US admits it will leave about 600 troops and call that a TRUMP”S WITHDRAWL. However whose counting? (ODT)
“There will be less than 1000 for sure,” Milley said, referring to the number present when President Donald Trump ordered their complete withdrawal last month.”The footprint will be small, but the objective will remain the same – the enduring defeat of ISIS,” Milley said.
Australia’s disguised deployment in the assistance of theft by Israel of the Syrian Golan Heights oil fields and media silence. Murdoch’s interest in Genie Oil a pay off for silence. (ODT)
What is the Israeli/US interest in the Golans that has prompted Israeli occupation and such strong support from the US (and Australia) in violation of UN resolutions? The answer is partly settlement opportunities for Israel, but the other is oil. According to the Israeli operated Afek Oil and Gas there is ‘billions of barrels of Israeli oil’ under the ground. Except it is Syrian ground.
Some Islamic State inmates have already escaped
One doctor says prisoners are dying at a rate of about one each day
There are at least seven Australian IS suspects in Kurdish prisons
The Kurds have a saying that their only friend is the mountains, and in the past few weeks, US President Donald Trump and his deputy, Mike Pence, have seemed determined to prove them right.
Kurdish forces fought alongside Americans to defeat Islamic State at the cost of 11,000 of their young fighting men and women’s lives. Despite this, almost two weeks ago the United States withdrew the 1000 troops who were keeping the peace along the border with the Kurds’ long-time enemy, Turkey.
Ankara responded almost immediately by invading territory the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces have effectively ruled over for several years.
On top of that, as is his habit, Trump insulted them. Their existential battle with Turkey “has nothing to do with us”, the President said, and Kurds were, by the way, “no angels”.
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Trump administration’s illegal and unilateral recognition of Israeli annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights is an unfortunate return to the international jungle of the 1930s and 1940s, when Hitler annexed the Sudetenland and Mussolini annexed Nice from France.
Trump’s policy is Nazi law, as so many of his policies are. His first wife Ivana maintained that Trump kept a copy of Hitler’s speeches on his bed stand. It was said as part of a nasty divorce. But it is, sadly, nevertheless plausible.
The United Nations charter was crafted after World War II in an attempt to create a more just world order. One of the things the UN sought to do was to make aggressive warfare illegal, and to make annexation of other countries’ territory equally illegal.
Article 2, 4 says:
“All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.”
Note that although the article does forbid aggressive warfare, it also is concerned to maintain the territorial integrity of existing states. Indeed, the maintenance of that integrity and sovereignty is considered key to the UN goal of preventing further world wars. Trump and Netanyahu have violated that principle of maintaining the territorial integrity of nation states, and it will certainly lead if not to war (Syria is weak) then to violence of some sort eventually.
Out of the closet Israel admits it’s always been a defacto airforce supporting Syrian rebels and terrorists and supported by none other than the USA Australia and other coalition forces. Secrets well kept and more often denied by these governments. Israel has been a silent aggressor in the Middle East for years. (ODT)
Since the 80s and 90s Israel has had an active plan to prevent any formation of a Pan Arabic union which has meant the destruction of Iraq, Libya, Syria and any Arabic state capable of developing an army and uniting tribal forces against it. Israel however couldn’t be seen in the eys of the world to be an active aggressor in this. Instead it copted and supported those with the same mindset allies or superficial enemies it didn’t matter. Trump for personal domestic political reasons has forced Israel out of the closet. (ODT)
Unusual Israeli confirmation of military action comes as Syria says most missiles were shot down by its air defences.
A bomb attack claimed by Islamic State has killed US troops in northern Syria, weeks after President Donald Trump said the group was defeated there and he would withdraw all American forces.
The move was also criticised by Israeli officials who warned that it would help Russia and arch-enemy Iran expand their influence in Syria. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters that Tel Aviv would escalate its fight against Iranian-allied forces in the country: “We will continue to act very aggressively against Iran’s efforts to entrench in Syria. We do not intend to reduce our efforts. We will intensify them, and I know that we do so with the full support and backing of the United States.”
Even a broken clock is right twice a day. It doesn’t justify a reason for keeping it. Not all of Trump’s declarations are wrong but nor do they mollify the rightfull opposition to him him. (ODT)
Abandoning the American-backed Kurdish allies, Pentagon officials have argued, will hamper future efforts by the United States to gain the trust of local fighters, from Afghanistan to Yemen to Somalia.
It is worth remembering that even high-ranking military personnel from within the US government have ‘blown the whistle,” on behind-the-scenes tactics. In 2007 General Wesley Clark, a four star US General and NATO’s supreme allied commander, for example, listed a number of countries including Iraq, Iran and Syria that the US planned to take down long before 9/11, simply because they have “a good military and can take out governments.” (source)
Maj. Danny Sjursen is a U.S. Army officer and former history instructor at West Point. He served tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan…
ON TUESDAY, Donald Trump made a bold declaration, declaring victory. Only two days later, that lie was proven deadly wrong.
That’s what US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday.
But fast forward to today and we hear reports that far from being defeated, Islamic State has this week captured 700 hostages and says it will kill 10 of them a day unless the group’s demands are met.
It’s understood that members of IS attacked a refugee camp last week, leading to the hostages being taken. Among them are Europeans and US citizens.
Those illegally occupied territories are ours says ISRAEL loudly for domestic politipopularity (ODT)
Israel carried out the raids after it said around 20 rockets, either Fajr or Grad type, were fired from Syria at its forces in the occupied Golan Heights at around midnight.
“Australia supports these strikes, which demonstrate a calibrated, proportionate and targeted response,” Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said in a statement.
“They send an unequivocal message to the Assad regime and its backers, Russia and Iran, that the use of chemical weapons will not be tolerated.
“The use of chemical weapons by anyone, anywhere, under any circumstances is illegal and utterly reprehensible. The Assad regime must not be allowed to commit such crimes with impunity.
According to the Israeli narrative, the timeline of violence that resulted in Syria shooting down an Israeli fighter jet began just a few hours earlier. But Israel has been bombing inside Syria for months.
No matter the position one might take on the issue of sanctions, the fact remains that they caused a decade of tremendous suffering and widespread deaths of Iraqi civilians, many of them children.
The video evidence shows workers at the site roughly 30 hours after the alleged attack that were wearing clothing with the logo “Idlib Health Directorate.”
By Vegas Jessie This is what (I think) was really behind Trump’s decision to bomb Syria. 1) Putin wants a functional president in the White House. He does not want anyone to investigate what he’s already done to get him there. He definitely does not want trump impeached because for him that would be a…
At least 15 Turkish and US-backed Syrian rebels have been killed in fighting as the opposition edges closer towards Dabiq, an Isis village in northern Syria of great importance to the terror group’s ideology. “If matters proceed as planned, within 48 hours we will be in Dabiq,” Ahmed Osman, commander of the Sultan Murad Free Syrian Army (FSA) group, told Reuters on Monday.
Anderson Cooper and CNN have been caught staging fake news about Syria to justify military intervention. The primary “witness” that the mainstream media is using as a source in Syria has been caugh…
(ANTIWAR) The US-backed offensive in and around Manbij has been going on for two months, with only a part of the city and surrounding area ever captured. The failing offensive on the ground is being overshadowed however, by the US air campaign. That’s because US airstrikes …
France’s foreign minister has said Turkey may no longer be a viable partner in the fight against Isis in Syria, while Syrian state media has claimed the failed coup in the country was fabricated by President Erdogan to tarnish the military’s reputation.
(ANTIWAR) In a speech at the Herzliya Conference, Israel’s military intelligence chief, Major General Herzi Halevy, took Israel’s long-standing position that it “prefers ISIS” over the Syrian government to a whole ‘nother level, declaring openly that Israel does not want to see ISIS defeated in the …
Beirut. I confess to having recently purchased four children near Ramlet el Baida beach from a stressed-out Syrian woman. I am not sure if she was what she said or if she was a member of one of the…
The announced partial withdrawal from Syria does not mean Russia is backing away from fighting Islamic State, but rather marks a turning point in the process of stabilizing Syria, which could not come at a better moment, believes former CIA officer Larry Johnson.
Just when we think that the Syrian crisis can’t get any bigger… An American-based oil and gas company will soon be drilling in Syrian territory that has been illegally occupied by Israel since 1967 – the Golan Heights. The company, Genie Energy, has major investors …
It seems delusional to praise US Secretary of State John Kerry’s push to end the war in Syria as he has made no progress other than attending meetings in Vienna and other areas, says Paul Vallely, a retired US Army Major General.
The Turkish government is hitting against the part which is not as strong as Russia and other regional partners of Syria. They are hitting back at the Kurds – at the Kurdish civil society in Turkey, says Karin Leukefeld, Middle East journalist.
![The deployment is part of what the US has described as defensive moves following the attack on Saudi Arabia's oil facilities last month [File: Massoud Hossaini/Reuters] [The Associated Press]](https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2018/10/13/bc6825f4fd6b4adc949d9db6182bb3ca_18.jpg "US to deploy 3,000 additional troops to Saudi Arabia")
Arms depot near Damascus International airport goes up in flames after series of overnight strikes blamed on Israel.
By Vegas Jessie This is what (I think) was really behind Trump’s decision to bomb Syria. 1) Putin wants a functional president in the White House. He does not want anyone to investigate what he’s already done to get him there. He definitely does not want trump impeached because for him that would be a…
Just when we think that the Syrian crisis can’t get any bigger… An American-based oil and gas company will soon be drilling in Syrian territory that has been illegally occupied by Israel since 1967 – the Golan Heights. The company, Genie Energy, has major investors …
Turkey just shot down a Russian bomber and that could lead us down a VERY dangerous path.
![Syrian air defenses intercepted Israeli missiles targeting an area in Damascus [Youssef Badawi/EPA]](https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2019/1/21/146f7eda0c80450a9eeed0fb870e45c9_18.jpg "Israeli army says it hit Iranian targets in Syria")
