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The Islamic State militant group claimed responsibility on Saturday for attacks that killed 127 people in Paris, Reuters reported.
In an official statement the group said its fighters strapped with suicide bombing belts and carrying machine guns carried out the attacks in various locations in the heart of the capital which were carefully studied.
Washington is an “arsonist” responsible for the ongoing Syrian crisis, Tony Cartalucci writes, stressing that Syria and Russia must attempt to expand their operation across Syrian territory faster than the Pentagon can spread “chaos” there.
Washington is capable of extinguishing the fire of the ongoing Syrian crisis at any moment by shutting down the Turkish-Syrian border and ending Saudi aid to Islamist groups operating in Syria, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer Tony Cartalucci remarks, calling attention to the fact that the US has so far hesitated to do this.
“At any moment, should the US truly be interested in extinguishing this fire, it can shut down the Turkish-Syrian border, end Saudi aid to terrorist groups operating in Syria, and end the conflict in weeks, if not days. That it refuses to do so, illustrates the key role it plays in creating and perpetuating it, and more specifically, the creation and perpetuation of the “Islamic State” itself,” Cartalucci stresses in his article for New Eastern Outlook.
Since 2007 Washington’s war strategists have been harboring plans aimed at overthrowing the Syrian government through the use of Sunni extremists, more specifically al-Qaeda, the researcher underscored, referring to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh’s essay entitled “The Redirection.”
Proceeding with his narrative, Cartalucci cited a Department of Intelligence Agency (DIA) report drafted in 2012 and published by Judicial Watch, a conservative, non-partisan educational foundation. The researcher stressed that the rise of the Islamic State could have been a part of a premeditated plan for the “deconstruction” of Syria.
The DIA report contains a number of passages that seem to back up Cartalucci’s narrative.
“If the situation unravels there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran),” reads the report.
To clarify just who these ‘supporting powers’ were that sought the creation of a ‘Salafist principality,’ “the West, Gulf countries, and Turkey support the opposition; while Russia, China, and Iran support the regime,” the report continues.
“[The] major forces driving the insurgency in Syria [are] the Salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI,” the report states, which contradicts the Obama administration’s public position on the conflict.
Referring to the neoconservative influential Brookings Institution’s reports, Cartalucci noted that US strategists have considered the possible “deconstruction” and balkanization of Syria through establishing so-called “safe” or “buffer” zones.
“The idea would be to help moderate elements establish reliable safe zones within Syria once they were able. American, as well as Saudi and Turkish and British and Jordanian and other Arab forces would act in support, not only from the air but eventually on the ground via the presence of special forces as well,” the June 2015 Brookings document states.
Russia’s military involvement has clearly upset Washington’s applecart.
Cartalucci noted that, in response, the US policymakers “have openly conspired to commit to strategies not aimed at actually fighting ISIS [ISIL] or ending the destructive conflict in Syria they themselves have started, but instead to counter Russia’s attempts to do so, merely under the guise of fighting ISIS, or helping refugees, or virtually any excuse they believe the public might support.”
The researcher suggested that Obama’s “boots on the ground” in Syria could be involved in backing US-trained and armed terrorists in order to take and hold Syrian territories. By fragmentizing Syria, US strategists seek to destroy it as a functioning nation-state ruled by the Assad government.
In order to undermine the plan, “Syria and Russia should seek the expansion of their coalition inside Syria, and in particular, in the regions the US seeks to carve out,” Cartalucci noted.
According to the researcher, Russia and Syria should rush to expand their operations across the Syrian territory faster “than the US can spread chaos.”
He who hesitates is lost: undoubtedly Washington will continue to beef up its presence in Syria, he remarked.
“Calling the arsonists out, and removing them before the fire irreversibly takes over the entire structure that is the current nation-state of Syria, may be the only way to prevent Syria from becoming the Levant’s ‘Libya’,” the researcher emphasized.
Source: sputniknews.com
Opinion:
By Wally Sarkeesian
First thing first 95% all terrorist in Middle East, North Africa, Belkin’s, Caucuses, are Sunni Muslims accept Hezbollah is Shia Muslim backed by Iran against Israel
Here is what is going on, Israel want to use Kurds to Create Kurdish corridor from northern Iraq and Syria to Mediterranean, on the other hand Turkey want Islamic State to annex northern Syria and Iraq to create path through Iran to connect to Turkic nations like Turkmenistan “neo-ottoman Project”
That is the reason why the war is going on for 4 years and no end. because whenever Syrian government make progress against Islamic state Israel started bombing Syria on the other hand when the Kurds make progress on pushing Islamic State out of the area Turkey start bombing the Kurds this is the vicious cycle and the reality situation in middle-east. It’s Syrian and Iraqi citizens whom are paying the price of Erdogan and Netanyahu Chess game moreover most of the Islamic state Fighters are from Sunni Muslim Turks from Turkic nations like Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kosovo, and so on.
Turks and Israelis will eventually drug both USA and Russia into major showdown just like Turkey did on October 1962 Cuban missiles crisis where Turkey falsely persuade US to put missile in Turkey against USSR Soviet Union and that lead to USSR in Turn put missile in US back yard in Cuba consequently Cuba become the victim of Turkish conspiracy thousand of miles away now Turkey again is playing the same game turning Russia and US against each other maintaining Turkish occupation of Anatolia which in 1923 they change the name to Turkey, of course this time with help of Israel they will eventually confronting USA and Russia into major showdown time will tell.
Recently we have seen Russian military buildup in Syrian that prompted urgently Israel Netanyahu unplanned travel to Moscow meeting Putin followed by Turkish Erdogan travel to Moscow to meet Putin, both are worried that Putin will spoil their plan and both are changing there standing toward Assad by saying Assad should be part of the solution.
Recall Mosul invasion by Islamic state and the fake Turkish hostages taking well that was Erdogan first move and successfully topple Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki replaced with Turkish approved Haider al-Abadi as PM. both Baghdad and Iraqi Kurdistan capitulated & handed over all oil pipe line to go through Turkey moreover, all new oil construction project from south of Iraq went to Turkish contractors too. as you might be aware of 20 Turkish worker have been kidnapped in south of Iraq Basra those are the Turkish contractor doing the jobs which previously done by Iraqi people consequently Iraqis are fleeing & becoming refugees while the Turks moving in taking over Iraqi construction business. to add insult to injury Turkey is asking for safe zone that is in reality the Annexation of Syria. as far as the Kurd situation is currently Erdogan have sort of divided the Kurd into two camp were Iraqi Kurdistan president Barzani is more less in Erdogan pocket, however the Kurd in Turkey and Syria are totally oppose to Turkey’s domination and occupation of there land.
Here is some quote from Pan-Islamist Davatuglu’s Turkish PM book for you to understand Turkey’s road map:
He crystallized these ideas in the book ‘Strategic Depth,’ in 2001, a year before the Justice and Development Party, or A.K.P., came to power. In the book, he defined Turkey as a nation that does not study history, but writes it — a nation that is not at the periphery of the West, but at the center of Islamic civilization … Mr. Davutoglu saw himself as a grand theorist at the helm of his country as it navigated what he called the ‘river of history.’ He and his country were not mere pawns in world politics, but the players who moved the pieces.
According to Mr. Davutoglu, the nation states established after the breakup of the Ottoman Empire are artificial creations and Turkey must now carve out its own Lebensraum — a phrase he uses unapologetically. Doing so would bring about the cultural and economic integration of the Islamic world, which Turkey would eventually lead. Turkey must either establish economic hegemony over the Caucasus, the Balkans and the Middle East, or remain a conflict-riven nation-state that risks falling apart.
As foreign minister, Mr. Davutoglu fervently believed that the Arab Spring had finally provided Turkey with a historic opportunity to put these ideas into practice. He predicted that the overthrown dictatorships would be replaced with Islamic regimes, thus creating a regional ‘Muslim Brotherhood belt’ under Turkey’s leadership.
History keep repeating itself.
Russian President, Putin at UNGA
UNITED NATIONS,— Speaking after his meeting with U.S. president Barack Obama on Monday, Russian president Vladimir Putin told reporters Russia was pondering what more it could do to support Syrian government and Kurdish forces against Islamic State militants.
“We should finally acknowledge that no one but President Assad’s armed forces and (Kurdish) militia are truly fighting the Islamic State and other terrorist organizations in Syria,” Putin said.
“We are mulling over what we would really do extra in order to support those who are in the battlefield, resisting and fighting with terrorists, ISIS (Islamic State) first of all,” Putin said, ruling out deploying Russian ground troops.
“There is (an) opportunity to work on joint problems together,” Putin said of his talks with Obama, which a U.S. official described as “businesslike.”
A senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters after the meeting: “The Russians certainly understood the importance of there being a political resolution to the conflict in Syria, and there being a process that pursues a political resolution.”
Russia and the United States agreed on Monday to look for a diplomatic end to the Syrian civil war but clashed over the central question of whether Syrian President Bashar al-Assad should retain power.
During a 90-minute meeting, Obama and Putin agreed that their armed forces should hold talks to avoid coming into conflict in Syria after a Russian military buildup there over the last several weeks.
All together to denounce the double game of Turkey and accomplices States of barbarism DAESH and Islamist movements in the East
Monday, September 7, 2015 at 18:30
Place Bolivian 75016 PARIS (Passy Metro Line 6)
Near the Turkish Embassy
In memory of all innocent victims in France, Eastern Europe and cowardly murdered by bloodthirsty barbarians.
Turkey has no place in the Paris Conference that will mobilize Tuesday, September 8 sixty countries to decide on a humanitarian, political and legal support “victims of ethnic and religious violence in the Middle East.”
Turkey, already guilty of the Armenian Genocide and Assyrian-Chaldean it refuses to recognize, is a century later accomplice of the genocide of Eastern Christians, Yezidi and minorities by allowing traffic of men, weapons and oil on its soil for the benefit of terrorist organizations that now rampant in our land and Europe.
His pseudo-participation in the war against extremist movements is an illusion. Turkish bombings aimed mostly Kurds who actually fight the terrorist groups in Iraq and Syria.
We reject and denounce his double talk.
Eastern Christians in Danger / @ LA_chredo
www.chrétiens dOrient-en danger.org
The CCAF (Co-ordination Council of Armenian Organizations of France) will participate in the rally and will speak.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group has battled Syrian rebel forces in a southern district of Damascus, bringing ISIL fighters within about 5km of the centre of the capital, Aljazeera reported.
ISIL fighters on Monday night waged street battles against a loose coalition of Syrian rebels in Asali, part of the southern Qadam district, after seizing two streets there over the weekend, a monitoring group and ISIL-affiliated media reported.
“This is the closest ISIL has ever been to the heart of Damascus,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
He said the fighters had advanced from the adjacent al-Hajar al-Aswad neighbourhood, where they have been based since July 2014.
The ISIL-affiliated news agency, Aamaq, said the fighters had taken over buildings in Qadam and killed 15 rebels.
Rebels, who control several districts in southern Damascus, are battling on two fronts, ISIL from the south and troops belonging to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad from the north.
Opposition-held Qadam has been relatively quiet since a truce there a year ago between rebel groups and regime forces, who still have a strong grip over the centre of the capital.
A Syrian regime military official confirmed the latest clashes and said he was “very happy that they are fighting”.
“But we are ready to react if they try to advance into government-held territory,” the official told the AFP news agency.
Since rebels pushed back ISIL from the Damascus suburb of Eastern Ghouta last year, ISIL has used Al-Hajar Al-Aswad as a base for attacks on the capital.
BEIRUT (Reuters) – Islamic State has seized new territory from Syrian rebels in northern Syria, advancing in an area where Turkey and the United States are planning to open a new front against the group in coordination with insurgents on the ground.
The ultra-radical Islamist group and a monitor said it had seized several villages as it stepped up an offensive in northern Aleppo province, in a blow to rebels who are likely partners for Ankara and Washington in any ground campaign.
In an attack that began on Wednesday night, Islamic State had also mostly encircled the rebel-held town of Marea, some 20 km (12 miles) from the border, the group and a rebel commander in the area said.
“If its progress continues, the northern countryside of Aleppo could fall,” the rebel told Reuters. “If Marea falls, it means the fall of an important symbol of the groups fighting Daesh,” he said, using an Arabic acronym for the group.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based group tracking the war, said IS had wrested control of five villages including two near the Turkish border from other Syrian insurgents.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told Reuters on Monday that his country and the United States, two NATO allies, would soon launch “comprehensive” air operations to flush Islamic State fighters from the border region.
The United States and Turkey plan to provide air cover for what Washington judges to be moderate Syrian rebels, in a joint operation to flush Islamic State from a rectangle of border territory roughly 80 km (50 miles) long. U.S. jets have already begun air strikes from Turkish bases in advance of the campaign.
Diplomats familiar with the plans say cutting Islamic State’s access to the Turkish border, across which the radical insurgent group has been able to bring foreign fighters and supplies, could be a game-changer.
CHEMICAL AGENTS
The villages captured by Islamic State on Thursday include two that the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front recently handed over to another Syrian rebel group.
Islamic State has escalated attacks against Syrian rebels in the northern Aleppo countryside since Turkey announced plans to drive it from the area.
It has been shelling Marea, from where civilians were fleeing on Thursday towards areas closer to the Turkish border, an activist said.
International medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres said on Tuesday it had treated a Syrian family from Marea who suffered symptoms of exposure to chemical agents.
The Syrian Observatory said rebels accused IS of using “gasses” in their offensive, but did not elaborate.
Islamic State used poison gas in attacks against Kurdish-controlled areas of northeastern Syria in late June, a Syrian Kurdish militia and a group monitoring the Syrian conflict said in July.
A U.S. general said last Friday that fragments from mortars fired by Islamic State militants at Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq had tested positive in a U.S. military field analysis for sulfur mustard, a chemical weapons agent.
Warplanes believed to be from the US-Turkish campaign were on Thursday bombing IS positions in one of the villages the militants had seized, the Observatory reported, although a rebel commander said this was not the case.
The Nusra Front, which is hostile to Islamic State, announced earlier this month that it would withdraw from the area where Turkey plans to establish a buffer zone, ceding it to other rebels.
A second group of rebel fighters trained in Turkey by the U.S.-led coalition could be deployed to Syria within weeks as part of the campaign against IS, diplomatic sources told Reuters last week.
The Nusra Front said late last month it had detained some of a first group of less than 60 U.S.-trained rebels in northern Syria weeks after they were deployed, and warned others to abandon the program.
(Reporting by Tom Perry and Naline Malla in Beirut, and Omar Fahmy in Cairo, writing by John Davison, editing by Dominic Evans)
The Iraqi prime minister has approved the court martial of several top commanders for withdrawing from the city of Ramadi last year. This move allowed for the swift takeover of the city by “Islamic State.”
Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi approved on Sunday the investigative council’s recommendation to court-martial military commanders who abandoned the positions attacking “Islamic State” (IS) militants in Ramadi.
In a statement from his office, Abadi said the government would refer “a number of the leaders to the military judiciary for leaving their positions without orders and contrary to instructions (and) despite the issuance of a number of orders not to withdraw.”
Ramadi, the capital of Iraq’s western Anbar province, fell to the extremists in mid-May of 2014, dampening Baghdad’s hopes of quickly routing the militants from its north and west. In June the country’s second city of Mosul also fell to the militia, leading to the further collapse of the government army.
According to a senior British military officer, Brigadier Christopher Ghika, Ramadi was lost solely because “the Iraqi commander…elected to withdraw.”
With the national military greatly weakened, Baghdad has had to rely on the help of Shiite militias funded and assisted by former foe Iran to defend the capital and try to regain the large swaths of land lost to “IS.” Ahead of the fall of Ramadi, Abadi had wanted to keep militias on the sidelines in Anbar so as not to deepen sectarian tensions with the country’s Sunni population, which often complains of being marginalized.
In recent months, Iraqi security forces and Shiite militias have managed to recapture much of the ground seized by IS, though the majority of Anbar province remains under its control.
es/bk (AFP, Reuters)
The Islamic State Group (EI) has abducted at least 230 civilians, more than 60 Christians in Al-Qaryataïn, in central Syria, said this Friday, August 7th the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights (OSDH ). This strategic place has been taken by the jihadist group.
The IE “kidnapped Sunnis and 170 over 60 Christians accused of” collaboration with the regime ‘during searches conducted in the conquered city Wednesday, “said Rami Abdel Rahman, the director of that organization close to the opposition to Bashar Assad.
According to Rami Abdel Rahman, the IU had a list of people quit. But the jihadists have sometimes arrested entire families trying to flee.
Flight of Christians
Before the start of the revolt in 2011, there were 18,000 Sunnis and 2000 Catholic and Orthodox Syriacs Al-Qaryataïn. But as Christians settled in Damascus and originating in that locality, there were only 300 Christians before the onslaught of EI.
Al-Qaryataïn is an important junction that connects the territories controlled by the EI: the eastern outskirts of Homs and eastern Qalamoun, near the Lebanese border.
The conquest of the city now allows IE to transfer troops and supplies between the two areas, according to the OSDH, based in Britain but that relies on an important network of activists in Syria.
In May, a Syrian Catholic priest, Father Jacques Mourad the Mar Elian monastery al-Qaryatayn, was abducted by three masked men, following the decision by the EI of the ancient city of Palmyra, near the locality.
One year ago, terror group “Islamic State” began a brutal campaign of violence against Iraq’s Yazidi minority. Germany’s Yazidi community has used the anniversary to demand Turkey do more to stop the militants.
The chairman of Germany’s Central Council of Yazidis, Telim Tolan, on Monday accused Turkey of doing little to stop “Islamic State” (IS) militants from recruiting fighters and smuggling weapons from within its borders.
“Turkey knew about that and should have put a stop to it,” Tolan told German broadcaster SWR. “(IS) is a scourge, and these barbarians only know one language, and that’s the language of violence,” he said.
On August 3, 2014, IS made an unexpected advance into areas of northern Iraq that had been under Kurdish control. Of all the minorities living there, the Yazidi Christians were worst hit. Hundreds of people in the Sinjar area were massacred or abducted, while tens of thousands were forced to flee their homes for the mountains. Many remained stranded there for days without food and water, and several thousand remain there still.
The United Nations has described the violence as “an attempt to commit genocide.” The onslaught received international media attention and was one of the main justifications for the US-led airstrikes against IS that began days later.
At a ceremony in Dohuk marking one year since the IS attacks, the president of Iraq’s Kurdish region, Massoud Barzani, vowed to “hunt down those who committed this crime until the last one.”
Call for more support
Tolan told SWR it was vital the international community counter IS with airstrikes and provide the Kurds fighting against them with more weapons.
“With this military force that the Kurds have, that the Iraqis have, and that America and the international community have, we could have stopped this terrible campaign by IS a long time ago,” he said.
Tolan also called on the German government to provide more humanitarian aid to Yazidi refugees who’ve been living in camps for the past year, and to open a program for receiving persecuted Yazidis.
According to figures from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), Yazidis account for 400,000 of the more than three million people who have been displaced in Iraq since the beginning of 2014.
An estimated 60,000 Yazidis live in Germany, mainly in the western states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony. A number of local associations planned to mark the August 3 anniversary with rallies in Berlin and Bremen later on Monday.
nm/jil (AFP, AP, KNA, epd, dpa)
Source: dw.com