Bashar Al Assad

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017.../kurd-m11.html


US-Turkish tensions mount over plan to arm Syrian Kurdish militia

By Bill Van Auken

11 May 2017

The US announcement that President Donald Trump has given his authorization for the direct US arming of the Syrian Kurdish militia, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), was met with heated protests from the Turkish government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is set to visit the White House next week.

The Pentagon has determined that the YPG represents the only local force that can serve as a credible US proxy on the ground in Syria in the bid to drive the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) out of the northern city of Raqqa. The US is opposed to the city being retaken by forces loyal to the Syrian government, which Washington has sought to overthrow, while the so-called Free Syrian Army that the CIA had backed in the war for regime change has been largely routed and is dominated by the Syrian branch of Al Qaeda and similar groups.

Previously, under the Obama administration, Washington had indirectly funneled arms to the Kurdish militia through the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces, which includes the YPG and a far smaller Syrian Sunni Arab contingent. Hundreds of US special operations troops have also been deployed in Syria to provide assistance and training to the Kurdish militia.

Under the new plan, the US military will ship small arms, ammunition, machine guns, armored vehicles and engineering equipment to the YPG, according to Pentagon officials. US Col. John Dorrian, a spokesman for the US military in Baghdad, said that the weapons shipments had been pre-positioned and could be delivered to the Kurdish militia “very quickly.”

The position of the Erdogan government is that the YPG represents a branch of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged an on-again, off-again guerrilla war in Turkey itself for over three decades. Not only Ankara, but also Washington and the EU, have labeled the PKK as a “terrorist organization.”

The Turkish government fears that the crisis in Syria, which it played a major role in creating by backing Islamist “rebels” in the more than six-year-old war for regime change, will pave the way to the carving out of an autonomous Kurdish territory on its southern border. Erdogan ordered troops into Turkey last year under the pretext of battling ISIS, but for the real purpose of driving a wedge between Kurdish cantons in the east and west of northern Syria.

More recently, on April 25, Turkish warplanes carried out airstrikes against YPG positions in northern Syria, killing at least 20 Kurdish fighters. Washington condemned the attack and responded by deploying hundreds of US troops equipped with Stryker armored vehicles to serve as a buffer between Turkish forces and the Syrian Kurds.

The level of tensions between Washington and Ankara found expression last week when Turkish presidential adviser Ilnur Cevik warned in a radio interview that if the YPG and its US special forces advisers “go too far, our forces would not care if American armor is there, whether armored carriers are there. ... All of a sudden, by accident, a few rockets can hit them.”

Erdogan, who is scheduled to arrive in Washington on May 16, said that Turkey’s “patience has ended” with the US decision to arm the YPG. “I want to believe that Turkey’s allies will side with us, not with terrorist organizations,” he said.

Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, told reporters during a visit to Montenegro Wednesday, “Both the PKK and the YPG are terrorist organizations and they are no different, apart from their names. Every weapon seized by them is a threat to Turkey.”

Meanwhile the Republican People’s Party (CHP), the main bourgeois opposition party, called for Erdogan to “reconsider” his trip to Washington, saying that the US decision had put Turkey in “a weak position.”

The humiliation of the Turkish regime over the Trump administration’s decision was compounded by the presence in Washington on the day of its announcement of Erdogan’s advance team, which included Chief of General Staff Gen. Hulusi Akar, presidential spokesman İbrahim Kalın and National Intelligence Agency (MIT) chief Hakan Fidan. The three had held meetings with their US counterparts and Trump’s national security advisor, Gen. H.R. McMaster.

The Washington Post Wednesday quoted an unnamed Turkish official as saying that the officials delivered the “message to the Trump administration...that Turkey reserves the right to take military action,” while suggesting that airstrikes could be intensified.

US Defense Secretary James Mattis, who was in Turkey just days before the announcement of the decision to directly arm the YPG, dismissed the protests from Ankara. “We’ll work out any of the concerns,” he said during a visit to Lithuania. “We will work very closely with Turkey in support of their security on their southern border. It’s Europe’s southern border, and we’ll stay closely connected.”

The Wall Street Journal Wednesday provided a concrete indication of what Mattis met by support for Turkish security. The US, the newspaper reported, is beefing up the capabilities of a so-called intelligence fusion center run by the CIA and other US intelligence agencies in Ankara “to help Turkish officials better identify and track the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.” The plan will reportedly double the capacity of the center, while providing drones and other US intelligence assets.

Thus, US intelligence will assist the authoritarian regime of Erdogan to hunt down and kill Kurdish militants in both neighboring Iraq and Turkey itself. There is every reason to believe that, once the Syrian Kurdish forces of the PYG have completed their mission in Raqqa, the same resources will be provided to go after them.

The Pentagon’s present reliance on the Kurdish militia against ISIS—itself a product of the US interventions in Iraq and Syria—is merely a temporary tactical initiative in the protracted and bloody campaign by US imperialism to impose its hegemony over the Middle East by means of invasions, bombing campaigns and wars for regime change.

Copyright © 1998-2017 World Socialist Web Site - All rights reserved

[pastradamus]

No, I don't think this sentiment is valid -- as revolutionaries we should *always* be able to provide some kind of position regarding the geopolitical (bourgeois) arena. If we don't we're *forfeiting* / abstaining-from political involvement.

In geopolitics nothing will be revolutionary, but we can identify which side of capital is relatively more-historically-progressive than all of the others. ISIS is a priority to be dealt with, so it really doesn't matter *who* does the military work of fighting them off -- even U.S. involvement is to be welcomed for this since the threat of fundamentalist Islamic rule is *worse* than Western-type bourgeois imperialism (since it at-least tends to be secular and has a domestic history of civil rights movements).

Anti-imperialism, in this current real-world context, *implies* being against Islamic clerical rule, and then also against U.S. / NATO / Western imperialism and opportunism in the Middle East -- hence the defense of Syrian national sovereignty against U.S. predations.

I think of an example in my own life with this regard. My brother is an extremely active leftist here in Ireland. Whilst he has a great deal of respect for the SDF and the YPG in general he refuses to offer his endorsement of them. When I ask him "why?" he says "I don't know enough about them to be honest, i'm not on the ground in Syria, I don't know how leftist they are. I don't know how leftist their soldiers are etc", I'm a massive YPG/YPJ supporter and despite my disappointment at not being able to bring my brother around on this particular issue - I wouldn't dare accuse him of not being a revolutionary leftist, you have to pick your struggles, you have to pick your studies and devote you time to these matters in this context. His current beef is with the anti-working class taxes being hammered on the head of the Irish worker at the moment, the SDF are the last thing on his menu right now.

So my belief is that while both you and I feel very strongly about the SDF, other are allow to feel less-inspired about them and devote time to their own struggles (Palestine, France, USA or whatever).

I've had a little bit of beef with the YPG calling for a no-fly zone over Rojava recently but I still wear the YPG T-Shirt (Best €15 I ever spent ;-) )

[Sentinel]

I think of an example in my own life with this regard. My brother is an extremely active leftist here in Ireland. Whilst he has a great deal of respect for the SDF and the YPG in general he refuses to offer his endorsement of them. When I ask him "why?" he says "I don't know enough about them to be honest, i'm not on the ground in Syria, I don't know how leftist they are. I don't know how leftist their soldiers are etc", I'm a massive YPG/YPJ supporter and despite my disappointment at not being able to bring my brother around on this particular issue - I wouldn't dare accuse him of not being a revolutionary leftist, you have to pick your struggles, you have to pick your studies and devote you time to these matters in this context. His current beef is with the anti-working class taxes being hammered on the head of the Irish worker at the moment, the SDF are the last thing on his menu right now.

So my belief is that while both you and I feel very strongly about the SDF, other are allow to feel less-inspired about them and devote time to their own struggles (Palestine, France, USA or whatever).

I've had a little bit of beef with the YPG calling for a no-fly zone over Rojava recently but I still wear the YPG T-Shirt (Best €15 I ever spent ;-) )

I agree with this; while the YPG's vision and methods do differ of those of my tendency (which is closely politically related to your brothers), I also personally send a small amount of financial aid there regularly and have taken part in and shared fundraisers etc before. The cause of Rojava deserves the critical support of the left, as the most progressive force in the region.

We need to comradely criticise the shortcomings without condemning a fighting leftist movment in a very sticky situation. I also agree with that the increasing level of dependance of the US army is worrying, but I also realise that it is easy to say to leftists stuck between a Turkish hammer and a Daesh anvil.

[pastradamus]

I agree with this; while the YPG's vision and methods do differ of those of my tendency (which is closely poltiically related to your brothers), I also personally send a small amount of financial aid there regularly and have taken part in and shared fundraisers etc before. The cause of Rojava deserves the critical support of the left, as the most progressive force in the region.

We need to comradely criticise the shortcomings without condemning a fighting leftist movment in a very sticky situation. I also agree with that the increasing level of dependance of the US army is worrying, but I also realise that it is easy to say to leftists stuck between a Turkish hammer and a Daesh anvil.

The "Turkish hammer and a Daesh Anvil"....im sooooooo stealing that.

[ckaihatsu]

I think of an example in my own life with this regard. My brother is an extremely active leftist here in Ireland. Whilst he has a great deal of respect for the SDF and the YPG in general he refuses to offer his endorsement of them. When I ask him "why?" he says "I don't know enough about them to be honest, i'm not on the ground in Syria, I don't know how leftist they are. I don't know how leftist their soldiers are etc", I'm a massive YPG/YPJ supporter and despite my disappointment at not being able to bring my brother around on this particular issue - I wouldn't dare accuse him of not being a revolutionary leftist,

Yeah -- none of this that we do is *personal*, because we're dealing with issues that are decidedly *greater* than any one of us.

I'm not going to start *finger-pointing* as to who is a 'genuine' revolutionary leftist and who isn't. But on the whole we as revolutionaries *should* be able to state an appropriate *policy* going-forward, for any given situation, short of international proletarian revolution.

you have to pick your struggles, you have to pick your studies and devote you time to these matters in this context. His current beef is with the anti-working class taxes being hammered on the head of the Irish worker at the moment, the SDF are the last thing on his menu right now.

Yeah. No prob.

So my belief is that while both you and I feel very strongly about the SDF, other are allow to feel less-inspired about them and devote time to their own struggles (Palestine, France, USA or whatever).

Certainly.

I've had a little bit of beef with the YPG calling for a no-fly zone over Rojava recently but I still wear the YPG T-Shirt (Best €15 I ever spent ;-) )

Hmmmm, this is the first I'm hearing of it, and it *is* problematic since it's a direct capitulation to desired neocon U.S. / Western treatment of Syria -- (divide-and-conquer).

I agree with this; while the YPG's vision and methods do differ of those of my tendency (which is closely politically related to your brothers), I also personally send a small amount of financial aid there regularly and have taken part in and shared fundraisers etc before. The cause of Rojava deserves the critical support of the left, as the most progressive force in the region.

Yes.

We need to comradely criticise the shortcomings without condemning a fighting leftist movment in a very sticky situation. I also agree with that the increasing level of dependance of the US army is worrying, but I also realise that it is easy to say to leftists stuck between a Turkish hammer and a Daesh anvil.

Yes, and it looks like any claims for Kurdish national-liberation are going to be overshadowed by Great Powers maneuvering, as indicated in the article at post #100:

Thus, US intelligence will assist the authoritarian regime of Erdogan to hunt down and kill Kurdish militants in both neighboring Iraq and Turkey itself. There is every reason to believe that, once the Syrian Kurdish forces of the PYG have completed their mission in Raqqa, the same resources will be provided to go after them.

The Pentagon’s present reliance on the Kurdish militia against ISIS—itself a product of the US interventions in Iraq and Syria—is merely a temporary tactical initiative in the protracted and bloody campaign by US imperialism to impose its hegemony over the Middle East by means of invasions, bombing campaigns and wars for regime change.

[pastradamus]

Hmmmm, this is the first I'm hearing of it, and it *is* problematic since it's a direct capitulation to desired neocon U.S. / Western treatment of Syria -- (divide-and-conquer).

Yeah, I get why people on the ground are asking for this, its obvious, but I don't like the idea of senior SDF members promoting it. It seems to be waning in the last few days with the reduction of Turkish airstrikes, but we'll just have to watch development's really.

[ckaihatsu]

News Updates from CLG
16 May 2017
http://www.legitgov.org/
All links are here:
http://www.legitgov.org/#breaking_news

2 top ISIS commanders join US-backed Free Syrian Army | 13 May 2017 | On Friday, two prominent ISIS [I-CIA-SIS] commanders left caliphate ranks to join forces with Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters terrorists on the provincial border between Homs and Deir Ezzor. After communicating with FSA contigents, Ghassan Al-Sankeh and Mahmoud Al-Faraj arrived in Badia in central Syria, leaving behind ISIS fighters under their command in rural Deir Ezzor. The ISIS commander Mahmoud Al-Faraj was said to be one of the highest-ranking commanders in Al-Mayadin, a city on the Euphrates River which reports indicate the Islamic State has transformed into its new capital.

[ckaihatsu]

US Special Forces Are Secretly Training Syrian Rebels And Fighting Alongside Them



BuzzFeed News reports that US commandos have engaged in combat with ISIS during a secret deployment to southern Syria. The deployment - which a military contractor working with the coalition said has been ongoing for about six months - is centered on a secret base called Tanf near the Iraqi border. Experts say the region, which stretches along Jordan and Iraq, is a developing center of gravity for ISIS as it loses territory elsewhere. US commandos there are training and mentoring two pro-Western rebel groups while also accompanying them on combat missions as part of the anti-ISIS campaign developed under then-President Barack Obama and continued by the Trump administration. [More] Also see: The myth of “moderate rebels” in Syria and also Arming the Kurds: Trump’s Syrian Gambit


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[ckaihatsu]

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017.../syri-m19.html


US airstrike targets pro-Assad forces in Syria

By Jordan Shilton

19 May 2017

American warplanes launched an attack on pro-government forces in southeastern Syria Thursday, near the borders with Iraq and Jordan. The attack is the first time since the April 6 cruise missile assault on the al-Shayrat air base that the US military has targeted forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

According to the US version of events, the fighters violated a deconfliction zone by advancing to within 18 miles of the al-Tanf base, where US and British special forces have been training Sunni militants for over a year. This military action is in blatant violation of international law since the Western forces have not been invited onto Syrian territory by the Assad government.

The actions of the pro-government forces “posed a threat” to partner forces, the US-led coalition said in a statement.

The forces involved appear to be a paramilitary group aligned with Assad. The Syrian military reported that six personnel were killed and three injured in the attack, according to the al-Masdar News agency.

According to the US-led coalition’s statement, after performing a “show of force” by flying low over the area and firing a warning shot, the US planes struck a tank, a bulldozer and fighters.

But in contrast to the US version of events, a Damascus-based political analyst, Alaa Ibrahim, told RT that according to Syrian military sources, the paramilitary group never received any warning prior to the strike.

There was no indication that the pro-government fighters posed an immediate threat to US troops. The US military statement merely noted that the Syrian fighters were engaged in constructing fighting positions when the aircraft struck. It added that they clashed with the Pentagon-backed Maghawir al-Thawra militant group, formerly known as the New Syrian Army.

The reality is that the Islamist forces being trained by the US are part of its regime change operation against Damascus, which Washington has been pursuing since it fomented the Syrian civil war in 2011. Its ordering of a strike on pro-government forces underscores the deepening tensions as both sides in the conflict scramble to seize territory from Islamic State in the east of the country so as to strengthen their hand in the struggle for control over Syria.

Washington has swiftly stepped up its intervention in Syria since the coming to power of Donald Trump in January. Thursday’s strike marks the second time in less than six weeks that Washington has directly targeted Assad’s forces, following the April 6 cruise missile assault on the al-Shayrat air base in retaliation for the alleged chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime in Khan Sheikhoun two days earlier.

The number of ground forces operating in the country has been more than doubled and Trump has untied the military’s hands by loosening the rules of engagement for air strikes, resulting in a spike in civilian casualties. In the latest atrocity, at least 40 civilians were killed and many more wounded by a suspected US-led coalition air strike in Deir ez-Zor.

The US escalation carries with it the threat of a direct clash with nuclear-armed Russia, which intervened into the Syria conflict in 2015 to prop up its sole ally in the Middle East region. Although US officials maintained they had contacted the Russians prior to the air strike yesterday, this does nothing to take away from the fact that Washington and Moscow are working at cross purposes in Syria.

Washington is in a tacit alliance with ISIS insofar as the Jihadi group continues to attack government-controlled areas. As the US focused attention on the purported “threat” posed by the pro-government fighters near al-Tanf Thursday, ISIS launched a significant offensive in the central region, capturing a village and killing dozens of Syrian soldiers.

US officials showed no concern for the reports of beheadings and removal of limbs from women and children by ISIS in the predominantly Shia villages captured. At least 52 people, including 11 women and 17 children belonging to the Ismaili branch of Shia Islam, were killed in the violence in Hama province. The attack occurred near the highway linking Damascus to the northern city of Aleppo, from where pro-Assad forces expelled US-backed Islamists last December.

Rami Razzouk, a coroner at the national hospital in Salamiyeh, told AP that nine of the children were beaten to death with heavy objects and two of them “had most of their limbs removed so they had to be carried in blankets.”

There were no reports of air strikes launched by the ostensible anti-ISIS international coalition in the area to curb the Islamist militia’s advance.

This should come as no surprise. During the 2011 bombardment of Libya to oust the Gaddafi regime, US imperialism gave its backing to Islamist extremist forces, many of whom were subsequently funneled, with the assistance of the CIA, into Syria to act as the backbone of the rebel forces fighting Assad. Some of them united to form ISIS with disaffected Sunni elements in Iraq, who had been radicalized by Washington’s deliberate incitement of sectarian tensions in the wake of its illegal 2003 invasion.

Indicating the mounting rivalries between US imperialism and the other powers involved in Syria, the Financial Times reported earlier this week that the latest ceasefire arrangement agreed in Astana May 4, which included a deal to stop fighting in four de-escalation zones, is being viewed by all parties as a mechanism to accelerate the partition of the country. A buffer zone in the south close to the Jordanian border, which would include the al-Tanf base from where the US and British special forces are training Islamist rebels, could become the basis for a push by the US proxies to cut off Iranian supply lines through the east of Syria. One diplomat told the FT that “the race now is to get the biggest share.”

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which is dominated by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), is advancing on the ISIS capital of Raqqa. The Trump administration’s authorization of the provision of heavy weaponry to the SDF last week, over the strenuous objections of NATO ally Turkey, is aimed at preparing an all-out offensive to retake the city which will reportedly be launched in the coming weeks. The consequences of such an assault for the civilian population will be disastrous, as can be seen in the Iraqi city of Mosul where thousands of civilians have been slaughtered in indiscriminate air strikes and shelling by the Iraqi army.

Thursday’s US strike on pro-Assad forces will make it even less likely that any significant progress will be attained at the ongoing sixth round of peace talks, which began in Geneva on Tuesday. Already on the eve of the negotiations, the State Department issued lurid and unverified allegations about the operation by the Assad regime of a crematorium at the Sednaya prison near Damascus in a move designed to undermine the UN-sponsored initiative.

Discussions on a future constitution for the country broke down Thursday as opposition groups requested clarification on a proposal that would have seen a UN commission, under the leadership of the UN’s Syria envoy Staffan di Mistura, oversee a transition process following a peace agreement.

Copyright © 1998-2017 World Socialist Web Site - All rights reserved

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017...rum-m20-1.html


Trump approves new Pentagon strategy to “annihilate” ISIS

By Niles Niemuth

20 May 2017

Defense Secretary James Mattis announced at a press briefing on Friday that President Donald Trump had approved a new Pentagon plan that would escalate the war for US domination of the Middle East and North Africa.

Mattis told reporters that the plan would aim to militarily encircle strongholds of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) to “annihilate” the Islamist militia which still controls significant portions of Syria and Iraq.

The immediate target is the ISIS capital of Raqqa in northern Syria, where a major offensive is being prepared by the US in coordination with the various Kurdish and Arab Syrian militias it has built up during the five-year conflict. The civil war has been stoked by the US and its regional allies with the aim of unseating Syrian President Bashar al Assad.

Mattis also reported that Trump had delegated the ability to authorize military operations to him and to commanders on the ground to speed up operations. “We’ve accelerated the campaign,” Mattis said, indicating that commanders were already taking advantage of their new-found authority.

The Obama administration used the emergence of ISIS in Iraq and Syria in 2014 to justify redeploying thousands of US troops to Iraq and deploying hundreds of troops to Syria, while opening a campaign of airstrikes across both countries.

The bloody campaigns by US and Iraqi forces to retake cities seized by ISIS, including Fallujah and Mosul, have resulted in the complete destruction of entire neighborhoods and have displaced hundreds of thousands of people. US airstrikes have killed thousands of civilians, with a significant uptick in causalities since Trump took office in January.

ISIS developed out of the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, in which the US stoked sectarian divisions between Shiites and Sunnis to assert its control, and the war for regime change in Syria beginning in 2011, in which the CIA and Pentagon supported Sunni Islamist militias, elements of which formed ISIS.

According to the Pentagon, ISIS now maintains branches and affiliates in multiple countries, all of which will require US military intervention across a broad swath of territory from Central Asia to West Africa.

The decision by Trump heralds a dramatic escalation of conflicts that have killed more than a million people and displaced tens of millions from their homes over the last 16 years under the guise of the so-called “war on terror.” In the eyes of military planners, the turn by the United States to use military force to offset its relative economic decline and assert its dominance over the entire globe is just in its beginning stages.

Military operations waged against ISIS and other Islamist militias are underway in Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, the US recently dropped the largest non-nuclear bomb ever used in combat on a network of caves allegedly being used by the ISIS Khorasan affiliate.

The ever-expanding use of military force is not limited to the United States. At Friday’s press conference, Mattis singled out the deployment of 4,000 French troops to the Lake Chad region of West Africa. France has been fighting Islamist insurgents there since 2014, including Boko Haram militants who have pledged their allegiance to ISIS.

The announcement of the Pentagon’s wide-ranging war strategy came just one day after American war planes launched airstrikes on Shiite militias loyal to the Assad government near the borders with Jordan and Iraq. It was the first attack on forces aligned with Assad by the Trump administration since the April 6 cruise missile strike on al-Shayrat airbase.

The pro-Assad paramilitary group that came under attack had allegedly come within 18-miles of a military base where American and British Special Forces are engaged in training Sunni militants.

Mattis noted the airstrike at the press conference on Friday, blaming the attack on the intervention of Iran in Syria. "It [the strike] was necessitated by offensive movement with offensive capability of what we believe was Iranian-directed forces inside an established and agreed upon deconfliction zone," he claimed.

Both Russia and Iran have intervened militarily to prop up their ally Assad. While the US military intervention in Syria, illegal under international law, is couched as an effort to defeat ISIS and eliminate the threat of terrorism, it is ultimately aimed at the ouster of Assad. This has created the conditions for a direct clash between the US and Russian and Iranian-backed forces that could quickly spiral out of control, precipitating a much larger conflict.

The announcement of the Pentagon’s new strategy came as Trump left Washington for his first foreign trip in office. The first stop will be Saudi Arabia, where the president is expected to announce a record $110 billion arms deal with the Saudi monarchy. The deal reportedly includes precision guided bombs which had been withheld by the Obama administration while it funneled billions of dollars of other weaponry.

The brutal Saudi onslaught against Yemen, the poorest country in the Arab world, aims to re-impose a Saudi- and US-backed puppet government. The war, which began in 2015, has killed thousands of civilians and pushed millions to the brink of famine. The latest weapons deal will further escalate the carnage.

Saudi Arabia has been using US weapons and support to wage an unrelenting air war and naval blockade against Yemen, creating a humanitarian crisis. Hundreds of thousands are now threatened by a deadly outbreak of cholera.

The US support for Saudi Arabia, which is one of the main funders of Sunni Islamist militias along with the other Gulf monarchies, belies the narrative that the US is waging a war to defeat these groups. These outfits serve as convenient props for American imperialism, used as proxy forces against those that stand in the way of American dominance and trotted out as an excuse for the deployment the US military to every corner of the globe.

Copyright © 1998-2017 World Socialist Web Site - All rights reserved

[ckaihatsu]

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> The Hill: Mattis: Trump Strategy Aims to 'Annihilate' ISIS
> New York Times: Saudis Welcome Trump's Rebuff of Obama's Views
> Antiwar.com: Syria Says US Airstrike Killed Several Soldiers Near Jordan Border



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[ckaihatsu]

http://www.investigaction.net/en/sta...it-from-space/


State Dept.: “Bad guy did bad things, we saw it from space”

22 May 2017 RICARDO VAZ



After the previous hit singles, “Russia hack 2016: take our word for it” and “Assad used sarin: bomb first, never ask questions”, US government agencies are at it again with their new chart-topping release “Bad guy did bad things, we saw it from space”. With journalism standards in the mainstream media at an all-time low, this is a sure bet to become a fake news hit!


On May 15th all the mainstream media screamed more or less the same bombshell headline, “State Dept. says Assad is burning people in a crematorium”. The source was a State Department press briefing which was then uncritically plastered everywhere. Assistant Secretary Stuart Jones claimed that the Syrian government had built a crematorium next to Saydnaya prison (more on this later), which was being used to burn 50 bodies of hung prisoners a day.

Then came the “evidence”, in the form of satellite pictures. The earliest indictment that this evidence was on the embarrassing side of the scale came from the fact that many outlets did not even publish the pictures, inviting the readers to follow their lead and take the State Department at their word. Nobody tried as hard as Fox News to assign credibility to the latest revelation, writing:

“The photographs […] do not definitely prove the building is a crematorium, but they show construction consistent with such use.”

This is a very low standard that we could apply to almost anything. So what is the evidence in the photographs provided by the State Department? (I hope the reader is sitting down for this)

HVACs (Heating, ventilation and air conditioning) – because only a crematorium would have use for this. We would never find it in a kitchen, a laundromat, Breaking Bad’s crystal meth lab, or every building in Manhattan
a “probable firewall” – one truly wonders how a satellite photo suggests this is a firewall, as opposed to… a regular wall
melted snow on part of the roof – once again, only having a crematorium underneath it would explain this! There is no chance of this room being heated or more exposed to sunlight.



HVACs and a “probable firewall”

Case closed! It is hard to imagine any serious journalist reporting this as anything other than some ludicrous fabrications, but this is coming from the same people who will listen and report with a straight face that, according to some official, the world looks to the US as a beacon of freedom, or that Saudi Arabia is committed to fighting terrorism in the Middle East.



Fake news built on previous fake news


There is a reason why the imagined crematorium is at Saydnaya and not at the Presidential Palace in Damascus or the Russian embassy (satellite photographs would also be consistent with these scenarios and any others). A few months ago, Amnesty International released an explosive report called “Human slaughterhouse” which alleged that the Syrian army was hanging 50 people a day at Saydnaya prison. This would add up to over 13.000 executions over the course of the war.

What was the problem with this report? It was a collection of fabrications. It is purely based on unverified testimony from anonymous sources. There are no pictures, no records, nothing, despite several “sources” being former judges or prison guards. This is not to say that the Syrian government has not committed human rights abuses, but even someone who was a political prisoner and a victim of torture dismissed the Amnesty report as ridiculous. Even the 13.000 figure is just an extrapolation (there were only 375 allegedly verified deaths).

This is how the Empire and its propaganda machine work. A (fake news) story is presented with dubious or non-existent evidence and uncritically spread by all the main media outlets to support western intervention. And later on when a new and equally questionable story is released, it is deemed more credible because it is built on the previous fake-news background.

So the media assured us that Assad was guilty of the chemical attack in Khan Shaykhun because after all he had already done it in Eastern Ghouta in 2013, despite the fact that the evidence, not to mention motive, both then and now, strongly suggests otherwise. The goal is never to prove anything, merely to whip up a public frenzy that justifies more bombing and allows al-Qaeda to slip out of the list of terrorist organisations.

The same applies to the new Saydnaya story. Assad surely needed a crematorium to get rid of those 13.000 bodies! And if testimony from al-Qaeda’s PR wing, also known as the White Helmets, is all the media needs to decide whether Assad is guilty of this or that, why is a satellite photo of melted snow and a ventilation system not good enough to assert the existence of a crematorium?

The previous Amnesty “report” was accompanied by a video of a 3D model of the prison. This was not based on any actual footage or photos, but fabricated by “forensic architecture”, based on the accounts of supposed witnesses. Just like a video game. Government officials and their close friends at NGOs like Amnesty International would make great horror fiction writers or video game designers. But because the mainstream media has decided to become just a propaganda vehicle, they are actually writing news.



Source: Investig’Action



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5/29/2017 What’s In A Name? U.S. Takes Syria’s Al-Qaeda Off Terror Watchlists | Investig'Action

http://www.investigaction.net/en/wha...or-watchlists/ 1/2

What’s In A Name? U.S. Takes Syria’s Al-Qaeda Off Terror Watchlists

25 May 2017 WHITNEY WEBB


By changing its name to Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Syrian branch of alQaeda has managed to secure its removal from the U.S. and Canadian terror watchlists, allowing citizens of those countries to donate money and travel to fight with them.

It turns out that getting off the U.S.’ and Canada’s terror watchlist is as simple as changing your name. While the terror watchlist in the U.S. has long been both secretive and controversial – as “reasonable suspicion” is enough to label any individual a “terrorist” – terrorist groups tied to al-Qaeda have found that getting off the watchlist only requires minor rebranding.

The terror group, long known to most as Jabhat al-Nusra or the al-Nusra Front, has continued to function as al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria long after Daesh (ISIS) renounced its allegiance to the group in 2014. It was first placed on the U.S. and Canadian terror watchlists in 2012.

But by changing its name to Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the group has managed to secure its removal from terror watchlists in both the U.S. and Canada, allowing citizens of those countries to donate money to the group, travel to fight with them and disseminate the group’s propaganda without incident.

In response, Nicole Thompson of the U.S. State Department told CBC News last Monday that while “we believe these actions are an al-Qaeda play to bring as much of the Syrian opposition under its operational control as possible, […] we are still studying the issue carefully.”

But the State Department is likely hesitant to label HTS a terror group, even despite the group’s link to al-Qaeda, as the U.S. government has directly funded and armed the Zenki brigade, a group that joined forces with al-Nusra under the HTS banner, with sophisticated weaponry.

As CBC noted, “For the U.S. to designate HTS now would mean acknowledging that it supplied sophisticated weapons, including TOW anti-tank missiles, to ‘terrorists,’ and draw attention to the fact that the U.S. continues to arm Islamist militias in Syria.”

This is just the latest attempt by al-Nusra to rebrand itself as a “moderate” group, as it has used its commitment to being “anti-ISIS” and “anti-Assad” in order to convince the U.S. and its allies to arm them. Al-Nusra has been described by mainstream media as a “moderate opposition” group fighting against the embattled government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Their efforts have paid off, as the group is being supported to various degrees by foreign governments seeking to overthrow the Assad government. For example, take the words of Qatari Foreign Minister Khaled al-Attiyah, who told the French publication Le Monde in 2015:

“we are clearly against all extremism, but, apart from Daesh [ISIS], all [sic] these groups are fighting to overthrow the [Assad] regime. The moderates cannot say to the Nusra Front … ‘We won’t work with you.’ You have to look at the situation and be realistic.”

The U.S. government has also accepted the rebranding of al-Nusra in recent years. The U.S. effort to do so began in earnest when former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper stated in 2015 that “moderate rebels” were “anyone who is not affiliated with ISIL [Daesh, ISIS].”

Since then, al-Nusra’s top commanders have asserted that they have received U.S.-made weapons, such as TOW missiles and tanks, directly from foreign governments supported by the U.S. In a 2016 interview with the newspaper Koelner Stadt-Anzeiger, al-Nusra unit commander Abu Al Ezz stated that when al-Nusra was “besieged, we had officers from Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Israel and America here…Experts in the use of satellites, rockets, reconnaissance and thermal security cameras.”

When asked specifically if US officers were present, Al Ezz replied: “The Americans are on our side.” This assertion has been bolstered by evidence that the U.S.-led coalition’s airstrikes in Syria have only focused on Daesh and intentionally avoided al-Nusra positions.

With al-Nusra now officially removed from Western terror watchlists, foreign governments that are opposed to the Assad regime – particularly the U.S. – will be free to fund and arm al-Qaeda as they see fit, making the West’s alleged goal of creating a post-Assad “secular Syria” a remote possibility at best.

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5/29/2017 What’s In A Name? U.S. Takes Syria’s Al-Qaeda Off Terror Watchlists | Investig'Action

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Cover photo: Members of al-Nusra Front gesture as they drive in a convoy touring villages in the southern countryside of Syria’s Idlib province, Decembe, 2014. (Photo: Khalil Ashawi/Reuters)

Source: MintPress News

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http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017.../isis-j07.html


US-backed forces enter Syrian city of Raqqa

By Bill Van Auken

7 June 2017

Backed by intense US airstrikes and accompanied by beefed-up contingents of US special operations troops, an armed force dominated by the YPG (People’s Protection Force) Kurdish militia crossed into the eastern sector of the Syrian city of Raqqa Tuesday.

The offensive against the so-called capital of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria represents a major escalation of the US military intervention in Syria. Ostensibly aimed at crushing ISIS and countering terrorism, the American escalation is bound up with the broader strategic aims of US imperialism, principally, confronting Iran, which is seen as an obstacle to US hegemony in the oil-rich Middle East.

While declining to specify the precise number of US troops now on the ground in Syria, the Pentagon has acknowledged that the number of US “advisers” deployed with the YPG has been increased substantially in the wake of last month’s decision by the Trump administration to directly arm the Kurdish militia.

Thousands of assault rifles, heavy machine guns and antitank weapons along with armored vehicles have been delivered to the YPG. A Pentagon spokesman told the US military newspaper “Stars and Stripes” that part of the mission of the special operations troops deployed with the Kurdish militia is to “closely monitor the equipment provided to the Syrian Kurds,” and “ensure it’s not going to be pointed in any different direction other than ISIS.”

Turkey, Washington’s NATO ally, has bitterly denounced the arming of the Kurdish militia, which Ankara regards as a “terrorist” force and a branch of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) with which it has been in armed conflict for decades.

The Turkish government has threatened to intervene in Syria if it perceives the Kurdish offensive in Raqqa posing a threat to its interests. At the same time, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim reported that Washington had assured Ankara that its support for the YPG would end once the Raqqa offensive was completed. A senior State Department official recently described the US relation to the Syrian Kurds as “temporary, transactional and tactical,” signaling that Washington will betray the Kurds as soon as they have served their purpose.

While officially, the number of American troops deployed in Syria had been capped at 500, they are now believed to number well over 1,000. In addition to the special operations troops fighting alongside the YPG, A US Marine artillery unit is pouring howitzer fire into the besieged city, and US Apache attack helicopters are providing close air support.

The main factor in the steady advance of the YPG on Raqqa, however, has been an intense US bombing campaign that has exacted a growing toll in terms of civilian lives. The monitoring group Airwars has conservatively estimated over 3,800 killed since the US first launched its airstrikes in Iraq and Syria in 2014. Over 60 percent of these casualties have been inflicted since the beginning of this year.

US and allied warplanes have dropped leaflets over Raqqa telling residents to leave their homes. Those who attempt to do so, however, face the prospect of being killed by US warplanes, being shot by ISIS militants or being blown up by mines planted around the city.

On Tuesday there were reports from both the Syrian government media and opposition sources that a US strike killed at least 12 civilians, including women and children, as they attempted to flee the city by boarding boats to cross the Euphrates River. A total of 21 civilians were killed Monday night in airstrikes on Raqqa, according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Also on Tuesday, a school housing civilians displaced by the fighting was hit by US bombs in the eastern Mashlab district of Raqqa, causing an unknown number of civilian casualties.

Last Saturday, a US airstrike hit a residential building in Raqqa, killing 43 civilians, most of them women and children. The al-Mawasah hospital in the city was also reported hit by warplanes from the US-led coalition with a number of civilians, including women and children killed and wounded.

The assault on Raqqa comes barely one week after US Secretary of Defense James Mattis told the media that the Pentagon has adopted “annihilation tactics” in its anti-ISIS campaign, centered on the parallel sieges against the Syrian city of some 300,000 and Mosul, the Iraqi city some 230 miles to the east which previously had a population of 1.6 million people. “Civilian casualties are a fact of life in this sort of situation,” Mattis, a former Marine general, said of the ongoing US-led offensives. The comments, it is now undeniably clear, represented a green light to US commanders to carry out mass slaughter.

Media reports and statements from the Pentagon and the YPG have all indicated that Raqqa is besieged from the north, east and west. Reports from both the Russian and Iranian media, however, have suggested that the US and its proxy forces have deliberately left an escape route for ISIS fighters to the south, allowing them to flee to the city of Deir al-Zour, about 85 miles down the Euphrates, where the Islamist militia has launched an offensive against Syrian army forces. The surrounding province of Deir al-Zour is almost entirely controlled by the Islamist militias that have served as proxy forces in the six-year-old US-backed war to topple the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad. Heavy fighting has also taken place between ISIS and government forces around the ancient city of Palmyra, 100 miles south of Raqqa.

Even as government forces were fighting ISIS in Deir al-Zour and Palmyra, further south, in the al-Tanf area near Syria’s borders with Iraq and Jordan, the US carried out an airstrike against pro-government forces, attacking a column that the Pentagon claimed included a tank, artillery, antiaircraft weapons, vehicles and more than 60 soldiers. It was not clear how many were killed and wounded in the US bombing. The US military has illegally established a base on Syrian territory there to train so-called “rebels,” allegedly to fight ISIS. The US military carried out a similar attack on pro-government militia forces in the same area last month.

In reality, the Pentagon is training these forces as part of the regime-change operation against Damascus that Washington has orchestrated since 2011, with Al Qaeda-linked Islamist militias serving as its proxy forces.

The simultaneous combat in Deir al-Zour, Palmyra and al-Tanf make clear that Washington is in a de facto military alliance with ISIS, so long as it is attacking government forces.

US military aims in Syria are driven not by a determination to crush ISIS, which is itself the product of US interventions in the region and the CIA’s support for Islamist militias in both Libya and Syria, but rather to overthrow the Syrian regime and militarily confront its principal regional ally, Iran.

The duplicity of US policy in the region has only been underscored by the ongoing crisis in the Persian Gulf, where Saudi Arabia and its allies have imposed a blockade that falls just short of a state of war against Qatar. US President Donald Trump signaled his support for Riyadh in the conflict Tuesday, using his Twitter account to portray the move against Qatar as driven by concern over the Qatari regime’s funding of “Radical Ideology.”

This is patent nonsense. The Saudi regime is itself the principal ideological font of outfits like Al Qaeda and ISIS. Both Saudi Arabia and Qatar have provided billions of dollars worth of support to the Islamist militias that have laid waste to Syria.

Qatar, meanwhile, hosts the forward operating headquarters of the US Central Command along with over 8,000 US troops and the main American airbase in the region from which most of the US airstrikes are being launched.

The show of support from the Trump White House for the anti-Qatar campaign is driven by the centrality of war preparations against Iran, with which the Qatari regime has failed to align itself unequivocally.

The episode has served to expose the threat of the US interventions in Iraq and Syria rapidly exploding into a region-wide war drawing in not only Iran but potentially nuclear-armed Russia.

Copyright © 1998-2017 World Socialist Web Site - All rights reserved

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[...]

[T]he most destabilizing factor is US imperialism, which is in the midst of an escalation of its military drive to secure geo-strategic hegemony over the energy-rich Middle East. In Syria, Washington has intervened under the pretext of combating ISIS terrorism to wage a war for regime-change so as to weaken its two main rivals in the region, Iran and Russia.

[...]

In Syria, the US has begun over recent weeks effectively to begin the partitioning of the country. An air strike on military vehicles and the shooting down of a Syrian government drone Thursday near the al-Tanf base in the southeast of the country marked the third time in as many weeks that the US military has attacked forces loyal to the Assad regime in Damascus. On May 18, Washington bombed a pro-government militia some 20 miles from al-Tanf and a similar strike was launched against Assad’s forces on Tuesday.

The US has justified these attacks on the grounds that the pro-government forces have allegedly violated a “deconfliction zone” proclaimed unilaterally by Washington in Syria’s south near the borders with Jordan and Iraq. The al-Tanf base, where Special Forces have been training local militias for many months, is a key part of a strategy to prevent Assad’s forces and Iranian-backed militias from gaining control of territory in eastern Syria currently held by ISIS and thus opening up a ground supply route from Tehran through Syria to the Mediterranean coast and Lebanon. These US-led efforts are assuming increased urgency as Kurdish-dominated fighters organized in the Syrian Democratic Forces advance into Raqqa in Syria’s northeast.

US imperialism’s aggressive moves to form a Sunni alliance to push back Iranian and Russian influence in Syria and the broader region is creating the conditions for a much larger military clash that could rapidly draw in the major powers.

Indicating the deepening tensions over the al-Tanf area, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov labeled Tuesday’s attack on pro-government forces as “an aggressive act that violated the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic and—deliberately or not—targeted the forces which are most effective in fighting terrorists on the ground.” According to Iranian TV, Lavrov described the “deconfliction zone” as illegitimate and said Moscow would refuse to recognize it.

Lavrov pointed out that the Syrian troops that came under attack were defending a route connecting Syria and Iraq that ISIS fighters were trying to destroy. The foreign minister went on to allege that the attack had resulted in ISIS gaining its objective.

Moscow, which intervened in the Syrian conflict in 2015 to prop up the government of President Bashar al-Assad, continues to fly aircraft close to the “deconfliction zone” in support of pro-government forces fighting ISIS. This raises the immediate danger that future US strikes on Assad’s forces like those carried out this week could trigger a direct clash between the two nuclear-armed powers.

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017.../qata-j10.html

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[...]

Washington’s goal is to block the establishment by the Assad regime of a land bridge using territory recaptured from ISIS that would stretch from Teheran through Iraq to Syria and Lebanon. To this end, it is arming and training proxy Islamist forces at the al-Tanf base near the Iraqi and Jordanian borders with the aim of establishing control over territory in eastern Syria.

The New York Times reported Saturday that the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) currently engaged in retaking Raqqa are tacitly allowing ISIS fighters to escape to the south, shifting the battle with the j ihadis to areas where pro-Assad forces are currently advancing. A consequence of this could be the inflaming of tensions between Kurdish and Arab populations, since the Kurdish militias will be occupying Arab-controlled areas during their pursuit of ISIS further south.

Pro-government troops, backed by Russian air power, struck a blow at Washington’s plan of pushing north to retake ISIS territory from al-Tanf by reaching the Iraqi border Friday in battles with ISIS.

Regional and global powers stand behind all of these forces. Iranian fighters and Russian air power are backing the Syrian government, including by carrying out air strikes close to the US’s unilaterally declared “deconfliction zone.” US Special Forces are being assisted at al-Tanf by British and Norwegian military personnel and will be relying on the so-called international anti-ISIS coalition, which includes all of NATO’s members. The Times described the emerging battle as “even more decisive” with “far more geopolitical import and risk” than that going on in Raqqa.

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017.../gulf-j12.html

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http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017.../syri-j19.html


US shoots down Syrian government aircraft

By Peter Symonds

19 June 2017

In a marked escalation of the war in Syria, a US F-18 fighter jet yesterday shot down a Syrian government fighter bomber for the first time, claiming that it had been attacking pro-US rebel forces on the ground near Raqqa. While nominally fighting Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) forces, the US shoot-down makes clear that the real target of American-led operations is the ousting of the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad.

The US military justified the provocative act by claiming that the Syrian SU-22 had been bombing near so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) troops. It cited fighting that had taken place hours earlier between the Syrian military and SDF forces holding the town of Ja’Din as showing “hostile intent” and declared that attacks on “legitimate counter-ISIS operations will not be tolerated.” The statement absurdly declared that it was not seeking “to fight Syrian regime, Russian or pro-regime forces partnered with them.”

There is nothing legitimate about the military activities of the US and its allies inside Syria, which, under the guise of the “war on terror,” are seeking to carve out areas that can be used to mount operations against the Assad regime and its Russian and Iranian backers. As ISIS militias in both Syria and Iraq are in retreat, the US preparations to move against Assad are coming increasingly into the open.

The Syrian army issued a statement saying that its aircraft had been on a mission against ISIS when it came under fire, accused the US of “coordinating” with ISIS and warned that the incident would have “dangerous repercussions.” The pilot has not been found and is presumed dead.

The US attack follows its shooting down of an unmanned pro-Syrian government drone earlier in June after it allegedly fired on US-backed troops in southern Syria near the border with Iraq. The US military has unilaterally declared “a deconfliction zone” with a radius of 55 kilometres around a training base at al-Tanf—a key border crossing between the two countries.

In effect, Washington has carved out an area of Syria where US and British special forces train so-called rebels—supposedly to fight ISIS, but in reality for its proxy war against the Assad regime. The US has already conducted air strikes against pro-Syrian government forces that have sought to regain control of the vital border area.

Last week Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov phoned US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and demanded that the US stop attacking Syrian government forces as they seek to drive ISIS militias out of the border areas. “Lavrov expressed his categorical disagreement with the US strikes on pro-government forces and called on him to take concrete measures to prevent similar incidents in the future,” the Russian foreign ministry reported.

The situation throughout Syria remains extremely fraught with the Assad regime accusing the US-led forces besieging Raqqa of allowing ISIS fighters to escape to the south where government troops are battling ISIS for control of the city of Deir es-Zor.

Over the weekend, Iran’s military fired ground-to-ground missiles for the first time from Iranian territory against ISIS positions inside Syria. While claiming that they were in retaliation for the June 7 ISIS attacks in Tehran, the missile attacks into the Deir es-Zor area were clearly aimed at bolstering the Syrian government forces.

The US proxy war in Syria is part of a broader confrontation which is not just aimed at the Assad regime but more broadly against its backers—Iran and Russia. Trump’s trip to the Middle East last month was above all aimed at forging an alliance with Saudi Arabia and its allies in the Gulf States against Iran and its allies in the region.

The immediate outcome was the imposition of an all-out, Saudi-led economic blockade against Qatar—itself an act of war. Riyadh accused Qatar of sponsoring terrorism, but the real reason lies in Qatar’s relations with Iran and its reluctance to join Saudi Arabia in its anti-Iranian war drive.

The Saudi monarchy, which has long regarded Iran as its chief regional rival, is deeply hostile to the Assad regime in Damascus, which it regards as part of a Shiite crescent that includes Shiite parties and militias in Iraq and Lebanon. Backed to the hilt by the US, Saudi Arabia is waging its own war in Yemen against Houthi rebels, who, it claims, are being supported by Iran and who ousted the US-Saudi puppet government in 2014.

The Trump regime signalled its determination to ramp up the war in Syria in April when it launched a barrage of cruise missile strikes against a Syrian government air base on the pretext of unsubstantiated claims the regime had carried out a gas attack. The US military is determined to rebuild anti-Assad forces after the devastating blow suffered by these pro-US militias in being driven out of Aleppo.

The shooting down of the Syrian SU-22 is another demonstration that the US is prepared to resort to the most reckless means to defend its footholds in Syria and lay the basis for the broader war that is being prepared.

While proclaiming its own “deconfliction zones” or no-go areas, the US military reiterated last month that it will operate at will throughout Syria. “We don’t recognise any specific zone in itself that we preclude ourselves from operating in,” Lieutenant General Jeffrey Harrigan, commander of the US air forces in the region, declared.

As a result the stage is set for a dramatic escalation of the Middle East conflict where a relatively minor incident or clash involving US forces and their Syrian, Iranian or Russian counterparts could erupt into a war that draws in major regional and world powers.

Copyright © 1998-2017 World Socialist Web Site - All rights reserved

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http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017.../syri-j19.html


US shoots down Syrian government aircraft

By Peter Symonds

19 June 2017

In a marked escalation of the war in Syria, a US F-18 fighter jet yesterday shot down a Syrian government fighter bomber for the first time, claiming that it had been attacking pro-US rebel forces on the ground near Raqqa. While nominally fighting Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) forces, the US shoot-down makes clear that the real target of American-led operations is the ousting of the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad.

The US military justified the provocative act by claiming that the Syrian SU-22 had been bombing near so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) troops. It cited fighting that had taken place hours earlier between the Syrian military and SDF forces holding the town of Ja’Din as showing “hostile intent” and declared that attacks on “legitimate counter-ISIS operations will not be tolerated.” The statement absurdly declared that it was not seeking “to fight Syrian regime, Russian or pro-regime forces partnered with them.”

There is nothing legitimate about the military activities of the US and its allies inside Syria, which, under the guise of the “war on terror,” are seeking to carve out areas that can be used to mount operations against the Assad regime and its Russian and Iranian backers. As ISIS militias in both Syria and Iraq are in retreat, the US preparations to move against Assad are coming increasingly into the open.

The Syrian army issued a statement saying that its aircraft had been on a mission against ISIS when it came under fire, accused the US of “coordinating” with ISIS and warned that the incident would have “dangerous repercussions.” The pilot has not been found and is presumed dead.

The US attack follows its shooting down of an unmanned pro-Syrian government drone earlier in June after it allegedly fired on US-backed troops in southern Syria near the border with Iraq. The US military has unilaterally declared “a deconfliction zone” with a radius of 55 kilometres around a training base at al-Tanf—a key border crossing between the two countries.

In effect, Washington has carved out an area of Syria where US and British special forces train so-called rebels—supposedly to fight ISIS, but in reality for its proxy war against the Assad regime. The US has already conducted air strikes against pro-Syrian government forces that have sought to regain control of the vital border area.

Last week Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov phoned US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and demanded that the US stop attacking Syrian government forces as they seek to drive ISIS militias out of the border areas. “Lavrov expressed his categorical disagreement with the US strikes on pro-government forces and called on him to take concrete measures to prevent similar incidents in the future,” the Russian foreign ministry reported.

The situation throughout Syria remains extremely fraught with the Assad regime accusing the US-led forces besieging Raqqa of allowing ISIS fighters to escape to the south where government troops are battling ISIS for control of the city of Deir es-Zor.

Over the weekend, Iran’s military fired ground-to-ground missiles for the first time from Iranian territory against ISIS positions inside Syria. While claiming that they were in retaliation for the June 7 ISIS attacks in Tehran, the missile attacks into the Deir es-Zor area were clearly aimed at bolstering the Syrian government forces.

The US proxy war in Syria is part of a broader confrontation which is not just aimed at the Assad regime but more broadly against its backers—Iran and Russia. Trump’s trip to the Middle East last month was above all aimed at forging an alliance with Saudi Arabia and its allies in the Gulf States against Iran and its allies in the region.

The immediate outcome was the imposition of an all-out, Saudi-led economic blockade against Qatar—itself an act of war. Riyadh accused Qatar of sponsoring terrorism, but the real reason lies in Qatar’s relations with Iran and its reluctance to join Saudi Arabia in its anti-Iranian war drive.

The Saudi monarchy, which has long regarded Iran as its chief regional rival, is deeply hostile to the Assad regime in Damascus, which it regards as part of a Shiite crescent that includes Shiite parties and militias in Iraq and Lebanon. Backed to the hilt by the US, Saudi Arabia is waging its own war in Yemen against Houthi rebels, who, it claims, are being supported by Iran and who ousted the US-Saudi puppet government in 2014.

The Trump regime signalled its determination to ramp up the war in Syria in April when it launched a barrage of cruise missile strikes against a Syrian government air base on the pretext of unsubstantiated claims the regime had carried out a gas attack. The US military is determined to rebuild anti-Assad forces after the devastating blow suffered by these pro-US militias in being driven out of Aleppo.

The shooting down of the Syrian SU-22 is another demonstration that the US is prepared to resort to the most reckless means to defend its footholds in Syria and lay the basis for the broader war that is being prepared.

While proclaiming its own “deconfliction zones” or no-go areas, the US military reiterated last month that it will operate at will throughout Syria. “We don’t recognise any specific zone in itself that we preclude ourselves from operating in,” Lieutenant General Jeffrey Harrigan, commander of the US air forces in the region, declared.

As a result the stage is set for a dramatic escalation of the Middle East conflict where a relatively minor incident or clash involving US forces and their Syrian, Iranian or Russian counterparts could erupt into a war that draws in major regional and world powers.

Copyright © 1998-2017 World Socialist Web Site - All rights reserved

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via wsws.org

German troops will now be even closer to the war zones in Syria and Iraq.

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via wsws.org

The deadly strike on Syria’s eastern Deir al-Zour province Monday is bound up with Washington’s increasingly aggressive military intervention in the region.

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