"... Escobar said. “So now Obama's finally got his war in Syria - and in no less than three fronts; against the Caliphate; against the mysterious Khorasan jihadi group; and weaponizing the Syrian ‘rebels’ to try once more to get rid of Bashar al-Assad.”...
“There had to be an ‘unimpeachable’ justification for yet another Obama bombing/droning ‘kinetic’ adventure in the Middle East. So those ghostly Khorasan goons perfectly fit the bill - more evil that Caliph Ibrahim. To the point that the Pentagon is convinced their ‘plotting was imminent’ to stage a new 9/11,” he added.
Concluding, Pepe Escobar referred to Khorasan as “the perfect ghost in the GWOT [Global War on Terrorism] machine; the invisible target of a war within a war.” He also stressed that Khorasan is “the perfect terror ghost; nobody has heard about them before, nobody knows how many they are, and nobody knows exactly what they want...."
"... Who was in the building at the time was unknown. One media activist told McClatchy that the missile killed at least 10 “emirs” of the Nusra Front, but another activist denied that any Nusra leaders were in the building.
“Nusra is still popular in Syria,” Hamadi said. “And now Nusra is playing on the emotions of the Syrian people.” It says that those who deal with the West become part of the West, he said. “They are accusing us of being traitors. And the majority of the Syrian people are speaking in the same tone.”But the biggest complaint about the bombings was that they didn’t target Assad..."
"... The Free Syrian Army (FSA), the “moderate” armed opposition in the country, receives a lot of attention. But two of the most successful factions fighting Assad’s forces are Islamist extremist groups: Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the latter of which is now amassing territory in Iraq and threatening to further destabilize the entire region. And that success is in part due to the support they have received from two Persian Gulf countries: Qatar and Saudi Arabia.Qatar’s military and economic largesse has made its way to Jabhat al-Nusra, to the point that a senior Qatari official told me he can identify al-Nusra commanders by the blocks they control in various Syrian cities. But ISIS is another matter. As one senior Qatari official stated, “ISIS has been a Saudi project.”
ISIS, in fact, may have been a major part of Bandar’s covert-ops strategy in Syria. ..."
"... In response to the attacks, Mohammed al-Shalbi, a leading figure of Jordan's Salafist movement, told Al Jazeera that: "ISIL has been advised not to target Jordan but now it is a different story as the group will be in self defence mode and will seek revenge."
Other commentators harshly criticised the move."Assisting foreigners in any military activities is condemned by all popular forces and it goes against Jordan's real interests," said Zaki Beni Arsheed, deputy head of the Muslim Brotherhood movement. "There is no interest for Jordan to transfer the Syrian conflict into the country."
This is very interesting, as Israel just opened a corridor for Jabhat al Nusrah after creating a defacto 'no-fly-zone' in Syria.
Al Jazeera English
"... The Bethlehem-born Salafist was extradited from Britain last year after a lengthy legal process and was acquitted in June in a separate case of charges of conspiring to commit acts of terrorism. That acquittal was also based on lack of evidence.Analysts say Jordan's decision to release Abu Qatada comes as a part of its internal war on the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and extremism."Jordan clearly needed his support to influence supporters of the ISIL in Jordan," said Hassan Abu Hanieh, a political analyst and expert on the Salafi movement in Jordan.Being a supporter al-Nusra Front, a rival of ISIL, Abu Qatada has been critical of the ISIL, calling it a "killing machine" and "dogs of hell"..."
48 hours ago: Hezbollah used Iranian made, HzB manned drones for aerial bombings of Jabhat al Nusra positions.
Today, the US launched aerial attacks against IS & other's positions in Syria. (Minions apparently joined: in wishes and prayers and a token flyer riding on a US fighter!)
Syrian radars were 'passive' according to the Pentagon.
One aberration: Israeli creation of a Jabhat al Nusrah corridor (no-fly-zone) in Syria.
Robert Fisk
"... What we can’t be told by Kerry is as simple as he claims the struggle against Isis to be: that there will have to be a Western alliance – of some sort – with Iran to defeat Isis, that this will inevitably have to include an unspoken understanding with Bashar al-Assad’s Syria, even with the ghastly, unthinkable, “super-terrorist” Hezbollah guerrillas who – unlike Kerry’s description of Isis – do not go around “killing and raping and mutilating women” or selling off girls “to be sex slaves to jihadis”.But for a man who thought he could stitch up a Palestinian-Israeli peace in 12 months, what else can you expect? Yes, Isis is the latest monster to taunt us. But isn’t there another one, not that far away, which is a threat to us all and which really has “to be defeated, plain and simple”. It is threatening to kill infinitely more people than Isis. It’s named after an obscure African river. So where are the calls for a 50-nation alliance to destroy Ebola?"
"... Despite the largesse of the Gulf States, Turkey is locked into a vicious cycle of currency depreciation, higher interest rates, and declining economic activity. Turkish voters stood by Erdogan in last March's national elections, believing that he was the politician most likely to deliver jobs and growth. But his ability to do so is slipping. If the Turkish lira drops sharply, the cost of debt service to Turkish companies will become prohibitive, while the cost of imports and ensuing inflation will depress Turkish incomes. By some measures Turkey already is in a recession, and it is at risk of economic free-fall.
That explains Erdogan's propensity to shoot the messengers: the rating agencies, the central bank, and even the New York Times. For the past dozen years he has made himself useful enough to his neighbors to stay in business. His magic carpet is unraveling, though, and his triumph in the March elections may turn out to be illusory much sooner than most analysts expect."
"... The Syrian government was informed in advance and the Director of Operations (J-3) of the Joint Staff described Syrian air defense radar as "passive," i.e., unresisting, during the operation. The Children's Crusade (NSC and State staffs) continues to insist that there was no coordination with the SAG. Well, boys and girls, what occurred is called "de-confliction" among the adults and that is undoubtedly coordination. Semantic BS does not change reality. It just makes you look childish..."
"... If our failure to build an army capable of stabilizing Iraq after our departure looks like a pure tragedy, then the arm-the-rebels gambit in Syria has more than a whiff of farce. But really it’s a studied evasion, a way for this administration to pretend that we don’t face a set of deeply unpleasant options in our quest to contain or crush the caliphate.
The first realistic, non-farcical option is the one that the president seemed to choose initially, when he launched limited airstrikes to rescue the embattled Kurds last month. This would basically be a strategy of containment and attrition, oriented around the current lines of battle in Iraq, in which we see if the Kurds and those Iraqi Army units that didn’t collapse can push the front westward, see if a post-Maliki government can woo local Sunni leaders, and use our air power to degrade the caliphate’s fighting capacity while letting its internal weaknesses degrade it from within.
The trouble with containment is that it would leave the Islamic State in control of a great deal of territory (with more beheading videos, no doubt) for months and years to come. Hence the administration’s pivot to Syria; hence the strategic dream palace that is our arm-the-rebels strategy.
The cold reality, though, is that defeating ISIS outright in Syria will take something more substantial than dropping a few bombs in support of a few U.S.-trained moderates. Either the American military will have to intervene in force (including with substantial ground troops) or we’ll have to ally, in a very un-American display of machtpolitik, with Bashar al-Assad...."
"... He said: "It raises the big question about air strikes. Are we doing them for diplomatic reasons, to remain friends with the US, or because they will make a difference to the situation on the ground?
"Unless you get a clear sense of what difference they make on the ground, we shouldn't just be doing them because we are embarrassed that the French have started."
Sir John said there was also the possibility of reaching "some form of accommodation" with Iran, especially with the chaos in its neighbouring countries.It appeared to be stronger language than David Cameron, the Prime Minister, who told the Sunday Telegraph in August that Britain might "perhaps even" work with Tehran as he urged a coalition of nations to tackle the growing threat...."
"... Sir John told the Financial Times that the lesson of Afghanistan and Iraq was that a government can be toppled in months but it then takes years to rebuild the country.He said: "If you decide not to [rebuild], as we did in Libya, partly because of the scars from Iraq, then you topple the government and you end up having nothing in its place."And if you don't intervene at all, you end up with a situation like you have in Syria. These are real dilemmas."..."
"... One Democratic member of Congress said that the CIA has made it clear that it doubts the possibility that the administration's strategy could succeed.
"I have heard it expressed, outside of classified contexts, that what you heard from your intelligence sources is correct, because the CIA regards the effort as doomed to failure," the congressman said in an email. "Specifically (again without referring to classified information), the CIA thinks that it is impossible to train and equip a force of pro-Western Syrian nationals that can fight and defeat Assad, al-Nusra and ISIS, regardless of whatever air support that force may receive."
He added that, as the CIA sees it, the ramped-up backing of rebels is an expansion of a strategy that is already not working. "The CIA also believes that its previous assignment to accomplish this was basically a fool’s errand, and they are well aware of the fact that many of the arms that they provided ended up in the wrong hands," the congressman said, echoing intelligence sources...."
'WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In what Secretary of State John Kerry described as a significant foreign-policy coup, the U.S. claimed, on Tuesday, that it had successfully located a (hehe) moderate Syrian rebel.Though Kerry did not elaborate on how the U.S. did so, he said that locating the rebel was “the culmination of a months-long effort.”The Secretary of State said that the Syrian had been appropriately vetted and was deemed “moderately rebellious.”
"... The White House formally submitted its $500 million request to Congress on June 26. The money would go to train and equip "appropriately vetted" members of the Syrian opposition. That's a lot different from "moderate rebel forces", and it is yet another indication that we simply do not know who the "moderates" are in Syria. This little detail continues to be shoved aside by those who stubbornly insist on this strategy..."
"... First, it is imperative to find a way to work with the most effective forces on the ground: Mr. Assad’s Syrian Army and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah fighters. All of the West’s differences with the Syrian regime should be postponed until the tide of battle has turned. Indeed, an anti-ISIS coalition that includes Syria, Iran and Russia may be the only real key to a political engagement with Mr. Assad that could help bring about a peaceful resolution of the three-year-old Syrian civil war..."
"... Turkey is trotting its way out of NATO, out of its relationship with the US and ultimately out of its prospects for membership in the EU. There is also the matter of its once good relations with Israel.Erdogan, Davutoglu and all that crew have turned their backs on the old, Kemalist, secular, Turkish Republic and opted instead for what they seem to think is possible in realizing a leadership role in the Sunni Muslim World.
- They have denied the US the use of air base facilities built in Turkey with American money and occupied by US forces for at least 50 years. That denial is a great boon for IS in both Syria and Iraq.
- They have made it clear that the Turkish Army will not participate in operations against IS, al-Nusra or any other Islamist forces in Syria and Iraq. That is a crippling blow to Obama's hopes of an effective Sunni coalition against IS. Turkey has the largest and most effective Muslim state forces in the region.
As people here know, I like Turkey. We lived there a lifetime ago in Izmir on the Aegean Sea. The people were mostly friendly, the food was delicious, the art was exquisite. Life was good and now I can see that the life we lived in Turkey is disappearing as a prospect for Turks, let alone ifranj like us. It is unusual for me to agree with the WSJ editorial board but I must say with sadness that the US (and NATO) should stop thinking of Turkey as an ally. pl "
"... Current and former American officials acknowledge the government’s lack of deep knowledge about the rebels. “We need to do everything we can to figure out who the non-ISIS opposition is,” said Ryan C. Crocker, a former United States ambassador to Iraq and Syria. “Frankly, we don’t have a clue.”..
"(Reuters) - Syrian special forces on Monday destroyed a bridge over the Euphrates River used by Islamic State to move supplies in eastern Syria, media run by Hezbollah said, a blow to the group in the swathe of Syrian territory it controls near Iraq.The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks the war, said an explosion had destroyed the bridge in Deir al-Zor city that is of vital importance to Islamic State as the only way for it to move into parts of the city it controls...."
"... But a statement after Monday's conference made no mention at all of Syria - the other country where Islamic State fighters hold a wide swathe of territory. Iraq attended Monday's meeting but Syria did not, nor did its main regional ally, Iran..."
'... SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I guess I would just add one thing on the coalition question -- and I think this is important to really focus on, which is to say, in discussions with governments in the region, notably the Saudis and the Jordanians, what is clear is that we have a very common view of this threat. And this is really quite unusual. ISIL has been I think a galvanizing threat around the Sunni partners in the region. They view it as an existential threat to them. Saudi Arabia has an extensive border with Syria. The Jordanians are experiencing a destabilizing impact of over a million refugees from the Syrian conflict, and are profoundly concerned that ISIL, who has stated that their ambitions are not confined to Iraq and Syria, but rather to expand to the broader region. ...'
"... "... Some parts of the Free Syrian Army have now made agreements with IS that will call a halt to fighting between them so that the FSA can concentrate on fighting Assad's forces. The Nusra Front (AQ) brokered the deals. US delivery of weapons to the FSA will be just a way station in delivering this materiel to IS. "
"... In his remarks to reporters, Ricciardone described extremist rebels such as those in Nusra and the Salafist group Ahrar al Sham as “beyond the pale.” But he suggested that the Turks didn’t take the U.S. concerns seriously. Ricciardone balked at assisting an Islamist coalition that includes the ultraconservatives of Ahrar al Sham, which the U.S.-backed Syrian opposition coalition has described as moderate, because there was no telling “what might become of those weapons."
“The short version is: We agreed to disagree on a number of specific cases,” Ricciardone said of the U.S. talks with the Turks...."
Newsweek:
"... In June, Turkey’s Milliyet newspaper reported that as many as 3,000 Turks have joined the group. “No other Nato country is as exposed to the threat of Isis jihadism as Turkey is,” says Sinan Ulgen, a former diplomat and head of Edam, an Istanbul-based foreign policy think tank. In the past, Western diplomats have accused Turkey of indirectly facilitating the flow of arms and foreign fighters to Isis ..."
"... The only problem with this example of a possible US ally in the fight in Syria is that Maarouf has already stated that he has no problem with al Qaeda's Syrian branch, the Al Nusrah Front, and has admitted to sharing weapons with it. And this example of cooperation between "moderate" and radical Islamist groups is not an isolated one..."
"... It has come to light that the ISIS terror organization and its supporters planned details of the attack on Mosul in a hotel in Istanbul under the protection of the Turkish Intelligence Organization between the 28 February and 2 March. The militants reportedly met in Jordan’s capital Amman on the 1 June and invaded Mosul a week later. .."
"... Analysts who closely follow Syria are divided as to whether the problems can be overcome or will hobble the whole effort, but there’s agreement that finding an acceptable Syrian partner is the least developed and most elusive part of the president’s ultimate goal of destroying the Islamic State.
Obama’s 14-minute address Wednesday night sidestepped his strategy’s Achilles’ heel: No matter how effective U.S. airstrikes are in taking out Islamic State leaders, there’s simply no acceptable Syrian partner on the ground to complement the American role in the sky. The president made no mention of specific factions that would be involved in the coalition’s fight against Islamic State militants, and it’s not at all clear whom he meant when he referred to “the opposition.”
"... Remarkably, though, even this USA Today article notes that there might be a slight problem or two with this brilliant plan to stop ISIS, otherwise known as “the personification of evil in the modern world“:
'... Sen. Mark Begich of Alaska, another endangered Democrat, said he was opposed to arming Syrian rebels. “We must have greater assurance that we aren’t arming extremists who will eventually use the weapons against us,” he said.House Republicans are divided into two camps, according to Rep. John Fleming of Louisiana. He told the Associated Press after a closed-door caucus meeting that one side hopes to hold Obama “accountable for doing the right thing.” The other group — that includes himself, Fleming said — believes Obama’s plans amount to an “insane strategy to go out there and depend on people that are proven undependable” to take down the Islamic State...."
Let me explain this to you: we are asking a Wahhab...:
"“We now have the commitment from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to be a full partner in this effort — the train-and-equip program —..."
"... It’s also important because, “We haven’t been on same page with them on Syria for a long time,” said the former ambassador. “There’s been a lot of bad blood” between Riyadh and Washington--and not just over Syria. The Saudis themselves nourished the brand of puritanical Islam that would give birth to al Qaeda and its evil stepchild, the Islamic State. Denouncing its savagery seems beyond hypocritical on the part of the royals ..."
"... A goal of marginal containment through direct support to regional players combined with periodic retaliatory strikes might be the maximum realistic scope possible against the IS Sunni state-let.
Arm and train the Kurds positioning for independence to press IS on the east particularly around Kirkuk.
Focus on small territorial gains and border consolidation.
Form an alliance of convenience with Iran; also with Assad where mutually beneficial in the west.
Assist the Shia Iraqis to train and fight with air support from the southeast, support Jordan heavily on the southwest of IS ********and make plain to Saudi, Kuwait and Turkey that they could be mangled by the IS monster they created**********.
The chance to destroy IS is gone.
Targeting economic sites - gasoline refineries, small oil fields, bootleg pipelines, electric grids, plus pre-emptive strikes on any military concentrations might work but better to buy off the Sunni tribes slowly with Saudi money.
US public support for boots on the ground in the US is weak.
US public support for covert and indirect methods is probable.
NATO allied support is meaningless.
Let them focus on their own eastern problems....
Does Obama have the support of the military and I'm not referring to the officers - but the enlisted? I don't see the trust.
Does Congress have the will to fund more war?
Even air wars are expensive. I doubt the political will exists.
Past this Nov. election it will be budget gamesmanship all the way to the 2016 presidential."
"... Obama appears to have a mass of moving parts in his campaign plan:
- The plan assumes that Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey can be made into active supporters of an anti-IS "war." Qatar and Saudi Arabia were the only Wahhabi dominated states until IS proclaimed its caliphal status. These two countries are deeply sympathetic to IS' goals if not its methods. Both Qatar and Saudi Arabia were instrumental in the early stages of development of IS as it morphed from AQ Iraq, into the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and then to a final glory as IS. [[[[[[[[[[Do we really think it will be easy to enlist Qatar and Saudi Arabia in this fight?]]]]]]]]]] Do we really think that these deeply Sunni states are going to support continued Shia governance from Baghdad?
- Erdogan's Turkey has been a supporter of Sunni governments and movements from the moment he took office. Remember Erdogan's refusal to allow US troop transit (4th Infantry Division) for entry into Iraq from the north in 2003. To this day, [[[[[[[[[Erdogan is not allowing]]]]]]]]]]]{ the use by the US of air bases in Turkey. Those air bases would greatly facilitate air operations in Iraq and Syria. It should be remembered as well that Erdogan's Turkey provided shelter, supply lines, transit rights and training space for IS among other Sunni jihadi groups fighting in Syria. The Turks are still doing this.
- There is a new face in Shia government in Baghdad. A new cabinet has been suggested as a possibility by the existence of that face. Unfortunately the two most important cabinet posts, Defense and Interior, [[[[[[[[[[have not been ]]]]]]]]]]]appointed yet. IMO there will be a mighty struggle among the Shia Arabs over the issue of assignment of these two ministries to Sunni Arabs. The Shia know that if they do not control the police and the army, they do not control Iraq.
- Obama intends to [[[[[[[[simultaneously]]]]{]]] wage war in eastern Syria against IS while also waging war in Western Syria against the Syrian Government. He, apparently [[[[[[[intends to ignore]]]]]]]]] the possible cooperation of Syria with regard to airfields and air units as well as Syrian, and/or Hizbullah ground forces. Churchill said that to fight Hitler he would fight him in hell if necessary and make an alliance with the devil to do it. In accordance with that idea he allied the UK with the USSR. Obama also intends to increase arms deliveries to "moderate" Syrian guerrillas. IMO these groups never amounted to much militarily. They were always the "unicorn army," and could never have defeated Syria's government no matter what you gave them. And in fact the "moderates" have among them many pro-jihadi people.
- Yet another military axiom holds that "you can never have too many friends on a battlefield." Iran is making friendlier noises concerning possible discreet cooperation and de-confliction of operations with a Western led coalition, but, no, even now[[[[[]]]]]] Iran's advances are re-buffed publicly ]]]]]]]]]]]because Saudi Arabia and Israel don't like the idea. If Israel doesn't like something, well, that is the end of that thought.
- The notion is being nurtured by people like Robert Scales that something like the McChrystal led JSOC counter-terrorism campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan will deal comfortably with IS. As Larry Johnson pointed out on this site, that campaign was about small raids against personalities, raids usually conducted in the dark of night and within territory dominated by friendly conventional forces. [[[[[[[[[[IS is nothing like that target set.]]]]]]]]]]] This is a real guerrilla army, with real forces who run a real government that is now coming into being. We should stop calling them terrorists and start calling them the enemy.
- Obama is firm that conventional US ground forces will not be committed to this war. That means that other, foreign, forces will have to be found to act in coopertion with US and NATO air power. Who will they be?
* Turkey is "out" for the reasons stated above. The Turks were the most obvious choice for the job. * The Iraqi army is a shambles. It will take years to try to make something of it. Remember, we failed the last time. Don't expect the Iraq army to be much help. * The Pesh Merga are a guerrilla self defense force. Give them heavy weapons? Certainly, but it will take time for them to learn to use them effectively and the PM are unlikely to want to fight outside their homelands. There are other Kurdish forces in eastern Syria but the Turks will be unhappy with strengthening them. * The Egyptian army is large, inept and unlikely to be willing to fight in Syria or Iraq. Sisi and the other generals will want to keep them at home to control any possible Islamist uprisings in Egypt. * Jordan will be fully occupied with its own defense and a large Islamist 5th Column. * Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE and Kuwait have little in the way of ground forces that have actual combat power.
In the end, if a decisive outcome is desired, there will be ************no alternative to substantial US ground forces************. That will mean reconstruction of the US logistical and command and control base in Iraq as well as the use of several air bases. Is Obama going to demand legal extra-territoriality for our forces as a precondition? He should, but, will he?
A long campaign against IS will require the re-recruitment of Sunni Arab tribes in Iraq. It can be done. They hate the wahhabi jihadis and they will manage to forget our previous betrayal in favor of the Shia. They more or less expected it then and will again, but the money will be good as will be the guns and the comradeship of the handful of Americans who like them.
Economic warfare, police action in the home countries of the West, border controls, yet tighter restrictions on personal freedoms in the West, these are all more moving parts.
I have no doubt that the US Congress will give Obama whatever he wants and the Republicans will then wait for next year for their chance to settle up with Obama.
Too many moving parts. pl "
"... Idilbi said the meeting of so many key leaders apparently had been called to consider whether Ahrar al Sham should join a new rebel coalition, the Council for Leading the Revolution, that would unite moderate rebels, including those receiving U.S. aid. The decision to join the coalition, whose formation was announced hours after the explosion, would have been a major change for the group, whose ties to the Nusra Front were so close that some U.S. intelligence officials have advocated that Ahrar al Sham be classified as an international terrorist organization.The explosion was likely to prove fatal to the organization, which was once thought to have had as many as 35,000 fighters...."
"... “You may well say that including Qatar and Saudi Arabia is a bit counterproductive because a lot of people blame them for the problems in the first place, but it’s like with Iran – they have to be part of the solution,” said Michael Stephens, a specialist on Gulf states, Israel and Syria for the Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies, a British research center..."
"... The Americans counter that the Sunni leaders also have room for improvement, starting with the need to crack down on the networks that send money and fighters from the Persian Gulf states to the Islamic State, which now controls roughly half of Iraq and a third of Syria.
“Without us having some skin in the game, it’s not clear that all the parties would play their assigned roles,” said Gregory Gause, a Persian Gulf specialist who heads the international affairs department at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University. “The Iranians would be fighting these guys anyway, but the Turks might say, ‘We have to do a deal with them if they control all this territory.’ And the Saudis might say, ‘These guys are bad, but they’re fighting Assad and Iran...."
"... The report said the jihadists disposed of "significant quantities" of US-made small arms including M16 assault rifles and included photos showing the markings "Property of US Govt".It also found that anti-tank rockets used by IS in Syria were "identical to M79 rockets transferred by Saudi Arabia to forces operating under the Free Syrian Army umbrella in 2013"...."
"... Such a regime shift appears unlikely. In its absence, the only realistic alternative is for the opposition’s state backers to improve support, qualitatively and quantitatively, to credible non-jihadi rebel groups with roots in Aleppo. That could become more costly to the regime and its allies than a local deal, as some of the support would inevitably be deployed against regime forces...."
Al Jazeera English
"... Kerry's meeting in the Saudi port city of Jeddah, which will be held on Wednesday and Thursday, will be attended by ministers from Egypt, Jordan and the six Gulf Arab states as well as Iraq, an Egyptian Foreign Ministry official told AFP..............Gebran Bassil, Lebanese foreign minister, will also take part in the talks, ...."
Kerry to hold Saudi talks on Islamic State
US president sending top diplomat to Middle East as he seeks to broaden coalition in fight against armed Sunni group.
aljazeera.com
"... At any rate, when I first heard of the flight from Bagram landing in Iran, I immediately began to wonder whether there might be some sort of prisoner exchange taking place. After all, the US still has a number of international prisoners housed at Bagram. With the situation on the ground in Afghanistan looking increasingly shaky, the disposition of these prisoners could be one of the most difficult aspects of a hasty retreat from Afghanistan should the US decide not to leave a small force there after the end of this year.So, is it possible that the landing in Bandar Abbas was actually staged so that some of these prisoners could be dropped off? If so, the cryptic announcement of new fighters being arrested in Iran could fit pretty closely with that event. It is a bit more difficult to account for the announcement saying that Afghans as well as Pakistanis were part of the arrests. The official story is that the US no longer holds any Afghan prisoners at Bagram, but the US has long played shell games with prisoners there, so they would be motivated to make any actual Afghan prisoners disappear quietly. [And note this report by Spencer Ackerman where it seems that the foreign prisoners held by the US at Bagram seem to have at least some communications with Afghan prisoners so that hunger strikes spread between the two populations.]..."
"... Stephen Lynch, a Massachusetts Democrat, told me that the document is “stunning in its clarity,” and that it offers direct evidence of complicity on the part of certain Saudi individuals and entities in Al Qaeda’s attack on America. “Those twenty-eight pages tell a story that has been completely removed from the 9/11 Report,” Lynch maintains. Another congressman who has read the document said that the evidence of Saudi government support for the 9/11 hijacking is “very disturbing,” and that “the real question is whether it was sanctioned at the royal-family level or beneath that, and whether these leads were followed through.”
"... An additional worry of the AKP government is the possibility of the Syrian army regaining power after the cleansing of IS. Erdogan is not ready to be neighbors again with a Syria still governed by Assad. The Obama administration has not yet decided whether it will cooperate with Assad or with Assad’s foes against IS. In Iraq, a loose partnership was worked out with Iran and the Muqtada al-Sadr movement that fought against the US invasion, but it is not that easy to decide when it comes to Syria. Although Obama may continue to keep on the table the option of supporting the moderate Syria opposition, there is no guarantee that it will work against extremist groups such as IS ...."
"... Given these circumstances, security sources knowledgeable of the region believe the Arqoub villages currently face a security threat from within and fear possible instability along the Lebanese-Israeli border. In light of the number of refugees in Arqoub, and in the wake of the August battle in Arsal between the Lebanese army and members of Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State (IS), most of them from the Syrian refugee camps in the town, concern has grown that similar incidents might occur in the south. According to security sources, information has been circulating that Jabhat al-Nusra members have settled in Arqoub and that wounded Syrian rebels have moved to Shebaa after being treated in Israeli hospitals........"
"... Michele Dunne served for nearly two decades as a specialist in Middle Eastern affairs at the State Department, including stints in Cairo and Jerusalem, and on the White House National Security Council. In 2011, she was a natural choice to become the founding director of the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, named after the former prime minister of Lebanon, who was assassinated in 2005.The center was created with a generous donation from Bahaa Hariri, his eldest son, and with the support of the rest of the Hariri family, (Saudi money & directives!)
But by the summer of 2013, when Egypt’s military forcibly removed the country’s democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi, Ms. Dunne soon realized there were limits to her independence. After she signed a petition and testified before a Senate Foreign Relations Committee urging the United States to suspend military aid to Egypt, calling Mr. Morsi’s ouster a “military coup,” Bahaa Hariri called the Atlantic Council to complain, executives with direct knowledge of the events said.Ms. Dunne declined to comment on the matter. But four months after the call, Ms. Dunne left the Atlantic Council..."
"... "There seems to have been an agreement among the major powers not to tell us who did it," Cohen says. While U.S. and Ukrainian officials say the Boeing 777 was shot down by a Russian-made surface-to-air missile, it is unclear who fired the missile. "There are reports from Germany that the White House version of what happened is not true, therefore you have to look elsewhere for the culprit who did the shooting down," Cohen notes. "They’re sitting on satellite intercepts. They have the images. They won’t release the air controller’s conversations in Kiev with the doomed aircraft. Why not?"..."
In case you were wondering about the continuously replenished coffers of ISIS!!
"... Tanal, the opposition lawmaker, claims the smuggling itself and the lack of effective countermeasures on the Turkish side are a sign that ISIS enjoys continued support from the Turkish government. “There is cooperation,” he said. “If there wasn’t any, how can you close your eyes to the smuggling like that?” Tanal also stressed that Erdogan and his new prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, refused to call ISIS a terrorist organization..."
... there’s apparently a lot of Kurdish oil disappearing, which makes sense given the legal fights over who owns it (not to mention US selectivity about when to enforce national rights, as we have in Libya of late, and when not to, as we’re apparently not in Iraq).
"... A tanker near Texas loaded with $100 million of disputed Iraqi Kurdish crude has disappeared from satellite tracking, the latest development in a high stakes game of cat-and-mouse between Baghdad and the Kurds.The AIS ship tracking system used by the U.S. Coast Guard and Reuters on Thursday showed no known position for the United Kalavrvta, which was carrying 1 million barrels of crude and 95 percent full when it went dark.Several other tankers carrying disputed crude from Iran or Iraqi Kurdistan have unloaded cargoes after switching off their transponders, which makes their movements hard to track..."
Cole/ NYorker: 'Saudis & co. support ISIS but they can outdo it by providing 'sanitation & jobs'!!
(These are thoughts worthy of an enema!!)
"... ISIS has promised to govern as effectively as it intimidates, but its talent lies in extortion and ethnic cleansing, not in sanitation and job creation.... “We don’t have a strategy yet,” the President remarked last week, infelicitously, about Syria. He does have a coalition of allies in the region that are willing to challenge ISIS’s ambition, including Jordan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. These countries patronize disenfranchised Sunnis in Iraq and Syria, and some of their support certainly reaches jihadists, including ISIS. Yet they share an interest in reducing Syria’s violence and in promoting regional and local Sunni self-governance that is less threatening and more sustainable than what ISIS has created..."
"... Kenny, Kenny, Kenny ... You confused tricky white boy!!
"... The lack of WMDs, Pollack continued, was a “complete surprise.” The intelligence community -- with the exception of United Nations weapons inspector Scott Ritter (reviled and attacked daily)-- was simply wrong. But to Pollack, the Bush administration’s failures were also a shock.... The absence of WMDs didn’t blunt Pollack’s primary argument for the war. “Saddam didn’t have the capability we were ascribing to him -- we were absolutely wrong about that -- but he did have the motivation...." (aaaah, ...) ..."
"... To get there, the United States would have to commit itself to building a new Syrian army that could end the war and help establish stability when the fighting was over. The effort should carry the resources and credibility of the United States behind it and must not have the tentative and halfhearted support that has defined every prior U.S. initiative in Syria since 2011. If the rest of the world believes that Washington is determined to see its strategy through, more countries will support its efforts and fewer will oppose them. Success would therefore require more funding -- to train and equip the new army’s soldiers -- and greater manpower, since much larger teams of U.S. advisers would be needed to prepare the new force and guide it in combat operations..."
"... The West clearly sees the ISIS threat similarly and must therefore move beyond its failed policy and seize on this regional convergence to promote a new approach in Syria. ...
ISIS’ advances in Syria can’t be contained without the force that is most able to challenge it: Mr. Assad’s military. Western leaders should stress to the Saudis that the struggle against ISIS must take precedence over regime change in Damascus.In exchange, Iran should push Mr. Assad to accept real power-sharing and to make the defeat of ISIS his overriding military priority..."
