Escalation from Europe, Syria and the Middle East

It is hard not to reach the conclusion.

This is just a small number of stories from the last 24-48 hours.

The move towards World War 3

Russia gives Syria satellite Intel on ISIS

The Russian Federation has recently boosted their military aid to the embattled Syrian Armed Forces, providing not only heavy weaponry, armor, and military personnel, but also, satellite imagery that has assisted the Syrian Arab Air Force (SAAF) with locating the positions of the enemy combatants across Syria.

In August of 2015, the Syrian-Russo military agreement was finalized after the Syrian Government’s Deputy Prime Minister – Walid Muallem – visited the Russian capital of Moscow to accept the terms of the proposal that would allow for the Russian military to increase the total number of soldiers on the ground in western Syria.

As a result, the Russian military command sent a number of advisors to the port-city of Tartous in order to begin the process of using satellite imagery to expose enemy positions and the Syrian Armed Forces’ overall effectiveness as a cohesive unit to combat terrorists around the country.

So far, the satellite imagery provided by the Russian military has paid dividends for the Syrian Air Force, as they are now able to track terrorist convoys and movements across the country without the use of spy drones; this has resulted in less flights and more damage to the enemy combatants.

According to a military source in east Homs, the Syrian Air Force’s airstrikes above the ancient city of Palmyra on Friday were by far the most effective aerial bombardment since the terrorists of the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS) captured this desert area in the Homs Governorate.

On Friday, the Syrian Air Force launched only 11 airstrikes above Palmyra; yet, these airstrikes were extremely effective, as they destroyed four armored vehicles along the road to the Ancient Quarries in northern Palmyra.

At the volatile Idlib Governorate, the Syrian Air Force only launched 23 airstrikes, marking the first time since October of 2012 that the SAAF hasn’t conducted more than 30 airstrikes inside this northern Syrian province.

Syria:1,000 Iranian Marines link up with 100 Russian Marines for combat ops

In what some are calling yet another diplomatic thumb directly in the eye of Barack Obama, Iranian special forces have reportedly landed in Syria to join with the relative handful of Russian Naval Infantry already in-country to aid the regime's strongman retain power. As reported by Mark Rivett-Carnac of the Reuters news service via Time magazine, and also by Johnlee Varghese of the International Business Times (IBT) India edition, both on Sept. 11, 2015, a mixed force of approximately 1,000 Iranian Marines and members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps are within a figurative stone's throw from the roughly 100 Russian Naval Infantry (Marines) who recently touched down in the war-torn nation.

On the heels of the Russian Foreign Ministry confirming the presence of "military experts" in Syria, Reuters cited anonymous Lebanese sources who all claim the Russians are actually on the ground to assist the government of President Bashir al-Assad maintain his more than slightly shaky grip on power. But in the communiqué from Moscow's Foreign Minister, the Russians are simply in Syria to oversee the deliveries of new weapons systems to aid Assad in the "fight against terrorism."

IBT notes the Iranian troops have "hooked-up" with the "just arrived" Russian forces in Jablah, a base built by the Russians outside the sea-side town of Latakia. While a mere 100 Russian Marines were initially reported earlier this week of boots on the ground in Syria to protect Russian transport aircraft unloading military equipment, Varghese is now reporting today that many more are soon on their way.

As reported, Russia will be deploying advanced S-300 air defense missile systems at the Jablah base. Follow-on troops from the Russian Marine Brigades 810 and 336 will be assigned to the base. With the likes of ISIS and the al-Qaeda allied al-Nusra terrorist army to the immediate east, Moscow doesn't appear to be taking any chances with their ground combat troops or their Iranian allies being overrun by the tens of thousands of armed terrorists not even a day's march from the Russian bases in the coastal towns of Jablah and Tatrus.

Russian MiG-31 long-range strategic attack fighter craft are currently stationed at the Mezza Syrian Air Force base at Damascus to reportedly provide air support to the combined Russian-Iranian forces if and when needed. with a low altitude speed of Mach 1.2 (930 mph), flight time from Mezza to the Russian coastal bases is literally just a few minutes.

Also flexing their naval muscle, the size of a World War One battleship, the massive Russian nuclear submarine, the Dmitri Donskoy (TK-20), is also steaming just off shore as a show of force to the various Syrian rebels militias, Islamic State (Isis), and al-Nusra. While none of the insurgent groups have a navy for the Donskoy to take on, their military facilities and troop concentrations would be the figurative easy pickings for the sub's RPK-2 Viyuga cruise missiles.

If Assad asks, China can deploy troops to Syria

Turkey-backed Chinese Uyghur terrorists are gaining a stronghold in Syria from which to launch attacks on China.

A new article reported that 3,500 Uyghurs are settling in a village near Jisr-al Shagour that was just taken from Assad, close to the stronghold of Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) that is in the Turkey-backed Army of Conquest. They are allegedly under the supervision of Turkish intelligence that has been accused of supplying fake passports to recruit Chinese Uyghurs to wage jihad in Syria.

The news comes on the heels of TIP capturing a Syrian airbase and acquiring MIG fighter jets as well as other advanced weaponry, similar to ISIS capturing Iraqi army’s advanced US weaponry.

It also comes on the heels of the Bangkok bombing at the shrine frequented by Chinese tourists, with Thai authorities now drawing a link to Uyghurs “and the same gang that attacked the Thai Consulate in Turkey” in reference to Turkey’s Grey Wolves.

This seems to corroborate IHS Jane’s analyst Anthony Davis’s assessment that Grey Wolves are the likely culprit, given their anti-Chinese protests and violent demonstration back in July.

Through Turkey’s support for the Army of Conquest, TIP has risen to prominence within the anti-Assad coalition and played a key role in defeating the Syrian army at Jisr al Shughour earlier this year.

The most prominent TIP fighter to emerge from the Jisr al Shughur videos was the spokesman for TIP’s “Syria branch” since 2014, Abu Ridha al-Turkistani.  In the videos he led fighters to take over a building, and climbed a clock tower to plant a black-and-white Jabhat al Nusra style flag on which “Turkistan Islamic Party” was written in Arabic.

These Uyghur militants have claimed a series of high-profile terrorists attacks in China in 2013 and 2014, with some Uyghurs calling for anintifada against the Chinese communist regime.

Now that TIP has established a base in Syria and is expanding its presence and recruitment courtesy of its Turkish sponsors, China will have to follow through with its 2013 recommendation “Take fight to ETIM before threat grows” and deploy troops to Syria.

Non-interference does not mean inaction on core interests

Some pundits may point to China’s non-interference principle as an impasse to action. However, China’s non-interference principle is more in reference to meddling in other countries’ domestics politics, such as US/western penchant for intervention and violating other countries’ sovereignty to overthrow autocratic regimes they dislike. Non-interference policy does not mean inaction when China’s security and interests are threatened.

It is not difficult for China to take action when its core interests are threatened–that means violation of its sovereignty, territorial integrity, economic development and regime survival.

At the 2011 IISS Asia Security Summit, Chinese Defense Minister Liang Guanglie spelled out China’s core interests as the following: “The core interests include anything related to sovereignty, stability and form of government. China is now pursuing socialism. If there is any attempt to reject this path, it will touch upon China’s core interests. Or, if there is any attempt to encourage any part of China to secede, that also touches upon China’s core interests related to our land, sea or air. Then, anything that is related to China’s national economic and social development also touches upon China core interests”.

If the TIP continues to gain power within the Army of Conquest that is a jihadi witches brew of various al Qaeda affiliates and salafist extremists, Xinjiang may become the next Afghanistan and follow the pattern of Afpak, Syria/Iraq, with local militant forces/cross border havens attracting foreign fighters, and enjoying material and diplomatic support from Turkey and other outside powers with shared ideology/interests.

Moreover, the Assad regime is currently still the legal and UN-recognized government of Syria, despite only holding 1/3 of its territory. If Assad asks and gives permission for Russia, China and other SCO members to assist him militarily, that would be in accordance with international law.

This differs from the current US-led anti-ISIS coalition airstrikes in Syria that is neither operating under a UN mandate nor permission from the sovereign government, although it enjoys implicit permission to some extent from the Assad regime to fight ISIS. In 2014 Britain’s David Cameron hesitated to participate in Syrian airstrikes precisely due to fears of violating international law.

Turkey’s proxy war with China

With Erdogan waging an Islamist proxy war on China, Kurds, Assad, Sisi, Netanyahu via Al Qaeda affiliates, Army of Conquest, Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, it is no wonder Syria and Egypt both applied to join the China-led SCO in June this year.

Thus Syria and China both share threats from the Army of Conquest that is attacking Assad and China’s Xinjiang. As Peter Lee noted, it is also worrying for the Chinese that when Palestinian President Abbas visited Erdogan’s new presidential palace in January 2015, the honor guards of 16 soldiers dressed in historical warrior costumes included a Uyghur.

Each warrior represents one of the 16 “great (or historic) Turkish empires” commemorated on Turkey’s official seal, one of which is the Uyghur Khanate that had subjected the Tang Dynasty to a de facto tributary relation when the Chinese empire was weak.

Thanks to Hurriyet, we know that the Uyghur warrior was the sixth man from the top of the steps on the left.

With Erdogan expanding Turkey’s influence in Syria and ambitions to reconstitute the “Turkic world from the Adriatic Sea to the Great Wall” of China, should SCO aspirant member Syria request aid and grant permission, China can indeed march its troops across the Silk Road to “take the fight to ETIM before threat grows.”

Dr. Christina Lin is a Fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at SAIS-Johns Hopkins University. She is the author of "The New Silk Road: China's Energy Strategy in the Greater Middle East" (The Washington Institute for Near East Policy), and a former director for China policy at the U.S. Department of Defense.

US Readies Battle Plans For Baltic War With Russia: Report

One of the most interesting - or perhaps “worrisome” is the better word - things about Moscow’s move to increase its support for the Bashar al-Assad regime as it battles to wrest control of large swaths of territory in Syria from Islamic State and other anti-government forces, is that it comes as the conflict in Ukraine still simmers. 

Even if, as Bloomberg suggested on Friday, The Kremlin is “leaning on the separatists to limit cease-fire violations and focus on turning their makeshift administration into a functioning government with the help of Moscow-trained bureaucrats,” the issue is far from resolved and if Transnistria is any guide, it may never be. 

That of course means the tension between Russia and Europe isn’t likely to dissipate any time in the foreseeable future, a fact that makes Moscow’s overt military support of Assad in Syria seem like a rather risky maneuver. In short, it appears that no matter how one wishes to characterize Moscow’s actions (i.e. irrespective of who the “aggressor” is), the West’s Russophobia as it relates to Putin’s willingness to chance a direct military confrontation with NATO isn’t entirely unfounded and as we’ve been keen to point out over the last several days, what the Russians have done by reinforcing Assad at Latakia is effectively call America’s bluff. 

Needless to say, NATO’s actions over the last six or so months have done nothing to de-escalate what amounts to the most intense staring contest between Russia and the West since the Cold War. War games and snap drills conducted along Russia’s border combined with the stationing of heavy weapons in Poland lend credence to the idea that at best, the US isn’t nearly as anxious to re-establish a constructive dialogue with Moscow as Washington would like the public to believe.

It’s against this backdrop that we present the following excerpts from Foreign Policy who reports that“for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the U.S. Department of Defense is reviewing and updating its contingency plans for armed conflict with Russia.” Notably, when the Army ran a series of war games to test NATO's preparedness, the results were nothing short of a нdisaster. 

*  *  *

Via Foreign Policy

The Pentagon generates contingency plans continuously, planning for every possible scenario — anything from armed confrontation with North Korea to zombie attacks. But those plans are also ranked and worked on according to priority and probability. After 1991, military plans to deal with Russian aggression fell off the Pentagon’s radar. They sat on the shelf, gathering dust as Russia became increasingly integrated into the West and came to be seen as a potential partner on a range of issues.Now, according to several current and former officials in the State and Defense departments, the Pentagon is dusting off those plans and re-evaluating them, updating them to reflect a new, post-Crimea-annexation geopolitical reality in which Russia is no longer a potential partner, but a potential threat.

“Russia’s invasion of eastern Ukraine made the U.S. dust off its contingency plans,” says Michèle Flournoy, a former undersecretary of defense for policy and co-founder of the Center for a New American Security. “They were pretty out of date.”

The new plans, according to the senior defense official, have two tracks. One focuses on what the United States can do as part of NATO if Russia attacks one of NATO’s member states; the other variant considers American action outside the NATO umbrella. Both versions of the updated contingency plans focus on Russian incursions into the Baltics, a scenario seen as the most likely front.

After Russia’s 2008 war with neighboring Georgia, NATO slightly modified its plans vis-à-vis Russia, according to Julie Smith, who until recently served as the vice president’s deputy national security advisor, but the Pentagon did not. In preparing the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review, the Pentagon’s office for force planning — that is, long-term resource allocation based on the United States’ defense priorities — proposed to then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to include a scenario that would counter an aggressive Russia. Gates ruled it out. 

“Everyone’s judgment at the time was that Russia is pursuing objectives aligned with ours,” says David Ochmanek, who, as deputy assistant secretary of defense for force development, ran that office at the time. “Russia’s future looked to be increasingly integrated with the West.” Smith, who worked on European and NATO policy at the Pentagon at the time, told me, “If you asked the military five years ago, ‘Give us a flavor of what you’re thinking about,’ they would’ve said, ‘Terrorism, terrorism, terrorism — and China.’”

In June 2014, a month after he had left his force-planning job at the Pentagon, the Air Force asked Ochmanek for advice on Russia’s neighborhood ahead of Obama’s September visit to Tallinn, Estonia. At the same time, the Army had approached another of Ochmanek’s colleagues at Rand, and the two teamed up to run a thought exercise called a “table top,” a sort of war game between two teams: the red team (Russia) and the blue team (NATO). The scenario was similar to the one that played out in Crimea and eastern Ukraine: increasing Russian political pressure on Estonia and Latvia (two NATO countries that share borders with Russia and have sizable Russian-speaking minorities), followed by the appearance of provocateurs, demonstrations, and the seizure of government buildings. “Our question was: Would NATO be able to defend those countries?” Ochmanek recalls.

The results were dispiriting. Given the recent reductions in the defense budgets of NATO member countries and American pullback from the region, Ochmanek says the blue team was outnumbered 2-to-1 in terms of manpower, even if all the U.S. and NATO troops stationed in Europe were dispatched to the Baltics — including the 82nd Airborne, which is supposed to be ready to go on 24 hours’ notice and is based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

“We just don’t have those forces in Europe,” Ochmanek explains. Then there’s the fact that the Russians have the world’s best surface-to-air missiles and are not afraid to use heavy artillery.

After eight hours of gaming out various scenarios, the blue team went home depressed. “The conclusion,” Ochmanek says, “was that we are unable to defend the Baltics.”

Ochmanek has run the two-day table-top exercise eight times now, including at the Pentagon and at Ramstein Air Base, in Germany, with active-duty military officers. “We played it 16 different times with eight different teams,” Ochmanek says, “always with the same conclusion.”

Full article here

Pentagon updates plans for war with 'potentially aggressive' Russia – media

Clock Ticks On US Syria Strategy As Assad Pounds ISIS Targets, Russia Sends Fighter Jets

Earlier this week, Bashar al-Assad served notice to ISIS that the tide may have just turned in the battle for Syria. The Kremlin’s move to increase its “logistical” and “technical” support for government forces at Latakia appears to have breathed new life into the regime which carried out a series of air raids in the de facto ISIS capital Raqqa on Thursday. 

This came amid reports that Assad’s forces were using new “highly effective and very accurate” weaponry. "There are modern weapons that the regime didn't previously have, be they rocket launchers or air to ground to missiles," The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told Reuters.

Needless to say, Russia’s move to bolster Assad and the suggestion by Syrian foreign minister Walid al-Moualem that Damascus may soon formally request Russian ground troops for the fight has alarmed Washington which, until now, was content to bide its time until Assad finally fell before swooping in to “liberate” the country from whatever militia managed to prevail. As we outlined on Friday, that option is now officially off the table, as toppling Assad will now mean ISIS, al-Nusra, YPG, and the various and sundry other groups operating throughout the country will need to first defeat Russia, an exceptionally unlikely outcome and one that the Pentagon certainly cannot afford to wait out. With its back against the wall in terms of explaining to the public why it seems more and more like the US would rather allow ISIS to continue to operate rather than ally with Russia and Assad to defeat them, Obama and Kerry folded on Friday, instructing Defense Secretary Ashton Carter to phone his Russian counterpart to begin coordinating anti-terror activities in Syria. Here's The New York Times

As the first Russian combat aircraft arrived in Syria, the Obama administration reached out to Moscow on Friday to try to coordinate actions in the war zone and avoid an accidental escalation of one of the world’s most volatile conflicts.

The White House seemed to acknowledge that the Kremlin had effectively changed the calculus in Syria in a way that would not be soon reversed despite vigorous American objections. The decision to start talks also reflected a hope that Russia might yet be drawn into a more constructive role in resolving the four-year-old civil war.

At Mr. Obama’s instruction, Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter on Friday opened a dialogue on Syria with his Russian counterpart, Defense Minister Sergei K. Shoigu, aimed at making sure that American and Russian forces avoid running into each other by mistake. 

“The Russians are going into Syria because the regime’s position in the north is deteriorating,” he noted. “The Pentagon has been unable to recruit and train a viable opposition to fight the Islamic State because the rebels’ main interest is in fighting Mr. Assad. Given divisions between Moscow and Washington, it’s hard to see how you turn convergence on tactical military issues into a collective and viable political strategy to stabilize Syria and end the war.”

But that appears to be precisely Mr. Kerry’s goal. “They allege that they also share the goal of a political transition that leads to a stable, whole, united, secular Syria,” Mr. Kerry said of the Russians on Britain’s Channel 4. “The question always remains, Where is Assad’s place and role within that? And that’s what we need to have more conversation on.”

Note that this is a bitter defeat for Washington. Moscow, realizing that instead of undertaking an earnest effort to fight terror in Syria, the US had simply adopted a containment strategy for ISIS while holding the group up to the public as the boogeyman par excellence, publicly invited Washington to join Russia in a once-and-for-all push to wipe Islamic State from the face of the earth. Of course The Kremlin knew the US wanted no such thing until Assad was gone, but by extending the invitation, Putin had literally called Washington’s bluff, forcing The White House to either admit that this isn’t about ISIS at all, or else join Russia in fighting them. 

The genius of that move is that if Washington does indeed coordinate its efforts to fight ISIS with Moscow, the US will be fighting to stabilize the very regime it sought to out. 

In other words: checkmate, courtesy of The Kremlin. 

And while Washington scrambles to decide its next move, Assad was back on offense Friday, launching what observers said were the heaviest air strikes yet on ISIS targets near the ancient city of Palmyra. Here’s BB

About 25 air strikes left at least 26 people dead, including 12 militants, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

IS captured Palmyra, which includes a Unesco World Heritage site, in May.

Elsewhere, air strikes on Idlib killed 17 people, the Observatory said.

The city of Idlib is a stronghold of an alliance of jihadist and Islamist groups calling itself the Army of Conquest.

Syrian military sources quoted by Reuters have said Syria is using new types of very accurate weapons supplied by its ally, Russia.

The latest air strikes came a day after Syrian air force jets attacked Raqqa, the de facto capital of IS.

"In the past two days, the regime has intensified its air raids against areas controlled by the Islamic State group," Observatory spokesman Rami Abdel Rahman said.

And from Al Arabiya:

Syrian warplanes unleashed a wave of deadly airstrikes on the militant-held town of Palmyra in central Syria on Friday, killing at least 15 and wounding many more, activists said, in some of the heaviest bombardment since the extremist group seized the ancient town May 10.

The Palmyra airstrikes come a day after the Syrian army carried out heavy air raids in the northern city of Raqqa, also held by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria  group (ISIS).

A local activist who spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons reported at least 30 air raids on Palmyra Friday. A local media collective called the strikes a “massacre” and said 15 people were killed and more than 120 wounded. It said Palmyra’s only hospital was suffering severe shortages in staff and equipment, and some of the wounded had to be taken to Raqqa, more than 200 kilometers (125 miles) way.

In short, the Assad regime appears to have gone from depleted and exhausted, to “massacring” rebel fighters in the space of just two weeks, a remarkable turnaround which certainly seems to suggest that if the US doesn’t figure out a strategy soon, the whole thing could be over and Assad restored. 

Incidentally, Hezbollah claims to have beaten back a rebel advance in Foua on Friday. Here's Al Arabiya again:

Meanwhile, a coalition of rebel groups launched a major ground offensive on two predominantly Shiite villages in the northern province of Idlib, firing dozens of rockets and detonating at least seven booby-trapped vehicles on their outskirts.

The coalition, known as Jaysh al-Fateh, or “Army of Conquest,” attacked Foua and Kfarya villages earlier Friday. Both are held by pro-government forces in an otherwise rebel-controlled province.

Syrian TV and Manar, a station owned by Lebanon’s Hezbollah group, said popular defense forces - a term used to refer to Shiite militias - foiled attempts by “terrorists” to attack Foua and destroyed five armored vehicles. Hezbollah fighters are also fighting to defend the two villages.

Bear in mind that the main reason for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Moscow on Monday is to prevent Russia's presence in Syria from strengthening Hezbollah. 

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, the man some suspect of masterminding the entire effort to restore the Assad regime, Quds commander Major General Qassem Soleimani, seems to understand the US strategy all too well - we close with the following from Iran's PressTV:

Commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Major General Qassem Soleimani said Wednesday that the policy of the US with regards to Daesh and other Takfiri groups operating in the region is to only have them under control and not eliminate them.

Turkey to Continue Airstrikes Against PKK Inside KRG

Turkey will continue military operations against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) targets in Iraqi Kurdistan Region, the Foreign Ministry spokesperson said, following criticisms from Iraqi authorities.

According To Turkish News Website Hurriyet, Turkish foreign ministry spokesman Tanju Bilgiç was responding to Iraqi foreign minister Ibrahim al-Jafari’s appeal, in which he called on Ankara to coordinate with Baghdad in its military campaign against the PKK

Few U.S.-Trained Syrians Still Fight ISIS, Senators Are Told

Only four or five Syrian individuals trained by the United States military to confront the Islamic State remain in the fight, the head of the United States Central Command told a Senate panel on Wednesday, a bleak acknowledgment that the Defense Department’s $500 million program to raise an army of Syrian fighters has gone nowhere.

Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, the top American commander in the Middle East, also told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the United States .

The Guardian leads in Russophobic war-mongering.

The west must resist playing Putin’s game in Syria. That way calamity lies

 ‘“How many did [the Khmer Rouge] kill? Tens of thousands?” asked Henry Kissinger in 1975 when he sat down with Thailand’s foreign minister to discuss the genocide in Cambodia. “You should tell the Cambodians that we will be friends with them,” Kissinger went on. “They are murderous thugs, but we won’t let that stand in the way.”

That is roughly the message that Vladimir Putin has been sending out as heprepares to take the stage at the UN general assembly later this month: let’s all ally ourselves with Bashar al-Assad – the Syrian president may be a murderous thug, but we shouldn’t let that stand in our way. The Russian leader’s message encapsulates the biggest dilemma western policymakers now face as they confront the spillover from the war in Syria....

Putin’s suggestion that the west should embrace Assad is an illusion that will lead to more bloodshed in Syria and won’t solve the refugee crisis. It risks makingSyria an even greater hell, if only because alignment with Assad will be met with more meddling by Saudi and Gulf actors who back Sunni Islamic insurgents. It should be rejected with the same kind of disgust that Kissinger’s overtures to the Pol Pot regime inspire to this day

Who Wins If Damascus Falls?

Patrick J Buchanan



What Vladimir Putin is up to in Syria makes far more sense than what Barack Obama and John Kerry appear to be up to in Syria. The Russians are flying transports bringing tanks and troops to an air base near the coastal city of Latakia to create a supply chain to provide a steady flow of weapons and munitions to the Syrian army.



Syrian President Bashar Assad, an ally of Russia, has lost half his country to ISIS and the Nusra Front, a branch of al-Qaeda. Putin fears that if Assad falls, Russia’s toehold in Syria and the Mediterranean will be lost, ISIS and al-Qaeda will be in Damascus, and Islamic terrorism will have achieved its greatest victory.



Is he wrong?

Global Warming Could Lead to Worldwide Wars

It would be a simplification to assert that the mass movement of refugees to Europe is currently primarily caused by global warming. As we've noted previously, wars of empire and economic deprivation have been the leading factors behind the recent surge of people struggling to reach the relative safety and economic stability of European Union nations.

However, a September 9 article in the Guardian reports on the warning issued by the former head of Britain's Liberal Democrats, Lord Paddy Ashdown, that "the world will undergo more resource wars and huge movements of desperate people unless it tackles climate change effectively."

Ashdown's warning is based on both logical and scientific premises. If global warming damages or destroys the yield of large areas of agricultural production, for example, there will be likely be wars fought over an increasing limited availability of food. In addition, deadly conflicts would also result from a decreasing supply of fresh water.

Putin won his war in Ukraine

The war in Ukraine has slipped off the front pages. Eighteen months ago, when Russian President Vladimir Putin seized Crimea and then instigated a pro-Russian rebellion in the Donbas region, Ukraine was hot news. Putin was roundly denounced, and Russia was hit with damaging economic sanctions. East-West relations soured badly, and diplomats wondered whether they were witnessing the beginnings of another cold war.


Now Ukraine, as a European crisis, has lost its urgency. One reason is the rush of other news, from global economic jitters and the flood of desperate Arab and African migrants to Europe to the preoccupying nuttiness of the U.S. presidential campaign. But there is another equally important reason. Putin seems to have won his little war in Ukraine, and his Western critics watch from the sidelines, sputtering with helpless rage.....


.....In this environment of caution and retreat, Putin has, slowly but surely, “frozen” the conflict, much as he did in 2008 in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. Far more than Western leaders, Putin can now influence and, when necessary, control the flow of economic, political and diplomatic developments in Ukraine.


For this “victory,” Putin has had to pay a heavy price. His economy has floundered, his reputation has suffered and Russia has experienced a return to domestic disorder and discontent that is real, even spreading. But as yet this has not had any discernible effect on his position within Russia. He seems perfectly capable of retaining his almost dictatorial grip on political power.

* ed's note - given the recent 'calm' on the Ukraine front, it's hard not to see a connection between this declared 'resumption' and the increased direct presence of Russia in Syria. These should be considered to be among two fronts in a single undeclared global conflict.

Ukraine announced the resumption of hostilities in the Donbass

Ukraine announced the resumption of hostilities. The operation involves thousands of soldiers and hundreds of military vehicles, said the advisor to the President of Ukraine ,Yuriy Biryukov.

"Officially: in the zone of military action army began an operation to search and destroy sabotage and reconnaissance groups of the enemy. Throughout the war zone, do not look for "holes" - he wrote on his page on Facebook. 

He stressed that this operation include "the best UAF force."

He can only guess what more of Kiev's crimes this will justify, in the name of anti-seperatism, under the guise of beautiful words.

* ed's note - given the recent 'calm' on the Ukraine front, it's hard not to see a connection between this declared 'resumption' and the increased direct presence of Russia in Syria.  These should be considered to be among two fronts in a 

Istanbul Suicide Bombing: Caucasus Jihadism Comes to Turkey on Its Way to Europe

The Caucasus-ISIS connection continues to intensify, and it is coming to the West. In December and early January leading Caucasus Emirate (CE) amirs controlling perhaps as many as 70 percent of the CE’s mujahedin declared their loyalty to ISIS’s amir and ‘caliph’ Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. 

They include the amir of the CE’s most robust network, the Dagestan Vilaiyat (DV) based in Russia’s Republic of Dagestan, who took the oath or ‘bayat’ in December, and the air controlling approximately half of the Chechnya (or Nokchicho Vilaiyat) network’s mujahedin. CE amir Ali Abu Muhammad al-Dagistani (born Aliaskhab Kebekov), who supports Al Qa`ida in the conflict with ISIS for leadership of the gobal jihadi revolutionary movement, regarded this as betrayal and expelled the DV amirs from the CE. 

On January 6th a female resident of Dagestan, Diana Ramazova, carried out a suicide bombing of a police station Istanbul, Turkey, killing one policeman and wounding another (www.aksam.com.tr/…/sultanahmet-bombacisi-rus-d…/haber-370934). Days later two Dagestanis and four Chechens were detained in connection with the attack (www.themoscowtimes.com/…/dagestanis-detained-in…/514365.html). In short, the attack has a strong Caucasus signature. It also has an ISIS one. Recent reports indicate that Ramazova was married to a ‘martyred’ ISIS fighter, a Chechen immigrant to Norway named Abu Aluevitsy Edelbiyev. 

Ramazova came to Turkey in May 2014 where she met Eldebiyev. They married and then left for Syria, where Edelbiyev was killed in December. Ramazova was somehow able to afford a thousand-mile taxi reide from Syria to Istanbul, where she carried out her attack (www.theguardian.com/…/pregnant-istanbul-suicide-bomber-russ…). It remains unclear whether the CE or the breakaway ISIS-loyal CE (IS CE) was directly involved in the attack.

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And the Israelis are attacking Gaza - again