Saudi Arabia is forming new force in Syria – report
By Leith Aboufadel – Al-Masdar News – 30/05/2018
BEIRUT, LEBANON – Officials from the Saudi regime met with members of the predominately Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in northeastern Syria recently, Turkish state-owned Anadolu Agency reported on Tuesday.
According to the Anadolu report, three Saudi military consultants met with the YPG in the northeast Aleppo city of Kobani (var. ‘Ayn Al-‘Arab) last Friday.
The YPG and Saudi officials discussed forming a new force in Syria that would be funded by the Gulf kingdom.
The Anadolu report added that the Saudi officials setup communication checkpoints between Hasakah city and Al-Qamishli in order to recruit new fighters.
These fighters are promised $200 if they join this new Arab force that is sponsored by Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia has not issued any response to this latest allegation.
EU Extends Sanctions Against Syria for One Year
Sputnik – 28.05.2018
The European Union has decided to extend sanctions against Syria by one year, until June 1, 2019, the EU Council said in a statement on Monday.
“On 28 May 2018, the Council extended EU restrictive measures against the Syrian regime until 1 June 2019. Given the ongoing repression of the civilian population, the EU decided to maintain its restrictive measures against the Syrian regime and its supporters, in line with the EU strategy on Syria,” the document read.
The European Union introduced sanctions “against Syria and persons responsible for the violent repression against the civilian population” in May 2011, during the Arab Spring protests, which led to the ongoing civil war in the country.
In 2017 EU also imposed restrictions on Syrian officials who relate to the development an the use of chemical weapons in the country, with over 250 individuals targeted by the sanctions for the involvement in the development and use of chemical weapons against the civilian population. Damascus strongly denied those accusations, also noting that the international organizations didn’t find any evidence of the chemical weapons development by the Syrian government.
In its turn, the US ruled out any American reconstruction support to Assad-controlled territories in the war-weary country.
Daesh-Linked Terror Groups Seen in Syrian al-Tanf Controlled by US – Lavrov
Sputnik | May 28, 2018
According to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, only Syrian government troops should be located on the country’s Southern borders with Israel.
Russia and the United States are conducting a dialogue at the diplomatic and military level regarding the situation in Syria’s al-Tanf region, Lavrov stated.
“We are witnessing an increasing number of armed groups appearing in this region, including the Rukban refugee camp, which according to our information, is related in one way or another to Daesh and other extremist structures,” he noted.
Lavrov expressed hope that reports on the withdrawal of US troops from Syria’s al-Tanf base would come to fruition.
“The military presence there has no sense, from a military point of view,” the Russian Foreign Minister said.
He emphasized that the Russian side has called the US’ attention to the fact that the situation does not correspond to the agreements on how to organize de-escalation in the south of Syria.
Lavrov recalled that initially, the agreement on the establishment of a de-escalation zone in the south-west of Syria had presupposed an “eventual” withdrawal of all non-Syrian forces from this region, saying that “it should be reciprocal.”
“Of course, all non-Syrian forces should be withdrawn on a reciprocal basis, this should be a two-way process. The situation, when only representatives of the Syrian armed forces will be deployed on the Syrian side of the border with Israel, should become the outcome of such work,” Lavrov said.
The United States occupies a 34-mile zone around its military base in al-Tanf, where it trains and equips armed Syrian opposition forces.
The Rukban refugee camp is located about 11 miles south of al-Tanf and inside the US-controlled zone on the Syrian-Jordanian border.
READ MORE:
US Military Presence Near Al-Tanf Base in Syria ‘Aggression’ — Damascus
Syrian Kurds rally to demand Turkey withdrawal
Press TV – May 26, 2018
Hundreds have demonstrated in Syria’s northeastern city of Qamishli, in response to a call by Kurdish authorities for global protests against Turkey’s military presence in the flashpoint Afrin region.
Turkish forces and allied Syrian militants seized the northwest region of Afrin from Kurdish forces in March, after a two-month military offensive that prompted tens of thousands of people to flee.
Since then, thousands of people displaced from other parts of Syria — notably the Eastern Ghouta suburb of Damascus — have been resettled in the emptied city.
Syria’s Kurds, who have built up their own autonomous administrations in the chaos of the country’s seven-year war, say that amounts to demographic change.
On Saturday, men and women marched through the Kurdish-controlled city of Qamishli to protest Turkey’s military presence.
They waved the yellow, green, and red flag that represents Kurdish part of Syria, as well as signs that read: “No to Turkish occupation.”
Ghassan Juli, a 38-year-old resident of Qamishli, described the Afrin developments as a “disaster.”
“Our people were forced out, and fighters from other areas were brought to live there,” he said.
Her head wrapped in a shawl that matched the Kurdish flag, Bahia Hassan said Afrin’s original residents were afraid to return because of fears of abduction or worse.
“Enough killing, enough kidnapping our boys! Enough killing women and children. We won’t accept this,” said the 45-year-old.
Syria’s Kurds control swathes of the country’s north, and many of those who fled to Afrin escaped into nearby Kurdish-held territory.
Around 135,000 stayed in Afrin, more than a third of them in the urban center that shares the same name, according to the United Nations.
Since war broke out in 2011, half of Syria’s population has been displaced, including more than five million outside the country and another six million internally.
US warns of ‘firm’ response ahead of Syria’s anti-terror operation in Dara’a
Press TV – May 26, 2018
The US has threatened Syria with “firm and appropriate measures” as the Syrian army reportedly prepares to retake a strategic province on the border with Jordan and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
In a statement released on Friday, US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert expressed concerns about the upcoming operation in southwestern Dara’a province, claiming that it falls within a de-escalation zone in Syria.
“As a guarantor of this de-escalation area with Russia and Jordan, the United States will take firm and appropriate measures in response to Assad regime violations,” she said.
The warning came two days after the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that the Syrian troops were moving into Dara’a after liberating all remaining militant-held areas near the capital, Damascus.
On Friday, Syrian state-run media reported that government aircraft had dropped leaflets in terrorist-controlled areas of Dara’a, urging foreign-backed militants to disarm.
One of the leaflets declares “the arrival of the Syrian Arab army’s soldiers,” according to SOHR, which is sympathetic to foreign-backed militants.
The UK-based monitor also said the Syrian government had sent reinforcements to Dara’a following the completion of operations near Damascus.
“These forces are now stationed on the edges of Dara’a province,” SOHR head Rami Abdel Rahman said. “The goal is a broad offensive, should the rebels reject a negotiated pullout as was the case in Eastern Ghouta.”
The recapture of Dara’a is highly important because it borders the occupied Golan Heights which Israel has used to treat wounded militants for years.
The territory’s return to the Syrian government control would cut the much-reported collaboration between Israel and militants and deal a blow to Tel Aviv’s plans to annex the Golan Heights.
Syrian army advances are also upsetting to US plans in the Arab country where it has deployed about 2,000 troops to carve out a statelet in the country’s north with the help of Kurdish militants.
With Syria’s military gains gathering momentum, the US has stepped up its attacks on army positions under numerous pretexts.
On Thursday, Syrian state media reported that the US struck Syrian army positions in eastern Syria, but the US military denied knowledge of it.
“Some of our military sites between Albu Kamal and Humeima were exposed at dawn today to aggression launched by US coalition jets,” state news agency SANA reported, citing a military source.
SANA said the strikes came within 24 hours of a Daesh attack on Syrian army positions in the same region, where the Takfiri terrorists are fighting government forces to the west of the Euphrates.
The Syrian army managed to retake the Eastern Ghouta region, on the outskirts of the capital Damascus, late in March.
On Monday, the General Command of the Syrian Army and Armed Forces said complete security had been restored to Damascus and its countryside after al-Hajar al-Aswad district and al-Yarmouk camp were totally purged of Daesh terrorists.
As US Tries to Remake Rather than Rebuild Northern Syria, Local Resistance Groups Emerge
By Whitney Webb | MintPress News | May 23, 2018
RAQQA, SYRIA – A handful of groups claiming to resist the U.S.-led occupation of Northeastern Syria have sprung up throughout the region since the year began — targeting U.S. forces as well as the U.S. proxy in the area, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Since last year, the U.S. has been occupying over 30 percent of Syrian territory, as well as most of the country’s oil, gas, agricultural and fresh-water resources.
Most of the groups have sprung up in areas of Syria under U.S. and SDF control, citing the U.S.-appointed local government’s inability to tackle major issues, like restoring water supplies and stemming discrimination against non-Kurdish civilians as the main factors behind their decision to oppose U.S. occupation.
The first Syrian resistance group to target the U.S. occupation, the pro-government Popular Resistance of Raqqa (PRoR), was formed in February in the city of Raqqa, where according to monitors, a U.S.-led battle to retake the city killed over 1,800 civilians. Eighty percent of all of the city’s buildings were destroyed in the battle — including critical infrastructure and its water supply — and the area remains littered with landmines. Since the U.S.-appointed government has taken control, little has been done to improve living conditions in the city.
The PRoR announced in a video statement:
We officially declare the formation of the popular resistance in Raqqa to prevent the American aggression from taking over any part of our beloved Syria after it [the U.S.] gathered terrorists from all over the world as their proxies; who destroyed the city of Raqqa and killed its innocent people.”
The group later called on the people of Raqqa to resist the U.S. and its proxies by “engaging in demonstrations, strikes and opposing all efforts to partition Syria.”
As MintPress has reported over the course of the conflict, partitioning Syria has long been a goal of the U.S.-led coalition and is the driving force behind the U.S. military’s ongoing presence in the region.
PRoR has since attacked U.S. military assets, including a U.S.-occupied Syrian military base near Raqqa, which the group shelled in early April. Al Masdar Newsreported at the time that the group has also had some success in covertly recruiting locals “who are opposed to the U.S.-appointed government’s policies and the U.S.-backed SDF.”
The message of the PRoR seems also to have taken hold among some of Raqqa’s civilians. Since the group encouraged local resistance in the form of protests and strikes, several civilian protests against the U.S. occupation have taken place in Raqqa, including those that have expressed support for the Syrian government and President Bashar al-Assad. The most recent of these protests took place earlier this week.
Resistance to foreign rule no surprise
Though emergence of local resistance may seem to have been an unintended consequence of the U.S.’ occupation of the area, such resistance – namely from Arabs and non-Kurds native to the area – was anticipated by the U.S. and its proxies prior to their taking control of the city.
AsMintPressreported last June, the greatest obstacle that faced U.S./SDF plans to annex Raqqa as part of the Kurdish “autonomous region” was the native population of Raqqa itself, which is historically Arab. At the time, it seemed highly unlikely that any Arab or non-Kurd would willingly choose to live as a second-class citizen under the rule of a Kurdish-dominated and U.S.-appointed council, as opposed to the equal standing they once enjoyed when the city was under Syrian government control.
These concerns were exacerbated by widespread reports of the Kurdish militia “ethnically cleansing” Arabs from villages around Raqqa, as well as the mass deaths of civilians that marked the U.S.-led coalition efforts to retake Raqqa.
However, Kurdish efforts to permanently expel Raqqa’s Arabs failed. Following the city’s liberation from Daesh (ISIS), over 95,000 native inhabitants of Raqqa – many of them Arab – returned. Since then, Russian military sources claim that “the native Arab population is subjected to repression and punishment” by U.S.-appointed leaders, many of whom are Kurdish and not native to Raqqa, causing “sharp discontent among local residents.”
The chief of staff of Russia’s military contingent in Syria, Col. Gen. Sergey Rudskoy, noted “[the commands] of the Syrian Democratic Forces and local governments, appointed by the Americans, do not cope with the need to resolve humanitarian problems.”
Indeed, given that the critical infrastructure destroyed by the U.S. coalition has yet to be restored – including the city’s water supply — and the fact that the U.S. has diverted funds for “rebuilding” the area into more weapons for the SDF, Raqqa’s civilians may soon become convinced that those resisting the U.S. occupation are more interested in their welfare than are their occupiers.
A spreading resistance
Recent events elsewhere in U.S.-occupied Syrian territory have suggested resistance to the U.S. military presence is spreading well beyond Raqqa.
On Monday, three U.S. Army soldiers were killed in the Syrian province of Hasakah, in the country’s Northeast — an area that is currently occupied by the United States and its Kurdish-majority military proxy, the SDF. While the soldiers’ deaths were largely ignored by Western media, local media noted that the deaths occurred after three military vehicles crashed while patrolling the town of Tal Tamr, and suggested a resistance group aimed at ending the U.S. occupation may be to blame.
Th deaths in Hasakah raise questions as to whether popular resistance against the U.S. occupation of the territory is spreading. Indeed, Hasakah has recently suffered from U.S. airstrikes, including one earlier this month that killed 25 civilians and injured 10 more near the town al-Shaddadi in Hasakah’s south. Other reports on the incident claimed an entire family was killed in the strike. Such atrocities are likely to spark further resistance to the U.S. occupation, as has happened on numerous occasions over the course of the U.S.’ “War on Terror.”
Time will tell if resistance to the U.S. occupation is spreading. Regardless, the growing discontent among civilians suggests that the unraveling of the U.S. occupation of Syria may come from internal, not external, forces.
Whitney Webb is a staff writer for MintPress News and a contributor to Ben Swann’s Truth in Media. Her work has appeared on Global Research, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has also made radio and TV appearances on RT and Sputnik. She currently lives with her family in southern Chile.
“Skirmishes” – Israel’s Syria Blitz
Media Lens | May 23, 2018
A key ‘mainstream’ media theme in covering the Israeli army’s repeated massacres of unarmed, non-violent Palestinian civilians protesting Israel’s military occupation in Gaza – killing journalists, a paramedic, the elderly and children – has been the description of these crimes as ‘clashes’.
This has been a clear attempt to obfuscate the fact that while two groups of people are involved, only one group is being killed and wounded.
To the casual reader – and many readers do not venture beyond the headlines – a ‘clash’ suggests that both sides are armed, with both suffering casualties. One would not, for example, describe a firing squad as a ‘clash’. There was no ‘clash’ in New York on September 11, 2001, and so on.
Following Israel’s massive blitz on more than 100 targets in Syria on May 10, ‘mainstream’ coverage offered similarly questionable frameworks of understanding.
A Guardian headline read:
Israel retaliates after Iran “fires 20 rockets” at army in occupied Golan Heights (Our emphasis)
For moral, legal and public relations reasons, the issue of which side started a conflict is obviously crucial. If the public recognises that the case for war is unjustified, immoral or illegal – that a country has chosen to launch a war of aggression – they will likely oppose it, sometimes in the millions, as happened in 2002 and 2003 in relation to the Iraq war. It is thus highly significant that the Guardian described Israel as retaliating.
The BBC reported of Israel’s attacks:
They came after 20 rockets were fired at Israeli military positions in the occupied Golan Heights. (Our emphasis)
Reuters took the same line as the Guardian and BBC:
Iran targets Israeli bases across Syrian frontier, Israel pounds Syria
Iranian forces in Syria launched a rocket attack on Israeli forces in the Golan Heights early on Thursday, Israel said, prompting one of the heaviest Israeli barrages in Syria since the conflict there began in 2011. (Our emphasis)
The New York Times also reported:
It was a furious response to what Israel called an Iranian rocket attack launched from Syrian territory just hours earlier. (Our emphasis)
And yet, the report buried a challenge to its own claim that Israel had retaliated in the second half of the piece:
Iran’s rocket attack against Israel came after what appeared to have been an Israeli missile strike against a village in the Syrian Golan Heights late on Wednesday. (Our emphasis)
According to the BBC (see below), the Israeli missile strike had targeted an Iranian drone facility killing several Iranians.
So, actually, it might be said that Iran was retaliating to Israeli attacks – a more reasonable interpretation, given recent history also described by the New York Times:
Israel has conducted scores of strikes on Iran and its allies inside Syria, rarely acknowledging them publicly.
Nevertheless, the corporate media theme has been that Israel retaliated, part of a long-term trend in media coverage. In a 2002 report, Bad News From Israel, The Glasgow University Media Group commented:
On the news, Israeli actions tended to be explained and contextualised – they were often shown as merely “responding” to what had been done to them by Palestinians (in the 2001 samples they were six times as likely to be presented as “retaliating” or in some way responding than were the Palestinians).
Was Iran Skirmishing?
But was Iran even involved at all? The opening, highlighted sentence in a front-page BBC piece by diplomatic editor Jonathan Marcus left the reader in no doubt:
These are the first skirmishes in a potential war between Israel and Iran that promises a fearful level of destruction – even by the standards of the modern Middle East.
So this was a ‘skirmish’, a clash involving Israel and Iran – they were both involved in the combat. And yet, in the second half of the article, Marcus wrote:
The alleged Iranian attack last night – I say alleged because at this stage there is no confirmation from Iranian sources as to the precise authors of the attack – involved a single and relatively short-range system, what appears to have been a multiple-barrelled rocket launcher.
How can the Iranian attack be merely ‘alleged’ half-way down the article but a bald fact in the highlighted opening sentence?
In fact, not only has there been ‘no confirmation’, there has been outright Iranian rejection of the claims. Abolfazl Hassan-Baygi, deputy head of the Iranian parliament’s national security committee, commented:
Iran has nothing to do with the missiles that struck the enemy entity yesterday.
Associated Press (AP ) reported Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi commenting that Israel’s attacks were based on ‘fabricated and baseless excuses’, and were a breach of the national sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria.
AP quoted a senior Lebanese politician and close ally of Syria and Iran, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, as saying: ‘this time the Syrian retaliation was in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights but next time it will be in Israel proper. (Our emphasis)
Later in his BBC piece, Marcus wrote:
The immediate tensions stem from an Israeli air strike on what they claimed was an Iranian drone facility at the so-called T-4 air base, near Palmyra, on 9 April, which reportedly killed several Iranian military advisers.
This again challenged the idea that Israel had ‘retaliated’, but again it was not given the kind of prominence that could challenge Israel’s version of events.
So the ‘skirmishes’ may actually have consisted of Israel first attacking an Iranian drone facility killing Iranian personnel, and then launching a massive attack against Iranian positions across Syria, without Iran responding at all. And yet Marcus wrote:
It is a conflict that needs to be averted and the time to do it is now. However Israel and Iran remain on a collision course.
Despite the uncertainty on whether Iran had attacked, Marcus concluded:
Iran’s strategic intent is clear… it is unlikely to be dissuaded from its efforts.
He added:
Israel has drawn its red lines and it is clearly not going to back down either.
Obama also famously drew his ‘red line’ in Syria in 2012, threatening a massive attack in the event of Syrian government use of chemical weapons. But for Marcus, Israel’s actual launch of a massive attack merely constituted the drawing of ‘red lines’.
And again, ignoring his own doubts about what had happened, the required warmongering ‘balance’ was favoured:
For the immediate future, the pattern of strike, attempted riposte, and counter-strike is likely to continue.
If it had started at all! Marcus concluded his article with three ominous lines identifying another threat alongside the danger of Israel drawing more ‘red lines’ with more massive attacks:
One clear danger is that Iran may seek to exact its revenge outside the Middle East.
Pro-Iranian factions have in the past attacked Israeli tourists abroad or Jewish organisations, notably in Latin America.
A successful terrorist attack of this kind would inevitably alter the picture, pushing Israel and Iran to the brink of a full-scale war.
The word ‘terrorist’ thus made its first appearance in the last line of Marcus’s piece, in reference to a hypothetical Iranian atrocity.
The idea that Israel might already have committed terrorist atrocities in Syria by launching unprovoked attacks, by illegal bombings committed completely outside of international law, is unthinkable.
Pullout of Iranian Forces, Hezbollah Units From Syria Out of Question – Damascus
Sputnik | May 23, 2018
The withdrawal of Iranian forces and units of the Lebanese movement Hezbollah from Syria is not on the discussion agenda, Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mikdad told Sputnik.
“This topic is not even on the agenda of discussion, since it concerns the sovereignty of Syria. We cannot let anyone even raise this issue. Those who ask for something like that — and this is definitely not our Russian friends — are considering the possibility of intervention in all parts of Syria, including the support of terrorists in Syria and elsewhere in the region,” Mikdad said.
According to the Syrian diplomat, Damascus “highly appreciates” the help of friendly forces from Russia and advisers from Iran and Hezbollah in the struggle against terrorists.
The statements by the United States about its intention to withdraw troops from Syria and replace them with Arab forces are aimed at drawing the Arab countries in direct conflict with Damascus, Mikdad said.
“The main goal of such statements is to pump the money out of the Arab countries. This will force them to pay more to the US treasury, which may be empty. As well as drawing the Arab states in direct conflict, as far as I can guess — with the Syrian government, and this is a dangerous situation,” Mikdad said.
According to Mikdad, Washington will ultimately not withdraw its troops.
On Monday, US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo gave a keynote speech on US policy toward Iran, voicing 12 demands for Tehran to fulfill following Washington’s unilateral withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
The commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has slammed the address made by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that the world cannot accept that Washington makes unilateral decisions for all nations.
On May 8, Trump withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal and Treasury immediately began to reimpose all sanctions against Tehran. The JCPOA — signed by Iran, the P5+1 and the European Union in 2015 — requires that Tehran allow inspections to ensure the peaceful nature of its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.
US-Led Coalition Deliberately Destroyed Oil Wells in Syria
The US-led coalition has been conducting airstrikes in the Arab Republic since 2014 without either a UN mandate or the Syrian government’s consent.
The international coalition led by the United States has deliberately bombed oil wells in Syria, so that the government would not be able to use them, Mikdad said.
“They made it necessary to spend tens of millions of dollars to resume work at these [oil] fields,” Mikdad added.
The US-led coalition, which has been carrying out airstrikes in Syria since 2014 without Damascus’ or UN’s approval, has yet to comment on the statement.
The United States continues its support for terrorists in Syria by financing and supplying them with arms, Faisal Mekdad said.
“I believe that the oxygen for terrorist groups comes from the United States,” Mekdad said.
The Syrian minister noted that Damascus had heard “many times since the start of the crisis in 2011” the US statements on the reduction or termination of its support to the opposition in Syria.
“Meanwhile, [militant] groups are being provided with additional funding and arms,” Mekdad stressed.
According to the minister, after the liberation of Eastern Ghouta and the town of Hajar Aswad from terrorists, the Syrian army discovered large stocks of arms, recently delivered from Western countries and the United States.
“The United States must stop supporting terrorists and respect Syria’s sovereignty and choice of the Syrian people,” the diplomat underlined.
A military-diplomatic source earlier told Sputnik that militants from the Nusra Front terrorist group, banned in Russia, and the Free Syrian Army (FSA) were expanding the controlled territories in southern Syria to create an autonomy under the patronage of the United States. On April 19, Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that Moscow also had this information.
The CBS TV channel reported on May 18, citing US President Donald Trump administration officials, that the administration had withdrawn all assistance from northwestern Syria, where anti-Syrian government forces and Turkey are operating. According to the broadcaster, tens of millions of dollars will be cut from previous efforts, backed by the United States, to “strengthen and stabilize the local society.”
Constitutional Commission
Syrian authorities have not finalized a list of candidates for participation in the committee on Syria’s constitution in Geneva, however there are a lot of specialists and experts, who could represent Damascus in the body, Syrian Faisal Mekdad stated.
On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks with his Syrian counterpart Bashar Assad. The Russian leader said that Moscow welcomed and would support the decision of Assad to send his representatives to the Constitutional Commission in Geneva.
“It is too early to speak about [candidates], but there are many people, who are able to represent Syria and the Syrian government in these talks. We have many experts… in this sphere, who could participate in these talks,” Mekdad said.
The diplomat added that the constitutional amendments were the Syrian domestic issue and foreigners should not interfere in this process.
“There are several issues that are needed to be revised and we are ready to reconsider them,” the deputy foreign minister said, adding that it was necessary to understand, which “positive options” could be added to the constitution.
The settlement process for the Syrian conflict, which broke out in 2011, has been discussed on a number of international platforms, such as those in Geneva and Astana and the Syrian National Dialogue Congress in Russia’s Sochi. The main result of the Sochi congress was the creation of the Constitutional Commission that would work in Geneva and focus on amending Syria’s existing constitution.
Israeli Parliament Reportedly Considers Promoting Kurdish State
Sputnik – May 22, 2018
Israeli MPs have reportedly discussed a bill that outlines the means by which Israel may help Kurds build their state in Syria, Iraq and Turkey, which would support Tel Aviv. According to one of Israel’s radio stations, the bill had been submitted to the Knesset by two Israeli right-wing parties, namely Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu. The radio quoted Yoav Kish as saying that given the Kurdish minority living in the aforementioned countries, which are generally hostile to Israel, the proposed move would play into the hands of the Israeli state.
“There is a reason that Israel was the first to publicly congratulate moves toward Kurdish independence in northern Iraq,” Kish added.
Back in 2017, Israel became the only country to support the Kurdish plebiscite which endorsed the Kurds’ secession from Iraq – a development that was vigorously criticized around the world.
Back then, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that Tel Aviv backed what he called “legitimate efforts of the Kurdish people to attain a state of its own.” Alongside political backing, Israel was reportedly a major buyer of Kurdistan’s oil and the top investor in the region in 2017.
The Iraqi Kurdistan independence referendum that took place on September 25 triggered changes in the region. More than 90 percent of the voters who took part in the plebiscite backed the independence from Baghdad. Iraqi authorities declared the referendum illegal, while Turkey and Iran vehemently criticized the plebiscite and threatened to impose tough sanctions on Iraqi Kurdistan’s capital Erbil.
Read more:
Tensions Rising Between Syrian Army, Kurds Amid Creation of US Bases – Reports
‘Strongest sanctions in history’: Pompeo issues 12 demands to Iran, vows ‘unprecedented pressure’
RT | May 21, 2018
Tehran will struggle to “keep its economy alive” if it does not comply with a list of 12 US demands, including Iranian withdrawal from Syria, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo vowed on Monday.
Speaking at the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing Washington think tank, Pompeo laid out a list of 12 “basic requirements” for Iran. The demands call on Iran to withdraw from Syria, “release all US citizens,” end support for Houthi rebels in Yemen, stop “enrichment” of uranium, and promise never to process plutonium. Iran must also allow “unqualified access to all nuclear sites throughout the country,” Pompeo said.
He promised that the US would impose the “strongest sanctions in history” if Iran failed to comply with these demands.
Pompeo said that “the sting of sanctions will be painful” and Iran will struggle to “keep its economy alive” if Tehran “does not change its course from the unacceptable and unproductive path it has chosen.”
“Thanks to our colleagues at the Department of Treasury, sanctions are going back in full effect and new ones are coming … These will indeed end up being the strongest sanctions in history,” Pompeo said.
The secretary of state also pledged that the US “will track down Iranian operatives and their Hezbollah proxies operating around the world, and we will crush them. Iran will never again have carte blanche to dominate the Middle East.”
Speaking directly to the Iranian people, Pompeo claimed that “President [Hassan] Rouhani and Foreign Minister [Javad] Zarif… are your elected leaders. Are they not the most responsible for your economic struggles?” He added: “The United States believes you deserve better.”
Pompeo also said he’s sure that over time, Washington’s allies will warm to the Trump administration’s now unpopular stance on Iran.
Washington’s strategy is to weaken Iran economically, rather than engage in an actual war, Dr. Said Sadik, Professor of political sociology at the American university of Cairo, told RT in response to Pompeo’s address. “What the [US] is doing now is increase sanctions trying to undermine the power of Iran regionally, economically with the hope that that would lead to unrest and disturbances in Iran, that it would make the Iranian government stop trying to help its allies or extend its influence in the area. This is basically what they want.”
Sadik added: “I don’t think they want a war because war is very expensive and dangerous in this strategic area…What they want is to weaken Iran financially, economically, with the hope that the Iranian government will not be that powerful in the area as it is now.”
The speech comes after Trump announced earlier this month that he was pulling out of the 2015 nuclear deal. Europeans allies had pleaded with Trump not to withdraw from the historic accord, which put tight restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. Iranian president Hassan Rouhani described the US pull-out from the deal as a “historic experience for Iran,” adding that “by exiting the deal, America has officially undermined its commitment to an international treaty.”
Iran says it expects the EU to continue to honor the agreement, despite Washington’s withdrawal from the accord. Inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have repeatedly confirmed that Iran is in full compliance with its obligations under the deal.
US anti-tank missiles found at former Al-Nusra facility in Syria – Russian MoD
RT | May 21, 2018
US-made TOW anti-tank missiles, along with other weapons, have been found in facilities once controlled by Al-Nusra militants in Syria’s Homs province, the Russian Defense Ministry said.
The trove was located in a former observation point of the Al-Nusra Front terrorist group in the liberated Zaafaran settlement in Homs province, the Russian Center for Reconciliation in Syria said on Monday. “[We] can see here a large number of gas masks, weapons produced abroad, for example, TOW-2 anti-tank guided missiles. The facilities are very well-equipped,” Andrey Nekipelov, an official at the center, stated.
The BGM-71 TOW (Tube-launched, Optically tracked, Wire-guided) is one of the most widely used anti-tank missiles, which has been produced in the US since the 1970s. The missile has an operational range of more than 3,000 meters and an armor penetration of up to 800 millimeters, depending on the model. The TOW-2 referred to by the Russian MoD is an advanced and upgraded version of the missile.
Hundreds of the missiles have fallen into the hands of various rebel factions during the Syrian conflict. The US-made TOW was reportedly used in an attack on an RT crew in Syria back in 2015.
In 2016, another video published by a Syrian rebel group showed what appeared to be a direct hit by a US-made BGM-71 TOW on the turret of a Russian-supplied T-90 tank of the Syrian Army. A TOW usually devastates its target after a direct hit, causing ammo to explode and killing the crew. The alleged T-90, however, seemed to have been saved by its reactive armor.
TOW was reportedly deployed in the Vietnam War in 1970s, as well as in Afghanistan, Iraq, and a number of other conflict zones where Washington has been engaged in recent decades. Syria has become one of the recent locations where anti-tank missiles were spotted.
Speaking to RT back in 2016, German journalist Jurgen Todenhofer suggested that the US knows that the weapons it delivers to rebels end up with terrorists. “Everybody knows that they are using allies and they are allowing allies… It doesn’t matter if a TOW rocket or a TOW missile, which is an American missile, comes [to terrorists] from another group,” he said at the time. – Video
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From the Archives
The Great Recycling Scam
By Dr. Vernon Coleman – 21st Century Wire – September 2, 2022
Recycling was introduced, worldwide, as a tool to teach citizens to become compliant.
Forcing citizens to sort their rubbish into up to nine separate bags or boxes every week had absolutely nothing to do with ‘saving the planet’ and everything to do with teaching citizens (through a mixture of fines and shame) to behave ‘responsibly’ i.e. to do as they were told without looking too closely at the rationale of what they were being told to do.
The recycling never had anything to do with protecting the planet, of course. Most of the rubbish sorted, washed and collected in the UK was taken abroad, by lorry or ship or train, and burnt or dumped. It was, quite simply, impractical and not cost effective to recycle the material that had been collected. And, of course, collecting the sorted rubbish involved massive costs in terms of cash and pollution.
Today, the recycling business has reached an apogee of lunacy. Councils introduce ever more complex rules and fees. They refuse to take away much of the waste that is collected. And those wanting to take their rubbish to a ‘recycling’ centre will probably have to make an appointment and answer a host of questions.
It is no surprise that fly-tipping has become a major problem. The biggest causes of plastic in the sea are dumped fishing gear and plastic waste (much of it officially designated as recycled) which has been dumped by ships.
The good news, however, is that in Britain, recycling rates are falling. More and more people have become aware that the whole recycling movement was just another piece of manipulative trickery.
Blog Roll
Aletho News- The Case for Less Unity in Europe
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- The interest of the House of Rothschild in Ukraine
- Pentagon fires top military planner
- Three tankers hit mines on unauthorized Hormuz route: IRGC Navy
- Iran is (probably) collecting tolls, and why Asia stopped buying oil from the US
- Regional security runs through Tehran
- Voters Don’t Want the Old GOP
- Former US officials who resigned over Gaza urge 2028 presidential candidates to reject architects of Biden-era policy
- If Americans Knew
- The Two Faces of Gadi Eisenkot, Who Could Be Israel’s PM
- US Sending an Additional Patriot System to Israel To Prepare for Potential Attacks on Iran
- Pentagon Estimates the US Has Spent Over $47 Billion on Iran War, But True Cost Is Much Higher
- ‘Who Will Bomb Me Next?’: Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank on Israel’s Election
- DAILY UPDATE: Latest essential news on Palestine, Israel, & region
- Majority Of Jewish Schools In The UK Teaching Kids To “Love Israel”
- Eisenkot or Netanyahu: No matter who forms government, democracy is dead
- Six Palestinians Killed In Gaza In 24 Hours
- Israel’s election: The battle between change and anti-Palestinian sentiment
- Voters Don’t Want the Old GOP
- No Tricks Zone
- Germany’s Green Energy Transition Becoming Increasingly Expensive…Another 6 Trillion Euros!
- Sudden Stratospheric Warming, Powerful El Niño Combination May Lead To Extreme Europe Cold, Energy Crisis!
- Two New Studies Find Thwaites Glacier Melt Cannot Be Driven By Human Activity Or A Warming Ocean
- E-Cars Reduce CO2 Emissions By Only 41% Compared To Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles
- Predictions Made By Renowned Climate Professor Over Past Decades Have Been Proven To Be Poor
- New Study Suggests Large Regions Of The Pacific Ocean Have Been Cooling For The Last 80 Years
- Germany’s Green Energy Debacle: High Energy Costs Force Kahla Porzellan to Close After 182 Years!
- New Study: 50 Years Of The Most Aggressive ‘Net Zero’ Policies Can Only Affect The Global Climate By 0.03°C
- US September “Heat” Was No Record…Many Records Set Decades Ago
- Latest European Green Energy Debacle; Portugal’s Largest Flagship Solar Park Insolvent!
