Musburger1
2,500+ Posts
But the MSM said Aleppo fell. You mean it was liberated? We were sold fake news?
Syria About to Reignite
- Thread starter Musburger1
- Start date
But the MSM said Aleppo fell. You mean it was liberated? We were sold fake news?
Brad Austin
2,500+ Posts
Turkey Leaks Secret Locations of U.S. Troops in Syria
Our so-called NATO 'ally' published very detailed information about several US bases and posts in Syria. Including locations, troop levels, weapons on hand, etc.
Apparently the information is sensitive and will pose greater threat to US coalition troops. Multiple US command leaders asked The Daily Beast not to republish it.
And with complete predictability, TDB ignored their pleas. They rationalized doing so because it was already published by Turkish state media. Which makes it okay to republish and disseminate through the much greater reach of U.S. media? F'n traitors.
"Spokesmen for Operation Inherent Resolve, the U.S.-led coalition fighting ISIS, and for the U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Florida, asked The Daily Beast not to publish the detailed information reported by Anadolu.
“The discussion of specific troop numbers and locations would provide sensitive tactical information to the enemy which could endanger Coalition and partner forces,” wrote Col. Joe Scrocca, coalition director of public affairs.
“Publishing this type of information would be professionally irresponsible and we respectively [sic] request that you refrain from disseminating any information that would put Coalition lives in jeopardy.”
Col. John Thomas, spokesman at the Central Command, also asked The Daily Beast to refrain from publishing details of coalition operations, on the grounds it would be “potentially harmful to the lives of those involved.”
Our so-called NATO 'ally' published very detailed information about several US bases and posts in Syria. Including locations, troop levels, weapons on hand, etc.
Apparently the information is sensitive and will pose greater threat to US coalition troops. Multiple US command leaders asked The Daily Beast not to republish it.
And with complete predictability, TDB ignored their pleas. They rationalized doing so because it was already published by Turkish state media. Which makes it okay to republish and disseminate through the much greater reach of U.S. media? F'n traitors.
"Spokesmen for Operation Inherent Resolve, the U.S.-led coalition fighting ISIS, and for the U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Florida, asked The Daily Beast not to publish the detailed information reported by Anadolu.
“The discussion of specific troop numbers and locations would provide sensitive tactical information to the enemy which could endanger Coalition and partner forces,” wrote Col. Joe Scrocca, coalition director of public affairs.
“Publishing this type of information would be professionally irresponsible and we respectively [sic] request that you refrain from disseminating any information that would put Coalition lives in jeopardy.”
Col. John Thomas, spokesman at the Central Command, also asked The Daily Beast to refrain from publishing details of coalition operations, on the grounds it would be “potentially harmful to the lives of those involved.”
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Musburger1
2,500+ Posts
Brad, we are aligned with the Kurds who Turkey considers to be their greatest enemy. Erdogan believes he was the target of a US aided coup just one year ago. The US refused to extradite Gulen. Why is it surprising Turkey would expose US military positions?
Brad Austin
2,500+ Posts
I'm well aware of all of the reasons he's pissed. However, it's very surprising a NATO ally would draw a map and paint a bullseye on US troops. He's even providing strategic battle information (weapons, troop levels, etc) to aid willing attackers.
It's not just Kurds and Arabs at many of those sites. Which in turn means our ally may be directly responsible for the death of US soldiers.
I think you may be trivializing this as commonplace between disgruntled allies. It's not.
F*ck Turkey. I'm now 100% behind the idea of creating of a U.S. defensed Kurdistan.
Musburger1
2,500+ Posts
I'm not trivializing it. I'm saying it should not have been unexpected. On another thread yesterday, I predicted Turkey would eventually be kicked out of NATO (or withdraw).
Turkey is the land bridge between Europe and Asia. It has ports on the Black Sea. Turkey has not only been a member of NATO, it has served as a strategic partner with the CIA on black operations including drug and weapons trafficking. It is a corrupt country and has cooperated with the most corrupt aspects associated with the US. Turkey may eventually become as big a target of the US as is Iran. If Turkey, Iran, Russia, and China form a coalition, I'm not sure what the implications would be, but they probably wouldn't be good for the current arrangement of the global economy.
Turkey is the land bridge between Europe and Asia. It has ports on the Black Sea. Turkey has not only been a member of NATO, it has served as a strategic partner with the CIA on black operations including drug and weapons trafficking. It is a corrupt country and has cooperated with the most corrupt aspects associated with the US. Turkey may eventually become as big a target of the US as is Iran. If Turkey, Iran, Russia, and China form a coalition, I'm not sure what the implications would be, but they probably wouldn't be good for the current arrangement of the global economy.
Brad Austin
2,500+ Posts
I agree with your assessment of Turkey's exit from NATO and becoming an adversary. With the failed coup, Erdogan seizing more autonomy, threats/ransom demands over migrant floods made to Europe, etc etc. The writing has been all over the wall.
Erdogan teaming up with a Russia coalition including Iran and Assad is dead on arrival. He's a devout Sunni. Which is exactly why he's anti-Assad and will never support Iran.
It's the age old mistake made by US military strategists. Not taking into full consideration the hatred between these religious sects has led to catastrophic decisions.
Let me just assure you, there will be no Sunni-Shiite coalition. Erdogan has been very outspoken about wanting Sunni control of the region. Google it.
As long as Russia has designs to facilitate Shiite control of the ME, which is exactly who they are partnering with, Erdogan and all other Sunni leaders are out.
Our alliances in the ME are really as simple as this...America and Russia chose opposing sides in the historical secular war. The U.S. backs the Sunnis, Russia backs the Shiites.
Erdogan teaming up with a Russia coalition including Iran and Assad is dead on arrival. He's a devout Sunni. Which is exactly why he's anti-Assad and will never support Iran.
It's the age old mistake made by US military strategists. Not taking into full consideration the hatred between these religious sects has led to catastrophic decisions.
Let me just assure you, there will be no Sunni-Shiite coalition. Erdogan has been very outspoken about wanting Sunni control of the region. Google it.
As long as Russia has designs to facilitate Shiite control of the ME, which is exactly who they are partnering with, Erdogan and all other Sunni leaders are out.
Our alliances in the ME are really as simple as this...America and Russia chose opposing sides in the historical secular war. The U.S. backs the Sunnis, Russia backs the Shiites.
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Musburger1
2,500+ Posts
The Sunni/Shiite schism is over played. The Shia can get along with the non-Wahabbi faction of Sunni. This is evidenced in Syria under Assad, in Lebanon, and also by the support given to the Palestians (Sunni) from Hezbollah (Shia).
When the Wahabbi version of Sunni Islam gets introduced, that's when you get major problems. Wahhabism used to be a small sect largely confined to Saudi Arabia. Oil money, migration, and technology have allowed Wahabbism to spread globally and become the major worldwide cancer that it is now. This is what Putin faced in Chechnya, what Britain has to deal with in many cities, and what fuels ISIS, Al Queda, and the various offshoots. Iran and Turkey could very well wind up aligning against the West. Hell, Quatar has a relationship with Iran despite the Sunni-Shia differences.
Brad Austin
2,500+ Posts
I disagree with this statement as strongly as one possibly could.
I've thoroughly researched this subject, tracing back to the very time and reasons for the divide in order to understand the religion and region better.
These people are diametrically opposed at the very core of their religious beliefs and will never, ever bridge that gap.
It goes all the way back to Shias rejecting the first three caliphs after Mohammad. Nearly the entire war history of the ME is directly linked to this very schism.
As for Syria, a huge part of the problem was the majority Sunni population has serious issues with a Shia controlled Assad gov. I personally know several people from Syria.
Bush's de-baathification of Iraq was a monster example of trivializing this schism and the monumental backlash and divides that resurface.
I'm not saying there aren't/weren't MINOR exceptions. In the grand scheme of things over 1,000's of years, those exceptions are rare and trivial.
And when it comes to jockeying for dominant control of the ME, which is what is going on now with Iran's resurgence, this schism is the #1 driving force.
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Musburger1
2,500+ Posts
The more serious the individual practices religion, the more likely the individual polarizes.
A lot of Muslims are quite secular. Many don't even know if they are Sunni or Shia. The holy cities are in Saudi Arabia however, and the supposedly leading scholars teach strict Wahabbism.
Iran and Turkey are not at war and as far as I know haven't been for a long time if ever. They would not have to be as close as say, Denmark and Holland, in order to align together in terms of trade and a common defense. In fact, Sunni Turkey is willing to come the aid of Sunni Qatar along with Shia Iran to protect the country from Sunni Saudi Arabia. Money and geopolitical interests often trump religious beliefs. Money tends to be a religion of its own.
Brad Austin
2,500+ Posts
I agree with this. But I also believe this is the way leadership has been and will be heading in the region. More serious practicing govs in charge and increasing divisions along those lines.
The growing military power in Iran scares the sh*t out of every Sunni leader in the region. With the prospect of a nuclear armed Iran in the near future, this will only get worse and sides will be taken.
Erdogan plays nice with Iran, although there are many articles that discuss his distance from them. However when or if Iran starts to flex expansion in the region and truly threatens Sunni control, Erdogan will eventually declare them an enemy.
Musburger1
2,500+ Posts
One more comment. The fighters that are going at in Syria are predominantly either the most religiously fanatic or they are mercenaries in it for the paycheck. They can be purchased for a low price. The wealthy Arab princes (and CIA operatives) that recruit them see them as cannon fodder to be used for personal gain and/or geopolitical goals.
Musburger1
2,500+ Posts
Iran and Saudi Arabia were once positioned similarly in this sense. Both countries had a lot of oil and western firms were able to exploit the situation with some of the spoils going to the ruling class. Iran however had a democratic election and decided to nationalize the oil fields. The US and British then organized a coup to get back control. This eventually backfired in 1979 with the Islamic Revolution and the relationship with Iran has been downhill ever since.
The Saudis disdain democracy and the kingdom is run with an iron fist. If the Saudi people were ever allowed to have a democracy they would throw out the princes and likely redistribute the oil wealth and discard the petro dollar relationship.
Somewhere about 80 years ago the British screwed up by choosing these Wahabbi fanatics as the preferred power brokers. And we screwed up in Iran by subverting democracy and installing a puppet dictator for what proved to be a short term benefit and long term problem.
Brad Austin
2,500+ Posts
I think in the end what we're getting at is Islam is the opposite of the religion of peace. Which should also be the top consideration in ME intervention.
They could successfully conquer the entire globe and would spend the next 2,000 years in constant war and conflict with one another to split up the geographical riches.
They could successfully conquer the entire globe and would spend the next 2,000 years in constant war and conflict with one another to split up the geographical riches.
Musburger1
2,500+ Posts
Brad, you might find this article of interest (Link) even though I know you'll disagree with parts of it. I'll copy an excerpt from the article (below) that elaborates on our discussion of Sunni-Shia and breaks down both the Wahhabi and Muslim Brotherhood influences within the Sunni branch and how it relates to what's going on the Middle East (and elsewhere).
If you go to the link and read the entire article, it also gets into socialism, capitalism, China, Central & South America, etc. But the part relative to our discussion is below.
If you go to the link and read the entire article, it also gets into socialism, capitalism, China, Central & South America, etc. But the part relative to our discussion is below.
The Sunni Alliance Cracks
In addition to dropping oil prices by flooding the market, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been key in the direct military effort to defeat independent governments. Saudi Arabia was key in providing weapons and funding to the extremist groups and “rebels” that toppled the Islamic Socialist Government of Libya in 2011.
Since the fall of Gaddafi’s “Petro-Socialist” oil exporting regime in Libya, oil production has dramatically decreased, as this once most prosperous African country has been reduced to poverty and chaos. Nigeria has now replaced Libya as the top oil producer in Africa.
Many of the extremists who toppled Gaddafi, including the Islamic Fighting Group of which the Manchester bomber Salman Abedi had deep connections, are adherents to a Saudi interpretation of Islam called “Wahabbism.” Almost all terrorists who embrace Islam such as ISIS, Al-Queda, Al-Nusra, are adherents of the Wahabbi interpretation. The Wahabbi teaching calls for enforcing Islamic government at the point of a gun, and killing non-believers as well as other Muslims deemed to be “apostates.”
In addition to being embraced by terrorists, the Wahabbi interpretation of Sunni Islam is also widely promoted by the Saudi Arabian government. Wahabbi broadcasts and propaganda are funded by Saudi Arabia and spread across the world.
Much like in Libya, Wahabbi extremists armed and funded by Saudi Arabia are now the primary core of the fighting force working to bring down the Syrian Arab Republic. Various factions in Syria, many made up of non-Syrian foreign fighters, seek to transform the secular, religiously plural country into a pro-western, Islamic caliphate. Many of them openly state their intent to slaughter Alawites and forcibly expel the Christians in the process of creating a Sunni Muslim regime in Syria.
The Syrian government, which was on the verge of constructing a pipeline to connect Iranian oil fields to the Mediterranean Sea, is now fighting for its life in a bloody civil war. From among the religiously motivated anti-government fighters in Syria, sponsored by the USA and Saudi Arabia, the monstrous ISIS terrorists have emerged to horrify the world.
The Wahabbi terrorists who toppled Gaddafi with help from NATO bombs and now terrorize Syria, have had a critical ally in their efforts to conduct “regime change.” Alongside them has been the Muslim Brotherhood, an international Sunni Muslim extremist organization. The Muslim brotherhood is a religious mass movement that originated in the Middle East, and began working with the United States in the 1950s, seeing the rise of Arab Nationalism and Socialism as anti-Islamic. The Muslim Brotherhood provides services to its followers, and is based among small business owners who believe in a kind of Islamic capitalism, and view secular Arab Nationalism, Shia radicals, Israel, Socialists, and Communists as their enemies.
The monarchy of Qatar is a primary funder of the Muslim Brotherhood and its activities around the world, and the Qatari sponsored TV network Al-Jazeera promotes the activities and worldview of the Brotherhood across the planet. The Erdogan government in Turkey draws its support from the Muslim Brotherhood, and also funds its activities.
First in Libya and now in Syria, while Saudi backed terrorists bombed and killed, Turkish and Qatari backed organizations linked to the Muslim Brotherhood raised money and conducted propaganda work to promote regime change. The Muslim Brotherhood regime in Turkey allowed terrorists to cross the border into Syria. Muslim Brotherhood organizations, under the guise of humanitarian work, have funneled money to anti-government forces in Syria. Qatar has provided weapons and funding, while Al-Jazeera often reports favorably on the activities of Wahabbi “rebels” and demonizes the Syrian government.
Across Europe and even in the United States, Muslim Brotherhood linked Mosques and community organizations have held rallies to support the so-called “Syrian Revolution” and work to build up public relations in support of bombing and military intervention in Syria by western powers.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia outlaws the Muslim Brotherhood within its own borders, and has a deeply different theological perspective. Regardless, on the international sphere, Saudi backed Wahabbism, and Qatari-Turkish backed Muslim Brotherhood affiliates have been close allies.
When Donald Trump visited Saudi Arabia and attempted to build an “Arab NATO” against Iran, Qatar seemed reluctant. While Qatar generally sides with Saudi Arabia against the Islamic Republic of Iran, it still maintains diplomatic relations. The Muslim Brotherhood is Sunni, but it does not consider Shia Muslims such as those who rule Iran as being “apostates” worthy of death.
As the Muslim Brotherhood refuses to go all-in with the US-Saudi effort to target the Iranian government, Qatar now finds itself at odds with Saudi Arabia. Possibly in an effort to please the Saudis, Donald Trump has accused Qatar of funding terrorism. Saudi Arabia demands that Qatar shut down Al-Jazeera and its activities in support of the Muslim Brotherhood, possibly because the Brotherhood exists as a competing ideology to Wahabbism among radicalized Muslims around the world.
In response, Qatar has now released a large number of documents purporting to show Saudi and UAE connections to ISIS and Al-Queda. Meanwhile, Erdogan’s Brotherhood linked regime in Turkey seems much less hostile to Russia than just a few years prior, and has loudly protested against US funding and arming of Kurdish forces in Syria.
The Wahabbi-Brotherhood alliance utilized by the USA for “regime change” in Syria and Libya seems to be coming apart. The Muslim Brotherhood linked organizations seem more and more reluctant to trust the USA and Saudi Arabia, and much more open to friendly relations with Iran and Russia.
It should be noted that the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestinian affiliate is Hamas, the primary battlefield enemy of Israel. Trump has positioned himself as a strong ally of Israel, and Israeli pressure against the Muslim Brotherhood and its backers may have an influence on the continuing split.
https://journal-neo.org/2017/07/20/oil-qatar-china-the-global-conflict/
In addition to dropping oil prices by flooding the market, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been key in the direct military effort to defeat independent governments. Saudi Arabia was key in providing weapons and funding to the extremist groups and “rebels” that toppled the Islamic Socialist Government of Libya in 2011.
Since the fall of Gaddafi’s “Petro-Socialist” oil exporting regime in Libya, oil production has dramatically decreased, as this once most prosperous African country has been reduced to poverty and chaos. Nigeria has now replaced Libya as the top oil producer in Africa.
Many of the extremists who toppled Gaddafi, including the Islamic Fighting Group of which the Manchester bomber Salman Abedi had deep connections, are adherents to a Saudi interpretation of Islam called “Wahabbism.” Almost all terrorists who embrace Islam such as ISIS, Al-Queda, Al-Nusra, are adherents of the Wahabbi interpretation. The Wahabbi teaching calls for enforcing Islamic government at the point of a gun, and killing non-believers as well as other Muslims deemed to be “apostates.”
In addition to being embraced by terrorists, the Wahabbi interpretation of Sunni Islam is also widely promoted by the Saudi Arabian government. Wahabbi broadcasts and propaganda are funded by Saudi Arabia and spread across the world.
Much like in Libya, Wahabbi extremists armed and funded by Saudi Arabia are now the primary core of the fighting force working to bring down the Syrian Arab Republic. Various factions in Syria, many made up of non-Syrian foreign fighters, seek to transform the secular, religiously plural country into a pro-western, Islamic caliphate. Many of them openly state their intent to slaughter Alawites and forcibly expel the Christians in the process of creating a Sunni Muslim regime in Syria.
The Syrian government, which was on the verge of constructing a pipeline to connect Iranian oil fields to the Mediterranean Sea, is now fighting for its life in a bloody civil war. From among the religiously motivated anti-government fighters in Syria, sponsored by the USA and Saudi Arabia, the monstrous ISIS terrorists have emerged to horrify the world.
The Wahabbi terrorists who toppled Gaddafi with help from NATO bombs and now terrorize Syria, have had a critical ally in their efforts to conduct “regime change.” Alongside them has been the Muslim Brotherhood, an international Sunni Muslim extremist organization. The Muslim brotherhood is a religious mass movement that originated in the Middle East, and began working with the United States in the 1950s, seeing the rise of Arab Nationalism and Socialism as anti-Islamic. The Muslim Brotherhood provides services to its followers, and is based among small business owners who believe in a kind of Islamic capitalism, and view secular Arab Nationalism, Shia radicals, Israel, Socialists, and Communists as their enemies.
The monarchy of Qatar is a primary funder of the Muslim Brotherhood and its activities around the world, and the Qatari sponsored TV network Al-Jazeera promotes the activities and worldview of the Brotherhood across the planet. The Erdogan government in Turkey draws its support from the Muslim Brotherhood, and also funds its activities.
First in Libya and now in Syria, while Saudi backed terrorists bombed and killed, Turkish and Qatari backed organizations linked to the Muslim Brotherhood raised money and conducted propaganda work to promote regime change. The Muslim Brotherhood regime in Turkey allowed terrorists to cross the border into Syria. Muslim Brotherhood organizations, under the guise of humanitarian work, have funneled money to anti-government forces in Syria. Qatar has provided weapons and funding, while Al-Jazeera often reports favorably on the activities of Wahabbi “rebels” and demonizes the Syrian government.
Across Europe and even in the United States, Muslim Brotherhood linked Mosques and community organizations have held rallies to support the so-called “Syrian Revolution” and work to build up public relations in support of bombing and military intervention in Syria by western powers.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia outlaws the Muslim Brotherhood within its own borders, and has a deeply different theological perspective. Regardless, on the international sphere, Saudi backed Wahabbism, and Qatari-Turkish backed Muslim Brotherhood affiliates have been close allies.
When Donald Trump visited Saudi Arabia and attempted to build an “Arab NATO” against Iran, Qatar seemed reluctant. While Qatar generally sides with Saudi Arabia against the Islamic Republic of Iran, it still maintains diplomatic relations. The Muslim Brotherhood is Sunni, but it does not consider Shia Muslims such as those who rule Iran as being “apostates” worthy of death.
As the Muslim Brotherhood refuses to go all-in with the US-Saudi effort to target the Iranian government, Qatar now finds itself at odds with Saudi Arabia. Possibly in an effort to please the Saudis, Donald Trump has accused Qatar of funding terrorism. Saudi Arabia demands that Qatar shut down Al-Jazeera and its activities in support of the Muslim Brotherhood, possibly because the Brotherhood exists as a competing ideology to Wahabbism among radicalized Muslims around the world.
In response, Qatar has now released a large number of documents purporting to show Saudi and UAE connections to ISIS and Al-Queda. Meanwhile, Erdogan’s Brotherhood linked regime in Turkey seems much less hostile to Russia than just a few years prior, and has loudly protested against US funding and arming of Kurdish forces in Syria.
The Wahabbi-Brotherhood alliance utilized by the USA for “regime change” in Syria and Libya seems to be coming apart. The Muslim Brotherhood linked organizations seem more and more reluctant to trust the USA and Saudi Arabia, and much more open to friendly relations with Iran and Russia.
It should be noted that the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestinian affiliate is Hamas, the primary battlefield enemy of Israel. Trump has positioned himself as a strong ally of Israel, and Israeli pressure against the Muslim Brotherhood and its backers may have an influence on the continuing split.
https://journal-neo.org/2017/07/20/oil-qatar-china-the-global-conflict/
Musburger1
2,500+ Posts
Latest update.
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/syria-isis-russia-kurdish-ypg-happening-in-secret-a7857471.html
After a sweeping Syrian military advance to the edge of the besieged Isis “capital” of Raqqa, the Russians, the Syrian army and Kurds of the YPG militia – theoretically allied to the US – have set up a secret “coordination” centre in the desert of eastern Syria to prevent “mistakes” between the Russian-backed and American-supported forces now facing each other across the Euphrates river.
The proof could be found this week in a desert village of mud-walled huts and stifling heat – it was 48 degrees – where I sat on the floor of an ill-painted villa with a Russian air force colonel in camouflage uniform, a young officer of the Kurdish militia – with a YPG (Kurdish People’s Militia) patch on his sleeve – and a group of Syrian officers and local Syrian tribal militiamen.
Their presence showed clearly that despite belligerent Western – especially American – claims that Syrian forces are interfering with the “Allied” campaign against Isis, both sides are in reality going to enormous lengths to avoid confrontation. Russian Colonel Yevgeni, thin and close-shaven with a dark moustache, smiled politely but refused to talk to me – The Independent being the first western news media to visit the tiny village near Resafeh – but his young Kurdish opposite number, who asked me not to disclose his name, insisted that “all of us are fighting in one campaign against Daesh [Isis], and that is why we have this centre – and to avoid mistakes”. Colonel Yevgeni nodded approvingly at this description but maintained his silence – a wise man, I thought – for he must be the easternmost Russian officer in Syria, only a few miles from the Euphrates river.
http://www.directexpose.com/disappe...ndent&utm_medium=M_TS_DE_US_D_Mystery_v1_1807
The 24-year-old Kurdish YPG representative, a veteran of the Isis siege of Kobani on the Turkish border, said that just over two weeks ago – after the latest Syrian offensive took Isis forces west of Raqqa by surprise – a Russian air strike had mistakenly targeted a Kurdish position. “That is why we set up our centre here 10 days ago,” he said. “We talk everyday and we already have another centre at Afrin to coordinate the campaign. We have to make one force that fights together.” The presence of these men at this remote desert outpost shows just how seriously Moscow views the strategy of the Syrian war and the need to monitor the largely Kurdish “Syrian Democratic Forces” who are already inside Raqqa with the support of US air strikes.
The SDF – which has nothing democratic about it except perhaps its pay scales – is regarded with deep suspicion by the Turks, who will be enraged to learn of the Syrian-Kurdish cooperation, even though both Ankara and Damascus are both ferociously opposed to the creation of a future Kurdish state. But, however tenuous the new YPG-Russian-Syrian connections may be, they demonstrate that all sides are determined to avoid any military confrontation between Moscow and Washington.
There was more than a whiff of TE Lawrence about the self-confidence of these few men amid the dust and sand which covered most of us the moment we stepped outside their office. Around us on the desert floor lay hundreds of bombed or abandoned Isis oil “wells” – amateurishly built iron barrels and concrete platforms from which Isis extracted the oil to finance their caliphate, which once stretched from here all the way to Mosul. The YPG officer insisted that the location of the Russian-Syrian-Kurdish centre had no connection to the vast Syrian oil fields around us, but evidence of recent Russian and American attacks on the Isis constructions was everywhere.
Burned-out oil tankers, trucks and even some exploded Syrian tanks – presumably victims of Isis – lay across the desert. One trail of tankers – much like those angrily described by Vladimir Putin almost two years ago, taking oil exports to sell in Turkey – stood carbonised beside the road. Even a lorry carrying potatoes had been blitzed apart. There was no sign of bodies but the Syrian army had with some sense of irony left the original black and white Isis sign standing on the main road from Homs, “welcoming” visitors to the Isis “Caliphate-Province of Raqqa”.
Syria’s forward units of Russian-made tanks and infantry armour now cluster not far from the Roman and Umayad city of Resafeh, whose massive walls and stone towers still stand – untouched by Isis’s two years of culturecide, perhaps because their carvings display no human or animal images. Thousands of camels were being herded past the great and crumbling city of the ancient Calipha Umaya bin Hisham Abdul-Malik in a smog of dust which drifted over military hardware and soldiers alike. Resafeh was the Roman city of Sergiopolis, named after a Christian Roman centurion who was tortured and put to death for his religion – not unlike Isis’s own Christian victims in the deserts here three years ago.
The highway east from Homs was expected to have been the route of the Syrian attack this month. Hence the vast earth “berms” and defensive sand walls erected by Isis along the length of the road. But for Isis, the now-infamous Syrian army tactic of assaulting its enemies from the rear and flank drove the caliphate from hundreds of square miles of land west of the Euphrates.
General Saleh, the one-legged commander of the Syrian division on the Euphrates – who has adapted this policy many times, along with his fellow officer and friend, Colonel “Tiger” Suheil – says that his forces could, if he wished, be in the centre of Raqqa within five hours “if we decided to do that”. He described how his men had first driven al-Qaeda and Isis from the Sheikh Najjar industrial city outside Aleppo back to the Assad lake, how they had protected the water supply to the city at great loss to their own forces, how they had moved east from the Koyeress airbase to capture Deir Hafer and Meskane and other towns in the Aleppo countryside – and then suddenly surged south east, south of the Euphrates towards Raqqa.
“Our forces are now seven miles from the Euphrates between Raqqa and Deir ez-Zour, 14 miles from the centre of Raqqa and 10 miles from the old Thabqa airbase,” the general almost shouted. “How many Daesh did we kill? I don’t care. I am not interested. Daesh, Nusrah, al-Qaeda, they are all terrorists. Their deaths do not matter. It’s war.”
But, I suggested to General Saleh – because I had been studying my sand-blasted maps and had listened to many a military lecture in Damascus of late – surely his next target would be not Raqqa (already partly invested by American-backed forces) but the huge surrounded Syrian garrison city of Deir ez-Zour with its thousands of trapped civilians.
“Our President has said we will recover every square inch of Syria,” the general replied, repeating the mantra of all Syrian officers of the regime. “Why do you say Deir ez-Zour?” Because, I said, that would release the 10,000 Syrian soldiers in the city to fight on the war front. There was just a hint of a grin on the officer’s face, but then it faded. In fact, I don’t think the Syrians will get involved with the American-supported force fighting for Raqqa – that, after all, was the point of the little “coordination” centre I saw in the desert – but I do believe the Syrian army are heading for Deir ez-Zour. As for the general, of course, he was saying nothing about this. Nor, obviously, did he believe in body counts.
There is, in reality, another intriguing tactic being deployed by the Syrian administration. The local Rif Raqqa governor – “rif” indicates the countryside around a city, not to be confused with the town itself – is now setting up headquarters near General Saleh’s caravan. It’s a real campaign caravan, by the way, which rocks when you step aboard, his office and bedroom combined in one small room, his black walking stick by the bed-head. The local governor, however, is scarcely a mile away, planning the restoration of water and electricity supplies, the financing of public works and relief for refugees.
When I left the area, 29 families – cartloads of children and black-shrouded women and upturned sofas – had just arrived in Rasafeh from Deir ez-Zour to seek the Raqqa governor’s assistance. Another 50 had arrived the previous day. It seemed perfectly obvious that if the Syrian army lets America’s largely Kurdish friends occupy Raqqa, it is going to help the Syrian government civilian administration take over the city by the force of bureaucracy. How would that be for a bloodless victory?
But military self-confidence is often the handmaiden of misadventure. The highway that forms the tip of the Homs-Aleppo triangle has now been extended 60 miles to Resafeh, and General Saleh makes no secret that Isis and its fellow cultists return across the desert after dark to attack his soldiers. These men – many of whom are teenagers – are billeted in tent encampments beside the road, protected by tanks and anti-aircraft guns. And their battles are constant, Isis still placing IED bombs beside the highway today. When I later travelled across the desert to Homs, I followed for some time a truck carrying a 155mm artillery piece so overused that its barrel had split apart.
Yet already, Syrian engineers are restoring electricity capacity from the desert generating stations which have only recently been hideouts for Isis leaders, a power system intimately connected to the Syrian oil fields, slowly being recovered from the Isis enemy, which remain – modest though they are in comparison with the great Gulf, Iraqi and Iranian oil resources – Syria’s “pearl in the desert”. Who controls these wealth machines – how their product will be shared now it has been freed from the Isis mafia – will determine part of Syria’s future political history.
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/syria-isis-russia-kurdish-ypg-happening-in-secret-a7857471.html
After a sweeping Syrian military advance to the edge of the besieged Isis “capital” of Raqqa, the Russians, the Syrian army and Kurds of the YPG militia – theoretically allied to the US – have set up a secret “coordination” centre in the desert of eastern Syria to prevent “mistakes” between the Russian-backed and American-supported forces now facing each other across the Euphrates river.
The proof could be found this week in a desert village of mud-walled huts and stifling heat – it was 48 degrees – where I sat on the floor of an ill-painted villa with a Russian air force colonel in camouflage uniform, a young officer of the Kurdish militia – with a YPG (Kurdish People’s Militia) patch on his sleeve – and a group of Syrian officers and local Syrian tribal militiamen.
Their presence showed clearly that despite belligerent Western – especially American – claims that Syrian forces are interfering with the “Allied” campaign against Isis, both sides are in reality going to enormous lengths to avoid confrontation. Russian Colonel Yevgeni, thin and close-shaven with a dark moustache, smiled politely but refused to talk to me – The Independent being the first western news media to visit the tiny village near Resafeh – but his young Kurdish opposite number, who asked me not to disclose his name, insisted that “all of us are fighting in one campaign against Daesh [Isis], and that is why we have this centre – and to avoid mistakes”. Colonel Yevgeni nodded approvingly at this description but maintained his silence – a wise man, I thought – for he must be the easternmost Russian officer in Syria, only a few miles from the Euphrates river.
http://www.directexpose.com/disappe...ndent&utm_medium=M_TS_DE_US_D_Mystery_v1_1807
The 24-year-old Kurdish YPG representative, a veteran of the Isis siege of Kobani on the Turkish border, said that just over two weeks ago – after the latest Syrian offensive took Isis forces west of Raqqa by surprise – a Russian air strike had mistakenly targeted a Kurdish position. “That is why we set up our centre here 10 days ago,” he said. “We talk everyday and we already have another centre at Afrin to coordinate the campaign. We have to make one force that fights together.” The presence of these men at this remote desert outpost shows just how seriously Moscow views the strategy of the Syrian war and the need to monitor the largely Kurdish “Syrian Democratic Forces” who are already inside Raqqa with the support of US air strikes.
The SDF – which has nothing democratic about it except perhaps its pay scales – is regarded with deep suspicion by the Turks, who will be enraged to learn of the Syrian-Kurdish cooperation, even though both Ankara and Damascus are both ferociously opposed to the creation of a future Kurdish state. But, however tenuous the new YPG-Russian-Syrian connections may be, they demonstrate that all sides are determined to avoid any military confrontation between Moscow and Washington.
There was more than a whiff of TE Lawrence about the self-confidence of these few men amid the dust and sand which covered most of us the moment we stepped outside their office. Around us on the desert floor lay hundreds of bombed or abandoned Isis oil “wells” – amateurishly built iron barrels and concrete platforms from which Isis extracted the oil to finance their caliphate, which once stretched from here all the way to Mosul. The YPG officer insisted that the location of the Russian-Syrian-Kurdish centre had no connection to the vast Syrian oil fields around us, but evidence of recent Russian and American attacks on the Isis constructions was everywhere.
Burned-out oil tankers, trucks and even some exploded Syrian tanks – presumably victims of Isis – lay across the desert. One trail of tankers – much like those angrily described by Vladimir Putin almost two years ago, taking oil exports to sell in Turkey – stood carbonised beside the road. Even a lorry carrying potatoes had been blitzed apart. There was no sign of bodies but the Syrian army had with some sense of irony left the original black and white Isis sign standing on the main road from Homs, “welcoming” visitors to the Isis “Caliphate-Province of Raqqa”.
Syria’s forward units of Russian-made tanks and infantry armour now cluster not far from the Roman and Umayad city of Resafeh, whose massive walls and stone towers still stand – untouched by Isis’s two years of culturecide, perhaps because their carvings display no human or animal images. Thousands of camels were being herded past the great and crumbling city of the ancient Calipha Umaya bin Hisham Abdul-Malik in a smog of dust which drifted over military hardware and soldiers alike. Resafeh was the Roman city of Sergiopolis, named after a Christian Roman centurion who was tortured and put to death for his religion – not unlike Isis’s own Christian victims in the deserts here three years ago.
The highway east from Homs was expected to have been the route of the Syrian attack this month. Hence the vast earth “berms” and defensive sand walls erected by Isis along the length of the road. But for Isis, the now-infamous Syrian army tactic of assaulting its enemies from the rear and flank drove the caliphate from hundreds of square miles of land west of the Euphrates.
General Saleh, the one-legged commander of the Syrian division on the Euphrates – who has adapted this policy many times, along with his fellow officer and friend, Colonel “Tiger” Suheil – says that his forces could, if he wished, be in the centre of Raqqa within five hours “if we decided to do that”. He described how his men had first driven al-Qaeda and Isis from the Sheikh Najjar industrial city outside Aleppo back to the Assad lake, how they had protected the water supply to the city at great loss to their own forces, how they had moved east from the Koyeress airbase to capture Deir Hafer and Meskane and other towns in the Aleppo countryside – and then suddenly surged south east, south of the Euphrates towards Raqqa.
“Our forces are now seven miles from the Euphrates between Raqqa and Deir ez-Zour, 14 miles from the centre of Raqqa and 10 miles from the old Thabqa airbase,” the general almost shouted. “How many Daesh did we kill? I don’t care. I am not interested. Daesh, Nusrah, al-Qaeda, they are all terrorists. Their deaths do not matter. It’s war.”
But, I suggested to General Saleh – because I had been studying my sand-blasted maps and had listened to many a military lecture in Damascus of late – surely his next target would be not Raqqa (already partly invested by American-backed forces) but the huge surrounded Syrian garrison city of Deir ez-Zour with its thousands of trapped civilians.
“Our President has said we will recover every square inch of Syria,” the general replied, repeating the mantra of all Syrian officers of the regime. “Why do you say Deir ez-Zour?” Because, I said, that would release the 10,000 Syrian soldiers in the city to fight on the war front. There was just a hint of a grin on the officer’s face, but then it faded. In fact, I don’t think the Syrians will get involved with the American-supported force fighting for Raqqa – that, after all, was the point of the little “coordination” centre I saw in the desert – but I do believe the Syrian army are heading for Deir ez-Zour. As for the general, of course, he was saying nothing about this. Nor, obviously, did he believe in body counts.
There is, in reality, another intriguing tactic being deployed by the Syrian administration. The local Rif Raqqa governor – “rif” indicates the countryside around a city, not to be confused with the town itself – is now setting up headquarters near General Saleh’s caravan. It’s a real campaign caravan, by the way, which rocks when you step aboard, his office and bedroom combined in one small room, his black walking stick by the bed-head. The local governor, however, is scarcely a mile away, planning the restoration of water and electricity supplies, the financing of public works and relief for refugees.
When I left the area, 29 families – cartloads of children and black-shrouded women and upturned sofas – had just arrived in Rasafeh from Deir ez-Zour to seek the Raqqa governor’s assistance. Another 50 had arrived the previous day. It seemed perfectly obvious that if the Syrian army lets America’s largely Kurdish friends occupy Raqqa, it is going to help the Syrian government civilian administration take over the city by the force of bureaucracy. How would that be for a bloodless victory?
But military self-confidence is often the handmaiden of misadventure. The highway that forms the tip of the Homs-Aleppo triangle has now been extended 60 miles to Resafeh, and General Saleh makes no secret that Isis and its fellow cultists return across the desert after dark to attack his soldiers. These men – many of whom are teenagers – are billeted in tent encampments beside the road, protected by tanks and anti-aircraft guns. And their battles are constant, Isis still placing IED bombs beside the highway today. When I later travelled across the desert to Homs, I followed for some time a truck carrying a 155mm artillery piece so overused that its barrel had split apart.
Yet already, Syrian engineers are restoring electricity capacity from the desert generating stations which have only recently been hideouts for Isis leaders, a power system intimately connected to the Syrian oil fields, slowly being recovered from the Isis enemy, which remain – modest though they are in comparison with the great Gulf, Iraqi and Iranian oil resources – Syria’s “pearl in the desert”. Who controls these wealth machines – how their product will be shared now it has been freed from the Isis mafia – will determine part of Syria’s future political history.
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