BFP: Christoph Germann- BFP Contributing Author & Analyst

Azerbaijan’s interest in the largest Chinese administrative division, Xinjiang, was scrutinized last week. Now we will take a closer look at Baku’s dealings on the opposite side of the Eurasian Balkans: Azerbaijan, Turkey discuss cooperation in defense industry, Notorious NATO proxy Azerbaijan and NATO member Turkey maintain very good relations. Both countries work together in various sectors with the defense industry especially worth mentioning. This is furthered by the close military cooperation:

Turkish side approves MoU on military training with Azerbaijan Azerbaijan,

Turkey launch joint military drills –

Eyvaz Jafarov also said that these exercises are very important from the viewpoint of increasing the combat readiness of Azerbaijan’s Armed Forces, achieving coordination of operations as well as ensuring the security and stability in the region. From now onward Azerbaijani-Turkish joint military exercises will be held each year in turns in Azerbaijan and Turkey.

Which is very profitable for Turkey’s military-industrial complex: More than 20 Turkish defense industry companies have cooperation and commercial relations with Azerbaijan. More profits are waiting to be made in Central Asia and so Turkey and Azerbaijan are increasingly attracted to this vital part of the ‘Grand Chessboard’:

The establishment of the Cooperation Council of Turkic-speaking states was the initiative of Turkey and Azerbaijan,” Davutoglu said. “The countries could expand the partnership in Central Asia, by creating a trilateral format of cooperation, for example, on the basis of Azerbaijan- Turkey-Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan-Turkey-Turkmenistan.”

While Ankara is pushing for the delivery of Turkmen gas to Europe via Turkey, Baku wants to get a foothold in another Central Asian country

Afghan Interior Minister Mujtaba Patan last week discussed strategic co-operation with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Bakhtar News reported July 14.

The Never-Ending TAPI Story

Afghanistan’s strategic location has long been more a curse than a blessing, putting the country at the center of proxy wars and Pipelineistan conflicts:

Pipelineistan and the New Silk Road(s)

“Washington’s obsession with isolating Iran led, for instance, to the Bill Clinton administration embracing the Taliban in the 1990s in the hope of building TAPI.”  U.S. officials tried to persuade the Taliban to form a joint federal government with the Northern Alliance in order to implement UNOCAL’s plans for a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan through Afghanistan:

Our terrorists

“According to Pakistani Foreign Minister Niaz Naik, who was present at the meetings, US officials threatened the Taliban with military action if they failed to comply with the federalization plan. Even the date of threatened military action, October 2001, was proposed. Needless to say, the Taliban rejected the plan. So months before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a war on Afghanistan was already on the table.”

We all know how this story ended and now more than a decade later Washington is still holding on to the TAPI pipe dream. With the Trans-Caspian pipeline unlikely to materialize, at least not without a large-scale war, Turkmenistan is very interested in the project to diversify its gas supplies:

President: TAPI project to ensure long term Turkmen gas supplies to South-East Asia

“The construction of the gas pipeline, which will ensure the long-term supplies of Turkmen natural gas to South-East Asia in the near future is another action towards the implementation of Turkmenistan’s energy strategy, focused on the creation of a multi-variant system of energy supplies to the world’s biggest markets,” Vatan newspaper quoted the Turkmen president.

Afghanistan’s Karzai-led puppet government predictably agreed to support the pipeline:

Turkmenistan, Afghanistan sign agreement gas purchase and sale using TAPI pipeline

The national gas companies of Turkmenistan and Afghanistan signed an agreement for the sale of natural gas which will be supplied from Turkmenistan to Afghanistan through the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline, a press release from the Turkmen Foreign Ministry, released by the Embassy of the Turkmenistan in Azerbaijan said on Wednesday.

But the government does not have any significant influence beyond Kabul and so Washington is essentially in the same position as before the invasion of Afghanistan, negotiating with the Taliban about TAPI:

The China-US ‘Brotherhood’

“The problem is Washington has absolutely nothing to offer the Taliban. The Taliban, on the other hand, will keep their summer offensive schedule, knowing full well they will be free to do whatever they please after President Hamid Karzai slides into oblivion. As for the Washington notion that Islamabad will be able to keep the Afghan Taliban in check, even the goats in the Hindu Kush are laughing about it.”

Recent reports support Pepe Escobar’s assertion. The training of Afghan security forces is a complete mess and the situation in the region will deteriorate with ISAF forces reducing their presence:

Taliban attacks and Afghan forces casualties increased: Azimi

Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Zahir Azimi confirmed that Afghan security forces casualties have increased as compared to last year. Gen. Zahir Azimi further added that Taliban militants are prove that Afghan security forces are not capable of taking security responsibilities by increasing their insurgency activities.

New States in Central Asia

Tensions emanating from northern Afghanistan are an imminent danger for neighbouring countries:

3 die in conflict between ethnic Tajik and Uzbek in northern Afghanistan By the end of the day, scores were wounded and three killed. One of the Uzbek leaders, Haji Jamshed, also a member of the Takhar Provincial Council, claims that the government was behind the counter protest that helped spark the deadly violence, something the National Police strongly deny. More than 400 national police officers were mobilized around Takhar Province National Police headquarters in response to a weeklong rally by ethnic Uzbeks, frustrated by what they say is a lack of representation in both the national government and the province. The last straw, they say, was when an Uzbek police chief for the province was sacked and replaced by one of the Interior Minister’s cronies.

More and more Tajik citizens travel south to fight among the Afghan insurgents and particularly worrying are the prospects for Badakhshan Province, which shares a long border with Tajikistan:

Afghans Failing Security Test In Badakhshan

NATO forces across the country are focusing their efforts and dissipating resources on the places where they can have the most impact,” Young says. “Badakhshan is not one of those places. I fear that any terrain not classified as even moderately urban will take a lower priority and open the door to Taliban infiltration.”

According to the deputy director of government-run Tajik think tank, Center for Strategic Studies, these developments are part of a larger scheme. Sayfullo Safarov accused “certain forces” of supporting groups in Afghan Badakhshan to destabilize the region [emphasis mine]: – See more at:

Russia and China will help prevent creation of ‘Great Badakhshan’, says Tajik expert – See more at:

In a report released at a news conference in Dushanbe, deputy director of the Center for Strategic Studies, Sayfullo Safarov, revealed on July 12 that some countries are hatching plan to merge Afghan Badakhshan and Tajik Gorno Badakhshan and create a new state under the name of “Great Badakhshan.” “Representative of the CIS Anti-Terrorism Center recently noted at a conference in Kazakhstan that there are plans on creation of two new states in Central Asia – in Badakhshan and the Ferghana Valley,” Safarov noted.

As explained by Safarov, Tajikistan is not the actual target and it is in Moscow’s and Beijing’s interest to help Dushanbe [emphasis mine]: He further added that that Russia and China were concerned over ideas of creating new states in Central Asia, because “they understand well that such plans are aimed against, first all, them.” “Representatives of Russia have already stated that they will not tolerate implementation of those plans in our region,” the expert said.

In the light of Great Badakhshan’s emergence, the following statement by the China-led Shanghai Cooperation Organization is definitely correct:

SCO: Peace and stability in region depends on situation in Afghanistan

Russia and China are faced with the difficult task to stop U.S./NATO’s Gladio B operations and prevent the creation of East Turkestan, Great Badakhshan and a new state in the Fergana Valley. This Central Asian region, which spans Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, is expected to become a major source of terrorism and instability. Border tensions are frequent:

Christoph Germann- BFP Contributing Author & Analyst Christoph Germann is an independent analyst and researcher based in Germany, where he is currently studying political science. His work focuses on the New Great Game in Central Asia and the Caucasus region. You can visit his website here

 

Cancer is more common than flu in the Iraqi city of Najaf, about 160 km south of Baghdad, one local doctor told RT. After the start of the war rates of leukemia and birth defects “rose dramatically” due to use of depleted uranium by the US military.

“Every single residential street that we’ve visited in several neighborhoods, we found multiple cases of families whose children were ill, families who had lost children who had to bury children, families who had many relatives who were suffering from cancer,” RT correspondent Lucy Kafanov said.

Dr. Chris Busby has researched the effects of depleted uranium in detail. He says the only source of uranium in Iraq was the use by the American-led forces of uranium weapons.

“We went to Fallujah and we found the levels of cancer. We looked at the parents of children with congenital malformation and we did analysis of their hair to see what was inside their hair that might be genotoxic, that might be the sort of thing that can cause congenital malformation. The only thing that we found was uranium. We found uranium in the mothers of the children with congenital malformations,” he told RT.

From 2009 onwards, credible media reports from the city of Fallujah, which had been the scene of intense urban warfare in 2004, brought reports of high rates of congenital birth defects in the city to the world’s attention. At least two platforms that utilize DU munitions were employed in ‘Phantom Fury’, the most intense operation since the official end of major combat operations in 2003.

At least 440,000kg of DU was used in Iraq, some ending up as DU dust, some as corroding penetrators and leaving a still unknown number of sites with contaminated vehicles, buildings and soils, according to a Dutch report.

“The exposure risks to civilians from the use of DU in populated areas have been compounded by the US’s persistent refusal to release the data that could have helped facilitate the effective assessment and clearance work, providing that the Iraqi government had the capacity and finances to undertake it. Taken as a whole, these issues cast serious doubts over the legitimacy of the use of DU,” the Dutch report says.

Aside from DU’s potential impact on physical health, it is highly likely that its use and presence in Iraq has led to heightened fear and anxiety, which in turn may have created a measureable psycho-social impact, the authors of the report note.

Another report, funded by the Norwegian government, has recently found that depleted uranium was used against civilian targets in populated areas in Iraq, in 2003. It emphasizes a lack of transparency by coalition forces over the use of depleted uranium, but also describes one incident in Najaf where a Bradley armored fighting vehicle fired 305 depleted uranium rounds in a single engagement.

“We know that uranium is genotoxic, that it causes these levels of genetic damage, and because of that it also causes cancer. The only source of uranium was the use by the American-led forces of uranium weapons. Not only depleted uranium weapons, but as we later found out slightly enriched uranium weapons, which we believe they were using in order to cover their tracks. So, I think we have more or less proved that these effects are a result of the use during the two wars of uranium, and the particles that the uranium weapons produced,” Dr. Busby explained.

Depleted uranium weapons are known for the ability to penetrate through walls and tanks. One of its most dangerous “side effects” is that when the substance vaporizes, it generates dust inhaled by individuals.

“After the start of the Iraq war, rates of cancer, leukemia and birth defects rose dramatically in Najaf. The areas affected by American attacks saw the biggest increases. We believe it’s because of the’ illegal’ weapons like depleted uranium that were used by the Americans. When you visit the hospital here you see that cancer is more common than the flu,” Dr. Sundus Nsaif told RT.

The Pentagon and the UN estimate that US and British forces used 1,100 to 2,200 tons of armor-piercing shells made of depleted uranium during attacks in Iraq in March and April, far more than the [officially] estimated 375 tons used in the 1991 Gulf War, according to a report published in Seattle Post-Intelligencer in 2003.

In cities like Basra and Fallujah, where American and British forces used heavy munitions at the start of the war, it is estimated that over half of all babies conceived after the start of the war were born with heart defects. According to a study published in the Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, between October 1994 and October 1995 the number of birth defects per 1,000 live births in Al Basrah Maternity Hospital was 1.37. In 2003, the number of birth defects in the same hospital was 23 per 1,000 livebirths. Within less than a decade, the occurrence of congenital birth defects increased 17-fold.

The international community has voiced concerns over the actual effects of the use of such weapons. World Health Organization (WHO) and the Ministry of Health (MOH) in Iraq are expected to publish a report on this in the near future. But so far it has been delayed. According to WHO, the report will not examine the link between the prevalence of birth defects and use of depleted uranium (DU) munitions used during the war and occupation in Iraq.

“Since the issue of associating congenital birth defects with exposure to depleted uranium has not been included in the scope of this particular study, establishing a link between the congenital birth defects prevalence and exposure to depleted uranium would require further research,” WHO states.

“There haven’t been large-scale studies done. We haven’t seen big teams of international doctors, for example, going in and looking at different cities, comparing the number of birth defect cases between the different cities. There are really no reliable statistics for birth defects in Iraq, so nobody can really say exactly how big this problem is,” Kafanov says.

She witnessed a complete disregard by the authorities to the sufferings of the local residents. Few sites have been formally identified by the Iraqi authorities as being contaminated by DU, even though two contaminated tanks were found in 2005, according to a Dutch report.

While these people can’t necessarily prove that it was depleted uranium or the causes of these diseases, this is something that they say has risen dramatically in the years since the invasion,” Kafanov said, adding that feeling “completely abandoned, these are impoverished people who are fighting this massive toxic problem.”

Meanwhile, doctors on the ground are discouraged from talking out openly about the issue to the press.

“One of the surprising things that we found in speaking to the doctors on the ground is that they say they reportedly have been discouraged by the government from talking out openly about this to the press.”

RT had to conduct interviews with local experts in privacy. “The biologist that we have spoken in Najaf, who was researching the issue in the city, had to give us the interview in the privacy of her home, on the roof there, instead of her laboratory. She said that there’s an active push by the government perhaps not to embarrass the coalition forces, not to really talk about this issue.”

For more on this, watch Lucy Kafanov’s exclusive report.

17-year-old Mustafa Ali Tombul’s has finally woken up from the coma he has been in since being hit in the head by a tear gas capsule during the Gezi Park protests, and is now on the path to recovery.

He had been in a coma at the Taksim Research and Education Center since receiving a blow to the head from a tear gas capsule fired by police during an intervention in the Tarlabaşı neighboorhod on July 9.

Tombul only managed to speak one day after waking up on July 21. The teenage protester is said to have uttered, “I missed mother” as his first words, and he is now slowly learning to move his body again, according to daily Hurriyet.

A minor edema is still present in Mustafa’s brain, but that soon will be treated, Mustafa’s mother, Öznur Karaağaç Aygün, told reporters.

Tombul is currently being treated at the Taksim hospital where Lobna Allami, a Turkish citizen of Palestinian origin, also received treatment after being injured by a gas canister. She was discharged July 19, after undergoing two brain surgeries.

However, Berkin Elvan, who was attacked after stepping out to buy bread during a police intervention in Istanbul’s Okmeydanı neighborhood on June 15, is still in intensive care.

Five people have died and thousands have been injured since the Gezi protests erupted in late May, when Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality attempted to cut down trees in Taksim’s most iconic park, sparking anger in Istanbul and cities around the country.

By Erika Solomon

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian Kurdish forces freed a local leader linked to al Qaeda as part of an agreed ceasefire to end fierce fighting with Islamist rebels in the northern Syrian town of Tel Abyad on Sunday, activists said.

In return, Islamist rebels have promised to release hundreds of Kurds taken hostage as collateral from the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS), known as Abu Musaab.

The sporadic fighting in the northern Syrian border region over the past five days has signaled a growing power struggle as Islamists work to cement control of rebel zones while Kurds assert their autonomy in mostly Kurdish parts of the region.

The tensions highlight how the two-year insurgency against 43 years of Assad family rule is spinning off into strife within his opponents’ ranks, running the risk of creating regionalized conflicts that could destabilize neighboring countries.

Pro-opposition activists said that Turkish military forces had been reinforced on Turkey’s side of the frontier near Tel Abyad on Sunday, but the Turkish army could not be reached for comment. Turkish forces exchanged fire with Syrian Kurdish fighters in another border region earlier this week.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the fighting in Tel Abyad started when the local brigade of the Qaeda-linked ISIS asked Kurdish Front forces, who have fought with the rebels against Assad, to pledge their allegiance to the ISIS leader there, which they refused.

Other activists said the clashes were an outgrowth of fighting that broke out last week in other parts of the northern border zone, spreading conflict to Tel Abyad.

The Observatory said Kurdish forces were still awaiting the awaiting the release of hundreds of Kurdish residents kidnapped by Islamist fighters. Many of the hostages were relatives of Kurdish fighters in the area, it said.