Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

When You Realize You’ve Been Had

BY JOHN LEAKE | COURAGEOUS DISCOURSE | FEBRUARY 6, 2024

In Dante’s Inferno, the 9th and final circle of hell, “the lowest, blackest, and farthest from heaven,” is reserved those guilty of treachery against those in whom they have cultivated a bond of trust.

I often thought about this in 2013, when I was living in Menlo Park, California and became friends with a man of who was a benefactor of the VA hospitals in Menlo Park and in Palo Alto. He was especially concerned about young soldiers who’d suffered traumatic brain injuries in Afghanistan and Iraq.

On a few occasions we made the rounds and visited patients who’d sustained this kind of injury. The strangest were those who had retained motor skills and seemed to recognize us, but who also seemed completely indifferent to us. Some had suffered from speech impairment and seemed frightened of us. A nurse told me that it was common for this kind of patient to have developed a passionate interest in Facebook and to spend most of his waking hours scrolling through it.

In 2013, it was hard for me to fathom that hundreds of thousands of young men in the United States—many with wives and small children—had sustained Traumatic Brain Injuries. Many could still function in their day to day lives, but suffered irritability, frequent headaches, and a feeling of disconnection from their family and friends. On the extreme end of the scale were the completely disabled, doomed to spend the rest of their lives in VA hospitals.

In 2017, Lindquist, Love, et al. published Traumatic Brain Injury in Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans: New Results from a National Random Sample Study. As the opening of the report states:

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) has been called a “signature injury” of Iraq and Afghanistan Conflicts. The Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center (DVBIC) reports nearly 350,000 incident diagnoses of TBI in the U.S. military since 2000. Among those deployed, estimated rates of probable TBI range from 11–23%.

I thought it notable that the U.S. military was, apparently, completely unprepared for roadside bombs constructed to focus the blast on particular sections of road as a convey is passing by. It wasn’t so much shrapnel and other missiles striking the head as the supersonic, explosive shockwave that does the brain damage. Click on the video below to see an example of a large roadside bomb blasting a U.S. convoy.

I got to be pals with a psychiatrist who worked at the VA. In public, around his colleagues, he tried to put on an optimistic face about it. In private, over our occasional dinners, he seemed very despondent that anything could be done for these guys.

“No one really knows what to do about these injuries,” he told me. “A lot of doctors who work at the VA will talk to you about promising new therapies, but most of them are more interested in getting grant money for their pet projects than in doing anything for their patients.”

I wondered how many of these young men ultimately realized that the United States government had lied to them—that their mission in Iraq had never been about protecting the American people from a hostile foreign dictator and his alleged terrorist network—but rather to pursue the mad dreams of insane old men in Washington.

This morning I thought about my VA experiences in a decade ago when I saw that the same cabal of old hawks in Washington are now beating the drums of war against Iran—a nation three times the size and with twice the population of Iraq.

I wonder if Joe Biden or Lindsay Graham or Jake Sullivan are even aware of the 350,000 men who suffered Traumatic Brain Injuries in the course of Washington’s disastrous military adventures in the Middle East twenty years ago. I sort of doubt it.

Understanding that one has been deceived is one of the most painful experiences in life. It begins with an uneasy feeling of cognitive dissonance — a sinking feeling that someone you have trusted has not been honest about an important matter. Later it dawns on you that you’ve been had. It’s a traumatic experience, and the greater the deception, the harder it is to recover from it. At root of the trauma, I suppose, is the feeling that you put your faith, heart and soul into something that wasn’t real.

Because most Americans have been insulated from the disastrous consequences of its government’s Forever War policy, they are apparently slow to recognize that they are constantly being conned by the terrible men and women who run the U.S. government—selfish, ambitious, power-hungry men and women who do not care at all about the citizenry they are supposed to represent and serve.

February 6, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | 2 Comments

Kata’ib Hezbollah: Iraq strikes stem from US statesmen’s criminal mindset

Press TV – February 4, 2024

Iraqi anti-terror group Kata’ib Hezbollah has roundly denounced the latest US military airstrikes against several sites used by resistance groups in the country, stating that the attacks emanate from the US administration’s criminal mindset and its craving for more bloodshed.

“We extend our condolences to our proud and steadfast nation for the martyrdom of several compatriots, who were targeted while protecting the homeland against the evils of American forces and the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group,” it said in a statement.

It added that criminality is deeply ingrained in the mindset of American politicians, and they long for relentless bloodletting as well as starvation and massacre of ordinary people in pursuit of their interests and advancement of their malicious agendas.

“US officials do not shy away from the occupation of other countries, plundering others’ national assets, influencing their decision-making and their humiliation.

“Under the American mindset, the first solution is murder. Such an attitude has historically been responsible for the extensive destruction of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is now behind the deadly attacks against sites in al-Qa’im,” Kata’ib Hezbollah pointed out.

Separately, the Yemeni Ansarullah resistance movement censured the US aggression against areas in Iraq and neighboring Syria, terming them as barbaric, in breach of international law, and a serious violation of the two countries’ sovereignty.

“The aggression falls within the context of US support for the Zionist enemy as it continues its crimes against the Palestinian population of Gaza,” it added.

Ansarullah warned that US moves will drag the entire region into a more complex conflict, and will jeopardize international peace and security.

“Washington could have compelled the Tel Aviv regime to halt its aggression on Palestinians and lift the siege on Gaza. It, however, decided to target the countries and nations of the region.

“We reiterate that Muslim nations reserve the right to defend themselves and protect their security and sovereignty against repeated US acts of aggression,” the Yemeni movement underscored.

US Central Command (CENTCOM) said its military forces struck more than 85 targets in Iraq and Syria “with numerous aircraft to include long-range bombers flown from the United States”.

“The air strikes employed more than 125 precision munitions,” it added in a statement.

US President Joe Biden said in a statement on Friday that the strikes were the first in a series of actions by Washington in response to a drone attack that killed a number of soldiers at a remote US base in Jordan.

“Our response began today,” Biden said. “It will continue at times and places of our choosing,” he stated.

Three US soldiers were killed and about 40 others injured in the assault on the military base known as Tower 22 near the Jordan-Syria border on Sunday.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of anti-terror fighters, in a statement published on its Telegram channel claimed responsibility for the drone strike.

In retaliation for the flurry of US aerial assaults on several locations in Iraq and Syria, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq announced that it had conducted missile strikes against the Ain al-Asad Airbase, housing US occupation forces in the western Iraqi province of al-Anbar.

The group also said it had staged missile and drone strikes against the strategic al-Tanf military base in southeastern Syria near the border with Jordan and Iraq, as well as the al-Khadra Village in Syria’s northeastern province of al-Hasakah.

February 4, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

No Iranian base or advisors targeted by US strikes in Iraq, Syria: Diplomat

Press TV | February 3, 2024

Iran’s Ambassador to Damascus Hossein Akbari says no Iranian bases or military advisors have been targeted in deadly strikes by the US occupation forces on a number of sites in Iraq and Syria.

Akbari said on Saturday that contrary to claims, the attacks aimed to destroy Syria’s civil infrastructure amid the pro-Palestine actions undertaken by the resistance front.

He said the US government’s terrorist act on Friday night was carried out mainly to make up for Israel’s defeats in the Gaza Strip and strengthening armed Takfiri terrorists based on the borders of Iraq and Syria.

The US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement on Friday that its forces had struck more than 85 targets “with numerous aircraft” during overnight raids on localities in Iraq and Syria.

The Syrian state media reported that the US aggression targeted positions in Syria’s eastern province of Dayr al-Zawr and the city of al-Bukamal near the Iraqi border, falling short of providing details on the extent of damage and the exact number of casualties.

Sixteen people were killed, among them civilians, and 25 injured in the US airstrikes in Iraq, Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani’s office said.

February 3, 2024 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , | Leave a comment

ISIS exploits US strikes to attack Iraqi forces in Anbar

The Cradle | February 3, 2024

The Iraqi army and the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMU) clashed with ISIS militants in western Anbar governorate on 3 February, an Iraqi security source told Al-Mayadeen.

The Iraqi Al-Nujaba satellite channel said that ISIS took advantage of the US bombing of targets in Iraq and Syria by launching an attack on the army and the PMU forces in the area of ​​Kilometer 160 on the Al-Sakkar highway near the town of Rutba in Anbar.

The US has occupied the nearby Al-Tanf Base on the Syrian side of the border since 2015 and has used it to arm and train ISIS militants.

The US and allied intelligence agencies used ISIS to attack the Syrian and Iraqi armies as part of its effort to effect regime change in Damascus starting in 2011 and to depose Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki in 2014.

After ISIS conquered large swathes of Iraq and Syria, US forces turned against the group. With help from Kurdish forces, the US took control of much of the territory in Syria ISIS once controlled. In Iraq, the US partnered with Iraqi forces to retake Mosul.

Gulf-backed Syria researcher Charles Lister wrote in Foreign Policy on 24 January that ISIS is enjoying a resurgence and that 10,000 ISIS militants are detained within at least 20 makeshift prisons in US and Kurdish-controlled northeastern Syria, constituting an ISIS “army in waiting” and its “next generation.”

The comments raised fears the US may use ISIS militants to counter forces from the Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI), a coalition of Shia armed groups that seek to expel US forces from Syria and Iraq and end the Israeli genocide on Gaza.

February 3, 2024 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

Iraq summons US chargé d’affaires in protest over airstrikes

Press TV – February 3, 2024

Iraq has summoned the US chargé d’affaires in Baghdad to deliver a formal memorandum of protest over the overnight airstrikes on dozens of sites used by anti-terror resistance groups in the country.

The Iraqi Foreign Ministry announced in a Saturday statement that it is going to call in David Burger “in protest at the US aggression which targeted Iraqi civilian and military sites” due to the absence of Ambassador Alina L. Romanowski, the official Iraqi News Agency (INA) reported.

The statement said Iraqi officials will deliver an official note of protest regarding the strikes against locations in the towns of Akashat and Al-Qa’im in the western province of Anbar.

The Iraqi government said at least 16 people were killed in the US strikes. It condemned the “new aggression against” Iraq’s sovereignty. Civilians were among the fatalities, and 25 people were wounded in the bombings that targeted both civilian and security areas, a government spokesperson said.

“This aggressive strike will put security in Iraq and the region on the brink of the abyss,” the Iraqi government said, and denied Washington’s claims of coordinating the attacks with Baghdad as “false” and “aimed at misleading international public opinion.”

The presence of the US-led military coalition in the region “has become a reason for threatening security and stability in Iraq and a justification for involving Iraq in regional and international conflicts,” a statement from Prime Minister Mohamed Shia al-Sudani’s office read.

Syrian official news agency SANA also reported several casualties after the attacks in the desert region and border areas with Iraq.

US Central Command (CENTCOM) said its military forces struck more than 85 targets in the two countries “with numerous aircraft to include long-range bombers flown from the United States.”

“The airstrikes employed more than 125 precision munitions,” it added in a statement.

US President Joe Biden said in a statement on Friday that the strikes were the first in a series of actions by Washington in response to a recent drone attack that killed a number of soldiers at a remote US base in Jordan.

“Our response began today,” Biden said. “It will continue at times and places of our choosing,” he stated.

Three US soldiers were killed and about 40 others injured in the assault on the military base known as Tower 22 near the Jordan-Syria border on Sunday.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of anti-terror fighters, claimed responsibility for the drone strike.

In retaliation for the latest flurry of US strikes in Iraq and Syria, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq announced it had conducted missile strikes against the Ain al-Asad Airbase, housing US occupation forces in the western Iraqi province of Anbar. The group also said it had staged missile and drone strikes against the strategic al-Tanf military base in southeastern Syria near the border with Jordan and Iraq, as well as the al-Khadra Village in Syria’s northeastern province of al-Hasakah.

February 3, 2024 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Wars for Israel | , | Leave a comment

Iraqi Resistance announces ‘suspension’ of anti-American operations

Press TV – January 31, 2024

The Islamic Resistance, an umbrella group of Iraqi anti-terror groups, has announced a pause in its operations against American targets across the region.

The group announced the decision through a statement by Kata’ib Hezbollah (Hezbollah Brigades), one of its major members, on Tuesday.

“We announce the suspension of military and security operations against the occupation forces,” Hezbollah Brigades’ Secretary-General, Abu Hussein al-Hamidawi said in the statement.

Hamidawi cited “consideration for the Iraqi government” as the reason for the decision, without elaborating.

Over the past years, the resistance has been launching countless attacks against bases housing the US occupation forces across the Arab country and neighboring Syria.

Before announcing the pause, it had escalated its attacks against the targets, citing the United States’ complicity in an October 7, 2023-present war of genocide that has been launched by the Israeli regime against the Gaza Strip.

The statement, however, asserted “we will continue to defend our people in Gaza through other means.”

“We advise the brave fighters of the Hezbollah Brigades to adopt temporary passive defense measures in case of any aggressive American actions…”

The statement, meanwhile, rejected claims made by US officials alleging existence of affiliation between the umbrella group and any foreign party.

“The Islamic Resistance, represented by the Hezbollah Brigades, has resolved to support our oppressed people in Gaza with its own will, without interference from others,” it stated.

January 31, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , | Leave a comment

Chinese energy firms top buyers of Iraqi oil

The Cradle | January 29, 2024

Iraq’s State Organization for Marketing of Oil (SOMO) announced on 29 January that Chinese energy firms were the biggest buyers of Iraqi oil last month.

“Chinese companies were the largest in number among other international companies in purchasing Iraqi oil, with 12 companies out of 44 companies purchasing oil during the month of last December,” SOMO said. 

“Indian companies came second with seven companies, South Korean companies came third with four companies, Turkish companies came third with three companies, and American, Italian, Japanese, UAE and Greek companies came fourth with two companies each.  

“The rest were Spanish, Dutch, British, Jordanian, Kuwaiti, Russian, Malaysian, Azeri, and French companies,” the statement added. 

China was also the largest buyer of Iraqi oil the previous month. Chinese and Indian firms were the top purchasers of Iraqi oil in December 2022. 

Ties between Baghdad and Beijing have improved significantly recently, and Chinese firms have increased their presence in Iraq. 

In 2019, Iraq signed a 20-year contract, agreeing to supply Chinese firms with 100,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil, with the revenue earmarked for funding various development projects in Iraq undertaken by Chinese firms. 

Following the deal, Chinese firms built 1,000 schools, developed the Nasiriya city airport, erected power plants, and completed several other infrastructure projects.

China has accelerated its investment in Iraq and other West Asian nations as part of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), announced in 2013.

Last month, Iraq began work on 30,000 housing units near Baghdad as part of a $2 billion project in partnership with Chinese firms to build five new cities across Iraq. 

Beijing is fully committed to “friendly” ties with Baghdad and “actively participates” in Iraq’s reconstruction, a Chinese official told Kurdish news outlet Rudaw on 3 January.

The recent surge in Chinese-Iraqi cooperation comes as Iraq continues to fall under attack by the US army.

In October, Iraqi resistance factions banded together under a single coalition to confront US bases in Iraq and Syria. The attacks – which have been ongoing – are a show of solidarity with the resistance in Gaza and a rejection of US support for Israel’s assault on the strip. 

January 29, 2024 Posted by | Economics | , | Leave a comment

Direct US Attack on Iran Would Open Pandora’s Box – Mideast Experts

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 29.01.2024

Having groundlessly accused Tehran of masterminding a recent deadly drone bombing on US personnel, President Joe Biden and his team are allegedly considering a covert strike on Iran or targeting Iranian officials, as per Bloomberg. How could the purported plan pan out for Washington?

Three US soldiers were killed and 34 wounded in a drone attack over the weekend that is ramping up the pressure on Joe Biden ahead of the 2024 elections, according to the US press. The Biden administration rushed to pin the blame on Iran, presenting no evidence to back up its claims.

Even though Tehran made it clear that it had nothing to do with the attack, Washington is reportedly planning to either conduct a covert strike on Iran and later deny it, or resort to extraterritorial assassinations of Iranian officials, as then-President Donald Trump did by ordering the killing of General Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad in 2020.

“A direct attack on Iran will open Pandora’s Box,” Professor Hossein Askari, political analyst and emeritus professor of business and international affairs at George Washington University, told Sputnik.

“If the attack was from an Iraqi militia that Iran supports, then a US attack on the militia will affect relations with Iraq, which has already objected to other US responses to the militias and is engaged in talks for the US to exit Iraq. It is an election year in the US and there is a great deal of pressure on Biden to be ‘tough’ on Iran.”

Per Askari, Biden has found himself between a rock and a hard place: no matter what he does, he is likely to come under fierce criticism for either being too weak or escalating the conflict.

“An attack inside Iran would undoubtedly widen the war with the end game becoming even murkier and [an attack] inside Iraq would further damage US-Iraq relations,” the professor stressed.

He believes that Biden will strike nonetheless and that the strike will pour more gasoline on the fire as Tehran is “still looking for revenge for the assassination of General Soleimani and the Iraqi militia leader, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.”

When asked what forces could be potentially involved in any “covert strike”, the expert assumed that only cruise missiles and no planes or Special Forces are likely to be used. He added that no regional player would join the purported US action except, possibly, Israel. “But if the US allows Israel to join in, then this would become a much wider war with religious overtones,” Askari warned.

Even though neither the US nor Iran have an interest in a wider regional war, “there is a tug of war between the two countries to sway influence over the wider Middle East, and particularly the Arab Gulf States,” echoed Dr. Imad Salamey, associate professor of political science and international affairs at the Lebanese American University.

“I believe the US will take on limited retaliatory attacks against [Islamic] Revolutionary Guards targets in Iran or Iraq without engaging in a wide-scale war,” Salamey told Sputnik.

“It remains too early in this conflict for the US to target strategic positions such as nuclear facilities. I do not think the allies will join the US in the standoff against Iran, as none have a reason to join rank. Only in the case that Iran decided to close down the Strait of Hormuz that other states would join the US war efforts. I believe the US is now after attacking Iranian Revolutionary Guards and no longer as interested in proxies.”

January 29, 2024 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , , , | 1 Comment

‘Swarming’ the US in West Asia, until it folds

The US is so deeply mired in an unwinnable battle from the Levant to the Persian Gulf that only its adversaries in China, Russia, and Iran can bail it out.

By MK Bhadrakumar | The Cradle | January 29, 2024

Deterrence in defense is a military strategy where one power uses the threat of reprisal to preclude attack from an adversary, while maintaining at the same time the freedom of action and flexibility to respond to the full spectrum of challenges. In this realm, the Lebanese resistance, Hezbollah, is an outstanding example.

Hezbollah’s clarity of purpose in establishing and strictly maintaining ground rules that deter Israeli military aggression has set a high regional bar. Today, its West Asian allies have adopted similar strategies, which have multiplied in the context of the war in Gaza.

America, surrounded

While the Yemeni resistance movement Ansarallah is comparable to Hezbollah in certain respects, it is the audacious brand of defensive deterrence practiced by the Islamic Resistance of Iraq that is going to be highly consequential in the near term.

Last week, citing sources in the State Department and Pentagon, Foreign Policy magazine wrote that the White House is no longer interested in continuing the US military mission in Syria. The White House later denied this information, but the report is gaining ground.

The Turkish daily Hurriyet wrote on Friday that while Ankara is taking a cautious approach to media reports, it does see “a general striving” by Washington to exit not only Syria but the entire region of West Asia, as it senses that it has been dragged into a quagmire by Israel and Iran from the Red Sea to Pakistan.

Russia’s special presidential representative for the Syrian settlement, Alexander Lavrentiev, also told Tass on Friday that much depends on any “threat of physical impact” on American forces present in Syria. The swift US military exit from Afghanistan took place with virtually no advance notice, in coordination with the Taliban. “In all likelihood, the same may happen in Iraq and Syria,” Lavrentiev said.

Indeed, the Islamic Resistance of Iraq has stepped up its attacks on US military bases and targets. In a ballistic missile attack on Ain al-Asad airbase in western Iraq a week ago, an unknown number of American troops sustained injuries, and the White House announced its first troop deaths on Sunday when three US servicemen were killed on the Syrian-Jordanian border in strikes earlier that day.

Calling Beijing for help

This situation is untenable for President Joe Biden politically — in his re-election bid next November — which explains the urgency of the National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan’s meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Friday and Saturday in Thailand to discuss the Ansarallah attacks in the Red Sea.

US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby explained Washington’s rush for Chinese mediation thus:

“China has influence over Tehran; they have influence in Iran. And they have the ability to have conversations with Iranian leaders that — that we can’t. What we’ve said repeatedly is: We would welcome a constructive role by China, using the influence and the access that we know they have…”

This is a dramatic turn of events. While the US has long been concerned about China’s growing sway in West Asia, it also needs that influence now as Washington’s efforts to reduce violence are getting nowhere. The US narrative on this will be that the “strategic, thoughtful conversation” between Sullivan and Wang will not only be “an important way to manage competition and tensions [between the US and China] responsibly” but also “set the direction of the relationship” on the whole.

Meanwhile, there has been hectic diplomatic traffic between Tehran, Ankara, and Moscow, as Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi traveled to Turkiye, and the moribund Astana format on Syria last week got kickstarted. Succinctly put, the three countries anticipate a “post-American” situation arising soon in Syria.

A US exit from Syria and Iraq?

Of course, the security dimensions are always tricky. On Friday, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad chaired a meeting in Damascus for commanders of the security apparatus in the army to formulate a plan for what lies ahead. A statement said the meeting drew up a comprehensive security roadmap that “aligns with strategic visions” to address international, regional, and domestic challenges and risks.

Certainly, what gives impetus to all this is the announcement in Washington and Baghdad on Thursday that the US and Iraq have agreed to start talks on the future of American military presence in Iraq with the aim of setting a timetable for a phased withdrawal of troops.

The Iraqi announcement said Baghdad aims to “formulate a specific and clear timetable that specifies the duration of the presence of international coalition advisors in Iraq” and to “initiate the gradual and deliberate reduction of its advisors on Iraqi soil,” eventually leading to the end of the coalition mission. Iraq is committed to ensuring the “safety of the international coalition’s advisors during the negotiation period in all parts of the country” and to “maintaining stability and preventing escalation.”

On the US side, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in a statement that the discussions will take place within the ambit of a higher military commission established in August 2023 to negotiate the “transition to an enduring bilateral security partnership between Iraq and the United States.”

Pentagon commanders would be pinning hopes on protracted negotiations. The US is in a position to blackmail Iraq, which is obliged, per the one-sided agreement dictated by Washington during the occupation in 2003, to keep in the US banks all of Iraq’s oil export earnings.

But in the final analysis, President Biden’s political considerations in the election year will be the clincher. And that will depend on the calibration by West Asia’s resistance groups, and their ability to ‘swarm’ the US on multiple fronts until it caves. It is this ‘known unknown’ factor that explains the Astana format meeting of Russia, Iran, and Turkiye on January 24-25 in Kazakhstan. The three countries are preparing for the endgame in Syria. Not coincidentally, in a phone call last Friday, Biden once again told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “to scale down the Israeli military operation in Gaza, stressing he is not in it for a year of war,” Axios‘ Barak Ravid reported in a ‘scoop’.

Their joint statement after the Astana format meeting in Kazakhstan is a remarkable document predicated almost entirely on an end to the US occupation of Syria. It indirectly urges Washington to give up its support of terrorist groups and their affiliates “operating under different names in various parts of Syria” as part of attempts to create new realities on the ground, including illegitimate self-rule initiatives under the pretext of ‘combating terrorism.’ It demands an end to the US’ illegal seizure and transfer of oil resources “that should belong to Syria,” the unilateral US sanctions, and so on.

Simultaneously, at a meeting in Moscow on Wednesday between the Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev and Ali-Akbar Ahmadian, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, the latter reportedly stressed that Iran-Russia cooperation in the fight against terrorism “must continue, particularly in Syria.” Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to host a trilateral summit with his Turkish and Iranian counterparts to firm up a coordinated approach.

The Axis of Resistance: deterrence means stability

Iran’s patience has run out over the US military presence in Syria and Iraq following the revival of ISIS with American support. Interestingly, Israel no longer abides by its “de-confliction” mechanism with Russia in Syria. Clearly, there is close US-Israeli cooperation in Syria and Iraq at the intelligence and operational level, which goes against Russian and Iranian interests. Needless to say, the backdrop of the imminent upgrade of the Russia-Iran strategic partnership also needs to be factored in here.

These developments are a vintage illustration of defensive deterrence. The Axis of Resistance turns out to be the principal instrument of peace for the issues of security that entangle the US and Iran. Clearly, there isn’t any method or any reasonable hope of convergence to this process, but, fortunately, the appearance of chaos in West Asia is deceiving.

Beyond the distractions of partisan argument and diplomatic ritual, one can detect the outlines of a practical solution to the Syrian stalemate that addresses the inherent security interests of the US and Iran that are embedded within an outer ring of US-China concord over the situation in West Asia.

Russia may seem an outlier for the present, but there is something in it for everyone, as the pullout of US troops opens the pathway to a Syrian settlement, which remains a top priority for Moscow and for Putin personally.

January 29, 2024 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Iraqi resistance joins Yemen in imposing naval blockade against Israel

The Cradle | January 24, 2024

The Secretary-General of the Sayyid al-Shuhada Brigades, Abu Ala al-Walaei, announced during the early hours of 24 January the start of phase two of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq’s (IRI) pro-Palestine operations, including enforcing a naval blockade on Israel in the Mediterranean Sea.

“At a time when the criminal US occupation is again blatantly targeting our security forces … we urge the Mujahideen of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq to begin the second phase of their operations, which includes enforcing a blockade on Zionist maritime navigation in the Mediterranean Sea and putting the entity’s ports out of service,” Walaei said via social media.

The leader of the Sayyid al-Shuhada Brigades, a faction within the larger Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), stressed that these operations will continue until “the unjust siege on Gaza is lifted and the horrific Zionist massacres against its people are stopped.”

Hours earlier, US warplanes conducted a new round of airstrikes targeting alleged locations of the PMU-affiliated Kataib Hezbollah in Al-Qaim on the Iraqi-Syrian border and in Jurf al-Nasr south of Baghdad.

At least one death was reported following the attack in Al-Qaim.

The spokesman for Kataib Hezbollah, Jaafar al-Husseini, said in response to the attack: “The resistance will continue to destroy enemy strongholds in support of our people in Gaza until the brutal US-backed killing machine stops and the entire siege is lifted.”

Iraq’s National Security Advisor Qassim Al-Araji criticized the US for once again “violating Iraqi sovereignty” by targeting the PMU.

“Attacking the headquarters of the [PMU] in Al-Qaim and Jurf al-Nasr is an assault and a flagrant violation of Iraqi sovereignty and does not help [quell tensions],” the official said, stressing that, “Instead of bombing and targeting the headquarters of an Iraqi national institution, the US side should move to stop the aggression against Gaza.”

The Iraqi government has previously demanded that the US army respect the country’s sovereignty and security, as Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani stresses that the PMU is an “integral part” of the country’s armed forces.

As part of the Resistance Axis’ operations in support of the Palestinian people, the IRI – an umbrella group of armed factions that includes members of the PMU – has conducted about 150 attacks on US bases in Iraq and Syria over the past several months.

The most recent attack took place on Tuesday morning, with a rocket salvo hitting the US-occupied Conoco oil field in northeast Syria for the second time in three days.

January 24, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

The U.S. Steals Syrian Oil, and the Kurds Sell It to Israel at a Discount in Erbil

By Steven Sahiounie | Strategic Culture Foundation | January 22, 2024

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (IRG) claimed responsibility for missile attacks on an Israeli “spy headquarters.” Kurdish businessman Peshraw Dizayee and four of his family members were killed in the attack on their home on January 16 near the U.S. Consulate in Erbil, in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region (IKR).

Dizayee was the owner of the Falcon Group, which is a business involved in oil and gas, agriculture and security. The IRG claimed its missiles targeted a “Mossad headquarters”.

“No U.S. facilities were impacted. We’re not tracking damage to infrastructure or injuries at this time,” a U.S. official said in response to the recent attack.

Prime Minister of the IKR, Masrour Barzani, condemned the IRG attacks on Erbil.

The Oil business in Erbil

The oil business is thriving in IKR, and the Falcon Group was part of it. Kurdish oil has been exported to Israel, Italy, France and Greece through a secretive trade depending on pre-pay deals.

Israel buys much of its oil from Erbil, and Israel depends on the heavily discounted crude, making it a key customer. The oil is discounted to Israel because it is free, as the source is the stolen Syrian oil. 40% of Israel’s oil supplies were from IKR in the first three months of 2023, which doubled the amount in 2022.

Israel received its first substantial seaborne crude oil shipment from the IKR in 2014, which is the same time the U.S. occupation forces arrived in Syria. Israel was reportedly importing as much as three-quarters of its crude oil needs from the IKR by mid-2015.

Israeli refineries and oil companies imported almost $1 billion worth of Kurdish oil between May and August of 2023, according to shipping data, trading sources and satellite tanker tracking, which represents about 77 % of average Israeli demand, which runs at roughly 240,000 barrels per day. More than a third of all of the northern Iraqi exports, which are shipped from Turkey’s Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, went to Israel over the period.

According to anonymous sources, it was a Mossad agent who first traveled to Erbil to negotiate the deal to buy oil from IKR, which was facilitated by U.S. officials.

The U.S. Consulate in Erbil

The new U.S. Consulate General building in Erbil, near the attack carried out by Iran, is the biggest consulate complex built by the U.S. Embassies and Consulates are under the U.S. State Department, but the consulate in Erbil has a connection to the U.S. Department of Defense, demonstrating the strategic importance of the region for Washington, with a U.S. military base also in IKR.

Irvin Hicks, Jr., the U.S. Consul General in Erbil, stated in January 2023, that the new 800-million-dollar consulate building is a clear statement that the “United States of America is not going anywhere.”

The U.S. first opened a diplomatic office in Erbil in February 2007, and later upgraded to a consulate general in 2011, the same year the U.S.-NATO attack on Syria began for regime change, under the Obama-Biden administration.

The U.S. embassy in Baghdad was built in 2009 and is its biggest mission compound in the world at a cost of $750 million. Iraqi Kurdistan and the Iraqi central government in Baghdad operate separately, as the Kurds are a semi-autonomous region.

Erbil has 30 consulates, six honorary consulates, and six foreign trade offices, with the Japanese consulate the latest to open on Jan. 11.

“Opening more than 30 consulates is not normal,” Iranian Brigadier General Mohammad Hossein Rajabi criticized. Most of these consulates are used for espionage activities.”

Iran views the foreign offices as having the potential to carry out plans aimed at destabilizing the security of Iran, by hosting Iranian separatist groups and bases aligned with Israeli intelligence agency Mossad.

The Iraqi response to the Genocide in Gaza

“On October 20, 2023, the Department ordered the departure of eligible family members and non-emergency U.S. government personnel from U.S. Embassy Baghdad and U.S. Consulate General Erbil due to increased security threats against U.S. government personnel and interests,” according to the State Department’s Iraq travel advisory.

Iraqis have taken to the streets to protest the U.S. complicity in the genocide being committed in Gaza by Israel. U.S. President Joe Biden has defied the American values of human rights and international law by continuing to send weapons to Israel to promote the wholesale slaughter of the Palestinian civilians of Gaza, even in the face of international criticism which has lowered the image of America as a beacon of freedom to a joke.

Protests have taken place outside of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, and military groups which are under the central government of Iraq have fired rockets and armed drones at U.S. troops based in Anbar and near Erbil multiple times. Baghdad does not recognize Israel; however, the IKR are aligned with the U.S., and sell the stolen oil from Syria to the prime U.S. ally, Israel.

The U.S. invaded and destroyed Iraq in 2003, and occupied the country for years until a withdrawal. When ISIS reared its ugly head, the Baghdad government requested U.S. troops to come to help in the fight against ISIS, which saw its defeat at the hands of Iraq, Syria, Russia, and the U.S. The Iraqi parliament ordered the U.S. troops to leave after the defeat of ISIS in 2017, but the Department of Defense refused. The Prime Minister of Iraq has recently ordered the U.S. troops to leave immediately following the U.S. assassination of Mushtaq Jawad Kazim al-Jawari in Baghdad on January 4, an Iraqi military commander who was instrumental in the defeat of ISIS.

The PKK in Syria and Erbil

The PKK aligned SDF in north east Syria is U.S. supported. The U.S. military in Syria are occupying the largest oil field in Syria, which prevents the Damascus government from using the oil to provide electricity to the Syrian people, who suffer with just 3 hours of electricity per day.

In December 2023, 44-tanker convoy carrying oil stolen from Syria traveled clandestinely to U.S. bases near Erbil. Just days before, U.S. forces took 95 tankers of oil and a truckload of stolen Syrian wheat to IKR. The Syrian wheat fields are also in the area the U.S. troops occupy and the area is controlled by Kurds who are aligned with the IKR.

Farhan Jamil Abdullah, head of the Syrian Oil Company, said in July that as a result of the U.S. sanctions and military occupation in Syria, oil production has decreased to 15,000 barrels per day from 385,000 barrels before 2011.

Firas Hassan Kaddour, the Syrian Oil Minister, said in July that the losses of the energy sector in Syria are close to 100 billion U.S. dollars.

The main oil field of Al Omar and Conoco in Syria are producing oil which is shipped in tankers by the U.S. Army and refined at Kar Oil Refinery in Erbil.

The U.S. sponsors the SDF militia in Syria which is dominated by the YPG. The YPG is the Syrian branch of the PKK, a group recognized by Turkey, as well as the U.S. and the EU, as a terrorist organization, who have killed more than 40,000 persons over decades.

Turkey has condemned the U.S. alliance with the SDF and YPG, and considers the U.S. is financing terrorism.

The commander of the SDF is General Mazloum Kobani, who is also a member of the PKK. His real name is Ferhat Abdi Sahin, is one of Turkey’s most wanted terrorists. Kobani was chosen by the U.S. as their military ally and it is at Kobani’s command that the stolen Syrian oil is loaded into tankers.

Erdogan has demanded for years that the U.S. must stop supporting the SDF, YPG, and to stop encouraging the Kurds to establish an independent homeland in north east Syria on the border with Turkey, which is a NATO member, and ally of the U.S., housing an American military base there.

January 22, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Reviving ISIS: A US weapon against the Resistance Axis

The Cradle | January 16, 2024

Iraqi security sources are warning of an ISIS revival in the country, which coincides all too neatly with the spike in Iraqi resistance operations against US bases in Iraq and Syria, and with widening regional instability caused by Israel’s military assault on Gaza.

More than six years after declaring victory over the terrorist organization, Iraqi intelligence reports now indicate that thousands of ISIS fighters are emerging unscathed, under the protection of US forces in two regions of western Iraq.

The missing piece of the puzzle

According to intelligence reports reviewed by The Cradle, at its height, ISIS consisted of more than 35,000 fighters in Iraq – 25,000 of these were killed, while more than 10,000 simply “disappeared.”

As an officer of one Iraqi intelligence agency recounts to The Cradle :

“Hundreds of ISIS fighters fled to Turkey and Syria at the end of 2017. After the appointment of Abdullah Qardash as the leader of ISIS in 2019, following the death of Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the new Caliph began to restructure the organization, and ordered his followers to return to Iraq. The organization exploited the long border with Syria, the security disturbances, and the diversity of forces on both sides of the border to infiltrate the Iraqi territory again.”

Imprisoned ISIS officials admit that infiltrating that border is not an easy task, because of the strict control imposed by the Iraqi Border Guards and the use of modern technologies, such as thermal cameras.

It therefore became necessary for the terror group to identify intermediaries capable of breaking through or bypassing these fortifications to transport its fighters across borders. 

An Iraqi security source, insisting on anonymity, tells The Cradle that the US plays a vital role in enabling these border violations:

“[There are] several incidents that confirm the American assistance in securing the crossing route for ISIS members – mainly, by shelling Iraqi units on the border, especially the Popular Mobilization Units (PMUs), to create gaps that allow ISIS fighters to cross the border.”

The Iraqi security source adds that there are confirmed reports of US Chinook helicopters transporting fighters from eastern Syria to the Anbar desert in western Iraq and Jebel Hamreen, in the country’s east.

Munir Adib, a researcher specializing in Islamist movements, extremist organizations, and international terrorism, confirms the possibility of the return of ISIS after the organization’s “dozens of attacks in Syria and Iraq in the past few weeks,” which led to the death of tens of civilians and soldiers.

According to Adib, “the international community’s preoccupation with the Gaza and Russia-Ukraine wars gave ISIS an opportunity to reorganize its ranks, while continuing to receive internal and external logistical support.”

Manufacturing and harboring terrorism

Houran Valley is the largest of its kind in Iraq, extending 369 kilometers from the Iraqi-Saudi border to the Euphrates River near the city of Haditha in Anbar Governorate. Its topography is marked by soaring cliffs ranging in height between 150 to 200 meters, and includes the hills surrounding the valley and the sub-valleys that extend into its surroundings.

The valley was and still is one of the most dangerous security environments in the state. Terrorist groups use it as a safe haven because of its desert terrain, and distance from congested urban areas. The valley and its environs have witnessed numerous security incidents, most notably in December 2013, when ISIS killed the commander of the Iraqi army’s Seventh Division, his assistant, the director of intelligence in Anbar Governorate, eight officers, and thirteen soldiers.

Iraqi MP Hassan Salem has called for launching a military operation to clear Houran Valley of terrorist fighters. He confirmed to The Cradle that “there are thousands of ISIS members in the valley receiving training in private camps, under American protection,” noting that US forces have “transferred to this area hundreds of ISIS members of different nationalities.”

US foreign policy, of course, is rife with historical evidence of the creation of proxy armed militias in West Asia and Latin America, often utilizing these organizations to overthrow governments in target countries. We know Washington has no aversion to allying with Islamist extremists largely because of its direct involvement with arming and financing the Afghan Mujahideen, from which the Taliban and Al Qaeda emerged.

An early US-ISIS connection exists quite clearly: the terrorist group’s founding and second rank leaders were among the inmates of Camp Bucca prison in southern Iraq, an internment facility run by the US military. The roster of high-value terrorists captured, then set free by the Americans is quite extraordinary: ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, his successor Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, Abu Muslim al-Turkmani, Haji Bakr, Abu Abdulrahman al-Bilawi, Abu Ayman al-Iraqi, among others.

Camp Bucca, known for abuses against its detainees, brought together extremist elements, slow-boiled this combustive formula for six years (2003-2009), then let the now well-networked extremists go free.

The religious officials of ISIS even say they used their time at the prison to obtain vows from prisoners to join the terrorist group after their release.

US intelligence also protected the terrorist organization indirectly, by allowing ISIS convoys to move between the cities that were under its control. Other forms of protection, according to Iraqi security experts, include refusing to implement death sentences issued by Iraqi courts against detained ISIS members, and establishing safe havens for the organization’s members in western and eastern Iraq.

ISIS: US foot soldiers in the regional war

In a speech on 5 January, Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah warned that the US was supporting an ISIS revival in the region.

The Cradle obtained security information monitoring the new activity of extremists in Lebanon, communications between these elements and their counterparts in Iraq and Syria, and suspicious money transfer activities among them.

Lebanese Army Intelligence also recently arrested a group of Lebanese and Syrians who were preparing to carry out security operations.

Importantly, this surge in terror activities comes at a time when the Lebanese resistance is engaged in a security and military battle with Israel, which may expand at any moment into open war. It is also notable that renewed ISIS activity is concentrated in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Iran; that is, in the countries that support the Palestinian resistance politically, militarily, and logistically.

On 4 January, ISIS officially claimed responsibility for two bombings in the Iranian city of Kerman that targeted memorial processions on the anniversary of the assassination of Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani by US forces. The dual explosions killed around 90 people and injured dozens, in an unprecedented attack targeting the biggest US-Israeli adversary in West Asia – just one day after Tel Aviv killed top Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut.

Before that, on 5 October 2023, ISIS drone-attacked an officers graduation ceremony at the Military College in the Syrian city of Homs, killing about 100 people. These attacks, and others in Iraq, Syria, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Africa, indicate that fresh blood, money, and weapons are being pumped into the ISIS organization’s arteries again.

A high-ranking PMU officer, who asked to remain unnamed, tells The Cradle that US forces are preventing Iraqi forces from approaching Houran Valley by attacking any security forces approaching the area. “This happened when American aircraft targeted units of the PMU that were attacking ISIS in the region,” he reveals, citing intelligence reports confirming the presence of dozens of ISIS members and other extremist organizations in the valley, where they receive training and equipment from US forces.

Security sources in the Anbar Operations Command confirm this information:

“Noticeable activity by the organization had been recorded a few weeks ago in the west of the country. Near the Rutba desert, ISIS fighters were spotted digging underground hideouts. Information indicates that the organization is in the process of carrying out terrorist operations in many locations,” they tell The Cradle.

Concurrently, ISIS is expanding its operations in the east of Iraq, within the geographical triangle that includes eastern Salah al-Din Governorate, north-eastern Diyala, and southern Kirkuk, particularly in the geographically challenging Makhoul, Hamrin, Ghurra, Wadi al-Shay, and Zaghitoun areas.

It should be noted that US forces are deployed in Iraq under the umbrella of the International Coalition to Combat ISIS. Last week, four years after the Iraqi parliament first voted to expel foreign forces, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammad Shia al-Sudani weighed in on the “destabilizing” impact of US troops and demanded a “quick and orderly” exit of those combat units.

Washington not only countered by saying it has “no plans” to withdraw from Iraq, but announced on 14 January that it would be sending an additional 1,500 troops to Iraq and Syria illegally, and without the consent of either nation.

One irony here is that ISIS appears to regain momentum each and every time Baghdad raises the issue of US military withdrawal from Iraq.

It can also no longer be seen as a coincidence that the terror group is now re-assembling its forces to target Washington and Tel Aviv’s most capable regional foes – the Axis of Resistance – just when the US and Israel are struggling to handle a region-wide, multi-front assault from the Axis.

The extraordinary synergies between the Americans and the world’s foremost terror group can no longer be ignored: their targets are one and the same, and ISIS is only now entering the fray, just as Washington begins to lose its hold on West Asia.

January 16, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »