U.S., Turkey joint operation designed “to save ISIS”, not destroy it

Global Research, November 18, 2015

With Russia annihilating terrorist vermin all across Syria from the air and the SAA personally mopping up the remainders in village after village, it appears the West has shifted from utter panic to an attempt to launch a Hail Mary and save its jihadist pets as well as the plan to overthrow the secular government of Bashar al-Assad.

This Hail Mary appears to be coming in the form of an attempt to secure the “Safe Zone” area discussed and agreed upon by the Turks and the United States in the past under the guise of fighting ISIS and protecting “moderate rebels” and civilians. In reality, however, the “Safe Zone” is nothing but a trafficking corridor for ISIS and other related terrorist organizations supported by NATO, financed by the GCC, and funneled through Turkey into Syria.

It is for this reason that the U.S. and Turkey have announced an agreement to “shut off Turkey’s border with Syria as part of a joint military operation.” In an interview with CNN, U.S. Secretary of State and Skull and Bones member John Kerry stated, “The entire border of northern Syria – 75 percent of it has now been shut off. And we are entering an operation with the Turks to shut off the other remaining 98 kilometers.”

Kerry did not elaborate as to what form the operation would take or when it would take place. He also neglected to mention whether or not U.S. troops would be deployed in order to take part in the operation.

Turkish officials have hinted at the possibility of some type of imminent military operation occurring, with Foreign Minister Feridun Sinirlioglu stating that a “new military operation against Daesh” may take place “in a matter of days.” Deputy Minister Numan Kurtulmus, however, stated that no ground operation was planned.

Of course, the dimensions of the territory in the crosshairs of this “joint military operation” between Turkey and the United States are immensely important.

The Kurds have seized and now maintain control of an area that spans the Turkey-Syria border from its western to eastern extremities all except for one small pocket in the middle – from Jarablus in the East to Dabiq in the West. Others have described the zone in slightly different dimensions as being from Jarablus in the East to Afrin in the East. Regardless, this corridor, also known as a “safe zone,” is about the exact dimensions of the ISIS supply lines coming in from Turkey to Syria and, if either the Syrian military or the Kurds were able to capture this small section of land on the border, ISIS supply lines would be entirely cut from the North. With Assad’s forces tightening their grip in the South and Southwestern portions of the country and the SAA/Hezbollah forces cracking down on any ISIS movements on the Syria-Lebanon border, and most notably the Russian bombing campaign aiding the Syrian military in retaking full control of Aleppo and other parts of northern Syria, ISIS would essentially be cut off from most avenues of outside assistance.

It is thus important to note that the Syrian military had nearly reached the Euphrates river when the terror attacks in Paris took place.

It is for this reason – the threat the Kurds pose to ISIS – that Turkey has engaged in such a heavy bombing campaign against the Kurds, alongside an alleged campaign against ISIS, the latter campaign being one that is questionable to say the least. Remember, the American airstrikesagainst ISIS have largely targeted Syrian infrastructure and civilian areas. In those areas where ISIS has been struck, it has been nothing more than an exercise in death squad herding.

The “ISIL-Free Zone” should be renamed the “ISIL Free Range Zone” since it is nothing more than a hedge of protection set up over the terrorists with the United States and Turkey once again acting as the ISIS Air Force. This zone, now under the protection of NATO forces will then be used as aForward Operating Base for terrorism deeper inside the country as Turkey unilaterally bombs the Kurds away from territory they currently hold.

Earlier this month, the Kurds launched an assault on that corridor, threatening to close the last supply route for ISIS that exists in the north. Indeed, not only one of the last, it is the main lifeline for the terrorist organization supported by the West.

On November 7, Webster Tarpley and the Tax Wall Street party wrote in their Daily Briefing that “Resistance to this urgently needed policy will inevitably come from Erdogan of Turkey.” Tarpley and the TWSP cited a report by Aaron Stein of War on the Rocks, which stated,

Turkey has made one thing very clear: It will not tolerate a YPG presence west of the Euphrates,and will therefore not accept a Kurdish-led offensive on the ISIS-held city of Jarablus, or any YPG-led effort to unite its territory with the Kurdish-controlled enclave in Efrin in northwestern Syria. In the days before the election, the Turkish military fired upon YPG forces trying to cross the Euphrates, ostensibly to shore up their front line with the Islamic State.

Turkey has long feared the creation of a Kurdistan in Northern Syria, particularly because the creation of such an entity would not only inflame the tensions between the Turkish Kurds and the Turkish government but would essentially carve out a good portion of Turkish territory. With the establishment of a Kurdistan virtually anywhere in the region but especially on the Turkish border or in Turkey itself, Erdogan’s foolish dreams of being the new Ottoman emperor will fade away.

For that reason, the Turks are in no way going to assist in the sealing of Turkey’s border with Syria by the Kurds. Considering the reports coming from media outlets friendly to the Turkish government and the propaganda being spouted by Erdogan’s stooges in the Turkish ruling party, it is the Kurds who are considered the great enemy of Turkish “civilization” (meaning Erdogan’s delusions of grandeur) and not ISIS.

With the growing awareness of the importance of the Jarablus corridor amongst researchers, observers, and the interested national parties, the recent Turkish/U.S. joint military operation agreement stands as a last ditch effort to solidify the ISIS/NATO presence in Syria. By engaging troops and military hardware over the “safe zone” of the Jarablus corridor, NATO will be able to ensure that ISIS supplies and soldiers continue to pour into Syria unabated. By placing NATO interests in the midst of the corridor and declaring the zone a “safe zone” the hope is that the Russians will see the zone as off limits.

At that point, the real question becomes just how long the Russians and the SAA can avoid their own attacks on the Jarablus corridor before they realize that the inability to do so is merely prolonging the war and is ultimately a losing strategy. Once that realization is made, the question will become whether or not the Russians and the SAA will attack the zone despite the NATO presence.

The answer to that question is one that is deeply important to us all.

Brandon Turbeville is an author out of Florence, South Carolina. He has a Bachelor’s Degree from Francis Marion University and is the author of six books, Codex Alimentarius — The End of Health Freedom7 Real ConspiraciesFive Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1 and volume 2The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria, and The Difference it Makes: 36 Reasons Why Hillary Clinton Should Never Be President. Turbeville has published over 500 articles dealing on a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, government corruption, and civil liberties.

Iraq’s Hezbollah Battalions planning to “expel” US occupation forces from Anbar Province; Iraq debates US versus Russian support against ISIS

The US air force doesn’t cooperate with Iraq’s federal government and security and armed forces and refrains from providing any intelligence on ISIL’s concentration and field camps,”
Iraq Senior Member of Parliament and former National Security Adviser Mowaffakal-Rubaie
Global Research, October 22, 2015
Fars News Agency 21 October 2015

Spokesman of Iraq’s Kata’ib Hezbollah (Hezbollah Battalions) Jafar al-Hosseini underlined that his forces are planning to win back the city of Ramadi after expelling the American forces from Anbar province.

“Our forces have two operations underway; first seizing Ramadi from ISIL and second keeping away the American forces from Anbar province,” al-Hosseini told FNA on Wednesday.

He underlined that preventing the US forces from getting close to Anbar province will expedite operations for winning back the province, specially after the military operations in Salahuddin province that led to the liberation of the city of Beiji.

The Ramadi city is now the scene of massive military operations of Iraq’s joint forces against the ISIL militants.

Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, was attacked by the jihadists in 2014 before being captured in February, 2015. Government forces succeeded in liberating the city in March, but withdrew two months later.

Iraq’s Western provinces have become a battlefield between Iraqi government forces and the ISIL fighters.

The Iraqi troops captured the refinery city of Beiji in the Western Salahuddin province on the second day of a fresh massive operation on Monday. Iraq’s Armed Forces Command Center made an official announcement on the groundbreaking victory on Tuesday.

In July, Iraqi armed forces launched a large-scale operation to roll back ISIL insurgency in Anbar province, however, its capital is still controlled by the Takfiris.

The messages sent by the US and Russia to Iraq indicate that the Baghdad government is under pressure resulting from the rivalries between the US and Russia over increasing their regional presence.

Such pressures will continue until Baghdad takes a final and resolute stance on US or Russian support in fighting the ISIL in the Arab country.

Meantime, the present information indicates that the Iraqi government is more inclined to take up a bigger role in the quadrilateral coalition with Russia, Iran and Syria.

Washington has not replied to Baghdad’s call for serious fight against the ISIL in action, while Moscow, Tehran and Damascus are still the most important supporters of Iraq in the fight against the ISIL; unlike Washington that is trying to weaken the Iraqi volunteer forces in their fight against the ISIL, the Russia, Iran and Syria reiterate strengthening the volunteer forces.

The US government in a message to Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi voiced Obama’s dissatisfaction with Baghdad’s inclination towards Tehran, Moscow and Damascus.

In the meantime, the Iraqi groups, specially the volunteer forces, believe he quadrilateral coalition has provided actual aid and backup to Iraq, while the US coalition did not, and this has resulted in Iraq’s inclination towards Iran, Russia and Syria.

Iraq’s Former National Security Adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie underlined the necessity for replacing Washington with Moscow for joint war on terrorist groups.

“The parliament fractions are calling on the Iraqi government to request Russian airstrikes and use it to attack the ISIL military bases and oil centers,” Rubaie, who is now a senior legislator at the Iraqi parliament, told FNA on Tuesday.

The US air force doesn’t cooperate with Iraq’s federal government and security and armed forces and refrains from providing any intelligence on ISIL’s concentration and field camps,” he added.

Rubaie complained that in every 10 flight missions conducted by the US-led coalition planes, ISIL positions come under attack in only two missions, while nothing special happens in the remaining 8 missions.

In relevant remarks on Monday, Iraqi security expert Hesham al-Hashemi said the Baghdad government would ask for Russia’s direct military assistance in the fight against the ISIL in the coming days, adding that further military advances by Iraq’s joint forces would be a great achievement for the quadrilateral coalition.

“If the Iraqi security forces achieve considerable advances in their fight against the ISIL in the Northern parts of Salahudin province, Iraq will surely ask for Russia’s military aid to help them in the fight agaist the ISIL,” Al-Hashemi told FNA.

The Iraqi security expert reiterated that the Iraqi air force desperately needed the Russian air force’s help in the fight against the ISIL.

He pointed to a security agreement signed between Iraq and the US, and said, “The Baghdad-Washington agreement will not prevent Iraq from asking for further military aid in the ongoing fight against terrorism from any third country.”

On Saturday, Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov told reporters after the 6th Xiangshan Security Forum in Beijing that Moscow had not received a request for military assistance in fight against the outlawed ISIL terrorist group, and it is ready to consider it.

“What I can say now is that as of today we do not have a request from Iraq like the one we have from (Syria’s President) Bashar Assad,” he said.

“In case we receive a request, we shall consider it accordingly.”

“As there are very many insinuations about Syria, I would like to stress we have a written request from Bashar Assad for a military and military-technical assistance in fighting IS(IL),” he said.

“We stress we are acting on a legal base and in compliance with the international law.”

U.S. tells Iraq: If you ally with Russia against ISIS, “you’re our enemy”

Global Research, October 22, 2015
Obama makes clear that America’s war against Russia is more important than America’s war against ISIS.

On October 14th, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the U.S. government had turned down the proposal from Russia’s President Vladimir Putin for the U.S. and Russia to cooperate together to eliminate ISIS and other jihadists in Syria and in Iraq. Lavrov said:

“We’ve made Americans the proposal announced by President Vladimir Putin yesterday. We suggested that they send a [US] military delegation to Moscow to coordinate a number of joint steps, and after that we could have sent to Washington a top-level delegation led by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, [but] … It is sad that our American colleagues in this case in fact do not side with those who fight against terrorism.

Then, on Tuesday October 20th, as CBS News online reported the following day,

“The U.S. has told Iraq’s leaders they must choose between ongoing American support in the battle against militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and asking the Russians to intervene instead. Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Tuesday that the Iraqis had promised they would not request any Russian airstrikes or support for the fight against ISIS.”

However, Iraq already had done precisely that — and had even said that Russia seemed more committed to defeating ISIS than America is. As I summed up on October 10th:

Wednesday, October 7th, Reuters headlined,

“Iraq Leans Toward Russia in War on Islamic State,” and reported, from Baghdad, that, “Iraq … wants Moscow to have a bigger role than the United States in the war against the militant group, the head of parliament’s defense and security committee said on Wednesday.”

Earlier, in an interview in English, with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, telecast on October 2nd, France24 TV asked him how he would view an extension of Russia’s anti-ISIS bombing campaign into Iraq, and he said (7:54), “I would welcome it.” 

So, at some time between October 7th and October 20th, the U.S. convinced Iraq’s leaders to, in essence, dis-invite the Russians, instead of to ally with them against ISIS in Iraq.

Two alternative explanations are possible. Either the U.S. had promised the Iraqis that the U.S. will now really get serious about defeating ISIS in Iraq, or else the U.S. had promised the Iraqis that Iraq would be punished — at the IMF or elsewhere — if Iraq followed through on their announced intention to replace the U.S. with Russia. (Or, of course, the U.S. could have done both — the carrot, and the stick.)

In either case (or both), the U.S. has made clear, to the Iraqis, that America will do anything to defeat Russia — even abandon the fight against ISIS in Iraq, if need be — and that the U.S. will absolutely not ally with Russia against ISIS, under any circumstances.

This makes abundantly clear, to the whole world, that the current American government considers its main enemy to be not jihadists, but Russians.

However, already, U.S. President Barack Obama had made this clear when, in his National Security Strategy 2015, he named Russia on 17 of the 18 occasions in which he charged “aggression.” The 18th instance was not Saudi Arabia, the main funder of jihadists, but instead North Korea, which poses little real threat to any U.S. ally except South Korea, and none at all to the United States. (And, of course, the U.S. President didn’t cite the U.S., which in a 2013 WIN/Gallup International poll was overwhelmingly named the most throughout the world as “the country that represents the greatest threat to peace in the world today.”)

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of  CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

ISIL camp with U.S. and UK instructors training Russian-born militants in Afghanistan

October 8, 2015
Sputnik

Russian is the working language in the ISIL camp in Afghanistan, a top Russian diplomat said Thursday.

The Islamic State is training Russia-born militants in Afghanistan, some of its instructors possessing US and UK passports, a top Russian diplomat said Thursday at a security conference in Moscow.

“A number of ISIL training bases recruit militants in Central Asia and some Russian regions. Russian is the working language in this so-called camp”, Zamir Kabulov, director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Second Department said.

He went on to say that the instructors include Arabs, Pakistanis, as well as UK and US nationals.

According to the Russian General Staff, the number of ISIL militants in Afghanistan has been growing and is now around two or three thousand. Over the past nine months, terrorists have killed more than 3,500 people, which is 25% more than during the same period a year ago.

US-led coalition supposedly against ISIS, yet warplanes “mistakenly” strike Iraqi bases in Fallujah, killing 6 Iraqi soldiers

FARS News Agency 6 June 2015
Global Research, June 07, 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, on Saturday.

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, 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, 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, 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.

http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13940316001210

http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-led-coalition-against-isis-warplanes-mistakenly-strike-iraqi-army-bases-in-fallujah-kill-iraqi-soldiers/5454005