De situatie in Syrië escaleert in redelijk tempo, aldus Shahtahmasebi, waarbij hij onder meer wijst op het neerschieten van een Syrische jager, door de illegaal in Syrië aanwezige VS. Dit werd gevolgd door het neerschieten van een Iraanse drone, door dezelfde terreurentiteit. Beide toestellen waren bezig IS te bestrijden. Volgens de VS waren deze toestellen bezig met het bestoken van door haar gesteunde 'gematigde rebellen' (lees: psychopathische moordenaars en verkrachters)........ Onlangs nog nam de VS het besluit Al Qaida Syrië van de terreurlijst te halen............
Shahtahmasebi vraagt zich af wat er echt gaande is in Syrië en of de VS uit is op een volledige oorlog met Syrië, Iran en Rusland......
De VS steunt de Koerden, dit zeer tegen de zin van Turkije, de VS doet dit vooral om straks in Koerdisch gebied een grote permanente VS basis te kunnen bouwen. Dit uiteraard niet alleen tegen de zin van Turkije, maar ook van Syrië, Iran en Rusland, de laatste twee zijn overigens wel legaal aanwezig in Syrië, immers de democratisch gekozen regering Assad heeft hen om hulp gevraagd.
Je kan rustig stellen, dat de Koerden zich laten misbruiken door de uiterst agressieve VS....
Zo zijn de Koeren ook bezig om Deir ez-Zor te veroveren*, voorts wil de VS dat de strategische grensstad al-Waleed (in het artikel van A-M: al-Tanf) in handen komt van de Koerden (door de VS en reguliere westerse media: Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) genoemd...). Al-Waleed is een stad op de grens met Irak en Jordanië, vandaar ook zeer belangrijk. Deir ez-Zor is na Raqqa het laatste gebied in handen van IS, de stad is nu in handen van het reguliere Syrische leger. Dat laatste heeft ervoor gezorgd dat de VS strijders van IS vrije doorgang met hun voertuigen en wapens hebben gegeven vanuit Raqqa (zoals eerder uit het Iraakse Mosul). Het gebied van Deir ez-Zor is voorts belangrijk vanwege grote olievoorraden.....
Kortom Shahtahmasebi ziet alle mogelijkheden voor een nog snellere escalatie van de oorlog in Syrië, waar hij het gelijk aan zijn kant heeft, niet zo moeilijk gezien het steeds agressiever optreden van de VS, dezelfde VS die niets, maar dan ook niets te zoeken heeft in Syrië..... Een verdere escalatie zal hoogstwaarschijnlijk leiden tot een oorlog met Iran en Rusland.......
Vergeet bij het voorgaande niet, dat de VS al onder Reagan bezig was met het plannen van een oorlog tegen Syrië, iets dat men in 2006 weer ter hand nam. De opstand die in 2011 uitbrak in Syrië is dan ook gepland en gefinancierd door de VS, met hulp van Groot-Brittannië, Saoedi-Arabië en Egypte. Een opstand die tot een staatsgreep tegen Assad had moeten leiden, maar totaal mislukte! (in Oekraïne gebruikte de VS hetzelfde scenario, daar lukte het wel.....)
Everything You’re Not Being Told About the US War Against ISIS in Syria
June
21, 2017 at 12:56 pm
Written
by Darius
Shahtahmasebi
(ANTIMEDIA) — It’s
time to have a sane discussion regarding what is going on in Syria.
Things have escalated exponentially over the past month or so, and
they continue to escalate. The U.S. just shot
down yet another Iranian-made
drone within Syrian territory on Tuesday, even as
authorities insist they “do
not seek conflict with any party in Syria other than ISIS.”
Col.
Ryan Dillon, chief U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, seemed to
indicate that the coalition would avoid escalating the conflict
following Russia’s
warning that
it will now treat American aircraft as potential targets. He stated:
“As
a result of recent encounters involving pro-Syrian regime and Russian
forces, we have taken prudent measures to reposition aircraft
over Syria so as to continue targeting ISIS forces while ensuring the
safety of our aircrews given known threats in the battlespace.”
So
what is really going on in Syria? Is the U.S. actually seeking an
all-out confrontation with Syria, Iran, and Russia?
The
first thing to note is that a policy switch under the Trump
administration has seen the U.S. rely heavily
on Kurdish fighters on
the ground as opposed to the radical Gulf-state backed Islamist
rebels,
which the U.S. and its allies had been using in their proxy war for
over half a decade. Even the Obama administration designated the
Kurds the most
effective fighting force against
ISIS and partnered with them from time to time, but Turkey’s
decision to directly strike these fighters complicates the matter to
this day.
Further
muddling the situation is the fact that the U.S. wants the Kurds to
claim key Syrian cities after ISIS is defeated, including
Raqqa.
However, the reason this complicates matters is that, as Joshua
Landis, head of the Middle Eastern Studies Center at the University
of Oklahoma explains,
the Kurds have “no money” nor do they have an air force.
“[T]hey’ll
be entirely dependent on the US Air Force from now to eternity, and
the United States will be stuck in a quagmire, defending a new
Kurdish state that America had partnered with to defeat
[ISIL],” Landis
said, as reported by Quartz.
So
what has the U.S. proposed as a solution to this perpetual dilemma?
To put it simply, the U.S. is not only training the
so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to retain the vitally
strategic border crossing area of al-Tanf, which, if owned and
operated by the Syrian government, could
link Iran
to Syria, Iraq, and right through to Hezbollah in Lebanon
(incidentally, al-Tanf is the latest instance of the U.S. shooting
down an Iranian-made drone took place). The U.S. is now also backing
these Kurdish fighters to retake an area known as Deir ez-Zor.
The
Syrian government retains an isolated
outpost at
Deir ez-Zor, and the region is almost completely encircled by ISIS
fighters. Just last week, a video emerged of
convoys of ISIS fighters fleeing the war in Raqqa
unscathed. Anti-Media speculated
that these fighters were most likely headed towards Deir ez-Zor
as they
have done in the past,
and this area is now widely
regarded to
be the scene of ISIS’ last stand in Syria.
The
U.S. needs a strong ISIS presence in Deir ez-Zor to justify an
offensive to retake the city, especially considering the fact that
Syrian government troops are already present there. This is why the
U.S. delivered airstrikes
to stop government forces from
repelling ISIS fighters in an air raid in September of last year that
reportedly lasted well over an hour and killed over 60 government
troops.
Deir
ez-Zor is immensely important because it is home to Syria’s largest
oil fields. As Quartz explains,
according to Landis, America’s strategy is “for
the Kurdish forces to take Deir al-Zour, the major regional city and
the hub for its oil fields. That way, the Kurds would be able to
afford to buy airplanes from the US, rather than require Washington
to give them for free.”
As
Iranian-backed militiamen — supported by Iranian-made drones
— amass upon
a U.S. training base in al-Tanf, it is becoming increasingly clear
that the Syrian government and its allies will not want to cede
strategic territory to the U.S. without a fight. At the very least,
Iran intends to encircle al-Tanf and cut the U.S. off from the rest
of Syria, rendering
the base useless for
America’s goals in the country.
However,
Deir ez-Zor is where things could potentially get more heated than
they already are between the U.S. and the pro-Assad alliance in
al-Tanf and Raqqa.
Russia,
a staunch ally of Iran and Syria, is already bombing the areas around
Deir ez-Zor in full preparation for this battle. According to
the Independent,
Russia just claimed it killed around
180 ISIS militants and
two prominent commanders, Abu Omar al-Belijiki and Abu Yassin
al-Masri, very close to ISIS’ stronghold in Deir ez-Zor.
Iran launched a
mid-range ballistic missile attack on a position in Deir ez-Zor over
the weekend, as well. According to Military
Times,
Iranian officials said the purpose of the strike was to send a
message to the United States and Saudi Arabia and have warned of more
strikes to come, with former Guard chief Gen. Mohsen Rezai — an
Iranian politician — stating “[t]he
bigger slap is yet to come.”
Landis
believes these recent escalations only mark a “gnashing of teeth
and growling” between the Russians and the Americans and that both
powers are merely working out where the new boundaries will fall
between American-backed forces and Syrian government forces.
But
there is a crucial difference between the Russian-led campaigns and
the American-led campaigns within Syria: Russia was invited by
the Syrian government and is not clearly not attempting to invade
Syria in the traditional sense of the word, as they are relying on
local troops to retake the territory that still belongs to the Syrian
government. In contrast, the United States has invaded Syrian
territory without authorization from Congress or the international
community and has partnered with incredibly
controversial militias
on the ground to claim Syrian territory, further partitioning the
country and over-complicating an already convoluted battle arena.
And
what will happen if Syria decides that the oil-hub area of Deir
ez-Zor is too important to allow the U.S.-backed forces to take it
away from them? The fact that Russia and Iran are already bombing
this area speaks volumes as to its strategic value, and it seems
increasingly unlikely that the pro-Assad alliance will give up the
location freely.
Further,
having complete control of Deir ez-Zor without opening up the al-Tanf
border to Syrian government control would make the liberation of Deir
ez-Zor almost meaningless to Syria and its allies, as Deir ez-Zor
would be cut off from the rest of Syria. The two offensives go hand
in hand, and this is exactly why we see the war escalating
rapidly on
these two fronts.
Not
to mention, Syrian Member of Parliament Ammar al-Asad reportedly
just told Russian
state-owned Sputnik that
the Syrian army will respond to America’s provocative actions by
conducting “massive strikes” on positions held by American-backed
militants.
An
optimist would view the recent developments in the humanitarian
disaster that is the so-called Syrian revolution with the hope that
the U.S., Iran, and Russia are merely muscle-flexing inside Syria in
an attempt to control as much of the country as realistically
possible following the downfall of ISIS – and will eventually
settle amicably on a drawing of Syria’s new boundaries.
A
pessimist might not be so hopeful, as Iran and China held naval
drills in
the Strait of Hormuz just days after Secretary of State Rex
Tillerson admitted the
U.S. is officially targeting Iran for a regime change operation.
* Zie: 'Syria; U.S. Attack Fails To Disrupt Push To Deir Ezzor' (o.a. ook over neerschieten Syrische jager door de VS)
