Iraqi Commander - A mobile phone found with one of the killed ISIL ringleaders contain messages from the Turkish intelligence agency proving that Ankara supports and provides security to ISIS.

 

ISIL Ringleader's Mobile Phone Speaks Loud of Turkey's Support for Terrorism

 

 

 

 

TEHRAN (FNA)- A commander of the Iraqi volunteer forces (Hashd al-Shaabi) revealed that a mobile phone found with one of the killed ISIL ringleaders proved the Turkish spy agency's support for the terrorist group.

 

"The mobile phone was found with one of the killed ISIL leaders in the Northern parts of Salahuddin province two days ago," Jabbar al-Ma'mouri told Soumeriya news on Monday.

He said that the mobile set and history files contain messages from the Turkish intelligence agency which show that Ankara supports the ISIL terrorist group through providing security at the points of entry used by ISIL militants from Turkey to Iraq.

"The mobile phone also contains other important information which cannot be disclosed now, and it has been delivered to the specialized security groups for further scrutiny," Ma'mouri said.

Read More Here

The Texas senator,Ted Cruz,, said America should focus on its own security rather than toppling dictators abroad.

 

'It's not even a close call': Ted Cruz insists the Middle East was a safer place when dictators Saddam Hussein and Colonel Gaddafi were alive

• The presidential candidate, 44, said US should focus on its own security
• Said Middle East was more secure when Iraq and Libya dictators were alive
• Cruz said Libya was now a 'chaotic war zone ruled by radical Islamic terrorists'

By Julian Robinson for MailOnline

Published: 04:10 EST, 11 December 2015 | Updated: 19:04 EST, 11 December 2015

 

Ted Cruz believes the Middle East was a safer place before the US helped to overthrow tyrants Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, it has been reported.

The Texas senator, a Republican presidential candidate, said America should focus on its own security rather than toppling dictators abroad.

He said it was 'not even a close call' when asked whether the Middle East was more secure when Gaddafi and Hussein were dictators of their respective countries.

 

Ted Cruz believes the Middle East was a safer place before the US helped to overthrow Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, it has been reported

 

Cruz said the toppling of the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi had shown the US has not learned lessons from history

In an interview with MSNBC, Cruz told Joe Scarborough: 'Now, what has been a mistake - and we’ve seen a consistent mistake in foreign policy - is far too often, we’ve seen Democrats and a lot of establishment Republicans in Washington get involved in toppling Middle Eastern governments.

'And it ends up benefiting the bad guys. It ends up handing them over to radical Islamic terrorists,'

He described Syrian president Bashar Assad as a 'monster' but warned that ISIS extremists would sweep further across the country were he to be overthrown.

He said: 'My view, instead of getting in the middle of a civil war in Syria, where we don’t have a dog in the fight, our focus should be on killing ISIS. Why? Because ISIS has declared war on America. They’re waging jihad.'

 

 

Read More and Watch Video Here

The EU says it may retaliate if the US goes ahead with plans to impose visas reform on members already part of the Visa Waiver Program.

EU warns of visas for US citizens if Washington implements visa waiver reforms

Published time: 17 Dec, 2015 14:59Edited time: 17 Dec, 2015

 

 

© Fred Greaves / Reuters

 

 

The EU says it may retaliate if the US goes ahead with plans to impose visas for some members of the bloc who are currently part of the Visa Waiver Program. Brussels says it will not increase security and that US nationals may require visas to enter the EU.

A letter signed by 28 European member state ambassadors to the US was published in The Hill after Europe reacted furiously and with disbelief to plans by Washington to tighten-up the Visa Waiver Program (VWP), which currently lets millions of citizens from the bloc travel to the US each year without a visa.

OP-ED: EU warns of visas for US citizens if Washington implements visa waiver reforms

Last week, the US House of Representatives adopted a bill to reform the visa program that would ban certain EU nationals from entering the US without a visa if they had visited Iran, Iraq, Syria or Sudan after March 2011. Some US politicians want the legislation introduced to tighten security following the November 13 Paris terror attacks.

“A blanket restriction on those who have visited Syria or Iraq, for example, would most likely only affect legitimate travel by businesspeople, journalists, humanitarian or medical workers while doing little to detect those who travel by more clandestine means overland,” the letter signed by the 28 ambassadors stated.

At present, 23 of the EU’s 28 member states enjoy visa-free travel to the US, with the remaining five nations keen to join the VWP. The bloc says it is imperative to keep the visa waiver program intact for business and tourism purposes, while the current system does not mean that it is “a license to enter the US with nothing more than the wave of a passport of an allied country.”

Read More Here

Montenegro : Thousands flooded the streets of the capital to protest membership to the North Atlantic Alliance and remind people of the NATO invasion of 1999.

   

‘Murderers’: Thousands gather in Montenegro capital to protest NATO membership (VIDEO)

Published time: 13 Dec, 2015 09:20

© Ruptly

Shortly after Montenegro’s bid to join the North Atlantic Alliance was given the green light, thousands flooded the streets of the capital to protest the upcoming membership and remind people of lives taken during the NATO invasion of 1999.

Former Montenegrin President Momir Bulatovic and opposition leaders called the rally on Saturday in Montenegro’s capital, Podgorica. They gathered at least 5,000 supporters outside the parliament, according to the local Vijesti newspaper. The protesters held national flags while patriotic and pro-Russian chants ringing out from the assembled crowd.

Bulatovic, who was also prime minister of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1998 to 2000, told the rally that joining NATO would mean “blood of innocent people on our hands,” and emphasized his country had been against the alliance’s wars until recently. “What has Afghanistan done wrong, what has Iraq done wrong? Why has Libya been destroyed, what's happening today in Syria? Can we close our eyes to that?" he said.

  Read More Here

Montenegro : Thousands flooded the streets of the capital to protest membership to the North Atlantic Alliance and remind people of the NATO invasion of 1999.

   

‘Murderers’: Thousands gather in Montenegro capital to protest NATO membership (VIDEO)

Published time: 13 Dec, 2015 09:20

© Ruptly

Shortly after Montenegro’s bid to join the North Atlantic Alliance was given the green light, thousands flooded the streets of the capital to protest the upcoming membership and remind people of lives taken during the NATO invasion of 1999.

Former Montenegrin President Momir Bulatovic and opposition leaders called the rally on Saturday in Montenegro’s capital, Podgorica. They gathered at least 5,000 supporters outside the parliament, according to the local Vijesti newspaper. The protesters held national flags while patriotic and pro-Russian chants ringing out from the assembled crowd.




Bulatovic, who was also prime minister of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1998 to 2000, told the rally that joining NATO would mean “blood of innocent people on our hands,” and emphasized his country had been against the alliance’s wars until recently. “What has Afghanistan done wrong, what has Iraq done wrong? Why has Libya been destroyed, what's happening today in Syria? Can we close our eyes to that?" he said.

  Read More Here

Turkey's ‘Sunnistan’ in Iraq. Sultan Erdogan's calculated move into the ultimate ‘Pipelineistan’ war.

Crippled in Syria, Turkey goes for a ‘Sunnistan’ in Iraq

 

Published time: 9 Dec, 2015 13:01

 

© Fatih Saribas / Reuters

 

Turkey’s “incursion” into Iraq is a cold, calculated move. And once again, the name of the game is – what else? – Divide and Rule.

 

TrendsSyria unrest, Syria-Turkey

 

 

Turkey sent to Iraqi Kurdistan – which is part of the state of Iraq - no less than a 400-strong battalion supported by 25 M-60A3 tanks. Now the Turkish boots on the ground at Bashiqa camp, northeast of Mosul, have reportedly reached a total of around 600.

The short breakdown: this is not a “training camp”- as Ankara is spinning. It’s a full-blown, perhaps permanent, military base.

The dodgy deal was struck between the ultra-corrupt Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and then-Turkish Foreign Minister Feridun Sinirlioglu in Erbil last month.

Torrents of Turkish spin swear this is only about “training” Peshmergas to fight ISIS/ISIL/Daesh.
Absolute nonsense. The crucial fact is that Ankara is terrified of the “4+1” alliance fighting Islamic State, which unites Iran, Iraqi Shiites and the Syrian Arab Army (SAA), as well as Hezbollah, with Russia.

In Syria, Ankara is virtually paralyzed, after the “stab in the back”downing of the Su-24; the Russian revelations of complicity between Turkey’s first family and stolen Syrian oil (Bilal Erdogan, a.k.a. Erdogan ‘Mini Me’, denies everything); and the Russian Air Force relentless pounding of Turkey’s fifth column Turkmen. Not to mention the deployment of S-400s and even a third-generation submarine complete with Kalibr cruise missiles.

So Ankara now switches the attention to Iraq with a “counter-alliance”, made up of Turkey; the KRG (which – illegally – sells oil to Turkey); and Sunnis in northern Iraq under the supposed leadership of the sprawling Nuceyfi tribe in Mosul.

© Stringer / Reuters

This is textbook neo-Ottomanism in action. We should never forget that for the AKP in power in Ankara, northern Syria and northern Iraq are nothing but former Ottoman Empire provinces, an eastward extension of Turkey’s Hatay province. ‘Sultan’ Erdogan’s (unstated) wet dream is to annex the whole lot.

Read More Here

Pepe Escobar is an independent geopolitical analyst. He writes for RT, Sputnik and TomDispatch, and is a frequent contributor to websites and radio and TV shows ranging from the US to East Asia. He is the former roving correspondent for Asia Times Online. Born in Brazil, he's been a foreign correspondent since 1985, and has lived in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Washington, Bangkok and Hong Kong. Even before 9/11 he specialized in covering the arc from the Middle East to Central and East Asia, with an emphasis on Big Power geopolitics and energy wars. He is the author of "Globalistan" (2007), "Red Zone Blues" (2007), "Obama does Globalistan" (2009) and "Empire of Chaos" (2014), all published by Nimble Books. His latest book is "2030", also by Nimble Books, out in December 2015.

A US air strike aimed at an IS checkpoint is likely to have killed four civilians, possibly including a child, the US military has said.

USN - U.S. Naval Air Warfare Center Wikimedia.org
..........................................................................................................

BBC

US air strike on IS in Iraq 'killed civilians'

• 20 November 2015
• From the section Middle East

 

A US air strike aimed at an IS checkpoint is likely to have killed four civilians, possibly including a child, the US military has said.

On Friday the military released the findings of an investigation into the incident, which took place in March.

Investigators concluded the checkpoint was a valid target and the attack did not violate international laws.

The US has rarely acknowledged civilian deaths in the fight against IS and the announcement brings the total to six.

"All reasonable measures were taken to avoid unintended deaths of, or injuries to, non-combatants," US Central Command spokesman Patrick Ryder said.



Read More Here

Obama defends his strategy against the Islamic State, saying it will ‘take time’

 

 

 

 

Obama speaks about the Islamic State and refugees following the Paris attacks

President Obama made remarks and answered questions at the G-20 summit in Turkey on Nov. 13. Here's what he said about the path forward fighting the Islamic State, welcoming Muslims and protecting Syrian refugees. (AP)

 

By Greg Jaffe November 16  

 

 

The carnage of the Paris attacks and the largely stalemated war in Iraq and Syria have prompted heavy criticism of President Obama’s handling of the fight against the Islamic State over the past three years.

 

The questions came in waves Monday at the Group of 20 summit in Antalya, Turkey: Hadn’t Obama underestimated the threat posed by the Islamic State? Wasn’t it time for a new and more aggressive attack plan? Did he really understand the group well enough to defeat it and protect the United States?

“All right,” Obama replied to the last question, his tone betraying utter indignation. “So this is a variation on the same question. . . . Let me try it one last time.”

In response to each of the questions posed by reporters, Obama made his case for a steady and persistent campaign that seeks to gradually shrink the Islamic State’s territory in Iraq and Syria with airstrikes, slowly build up indigenous ground forces and press for renewed diplomatic negotiations to end Syria’s civil war.

The questions reflected concerns following the Paris attacks — which killed 129 people and led France’s president to promise a “merciless” response — that Obama had missed opportunities to defeat the group when it was still gaining strength.

Read More Here

Oil storage space at a premium : Off the coast of Texas, a line of roughly 40 tankers has formed, waiting to unload their crude.

 

An Oil-Soaked Globe as Production Keeps Climbing and Demand Falls

By CLIFFORD KRAUSSNOV. 13, 2015

Photo

 

An oil well in Texas owned by Apache Corporation, the object of a failed bid last week from Anadarko Petroleum. Many in the oil industry expect large companies to buy small operators. Credit Spencer Platt/Getty Images

 

HOUSTON — Such is the state of the oil industry these days that there is sometimes nowhere to put the oil. Off the coast of Texas, a line of roughly 40 tankers has formed, waiting to unload their crude or, in some cases, for a willing buyer to come along. Similar scenes are playing out off the coasts of Singapore and China and in the Persian Gulf.

There is little sign that the logjam will ease, as the price of oil continued its yearlong plunge this week, declining by nearly $10 a barrel.

The renewed collapse in crude prices is helping to again drive down gasoline prices for American drivers, to a national average of $2.19 a gallon for regular gasoline on Friday, according to the AAA motor club. That is 9 cents below the price a month ago and 73 cents below the price a year ago.

The slide in oil companies’ fortunes has been significant because of expanded production in Russia, Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states, as well as a slowdown in demand growth in China and the expectation by commodity traders that the Iran nuclear deal will introduce large quantities of oil to the glutted market.

 

Read More Here
.............................................................................................

 

Something Very Strange Is Taking Place Off The Coast Of Galveston, TX

 

 

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 11/12/2015 21:43 -0500

 

Having exposed the world yesterday to the 2-mile long line of tankers-full'o'crude heading from Iraq to the US, several weeks after reporting that China has run out of oil storage space we can now confirm that the global crude "in transit" glut is becoming gargantuan and is starting to have adverse consequences on the price of oil.
While the crude oil tanker backlog in Houston reaches an almost unprecedented 39 (with combined capacity of 28.4 million barrels), as The FT reports that from China to the Gulf of Mexico, the growing flotilla of stationary supertankers is evidence that the oil price crash may still have further to run, as more than 100m barrels of crude oil and heavy fuels are being held on ships at sea (as the year-long supply glut fills up available storage on land). The storage problems are so severe in fact, that traders asking ships to go slow, and that is where we see something very strange occurring off the coast near Galveston, TX.

 

FT reports that "the amount of oil at sea is at least double the levels of earlier this year and is equivalent to more than a day of global oil supply. The numbers of vessels has been compiled by the Financial Times from satellite tracking data and industry sources."

The storage glut is unprecedented:

 

 

Off Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, Asia’s main oil hub, around 35m barrels of crude and shipping fuel are being stored on 14 VLCCs.

 

“A lot of the storage off Singapore is fuel oil as the contango is stronger,” said Petromatrix analyst Olivier Jakob. Fuel oil is mainly used in shipping and power generation.

 

Off China, which is on course to overtake the US as the world’s largest crude importer, five heavily laden VLCCs — each capable of carrying more than 2m barrels of oil — are parked near the ports of Qingdao, Dalian and Tianjin.

 

In Europe, a number of smaller tankers are facing short-term delays at Rotterdam and in the North Sea, where output is near a two-year high. In the Mediterranean a VLCC has been parked off Malta since September.

Read More Here

American boots on the ground against ISIS: Pentagon says the US will take 'direct action' in Iraq and Syria

 

 

• Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said the United States will ramp up attacks on Islamic State jihadists in Syria and Iraq, with additional air strikes and even direct action on the ground
• Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carter said he expects more actions like the one last week that freed dozens of captives but left an American commando dead in Iraq 
• See our full coverage on ISIS at www.dailymail.co.uk/isis 

By Afp

Published: 14:00 EST, 27 October 2015 | Updated: 17:13 EST, 27 October 2015

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter on Tuesday said the United States will ramp up attacks on Islamic State jihadists in Syria and Iraq, with additional air strikes and even direct action on the ground.

Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carter said he expects more actions like the one last week that freed dozens of captives but left an American commando dead in Iraq.

'We won't hold back from supporting capable partners in opportunistic attacks against ISIL, or conducting such missions directly, whether by strikes from the air or direct action on the ground,' Carter said.

 

 

US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter testifies during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing about the Middle East on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC

Read More Here

New research finds, through their silence, mainstream news outlets are 'legitimating' U.S. military's burn pits on civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan

Published on

Friday, October 16, 2015

by

Common Dreams

Study Reveals Corporate Media's Refusal to Acknowledge Civilian Victims of US Wars

by

Sarah Lazare, staff writer

 

 

A U.S. military burn pit at forward operating base Zeebrudge in Helmand province, Afghanistan pictured in March 2013. (Photo: Sgt. Anthony L. Ortiz)

Mainstream media outlets are systematically disregarding the hazardous health impacts of widespread U.S. military burn pits on civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, thereby playing a direct role in "legitimating the environmental injustices of war," a harrowing new scholarly report concludes.
"During the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the US Department of Defense burned the majority of its solid waste in open-air pits or trenches, producing large amounts of potentially hazardous emissions," noted Eric Bonds, assistant professor of sociology at University of Mary Washington, in his investigation, published in the journal Environmental Politics.

"It is well known that the uncontrolled burning of plastics, Styrofoam, electronics, unexploded weapons, and other manufactured and highly processed materials releases harmful toxins and particulate matter into the air," Bonds continued.

"This echoes the other history of Agent Orange when the U.S. government turned its back on the people of Vietnam and walked away, cleaning up just a handful of contaminated places but never acknowledging harm done to Vietnamese civilians or compensating them for their suffering."
—Eric Bonds, University of Mary Washington

However, when he surveyed major U.S. newspaper stories from 2007 to 2014, Bonds found that discussions of the negative health impacts of these burn pits overwhelmingly focused on the plight faced by U.S. military service members and veterans—but the actual civilians nearby were almost entirely missing from the picture.

"The search produced 49 distinct stories. While five of these stories made passing reference to civilian impacts, and one story mentioned potential impacts to civilians on par with impacts to soldiers, the vast majority of news stories made no mention that Iraqi and Afghan civilians might also have been harmed by the U.S. military's burning of waste," he wrote.

What's more, Bonds noted, "When journalists describe the pollution itself, how it billowed over military bases and covered living quarters with ash and soot, such accounts never mention that this pollution would not have stopped at the cement barricades and concertina wire at base boundaries, but must have also settled over civilians' homes and the surrounding landscapes."

From Balad air base in Iraq to Shindad base in Afghanistan, these sites are in fact located in close proximity to "farmsteads, townships, cities, cropland, orchards, and rivers."

As Common Dreams previously reported, Dr. Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, independent environmental toxicologist based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, has identified a correlation between burn pits and spikes in birth defects among Iraqi communities nearby.

According to Bonds, by failing to tell the stories of the Iraqi and Afghan people impacted, the media has a hand in the injustices committed against them.

"This echoes the other history of Agent Orange when the U.S. government turned its back on the people of Vietnam and walked away, cleaning up just a handful of contaminated places but never acknowledging harm done to Vietnamese civilians or compensating them for their suffering," Bonds told Common Dreams.

As in Vietnam, people in Iraq and Afghanistan are demanding acknowledgment of—and reparations for—the harm done by U.S. burn pits and toxic munitions.

Iraqi civil society groups including the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq and the Federation of Workers Councils and Unions in Iraq have organized within their communities and levied international demands for the U.S. to clean up its burn pits, depleted uranium, white phosphorous, and other toxic waste which is creating an ongoing public health crisis in Iraq.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

Plenty of finger pointing and blame from another chip off the Neo Con block , however no admission of duplicitous agenda by US : Jeb Bush says Putin's Russia should face consequences over Syria

 

REUTERS

Exclusive: Jeb Bush says Putin's Russia should face consequences over Syria

PETERBOROUGH, N.H. | By Steve Holland

U.S. Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush pauses during an interview with Reuters at Nonie's Restaurant in Peterborough, New Hampshire October 13, 2015.

Reuters/Brian Snyder

Republican Jeb Bush vowed on Tuesday to take a more aggressive approach to countering Russia if he is elected president next year, calling Vladimir Putin an "agile adversary" who is exploiting a vacuum of U.S. leadership in Syria and elsewhere.

In an interview with Reuters, Bush said that if elected in 2016 he would seek to build a coalition of European and Arab partners to work for the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, which he said is key to resolving the festering conflict and a worsening refugee crisis.

Calling Putin a "bully", Bush said the United States and Europe should also extend sanctions against Moscow over its military aggression in Ukraine that are set to expire at year's end.

"How to deal with him is to confront him on his terms, not to create a more bellicose environment but to simply say that there is going to be a consequence," Bush said in the interview, in which he also called for a tougher stance against China and to counter growing Iranian and Russian influence in Iraq.



Read More Here

..............................................................................................

October 12, 2015

There Are U.S. Special Forces In South Syria

Hassan Ridha @sayed_ridha

Drone downed by #SAA over Izraa #Daraa countryside http://pic.twitter.com/sHPTthL1Yv

More pictures of the debris can be found here.
The various munition experts on Twitter agree that this is debris of an Aerovironment Switchblade (Datasheet-pdf) loitering munition "for use against beyond-line-of-sight (BLOS) targets":

This miniature intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) and lethal platform can be operated manually or autonomously. Switchblade provides the operator with real-time video and GPS coordinates for information gathering, targeting or feature/object recognition.

The switchblade has the size of a remote piloted hobby plane but features a visual and infrared camera and an explosive charge. It can be "suicided" on a target. According to the datasheet the battery powered killer drone has a "10 km radius of operation".
Izraa, where the debris was found, lies (map) at the crossing of the M5 highway from Amman in Jordan north to Damascus and road 109 which runs west to east through south Syria. Izraa is about 40 km north of the Syrian Jordan border and 40 km east of the Golan demarcation line. Anyone who used this armed drone must have been on Syrian ground.



Read More Here

.....................................................................................................

Russia Insider

Evidence of Covert US Forces in Southern Syria

There's massive US presence over the border in Jordan

(Moon of Alabama)

1 minute ago | 0 15

Originally appeared at Moon of Alabama

---

Drone downed by Syria army over Daraa countryside:

Hassan Ridha @sayed_ridha

Unknown gunmen assassinate #FSA commander Madar Hussein Al-Khurasan in Nawa #Daraa countryside

Follow

Hassan Ridha @sayed_ridha

Drone downed by #SAA over Izraa #Daraa countryside pic.twitter.com/sHPTthL1Yv

3:12 AM - 12 Oct 2015

Read More Here

....................................................................................

US and coalition partners launch airstrikes in Syria and Iraq: Pentagon

Press TV

Tue Oct 13, 2015 1:5PM

Smoke rises in the Syrian town of Kobani after a US airstrikes targets ISIL terrorists there. (File photo)

 

The United States and its so-called coalition partners have conducted at least three airstrikes in Syria and 11 in Iraq, the Pentagon says.

According to US military officials, the attacks targeted Daesh (ISIL) terrorists and were carried out on Monday, a day after Washington air-dropped tons of weapons to militants fighting inside Syria.
Four airstrikes near the Iraqi city of Ramadi pulverized six ISIL buildings, two command and control nodes and five fighting positions, the officials claimed. Other strikes hit targets near the cities of Mosul, Baiji, Sinjar and Tal Afar.

In Syria, fighter jets targeted crude oil collection points near the cities of Abu Kamal and Deir ez-Zor, they said. The third attack, near the town of Al-Hawl, destroyed two ISIL vehicles.

"Coalition forces conducted an airdrop Sunday in northern Syria to resupply local counter-ISIL ground forces as they conduct operations against ISIL," US Central Command spokesman Colonel Patrick Ryder said in a statement on Monday, using an acronym for the Daesh terrorist group.

Read More Here

Iraq has begun bombing Islamic State insurgents with help from a new intelligence center with staff from Russia, Iran and Syria

REUTERS

Iraq using info from new intelligence center to bomb Islamic State: official

BAGHDAD | By Babak Dehghanpisheh

 

 

Militant Islamist fighters hold the flag of Islamic State (IS) while taking part in a military parade along the streets of northern Raqqa province in this June 30, 2014 file photo.

Reuters/Stringer

 

 

Iraq has begun bombing Islamic State insurgents with help from a new intelligence center with staff from Russia, Iran and Syria, a senior parliamentary figure said on Tuesday about cooperation seen as a threat to U.S. interests in the region.

The center has been operational for about a week, and it provided intelligence for air strikes on a gathering of middle-level Islamic State figures, Hakim al Zamili, the head of parliament's defense and security committee, told Reuters.

The new security apparatus based in Baghdad suggests the United States is losing clout in a strategic oil-producing Middle East, where it has been heavily invested for years.

Two weeks ago Russia started bombing anti-government rebels in neighboring Syria, including the ultra hardline Islamic State, to support its ally, President Bashar al-Assad, to the consternation of the West.

Read More Here

Russia, Iran, Iraq and Syria setting up ‘joint information center’ to coordinate anti-ISIS operations

Published time: 26 Sep, 2015 15:30Edited time: 27 Sep, 2015 16:58

 

 

© Stringer / Reuters

 

Russia, Iran, Iraq and Syria have agreed to establish a joint information center in Baghdad to coordinate their operations against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIL/ISIS) militants, according to sources.

 

“The main goal of the center will be gathering, processing and analyzing current information about the situation in the Middle East – primarily for fighting IS,” a military-diplomatic source told Russian news agencies on Saturday.

The information center in the Iraqi capital will be headed by an officer of one of the founding countries on a rotating basis. Rotation will take place every three months. According to the source, Iraq will run the center for the next three months.

Russia, Iran, Iraq and Syria may also use the information center to coordinate anti-IS combat plans, the source said, adding that the agreement is a milestone for uniting the region’s countries in the war on terrorism – primarily on Islamic State militants.

The Iraqi army’s joint operations command confirmed the agreement on Saturday, saying that it came with “increased Russian concern about the presence of thousands of terrorists from Russia undertaking criminal acts with Daesh [Islamic State],” Reuters reported.

READ MORE: Upper House: No request from Putin to dispatch troops in Syria
 
Meanwhile, Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim Jaafari announced in New York on Friday that Iraq has not received any Russian military advisers to assist Baghdad’s operations.

On Friday, the US TV-Channel Fox News reported the four countries were establishing a “coordination cell” in Baghdad, but Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for Vladimir Putin, denied this. “We have already said there are many reports which are not true,” he told news agencies.

Recent media reports indicate Russia is boosting its cooperation with Syria and other Middle East countries in the fight against terrorism.

Read More Here

‘If we stop training, arming jihadists, the war will end’ – Virginia state senator to RT

 

 

Published time: 26 Sep, 2015 04:20Edited time: 26 Sep, 2015 04:22

© Ammar Abdullah / Reuters

758270

As the Syrian civil war continues to rage and Islamic State maintains its foothold in the region, Virginia state Senator Dick Black told RT that “if the US stopped training jihadists and arming jihadists, the war will end.” 

In a lengthy interview, the Republican state senator connected the crisis in Syria to the actions of countries such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey, who he said have armed extremists like Islamic State militants that are fighting against the Syrian government. He also blamed US meddling in the Middle East for the rise of terror groups like Islamic State (IS, also known as ISIS/ISIL).

“It is my hope and prayer that the United States wakes up and says it is time to end this slaughter. It is time to stop trying to topple regimes, bring order to the Middle East [and] stop the bloodshed. If we stop training jihadists and arming jihadists, the war will end.”

..........

 

 

 ..........

The US has been criticized for its efforts to thwart IS, particularly its plan to arm and train moderate Syrian rebels to battle the extremists. US Central Command said Friday that it learned that the commander of a Syrian rebel group trained by the US to fight Islamic State had “surrendered” a quarter of his unit’s military supplies to the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Nusra Front in exchange for safe passage.

Read More Here

Related articles

• Central Asia jihadists in Syria declare allegiance to Qaeda
• Middle East Staggers Under Weight of 3 Million Syrian Refugees
• Those "moderate" rebels we trained just forked over weapons to al Qaeda
• Refugee tripped by reporter had ties with Al-Nusra ?
• The Complete Idiots Guide to the Syrian Civil War

Revealed: Whistleblower who rebelled against doctored ISIS reports named

RT America

 

Published time: 25 Sep, 2015 00:11Edited time: 25 Sep, 2015 14:57

 

 

Analysts claim CENTCOM altered reports to make war against ISIS look better than in reality © Stringer / Reuters

 

One of the defense analysts claiming CENTCOM had prettied up reports on the campaign against Islamic State has been named, along with the two officials he fingered as culprits. House and Senate committees have taken an interest in the investigation.

 

 

 

Gregory Hooker, the same analyst who a decade ago criticized plans for the 2003 Iraq invasion as being “amateurish and unrealistic,” was named by the New York Times as one of the originators of the July complaint against the US Central Command (CENTCOM). Filed by Hooker and another analyst, the complaint was endorsed by 50 of their colleagues, the Daily Beast revealed earlier this month.

READ MORE: Revolt of the spies: DoD analysts claim CENTCOM doctored reports about war on ISIS


CENTCOM employs some 1,500 intelligence analysts composed of civilian employees, members of the military, and contractors at the MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida. The complaint accuses two senior intelligence officials at CENTCOM, Major General Steven Grove and his civilian deputy, Gregory Ryckman, of altering draft intelligence assessments on the offensive against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, according to the Times.

rk Mazzetti @MarkMazzettiNYT

The man at the center of a revolt at CENTCOM over cooked ISIS intelligence, and the group of analysts he leads http://nyti.ms/1OTe8VG 

7:41 PM - 23 Sep 2015

 

The New York Times

Military Analyst Again Raises Red Flags on Progress in Iraq

In some ways, the Iraq team’s latest criticism mirrors the disputes of a decade ago, when the Bush administration, over many analysts’ objections, advocated a small force in Iraq.

Read More Here

Related articles

• Centcom boss vows 'appropriate action' if ISIS report alterations are true
• Gregory Hooker: The Senior CENTCOM Intelligence Analyst at the Center of the Storm Over Alleged Manipulation of Iraq Estimates
• Top Military Brass Accused Of Flipping ISIS Intel 'On Its Head'