US, Israel to supply anti-aircraft missiles to Kurdish militants in Syria: Report

Press TV

 

The United States and Israel are reportedly set to supply anti-aircraft missiles to Kurdish militants in northern Syria amid tensions between Ankara and Washington over the latter’s support for the militants, which the Turkish government views as terrorists.

Citing local sources, Turkey’s Yeni Safak daily reported that the US is set to deliver shipments of Stinger Man Portable Air Defense System (MANPADS) to militants of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

The PKK, it added, has designated the towns of Rmelan and Shaddadah in Syria’s Hasakah Province as well as the Jalabiyah and al-Omar regions as launching points for its American-supplied missiles.

Ankara is unhappy with Washington’s support for Kurdish militants of the People’s Protection Units (YPG), which it views as an extension of the PKK, and has repeatedly called on the US administration to stop providing them with arms.

The PKK has been fighting for autonomy inside Turkey for decades and runs bases in neighboring Syria and Iraq as well.

The report further said the regime in Israel has also vowed to supply the Kurds with Spike anti-aircraft missiles in the Syrian provinces of Dayr al-Zawr and Raqqah following high-level meetings between the militants and Tel Aviv.

Israel has long been backing the militants operating against the Syrian government. The regime has, on several occasions, criticized Turkey for its operations against the Kurdish militants.

The US-Kurdish alliance is closely coordinating the missiles’ deployment to Syria as part of a “special joint strategy,” according to the report.

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Trump's Neocons See Erdogan As Their Ticket To A Region-Wide MidEast War

Mike Whitney
The Unz review

Turkish troops and armored units are massed along Turkey’s southern border awaiting orders to invade northern Syria. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants to clear a ten mile-deep swath of land east of the Euphrates River in order to remove terrorist-linked militants (YPG) currently occupying the territory. The proposed offensive would put US Special Forces in the line of fire which significantly increases the likelihood of US casualties. If American troops are killed or wounded by the Turkish operation, Washington will respond in force leading to a potentially catastrophic face-off between the two NATO allies. The possibility of a violent clash between Turkey and the United States has never been greater than it is today.
 

On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned Turkey that any unilateral action in Syria would have “devastating consequences.” Pompeo’s comments were intended to intimidate Erdogan who stated on Tuesday that the military offensive would begin shortly after last weekend’s elections. If Erdogan proceeds with his plan, Pompeo will undoubtedly give the military the go-ahead for retaliatory attacks on the Turkish Army. This will either lead to a speedy retreat by Turkey or asymmetrical strikes on US strategic assets across the region. In any event, the fracas with Turkey is bound to widen the chasm between the two former allies forcing Erdogan to reconsider his commitment to the western alliance. Any further deterioration in relations between the US and Turkey could result in a dramatic shift in the global balance of power.

Washington’s problems with Erdogan began years before the current dust-up. The Turkish leader has always steered an independent foreign policy which has been a constant source of frustration for the White House. During the war in Iraq, Erdogan refused to allow the US to use Turkish air bases to conduct their operations. (Erdogan did not support the war.) Presently he is purchasing air defense systems from Russia (S-400), (which VP Mike Pence has strongly condemned), he has attended summits in Sochi with Moscow and Tehran in order to find a political settlement for the war in Syria, he has signed contracts with Gazprom that will make his country the energy hub of southern Europe, and he has been harshly critical of US support for the its Kurdish proxies in east Syria (the SDF) which is an offshoot of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), a group that is on the US State Department’s list of terrorist organizations.

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Kurds in Fateful Triangle as US Moves to Redeploy IS Terror Groups

Finian Cunningham

Strategic Culture

Kurdish fighters have been used by the US to ostensibly defeat the remaining Islamic State holdouts in eastern Syria. But what is emerging is not a final defeat of the terrorists, more a redeployment to further destabilize the Arab country.

Potentially, the Kurds could wind up not with the regional autonomy they desire, but as part of a rebranded American dirty war army whose ranks include the very terrorist the Kurdish militias have been successfully battling against.

President Donald Trump has been lately crowing about how US-backed Kurdish forces have wiped out the IS self-proclaimed caliphate around Baghouz in eastern Syria. “They’re losers… they’re gone tonight,” he boasted about supposedly vanquishing the jihadists.

However, things are not that clear-cut. Syria’s envoy to the United Nations Bashar al Jaafari dismissed Trump’s victory celebrations as a “bluff”. He said that IS was not defeated in areas under US control, but rather were being shunted off to various camps for retraining.

There are credible reports that thousands of jihadists who surrendered or were captured in the fighting around Baghouz have since been relocated by US forces to its military base at al Tanf near the border with Iraq and Jordan, as well as to nearby refugee camps such as Rukban, where some 40,000 detainees are held. Suspiciously, the Americans are refusing international access to these camps, even for UN humanitarian relief agencies. As Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov pointed out recently, the detention centers are being used by the Americans as a pretext for illegally occupying Syrian territory.

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The US Syria Withdrawal and the Myth of the Islamic State's "Return"

Tony Cartalucci
Land Destroyer

At face value - the notion that the US occupation of Syria is key to preventing the return of the so-called "Islamic State" (ISIS) to Syrian territory is unconvincing. 

Regions west of the Euphrates River where ISIS had previously thrived have since been permanently taken back by the Syrian Arab Army and its Russian and Iranian allies - quite obviously without any support from the United States - and in fact - despite Washington's best efforts to hamper Damascus' security operations.
Damascus and its Russian and Iranian allies have demonstrated that ISIS can be permanently defeated. With ISIS supply lines running out of NATO-territory in Turkey and from across the Jordanian and Iraqi border cut off - Syrian forces have managed to sustainably suppress the terrorist organization's efforts to reestablish itself west of the Euphrates.

The very fact that ISIS persists in the sole region of the country currently under US occupation raises many questions about not only the sincerity or lack thereof of  Washington's efforts to confront and defeat ISIS - but over whether or not Washington is deliberately sustaining the terrorist organization's fighting capacity specifically to serve as a pretext for America's continued - and illegal - occupation of Syrian territory.

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The convenient timing of US troops killed in Syria

Finian Cunningham
Strategic Culture Foundation

With unseemly haste, US news media leapt on the killing of four American military personnel in Syria as a way to undermine President Donald Trump's plan to withdraw troops from that country.

The deadly attack in the northern city of Manbij, on the west bank of the Euphrates River, was reported to have been carried out by a suicide bomber. The Islamic State (ISIS) terror group reportedly claimed responsibility, but the group routinely makes such claims which often turn out to be false.

The American military personnel were said to be on a routine patrol of Manbij where US forces have been backing Kurdish militants in a purported campaign against ISIS and other terror groups.

An explosion at a restaurant resulted in two US troops and two Pentagon civilian officials being killed, along with more than a dozen other victims. Three other US military persons were among those injured.

US media highlighted the bombing as the biggest single death toll of American forces in Syria since they began operations in the country nearly four years ago.

The US and Kurdish militia have been in control of Manbij for over two years. It is one of the main sites from where American troops are to withdraw under Trump's exit plan, which he announced on December 19.

Following the bombing, the New York Times headlined: "ISIS Attack in Syria Kills 4 Americans, Raising Worries about Troop Withdrawal". The report goes on, "the news prompted calls from Republicans and Democrats for President Trump to reconsider his plans to withdraw troops from the country."

A more pointed headline in The Washington Post was: "Killing of 4 Americans in Syria Throws Spotlight on Trump's Policy". 

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2006 State Department Cable Reveals Plan To Use Terror, Intrigue, Kurds To Destabilize Syria, Weaken Assad

Brandon Turbeville
Activist Post

Despite the bulk of the attempted destruction of Syria having taken place during the Obama administration, the fact is that the agenda began marching years before Obama took office and it is continuing to do so today. Ample evidence has been provided demonstrating that a plan to destroy the Syrian government goes back at least to the Bush Jr. administration and the desire to do so goes even further back than that.

One such piece of evidence is a secret State Department cable obtained by Wikileaks entitled “Influencing the SARG In The End Of 2006” which was distributed from the US embassy in Damascus to requisite officials in the Department of Treasury, National Security Council, White House, Secretary of State, League of Arab States, US Mission To European Union in Brussels, United Nations (NY), US Central Command, and Tel Aviv.

The entire cable was a discussion of a number of available strategies to bring about regime change in Syria and was written during 2006 under the Bush administration.

The cable takes a number of potentially exploitable conditions and expounds upon the realities of the situation, the vulnerabilities of the Syrian government and the “possible action” that can be taken to capitalize on the perceived weaknesses.

The cable begins by stating:

The SARG ends 2006 in a much stronger position domestically and internationally than it did 2005. While there may be additional bilateral or multilateral pressure that can impact Syria, the regime is based on a small clique that is largely immune to such pressure. However, Bashar Asad's growing self-confidence )- and reliance on this small clique -- could lead him to make mistakes and ill-judged policy decisions through trademark emotional reactions to challenges, providing us with new opportunities. For example, Bashar,s reaction to the prospect of Hariri tribunal and to publicity for Khaddam and the National Salvation Front borders on the irrational. Additionally, Bashar,s reported preoccupation with his image and how he is perceived internationally is a potential liability in his decision making process. We believe Bashar,s weaknesses are in how he chooses to react to looming issues, both perceived and real, such as a the conflict between economic reform steps (however limited) and entrenched, corrupt forces, the Kurdish question, and the potential threat to the regime from the increasing presence of transiting Islamist extremists. This cable summarizes our assessment of these vulnerabilities and suggests that there may be actions, statements, and signals that the USG can send that will improve the likelihood of such opportunities arising. These proposals will need to be fleshed out and converted into real actions and we need to be ready to move quickly to take advantage of such opportunities. Many of our suggestions underline using Public Diplomacy and more indirect means to send messages that influence the inner circle.

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Carving Out Kurdistan - The US/NATO Plan To Break Up Syria and Iraq

Brandon Turbeville
Activist Post

Over the last few months, Americans who pay attention to current events have been treated to a surprising barrage of praise coming from the mainstream media regarding the Kurdish fighters in Syria. The Kurds have been presented as true freedom fighters and an opposition that the US can justify supporting, at least at some level, against ISIS.

Much of this praise is well-deserved. Kurdish fighters have indeed fought bravely against ISIS, dealing blow after blow to the Western-backed terrorist group on a number of occasions. Indeed, the Kurds have fought so skillfully that the US was quick to steal credit for a high-profile operation that was actually conducted by Syrian and Iraqi Kurds – the rescue of trapped Yazidis on the top of Mt. Sinjar.

The resolve that Kurdish fighters showed in their fight against ISIS at Ayn al-Arab (aka Kobane) was extraordinary as was their understanding of the necessity for coordination and cooperation with the Syrian government with regards to issues containing mutual strategic self-interest for both parties.

The West, however, particularly NATO spear-headed by the United States has long had much a much different interest in the Kurdish fighters and their relationship to the region and the conflict currently raging there. Indeed, the Kurds have long acted as a force which the US has been able to harness to stir up destabilization in the Iraqi, Syrian, Turkish, and Iranian sphere. Such is the case now, as the US and NATO powers seek to use the Kurdish desire for an independent country – Kurdistan – as a destabilizing force against Syria, Iraq, and Iran and a galvanizing force for the Turks. Whether or not the Kurds will ever obtain such an independent state, however, remains to be seen.

Regardless, the US has been attempting to use the fighting force of the Kurds for their geopolitical aims – whatever those aims might be in relation to the creation or not of an independent Kurdistan.

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Order Out of Chaos: The Global Elites Plan for a “Middle Eastern Union”

Steve MacMillan
New Eastern Outlook

The Middle East has been engulfed in a state of chaos for decades now, with the region becoming increasingly unstable in recent years largely due to western sponsored proxy wars. The current map of the Middle East was created in 1916 through the surreptitious Sykes-Picot agreement, a deal which divided the Ottoman-ruled territories of Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine, into areas controlled by either Britain or France. Today the chaos we see in the Middle East is the creation of Anglo-American-Israeli power, which is attempting to redraw the map to meet their present strategic and imperial objectives.

Islamic State: A Creation of US Intelligence

The Islamic State (IS) has hit the headlines in recent months due to their latest terror campaign in Iraq, which has led to US airstrikes in the North of the country. What has been omitted from mainstream circles though is the intimate relationship between US intelligence agencies and IS, as they have trained, armed and funded the group for years. Back in 2012, World Net Daily received leaks by Jordanian officials who reported that the US military was training ISIL (as it was then known) in Jordan, before being deployed into Syria to fight against Bashar al-Assad. Francis Boyle, a Law professor at the University of Illinois, has described IS as a “covert US intelligence operation” whose objective is to “destroy Iraq as a state”.

The strategy in the Middle East is the creation of a perpetual condition of instability and a policy of “constructive chaos”, where nation states are to be destroyed so that the map of the Middle East can be redrawn. IS provided the pretext to intervene in Iraq once again, with the intervention ensuring the oil fields in Erbil are safely in the hands of multi-national corporations – as oppose to chaotic and dysfunctional mercenaries. As well as providing the justification for the US,Britain and France to “bolster” the Kurds in the North of the country, which furthers the agenda of destroying “Iraq as a state”. As the President of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and Former Director of Policy Planning at the State Department, Richard Hass, wrote in an Op Ed for Project Syndicate last month:

“It is time to recognize the inevitability of Iraq’s break-up (the country is now more a vehicle for Iran’s influence than a bulwark against it) and bolster an independent Kurdistan within Iraq’s former borders.”

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ISIS in Iraq stinks of CIA/NATO ‘dirty war’ op

Millennium Report

Iraqi Kurdish forces take position near Taza Khormato as they fight jihadist militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) positioned five kilometers away in Bashir, 20 kms south of Kirkuk (AFP Photo / Karim Sahib)

For days now, since their dramatic June 10 taking of Mosul, Western mainstream media have been filled with horror stories of the military conquests in Iraq of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, with the curious acronym ISIS.  

ISIS, as in the ancient Egyptian cult of the goddess of fertility and magic. The media picture being presented adds up less and less.

Details leaking out suggest that ISIS and the major military ‘surge’ in Iraq – and less so in neighboring Syria – is being shaped and controlled out of Langley, Virginia, and other CIA and Pentagon outposts as the next stage in spreading chaos in the world’s second-largest oil state, Iraq, as well as weakening the recent Syrian stabilization efforts.

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USrael's EU handmaiden backs Iraq partition plan by arming Kurds

RT

The EU's foreign affairs council has said after a meeting in Brussels that some of the bloc's members will respond to the Iraqi Kurds' call for military aid, given they have Baghdad's consent. The EU also reiterated its commitment to Iraqi unity.

Prior to the EU statement France said it will send weapons to the Kurds. France's Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said he had called for the meeting in Brussels Friday to push for more European help for the Kurds and the Iraqis in their fight against Islamic State militants.

"I asked for this meeting so that all of Europe mobilizes and helps the Iraqis and the Kurds," he said on arriving in Brussels.

Italy and the Czech Republic have also backed the idea. While Germany and Holland have said they can't rule out the idea as long as the Islamic State (IS) threat continues.

"The Kurds need our support. It is important for us for there to be a European agreement," said Federica Mogherini, Italy's foreign minister.

Defense issues are normally the territory of individual EU states but the persecution and massacre of Iraqi minorities, including the Christians and the Yazidis, has led to promises of action rather than words in European capitals.

There is also a concern in EU governments that the Islamic State may be able to attract radicals from Europe who will then return home battle-hardened and eager for Jihad.

Even Germany, which is usually cautious about sending arms into battle zones, has pledged to work "full speed" to supply "non-lethal" equipment such as armored vehicles, flak jackets and helmets; Germany is one of the world's major arms manufacturers and exporters.

"Europeans must not limit themselves to praising the courageous fight of the Kurdish security forces. We also need to do something first of all to meet basic needs," said Germany's foreign minister, Frank Walter Steinmeier.

Steinmeier also said he will travel to Iraq at the weekend to see what else can be done to help the Kurdish security forces.

The UK's foreign secretary Phillip Hammond has also said that Britain will arm the Kurds.

"The UK will also consider favorably any request for supplying arms. We are already shipping ammunition and supplies from East European countries into Irbil," he told reporters.

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been driven from their homes in the face of the IS onslaught and remain at risk from the jihadists, even after the siege of Mount Sinjar was broken earlier this week. The UN has now put Iraq on the same level as Syria, South Sudan and the Central African Republic, with the number of people displaced by fighting this year at one million.

Meanwhile the UN Security Council unanimously passed a resolution Friday aimed at weakening the Islamic State. It has black listed six members of the jihadist terror group and has threatened sanctions against anyone who finances, recruits or supplies weapons to the insurgents. 

Yazidis Weren’t Stranded, Pentagon Looks for Other Missions

State Dept Tries to Credit US With Solving Phony Problem
 
Jason Ditz
Anti War

The 40,000 Yazidis stranded on the mountain. That was the pretext for US military intervention in Iraq, as set out by President Obama last Thursday. The air war was commenced, and officials were talking up sending ground forces for “rescue” operations as recently as this afternoon. 

But a funny thing happened when the US “advisers” got to Mount Sinjar. There weren’t 40,000 starving Yazidis stranded there. In fact, the indications are that there never were, and the Pentagon quickly dropped the “rescue” plan.

What happened? It turns out there were Yazidis already living on the top of the mountain, and while there were some refugees who fled up there, the humanitarian crisis was never what it was made out to be, and an influx of Kurdish PKK fighters from Syria quickly broke the overblown siege.

The Pentagon is trying to manage the narrative by simply saying the rescue mission “appears unnecessary,” but the fact that it was used to start a US war remains, and the State Department is doubling down, trying to spin the lack of a crisis as vindication of the war.

“President said we’re going to break the siege of this mountain, and we broke that siege,” bragged Brett McGurk on Twitter, neglecting to mention that the siege was largely mythical in the first place. 

The Pentagon wasn’t nearly so daring as to take credit for solving a crisis that didn’t exist.

Instead, the Pentagon is combing the countryside of northwestern Iraq, where their former casus belli was before it so rudely evaporated, and looking for other crises that they might use as a justification for continuing and escalating the war.

Officials seem to be totally ignoring the obvious question: where the false story of a massive Yazidi crisis came from in the first place. In that regard, there are no easy answers, though the obvious beneficiaries of the new US war are the Kurdish Peshmerga, which are suddenly getting flooded with Western arms to fight ISIS, and eventually, to fuel their secession.

The administration just seems grateful that they got an excuse to start a war they’ve been chomping at the bit for, and even if the excuse didn’t exactly pan out, they’ll quickly find another.

The battle for Baghdad is nigh: Thousands of men answer Iraqi government's call to arms as ISIS jihadists bear down on capital

Daily Mail

• Iraq's government has indicated a willingness for the US military to conduct airstrikes against radical Islamist militants
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• Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant have taken over Iraq's second biggest city Mosul and town of Tikrit
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• Government forces have stalled the militants' advance near Samarra, a city just 110km (68 miles) north of Baghdad
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• ISIS's goal is to create a Islamic caliphate (state) - it already controls territory in eastern Syria and western/central Iraq
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• Iraq's parliament were to hold an emergency session today but it was postponed due to a opposition boycott
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• Kurdish forces are in full control of Iraq's oil city of Kirkuk after the federal army abandoned their posts
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• Iran has sent special forces and a unit of elite troops to Iraq to assist the Iraqi government halt the advance
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• Turkey is negotiating for the release of 80 nationals held by Islamist militants in Mosul
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• Iraqi air force is bombing insurgent positions in and around Mosul - 1.3 million citizens still remain in the city
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• Oil price hit a three-year high this morning on worries that supply could be disrupted

Thousands of Iraqis young and old have answered the beleaguered Shia-led government’s call to arms and signed up to protect the capital, and country, from ISIS militants.

As jihadists from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant march on Baghdad after capturing swathes of northern Iraq male supporters of the government turned out in droves today to enlist and fight back.

The militants have already seized control of Iraq's second largest city Mosul where it is reported that roughly 30,000 soldiers fled, leaving behind tanks and firearms as just 800 fighters approached.

Less than 24 hours later the oil-rich city of Tikrit was captured by the militants, who then turned their attentions to the capital as it pushes ahead with its aim to overthrow the western-backed government as part of its goal to create an Islamic emirate spanning both sides of the Iraq-Syria border.

But so far government forces have stalled the militants' remarkably rapid advance near Samarra, a city just 110km (68 miles) north of Baghdad and they are now bombing insurgent positions in and around Mosul - although 500,000 residents have fled, 1.3 million citizens remain in the city.

Meanwhile Iraqi Kurds seized control of the major northern oil city of Kirkuk today as the central government's army abandoned its posts in a rapid collapse that has lost it control of the north.

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