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

[Hervé]

US defense failure… Why Washington has to blame Iran over Saudi attacks

RT
By Finian Cunningham
Published time: 16 Sep, 2019 16:06

Edited time: 16 Sep, 2019 16:16
Get short URL

Smoke billows from an Aramco oil facility in Abqaiq © AFP

The devastating blitz on Saudi Arabia’s oil industry has led to a flurry of accusations from US officials blaming Iran. The reason for the finger-pointing is simple:

Washington’s spectacular failure to protect its Saudi ally.

The Trump administration needs to scapegoat Iran for the latest military assault on Saudi Arabia because to acknowledge that the Houthi rebels mounted such an audacious assault on the oil kingdom’s heartland would be an admission of American inadequacy.

Saudi Arabia has spent billions of dollars in recent years purchasing US Patriot missile defense systems and supposedly cutting-edge radar technology from the Pentagon. If the Yemeni rebels can fly combat drones up to 1,000 kilometers into Saudi territory and knock out the linchpin production sites in the kingdom’s oil industry, then that should be a matter of huge embarrassment for US “protectors.”

American defense of Saudi Arabia is germane to their historical relationship. Saudi oil exports nominated in dollars for trade – the biggest on the planet – are vital for maintaining the petrodollar global market, which is in turn crucial for American economic power. In return, the US is obligated to be a protector of the Saudi monarchy, which comes with the lucrative added benefit of selling the kingdom weapons worth billions of dollars every year.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Saudi Arabia has the world’s third biggest military budget, behind the US and China. With an annual spend of around $68 billion, it is the world’s number one in terms of percentage of gross domestic product (8.8 per cent). Most of the Saudi arms are sourced from the US, with Patriot missile systems in particular being a recent big-ticket item.

Yet for all that financial largesse and the finest American military technology, the oil kingdom just witnessed a potentially crippling wave of air assaults on its vital oil industry. Saudi oil production at its mammoth refinery complex at Abqaiq, 205 miles (330 kms) east of the capital Riyadh, was down 50 per cent after it was engulfed by flames following air strikes. One of the Saudi’s biggest oilfields, at Khurais, also in the Eastern Province, was also partially closed.

There are credible reports that the damage is much more serious than the Saudi officials are conceding. These key industrial sites may take weeks to repair.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo got it half right when he claimed, “Iran launched an unprecedented attack on the world’s energy supply”.

Yes, it is unprecedented. But Pompeo and other US officials have most likely got it wrong about blaming Iran.

Some Trump administration officials told US media that “cruise missiles” were responsible for the giant fireballs seen over the Saudi oil facilities. One was quoted anonymously as saying: “There’s no doubt that Iran is responsible for this… there’s no escaping it. There is no other candidate.”

In a hurried effort to substantiate accusations against Iran, satellite images were released which show what appears to be the aftermath of the air strike on the Abqaiq refinery complex. US officials claim the location of the explosions indicate the weapons originated not from Yemen to the south, but from either Iran or Iraq.

Even the normally dutiful New York Times expressed doubt about that claim, commenting in its report:

“The satellite photographs released on Sunday did not appear as clear cut as officials suggested, with some appearing to show damage on the western side of facilities, not from the direction of Iran or Iraq.”

The accusations made by Pompeo and others are assertions in place of substantiated claims.

It is noteworthy that President Donald Trump refrained from openly blaming Iran by name, merely hinting at the possibility. If Pompeo is so adamant in fingering Iran, why didn’t Trump? Also, the president made a telling remark when he said he was “waiting for verification” from Saudi Arabia “as to who they believe was the cause of the attack.” Again, if US officials are explicitly accusing Iran then why is Trump saying he wants “verification” from the Saudis?

For its part, Iran has flatly dismissed the allegations that it had any involvement, saying that statements by Pompeo were “blind” and tantamount to setting up a conflict.

Iraq’s Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi also rejected claims that his country’s territory might have been used by pro-Iranian Shia militants to launch the air strikes.

The Houthi rebels in Yemen have issued unambiguous statements claiming responsibility for the air raids on the Saudi oil installations. They were specific that the weapons were drones, not missiles, adding with details that 10 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) were deployed.

Notably too, most US media reported initially that the attacks were by drones flown from Yemen. Associated Press reported a level of sophistication in the attacks whereby drones were used first to disable the US Patriot radar systems before other UAVs proceeded to execute the air strikes.

It therefore seems that US officials are attempting to switch the story by blaming Iran. It is reckless scapegoating because the logical consequence could elicit a military attack against Iran, in which event Tehran has warned it is ready for war.

The rationale for blaming Iran is that the Yemeni rebels (which Iran supports politically) are just not capable of using drones with such dramatic success against the Saudi oil industry. The culprit must be Iran, so the rationale goes. This is a follow-on from alleged sabotage by Iran against oil tankers in the Persian Gulf earlier this summer.

However, a timeline shows that the Houthis are more than capable of launching ever-more powerful ballistic missiles and deeper penetrating drones into Saudi territory. The rebels have been using drones from the beginning of the war which the US-backed Saudi-UAE coalition launched on the southern Arabian country in March 2015.

Over the past four years, the Houthi aerial firepower has gradually improved. Earlier, the Saudis, with American defense systems, were able to intercept drones and missiles from Yemen. But over the last year, the rebels have increased their success rate for hitting targets in the Saudi interior, including the capital Riyadh.

In May this year, Houthi drones hit Saudi Arabia’s crucial east-west pipeline. Then in August, drones and ballistic missiles were reported to have struck the Shaybah oil field near the border with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), as well as the Dammam exporting complex in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province.

The Yemenis claim they are taking the war to Saudi Arabia and the UAE after years of relentless air strikes on their homeland which have resulted in nearly 90,000 dead. A recent UN report censured the US, Britain and France for possible complicity in war crimes through their military support for the Saudi coalition.

There must be trepidation among the monarchs in Saudi Arabia and the UAE that the rebels from war-torn and starving Yemen are now coming after them with drones that could demolish their oil economies. What’s more, the much-vaunted American protector is not able to deliver on its strategic bargain, despite billions of dollars of Pentagon weaponry. That’s why Washington has to find an excuse by casting Iran as the villain.


Related:

• See post #2060

• Putin to Saudi Arabia: Our air defenses can protect you, like they do Turkey and Iran

[Hervé]

...

... adding Jim Stone salt grain:

Look in the lower right hand corner of the photo. There is a car or pickup truck there. That shows how large the tanks are.

Iran's smallest cruise missile has approximately a 290 pound warhead. If an Iranian cruise missile hit those tanks (as some have claimed) the hole would be approximately as far across as 5 of those cars if the tank was robustly built, and more if it was not.

AND IF there was no additional explosive effects provided by the fuel in the tank. The entire story line for the refinery attack is an obvious hoax. There's no way a 290 pound warhead hit that tank.

I AM CALLING IT:

THERE WERE NO DRONES AND NO MISSILES USED AGAINST SAUDI REFINERY

Obviously there's no way to be 100 percent certain with this, but a referee would certainly call it for the following reasons:

There was no damage to the oil facility. At least no damage to speak of. They can patch it up and get it going STAT because it was extremely minimal damage that did not wipe out actual refining capabilities, all it did was light big fires (that are already completely out) and make a bunch of smoke. If this was for real, it would not be put out already.

Another very suspicious aspect of this was how precise the "hits" were. It looks as if someone went up on the tanks with a man lift that could access the same spot on each tank easily, and put the absolute minimal explosive there manually that would be needed to blow the tank, without actually destroying the tank.

There's not a chance in hell it was cruise missiles because if it was, there would be nothing left of the tanks. Instead, they are all neatly poked in exactly the same spot on each tank. The tanks obviously only need to be patched, they don't need to be replaced.

Here's a HUGE reason to call the attacks totally FAKE, and I know this cinches it -

First, an explanation to prove the scenario here -

In industry, when repairs have to be made to any tank filled with anything that can explode when mixed with air - if it needs to be welded, welding can be done without worry provided the welding is done below the level of the liquid in the tank, down below where the air can reach it. This is even true on gasoline tanks. As long as you don't puncture the tank or weld where the air is, there's no chance at all of there being a problem from being welded, welding can be done below the level of whatever liquid is in the tank.

THIS IS EXACTLY HOW EVERY SINGLE "DRONE AND CRUISE MISSILE" HIT THESE TANKS.

Take a look at this picture. All the tanks were hit the same way in exactly the same spot, with precision that is not attainable by those accused, as well as precise limited damage not attainable by those accused.

This attack was prepared for, because NONE of the tanks exploded, all were full to above the level of impact. What are the chances of that happening at random? I'd say zilch, and am probably right.

AND HOW THE HELL ARE THE FIRES OUT SO SOON AFTER THE "ATTACK" THAT A PHOTO LIKE THIS COULD BE TAKEN RIGHT AWAY? These fires were out in ONE DAY. That needs some explaining, - explaining that can't be done outside of this attack being hoaxed for max impression and minimal damage.

BOTTOM LINE: If it is all out so quickly and the damage is that uniform and the damage is that minimal, first of all Iranian cruise missiles did not do this because the damage is not enough (all of them carry 130 KG (286 pound) warheads and up) which would obliterate a large section of those tanks and not just leave a little hole

(Oh, I know what did this, the Iranian navy put limpet mines on those tanks, YEP, that would end up looking like the photo) and magically and mysteriously got all of them right where they would not ignite any vapors and blow the whole thing. Forget about how they sailed into that refinery to do it, IRAN DID IT, IRAN DID IT, IRAN DID IT!!!!

The Yemenis did not do this either, they were simply not capable of that kind of precision. Even the U.S. would likely not have an attack pattern be so uniform and perfect, this looks like a hand placement job and someone was brainless about making it look credible. FINAL ANSWER.

=========================================

... I guess someone needed an oil price increase on the double...

[Hervé]

Oil supply is back to what it was before the attack, but we don't know yet who is responsible - Saudi energy minister

RT
Published time: 17 Sep, 2019 18:00
Edited time: 17 Sep, 2019 18:52
Get short URL

FILE PHOTO: Saudi Aramco's Ras Tanura oil refinery and oil terminal in Saudi Arabia © Reuters / Ahmed Jadallah

Saudi Arabia’s energy minister said that its oil supplies had resumed and that its oil market would be “fully back online” by the end of September following attacks which Washington blames on Iran while Riyadh is still probing.

Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman told the media that oil production in October would reach 9.89 million barrels per day and 12 million bpd by the end of November.

He said Riyadh did not yet know who was responsible for the attacks, though Washington has pointed the finger at Tehran.

Iran has denied involvement inthe attacks and Houthi rebels in Yemen have taken responsibility, warning that more could be forthcoming.

The attacks on refineries at Abqaiq and Khurais slashed Riyadh’s output by 50 percent and knocked out more than five percent of global daily production. Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser says, however, that it is now producing “two million barrels” from Abqaiq.

Nasser said Saudi Aramco is still in the process of estimating the repair work that needs to be carried out on the refineries. He also said the kingdom's petroleum reserves were effective in coping with the crisis.

New messages Aramco is the company "that you can trust the most in the world," he said. Nasser also said the company is committed to a planned IPO listing and "will be ready" for it any time in the coming 12 months "as per market opportunity."

Iran's foreign minister Javad Zarif said on Tuesday that the US was "in denial" over its suggestion of Iranian involvement in the attacks on Saudi Arabia's oil facilities.

Washington is in denial “if it thinks that Yemeni victims of 4.5 yrs of the worst war crimes wouldn't do all to strike back,” he said in a tweet, adding that “blaming Iran” would not change that.

[Hervé]

A Reader Questions the Saudi Attacks…Is Trump Peddling Fake Evidence Again?

By VT Editors -
September 16, 2019 15

…from Ron in Australia

I have been trying to piece together some discrepancies I noticed when I compared the media pictures of the refineries burning with actual Google Earth images. What I noticed is a couple of problems with the official report – you can look for yourself on the attached PDF file.

The burning images are gas flares – not actually the refineries themselves as you would think.

Anyway, food for thought.

[Hervé]

CIA Top Secret File: the Us war in Syria planned since 1983

VT
By Fabio Giuseppe Carlo Carisio -
September 19, 2019

An unsealed document of American intelligence signed by the former Central Agency officer Graham Fuller confirms the bloody project with Israel and Turkey for Assad’s opposition to Muslim Brotherhood pipeline

by Fabio Giuseppe Carlo Carisio for VT Italia

«Syria at present has a hammerlock on US interests both in Lebanon and in Gulf, through closure of Iraq’s pipeline thereby threatening Iraqi internationalization of war. The US should consider sharply escalating the pressure against al Assad through covertly orchestrating simultaneous threats against Syria from three border states hostile to Syria: Iraq, Israel and Turkey».

In a paper of the American CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), declassified on May 27, 2008 and therefore available as Open Source Intelligence (Osint), the occult project of military aggression against Syria by the US is described and also the reasons for doing so.

Signing the document is not just any secret agent but Graham E. Fuller, operating in the Middle East during the administration of President Ronald Reagan (1981-1989), who later became CIA office in Washington and vice president of the US National Intelligence Council.

There are certainties that emerge from the document: the need to threaten the Syrian president of that time Hafiz Al Assad, father of Bashar, for his hostility to the Iraqi gas pipeline Qatar-Turkey strongly backed by the Muslim Brotherhood of Sunnite Islamic confession, and therefore enemies of the Shiite Alawites who support the head of Syrian government, the rooting of American terrorists as a force of provocation, and the pushing for military action by Iraq, Israel and Turkey.

The first page of CIA unsealed document

It's disconcerting that the CIA document (PDF link below article) dates back to September 14, 1983, 23 years before the official start of US State Department funding for anti-Assad rebels, as revealed in a previous report based on a thorough investigation by the British newspaper The Guardian.

THE CONSPIRATORS AGAINST ASSAD
In 2019, after about half a million deaths in the Syrian civil war still in existence in the governorates of Idlib and Deir Ezzor, due to the presence of armed Hayat Tahrir al-Sham HTS jihadists armed from Turkey in the north and the US-backed SDF Kurds in the Euphrates valley, very rich of oil now smuggling by US with terrorists help.

THE OIL SMUGGLING BY US ARMY WITH TERRORISTS HELP
The CIA plan can be considered fulfilled as regards the role of Israel, which for years has bombed Syria with the specious excuse of hitting the Lebanese Hezbollah and Pasdaran Iranian positions intervening to help Bashar al Assad against the Islamic State, and for that of Turkey which has conquered Afrin leaving it in the hands of ferocious jihadists who carry out every kind of abuse against the Kurds.

THE CIA PLAN AGAINST ASSAD AND SYRIA
The document of the secret agent Fuller, however, reveals an overly optimistic scenario on the role of Iraq that at that time was still ruled by the dictator Saddam Hussein, killed only in 2006 after the Second Gulf War that destroyed the country making it incapable to be acted against Syria.

For this in Mosul Al Baghdadi, the alleged CIA agent but also Mossad man according other sources, in 2011 founded, with the help of the US, the ISIS (Daesh in Arabic) that conquered much of Syria before being defeated by the Syrian army SAA with the help of that of Russia and the Shiite militias.

AL BAGHDADI: ISIS CALIPH AND CIA AGENT
To combat the Sunni jihadists of the Islamic State in Iraq, during the civil war following the fall of the despot, in 2014 the Hashd al-Sha’abi Popular Mobilization Forces, with a Shiite majority, were born and increasingly assumed power, favoring the hegemony of the Shiites in Baghdad and a new alliance between Iraqis and Iranians.

A similar collaboration was born between Syria and Lebanon since 2008 when the interim Lebanese president Michel Aoun, a Maronite Christian, met Assad, extremely tolerant of all religious denominations, to sanction peace between the two states previously engaged in a serious conflict.

Having said this, let us now see what the CIA wrote in 1983 by Graham Fuller. «Iraq, perceived to be increasingly desperate in the Gulf War, would undertake limited military (air) operations against Syria with the sole goal of the opening pipeline.

Although opening war on a second front against Syria poses considerable risk to Iraq- Syria would also face a two-front war since it is already heavily engaged in the Bekaa, on the Golan and in maintaining control over hostile and restive population inside Syria» wrote Graham Fuller in 1983 CIA secret act,

The CIA document with plan against Syria signed by Graham Fuller

«Israel would simultaneously rais tensions along Syria’s Lebanon front without actually going war. Turkey, angered by Syrian support to American terrorists operating our of northern Syria, has often considered launching unilateral operations against terrorist camps in northern Syria. Virtually all Arab states would have sympathy for Iraq» we can read in the unsealed document that is very important for high profile of the author.

THE GANGSTER NETANYAHU AGAINST SYRIA
Graham E. Fuller (born November 28, 1937) is an American author and political analyst, specializing in Islamic extremism. Formerly vice-chair of the National Intelligence Council, he also served as Station Chief in Kabul for the CIA. A “think piece” that Fuller wrote for the CIA was identified as instrumental in leading to the Iran–Contra affair.

The former CIA agent Graham Fuller

He served 20 years as an operations officer in the CIA. Assignments include postings in: Germany, Turkey, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, North Yemen, Afghanistan, and Hong Kong. Fuller was Kabul CIA Station Chief until 1978, when he was brought to CIA headquarters in Washington, where he was appointed National Intelligence Officer for Near East and South Asia in 1982. In 1986, the CIA appointed him vice-chairman of the National Intelligence Council.

After a career in the United States State Department and CIA lasting 27 years, he joined Rand Corporation think-tank as senior political scientist specializing in the Middle East. As of 2006, he was affiliated with the Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia, as an adjunct professor of history. He is the author of a number of books, including The Future of Political Islam.

THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD PIPELINE IN SYRIA
«Faced with three belligerent fronts, Assad (Hafiz – ed) would probably be forced to abandon his policy of closure of the pipeline. Such a concession would be bringing the war to an end. It would be a sharp blow to Syria’s prestige and could effect the equation of forces in Lebanon». The CIA secret agent wrote about the Qatar-Turkey pipeline.

That was a proposal to build a natural gas pipeline from the Iranian–Qatari South Pars/North Dome Gas-Condensate field towards Turkey, where it could connect with the Nabucco pipeline to supply European customers as well as Turkey.

One route to Turkey was via Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Syria, and another was through Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq. Syria’s rationale for rejecting the Qatar proposal was said to be “to protect the interests of its Russian ally, which is Europe’s top supplier of natural gas”.

The Qatar-Turkey pipeline’s project

In 2012 an analyst cited by Ansa Mediterranean suggested that Qatar’s involvement in the Syrian Civil War was based in part on its desire to build a pipeline to Turkey through Syria:

“The discovery in 2009 of a new gas field near Israel, Lebanon, Cyprus, and Syria opened new possibilities to bypass the Saudi Barrier and to secure a new source of income. Pipelines are in place already in Turkey to receive the gas.

Only Al-Assad is in the way. Qatar along with the Turks would like to remove Al-Assad and install the Syrian chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood. It is the best organized political movement in the chaotic society and can block Saudi Arabia’s efforts to install a more fanatical Wahhabi based regime.

Once the Brotherhood is in power, the Emir’s broad connections with Brotherhood groups throughout the region should make it easy for him to find a friendly ear and an open hand in Damascus”.

THE “EXERTION OF REAL MUSCLE” AGAINST SYRIA
But now is the unsealed CIA paper that confirm this theory. «Syria continues to maintain a hammerlock on two key US interests in the Middle East: Syrian refusal to withdraw its troops from Lebanon ensures Israeli occupation in the south; Syrian closure of the Iraqi pipeline has been a key factor in bringing Iraq to its financial knees, impelling it towards dangerous internationalization of the war in the Gulf» wrote Fuller.

«Diplomatic initiatives to date have had little effect on Assad (Hafiz – ed) who has so far correctly calculated the play forces in the area and concluded that they are only weakly arrayed against him. If the US is to rein in Syria’s spoiling role, i can only do so through exertion of the real muscle chich will pose a vital threat to Assad’s position and power» adds the CIA report.

«Such a threat must be primarily military in nature. At present there are three relatively hostile elements around Syria’s borders: Israel, Iraq and Turkey. Consideration must be given to orchestrating a credible military threat against Syria in order to induce at least some moderate change in its policies – highlights the American secret agent – This paper proposes serious explanation of the use of all three states – acting independently – to exert the necessary threat. Use of any of one state in isolation cannot create such credible threat».

Some years later in Syria exploded a bloody war with more than half of million deaths. Now we can thanks the CIA and the White House policies: «Bringing real muscle to bear against Syria». For stealing oil and increasing the zionist-freemason weapons lobby.

Fabio Giuseppe Carlo Carisio
original italian version

========================================

... in a nutshell:

Posted by Hervé (here)
...

... always the same instigators and culprits for market manipulations, from (here):

Starting in 2014, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia flooded the market with cheap oil. This is not a mere business decision, but a calculated move coordinated with U.S. and Israeli foreign policy goals. Despite not just losing money, but even falling deep into debt, the Saudi monarchy continues to expand its oil production apparatus. The result has been driving the price of oil down from $110 per barrel, to $28 in the early months of this year. The goal is to weaken these opponents of Wall Street, London, and Tel Aviv, whose economies are centered around oil and natural gas exports.

And Venezuela is one of those countries. Saudi efforts to drive down oil prices have drastically reduced Venezuela's state budget and led to enormous consequences for the Venezuelan economy.

Now that sanctions are in place all over the place...

[Hervé]

We blame Iran, because Iranian arms were used! Saudis double down on claim as origin of oil-plant attack remains unclear

RT
Published time: 21 Sep, 2019 13:44
Edited time: 21 Sep, 2019 14:33
Get short URL

A damaged pipeline at Saudi Aramco oil facility in Khurais. © Reuters / Hamad l Mohammed

Saudi Arabia holds Tehran “responsible” for attacks on oil plants since “Iranian weaponry” was used, the Saudi foreign minister has said. An investigation into the attack is ongoing and Riyadh is discussing a response with allies.

The kingdom has been holding talks with its “allies and friends” to decide what to do in the aftermath of the attack, FM Adel al-Jubeir said during a press conference on Saturday.

While Yemen’s Houthi rebels have claimed responsibility for the attack, Riyadh has refused to believe that they have such capability. Al-Jubeir said they are “certain that the attacks did not come from Yemen but from the north.”

The Aramco attacks were undertaken with Iranian weapons and for this reason we hold Iran accountable for them.

After claiming responsibility for the September 14 attack on the oil processing facilities in Abqaiq and Khurais, the Houthis threatened to send their attack drones to the UAE, another member of the Saudi-led coalition bombing Yemen. On Friday, the Yemeni rebels said they'd halted attacks on Saudi Arabia but were expecting a stop of the coalition's bombing campaign in return.

This is unlikely to happen, though, as the coalition just launched a massive military operation against “legitimate military targets” in southwestern Yemen.

Earlier this week, the Saudi military displayed wreckage of what it said were Iranian drones and cruise missiles, describing it as “undeniable” proof of Tehran’s sponsorship of the attack. Iran has rejected all Riyadh's allegations, mocking the display and stating that “even the Saudis themselves don't believe the fiction of Iranian involvement.”

Related:

• Even Saudis don’t believe fiction of Iranian attacks on oil plants – Zarif

• Photos of damage to Saudis' Khurais oil field show strikes seem "suspiciously well-placed"- Did Houthis have 'insider help'?

================================================

Now...

[notice where North is indicated on the picture]

... I don't know about anyone else, but, to me, these things look punctured... no incendiary nor explosive ammunitions/bombs/missiles did that kind of damages...

... and that leads to: False Flag!

[Ba-ba-Ra]

Joseph Farrell discusses Saudi drone attack. Who benefits, who losses.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=N_V7SSpfeVc

[Satori]

SMOKE..... And.... MIRRORS.....


.....SMOKE........

Posted by Hervé (here)
A Reader Questions the Saudi Attacks…Is Trump Peddling Fake Evidence Again?

By VT Editors -
September 16, 2019 15

…from Ron in Australia

I have been trying to piece together some discrepancies I noticed when I compared the media pictures of the refineries burning with actual Google Earth images. What I noticed is a couple of problems with the official report – you can look for yourself on the attached PDF file.

The burning images are gas flares – not actually the refineries themselves as you would think.

Anyway, food for thought.

...........AND MIRRORS............

¤=[Post Update]=¤

Posted by Hervé (here)
...

... adding Jim Stone salt grain:

Look in the lower right hand corner of the photo. There is a car or pickup truck there. That shows how large the tanks are.

Iran's smallest cruise missile has approximately a 290 pound warhead. If an Iranian cruise missile hit those tanks (as some have claimed) the hole would be approximately as far across as 5 of those cars if the tank was robustly built, and more if it was not.

AND IF there was no additional explosive effects provided by the fuel in the tank. The entire story line for the refinery attack is an obvious hoax. There's no way a 290 pound warhead hit that tank.

I AM CALLING IT:

THERE WERE NO DRONES AND NO MISSILES USED AGAINST SAUDI REFINERY

Obviously there's no way to be 100 percent certain with this, but a referee would certainly call it for the following reasons:

There was no damage to the oil facility. At least no damage to speak of. They can patch it up and get it going STAT because it was extremely minimal damage that did not wipe out actual refining capabilities, all it did was light big fires (that are already completely out) and make a bunch of smoke. If this was for real, it would not be put out already.

Another very suspicious aspect of this was how precise the "hits" were. It looks as if someone went up on the tanks with a man lift that could access the same spot on each tank easily, and put the absolute minimal explosive there manually that would be needed to blow the tank, without actually destroying the tank.

There's not a chance in hell it was cruise missiles because if it was, there would be nothing left of the tanks. Instead, they are all neatly poked in exactly the same spot on each tank. The tanks obviously only need to be patched, they don't need to be replaced.

Here's a HUGE reason to call the attacks totally FAKE, and I know this cinches it -

First, an explanation to prove the scenario here -

In industry, when repairs have to be made to any tank filled with anything that can explode when mixed with air - if it needs to be welded, welding can be done without worry provided the welding is done below the level of the liquid in the tank, down below where the air can reach it. This is even true on gasoline tanks. As long as you don't puncture the tank or weld where the air is, there's no chance at all of there being a problem from being welded, welding can be done below the level of whatever liquid is in the tank.

THIS IS EXACTLY HOW EVERY SINGLE "DRONE AND CRUISE MISSILE" HIT THESE TANKS.

Take a look at this picture. All the tanks were hit the same way in exactly the same spot, with precision that is not attainable by those accused, as well as precise limited damage not attainable by those accused.

[FONT=arial]
This attack was prepared for, because NONE of the tanks exploded, all were full to above the level of impact. What are the chances of that happening at random? I'd say zilch, and am probably right. [B]

AND HOW THE HELL ARE THE FIRES OUT SO SOON AFTER THE "ATTACK" THAT A PHOTO LIKE THIS COULD BE TAKEN RIGHT AWAY? These fires were out in ONE DAY. That needs some explaining, - explaining that can't be done outside of this attack being hoaxed for max impression and minimal damage."

[Hervé]

The simple truth about the Yemen catastrophe

Phil Butler New Eastern Outlook
Thu, 26 Sep 2019 20:38 UTC

Yemen, Saudi Arabia's southern neighbor, is a human catastrophe that will go down in history as one of America's biggest policy mistakes. This poor Middle East country is the perfect reflection of failing U.S. strategies that will only balloon as the years draw on. Here is a candid look at another proxy war to perpetuate a misshapen dream.

The civil war in Yemen is about three things. Saudi/Israeli geostrategy, oil markets, and the geography of energy. Whatever else you hear about this most inhumane conflict, rest assured crude oil and natural gas are at the core of the conflict. With Saudi Arabia having already exhausted most of her oil reserves, only new finds in the region can prop up that ridiculous regime. I won't get into the term "peak oil" here, I've already covered this many times. The point is, the world's oil has to run out sooner or later, and places like Yemen are now becoming the battlegrounds for energy-dependent nations.

The Big Energy Grab
Yemen never was a big oil producer. Since the civil unrest began, the country's relatively small output has been choked down to a dribble. But Yemen is a very young territory for exploration, when compared to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE and others in the region. Two older fields that only came online in the mid-1980s reached peak production in 2001, and most experts say Yemen is one of those "post-peak" countries with no chance of a resurgent economy. I am not one of these analysts. The so-called frontier fields offshore are an energy bonanza I believe is fueling Saudi Arabia's and America's war on these people.

Yemen's offshore frontier basins, and to a lesser extent those onshore, are what the Saudi coalition is after. The idea that the Saudi's are deathly afraid of Iran is a construct built to separate people in every nation from the truth. Religious differences, Sunni versus Shia, Christian versus Muslim, they're a convenient excuse as has always been the case. Take a look at this report by Mustafa As-Saruri, Ph.D., and Rasoul Sorkhabi, Ph.D. at GEOExPro. Take note also, of the offshore blocks bid on by western oil giants recently. On offshore and other new discoveries, I quote from another GEOEx report from the mid-2000s:

"Yemen boasts twelve sedimentary basins, but oil production has come from only two of these, both lying in the center of the country, indicating that there is promising potential for further exploration both on and offshore Yemen."

Take note here, these new reserves would be sweet oil and not the sludge Saudi Arabia is thinning with seawater to get it to pump. I won't get into technicalities, but much of Yemen's oil wealth comes in the form of 41°API or above oil, which equates to quality and ease of extraction compared to what is currently coming out of Saudi Arabia.

Cold War II Geostrategy
This declassified (sanitized) CIA document tells us the Yemen situation in historical context, and show us U.S. policy toward the country is all about what I've suggested. Oil is a key factor, there is more oil than has been projected, and Yemen is part of a New Cold War hegemonic strategy by the U.S. and allies. Ironically, the CIA's information and recommendations on Yemen in the 1980s proved wrong on many accounts.

The experts creating these strategies were no less Anglo-European in their thinking than today's analysts. They got the oil part right and missed the Soviet influence and North and South Yemen's reunion totally. U.S. policy back then, as now, looked like cheerleading for big oil. In the aforementioned report, Hunt Oil, Amoco, and Texaco were the superheroes that would bring both Yemen into the U.S. stable of allied nations. Today, the strategy has only changed slightly.

Almost 17 million people in Yemen are unable sustain themselves, and the western narrative still relies on religious differences to explain the divide between Yemen and its neighbors. U.S. think tanks have Detche Welle convinced the catastrophe is a Sunni-Shiite conflict. Israel's Tel Aviv University's Moshe Dayan Center gives the same diagnosis. These vested interests all want you and I to believe that Saudi Arabia is trying to save Yemen from the same fate as Iraq! No, I am not kidding, read the DW story. And the Germans wonder why "peace is still elusive?"

Religion has precious little to do with the conflict in Yemen today. The root causes of this proxy war are as I have stated. Right behind the energy war, the battle for geostrategic posture has put the people of Yemen in extreme peril. To find the proof of this, we have to scan the western mainstream until we reach our old friends Al Jazeera. They tell half the story with:

"Reminiscent of the "Great Game" played out in Afghanistan between Great Britain and Russia more than a hundred years ago, Saudi Arabia and Iran are engaged in their own decades-long strategic rivalry for power and influence in the Middle East, stretching from the Mediterranean Sea to the Gulf and Arabian Sea. It is built mostly along sectarian and ideological lines - Saudi Arabia as the leader of the Sunni Muslim world, and Iran as the leader of the Shia Muslim world."

The other half involves post-colonialist nations that always have a hand in the affairs of nations at cultural and economic crossroads. Insert Britain, France, Germany, and the United States, alongside China and Russia here. Of course, the Al Jazeera piece is slanted toward Saudi Arabia and the Israeli contingent, but the "Great Game" recollection is sound. Yemen controls the entrance to the Red Sea through the Gulf of Aden and the Suez Canal. When all is said and done, this is the only story. Cold War II - same as Cold War I.

Political Geo-Dynamics
When we think of places like Iraq, Kuwait, or even Russia, we often think of the energy and natural resources. That is, where economics and geostrategy are concerned. Transit routes are not so often discussed beyond choke points like the Persian Gulf or the Suez Canal etc. How oil or natural gas gets from one place to another is a bit too wide a topic for the average Washington Post reader, let's just face it. So, imagine how obtuse most Americans or Germans are when we talk about other market factors like OPEC's competition, and shale helping America reenter the energy game in a big way, most people just don't have the time to invest. Reading how Royal Dutch Shell, BP, and Exxon Mobil Corp. is doubling down on shale output, it's just not sexy for most people. On top of this, try to explain the complexities of global competition between Russia and the United States with Europe sitting in between, and you lose almost everyone.

If I may, a bit over oversimplification can help even the busiest reader understand what I mean by Political Geo-Dynamics. Geodynamics is about the processes which have shaped the Earth. So, if we overlay a political map on top of the quantities of natural resources on our planet, we end up with a pretty good idea where conflicts and other synergies will surface. Consumption/demand plays a major roll in how crises flux, as you can imagine. The Middle East had to become a crisis point for a number of reasons, not the least of which being OPEC's squeezing of America back in the 1970s. But let's not digress.

America and Europe need more gas, corporations want to maximize profits in fulfilling the demand. Russia and Gazprom making a trillion euro off of the Europeans, for instance, is not something that is going to make Dutch Royal Shell, BP, or Exxon happy. Iran getting rich off the world's biggest natural gas resources is not going to happen either. I won't even get into Germany and the world's most profitable energy company, E.ON. (2015 earnings $126.97bn) This is a topic all its own.

Yemen satisfies three of three qualifying characteristics to be a target for annihilation. If the western alliance cannot have a puppet government in place, and if BP, Total, and Exxon cannot share in the offshore oil riches, then the bombs are going to fall until they can. America is going to have the geostrategic location and the bases, or the blood will flow. Yemen was just unlucky enough to have jutted out of the primordial ooze in the wrong place. It would not matter if Yemenis were Southern Baptists or Episcopalians, Donald Trump or any U.S. president would be backing Saudi Arabia and Israel in destroying the place or controlling it. This is a simple truth. Yemen is about container shiploads of money. The religious aspect is just for headlines people can understand. Christian versus Muslim, Good Old Boys versus Terrorists, you know the game.

What bothers me most, besides the starving or blown to bits children, is that we cannot just come out and admit its about greed. Hitler was more honest than current leaders, at least. Lebensraum was about killing people in Eastern Europe to get their land. Why can't our killing Yemenis be about America maintaining power? I bet most Yemenis wish they'd been born in Nova Scotia.


Related:

• Pepe Escobar: How Yemen's Houthis are bringing down a Goliath

• The economic entrails at the heart of the 'deal of the century'

• Alastair Crooke: Germany stalls and Europe craters

[Hervé]

Kurdistan, imagined by French colonialism

All that is hidden from you about the Turkish Operation "Source of Peace" (2/3)

by Thierry Meyssan Voltaire Network
Damascus (Syria) 19 October 2019

Contrary to popular belief, Rojava is not a state for the Kurdish people, but a French fantasy of the interwar period. The aim was to create a rump state with Kurds equivalent to Greater Israel, which was being considered with Jews. This colonial objective was reactivated by Presidents Sarkozy, Hollande and Macron including the ethnic cleansing of the region intended to host it.

ελληνικά français română italiano Português Türkçe Deutsch Español

A Kurdish delegation was received at the Elysée by President François Hollande and his then Minister of Defence, Jean-Yves Le Drian, in the presence of Bernard-Henri Lévy, authorising officer of the Tunisian, Egyptian and Libyan disasters.


The French High Commissioner in the Levant, General Henri Gouraud, with the help of the Turks, recruited 900 men from the Millis Kurdish clan to suppress the Arab nationalist rebellion in Aleppo and Raqqa. These mercenaries would fight as French gendarmes under what would become the flag of the current Syrian Free Army (Telegram of 5 January 1921).Source: Archives of the French Army.

The Kurdish people have never had a dream of unification, with the exception of the project of the Prince of Rewanduz. In the 19th century, it was inspired by the German conception of the Nation and therefore intended to unify the language as a priority. Even today, there are still several languages, leading to a very pronounced separation between the Kurmanjis, Sorani, Zazakis, and Gurani clans.

According to documents hitherto untapped and about which the Lebanese intellectual Hassan Hamadé is currently writing an astounding book, the President of the French Council of Ministers, Léon Blum, negotiated in 1936 with the head of the Jewish Agency, Chaim Wiezmann, and the British, the creation of a Great State of Israel from Palestine to the Euphrates, thus including Lebanon and Syria until then under French mandate. This project failed due to the furious opposition of the French High Commissioner to the Levant, Count Damien de Martel. France - and probably the United Kingdom - were considering at the time the creation of a Kurdish state in Syria east of the Euphrates.

On 4 February 1994, President Mitterrand received a Kurdish delegation of members of the Turkish PKK.

The Kurdish question became a priority again with President François Mitterrand. In the middle of the Cold War, his wife, Danielle, became the "mother of the Kurds[of the Barzani clan]". On 14 and 15 October 1989, it organized a symposium in Paris: "The Kurds: cultural identity, respect for human rights". It played a role in the false attribution of the death of the Kurds in the village of Halabja during the Iraq-Iran war to the cruelty of President Saddam Hussein, while US Army reports attest that, on the contrary, the wind displaced Iranian gases during a terrible battle [1]. In 1992, she participated in the creation of a Kurdish puppet government in the Anglo-Saxon-occupied Iraqi area.

On 31 October 2014, François Hollande escorted Recep Tayyip Erdoğan back to the Elysée staircase. Another guest has just discreetly stepped out the back door, the pro-Turkish Kurdish Salih Muslim.

During Nicolas Sarkozy’s presidency in 2011, Alain Juppé concluded a secret protocol with Turkey for the creation of a pseudo-Kurdistan. Syria did not respond. Then, on October 31, 2014, President François Hollande officially received Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at the Elysée Palace with the unofficial co-president of the YPG, Salih Muslim, to finalize the dismemberment of Syria. The Kurdish fighters stopped recognizing themselves as Syrians and began their struggle for their own country. Syria immediately stopped paying their salaries.

At the end of the Battle of Kobane, François Hollande changed sides and expressed his support for the Kurds by receiving a pro-US delegation from the YPG at the Elysée on February 8, 2015.

However, a few months later, President Barack Obama called France to order. It was not up to Paris to negotiate a pseudo-Kurdistan based on its old colonial dreams, but only up to the Pentagon, according to the Rumsfeld/Cebrowski ethnic plan. François Hollande withdrew and received a pro-US Kurdish delegation of female fighters from Ain al-Arab ("Kobané" in German and not in Kurdish). Turkey refused to submit to Washington. This was the beginning of a long divergence between the members of the Atlantic Alliance. Considering that the French reversal violated the agreement of October 31, 2014, the Turkish secret services organised with Daesh the attacks of November 13, 2015 against France and March 22, 2016 against Belgium, which had just aligned itself with Washington [2]. President Erdoğan unequivocally announced the attacks against Belgium and his press claimed them. Finally, Salih Muslim organized the compulsory conscription of young Kurds and built his dictatorship, while Ankara issued an arrest warrant against him.

Decree of the forced kurdisation of northern Syria. This document, made public by the Assyrian Christian victims, attests to the ethnic cleansing perpetrated by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), under US military supervision.

In October 2015, the Pentagon created the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a unit of Turkish and Syrian Kurdish mercenaries, including some Arabs and Christians, in order to carry out ethnic cleansing without having to take public responsibility for it. The SDF expelled Arab and Assyrian Christian families. Fighters from Iraq and Turkey settled in their homes and took possession of their lands. The Syrian Catholic Archbishop of Hassaké-Nisibi, Bishop Jacques Behnan Hindo, attested several times that Kurdish leaders alluded in his presence to a plan to expel Christians from "Rojava". French special forces witnessed this crime against humanity without flinching. On March 17, 2016, the autonomy of "Rojava" (pseudo-Kurdistan in Syria) was declared [3]. Fearing the junction between the Turkish PKK and the Iraqi Barzani clan would pave the way for the creation of a Greater Kurdistan, the Iraqi government sent weapons to the PKK in order to overthrow the Barzanis. This was followed by a series of murders of Kurdish leaders by opposing clans.

At the end of 2016, the partial withdrawal of the Russian army followed by the liberation of Aleppo by the Syrian Arab Army marked the definitive turnaround of the war. They coincided, in January, 2017, with the arrival in the White House of President Donald Trump, whose election platform included the end of the Rumsfeld/Cebrowski strategy, the end of massive support for jihadists and the withdrawal of NATO and US troops from Syria. France facilitated the departure in Rojava of young anarchist fighters persuaded to defend the Kurdish cause while they were fighting for the Atlantic Alliance [4]. Returned to France, they would prove to be as uncontrollable as the young French jihadists. Thus, according to DGSI (Internal Intelligence), it was one of these fighters who would attempt to shoot down a gendarmerie helicopter during the evacuation of Notre-Dame-des-Landes airport [5].

In June of 2017, President Trump authorized a joint operation by the Syrian Arab Army (commanded by President Bashar al-Assad) and the SDF (i.e. pro-US Kurdish mercenaries) to free Raqqa, the capital of Daesh [6]. The war is over, but neither France nor Germany understands it that way.

Gradually, the United States lost control of the YPG and lost interest in it. The terrorist organization then became a French plaything, just as the Muslim Brotherhood is a British puppet.

This map was published by Anadolu Agency in January 2019. It shows 9 French military bases, 8 of which were deployed by President Emmanuel Macron.

Turkey then published through its official agency, Anadolu Agency, the map of the French military bases in Rojava, the number of which had been extended to nine under Emmanuel Macron’s presidency. Until then, we only knew the one of the Lafarge group’s cement plant. Ankara wished to point out that, contrary to its official statements and unlike the United States, France remained in favour of the partition of Syria.

We can also reveal that, asked by the Syrian intelligence services to recover its jihadists taken prisoner, France refused to repatriate them for trial. She asked that they be handed over to the Kurdish forces who would take care of them.

In February 2018, the Russian Federation’s Ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzia, revealed that Syrian Kurds had just pardoned 120 Daesh leaders and had incorporated them into the YPG.

As early as September 2018, President Trump was preparing to withdraw US troops from all of Syria [7]. The abandonment of "Rojava" was conditional upon the cutting of the Iranian road that could cross this territory to reach Lebanon. This would be committed to by President Erdoğan in August. The GIs then oversaw the destruction of the Kurds’ defensive works. An agreement was validated on September 16 by Russia, Turkey and Iran. Therefore, the end of this pseudo-Kurdistan is imminent. Understanding absolutely nothing that is going on, France is shocked when Turkish troops brutally invade this pseudo-autonomous state from which the illegally occupying population flees.

Infatuated with himself and totally disconnected from reality, Jean-Yves le Drian assures on the France 2 plateau that France is safely pursuing its objectives in Syria.

Guest of the French TV news2, on September 10, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Yves le Drian, tries to reassure the French people about the consequences of this fiasco. He assures that France is in control of the situation: jihadists detained in Rojava will not be released, whereas there are no longer any institutions on the ground, but tried in this territory. He goes on to say that president Erdoğan is threatening France in a vacuum. Finally, he refused to answer a question about the mission of the French army on the spot, in the midst of a debacle.

If we ignore the fate of the jihadists who are prisoners as well as that of the civilian populations who stole this land, we have no news of the fate of the soldiers at the nine French military bases. They are caught in the crossfire, between the Turkish army that President Holland betrayed and the Kurds that President Macron abandoned and who once again pledged allegiance to the Syrian Arab Republic.

Thierry Meyssan

Translation Roger Lagassé


[1] “A War Crime Or an Act of War ?”, Stephen C. Pelletiere, The New York Times, January 31, 2003.

[2] Selon les experts anti-terroristes, ces attentats n’ont pas été effectués en recourant à un mode opératoire comparable à celui utilisé lors des autres attentats revendiqués par Daesh, mais portent la trace d’une organisation militaire minutieuse, d’un acte de guerre perpétré par un État. “The motive for the attacks in Paris and Brussels”, by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Pete Kimberley, Voltaire Network, 28 March 2016.

[3] « Déclaration du Rojava pour une Syrie fédérale », Réseau Voltaire, 17 mars 2016.

[4] “NATO’s Anarchist Brigades”, by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Pete Kimberley, Voltaire Network, 12 September 2017.

[5] « Ces revenants du Rojava qui inquiètent les services de renseignement », Matthieu Suc et Jacques Massey, Médiapart, 2 septembre 2019.

[6] “Secret Russian-Kurdish-Syrian military cooperation is happening in Syria’s eastern desert”, Robert Fisk, The Independent, July 24, 2017.

[7] “Trump eyeing Arab ‘boots on the ground’ to counter Iran in Syria”, Travis J. Tritten, Washington Examiner, September 29, 2018.


Related:

• All that is Hidden from you About Turkish operation "Source of Peace" (1/3)
  The genealogy of the Kurdish question

[Chester]

I came upon the following article this morning -

The Turkish Invasion of Rojava

author - Thierry Meyssan

...and I found the article had an aura of truth but also, was quite detailed. I felt it might belong somewhere on PA and so I did an advanced search with the term Syria in the title and found this thread. So with full intention to post the article, I came to the thread and noticed the last post was... well... just look - Posted by Herve of an article by...

Thierry Meyssan

This felt like a pretty cool confirmation my intuition was pretty accurate on this one and I say that because I have found Herve to be almost inhuman (meaning beyond human and in a good way) with regards to how he covers important world affairs and how he uncovers that which is not (ever) found in any "corporate owned media."

[Hervé]

Russian military releases satellite images confirming US smuggling of Syrian oil

Sputnik
Sat, 26 Oct 2019 10:20 UTC

© Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation

The Russian Defense Ministry published satellite intelligence images proving that oil from Syria was sent abroad under the guard of US servicemen before and after the defeat of the Daesh terrorists, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said Saturday.

The ministry said that "the space intelligence images showed that oil was actively extracted and massively exported for processing outside Syria, under the reliable protection of US troops, before and after the defeat of the Daesh* terrorists."

Oil transit vehicles gather in Deir ez-Zor Province, Syria, 10 km east of Al Mayadin © Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation

Oil transit vehicles gather near Al-Omar oil station in Deir ez-Zor Province, Syria, 14 km east of Al Mayadin © Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation

Pentagon chief Mark Esper said Friday that the US intended to take measures in the near future to strengthen its position in the Syrian region of Deir ez-Zor in order to prevent terrorists from accessing oil fields. According to the defense secretary, Washington is studying how to move forces in the region so that "to ensure the safety of oil fields."

*Daesh (also known as ISIS/ISIL/IS) is a terrorist group banned in Russia

[Mashika]

Posted by Hervé (here)
Russian military releases satellite images confirming US smuggling of Syrian oil

Sputnik
Sat, 26 Oct 2019 10:20 UTC

© Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation

The Russian Defense Ministry published satellite intelligence images proving that oil from Syria was sent abroad under the guard of US servicemen before and after the defeat of the Daesh terrorists, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said Saturday.

The ministry said that "the space intelligence images showed that oil was actively extracted and massively exported for processing outside Syria, under the reliable protection of US troops, before and after the defeat of the Daesh* terrorists."

Oil transit vehicles gather in Deir ez-Zor Province, Syria, 10 km east of Al Mayadin © Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation

Oil transit vehicles gather near Al-Omar oil station in Deir ez-Zor Province, Syria, 14 km east of Al Mayadin © Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation

Pentagon chief Mark Esper said Friday that the US intended to take measures in the near future to strengthen its position in the Syrian region of Deir ez-Zor in order to prevent terrorists from accessing oil fields. According to the defense secretary, Washington is studying how to move forces in the region so that "to ensure the safety of oil fields."

*Daesh (also known as ISIS/ISIL/IS) is a terrorist group banned in Russia

This oil can and will fund several other groups in other countries. Perfect approach to solve the problem of funding rebels when/where necessary

According to the defense secretary, Washington is studying how to move forces in the region so that "to ensure the safety of oil fields."

There may not be enough money for business but what about funding a rebel group? ISIS was getting money from oil fields and used it to keep the group going, so if they were able to do that, other groups will do as well

I find it terrible that the US pretty much has acknowledged they are supporting this process

[Hervé]

‘International State Banditism’: Russian Defence Ministry Explains What US Really Does to Syrian Oil

Sputnik Middle East
10:00 26.10.2019
(updated 10:02 26.10.2019)

© Photo : Ministry of defence of the Russian Federation

Commenting on US Defence Secretary Mark T. Esper's statement that a group of US troops will remain in eastern Syria, allegedly to prevent Daesh from accessing the oil fields, a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said the statement should not be a surprise.

In a statement, the chief spokesman for the Russian Defence Ministry, Igor Konashenkov, noted that the US' stated goal of protecting Syrian oil fields from Daesh* fighters could not be farther from the truth.

“What Washington does now – the capture and holding under its armed control of oil fields in Eastern Syria is, simply speaking, an international state banditism,” he said, adding that Syrian oil reserves and other mineral resources belong solely to the Syrian Arab Republic, not to Daesh terrorists or to “American protectors from Daesh terrorists”.

“Neither international law, nor the American legislation itself can justify the US troops’ goal to guard Syrian hydrocarbon reserves from Syria itself and its people,” the statement reads.

Citing intelligence obtained via Russian Defence Ministry surveillance satellites, both before and after the Daesh defeat north of the Euphrates, Syrian oil was being actively extracted and smuggled to other countries, while being guarded by US soldiers.

The oil was smuggled in tanker truck convoys, guarded both by US servicemen and the mercenaries of private military contractors (PMCs), the ministry spokesman said.

“Meanwhile, Washington imposed sanctions on shipping hydrocarbons to Syria, which spans not only US companies, but everyone else,” the statement says.

Despite that, oil extraction is being conducted using equipment provided by "leading Amercian corporations", Konashenkov said.

In case of an attack on convoys, the US military immediately calls upon special operations forces and its air force for protection, he added.

According to the statement, oil extraction was conducted by a US-controlled company, created under the so-called “Autonomous Administration of East Syria”.

The smuggling revenue went through intermediary companies to US intelligence agency and PMC bank accounts, he said.

“Considering one barrel of Syrian oil costs $38, the monthly revenue of this ‘private enterprise’ of US intelligence agencies is more than $30 million,” the statement reads. “For such a constant flow of cash, free of state control and taxes, Pentagon and Langley management will be ready to guard Syrian oil wells from ‘hidden Daesh cells’ indefinitely.”

On 9 October, Turkey announced its 'Operation Peace Spring' which aims to drive Kurdish militias and remaining Daesh fighters away from the border. On 13 October, US Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper said the US will withdraw all of its force of 1,000 soldiers from northeastern Syria. On 25 October, Esper said the US would maintain a "reduced presence" in Syria, citing concerns about Daesh terrorists taking control of the oil fields. His words contradict the Trump administration, which announced earlier this year that Daesh had been 100 percent defeated.

''The United States will maintain a reduced presence in Syria to deny ISIS access to oil revenue as we reposition for the next phase of the Defeat-ISIS campaign,'' Esper said.

*Daesh (ISIS/ISIL) is an international terrorist group which is banned in Russia


Related:

• ISIS Oil Trade Full Frontal: "Raqqa's Rockefellers", Bilal Erdogan, KRG Crude, And The Israel Connection

[Hervé]

US President Donald Trump Confirms Daesh Leader Baghdadi Has Been Eliminated

Sputnik US
16:22 27.10.2019
(updated 16:53 27.10.2019)

© Flickr / Thierry Ehrmann

On Saturday night, the president left a mysterious tweet, writing that "something very big has just happened," with the White House later saying he would make an announcement on Sunday morning.

President Trump has confirmed that US special forces have killed Daesh (ISIS) leader al-Baghdadi.

“Last night the US brought the world’s number one terrorist leader to justice. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead," he said, speaking from the White House on Sunday.

Trump said no US special operations forces were killed in the operation, which was said to have taken place in northwestern Syria on Saturday night.

"The US personnel were incredible. I got to watch much of it. No personnel were lost in the operation, while a large number of Baghdadi's fighters and companions were killed with him," the president noted.

Trump said Baghdadi "died after running into a dead-end tunnel, whimpering and crying and screaming all the way."

According to the president, 11 young children had been moved out of the compound to safety. However, three children were said to have died after Baghdadi dragged them into the tunnel with him and blew up a suicide vest.

"His body was mutilated by the blast, the tunnel had caved in on it in addition, but test results gave certain, immediate and totally positive identification. It was him," Trump said.

Trump said the operation took place over the space of two hours.

Saying the US "reach" against the terrorists was "very long," Trump recalled that the US had also confirmed killing Hamza bin Laden, son of al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, who was "saying very bad things about people, about our country, about the world."

As for Baghdadi, the president said his caliphate had been "obliterated 100 percent" in March, and the terrorist leader's death was "another reminder that we will continue to pursue the remaining ISIS terrorists to their brutal end."

Calling Baghdadi a "loser," Trump added that he was "vicious and violent and he died in a vicious and violent way as a coward running and crying."

Trump said the raid couldn't have taken place without the "acknowledgement and help of certain other nations and people."

"I want to thank the nations of Russia, Turkey, Syria and Iraq, and I also want to thank the Syrian Kurds for certain support they were able to give us," Trump said.

Taking questions, Trump said al-Baghdadi had been under surveillance for a "couple of weeks" prior to the raid.

The president said "Russia treated us great. They opened up - we had to fly over certain Russia-held areas. Russia was great. Iraq was excellent. We really had great cooperation. And you have to understand, they didn't know what we were doing and where we were going exactly. But the ISIS fighters are hated as much by Russia and some of these other countries as they are by us."

Trump added that in the message to Russia, the US intimated that "'we think you're going to be very happy,' because you know again, they hate ISIS as much as we do."

The Kurds, he said, provided some "helpful" information, Trump said. Trump also confirmed that Turkey knew that the US was going in, and flew over Turkish-controlled airspace.

===================================

To be verified, confirmed, etc.... in the absence of a HD video showing the finger-printing of the remains...

[Hervé]

...

[Hervé]

Russian MoD doubts Trump’s announcement of killing ISIS chief al-Baghdadi, rejects claims it assisted US forces in op

RT
27 Oct, 2019 15:58
Updated 2 hours ago
Get short URL

© Global Look Press / twitter.com/News_Executive

There’s no credible data to prove a successful American raid took place against Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Russia’s Defense Ministry said. The US coalition didn’t even carry out any airstrikes in Idlib recently.

Earlier, Trump made a rare Sunday address from the White House informing the world that al-Baghdadi was eliminated in northwest Syria in a “daring nighttime raid” with the involvement of US special forces, planes, helicopters and drones. The Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) leader met his end “crying and screaming” in the face of the Americans’ might, he said.

But the Russian Defense Ministry insisted that “there were legitimate questions and doubts about the very fact [of the US operation] and, especially, its success.”

Also on rt.com ‘He died like a dog, like a coward!’ Trump describes GRAPHIC death of ISIS leader al-Baghdadi Moscow pointed out that it recorded no US coalition airstrikes in the Idlib area in northwest Syria on Saturday when the raid was held.

It also rejected Trump’s claims that Russian forces opened up the airspace under its control in Syria to American planes to facilitate the operation against the IS leader.

The ministry questioned the very possibility of al-Baghdadi’s presence in Idlib as the area is held by Al-Qaeda offshoot, Jabhat al-Nusra, who have always been mortal enemies of Islamic State.

Also on rt.com Trump thanks Russia, Turkey, Syria, Iraq & Kurds for aiding US operation that killed al-Baghdadi Moscow noted that Islamic State was crushed in Syria in early 2018 in a joint effort by the government in Damascus and the Russian forces, meaning that yet another report of al-Baghdadi’s demise “bears no effect on the operational situation in Syria or on the actions of the remaining terrorists in Idlib.”

French Defense Minister Florence Parly also questioned the significance of the claimed US achievement, pointing out that the raid only marked “an early retirement for a terrorist [al-Baghdadi], but not for his organization.”

======================================

If a lie is intended... make sure it's big enough... Trump got the advantage of first impact on his audience... and any first impact can't help but trigger an ensuing wave of rebutals which, in turn, can't help but keep the lie alive...

[Hervé]

The Future of the Levant

by Thierry Meyssan Voltaire Network
Damascus (Syria) 30 October 2019

We can’t resist publishing Thierry Meyssan’s editorial in al-Watan, Syria’s leading daily newspaper. He describes the United States/Russia agreement for the Levant.

عربي français Deutsch italiano Español فارسى

Over the past century, the United Kingdom and then the United States have successively courted all states and faith groups in the Middle East. They have fuelled confessional conflicts in such a way as to make themselves indispensable, according to the old principle of "Divide and conquer".

President Trump was elected three years ago with the plan to end the US Empire and bring his country’s forces back to the service of his fellow citizens. According to the analysis of his ephemeral security adviser, General Michael Flynn, withdrawing his troops from the wider Middle East while bringing peace to it means ending religious conflicts and therefore giving priority to sectarian states. In other words, Saudi Arabia must be de-wahhabited, Israel must be de-jewed, Iran must be de-chiited and Gaza de-sunnised, and the sectarian constitutions of Lebanon and Iraq must be changed.

That is exactly what we are witnessing today.

Prince Mohamad Ben Salmane and King Salmane himself, although they derive their legitimacy from the Wahhabi Brotherhood, are constantly pushing it back in their country.

Avigdor Lieberman, president of the Russian-speaking Israel Beitenu party, has brought about the fall of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and has been calling for a government without religious parties for a year. Two legislative elections later, General Benny Gantz may form a secular government of national unity, including Lieberman and Netanyahu, but without the religious parties. Otherwise, third parliamentary elections will have to be held.

Iran has imprisoned the main collaborators of former secular President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The country is under financial pressure from the United States and Israel’s military. At some point, it will be preferable for it to change its own system of government and return to a nationalist policy.

While one half of the Palestinian Territories is secular, the other half is governed by Hamas. But the State of Palestine only exists because the rest of Palestine is a Jewish State. If Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to be a simple minister, he would quickly be caught by his country’s judiciary. His fall would not be that of the Likud, but that of the few supporters of the Greater Israel conqueror from the Nile to the Euphrates.

In Lebanon, despite massive demonstrations, it is impossible to reform the sectarian constitution that has plagued the country for three quarters of a century and a civil war. Indeed, a constituent commission can only be formed by respecting the sectarian balances and cannot therefore abolish them. And if a constituent assembly were to be elected, the sectarian parties would once again buy voters to maintain themselves. The only solution is the creation of a secular military government that reforms the Constitution itself before withdrawing for the benefit of elected civilians.

In Iraq, the situation is the same, although less caricatured. As in Lebanon, the protest is now led by the Shia majority. Despite the apparent contradictions, Moqtada el-Sadr is first a nationalist before being a Shiite. Just as in Lebanon, sayyed Hassan Nasrallah is first a nationalist before being a Shiite. It has always been said that Hezbollah would cease to exist in its current form when Israel was no longer a Jewish state.

This White House project meets that of the Russian Federation, which has always protected Christians, but has always opposed denominational states.

Thierry Meyssan

Translation Roger Lagassé

Source: Al-Watan (Syria)

[Iyakum]

A question that I have been asking for quite some time.

I know that Iran has fighter fighters, types F4 / F5 / F14, but these are from the days when the country was still ruled by the Shah. Before the revolution, a deal with the US was imminent. The deal was that the US would sell the Iran F16 fighter. But according to my information, it did not come to the deal. There was a rumor in the country that Iran handled the deal, but that seems to be a rumor.

I am still investigating, some sources claim that Iran owns F16. But others write the opposite, that Iran does not own F16 but only F14. Today I searched again and found this here.

The Air Force has an estimated 460 combat aircraft and about 80 combat and 200 transport helicopters. The modern F-15 and F-16 jets can advance to a large number of distant and well-protected destinations.
(c) EPA (Israeli Defense Forces)

https://www.diepresse.com/742060/isr...tmacht#slide-3

Now I wonder if Iran really owns F16 fighters. Then the question of whether they are ready for use. The sanctions and the first Gulf War would not be up to date.

The last question I have.
Is it really possible to attack Iran? The country is twice as big as Germany. The US has virtually encircled it, Iraq, Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan, in the Gulf, the Emirates, Saudis, Kuwait. But will the US really dare? I do not think Russia would intervene in case of war. Israel definitely as an ally of the United States.

[Iyakum]

@ Herve,

I am not sure if this really succeeds in what Trump has planned or is still planning. Forcing Iran to renounce Shiite faith will not work. There is too much fanaticism behind it.

Okay, let's assume that such a plan exists. But let's not forget that Iran has been suffering from Islam for 40 years. Anyone who dares even say a word against the Islamic Republic in public is shot dead, imprisoned and the whole family with them. I saw it myself, six-year-old little girls who were sent straight from school to jail. I heard their voices howling because they did not understand why they were in jail.

But even if it should succeed ... what then? Who should govern a country that consists of seven different cultures? Today, the son of Shah called "Reza Shah II aka Waliat" birthday. Should he rule the country? He is not even able to pay attention to his wallet, let alone rule a country, ...

My opinion. "no chance". I hate war, but in the case of Iran, there is no other way!