change policies, alternately expands them and shrinks them. Though he’s slightly different from Obama on domestic policies, he never, as the US President, condemn’s any of his predecessors’ many coups and invasions, all of which were disasters for everybody except America’s and allies’ billionaires. They’re all in on the take.

The American public were suckered into destroying Iraq in 2003, Libya in 2011, Syria in 2011-now, and so many other countries, and still haven’t learned anything, other than to keep trusting the allegations of this lying and psychopathically vicious and super-aggressive Government and of its stenographic ‘news’-media. When is enough finally enough? Never? If not never, then when? Or do most people never learn? Or maybe they don’t really care. Perhaps that’s the problem.

On March 4th, the Jerusalem Post bannered “IRAN AND TURKEY MEDIA PUSH CONSPIRACY THEORIES ABOUT US, ISIS: Claims pushed by Syrian regime media assert that US gave ISIS safe passage out of Baghuz in return for gold, a conspiracy picked up in Tehran and Ankara”, and simply assumed that it’s false — but provided no evidence to back their speculation up — and they closed by asserting “The conspiracies, which are manufactured in Damascus, are disseminated to Iraq and Turkey, both of whom oppose US policy in eastern Syria.”

Why do people even subscribe to such ‘news’-sources as that? The key facts are hidden, the speculation that’s based on their own prejudices replaces whatever facts exist. Do the subscribers, to that, simply want to be deceived? Are most people that stupid?

Back on 21 December 2018, one of the US regime’s top ‘news’-media, the Washington Post, had headlined “Retreating ISIS army smuggled a fortune in cash and gold out of Iraq and Syria” and reported that “the Islamic State is sitting on a mountain of stolen cash and gold that its leaders stashed away to finance terrorist operations.” So, it’s not as if there hadn’t been prior reason to believe that some day some of the gold would be found after America’s defeat in Syria. Maybe they just hadn’t expected this to happen quite so soon. But the regime will find ways to hoodwink its public, in the future, just as it has in the past. Unless the public wises-up (if that’s even possible).

Originally posted at strategic-culture.org

 

 

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