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Thread: Ukraine, Crimea, Syria, Israel, Iran, Turkey, Putin, China, and World War III

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    Default Re: Ukraine, Crimea, Syria, Israel, Iran, Turkey, Putin, China, and World War III

    No one allowed to leave: Militants shell East Aleppo exit route as humanitarian pause ends

    Published time: 22 Oct, 2016 22:41
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    The area of the humanitarian corridor in Aleppo, Syria. © Michail Alaeddin / Sputnik

    Not a single civilian has been able to flee militant-held East Aleppo as the third day of a humanitarian ceasefire initiated by Moscow and Damascus came to an end, RT’s correspondent on the ground reports. Terrorists also bombed the humanitarian corridor.

    “There were ambulances, buses waiting for civilians, waiting for the sick, nobody was allowed to leave,” RT’s Murad Gazdiev, who is currently in Aleppo, reported on Saturday.

    Instead, “rebels and Jihadists” shelled the crossings designated to allow free passage to those willing to exit the encircled part of Aleppo.

    On October 18, Moscow and Damascus halted their anti-terrorist strikes on East Aleppo. Starting from October 20, a humanitarian ceasefire saw an opening of four corridors for civilians and two for militants to offer a safe way out. The UN and other aid groups were supposed to bring humanitarian aid through the respective corridors as well. On Thursday, militants opened fire on one of the routes, injuring three Russian officers at the El-Masharka government checkpoint, Moscow said.

    The evacuation of civilians was “impossible” due to the poor security situation on the ground, Ingy Sedky, spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), was quoted as saying by Deutsche Welle.

    Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov earlier put the blame for the misery on former Al-Qaeda affiliate the Al-Nusra Front and allied militants. Their fighters “explicitly shell those routes through which such humanitarian aid can be delivered,” Lavrov said Friday.

    Lavrov’s statement is supported by Gazdiev’s reports from the frontlines in Aleppo, where an RT crew witnessed the black banners of Al-Qaeda. “Today we actually got very close to the frontline, we had actually a direct line of sight of East Aleppo. And we saw again the black flags of Al-Qaeda waving over the city,” Gazdiev said. In early October, the UN special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, estimated that some 900 fighters for the Al-Nusra Front – designated a terrorist group by the UN – are standing their ground in East Aleppo alongside other militants.




    On Saturday, Al-Nusra Front terrorists executed a local imam in East Aleppo after he tried to persuade militants to leave the district, RIA Novosti reports, citing local Syrian militia. The news agency adds that on Thursday, jihadists also killed 14 civilians in the Bustan al Qasr district for trying to use one of the humanitarian corridors.

    The RT crew managed to speak to people in the government-held part of Aleppo who have relatives in the militant-held districts. A woman, whose three children are living with their grandmother in East Aleppo, said that “they are doing very badly.”

    “They do not have food or drink – nothing,” she said.

    “It’s bad, it’s very bad. They [militants] take their food, their money, beat them and do whatever they want,” another woman told RT.

    On Friday, the UN Human Rights Council voted to start an independent inquiry into alleged human rights abuses in Aleppo. “Armed opposition groups continue to fire mortars and other projectiles into civilian neighborhoods of western Aleppo,” a statement by the Office for the UN Commissioner for Human Rights said. However, the body has put most of the responsibility for the civilian casualties on Damascus and its allies, of which Moscow is a key one.

    On Saturday, the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, lambasted the move, issuing a statement on her Facebook page, calling the accusations “cynical” and “dishonorable.”

    “The worst thing is that the very countries that hysterically cried foul over the humanitarian situation in Aleppo, they know (do not assume, but rather know) that the delivery of humanitarian assistance to the civilian population of the city is blocked by militants, [to whom] they in turn regularly provided assistance,” Zakharova said.


    Related:
    ‘They’re cowards hiding behind women’s backs’: Aleppo locals tell RT of terrorist atrocities

    UN Human Rights Council votes to open probe into Aleppo ‘war crimes’

    Al-Nusra Front & allies sabotage humanitarian aid delivery efforts to east Aleppo - Lavrov

    Aleppo & Mosul: How Western rhetoric on anti-terror ops changes depending on location (VIDEO)
    "La réalité est un rêve que l'on fait atterrir" San Antonio AKA F. Dard

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    Default Re: Ukraine, Crimea, Syria, Israel, Iran, Turkey, Putin, China, and World War III

    Russia insider : Aleppo's war battlefield update - Terrorists planning counter offensive in Aleppo Syria.



    (pub. 23rd Oct. 2016)
    Last edited by Sueanne47; 24th October 2016 at 13:53.

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    Default Re: Ukraine, Crimea, Syria, Israel, Iran, Turkey, Putin, China, and World War III

    Aleppo's war battlefield update ~ South Aleppo front, Syria 24th Oct. 2016 :
    (pub. 26th Oct. 2016) Russia insider


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    Default Re: Ukraine, Crimea, Syria, Israel, Iran, Turkey, Putin, China, and World War III

    ‘Syria, Iraq are Turkey’s responsibility,’ exclaims Erdogan, demands Mosul, parts of Asia, Balkans and Middle East

    The Duran
    Alexander Mercouris
    26. oct. 2016


    In incendiary speech Turkish President Erdogan lays claims to a vast zone of influence for Turkey whilst demanding paramount influence for Turkey over Iraqi province and city of Mosul.

    Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has just delivered one of the most bizarre speeches on foreign policy of his whole eccentric career.

    Speaking at the newly opened University of Rize in Busra, he staked claims on behalf of Turkey to vast regions extending far beyond Turkey’s borders.


    (Turkey: Mosul and Aleppo belonged to Turks - Erdogan)

    Referring to the National Covenant – a 1920 declaration by the last Ottoman parliament, which was used by the newly formed Turkish Republic as the basis of its initial negotiating position at the conference of Lausanne, which eventually established Turkey’s present borders – he claimed that according to “certain historians” it had included within Turkey’s borders:

    Quote “Cyprus, Aleppo (in Syria), Mosul, Arbil and Kirkuk (in Iraq), Batum (in Georgia), Kardzhali, Varna (in Bulgaria), and Thessaloniki and the Aegean islands (in Greece).”
    The Duran’s Alex Christoforou wrote earlier on the claims made by Erdogan about Turkey’s right to certain Greek islands. He also used historic, linguistic and religious ties to claim for Turkey a gigantic zone of influence for itself.

    Quote “Turkey is not only Turkey. Not only for 79 million citizens, but Turkey bears also responsibility towards our hundreds of millions of brothers in the geographical area to whom we are connected through our historical and cultural ties.

    It is a duty, but also a right of Turkey to be interested in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Crimea, Karabakh, Bosnia, and other sister areas (NB: this is a reference to Azerbaijan and former Soviet Central Asia – AM). The moment you give up this, it will be the time when we lose our independence and our future”.
    It is however Erdogan’s extraordinary comments about Mosul in Iraq that will be the cause of the greatest concern in the major world capitals.

    Quote “Our territories were as large as 2.5 million square kilometres, and after nine years at the time of the Lausanne Treaty [the international document of the foundation of the Republic of Turkey] it diminished to 780,000 square kilometres with the inclusion of Hatay [which joined Turkey in 1939].

    When we had started the National Liberation War [in 1919], our aim was to lay claim to the frontiers of the National Covenant [adopted by the last Ottoman parliament in 1920, which included the Mosul Vilayat of the Ottoman Empire].

    Unfortunately, we could not protect [those borders]. … We cannot act in the year 2016 with the psychology of 1923. To insist on [the borders accepted in 1923] is the greatest injustice to be done to the country and to the nation. While everything is changing in today’s world, we cannot see to preserving our status of 1923 as a success.”
    To that end Erdogan claimed a direct role for Turkey, both in the military operation to free Mosul from ISIS, and in any negotiations concerning its future.

    Quote “We will be in the field and at the negotiating table, too. We have to resolve the Mosul issue in Mosul. … If we sacrifice Mosul to sectarianism (NB: this is clearly a reference to the Shia dominated government in Baghdad – AM), we cannot prevent the problem from reaching our borders.”
    This incredible speech has already triggered a storm of complaints from neighbouring states including Greece. There have also been criticisms of Erdogan’s seemingly shaky grasp of history, though it is doubtful Erdogan cares much about that.

    Erdogan is not laying physical claim to the vast regions he is talking about. What he is saying is that Turkey should establish some sort of sphere of influence over these regions. Nor is Erdogan saying that he wants to conquer Mosul so as to incorporate it into Turkey. However he does seem to think that Turkey is entitled to some sort of paramount position of influence in Mosul, and that it should be allowed to determine the shape of the eventual political settlement there.

    It is clear that Erdogan does not want Mosul to fall fully under the control of the Shia dominated Iraqi government in Baghdad, and nor does he want Kurdish influence to be extended there. To the extent that it is possible to understand Erdogan’s thinking, it seems he wants Mosul to become a kind of de facto Turkish dominated Sunni Arab protectorate within Iraq, tenuously connected to the central government in Baghdad through some sort of loose confederal arrangement, but actually under the control of the Turkish government in Ankara.

    This is of course very much the same arrangement Erdogan is trying to create in north east Syria in the ‘safe zone’ the Turkish military is busy setting up there. It is incidentally also the same arrangement the Turks have for a long time been working towards in northern Cyprus.

    Needless to say Erdogan’s project for Mosul is fiercely opposed by the government in Baghdad, as well as by most of the Iraqi Kurds.

    Erdogan’s speech in fact seems to have been triggered by a furious public row Erdogan has recently had with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, in which Erdogan has insisted on a role for the Turkish military in the liberation of Mosul from ISIS, only to be rebuffed by al-Abadi, who clearly does not trust the Turkish army to leave Mosul if they ever go there, and who has publicly told Erdogan to mind his own business and stay out.

    As is often the case with Erdogan this public rebuff from al-Abadi – who Erdogan seems to have trouble taking seriously – seems to have completely infuriated him. Typically his response has been ludicrously over the top, resulting in a speech of almost preposterous grandiosity bordering on outright megalomania.

    At a practical level Erdogan’s plans for Mosul are going to complicate its liberation from ISIS. The Iraqi military as it advances on Mosul now has to worry about the possible reaction of the Turkish army. This is actually located illegally on what is Iraqi territory nearby, putting it in a good position to intervene in the fighting in Mosul were Erdogan to order it to do so.

    As they close in on ISIS the Iraqi military now have to worry about what Erdogan might order the Turkish army to do behind their back. Inevitably that means that with one eye on the Turks the Iraqi military will not be able to focus single-mindedly on defeating ISIS, which is what the complicated nature of the battle to liberate Mosul requires them to do.

    The US for its part must be seriously concerned that the quarrel between Turkey and Iraq caused by Erdogan’s overweening regional ambitions is going to delay the liberation of Mosul. Though it is becoming increasingly unlikely that Mosul can be liberated from ISIS before the US Presidential election in November, the threats from Erdogan now threaten to extend Mosul’s liberation beyond January, when Obama steps down. That would be a bitter disappointment for Obama, who must be hoping for a victory over ISIS in Mosul to end his Presidency on a high note.

    US diplomats must now be working over time to try to smooth over the differences between Erdogan and the Iraqis to enable the Mosul operation to go ahead as planned. Given the extreme language Erdogan is using and the overweening nature of his ambitions, it looks like they have a hard job ahead of them.

    As for ISIS – the other big player in the battle for Mosul – not for the first time Erdogan’s regional ambitions are de facto aligning him with ISIS, which is the immediate beneficiary of what he is doing. Whether Erdogan wants to admit the fact or not this has always been true in Syria, and it is now turning out to be true in Iraq.

    Erdogan’s speech is in fact very much in line with the “neo-Ottoman” foreign policy which his government has been pursuing ever since he came to power.

    The speech shows that despite glimmers of understanding a few months ago that Turkey is over-reaching itself, and needs to improve relations with its neighbours rather than go on alienating them as it has been doing by pursuing this neo-Ottoman policy, Erdogan himself remains far too emotionally committed to it ever to give up on it.

    On the contrary the defeat of the recent coup attempt and the – probably ephemeral – success of Operation Euphrates Shield in Syria seems to have gone to his head, causing him to double down on his neo-Ottoman policy, staking out vast claims for Turkey which it can never hope to realise.

    As for the Russians, as they ponder Erdogan’s speech they will doubtless downgrade their expectations of the Turkish-Russian rapprochement even further, correctly assessing that Erdogan’s overweening regional ambitions and unstable personality make him in the end an impossible partner to place any long term reliance upon.

    Source

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    Default Re: Ukraine, Crimea, Syria, Israel, Iran, Turkey, Putin, China, and World War III

    I don't know if anybody has mentioned this, but Defcon status is now Defcon 4/blue/less threat. I don't know when that happened, but yeah

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    Default Re: Ukraine, Crimea, Syria, Israel, Iran, Turkey, Putin, China, and World War III

    Quote Posted by 7alon (here)
    I don't know if anybody has mentioned this, but Defcon status is now Defcon 4/blue/less threat. I don't know when that happened, but yeah
    I am not too sure about that info since it was at Defcon 3 not long ago: https://projectavalon.net/forum4/show...=1#post1105962
    "La réalité est un rêve que l'on fait atterrir" San Antonio AKA F. Dard

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    Default Re: Ukraine, Crimea, Syria, Israel, Iran, Turkey, Putin, China, and World War III

    Rare footage of an up close battle in Aleppo ;


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    Default Re: Ukraine, Crimea, Syria, Israel, Iran, Turkey, Putin, China, and World War III

    Quote Posted by Hervé (here)
    Quote Posted by 7alon (here)
    I don't know if anybody has mentioned this, but Defcon status is now Defcon 4/blue/less threat. I don't know when that happened, but yeah
    I am not too sure about that info since it was at Defcon 3 not long ago: https://projectavalon.net/forum4/show...=1#post1105962
    http://www.defconwarningsystem.com/

    It has gone down since then, hence I thought I'd share

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    Default Re: Ukraine, Crimea, Syria, Israel, Iran, Turkey, Putin, China, and World War III

    VALDAI Discussion Club -2016

    Is the US a banana republic? - Putin [Valdai, Part 1 of 2]


    Putin confronts the 'New World Order' (Valdai Part 2 of 2)

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    Default Re: Ukraine, Crimea, Syria, Israel, Iran, Turkey, Putin, China, and World War III

    Turkey Coup July 2016



    A film by Tsargrad TV (where the philosopher Alexander Dugin is the Chief Editor)

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    Default Re: Ukraine, Crimea, Syria, Israel, Iran, Turkey, Putin, China, and World War III

    Quote Posted by Sophocles (here)
    VALDAI Discussion Club -2016

    Is the US a banana republic? - Putin [Valdai, Part 1 of 2]

    Putin confronts the 'New World Order' (Valdai Part 2 of 2)
    Very interesting, thank you.

    Here is a link to the Valdia Club for those, like myself, who had never heard of it.

    http://valdaiclub.com/

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    Default Re: Ukraine, Crimea, Syria, Israel, Iran, Turkey, Putin, China, and World War III

    Iraqi Army Base Comes Under US Air Raid Again

    FARS News Agency Sat Oct 29, 2016 4:1


    TEHRAN (FNA)- Deputy Chief of the Nineveh Provincial Council Noureddin Qablan announced that the US-led coalition warplanes have launched airstrikes on on army base in Nineveh province, killing several soldiers.

    "The US fighter jets hit one of the military bases of Iraqi Army's 16th Division in a region North of Mosul, and the attack left four Iraqi soldiers dead," Qablan said.

    He said that the US army has confirmed the attack, calling it a "mistake".

    Qablan said that it is not the first time the US warplanes hit the Iraqi army and volunteer forces (Hashd al-Shaabi) military positions, adding, "The US-led coalition has each time said that air raids were not deliberate."

    On October 5, the US warplanes hit the military positions of Hashd al-Shaabi forces in the village of Kharaeb Jabr to the South of Mosul, killing 20 Iraqi volunteer forces and injuring five others.

    In late September, a senior Iraqi lawmaker disclosed that the US fighter jets had pounded the military positions of the Iraqi volunteer forces in the Northern part of Babel province.

    "The Iraqi warplanes struck the equipment warehouses of Hashd al-Shaabi in al-Nasr region in Northern Babel," Mohammad Naji said.

    He noted that the US was trying to prevent the Iraqi popular forces from making advances against the ISIL and the most important proof to that is that it struck Hashd al-Shaabi's warehouse in mid-September.

    In June 2015, Fighter jets of the US-led coalition against ISIL once again struck the Iraqi forces' positions in the province of Anbar, in Western Iraq.

    The US-led coalition warplanes hit the bases of Iraqi army's Hezbollah battalions in Fallujah in Anbar province, killing 6 soldiers and injuring 8 others.

    In early May, the anti-ISIL coalition forces struck the position of Iraq's popular forces near Baghdad, killing a number of volunteer forces.

    The US-led coalition warplanes hit an arms production workshop of the popular forces near the Iraqi capital, destroying the workshop and its ammunition completely.

    Two members of Iraq's popular forces were killed in the attack.

    The US has repeatedly struck the popular forces' positions in different parts of Iraq.

    On March 29 2015, the US fighter jets struck the positions of Iraq's popular forces during their fierce clashes with ISIL terrorists near Tikrit, injuring a number of fighters.

    The US and coalition forces conducted eight airstrikes near Tikrit, but they hit the popular forces' positions instead of ISIL.

    In February 2015, an Iraqi provincial official lashed out at the western countries and their regional allies for supporting Takfiri terrorists in Iraq, revealing that the US airplanes still continue to airdrop weapons and foodstuff for the ISIL terrorists.

    "The US planes have dropped weapons for the ISIL terrorists in the areas under ISIL control and even in those areas that have been recently liberated from the ISIL control to encourage the terrorists to return to those places," Coordinator of Iraqi popular forces Jafar al-Jaberi told FNA.

    He noted that eyewitnesses in Al-Havijeh of Kirkuk province had witnessed the US airplanes dropping several suspicious parcels for ISIL terrorists in the province.

    "Two coalition planes were also seen above the town of Al-Khas in Diyala and they carried the Takfiri terrorists to the region that has recently been liberated from the ISIL control," Al-Jaberi said.

    Meantime, Head of Iraqi Parliament's National Security and Defense Committee Hakem al-Zameli also disclosed that the anti-ISIL coalition's planes have dropped weapons and foodstuff for the ISIL in Salahuddin, Al-Anbar and Diyala provinces.

    In January 2015, al-Zameli underlined that the coalition is the main cause of ISIL's survival in Iraq.

    "There are proofs and evidence for the US-led coalition's military aid to ISIL terrorists through air(dropped cargoes)," he told FNA at the time.

    Related:
    Security Source: US Sending Arms Cargo to ISIL in Iraq's Diyala
    UN: ISIL Uses Civilians as Human Shields in Battle for Mosul
    Official: ISIL Executes over 230 Iraqi Civilians in Mosul
    "La réalité est un rêve que l'on fait atterrir" San Antonio AKA F. Dard

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    Default Re: Ukraine, Crimea, Syria, Israel, Iran, Turkey, Putin, China, and World War III

    On the heels of Germany announcing tanks & troops on the Russian border, now
    Britain, France and even Denmark sending tanks & troops to Estonia. NATO is amassing troops on Russia. (I am ashamed to be British )


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    Default Re: Ukraine, Crimea, Syria, Israel, Iran, Turkey, Putin, China, and World War III

    Russia moves into survival mode :


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    Default Re: Ukraine, Crimea, Syria, Israel, Iran, Turkey, Putin, China, and World War III

    How Putin Derailed the West

    November 1, 2016
    counterpunch.org
    Mike Whitney




    Quote “Nation state as a fundamental unit of man’s organized life has ceased to be the principal creative force: International banks and multinational corporations are acting and planning in terms that are far in advance of the political concepts of the nation-state.”

    — Zbigniew Brzezinski, “Between Two Ages: The Technetronic Era”, 1971

    “I’m going to continue to push for a no-fly zone and safe havens within Syria….not only to help protect the Syrians and prevent the constant outflow of refugees, but to gain some leverage on both the Syrian government and the Russians.”

    — Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Third Presidential Debate
    Why is Hillary Clinton so eager to intensify US involvement in Syria when US interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya have all gone so terribly wrong?

    The answer to this question is simple. It’s because Clinton doesn’t think that these interventions went wrong. And neither do any of the other members of the US foreign policy establishment. (aka–The Borg). In fact, in their eyes these wars have been a rousing success. Sure, a few have been critical of the public relations backlash from the nonexistent WMD in Iraq, (or the logistical errors, like disbanding the Iraqi Army) but–for the most part– the foreign policy establishment is satisfied with its efforts to destabilize the region and remove leaders that refuse to follow Washington’s diktats.

    This is hard for ordinary people to understand. They can’t grasp why elite powerbrokers would want to transform functioning, stable countries into uninhabitable wastelands overrun by armed extremists, sectarian death squads and foreign-born terrorists. Nor can they understand what has been gained by Washington’s 15 year-long rampage across the Middle East and Central Asia that has turned a vast swathe of strategic territory into a terrorist breeding grounds? What is the purpose of all this?

    First, we have to acknowledge that the decimation and de facto balkanization of these countries is part of a plan. If it wasn’t part of a plan, than the decision-makers would change the policy. But they haven’t changed the policy. The policy is the same. The fact that the US is using foreign-born jihadists to pursue regime change in Syria as opposed to US troops in Iraq, is not a fundamental change in the policy. The ultimate goal is still the decimation of the state and the elimination of the existing government. This same rule applies to Libya and Afghanistan both of which have been plunged into chaos by Washington’s actions.

    But why? What is gained by destroying these countries and generating so much suffering and death?

    Here’s what I think: I think Washington is involved in a grand project to remake the world in a way that better meets the needs of its elite constituents, the international banks and multinational corporations. Brzezinski not only refers to this in the opening quote, he also explains what is taking place: The nation-state is being jettisoned as the foundation upon which the global order rests. Instead, Washington is erasing borders, liquidating states, and removing strong, secular leaders that can mount resistance to its machinations in order to impose an entirely new model on the region, a new world order. The people who run these elite institutions want to create an interconnected-global free trade zone overseen by the proconsuls of Big Capital, in other words, a global Eurozone that precludes the required state institutions (like a centralized treasury, mutual debt, federal transfers) that would allow the borderless entity to function properly.

    Deep state powerbrokers who set policy behind the smokescreen of our bought-and-paid-for congress think that one world government is an achievable goal provided they control the world’s energy supplies, the world’s reserve currency and become the dominant player in this century’s most populous and prosperous region, Asia. This is essentially what Hillary’s “pivot” to Asia is all about.

    The basic problem with Washington’s NWO plan is that a growing number of powerful countries are still attached to the old world order and are now prepared to defend it. This is what’s really going on in Syria, the improbable alliance of Russia, Syria, Iran and Hezbollah have stopped the US military juggernaut dead in its tracks. The unstoppable force has hit the immovable object and the immovable object has prevailed…so far.

    Naturally, the foreign policy establishment is upset about these new developments, and for good reason. The US has run the world for quite a while now, so the rolling back of US policy in Syria is as much a surprise as it is a threat. The Russian Airforce deployed to Syria a full year ago in September, but only recently has Washington shown that it’s prepared to respond by increasing its support of its jihadists agents on the ground and by mounting an attack on ISIS in the eastern part of the country, Raqqa. But the real escalation is expected to take place when Hillary Clinton becomes president in 2017. That’s when the US will directly engage Russia militarily, assuming that their tit-for-tat encounters will be contained within Syria’s borders. It’s a risky plan, but it’s the next logical step in this bloody fiasco. Neither party wants a nuclear war, but Washington believes that doing nothing is tantamount to backing down, therefore, Hillary and her neocon advisors can be counted on to up the ante. “No-fly zone”, anyone?

    The assumption is that eventually, and with enough pressure, Putin will throw in the towel. But this is another miscalculation. Putin is not in Syria because he wants to be nor is he there because he values his friendship with Syrian President Bashar al Assad. That’s not it at all. Putin is in Syria because he has no choice. Russia’s national security is at stake. If Washington’s strategy of deploying terrorists to topple Assad succeeds, then the same ploy will be attempted in Iran and Russia. Putin knows this, just like he knows that the scourge of foreign-backed terrorism can decimate entire regions like Chechnya. He knows that it’s better for him to kill these extremists in Aleppo than it will be in Moscow. So he can’t back down, that’s not an option.

    But, by the same token, he can compromise, in other words, his goals and the goals of Assad do not perfectly coincide. For example, he could very well make territorial concessions to the US for the sake of peace that Assad might not support.

    But why would he do that? Why wouldn’t he continue to fight until every inch of Syria’s sovereign territory is recovered?

    Because it’s not in Russia’s national interest to do so, that’s why. Putin has never tried to conceal the fact that he’s in Syria to protect Russia’s national security. That’s his main objective. But he’s not an idealist, he’s a pragmatist who’ll do whatever he has to to end the war ASAP. That means compromise.

    This doesn’t matter to the Washington warlords….yet. But it will eventually. Eventually there will be an accommodation of some sort. No one is going to get everything they want, that much is certain. For example, it’s impossible to imagine that Putin would launch a war on Turkey to recover the territory that Turkish troops now occupy in N Syria. In fact, Putin may have already conceded as much to Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan in their recent meetings. But that doesn’t mean that Putin doesn’t have his red lines. He does. Aleppo is a red line. Turkish troops will not be allowed to enter Aleppo.

    The western corridor, the industrial and population centers are all red lines. On these, there will be no compromise. Putin will help Assad remain in power and keep the country largely intact. But will Turkey control sections in the north, and will the US control sections in the east?

    Probably. This will have to be worked out in negotiations, but its unlikely that the country’s borders will be the same as they were before the war broke out. Putin will undoubtedly settle for a halfloaf provided the fighting ends and security is restored. In any event, he’s not going to hang around until the last dog is hung.

    Unfortunately, we’re a long way from any settlement in Syria, mainly because Washington is nowhere near accepting the fact that its project to rule the world has been derailed. That’s the crux of the matter, isn’t it? The bigshots who run the country are still in denial. It hasn’t sunk in yet that the war is lost and that their nutty jihadist-militia plan has failed.

    It’s going to take a long time before Washington gets the message that the world is no longer its oyster. The sooner they figure it out, the better it’ll be for everyone.


    MIKE WHITNEY lives in Washington state. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press). Hopeless is also available in a Kindle edition. He can be reached at fergiewhitney@msn.com.

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    Russia can easily defeat NATO! so why this suicide mission to poke the bear? just depopulation agenda?


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    The Russian media just loves the campaign to demonize Putin

    The Saker
    November 03, 2016


    Last May I wrote an article entitled Counter-propaganda, Russian style in which I explained that far from banning or censoring the western anti-Putin/anti-Russia campaign, the Russia media reported about it in meticulous detail. Half a year later, not only is this still true, but the level of coverage has now sharply increased. Check out this screenshot from the latest (and most watched) weekly news show:


    “Painting Putin” on Russian TV

    Remember that roughly 80% plus of the audience watching this are strong supporters of President Putin. You can imagine what they think when they see these reports. The fully understand that the West hates Putin so much precisely because Putin is one of them, a real Russian who cares for the interests of the Russian people. So when the West demonizes Putin, it is really all the Russian people who are demonized and their conclusion is simple: the West does not hate Putin, the West hates *us*. As for “Blame it on Putin” – it has now become a real joke.

    One of the main effects of this kind of demonization is that the Russian public fully understands that there is no way back. In practical terms, most Russians believe that even if Russia pulled out of Syria, stopped supporting the Donbass or even decided to hand Crimea to the Ukies, the West would still continue to demonize Russia and try to subdue her.Furthermore, the Russians remember that the only time when the West liked Russia was when she was run by the drunken Eltsin and his coterie of Jewish oligarchs who pillaged Russia and whose reign had consequences similar to what a major war would result in. Any other Russia is simply unacceptable to the AngloZionist Empire.



    Source: the (pro-Western) Levada Center

    Seen in this light, the alliance of the West with both the Nazis in Kiev and the “moderate terrorists” in the Middle-East makes sense. This is not fundamentally different from the European’s alliance with the Ottomans during the Crimean War or the USA supported Japan against Russia in 1905 (only to then end up fighting against Japan a few years later). As long as X is anti-Russian, the West support X. It’s that primitive and that stupid.

    The Ukronazi regime in Kiev has understood that it has only one “commodity” left which it can sell to the West: its rabid russophobia. And since they are desperate, they make desperate and, frankly, comical efforts. Check out the new symbol of the Ukie military intelligence service:


    The Ukies point a dagger at the heart of Russia

    I don’t think I have ever seen the Ukie inferiority complex better illustrated. The Latin sentence “Sapiens Dominabitur Astra” (“the wise will rule the stars”) is a nice touch as it combines a non-cyrillic (Latin) alphabet, a reference to European astrology in the Middle Ages and a typically Ukrainian (cosmic) megalomania. Yet another proof, if needed, that all the Ukraine is is an “anti-Russia”.

    Make no mistake though, there is absolutely no fear of the West in Russia. Most Russians believe that the Russian armed forces are more than enough to keep West in check. And they are quite correct. But there is this acute awareness that were in not for the Russian military, Russia would be treated just like Iraq.

    In the meantime, the Russia media is gleefully feeding the Russian public every bit of russophobic propaganda produced in the West. Future generations will probably study this period and wonder at the absolutely mind-boggling stupidity of a western propaganda machine which is apparently completely oblivious at the impact of its propaganda on a nuclear superpower.

    The Saker

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    Intelligence agencies are running al-Qaeda camps in North Africa — UN consultant (EXCLUSIVE)

    New evidence points to a Western cover-up of Algerian state sponsorship of Islamist jihadists, to protect oil and gas interests

    By Nafeez Ahmed

    This exclusive is published by INSURGE INTELLIGENCE, a crowdfunded investigative journalism project for the global commons. Support us to keep digging where others fear to tread.

    An unpublished report by a government advisor and UN consultant, obtained exclusively by INSURGE intelligence, accuses Western and Algerian security services of complicity in al-Qaeda terrorist activity across North Africa.

    The academic report focuses on damning evidence that a devastating al-Qaeda terrorist attack on the Tigantourine gas plant near In Amenas, Algeria, was orchestrated by Algeria’s secret services, with the knowledge of US, French and British intelligence.

    A draft copy of the report, due to be published later this month, has been seen exclusively by INSURGE intelligence.

    Escalating instability in North Africa is being blamed on the re-emergence of an offshoot of al-Qaeda — al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Despite French military efforts, the group is re-consolidated in northern Mali, and has orchestrated terror strikes from Burkino Faso to the Ivory Coast.

    Yet the new draft report by a UN consultant, prepared by the International State Crime Initiative (ISCI) at Queen Mary University of London, uncovers remarkable evidence that the Phoenix-like return of AQIM is thanks to the unwavering covert support the terror group receives from one of the West’s staunch allies in the ‘war on terror’: Algeria.

    Terror ties

    The as-yet unpublished report highlights evidence of such support from the In Amenas attack between 16 and 20 January 2013, which resulted in the deaths of 39 foreign nationals, including three Americans, six Britons, five Norwegians, and one French.

    The Tigantourine gas plant is operated jointly by BP, Norway’s Statoil and the Algerian state-owned Sonatrach, producing 12% of Algeria’s natural gas.

    The attack was the single largest terrorist killing of ‘Westerners’ since the London bombings of 7 July 2005.

    The Queen Mary University of London report is authored by social anthropologist Jeremy Keenan, Visiting Professor at the Queen Mary University’s Law School.

    Keenan, who has authored over 200 peer-reviewed scholarly articles and six books on the Sahara-Sahel region, is an advisor on regional security issues to NATO, the US State Department, the EU, the UN, the British Foreign Office, and international oil companies.

    The report reveals startling evidence that the attack was secretly organised by the DRS, Algeria’s notorious secret intelligence service. The idea was to convince Algeria’s Western allies to continue supporting the regime’s domestic and regional counter-terrorism programmes, amidst growing international scepticism about their success.

    Algeria’s DRS maintained intimate ties with the terrorists behind the In Amenas attack, many of whom have been longstanding agents of the Algerian security services, the report says.

    US, British and French intelligence services are aware of these connections, but are covering them up to protect their considerable oil and gas interests in the country.

    Among the report’s most alarming revelations is that over the last decade, Algeria’s DRS has run a secret al-Qaeda training camp in the Tamouret region, with the knowledge of Western government security agencies.

    Al-Qaeda camp — run by Algeria’s secret state

    Over several years, Prof Keenan obtained direct eyewitness evidence from locals about the secret al-Qaeda camp in Tamouret, including from an AQIM member who trained there.

    Its purpose is to recruit, indoctrinate and train marginalised youth from across North Africa into committing atrocities in Algerian communities — after which they would usually be executed.

    According to Keenan’s eyewitness sources, the camp was visited almost daily “by high-ranking army and DRS officers… including General Rachid ‘Attafi’ Lallali, the head of the DRS’ External Security Directorate (DDSE).”

    The camp was also directly supplied with arms and ammunition from Algerian army depots.

    Detailed information on the identities of camp recruits, including DNA data, was routinely shared with Western intelligence agencies according to sources familiar with the camp.

    Trainee terrorists at Tamouret were schooled in sniping and throat-slitting. The camp was provided with a continual supply of prisoners — mostly criminals and dissenting soldiers — purely for the purpose of being killed during training.

    Over a seven month period, one eyewitness said, about 180 murders had taken place at the camp during such routine practice sessions.

    In Amenas — a DRS operation


    Keenan’s report for the International State Crime Initiative points to disturbing evidence of Algerian intelligence services’ direct sponsorship of al-Qaeda terror.

    On 27 August 2015, senior DRS commander General “Hassan” Abdelkader Aït Ouarabi was arrested by Algerian authorities. The arrest was based on allegations from three terrorists captured at the In Amenas gas facility, who claimed they had received arms from General Hassan.

    On the same day as Gen Hassan’s arrest, the US Director of National Intelligence (DNI), James Clapper, flew into Algiers for high-level government meetings.

    The FBI had also been given access to the three terrorists making these allegations before July 2013.

    Corroborating this information, the report refers to the testimony of former DRS captain, H. Haroune, and a former captain and instructor in the Special Forces under DRS command at the time, A. Chouchan. The two former DRS operatives have claimed that “General Mediène [then DRS chief] ordered the attack on In Amenas (presumably planned to be a hostage-taking mission that the army would resolve as it did at Gharis in 2003).”


    What did BP know?


    Astonishingly, the report reveals that before the attack, BP and Statoil had a three year contract with a transport services company, BAAT SARL, owned by Mohamed Ghadir, the brother of al-Qaeda terrorist Abdelhamid Abou Zaïd — the head of AQIM in the Sahara, and chief of the DRS-run AQIM training camp at Tamouret.

    At the London inquest last year, BP was never questioned about this contract, despite it involving a company tied to the very al-Qaeda group that attacked the gas plant.

    In the years preceding the attack, Keenan himself — in his capacity as a security consultant — repeatedly warned BP that the facility would be attacked by Islamist terrorists with the covert support of the Algerian government.

    Keenan suggests that BP’s inexplicable lack of concern about the matter was because the firm had been given security assurances from Algerian or Western authorities that AQIM would not attack the plant.

    BP did not respond to request for comment.

    Gary Rose, an emergency response advisor who worked at the In Amenas facility, said that BP’s onsite security “was incredibly poor and relied totally on the untested and unknown capabilities of the Algerian military.” Rose narrowly avoided the attack having left the site two days earlier.

    Rose, who gave evidence at the London Inquest, was especially damning about BP’s approach. The firm “did nowhere near enough to protect the facility, even with the most basic and credible scenarios in their own emergency response plans…

    Quote “The risk assessment process was flawed, inadequate and done from a view of process safety not human safety. Physical security was constantly breached by the local staff and was out of direct expatriate control, the physical barriers and warning/protection systems were wholly inadequate. I know exactly what systems we did and did not have, and management on site were aware of all the failings too. After the fall of Libya there should have been a massive review of security, but instead we handed over more control to poorly trained Algerian security guards. We were all aware of bandits and arms trafficking in the desert regions but were just relying on the Algerian military to manage this, maybe by force or maybe by negotiation?”
    According to Rose, the most appropriate way of dealing with the risk would have required abandoning the site to conduct a full review and reinforcement.

    But shutting down and abandoning the facility, or any other such facilities, “was never an option due to the huge amount of revenue and European reliance on external hydrocarbons: it’s economy over safety and that’s how the petroleum industry works.”

    Complicity in Algeria’s reign of terror


    The draft report by Queen Mary University’s ISCI refers to recent revelations from Habib Souaïdia, a former Algerian army officer.

    According to Souaïdia:

    Quote “… he had been informed by many of his former colleagues [in the Algerian Special Forces] that the leaders of some of the jihadist groups sowing terror in Tunisia ‘take their orders from Algiers.’”
    In 2015, Tunisia experienced two major terrorist attacks, in which a total of 61 civilians were killed by gunmen with ties to Algeria.

    Souaïdia reported that mobile phones and SIM cards of AQIM jihadists killed in Tunisia’s Mount Chaambi border area, obtained by the Tunisian army, “revealed their communications with DRS officials in Algiers, including their phone numbers and even their nicknames.”

    In late 2013, the information about the SIM cards was handed over to US intelligence, which demanded Algeria’s army chiefs put a stop to the support for jihadists in Tunisia. But, Keenan says, a related US concern was to prevent information on the DRS’ dealings with terrorists falling into the public domain:

    Quote “The reason for that was because US intelligences services and the DRS had been working together as close allies in the so-called war on terror since 2002 and would inevitably, and quite correctly, be seen as having been complicit in whatever ‘false-flag’ and other such questionable operations had been conducted by the DRS since 2002.”
    The AQIM-backed insurgency in Mali was also being supported by Algeria’s intelligence services. A Nigerian military officer told Keenan that AQIM forces in Mali were being supplied food and fuel by the DRS.

    Throughout the DRS’ sponsorship of regional al-Qaeda terrorist activity, the US, Britain and France have worked closely with the very same DRS on regional ‘counter-terrorism’ — despite being privy to damning intelligence on Algeria’s double-game.

    The Clinton files

    Direct confirmation of high-level US knowledge of the Algerian regime’s relationship with the terrorists behind the In Amenas attack came from emails leaked from Hillary Clinton’s private server, published by Wikileaks in March 2016.

    An email dated 17 January 2013 to Clinton from her aide Sidney Blumenthal, noted that the alleged leader of the In Amenas attack, AQIM terrorist Mokhtar Belmokhtar [MBM], had a secret agreement with Algerian intelligence. Under the agreement, Belmokhtar would pursue al-Qaeda destabilisation operations in Mali and the Western Sahara:

    Quote “According to sources with access to the Algerian DGSE [the DRS], the Bouteflika government reached a highly secret understanding with Belmokhtar after the kidnapping in April 2012 of the Algerian consul in Gao (Mali). Under this agreement Belmokhtar concentrated his operations in Mali, and occasionally, with the encouragement of the Algerian DGSE, attack Moroccan interests in Western Sahara, where the Algerians have territorial claims.”
    Mokhtar Belmokhtar was also, according to Keenan’s eyewitness sources, in charge of logistics for the al-Qaeda training camp in Tamouret, which he visited every two weeks.

    A further email dated 19 January 2013 from Blumenthal to Clinton reported that French intelligence had learnt from a source “with access to the highest levels of the Algerian army” that:

    Quote “… officers of the Algerian DGSE [DRS] are looking to secretly meet Belmokhtar or one of his lieutenants in northern Mauritania in the immediate future. They have been ordered to find out why Belmokhtar violated their two-year-old secret agreement and launched attacks inside Algeria.”
    There is no evidence that such a meeting actually took place, suggesting that the DRS was not really interested in finding the answer.

    In any case, Clinton forwarded Blumenthal’s email to Robert Russo, her assistant in the US Department of State — which means the US government was aware of the agreement between AQIM’s Belmokhtar and Algerian intelligence.

    Keenan points out that these emails must be placed in context with the evidence that the DRS itself had sponsored the In Amenas attack in the first place:

    Quote “We therefore had a situation in which the presidency, the army high command and, most likely, western oil companies, knew there was a secret agreement with MBM not to attack installations within Algeria. The DRS, which would have been the agency that made the deal with MBM, would have assured the presidency and army command that such an agreement had been made. What neither the presidency, army nor foreign oil companies knew, although they may have suspected, was that they had effectively been double-crossed by the DRS.”
    In either case, it seems that the State Department was aware that Algerian intelligence was sponsoring Islamist terror across North Africa.

    When asked what the State Department did with the information it had received via Hillary Clinton, a spokesperson, Pooja Jhunjhunwala said:

    Quote “As a matter of policy, the Department of State does not comment on materials, including classified documents, which may have been leaked.”
    However, when asked about the State Department’s position on public record evidence of Algerian intelligence support to jihadists supplied by Prof Keenan — who has previously consulted on regional security issues for the State Department — she simply declined to comment.

    Cover-up?

    Much of this information was passed on by Keenan to the London Inquest into the attack on the Tigantourine gas plant. Yet the Inquest, which delivered its verdict in February 2015, excluded this evidence from the proceedings. Keenan himself was blocked from giving evidence at the Inquest.

    The Addendum to the Queen Mary University report includes the full text of a letter dated 30 April 2015 sent by Prof Keenan to Detective Constable William Wixey of the SO15 Counter Terrorism Command, summarising his available evidence.

    Keenan’s letter offered to provide access to multiple witnesses, two of whom would be non-Algerian citizens, who would expose the leader of the In Amenas attack as an “agent” of Algeria’s secret intelligence service.

    On 13 May, DC Wixey replied to Keenan’s letter to explain that the Coroner’s office was “of the view that they do not wish to take this matter further at this stage.”

    The Metropolitan Police failed to respond to a request for comment on the decision to block Keenan’s evidence from the Inquest.

    In addition to blocking Keenan’s evidence, the British government used Public Interest Immunity — the withdrawal of information on grounds of ‘national security’ — to suppress the disclosure of key documents at the Inquest on what the government knew, and when.

    The use of Public Interest Immunity was “very suspicious,” London Inquest witness Gary Rose said:

    Quote “Now we are not able to know what is being withheld and there is little that can be done about that.”
    In his report for Queen Mary University, Prof Keenan concludes that the government had sought not only to cover up “its own incompetency with regard to the FCO”, but also to avoid questions about the government’s “possible complicity in [Algerian] state crimes.”

    The government’s goal was to withhold any information alluding to British intelligence collusion with the DRS, including evidence that MI6 had been “complicit in activity that could be construed as criminal.”

    In the absence of a further inquiry, there seems little prospect that the questions Keenan raises will be answered by officialdom. Yet his forthcoming report goes some way toward uncovering the real reasons that the threat of terrorism is escalating in North Africa.

    -------------------------------------------------------------------

    Dr. Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed is an award-winning 15-year investigative journalist, international security scholar, bestselling author, and film-maker.

    He is the creator of INSURGEintelligence, a crowdfunded public interest investigative journalism project, ‘System Shift’ columnist at VICE, and a weekly columnist at Middle East Eye. He is Global Editor at The Canary. Previously, Nafeez wrote The Guardian’s ‘Earth insight’ blog.

    His work has been published in The Guardian, VICE, Independent on Sunday, The Independent, The Scotsman, Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Foreign Policy, The Atlantic, Quartz, The New Statesman, Prospect, Le Monde diplomatique, Raw Story, New Internationalist, Huffington Post UK, Al-Arabiya English, AlterNet, The Ecologist, and Asia Times, among other places.

    Exclusive stories broken by Nafeez via INSURGEintelligence have been covered by USA Today, Global Post, The Guardian, The Independent, Washington Post, The Metro, The Week, News Corp’s news.com.au, Discovery News, Channel 4 News, Forbes, Columbia Journalism Review, Gigaom, FutureZone, among others.

    In 2015, Nafeez won the Project Censored Award for Outstanding Investigative Journalism for his Guardian story on the energy politics of the Ukraine crisis. The previous year he won another Project Censored Award, known popularly as the ‘Alternative Pulitzer’, for his Guardian article on climate-induced food crises and civil unrest.

    In 2010, Nafeez won the Routledge-GCPS Essay Prize for his academic paper on the ‘Crisis of Civilisation’ published in the journal Global Change, Peace and Security. He also won the Premio Napoli (Naples Prize) in 2003, Italy’s most prestigious literary award created by decree of the President of the Republic.

    Nafeez has twice been featured in the Evening Standard’s ‘Top 1,000’ list of most influential people in London, in 2014 and 2015.

    Nafeez is the author of A User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilization: And How to Save It (2010), and the scifi thriller novel ZERO POINT, among other books. His work on the root causes and covert operations linked to international terrorism officially contributed to the 9/11 Commission and the 7/7 Coroner’s Inquest.


    This story is being released for free in the public interest, and was enabled by crowdfunding. I’d like to thank my amazing community of patrons for their support, which gave me the opportunity to work on this story. Please support independent, investigative journalism for the global commons via www.patreon.com/nafeez, where you can donate as much or as little as you like.

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    RT crew comes under fire in Aleppo :


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    Russian Pilots cheat death as helicopter hit by ISIS Missile :


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