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Docs Reveal That Turkish Officers Work With Daesh on Syrian Border

Sputnik – 24.02.2016

Despite Ankara’s declared commitment to fight Daesh, Turkey’s relations with the terrorist group are more complex. Documents recently released by the Cumhuriyet newspaper appear to show that Turkish officers on the border with Syria frequently communicated and worked with Daesh fighters.

The transcripts are said to be part of an ongoing investigation into several individuals and their ties to the terrorist group. They reportedly detail several phone conversations between unnamed Turkish officers and Mustafa Demir, a key Daesh operative in the border region.

“The transcripts and the documents in the investigation revealed that Demir received money… from smugglers at the border and cooperated with the officers as far as [border] crossings are concerned,” the Today’s Zaman newspaper quoted the daily as saying.

The documents also appear to indicate that Turkish officers met with Demir in the border region.

Demir is said to be linked to İlhami Balı, the 33-year-old Daesh leader, who is suspected of ordering the deadliest terrorist attack in Ankara’s history. The twin bombings last October left 102 people dead and more than 400 injured.

One of the transcripts translated into English by Today’s Zaman dates back to November 25, 2014. Demir asked an unnamed officer to arrange a meeting with a commander.

“Is it possible for you to arrange that I talk with the commander here, regarding the business here? What if we could establish a contact here as we helped you…” the Daesh fighter asked a Turkish officer. “Okay. If there are any needs [as far as your request is concerned], [tell them] to inform me here,” the officer responded.

In another conversation, a Turkish officer asked Demir to meet him and his comrades at a minefield. “We have stuff; come here from that side, the men are here… Come urgently; I’m in the mine [field] with a torch. Come running.”

“Okay, big brother, [I’m] coming,” Demir answered.The United States and other stakeholders have repeatedly urged Ankara to seal Turkey’s porous border with Syria, which Daesh, al-Nusra Front and other terrorist groups use to smuggle fighters, weapons and supplies in and out of Syria. The Turkish government has so far failed to deliver on the promise.

Access to unlimited supplies and recruits delivered to the Syrian battlefield through Turkey is largely seen as the key source of Daesh’s resilience and longevity. Ankara’s inability to secure the 60-mile border region has prompted many to question Erdogan’s true agenda with regard to the deadly Syrian conflict.

February 24, 2016 Posted by | Deception, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

‘Terror belt’: Turkish PM accuses Russia, Syria, Kurds of illegal actions on its borders

February 24, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Militarism, Video, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Sanders and Trump Are Too Establishment on Syria

By Sheldon Richman | Free Association | February 23, 2016

Marco Rubio and Hillary Clinton both want the U.S. government to set up a “safe zone” in Syria to care for refugees from the raging civil war. You may assess their judgment by noting that Secretary of State Clinton and Sen. Rubio also pushed for bombing and regime change in Libya, which was crucial in spreading bin Ladenite mayhem far and wide. And Rubio thinks knocking out the Sunni Islamic State would hurt Shi’ite Iran.

Ted Cruz does not call for a safe zone; he merely wants to bomb the Islamic State back to the stone age while arming the Kurds, whom the leadership of NATO member Turkey wants to destroy and the Sunni Arabs distrust. Cruz says the Kurds would be “our ground troops,” yet he does not rule out American troops as a last resort.

Where do the reputed anti-establishment candidates stand on the safe zone? Alas, Donald Trump favors it, and Bernie Sanders is ambiguous.

If this is disestablishmentarianism American-style, we are in bad shape.

“What I like is build a safe zone in Syria,” he said. “Build a big, beautiful safe zone, and you have whatever it is so people can live, and they’ll be happier. You keep ’em in Syria. You build a tremendous safe zone. It’ll cost you tremendously much less, much less, and they’ll be there and the weather’s the same.”

Like Cruz, Trump says he’d send U.S. ground forces “if need be,” but he also promises to “take the oil.” How would he do that without an extended stay for grounds troops.

What about Sanders? He is reported as opposing Clinton’s call for a safe zone, or a no-fly zone, but look at his precise wording from October: “I oppose, at this point, a unilateral American no-fly zone in Syria which could get us more deeply involved in that horrible civil war and lead to a never-ending U.S. entanglement in that region” (emphasis added).

I realize that candidates don’t like to close doors because reopening them later can look awkward. Still, that makes me nervous.

Sanders approves of President Obama’s bombing of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, and favors “supporting those in Syria trying to overthrow the brutal dictatorship of Bashar Assad” — which in reality means supporting bin Ladenites or worse. He has also said the Saudi regime should be pressured to fight the Islamic State: “This war is a battle for the soul of Islam and it’s going to have to be the Muslim countries who are stepping up. These are billionaire families all over that region. They’ve got to get their hands dirty. They’ve got to get their troops on the ground. They’ve got to win that war with our support.”

A Saudi-led effort, however, would be awkward, considering that the Saudis and their Gulf state partners enabled the rise of radical jihadism as part of an effort to make trouble for Iran and its ally Assad, their Shi’ite rivals. And let’s not forget that for a year the Saudis have practically been committing genocide, with Obama’s help, in Yemen. What’s with Sanders anyway?

“Why,” asks blogger Sam Husseini, “should a U.S. progressive be calling for more intervention by the Saudi monarchy? Really, we want Saudi troops in Syria and Iraq and Libya and who knows where else? You’d think that perhaps someone like Sanders would say that we have to break our decades-long backing of the corrupt Saudi regime — but no, he wants to dramatically accelerate it…. If the position of the most prominent ‘progressive’ on the national stage is for more Saudi intervention, what does that do to public understanding of the Mideast and dialogue between people in the U.S. and in Muslim countries?”

At least Sanders and Trump understand that George W. Bush’s Iraq war gave birth to the Islamic State, just as U.S. bombing and regime change in Libya and Obama and Clinton’s declaration of open season on Assad led to its expansion. What Sanders and Trump do not understand is that even the relatively limited involvement they favor would have a dynamic that could well lead a U.S. president to deploy ground troops to the quagmire both men say they want to avoid.

February 24, 2016 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Killing by Sanctions

By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • February 23, 2016

While Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, who is currently advising presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, famously said that the estimated 500,000 children who died as a result of U.S. sanctions on Iraq was “worth it.” It was, perhaps, a rare moment of candor from a politician, an admission that Washington is willing to support ostensibly non-lethal measures in such an all-encompassing fashion as to produce mass deaths of people who have no ability to influence the actions undertaken by their government. Sanctions are collective punishment, a blunt edged weapon used all too frequently by Washington to compel foreign governments to submit without having to go to war. There is nothing benign about them and Americans should regard them as potentially just as deadly as direct military intervention.

There are currently a number of countries that are subject to U.S. enforced sanctions but only three fall under the category of “state sponsors of terrorism.” They are Iran, Syria and Sudan. That status entails a number of U.S. Government sanctions including a ban on arms-related exports and sales; controls over exports of dual-use items; prohibitions on economic assistance; and imposition of miscellaneous financial and other restrictions. The financial measures require the United States to oppose loans by the World Bank or other international financial institutions and prohibit any U.S. person from engaging in a financial transaction with a terrorism-list government without a Treasury Department license issued by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). The license and other approvals are reported to be complicated and the process is extremely difficult to navigate, discouraging anyone from having business dealings with the targeted countries.

Other sanctions are not always directly related to terrorism. They sometimes target select individuals and organizations that are considered by the U.S. government to be focal points of some aberrant behavior. A number of Russian officials have been sanctioned over Ukraine and even over the functioning of the country’s judiciary while the Iranian Revolutionary Guard has been sanctioned both for its involvement with radical groups and its support of Tehran’s missile program. But the most devastating sanctions are those which are directed against a country and nearly everything that it does economically, which was the case with Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Currently, Sudan falls under that category.

I recently spent a week in Sudan as the guest of a NGO. The objective was to show a group of hopefully influential foreign visitors the devastating effect of sanctions on the local economy. We visitors were of course aware that we were being fed a line that was most favorable to the government position so we also spoke to other Sudanese who were not necessarily part of the program as well as to United States government officials working at the Embassy.

The status of state sponsor of terrorism was bestowed on Sudan back in 1993 after the Sudanese government invited Osama bin Laden to stay in the country. Subsequently it was also claimed that Khartoum was supporting radical groups in Africa and elsewhere, to include Boko Harum, Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army and Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Since that time the conditions that led to the designation have changed dramatically. Bin Laden was asked to leave and relations with a number of militant groups were severed. Sudan has even severed diplomatic relations with Iran.

The latest edition of the State Department’s annual Country Reports on Terrorism states that “Sudan remained a generally cooperative partner of the United States on counterterrorism. During the past year, the Government of Sudan continued to support counterterrorism operations to counter threats to U.S. interests and personnel in Sudan.” Beyond that, the Sudanese intelligence service has been active in sharing information on terrorists in neighboring countries, to include Yemen, Uganda, Eritrea, Somalia, Chad and Libya. The information has been of such value that in 2010 the United States intelligence community advocated decoupling intelligence sharing from restrictions imposed on bilateral contact due to concerns over developments in Darfur.

In 2010 John Kerry, then Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, pledged to the Sudanese government that the terrorism designation would be lifted but failed to follow through. Later, in 2013, as Secretary of State, he was reminded of his promise by his Sudanese counterpart but apparently was thwarted in taking any action by advisers around President Barack Obama, most notably Susan Rice and Samantha Power. Both had in part made their reputations by writing and speaking to condemn Sudan. They were among the first to describe the conflict in Darfur as a genocide and are correctly perceived as hostile to any change in Sudan’s status.

The other sanctions on Sudan, referred to as a “comprehensive trade embargo,” blend claims of terrorism support with alleged human rights violations. They were imposed by Bill Clinton in 1997 and supplemented under George W. Bush in 2006. The last of these were linked to what has been described as a civil war starting in 2003 pitting the mostly Arabic speaking north of the country against the mostly indigenous black African south and west. The western media depicted the conflict in a racial context as well as in terms of religion, with Muslim pitted against Christian and animist, but the reality was much more complex than that with groups also dividing along linguistic, tribal and even occupational lines, sometimes featuring nomadic herdsmen against farmers.

Most sources agree that the various wars in and around Sudan have cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of Sudanese as well as between 14,000 and 200,000 who were reportedly “enslaved” in abductions carried out by both sides. The conflict in Darfur has been described as a genocide with a government supported militia known as Janjaweed and the rebels together having been accused of carrying out numerous atrocities. As a consequence, Sudan’s then-and-now president Omar Hassan al-Bashir has been on the receiving end of an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court.

Al-Bashir, it should be noted became president by virtue of a military coup, though he has now been elected to office three times, once in an uncontested election in 1996 and in 2010 in a multiparty election that was described as “highly chaotic, non-transparent and vulnerable to electoral manipulation.” The most recent election took place on April 2015 and was strongly criticized by the U.S., Britain and Norway, all of whom had sent observers. Al-Bashir heads the ruling National Congress Party, but in fact he rules largely by fiat. He is either very popular or very unpopular with the Sudanese people depending on whom one talks to.

Genuine moves towards Sudanese democracy through the mechanism of a currently ongoing National Discussion are promising but are likely to slowly evolve in reality. The country’s legal system is based on Sharia but there is general tolerance of other religions in practice if not in law. The National Museum has a section relating to Christianity in Sudan and there is a Christian hour on television every Sunday. The Roman Catholic cathedral is located near the government center and there is also an active Coptic community. Christian community leaders openly support the existing government, just as they do in Syria, perhaps recognizing that available alternatives might be much worse.

A cease fire with the southern states in Sudan in 2005 led to the involvement of a United Nations Mission and a referendum in 2011 resulted in secession from the north. South Sudan is now an independent country that is enduring its own birth pangs. There are some reports of continued violence possibly instigated by Khartoum as well as little noticed government repression in the southern Blue Nile and South Kordofan states, which have been largely closed to the media and foreign NGOs pending yet another referendum to determine their future status.

Darfur followed with its own peace agreement in 2006. It is relatively quiet though military operations against a final hold out group of rebels in the region continue. Humanitarian and UN affiliated groups are in Darfur to monitor the process of reconciliation and it is expected that there will be another referendum to determine the region’s final status. At least some of the continuing unrest has been attributed to the activity of radicals from Chad, who are able to freely cross the open 600 mile long border to enter Darfur.

Business leaders in Khartoum note that there has been considerable economic growth in Sudan in spite of sanctions, concentrated in the sectors of oil, agriculture and mining. Since 1997, Sudan has been working with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to initiate reforms and create sustainable growth. There is, however, considerable official corruption and across the board poverty, largely among those engaged in agriculture.

In spite of some positive developments, Washington’s sanctions have blocked almost all business with Sudan. Selling or buying anything to or from Sudan requires clearance by OFAC and is largely limited to agricultural, communications or medical products. The paperwork requires months to complete and the actual purchases have to be made through third parties, meaning that everything costs more and comes without warranties, service or support. This is because the United States has effectively shut down any banking transactions or extensions of credit with Sudan and when no one can get paid except by suitcases full of cash it becomes impossible to conduct business. Few foreign banks exist in Sudan and they are very careful about how they operate. Even the IMF is reportedly having difficulty in funding its own projects in country. It all means that Sudan cannot pay its bills through conventional correspondent banking arrangements as foreign banks are fearful of being fined by the United States. No one is willing to take that risk.

To be sure, part of Sudan’s economic woes come from its sustaining a war economy in response to the unrest in several regions. But beyond that no investment money coming in due to sanctions means no improvement in agricultural technology, which would benefit the poorest part of the population, or in health care or in education. Poverty has been increasing due to sanctions and attempts to evade the restrictions have resulted in smuggling, money laundering and an increase in unconventional banking to include hawala transfers that are not subject to normal bank controls. Because Sudan is currently not integrated into the international banking system its transactions cannot be monitored to prevent terrorist money transfers.

And there is also a human price to pay for inability to move money. Sudanese health care providers believe that many preventable deaths are attributable to persistent lack of medicinal supplies or diagnostic equipment due to sanctions. Even if the numbers are overstated, that is almost certainly true. In a recent case three patients in Darfur died for lack of renal dialysis solutions.

I oppose sanctions in principle because I believe they are a blunt instrument that punishes innocent civilians when broadly construed while having no effect at all when directly targeting the country’s relatively wealthy and unreachable government officials. If sanctions are to make any sense they should be designed to achieve a quantifiable result but that is rarely the case and they frequently serve no purpose whatsoever beyond dishing out punishment. It has been claimed that sanctions actually worked in Sudan because its government has moved to meet some of Washington’s demands over Darfur and South Sudan, but that is a simplistic explanation for rather more complex phenomena that were likely driven by multiple constituencies and interests.

More often than not, sanctions harden a government’s resolve to resist, as they did in Cuba, and even become useful to the regime as an excuse for government failures. The explanation provided by George W. Bush’s special envoy to Sudan, Andrew Natsios, that sanctions “send a message… to start behaving differently when they deal with their own people. That’s what this is all about,” is hubristic imperialism at its finest. It is reported in Sudan that many young Sudanese hate the United States and it is not difficult to understand why.

And there are good selfish reasons for the United States to lift sanctions and normalize relations with Khartoum. Sudan is an autocracy but no worse than American allies like Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and Egypt. It is active in fighting alleged rebels but is far more restrained than the current Saudi military intervention in Yemen. And though Khartoum has had sometimes ambivalent relationships with Islamic radicals it has been far less engaged in that fashion than Pakistan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. So Sudan passes the smell test for being a disagreeable regime that is compatible with the United States’ broader interests.

And those broader interests are clear, including allowing American companies to participate in the future development of the country. U.S. sanctions have forced the Sudanese to turn to Moscow and Beijing for assistance. Russia is involved in gold mining and China is increasingly engaged in transportation, communications and energy projects. The Sudanese rail network and its international air carrier Sudan Air have collapsed due to lack of spare parts for their U.S. made hardware, an opportunity for American suppliers to quickly reenter the market. It is not in the U.S. national interest to create conditions favorable to competitors seeking to dominate the potentially large and developing Sudanese economy, ceding to them a significant foothold in East Africa by default.

Furthermore, Sudan is a bridge between Africa and the Arab world. It harbors no international terrorists and is a relative oasis of calm in a region in turmoil, well placed to monitor developments in neighboring Egypt, Chad, Libya, Somalia, Eritrea, Zaire, Central African Republic, Uganda and Yemen. It has made a significant contribution in counterterrorism and could do even better if properly motivated and provided with the tools needed, potentially playing a major role in the U.S. sponsored Partnership for Regional East Africa Counterterrorism. Normalizing relations with Sudan’s banks could, inter alia, stop money laundering and shut down possible terrorist money transfers.

There is, in short, no good reason to continue the status quo apart from the objections of two Obama advisers who have a personal stake in depicting Sudan in the most negative fashion. Unfortunately U.S. foreign policy has drifted away from supporting actual national interests and is mired in responding to various constituencies, in Obama’s case the “responsibility to protect” advocates. One can quite imagine that with something like a Marco Rubio it would revert to the mindless belligerency mode, but as both models seek to remake foreign governments they should equally be eschewed. Countries like Sudan and Iran should not be made to feel that they are permanently under the heel of the American jackboot. Nor should Washington feel compelled to play that role. Except in those rare situations where trade embargoes can inhibit flows of weapons to belligerents in a hot war, sanctions are useless, diminishing both those who apply the punishment and those who are on the receiving end. They should never be considered a serious instrument for foreign policy.

February 23, 2016 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Breaking down the US-Russia ceasefire plan for Syria

RT | February 22, 2016

Following Moscow and Washington’s announcement of a joint ceasefire deal for Syria, the war-torn country may be on the verge of the biggest peacemaking breakthrough since fighting broke out there five years ago. Here is how the proposed truce should work:

When does it start?

The ceasefire will become official at midnight Damascus time on Saturday, February 27 (or on Friday at 22:00 GMT). Those who subscribe to the agreement have to publicly declare that they will desist from hostilities by a deadline 12 hours before the ceasefire comes into effect, and inform the White House or the Kremlin.

Who does it apply to?

It is clearer which parties it doesn’t apply to: “‘Daesh’ [Islamic State], ‘Jabhat al-Nusra’ [an al-Qaeda offshoot], or other terrorist organizations designated by the UN Security Council,” according to the Joint Statement. The Syrian government, as well as the oft-mentioned “moderate opposition” factions and the Kurds, will have to take it upon themselves to put down arms – or face consequences.

If the sides agree, what will be expected of them?

Participants are obligated to “cease attacks with any weapons, including rockets, mortars, and anti-tank guided missiles” and “refrain from acquiring or seeking to acquire territory from other parties to the ceasefire.” They must also allow “unhindered and sustained” access to humanitarian assistance missions and employ only “proportional force” in self-defense against those not party to the agreement.

How will the ceasefire function in practice?

Moscow and Washington will “work together to exchange pertinent information,” such as up-to-date maps indicating which sides have agreed to the ceasefire, and where they are located. The parties that are confirmed to have agreed to the ceasefire conditions should no longer come under fire from either side. The firepower is then expected to be concentrated on Islamic State and other jihadists.

How will it be monitored?

A Task Force will be set up, co-chaired by Moscow and Russia, which will “promote compliance and rapidly de-escalate tensions,” serve as an arbiter to “resolve allegations of non-compliance,” and refer “persistent” truce-breakers to senior officials to “determine appropriate action, including the exclusion of such parties from the arrangements of the cessation of hostilities.” A direct hotline will be set up between Moscow and Washington to avoid internal squabbles and improve contact inside the Task Force. The statement also leaves a role for public institutions and journalists in keeping the peace, promising that the ceasefire “will be monitored in an impartial and transparent manner and with broad media coverage.”

Read more:

Ceasefire in Syria to commence at midnight on Feb. 27 – Russia & US

February 22, 2016 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Civilian casualties in Syria, flood of refugees, western propaganda: Russian FM Spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, on RT

In the Now | February 17, 2016

February 21, 2016 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Video | , , , , | Leave a comment

Pentagon mercenaries: Blackwater, Al-Qaeda… what’s in a name?

By Finian Cunningham | RT | February 21, 2016

CIA-linked private “security” companies are fighting in Yemen for the US-backed Saudi military campaign. Al-Qaeda-affiliated mercenaries are also being deployed. Melding private firms with terror outfits should not surprise. It’s all part of illegal war making.

Western news media scarcely report on the conflict in Yemen, let alone the heavy deployment of Western mercenaries in the fighting there. In the occasional Western report on Al-Qaeda and related terror groups in Yemen, it is usually in the context of intermittent drone strikes carried out by the US, or with the narrative that these militants are “taking advantage” of the chaos “to expand” their presence in the Arabian Peninsula, as reported here by the Washington Post.

This bifurcated Western media view of Yemen belies a more accurate and meaningful perspective, which is that the US-backed Saudi bombing campaign is actually coordinated with an on-the-ground military force that comprises regular troops, private security firms and Al-Qaeda type mercenaries redeployed from Syria.

There can be little doubt in Syria – despite Western denials – that the so-called Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL)) jihadists and related Al-Qaeda brigades in Jabhat al-Nusra, Jaish al-Fateh, Ahrar ash-Sham and so on, have been infiltrated, weaponized and deployed for the objective of regime-change by the US and its allies. If that is true for Syria, then it is also true for Yemen. Indeed, the covert connection becomes even more apparent in Yemen.

Last November, the New York Times confirmed what many Yemeni sources had long been saying. That the US-backed Saudi military coalition trying to defeat a popular uprising was relying on mercenaries supplied by private security firms tightly associated with the Pentagon and the CIA.

The mercenaries were recruited by companies linked to Erik Prince, the former US Special Forces commando-turned businessman, who set up Blackwater Worldwide. The latter and its re-branded incarnations, Xe Services and Academi, remain a top private security contractor for the Pentagon, despite employees being convicted for massacring civilians while on duty in Iraq in 2007. In 2010, for example, the Obama administration awarded the contractor more than $200 million in security and CIA work.

Erik Prince, who is based primarily in Virginia where he runs other military training centers, set up a mercenary hub in the United Arab Emirates five years ago with full support from the royal rulers of the oil-rich state. The UAE Company took the name Reflex Responses or R2. The NY Times reported that some 400 mercenaries were dispatched from the Emirates’ training camps to take up assignment in Yemen. Hundreds more are being trained up back in the UAE for the same deployment.

This is just one stream of several “soldiers of fortune” going into Yemen to fight against the uprising led by Houthi rebels, who are in alliance with remnants of the national army. That insurgency succeeded in kicking out the US and Saudi-backed president Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi in early 2015. Hadi has been described as a foreign puppet, who presided over a corrupt regime of cronyism and vicious repression.

Since last March, the Saudis and other Persian Gulf Arab states have been bombing Yemen on a daily basis in order to overthrow the Houthi-led rebellion and reinstall the exiled Hadi.

Washington and Britain have supplied warplanes and missiles, as well as logistics, in the Saudi-led campaign, which has resulted in thousands of civilian deaths. The involvement of Blackwater-type mercenaries – closely associated with the Pentagon – can also be seen as another form of American contribution to the Saudi-led campaign.

The mercenaries sent from the UAE to Yemen are fighting alongside other mercenaries that the Saudis have reportedly enlisted from Sudan, Eritrea and Morocco. Most are former soldiers, who are paid up to $1,000 a week while serving in Yemen. Many of the Blackwater-connected fighters from the UAE are recruited from Latin America: El Salvador, Panama and primarily Colombia, which is considered to have good experience in counter-insurgency combat.

Also among the mercenaries are American, British, French and Australian nationals. They are reportedly deployed in formations along with regular troops from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and the UAE.

In recent months, the Houthi rebels (also known as Ansarullah) and their allies from the Yemeni army – who formed a united front called the Popular Committees – have inflicted heavy casualties on the US-Saudi coalition. Hundreds of troops have been reportedly killed in gun battles in the Yemeni provinces of Marib, in the east, and Taiz, to the west. The rebels’ use of Tochka ballistic missiles has had particularly devastating results.

So much so that it is reported that the Blackwater-affiliated mercenaries have “abandoned the Taiz front” after suffering heavy casualties over the last two months. “Most of the Blackwater operatives killed in Yemen were believed to be from Colombia and Argentina; however, there were also casualties from the United States, Australia and France,” Masdar News reports.

Into this murky mix are added extremist Sunni militants who have been dispatched to Yemen from Syria. They can be said to be closely related, if not fully integrated, with Al-Qaeda or IS in that they profess allegiance to a “caliphate” based on a fundamentalist Wahhabi, or Takfiri, ideology.

These militants began arriving in Yemen in large numbers within weeks of Russia’s military intervention in Syria beginning at the end of September, according to Yemeni Army spokesman Brigadier General Sharaf Luqman. Russian air power immediately began inflicting severe losses on the extremists there. Senior Yemeni military sources said that hundreds of IS-affiliated fighters were flown into Yemen’s southern port city of Aden onboard commercial aircraft belonging to Turkey, Qatar and the UAE.

Soon after the militants arrived, Aden residents said the city had descended into a reign of terror. The integrated relationship with the US-Saudi coalition can be deduced from the fact that Aden has served as a key forwarding military base for the coalition. Indeed, it was claimed by Yemen military sources that the newly arrived Takfiri militants were thence dispatched to the front lines in Taiz and Marib, where the Pentagon-affiliated mercenaries and Saudi troops were also assigned.

It is true that the Pentagon at times wages war on Al-Qaeda-related terrorists. The US airstrike in Libya on Friday, which killed some 40 IS operatives at an alleged training camp, is being trumpeted by Washington as a major blow against terrorism. And in Yemen since 2011, the CIA and Pentagon have killed many Al-Qaeda cadres in drone strikes, with the group’s leader being reportedly assassinated last June in a US operation.

Nevertheless, as the broader US-Saudi campaign in Yemen illustrates, the outsourcing of military services to private mercenaries in conjunction with terrorist militia is evidently an arm of covert force for Washington.

This is consistent with how the same groups have been deployed in Syria for the purpose of regime change there.

The blurring of lines between regular military, private security contractors with plush offices in Virginia and Abu Dhabi, and out-and-out terror groups is also appropriate. Given the nature of the illegal wars being waged, it all boils down to state-sponsored terrorism in the end.

Finian Cunningham (born 1963) has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages. Originally from Belfast, Northern Ireland, he is a Master’s graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in newspaper journalism. For over 20 years he worked as an editor and writer in major news media organizations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent. Now a freelance journalist based in East Africa, his columns appear on RT, Sputnik, Strategic Culture Foundation and Press TV.

February 21, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Erdogan’s Insane Regret Turkey Didn’t Join George W. Bush in Attacking Iraq in 2003

Turkish President’s comments expressing regret for Turkey’s refusal to join US-led coalition which invaded Iraq cast doubt on his grasp of reality.

Russia – Insider | February 20, 2016

Anyone who worries about Turkish President Erdogan’s uncertain grip on reality will have had those worries confirmed by comments he has recently made about Turkey’s role in the 2003 Iraq invasion.

If there is one thing most people around the world agree about it is that George W. Bush’s war against Iraq was a disaster.

Leaders and countries that involved themselves in the war today regret doing so. In Britain former Prime Minister Tony Blair has seen his reputation destroyed because of his role in the war.

By contrast US allies who held aloof from the war thank their lucky stars they did so, whilst in the US Obama’s successful run for the Presidency was in part at least because of his opposition to the war.

One world leader begs to differ: Step forward Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

He says he regrets the Turkish parliament’s vote in 2002 in the run-up to the 2003 war to block the US military’s invasion of Iraq through Turkey.

He says Turkey made a mistake by not joining the US-led coalition which in 2003 invaded Iraq.

That must make Erdogan the one leader in the world sorry his country was not part of a disaster – and to say so after it happened!

February 21, 2016 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Turkey has right to conduct ops in Syria, elsewhere to protect itself from terrorists – Erdogan

RT | February 21, 2016

Turkey has the right to carry out military operations not only in Syria, but in any other country, which is hosting terror groups that threaten the Turkish state, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.

“Turkey has every right to conduct operations in Syria and the places where terror organizations are nested with regards to the struggle against the threats that Turkey faces,” Erdogan was cited as saying by the Hurriyet newspaper Sunday.

Ankara’s stance has “absolutely nothing to do with the sovereignty rights of the states that can’t take control of their territorial integrity,” the president insisted.

“On the contrary, this has to do with the will Turkey shows to protect its sovereignty rights,” he added.

The Turkish president used an unexpected platform to make his hawkish remarks as he visited an event celebrating the inclusion of Turkey’s southeastern province of Gaziantep on the list of UNESCO’s Creative Cities Network in the gastronomy category.

Erdogan warned that his government will treat “attitudes to prevent our country’s right [to self-defense] directly as an initiative against Turkey’s entity – no matter where it comes from.”

“No one can restrict Turkey’s right to self-defense in the face of terror acts that have targeted Turkey; they cannot prevent [Turkey] from using it,” he added.

The Turkish forces have been shelling Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) forces, which Ankara views as a terrorist organization, as well as government troops on Syrian territory since mid-February.

The bombings of YPG targets, the military wing of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), continue despite Turkey’s ally, the US, considering the Kurdish fighters an important partner in fighting Islamic State (IS, Daesh, formerly ISIS/ISIL) .

There were also reports of dozens of Turkish military vehicles crossing into Kurdish northern Syria, with servicemen digging tranches in the area.

In December, Ankara also deployed 150 soldiers backed by artillery and around 25 tanks to northern Iraq, without consent from the government in Baghdad.

“Turkey will use its right to expand its rules of engagement beyond [responding to] actual attacks against it and to encompass all terror threats, including PYD and Daesh, in particular,” Erdogan said Sunday as cited by Anadolu news agency.

28 people, mainly Turkish military, were killed and 61 other injured in a suicide bombing Ankara on Wednesday.

Despite the Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK) militants group claiming responsibility for the attack, Turkey claims that YPG was also involved.

In an attempt to protect itself, Turkey will treat anyone, who opposes it as a “terrorist and treat them accordingly,” the President said.

“I especially want this to be known this way,” he added.

Erdogan also slammed the countries, who criticized Ankara for their incursion into Iraq and Syria, calling them “disingenuous” due to “preaching only patience and resoluteness” to Turkey, but acting in a completely different manner when attacked themselves.

February 21, 2016 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Obama admits US-ISIS terror link

By Finian Cunningham | American Herald tribune | February 18, 2016

Call it a Freudian slip, but US President Barack Obama appears to have come clean, for once, on the connection between American foreign policy and the so called Islamic State (ISIS) terror group.

In an address earlier this week to the leaders of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), gathered in California, Obama was answering questions from news reporters on various international topics. On the matter of terrorist groups expanding their foothold in Libya, the president said the following: “With respect to Libya… we will go after ISIS wherever it appears, the same way we went after al Qaeda wherever they appeared.”

In casual parlance the phrase “go after” can mean “to destroy”. But the more literal meaning and perhaps the one that Obama inadvertently let slip is simply “to follow”–as in a partnered way.

In that case, what Obama is referring to is the actual foreign policy function of ISIS and its related al Qaeda terror network. Wherever these groups appear, then Washington appoints itself to follow them under the pretext of fighting terrorism.

This pretext works very efficiently to nullify problems of international law. When the US sends its military into a foreign country to ostensibly combat terrorism then it is untrammeled by legal objections that it is violating other countries’ sovereignty. What would normally be seen as a gross violation –a military invasion by the US –is neatly transformed into an “anti-terror”operation. And if the incumbent foreign government complains about the “benevolent US assistance” then it can be toppled because it is “siding with the terrorists”.

This is, of course, the whole rationale behind the so-called War on Terror that Washington crafted in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Just uttering the phrase War on Terror gives Washington license to invade and ransack any foreign state it chooses, as in Afghanistan and Iraq, where more than one million people were killed by US forces “hunting down terrorists”.

Before that, the official pretexts were “War on Communism”or “War on Drugs”. But with the collapse of the “Evil Soviet Empire”, the first of these pretexts became redundant. Although, Washington and its NATO allies are trying their best to revive the “Russian Scare” by demonizing Vladimir Putin as the “new Hitler in Europe”. As for the War on Drugs, it didn’t quite have the required kick to pump up the Pentagon’s $600 billion annual budget, or to enthuse the American public, many of whom rather enjoy drugs anyway.

But the War on Terror, now that is, or at least was, a satisfying wheeze. It also has the added benefit of allowing federal authorities to crack down on civil rights and make all sorts of invasive controls over individual liberty, as in the latest controversy of the FBI demanding that Apple give them a digital key for unlocking phones and computers.

The primary function, however, remains: the terror groups, whether they go by the name of al Qaeda or ISIS, give Washington the convenient cover to militarily invade any country on the globe. The real agenda being regime change or commandeering the natural resources of the target country for the gratification of Wall Street banks and other American corporations –in the exact same scam that pertained in the old days of Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler, who later confessed to being a henchman on behalf of US capitalism, by overthrowing governments in Central America and the Caribbean during the early 1900s.

Admittedly, sometimes the terrorists do get whacked by the Pentagon. No doubt about it that Obama and his generals have killed numerous al Qaeda-linked operatives with assassination drone strikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen. Many more innocent civilians have also been murdered along the way by US drones.

The assassination of terror cadres by Washington may seem like a contradiction to the overall argument here that there is a mutual connection between the two. However, we shouldn’t think of Washington as a monolith. There are no doubt people within the US establishment who are dedicated to genuinely fighting terrorism, and sometimes they succeed.

But that doesn’t negate the central point that the US has covertly created these same terrorist groups to expedite its own foreign policy and geopolitical ambitions. We can’t go into the full history here, but it is well documented that the CIA engendered, mobilized and weaponized al Qaeda “the database” to fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan during the 1980s. It wasn’t just the CIA. British MI6, French DGSE and Pakistani ISI were involved, as were the Saudi regime who provided the billions of dollars of finance and fundamentalist Wahhabi ideology that perversely empowers cadres to kill anyone –men, women and children –whom is designated an “infidel”. In other words, perfect proxy killers for the powers-that-be.

Despite the propaganda pumped out in the Western mainstream media of a US-led coalition “fighting terrorism” in Syria, the hard fact is that al Qaeda, ISIS and a plethora of other terrorist mercenary brigades were sent into Syria by the same US-led coalition for the purpose of regime change against the Russian and Iranian-allied government of President Bashar al-Assad. Readers can look up the candid admission of Lt General Michael Flynn, the former chief of US Defense Intelligence Agency as to the cynical calculations that Washington made in unleashing the terrorists on Syria.

If the US were really fighting terrorism in Syria then how do you explain this headline from McClatchy News referring to the huge discrepancy in Russian bombing raids compared with American. “Russia hit 1,888 targets in Syria in a week; the US count? Just 16”.

Face it. Until Russia intervened last September, the ISIS terror network had proliferated under US “bombing” to such an extent that Syria was in danger of being overthrown (as according to Washington’s plan).

Having failed in that mission largely because of Russia’s military intervention over the past five months, the fallback option provided by the terror groups is that they could be used to justify an outright military invasion of Syria by the US-led coalition, in the form of NATO-member Turkey and Saudi Arabia along with the other American-Arab puppet-regimes.

As Obama let slip at the ASEAN summit this week: “Wherever ISIS or al Qaeda appears, we will go after them.”

Well said Mr President. For once, you told the plain truth.

PS. The ASEAN venue where Obama was speaking at in Sunnylands, California is called “Rancho Mirage”. Kind of appropriate, don’t you think?

February 20, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

No strategic divide between US & Turkey – only a division of labor

By Dan Glazebrook | RT | February 19, 2016

No one should be fooled into thinking the recent Turkish shelling and pressure for a ‘no-fly zone’ put it at odds with the US – rather they fulfill US strategic goals whilst simultaneously providing ‘plausible deniability’.

One week ago, on February 10, units from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance captured Menagh airbase and several surrounding villages in northwest Syria from Al-Qaeda franchise Jabhat Al-Nusra and their allies Ahrar Al Sham, who had held it since August 2013. One might think the liberation of such a significant asset would be a cause for celebration amongst the NATO powers who are, after all, supposedly facing an existential threat from Al-Qaeda and its various offshoots.

But apparently not. By the weekend, NATO member Turkey was shelling the base and its surrounding regions, with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmed Davutoglu vowing to render it “unusable” unless the SDF withdraw – that is to say, hand it back to Al-Qaeda. Their bombardment has continued ever since, hitting Syrian government forces in the town of Deir Jamal, as well as the SDF. Davutoglu promised “the harshest reaction” if the SDF were to take the town of Azaz – currently controlled by, you guessed it, Ahrar al Sham and Al-Qaeda – towards which they were rapidly advancing. “We will not allow Azaz to fall,” he said, ‘fall’ here being a euphemism for liberation from the Wahhabi death squads.

At the same time, Saudi Arabia and Turkey have been regularly briefing the media about their desire to send their armies into Syria, to establish a ‘safe zone’ on the Turkish-Syrian border aimed at keeping open the supply lines to rebel-controlled territories such as Aleppo (dominated, according to the Institute for the Study of War, by Al-Qaeda, ISIS and Ahrar Al Sham). Turkish military sources have subsequently announced that Saudi jets are to be deployed at the Incirlik airbase in Turkey within the coming weeks.

For some commentators, all of this demonstrates that Turkey has somehow gone ‘rogue’, putting it at odds with the US and straining the sinews of its alliance. Turkey is facilitating militant jihadis, it is argued, whilst the US is trying to fight them; and it is attacking the SDF, who the US is supporting. The SDF is, after all, an official ally of the US, who has been advancing thanks in part to US air support – yet is viewed by Turkey as a terrorist group due to the presence in their ranks of the Kurdish YPG, who have fraternal relations with the PKK, with whom the Turkish state has been at war for decades. For the Guardian, “the Turkish strikes… triggered alarm in Washington”, whilst a Reuters headline suggested that the “Kurdish advance in Syria divides US and Turkey”. “Following Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s remarks calling on the US to choose between its ally Turkey and “the terrorists in Kobani,” wrote the Turkish newspaper Sunday’s Zaman “Ankara is now not on good terms with the US”.

The reality, however, is that Turkey appears to have had US approval every step of the way.

Take, for example, the official US reaction to the Turkish shelling. Statements by State Department spokesman John Kirby have generally been depicted as ‘admonishing’ Turkey for its actions. In fact, he called for “de-escalating tensions on all sides,” adding that “we have urged Syrian Kurdish and other forces affiliated with the YPG not to take advantage of a confused situation by seizing new territory.” In other words, he has repeated Turkey’s demands that northwest Syria be left under Al-Qaeda control. This hardly qualifies as a major dressing down.

Also hugely important to note is that right between the seizure of Menagh on Wednesday and the beginning of Turkish shelling on Saturday, NATO had 2 important meetings: one formal, one informal. On Thursday, buried deep in an announcement about NATO operations in the Aegean Sea, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg mentioned that NATO had also agreed “to intensify intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance at the Turkish-Syrian border.”

That was the formal meeting. Later that day – that is just one day before the International Syria Support Group announced plans for a “cessation of hostilities” – the defense secretaries of the US, the UK, Turkey and the Gulf states met at NATO HQ to discuss the possibility of inserting ground troops into Syria and establishing a “no-fly zone” on the Syrian-Turkish border. Talking in advance of this meeting, US Defense Secretary Ash Carter appeared to relish such action, welcoming the prospect of “strong contributions” from the Gulf States, which he said would be a “good thing”. “There are lots of different ways that Saudi Arabia and Bahrain can contribute,” he noted, “one of them is on the ground – and we’ll definitely be discussing that – but there are lots of other ways as well.” Two days later, Turkey began shelling Syria.

Ostensibly, these were meetings of the ‘anti-ISIS’ coalition. But, as the Guardian innocently noted, “Given that the US and its allies have been in action against ISIS in Syria and Iraq since September 2014, it is remarkable that the meeting on Thursday afternoon is the first to be held by the defense ministers from the anti-ISIS coalition.” What has really prompted their sense of urgency has nothing to do with the ‘phony‘ war against ISIS, and everything to do with the growing military success of the Syrian government.

Rhetorical nonsense about the need to ‘combat ISIS’ notwithstanding, it is clear that Turkey and the West remain very much on the same page over Syria. There is indeed a red line for both, and that red line is the prospect of a Syrian government victory – which, following Russia’s decisive intervention now seems like a very real possibility. The major rebel supply line to Aleppo was cut off on February 3, meaning that both the recapture of Aleppo and the sealing of the Turkish-Syrian border now lie visibly within the government’s grasp. As Reuters has correctly noted, “That would amount to its most decisive victory of the war so far, and probably put an end to rebel hopes of removing Assad by force, their goal throughout years of fighting that has driven 11 million people from their homes.”

Such an outcome would have monumental consequences for the entire globe. It would mark the first decisive defeat for a Western-sponsored regime change operation since the end of the Cold War, perhaps since Vietnam. It would demonstrate that the new ‘4+1’ alliance (of Iran, Iraq, Russia, Syria and Hezbollah) are able to inflict defeat on Western-backed forces, rendering US sponsorship and protection all but worthless. It would provide states over the world with the military rationale (the economic rationale is already obvious) for aligning themselves with the BRICS rather than the US. And it would make sectarian death squads throughout the region, for long the ‘cheap power’ arm of US and British foreign policy, wary of ever again relying on Western backing. In short, it would mark an unprecedented and irreversible shift in power from West to East.

There is no way that the Western powers are going to allow this to happen lying down. And plans are rapidly being drawn up to avoid this. The aim is to ensure the Syrian-Turkish border stays open, to guarantee that the rebels supply lines are not jeopardized; this is the only way to avoid defeat in, not only, Aleppo, but in Syria as a whole. How to do this?

First, Turkey is filling the Syrian side of its border crossing with refugees to act as human shields. Last week, for the first time, President Erdogan closed the border to fleeing refugees, instead setting up camps inside Syria. These will provide the ‘collateral damage’ necessary to paint any Syrian government-Kurdish – Russian moves to take the territory and seal the border as a massacre and humanitarian emergency. Erdogan’s comments last week that the United Nations needed to step in to prevent “ethnic cleansing” are clearly part of the ideological groundwork to prepare for a ‘humanitarian intervention’ which, in reality, will serve to create a NATO-backed, Turkish and Saudi-enforced, occupation zone in northwest Syria designed to keep the border open, keep the death squads supplied with weapons and fighters, and, in short, keep the war going.

Far from angering Washington, Turkey’s actions put it right at the vanguard of US strategic designs. Make no mistake; the US is preparing to fight Russia – right down to the last Turk.

Dan Glazebrook is a freelance political writer who has written for RT, Counterpunch, Z magazine, the Morning Star, the Guardian, the New Statesman, the Independent and Middle East Eye, amongst others. His first book “Divide and Ruin: The West’s Imperial Strategy in an Age of Crisis” was published by Liberation Media in October 2013. It featured a collection of articles written from 2009 onwards examining the links between economic collapse, the rise of the BRICS, war on Libya and Syria and ‘austerity’. He is currently researching a book on US-British use of sectarian death squads against independent states and movements from Northern Ireland and Central America in the 1970s and 80s to the Middle East and Africa today.

February 20, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Moscow must stop supporting Syrian President Assad: Hollande

Press TV – February 19, 2016

French President François Hollande says Moscow must stop supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as the West rejects a Russian-drafted UN resolution aimed at halting Turkey’s military actions in northern Syria.

“Russia will not succeed by unilaterally backing Bashar al-Assad. It’s not possible, we all see it. Because there will be no results on the ground, there won’t be negotiations and there will always be war,” Hollande told France Inter radio on Friday.

He added that “there must be pressure on Moscow” so that it helps to resume Syria peace talks.

The latest round of talks between the Syrian government and the Saudi-backed opposition — known as the High Negotiations Committee (HNC) — which was being held in the Swiss city of Geneva, was suspended on February 3 after the opposition refused to attend the sessions. The next round was slated for February 25; however, UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said on Friday that the resumption of the talks on the planned date is not realistic.

On February 12, the International Syria Support Group (ISSG) agreed in the German city of Munich to seek a nationwide ceasefire in Syria beginning in a week’s time. It also decided to accelerate and expand humanitarian aid deliveries to the country. According to the ISSG statement, the truce in Syria does not include areas held by groups designated as terrorist organizations by the UN Security Council, including Daesh and the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front.

Russia began its air campaign in Syria on September 30, 2015 at the request of the Damascus government. The air raids have expedited the advances of Syrian forces against foreign-backed militants operating in the country.

‘Risk of Turkey-Russia war’

Regarding Ankara’s escalating involvement in the Syrian crisis, the French president said it was creating a risk of war between Turkey and Russia.

Ankara has been targeting the positions of fighters of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and its umbrella group Democratic Union Party (PYD) in northern Syria for nearly a week in an attempt to stop Kurdish forces from reaching the Syrian border with Turkey, while Syrian forces have been making steady gains.

Turkey is also among the few countries insisting that the only way to stop the war in Syria is to deploy ground forces in the Arab country’s northern regions.

“Turkey is involved in Syria… There, there is a risk of war,” Hollande told France Inter radio. “That is why the Security Council is meeting,” Hollande noted.
Soldiers carry ammunition as Turkish artillery fire from the border city of Kilis toward northern Syria, February 15, 2016. (AP)

Russia-drafted resolution

The Security Council held an emergency meeting on Friday afternoon at Moscow’s request to discuss Syrian-related developments, including the Russian-drafted resolution calling on the council to express “its grave alarm at the reports of military buildup and preparatory activities aimed at launching foreign ground intervention into the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic.”

It also called on countries to “refrain from provocative rhetoric and inflammatory statements inciting further violence and interference into internal affairs of the Syrian Arab Republic.”

The draft was, however, rejected by the representatives of France, the US and Britain at the meeting.

“Russia must understand that its unconditional support to Bashar al-Assad is a dead end, and a dead end that could be extremely dangerous,” French Ambassador to the UN François Delattre said ahead of the meeting.

“We are facing a dangerous military escalation that could easily get out of control and lead us to uncharted territory,” he added.

US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power said Russia is “trying to distract the world” with the draft resolution, calling on Moscow to focus on implementing a UN resolution agreed by the 15-member council in December last year that endorsed an international road map for a Syria peace process.

The resolution, adopted on December 18, called for a nationwide ceasefire in Syria and the formation of a “credible, inclusive and non-sectarian” government within six months and UN-supervised “free and fair elections” within 18 months.

Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. According to a new report by the Syrian Center for Policy Research, the conflict has claimed the lives of over 470,000 people, injured 1.9 million others, and displaced nearly half of the country’s pre-war population of about 23 million within or beyond its borders.

February 19, 2016 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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