Russia Begins Operations in Syria: End Game for the US Empire?

According to a report by the Syrian state news agency SANA, President Bashar al-Assad visited army positions in the Eastern Ghouta suburb of Damascus.

Liberation in Sight: Bashar Assad PICTURED in Eastern Ghouta 18.03.2018
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201803181062662074-bashar-assad-syria-ghouta/

"In the line of fire in Eastern Ghouta… President Assad with heroes of the Syrian Arab Army," the president’s Telegram account said.

Pictures showing the Syrian president surrounded by men in military clothing along damaged buildings with several parked tanks in liberated from terrorists areas of Eastern Ghouta quickly spread across social media.

According to the Syrian army command, government troops had already liberated 70 percent of Eastern Ghouta’s territory, which has been under terrorists’ control since 2012.


Syrian President Bashar Assad paid a daring and unexpected visit to one of the recently-liberated Eastern Ghouta towns.
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Syria’s Assad shows up in East Ghouta frontlines (Photos) 18/03/2018
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/breaking-syrias-assad-shows-up-in-east-ghouta-frontlines/

Photos published by the Syrian Presidency shows Assad amid a group of the soldiers who are battling against Islamist militants in the area.

Nearly a month ago, the government forces launched an onslaught against the insurgent of East Ghouta. Ever since, up to 80% of the longtime rebel-held enclave.


DAMASCUS, SYRIA (07:30 PM) – Video footage has surfaced showing Syrian president Bashar al-Assad visiting civilians in of East Ghouta.
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]Video: President Assad visits East Ghouta civilians 18/03/2018
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/video-president-assad-visits-east-ghouta-civilians/

The president is shown being greeted by groups of celebrating civilians chanting pro-government slogans, in the recently liberated territory. East Ghouta, an area very close to the Syrian capital of Damascus, had been in the hands of terrorist and rebel organizations such as Hayyat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly known as the Al-Nusra Front) and Jaysh al-Islam, since 2013.

After intense and fierce combat, the Syrian Arab Army has made significant strides in the liberation of the area in the past weeks, resulting in around 75% of East Ghouta having been brought back under government control.


In a month-long offensive on Eastern Ghouta, pro-government forces are seeking to liberate the last major terrorist stronghold, squeezing insurgents and opening humanitarian corridors in order to guarantee the safety of civilians.
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Syrian Army Gives Group of Eastern Ghouta Militants Until 1 PM GMT to Pull Out
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201803181062657133-syrian-army-ghouta-rebels/

According to Syrian state TV, citing its own correspondent, the Syrian army had given rebels in the Harasta pocket of Eastern Ghouta one hour to withdraw from the area.

On March 16, the Syrian army command reported that government troops had already liberated 70 percent of Eastern Ghouta's territory, which terrorists had controlled since 2012.

"At the moment more than 30,000 people have left [Eastern Ghouta], people continue to leave [the enclave]," spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry's Center for Syrian reconciliation Maj. Gen. Vladimir Zolotukhin said earlier this week.

Eastern Ghouta has been in the spotlight over the past several weeks, as the government forces launched a military campaign to banish terrorist groups from the area controlled by Jaysh al-Islam and Ahrar al-Sham groups, and the al-Nusra Front terrorist organization*.

President al-Assad meets a number of Syrian Army’s officers at one of military formations 18 March، 2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoC9dxOZ0Ro (3:27 min.)

President al-Assad meets a number of Ghouta families 18 March، 2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylapUesMLhM (2:26 min.)
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Over 73,000 civilians have left Damascus suburb of Eastern Ghouta in Syria since the opening of humanitarian corridors, the Russian Defense Ministry's Center for Syrian reconciliation said in a statement.
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Over 73,000 People Left E Ghouta During Humanitarian Pauses - Russian MoD
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201803181062666065-syria-eastern-ghouta-people-leave-during-humanitarian-pause/

Over 25,000 people have left Damascus' suburb of Eastern Ghouta through the checkpoint in the settlement of Hammuriyah, spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry's Center for Syrian reconciliation Maj. Gen. Vladimir Zolotukhin said.

In refugee camps near Eastern Ghouta bedclothes and food packages are being distributed. Field kitchens have been deployed and hot meals are being distributed to civilians at the checkpoints and in refugee camps," Zolotukhin said.

Earlier in the day, the official said that overall, more than 70,000 people had left Eastern Ghouta since the opening of the humanitarian corridors in late February.


Jaysh Tahrir al-Sham rebels have shot down a regime warplane over the Eastern Qalamoon mountains after launching a new wave of attack, Free Syrian Army reported.
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Syrian Su-24 Allegedly Shot Down Near Qalamoun Mountains - Free Syrian Army (Video) 18.03.2018
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201803181062666982-syrian-army-aicraft-shot-down/

The moment of Su-24 falling was filmed and posted on Twitter. The crashed plane has started to drop sharply, leaving behind a trace of black smoke, and has fallen to the ground.

According to Al-Masdar News, the aircraft fell into territory controlled by Syrian government forces, while the pilot has shot himself clear. His fate is still unknown.

The jihadists have already announced the resumption of the offensive on the positions of the Syrian military in the area, Al-Masdar News noted.

The Sukhoi Su-24 is a supersonic, all-weather attack aircraft developed in the Soviet Union. The aircraft has a variable-sweep wing, twin-engines and a side-by-side seating arrangement for two pilots.


Despite earlier reports that the Syrian Army had imposed full control over the town of Ar-Rayhan in Damascus’ East Ghouta region, the reality stands that rebel fighters remain in partial control of what still appears to be a standing stronghold for them.
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Breaking video: Syrian Army loses a dozen tanks as persistent Islamist militants cling-on to stronghold town in east Damascus 18/03/2018
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/breaking-video-syrian-army-loses-a-dozen-tanks-as-persistent-islamist-militants-cling-on-to-stronghold-town-in-east-damascus/

Even more, it has become apparent that the Syrian Army has endured major losses to its armored forces in the ongoing clashes for Ar-Rayhan and its surrounding countryside (still heavily littered with undiscovered tunnels and trenches).

A video released very recently by the Jaysh al-Islam insurgent faction suggests that as many as a dozen Syrian Army tanks have been knock-out by various means available to local militants.

By far, Ar-Rayhan has proven to be the most persistent militant stronghold encountered by the Syrian Army; even before the latest Damascus offensive, the town had withstood dozens of attacks by government forces.


Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov condemned the illegal presence of US coalition troops in Syria, saying the Western forces deployed on the ground amount to “a direct involvement in the war”.
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Russian FM: US, British, French Special Forces Directly Involved in Syria War Sun Mar 18, 2018
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13961227000291

“There are special forces on the ground in Syria from the US – they no longer deny it – the UK, France and a number of other countries,” Lavrov said in an interview to the Kazakh state broadcaster published on the Russian Foreign Ministry's website on Saturday.

“Thus, it’s not so much of a ‘proxy war,’ but rather a direct involvement in the war,” the diplomat stressed.

The US coalition is “illegitimate” from the standpoint of international law and the UN Charter, Lavrov added, noting that “But we are realistic and understand that we wouldn’t fight with them. So we coordinate actions at least to prevent unintended clashes. Our military always keeps in touch with the American commanders who lead the operation on Syrian territory.”

Moscow is also in "a permanent dialogue" with the US General Staff officials “who actually lead the operation on the ground,” the Minister stated.

Lavrov also stressed attacks on the Syrian and pro-Syrian forces in US-controlled areas deserve condemnation, given that Russia has been repeatedly and “solemnly” assured that the presence of the US military in Syria is aimed “exclusively” at fighting terrorists.

Lavrov also criticized the remarks by the US envoy to the UN, Nikki Haley, about Washington’s readiness to “bomb Damascus and even the presidential palace of Bashar Assad, regardless [of the] presence of the Russian representatives there.”

“It is an absolutely irresponsible statement,” Lavrov underlined.


Vladimir Putin is set to extend his power in Russia for another six years after winning Sunday's presidential election with a decisive 73.9% of the vote, a state-run exit poll shows.
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Putin Wins Russia's Presidential Election March, 19, 2018
https://www.tasnimnews.com/en/news/2018/03/19/1682573/putin-wins-russia-s-presidential-election

Putin was widely expected to win his fourth term as President, with no meaningful opposition in the running and his fiercest opponent, Alexei Navalny, barred from the race.

Exit polls are not final, and official results are gradually being released. An official win of more than 73% of the vote would be a major boost to Putin, who already enjoys sweeping powers over his country.

He won 63.6% of the ballots in the 2012 election, but the number of people who turned out this time was not immediately clear.

Putin declared victory in front of thousands of people gathered in below-freezing temperatures at Moscow's Manezhnaya Square near the Kremlin, calling for unity in the country, CNN reported.

"We are a great big team together and I am a member of your team," he said, after a colorful show of high-energy musical performances.

No candidate came close to Putin in the race. The Communist Party's Pavel Grudinin was a distant second with 11.2% of the vote, according to the exit poll conducted by the state-owned Russia Public Opinion Research Center.

Putin has dominated Russian politics for 18 years and was already the country's longest-serving leader since Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.

His election win will take his rule to 2024, when he will be 71. But the President hasn't groomed a successor, prompting speculation he may try to find ways to extend his power beyond this term.
 
It was seven years ago this week that the conflict in Syria began. How might it have developed without the negative role played by Western powers and their regional allies?

Syria: It would all be over by now without the ‘regime-changers’ 17 Mar, 2018
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/421590-syria-war-regime-change/

Beware the Ides of March, the old saying goes. The 15th of March down the ages has seen not only the assassination of Julius Caesar and the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia; it was also the day, in 2011, that the conflict in Syria began.

According to the standard narrative, it was the intransigence and brutality of the Assad government (always referred to as a ‘regime’) that plunged Syria into chaos. But while it’s true that there was genuine discontent with the government for a number of valid reasons seven years ago, the divisions within Syria could have been overcome without much bloodshed, had certain countries not worked to sabotage any peaceful solutions to the crisis.

Faced with a direct threat to its rule, the Assad government showed it was willing to make compromises. As early as March 26, 2011, the BBC was reporting that the government had released more than 200 political prisoners. There were also amnesties announced in May and June.

Not only that but important political changes were introduced as Assad acknowledged in a televised address that demands for reform were legitimate.

In February 2012, a new constitution, which ended the Ba’ath Party’s 40-year monopoly of power, was overwhelmingly endorsed in a national referendum. Article 8 of the new constitution stated: “The political system of the state shall be based on the principle of political pluralism, and exercising power democratically through the ballot box.”

But these democratizing measures, which went far further than any “reforms” made by the US/UK’s authoritarian ally Saudi Arabia, and which have been praised, were loftily dismissed by the West.

It may have only been in the summer of 2011 when Western leaders were openly declaring “Assad must go,” but the truth is that regime change had been on the agenda for a long time.

We know from WikiLeaks that as early as December 2006 US officials were discussing how to destabilize the Syrian government. A cable from US Ambassador to Syria William Roebuck discussed the "potential vulnerabilities" of the Assad administration and the "possible means to exploit them."

One of the "possible means" was to seek to divide the Shia and Sunni communities in Syria. In a section entitled PLAY ON SUNNI FEARS OF IRANIAN INFLUENCE, the ambassador wrote:

"There are fears in Syria that the Iranians are active in both Shia proselytizing and conversion of, mostly poor, Sunnis. Though often exaggerated, such fears reflect an element of the Sunni community in Syria that is increasingly upset by and focused on the spread of Iranian influence in their country through activities ranging from mosque construction to business."

The date of the cable is highly significant. 2006 was the year that Israel, the US’s closest ally in the region, went to war in Lebanon but despite its clear military superiority, didn’t succeed in defeating Hezbollah. If Israel was to succeed in the future, the Syrian-Hezbollah-Iran axis would have to be broken.

In a television interview, former French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas said that Britain had been preparing to send gunmen into Syria two years before the anti-government protests of 2011 and identified Syria’s “anti-Israel stance” as being critical.

Of course the US and its allies had to pretend that what they were really after in Syria was ‘democracy.’ But had they genuinely wanted this, they would have supported and encouraged Assad’s reforms and sided with opposition figures who wanted peaceful, democratic change and not an armed uprising. Instead they did all they could to escalate the crisis, flooding the country with arms and facilitating the influx of radical Islamist fighters from many other countries.

The Western intervention in Syria, in pursuance of violent regime change, has been massive.

In June 2015, the Washington Post reported: “At $1 billion, Syria-related operations account for about $1 of every $15 in the CIA's overall budget... US officials said the CIA has trained and equipped nearly 10,000 fighters sent into Syria over the past several years — meaning that the agency is spending roughly $100,000 per year for every anti-Assad rebel who has gone through the program.”

At the same time, attempts to solve the conflict diplomatically were repeatedly sabotaged by the insistence that ‘Assad must go’ and by stepping up support for anti-government forces. Take the Kofi Annan peace plan in 2012.

“Within days of Annan’s peace plan gaining a positive response from both sides in late March, the imperial powers openly pledged, for the first time, millions of dollars for the Free Syrian Army; for military equipment, to provide salaries to its soldiers and to bribe government forces to defect. In other words, terrified that the civil war is starting to die down, they are setting about institutionalizing it,” noted my fellow Op-ed contributor Dan Glazebrook in Al-Ahram Weekly.

The help given to ‘rebels’ looked to be tilting the conflict in the favor of the regime-changers. While Western leaders warned of the dangers of hardline Islamist terrorism at home, they welcomed the gains made by such groups in Syria. A declassified US intelligence report from August 2012 admitted that “The Salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI (al-Qaeda Iraq) are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria.” The report said that “AQI supported the opposition from the beginning.” It also predicted the establishment of a “Salafist principality in Eastern Syria” and said that this is “exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime.”

Russia’s lawful intervention in September 2015, in defense of secular Syria, where people of all religions could once again live in peace, proved to be a game-changer and helped push back the advances made by Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) and other radical terrorist groups. The war could have been brought to an end in 2016, had the US and its allies given up with their regime change obsession and allowed Syrian forces, aided by their allies, regain control of the whole country. But they didn’t.

In September 2016, with the ‘rebels’ on the back-foot, another ceasefire was agreed between then US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov.

Again it came to nothing. As I wrote here: “While the S.A.A. [Syria Arab Army] had to halt its advances ‘rebels’ carried on with their attacks. In one 24-hour period Russian General Vladimir Savchenko said there had been no fewer than 55 rebel attacks, leading to the deaths of 12 civilians.”

And one week after the so-called ceasefire had started, US-led air raids ‘accidentally’ killed 62 Syrian soldiers at Deir ez-Zor. “From the very beginning there have been many of those, including in the US administration, seeking to break down these agreements,” lamented Lavrov. The fact is that the US hadn’t been serious about wanting an end to hostilities, and only wanted to use the ‘ceasefire’ as a cover for rearming/regaining ground.

As the Syrian government moved to liberate eastern Aleppo, the regime-changers became increasingly hysterical. In the UK, neocon Labour MP John Woodcock, a former chair of Labour Friends of Israel, called the Morning Star newspaper “traitorous scum” for using the word “liberation.”

But Aleppo was liberated and life slowly got back to normal. We’ve seen similar cries of “something must be done” by the regime-changers as Syrian forces move in to recapture rebel-held Eastern Ghouta. But interestingly the same people are, by and large, silent on the humanitarian catastrophe affecting Yemen. ‘Human rights’ only concern them when transgressions can be blamed on an ‘Official Enemy’ of the West.

Earlier this month, neocon writer Max Boot opined in the Washington Post: “The way to save lives, I’ve sadly concluded, is to let [Syrian President Bashar] Assad win as quickly as possible. Aleppo was a charnel house in 2016. But now that it has fallen to Assad’s forces, pictures are circulating of civilians strolling through its rebuilt public park. It’s terrible that they have to live under Assad, but at least they’re alive. Tyranny is preferable to endless and useless war.”

But other regime-changers still prefer “endless and useless war” to an Assad victory and further democratic reforms. Unless that changes, the bloodshed will only continue.


The Kurdish region of Afrin in northern Syria has become a new geopolitical pivot point in the conflict. With so many actors’ interests overlapping, whose positions will be weakened and whose solidified if hostilities escalate?
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What the US and Turkey really want in Northern Syria 6 Mar, 2018
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/420336-us-turkey-syria-afrin/

With so many different agendas now converging along the borderlands, many fear that Turkey’s latest military masterplan and march towards Afrin threatens to open up a dangerous new front in the Syrian War, but it also has the potential to incite a brand new wave of extremist factions pouring into the area – posing news risks for Syria.

On January 20, Ankara launched Operation Olive Branch (ostensibly Operation Euphrates Shield part two), which includes air and ground operations into northern Syria designed to “cleanse” Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) fighters from the area, whom it considers a grave security threat. As a result, Kurdish militias and Afrin residents are under threat of bombardments from an encroaching Turkish-led coalition that includes many of the same extremist factions previously driven from places East Aleppo and Homs, including the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and others.

All the signals coming from Ankara are that it is escalating in Afrin, including a recent announcement of a deployment of Turkish Special Forces into the region.

As Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told Al Jazeera earlier this month, “We warned them. We warned the countries [like the US] who have been engaged with them. Nevertheless, they increased the harassment fires. That's why we launched this operation..."

Isolating Damascus from the Kurds (and vice versa) seems to be a key component to the overall Turkish strategy, and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made no effort to veil his intentions on this matter, as reported by Hurriyet newspaper last week, “Thanks to the siege, the YPG will have no room for bargaining with the Syrian regime.”

Last week the YPG announced, "After a month of our forces' epic resistance to the Turkish invasion and the terrorist organization allied with it… we welcome the Syrian government and its army to perform its duty by participating in defending Afrin and protecting the Syrian borders." The result was a deployment of Syrian National Defense Force Units who arrived in Afrin on the February 21 to help defend residents from the current siege being waged by Turkey. In addition, Afrin militias have also called upon US-backed YPG-affiliate Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to provide reinforcements, although it’s not yet clear what level of commitment can be made. The SDF also fall under the purview of its US benefactors.

Effectively abandoned by the US, local Kurdish YPG reached out to Damascus for assistance, but conditions set forth by Damascus included returning Afrin to full Syrian administrative control, but with its resources stretched to the limit on multiple fronts it’s unlikely that the Syrian Arab Army will be deployed there anytime soon.

What Turkey wants - Erdogan claims to have an iron-clad mandate due to a deal that was brokered behind closed doors between Ankara and Moscow ‘greenlighting’ this latest incursion into Syria. He stated on TV in January, "We are determined. Afrin will be sorted out. We will take no step back. We spoke about this with our Russian friends. We have an agreement," although Moscow never confirmed that such a deal took place.

Ankara’s entire premise for this latest operation rests on the claim that Syria’s Kurdish Democratic Union (PYD) and YPG militias are terrorist organizations and that the Turkish-based Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), claiming that the PKK are also active in Afrin, therefore, they are a threat to Turkey’s security. Certainly, the CIA hasn’t helped the Kurdish cause by listing the Syrian PYD as a branch of the PKK in Turkey and under the illustrious heading of ‘foreign-based terrorist groups’ in their 2018 World Factbook.

Salih Muslim, former chairman of the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria, now a diplomatic committee member of the PYD-led Movement for a Democratic Society (Tev-Dem) in Northern Syria said:
We stated from the beginning we have no relations with anybody, we are just thinking of Syria, and there is no PKK in Syria in Afrin. The people are defending in Afrin - they are just the sons and daughters of Afrin. They organized themselves to protect their villages and since five years they are defending Afrin against all these brutals [like ISIS], and recently Turkey attacked them… Turkey was trying to make some tricks for us, I mean to pull us to somewhere, but they were supporting Daesh and in Kobani … they were openly supporting Daesh against the Kurdish people.”

Shortly after giving that interview to Al Jazeera, Muslim was detained by an Interpol unit in Prague, who then notified Turkish authorities who had raised an extradition order. Czech authorities have since released Muslim.

Other prominent Kurds have also spoken out, echoing Muslim’s claims, suggesting that Turkey’s claim of 10,000 PKK terrorists occupying Afrin’ is a gross over exaggeration, which if true, means that Turkey has launched a war of aggression on false pretenses.

There is also the question of whether Erdogan has wide public support for the war he is waging in Syria. The longer the story drags on, and the more public resources it consumes, the more problems Ankara will face, as it’s already attempting a delicate balancing act after suspending its constitution in 2017 and declaring a semi-permanent state of emergency. With this and other concerns in mind, the idea of committing large numbers of troops to Afrin is not ideal, and so Turkey has enlisted its resident brigades in the Free Syrian Army for forward operations. While some in the West still regard them as legitimate ‘moderate rebels,’ for Syrians living in places like Aleppo, Ma’alula and Homs - the FSA are regarded as terrorists. During their joint occupation with al-Nusra, ISIS and others in East Aleppo (2012-2016), FSA brigades were implicated in some of the worst acts violence against residents, as well as the systematic destruction of the city’s once-thriving industrial sector.

Bearing this in mind, from a Syrian perspective Operation Olive Branch could be viewed as a re-invasion of northern areas by the very same terrorist groups that had been ejected previously following the liberation of East Aleppo and other areas since. With the help of the Reconciliation Center, and through the Astana Process, scores of militants have been removed from combat zones over the last 18 months and funneled north into Syria’s Idlib province, while others have taken up residence just over the border in Turkey’s Hatay province and in neighbouring Gaziantep province. This could provide an opportunity for Syria and Russia to make key advances in Idlib.

Clearly, Turkey has an overall strategic overall objective, which could be to connect Jarablus to Manbij, to Azaz, to Afrin, and then finally to Idlib. This would give Ankara enough strategic leverage to dictate any number of terms going forward. Critics have accused Turkey of micro-colonial designs, pointing out how in the Syrian border city of Jarablus, Turkey has already trained its own “Free Police,” complete with Turkish flags emblazoned on their shoulders. In Jarablus the Turkish lira is an accepted currency, Turkish telecoms are providing cellular service, and Turkey has already run underground power lines to become the city’s electricity provider.

According to analyst Dr. Can Erimtan, Erdogan’s forays into northern Syria are not strictly of a micro-colonial nature, but could be geared more towards the president’s own transformational political Islam agenda at home, explaining, “[r]ather than expanding the New Turkey into the territories of Syria, I would argue that Tayyip Erdoğan is here now invoking a Gaza [holy war or raid] spirit that would transform the erstwhile nominally secular Kemalist Republic of Turkey into a fully-fledged Islamic state on the back of the military operations carried out next door in the lands once legitimately held by Assad.”

This theme was echoed on January 26, when Erdogan spoke to the Expanded Meeting of the AKP Provincial Heads in Ankara and rounded off his rousing address with the following, “this PKK, this PYD, this YPG, this Daesh have no connection with Islam … These [terrorists] don’t know Allah, [they] don’t know Islam, [and they] don’t know Muslims.”

Anyone who has been paying attention since the 2016 coup that wasn’t, will tell you how, as a matter of practice, when speaking to his domestic base, Erdogan infuses all of his public statements with a strong religious fervor. Such is the new tone in this post-Kemalist Turkey.

All of this makes Russia’s role in Syria all the more complicated, as it has to balance its wider geopolitical role as a regional peace broker, with the fluctuant activity of Turkey and its multiplex interested parties and colliding agendas, amid a backdrop of unrelenting hostilities on the ground in Syria.

What the US Wants, What the US Needs - While the US and Turkey share certain prime directives in Syria, like removing Bashar Assad from power, other interests appear to be in conflict. However, both are enjoying a freehand within their respective comfort zones, especially the US.

After announcing the US was seeking a “30,000-strong border force in northern Syria,” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was forced to walk back his statements after realizing the storm he had caused in Ankara. To further complicate matters, Turkey has also threatened that if US forces in the northeastern region are operating as part of SDF/YPG patrols, then they could also be targeted by the Turkish military.

For the US, its presence in Syria may have symbolic value in terms of trying to maintain its dwindling position as the major player in regional affairs, but now that the ISIS narrative is fading from the headlines, the issue of Syria is barely relevant at home. Not so for Turkey, as its anti-YPG/PYD campaign is an integral part of its domestic agenda, as well as part of a wider Turkish project including its new presence in Africa where it seeks to establish itself as a hemispheric geopolitical actor.

What’s most interesting about Turkey and the US is that where there appears to be a lack of coordination and a clear set of diverging interests causing the two NATO member states to cross their geostrategic wires – they are both enjoying the enduring benefits of operating illegally in a foreign country - under the subtle protection of NATO’s Article 5 framework. The fact remains that neither NATO member has experienced any physical threat or had notice served by Syria or Russia, although under international law they would be within their right to do so.

With ISIS effectively contained, and it is a negligible threat in both Syria and Iraq, the US has latched on to the Kurdish issue as Washington’s public-facing raison d’état. This could trigger concerns not just in Syria, but also in Turkey, Iraq, and Iran. The threat of joining-up an autonomous Kurdish ‘Rojava’ in Syria with the Iraqi Kurdistan to create a contiguous Kurdish nation-state will always fuel as much interest as it will anxiety. In reality, it’s far from practical. Contrary to the popular beliefs of nation-builders in Washington, the Kurds are far from a monolithic ethno-political entity, even within Syria. Still, the US is doing its best to supply many of the trappings of Kurdish independence in northeastern Syria, not just by providing weapons, training and logistical support for its SDF proxies, but also establishing new military garrisons. US State Department officials have already been spotted in Raqqa promising new reconstruction and infrastructure projects in the pipeline.

Much of the US plan to prop-up Kurdish independence in Syria has been predicated on demographic shifts around places like Raqqa, Manbij and Qamishli. In this way, ISIS performed the necessary groundwork in driving out Arabs and minorities, with the SDF seamlessly moving in afterwards. As it turns out, this unlikely smooth transition between ISIS and the SDF occupations is now on record as having been brokered by the US (although you won’t hear that on the BBC or CNN).

As stability returns to the region, Arabs and other minorities, including Christians, Assyrians and Yazidis who had fled the violence, will gradually return, which poses another set of problem for the utopian dream that is Rojava. Following a recent fact-finding mission in the Kurdish-held region of Syria, Professor Fabrice Balanche made the following observations:

Currently, local Arabs in northern and eastern Syria are particularly frustrated by the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), which has subverted tribal leadership while taking over many areas and largely ignored the recommendations of tribal councils in Manbij and other locales. Even in Raqqa, a city with no sizable Kurdish population, street signs that used to be in Arabic now include Kurdish, and councils are headed by Kurdish officials. PYD leaders seem to believe that it is their job to show Arabs the proper way to govern, treating their occupation as a ‘democratizing’ project. Yet the situation is stable for now because Kurdish forces provide security.”

So, despite the outward appearance of a secessionist agenda, it does not appear that Syrian Kurds have the same statehood ambitions as their Iraqi ethno-compatriots. Kurdish spokesperson Salih Muslim reiterated this position on a number of occasions, including in late 2016 when he stated that unlike Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), the PYD in Syria does not desire an independent Kurdish breakaway state from Syria, and would rather work within a pluralistic Syrian federal system. This is fairly consistent with the PYD’s founding principles, which steer away from the idea of ethno-nationalism.

Besides this, the Kurds only really have two major areas where they hold an outright demographic majority - in Afrin and Kobani. And with Afrin already veering towards Damascus and away from the US, declaring an autonomous region without a clear-cut demographic majority is nearly impossible, unless ISIS could be revived to re-plunder the region or intense fighting broke-out between Turkey and the YPG and the Syrian Army, in which case the US would most likely have to recuse itself to avoid being embroiled in something much worse than we are seeing now.

One common Western talking point among skeptics is that once the US gets what it wants, the Kurds will be the ultimate losers and will ‘eventually be discarded, as they were in Iraq’, or in this case, ‘back into the clutches of Assad.’ Again, this would be another oversimplification of the Kurdish situation in Syria, and it belies the reality of their own political ideologies and struggle, which is still ongoing and is unlikely to change radically should the US pull up stakes in Syria.

It’s important to note that Turkey has previously engaged the PYD in protracted diplomatic talks, but it seems to have fallen permanently out of favour because the PYD did not firmly oppose the government in Damascus - as Turkey had demanded in 2013. To be sure, from a strategic perspective, Ankara views the PYD as a potential obstacle to its own desire to see a weak, dismembered Syria, and without Bashar al-Assad in the Presidential Palace. As such, both Turkey and US, and Israel too, share the common objective of undermining Syria’s political and structure integrity, and therefore, are unlikely to impede each other’s actions to those ends.

One problem Washington and its new administration have is that, at present, there is no discernable foreign policy, and any demonstrative foreign policy noises, like opposing Russia or ‘rebuilding America’s defenses,’ appear to be tied to the domestic political bloodbath at home. Despite all this, the long-term geopolitical continuity of the US still endures, which would dictate that the US occupation of land and air in Syria probably has very little to do with Kurdish autonomy, and even less to do with defeating ISIS. The fact that the US is there means that they could remain there indefinitely because Russia has left them with little other option.

What happened in October 2015 should be regarded as one of the biggest geopolitical realignments in the Middle East post-Suez. Russia effectively changed the course of the regional affairs when it formally announced its entry into the Syrian conflict and, with that, changed the course of the war back in favour of Damascus. For the first time in decades, the US found itself on its back heals, and no longer at the center of regional negotiations. Later that same month, another potential turning point arose when Turkey shot down a Russian air force jet along the Syrian-Turkish border. Had Russia escalated or retaliated, and relations became so inflamed that words were exchanged which couldn’t be walked back, it is unlikely that Russia and Turkey would be on their current diplomatic footing, much less sharing the top table together at the Astana Peace Process, which many rightly regard as a major shift in the region’s geopolitical center of gravity from West to East, or more specifically, from Europe (Geneva) to Eurasia (Astana). From a realist perspective, the most significant body in this new geopolitical constellation is Russia, which brings us back to why the US is talking up what appears to be taking up a permanent residency in Syria. If the US were to, as President Donald Trump recently intimated, “get ISIS and go home,” then that means that all major decisions in the Middle East would have to go through Moscow and not Washington DC. This would be a paradigm shift not just for the US, but for its allies too, which itself could trigger yet another major geopolitical realignment. In the case of northeastern Syria, that would then leave Russia and Turkey to mediate all major decisions in Syria and along its borders. Such a scenario would likely mean a swift elimination of any remaining ISIS enclaves, leaving Damascus free to maintain its own borders and territorial integrity, which would include regaining control of its most productive oil fields in the Deir Ezzor area southeast of Raqqa – oil fields which are currently occupied by US-backed Kurdish SDF.

A continued US presence ensures that none of that can happen. Instead, ISIS will continue its role as agent provocateur and territorial rooster, while the Kurdish occupations of Syrian oil means that Syria’s post-war economic recovery will be a long and painful one – an outcome which suits Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel, the US and its allies.

While Syria may not be a major oil producer compared to its Arab neighbours, it is still a vital lifeline in the current embargo environment. Allowing Damascus control of its own natural resource would help tremendously in terms of sanctions-busting and help towards economic rebalancing and reconstruction.

The current US-EU double raft of sanctions on Syria is hardly mentioned in western circles and is often regarded as a ‘soft’ alternative to full-on military intervention. As a result of this, and the US-Backed SDF seizure of Syria’s oil fields from ISIS, Damascus faces the daunting prospect of having to buy its own oil back from the Kurds.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson appeared to be boasting about this during a recent speech on February 13 at a conference Kuwait:

“The United States and coalition forces that are working with the US to defeat ISIS today control 30 percent of Syrian territory and control a large amount of the population and control a large amount of Syria's oil fields this upwards observation that the US has very little leverage or role to play is simply false.”

What the US desperately needs is to be able to create facts on the ground, because only then can you effectively steer events your own way. The real danger is that the longer the US stays in Syria and continues to help facilitate this current era of chaos, the higher the probability that US forces will eventually be engaged in a combat situation against forces other than ISIS, which might result in the US sustaining casualties. When that happens, it could trigger yet another wave of Western military escalation, plunging Syria and the region further into crisis.

There is also the wider US-Saudi-Israeli strategy of Iranian containment, which may also be driving the current policy, or as analyst Sharmine Narwani explained, a “US policy would seek to sever the unimpeded geographic line between Iran and Israel by creating a buffer entity that runs through Iraq and Syria.”

Given enough time, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its partners will clear many of the remaining terrorist pockets like East Ghouta, and will eventually move on to Idlib. When this happens, it is conceivable that the SAA could be deployed to Afrin, which could be a ‘win-win’ for Syria, and even for Turkey, who would have little choice other than to accept Syria securing its own borders.

For all parties, the current situation in northern Syria is simply unsustainable, and the continued illegal US presence in Syria will do nothing other deny Damascus and Ankara any chance to reach an accord and move ahead in stabilizing the borderlands.

When the music finally stops, and this game of musical chairs is over, someone will have to leave the game.


Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has condemned the illegal presence of US coalition troops in Syria, saying the Western forces deployed on the ground amount to “a direct involvement in the war.”
Click to expand...

‘Not proxy’: Lavrov says US, British, French special forces ‘directly involved’ in Syria war 17 Mar, 2018
https://www.rt.com/news/421582-lavrov-foreign-special-forces-syria/

“There are special forces on the ground in Syria from the US – they no longer deny it – the UK, France and a number of other countries,” Lavrov said in an interview to the Kazakh state broadcaster published on the Russian Foreign Ministry's website on Saturday. “Thus, it’s not so much of a ‘proxy war,’ but rather a direct involvement in the war,” the diplomat stressed.

The US coalition is “illegitimate” from the standpoint of international law and the UN Charter, Lavrov said. “But we are realistic and understand that we wouldn’t fight with them. So we coordinate actions at least to prevent unintended clashes. Our military always keeps in touch with the American commanders who lead the operation on Syrian territory.”

Moscow is also in "a permanent dialogue" with the US General Staff officials “who actually lead the operation on the ground,” the minister said.

Lavrov also stressed attacks on the Syrian and pro-Syrian forces in US-controlled areas deserve condemnation, given that Russia has been repeatedly and “solemnly” assured that the presence of the US military in Syria is aimed “exclusively” at fighting terrorists.

Lavrov also criticized the remarks by the US envoy to the UN, Nikki Haley, about Washington’s readiness to “bomb Damascus and even the presidential palace of Bashar Assad, regardless [of the] presence of the Russian representatives there.” “It is an absolutely irresponsible statement,” Lavrov said.


The US is trying to cover up its own failure to force armed groups in Syria to de-escalate violence as it blames Russia and Iran for ongoing hostilities in Eastern Ghouta, the Russian foreign minister has said.
Click to expand...

Lavrov has ‘no regular terms’ to describe US threat to attack Syrian troops 13 Mar, 2018
https://www.rt.com/news/421145-us-attack-syria-lavrov/

Our Western partners, who don’t hide the close contacts they have with [militant groups] in Eastern Ghouta, have failed in their commitment under the UNSC Resolution 2401, which was to influence their proteges, rein them in, and make them stop shelling residential areas [in Damascus]. Our Western colleagues led by the US have failed to do that,” the Russian minister said on Tuesday.

He added that the US is now proposing a new draft resolution, which would be limited to the situation in Eastern Ghouta. It would also protect UN-designated terrorists – like the group formerly known as Al-Nusra Front, which Russia says is playing the lead role in this area – and give the militants time to regroup.

The US accuses Damascus and its allies of using excessive force in Eastern Ghouta, a suburb of the capital that had been controlled by Islamist armed groups for several years. The militants have launched regular attacks on Damascus residential and governmental areas from this location. Moscow says its goal in Eastern Ghouta is to force the fighters to either lay down arms or leave the area, saying the outcome of a similar conflict in Aleppo could serve as a model.

Haley said attacking Syria was “not the path we prefer” and said the UN Security Council’s “failure to act” would be the cause, if Washington chooses to take military action.

“Ms Haley states that the US is a peaceful nation that can at any moment attack the forces of the Syrian government. I have no regular terms left to describe this,” said Lavrov. “A new [US] strike would have very serious consequences. Ms Haley should realize that abusing a microphone with irresponsible statements at the UN Security Council is one thing, but the communications between American and Russian militaries is another thing, which details what is allowed and what is not.”

The incident in Khan Sheikhoun remains uninvestigated, with the scene of the attack inaccessible to chemical weapons inspectors. The evidence used by the US to justify an attack on a Syrian airbase came from questionable sources, and may have been manufactured. The US military does not have proof that Damascus was responsible for the incident.

US training Syria militants for false flag chemical attack as basis for airstrikes – Russian MoD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmYCgK2zHCI (7:37 min.)

Published on Mar 17, 2018 - Russia’s Defense Ministry says “US instructors” are training militants to stage false flag chemical attacks in south Syria. The incidents are said to be a pretext for airstrikes on Syrian government troops and infrastructure.
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First moment the Syrian Army enters East Ghouta suburb (video) 24/03/2018
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/first-moment-the-syrian-army-enters-east-ghouta-suburb-video/

The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) first entered ‘Ayn Tarma’s central neighborhoods on Friday, following the announcement of Faylaq Al-Rahman’s agreement to leave the East Ghouta.

Hundreds of Syrian Army soldiers were then filmed entering ‘Ayn Tarma for the first time in years, as residents took to the streets to greet them – please see below: (embed at link)

The Syrian Army is expected to take full control of ‘Ayn Tarma by Sunday, as the remaining Islamist rebels and their family members depart from the East Ghouta to northern Syria.

In addition to ‘Ayn Tarma, Faylaq Al-Rahman and Harakat Ahrar Al-Sham agreed to handover the suburbs of Zamalka, ‘Arbeen, and Jobar.

‘Arbeen and Zamalka had been under Islamist control since the advent of the Syrian war; they had long been strongholds for Faylaq Al-Rahman.


Footage has emerged showing the moment a Syrian Army soldier was reunited with his mother after she escaped from rebel-held areas of Damascus’ East Ghouta region.
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VIDEO: Syrian Army soldier meets mother for first time in over 5 years after escape from East Ghouta 24/03/2018
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/video-syrian-army-soldier-meets-mother-for-first-time-in-over-5-years-after-escape-from-east-ghouta/

According to sources, the soldier shown in the video originates from East Ghouta himself but had since been transferred to fight armed rebel groups in northern Latakia after joining the Syrian Army.

After word of this mother’s evacuation reached him, the soldier was immediately given permission (per a request) to depart his posting in Latakia and meet her – it was the first time in over five years since they had last seen each other.

Russian and Syrian media is now claiming that over one hundred thousand (100,000) civilians have fled from militant-controlled areas of East Ghouta since large-scale evacuations commenced about ten days ago.


Reports have emerged stating that Moscow and Ankara are in talks about the future of the Kurdish-held town of Tal Riffat in northern Aleppo province which still hosts a Russian military base.
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Reports: Russia and Turkey in talks about Tal Riffat in north Aleppo 24/03/2018
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/reports-russia-and-turkey-in-talks-about-tal-riffat-in-north-aleppo/

Sources say that Turkey is demanding that all elements of Kurdish paramilitary forces be removed from the highly-strategic town as well as other areas still under Kurdish control in Aleppo province’s northern countryside.

Ankara apparently also wishes to see long since displaced Arab residents from Tal Riffat be allowed to return to their hometown.

Some reports (unconfirmed) suggest that a small number of Russian military personnel are still present in and around Tal Riffat despite claims of a full Russian withdrawal from the town and its surrounding area just prior to Turkey’s Olive Branch operation.


The Syrian Arab Army’s (SAA) High Command and their Russian counterparts have sent an official military delegation to the rebel-held areas of Dara’a to begin reconciliation talks, a source told Al-Masdar News on Saturday.
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Exclusive: Syrian military sends delegation to rebel-held Daraa to begin reconciliation talks 24/03/2018
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/exclusive-syrian-military-sends-delegation-to-rebel-held-daraa-to-begin-reconciliation-talks/

According to the military source, the delegation has offered terms of reconciliation to the rebels in Dara’a, which include the surrender of all heavy arms to the government.

In addition to surrendering their heavy arms, the rebels will also have to agree to reopen roads in order to promote commerce and trade between all towns in the Dara’a Governorate.

In exchange for reconciliation, the rebels will be allowed to control the towns they are already present in, while also receiving aid from the government.

The rebels will also be offered the opportunity to settle their cases with the Syrian government.

The delegation has warned the rebels in Dara’a that the failure of these reconciliation talks will result in a Syrian military operation.


The Turkish Armed Forces have established full control over Syrian northern district of Afrin, the General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces said Saturday.
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Turkey announces full control of Syria’s Afrin District 24/03/2018
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/turkey-announces-full-control-of-syrias-afrin-district/

“All villages have been cleared from terrorists. Afrin is under full control [of Turkish Armed Forces],” the General Staff said, as quoted by the NTV broadcaster.


Turkey is actively seeking to have the Russian military kick out the Kurdish-led YPG forces from the northern Aleppo town of Tal Rifa’at, a source in Aleppo told Al-Masdar News this afternoon.
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Turkey wants Russia to kick out the Kurdish forces in Tal Rifaat – report 24/03/2018
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/turkey-wants-russia-to-kick-out-the-kurdish-forces-in-tal-rifaat-report/

According to the source in Aleppo, Turkey has repeatedly asked the Russians to demand the YPG leave Tal Rifa’at in order to return the town to the Arab inhabitants.

Tal Rifa’at was an important buffer-zone for the YPG forces near the Afrin region prior to their loss of the latter; it is now one of the last areas they control in northern Aleppo.

Turkey has indicated that they are not going to pursue a military operation in Tal Rifa’at; however, this could change if the YPG continues to maintain a presence near the Turkish border.


The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) has recently beefed up their numbers in the northern countryside of Aleppo, following the latest advances by the Turkish-backed rebels in Afrin.
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Syrian Army beefs up forces in northern Aleppo amid Turkish advance: map 24/03/2018
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/syrian-army-beefs-up-forces-in-northern-aleppo-amid-turkish-advance-map/

According to a military source in northern Syria, the Syrian Army and their allies from the pro-government National Defense Forces (NDF) have sent a large number of personnel to the front-lines in northern Aleppo.

The reason for these reinforcements is to protect the government strongholds of Al-Zahra’a and Nubl, which were once besieged by the Islamist rebels for years.

While Turkey maintains they are only targeting ‘terrorists,’ many of the rebel fighters being used in Operation Olive Branch were once fighting the Syrian Arab Army in northern Syria.

Militants from Harakat Nouriddeen Al-Zinki and Faylaq Al-Sham were engaged in fierce combat against the Syrian Army for years in Aleppo; this has raised the government’s concerns that these Islamist rebels may target their areas.


The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) has recovered the bodies of their soldiers that were ambushed by the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) in southern Damascus last week.
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Syrian Army recovers bodies of 57 soldiers killed by ISIS in southern Damascus 24/03/2018
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/breaking-syrian-army-recovers-bodies-of-57-soldiers-killed-by-isis-in-southern-damascus/

According to a military source in Damascus, the bodies of 57 soldiers killed in the Al-Qadam District of southern Damascus were delivered to the Syrian Army via the Syrian Red Crescent Society tonight.

The source added that ISIS allowed the Red Crescent to recover the bodies of the dead soldiers after the government released some family members of the Islamic State terrorists from their prisons.

No further details have been released.


The first wave of Faylaq Al-Rahman militants and their family members have left the East Ghouta region tonight, a Syrian military report confirmed.
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East Ghouta update: 17 buses with 950+ militants and their family members leave Arbeen 24/03/2018
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/east-ghouta-update-17-buses-with-950-militants-and-their-family-members-leave-arbeen/

According to the military report, a total of 17 buses left the East Ghouta region via the ‘Arbeen crossing tonight.

The 17 buses contained a total of 981 militants from Faylaq Al-Rahman and their family members. Another wave of militants and their family members are expected to depart from the East Ghouta tomorrow morning.


The 2nd batch of al-Qaeda-affiliate Faylaq al-Rahman militants are preparing to leave their former stronghold in Arbeen to the country’s north as per an evacuation deal with the Syrian government.
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More East Ghouta militants leave to Syria’s north 25/03/2018
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/video-more-east-ghouta-militants-leave-to-syrias-north/

Early this morning, 50 buses entered Arbeen town where fighters unwilling to settle their status are expected to leave with their families to the north.

So far, 25 buses carrying up to 1700 people are now grouping in Harasta and are set to get off any given moment.

Drone footage filmed by the Syrian National Defense Forces show the busses gathering in the recently-restored Harasta suburb.

According to unconfirmed reports, Faylaq al-Rahhman fighters might join the Turkey-led forces that fight the Kurdish fighters in Afrin region.
 
Army discovers depots containing chemical materials belonging to Daesh terrorist organization in Deir Ezzor
29 March، 2018
https://sana.sy/en/?p=132174

Army discovers tunnel network and Israeli-made ammunition from the remnants of terrorists in Harasta
29 March، 2018
https://sana.sy/en/?p=132171

Mar 22, 2018 Weapons And Ammunition In Underground Chambers Found in Afrin @ 6:48
_https://youtu.be/p1ybScUX-ww?t=6m

Syrian War Report – March 29, 2018: Syria Vows To Regain All 'Occupied Territories
South Front Published on Mar 29, 2018

The army finds a huge field hospital inside the terrorist hideouts in Harasta
Mar 29, 2018 SANA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDVb8iyIP1Y
 
US President Donald Trump has confirmed his intention to pull the country's troops from Syria, explaining that the US military presence on Syria's soil has benefited other countries more than Washington itself.

03.04.2018 Trump: I Want to Bring Troops Back From Syria, Have 'Great Dialogue' With Russia
Trump: I Want to Bring Troops Back From Syria, Have 'Great Dialogue' With Russia

Our primary mission in terms of that was getting rid of ISIS [Daesh]. We've almost completed that task and we'll be making a decision very quickly in coordination with others, as to what we'll do. Saudi Arabia is very interested in our decision," Trump stated during a press conference with the heads of the three Baltic states. "I want to get out. I want to bring our troops home."

The president specified that he would consult with the US-led coalition allies on the military withdrawal, aimed, as he claimed, to rebuild the US.

US media reported on Friday that Trump has ordered the suspension of more than $200 million in funds for recovery efforts in Syria.

The statement follows Trump's previous announcement, made on April 29, pledging to allow a United States' withdrawal from Syria "very soon" and "let the other people take care of it" instead. Trump's surprising decision contradicted previous comments coming from his administration, including senior Pentagon and State Department officials, saying that American troops would maintain an open-ended presence in Syria.

However, a contradictory position has been voiced in response to this statement by Bret McGurk, Trump's special envoy to the US-led coalition, who stated that the coalition's mission in Syria is not over and the US would stay in the country until the terrorist group is defeated.

"In terms of our campaign in Syria, we are in Syria to fight ISIS [Daesh]," McGurk said during remarks at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, DC. "That is our mission and that mission isn't over and we are going to complete that mission."


According to CNN, citing several US defense and administration officials, the Pentagon had been discussing the deployment of additional troops to northern Syria.

03.04.2018 US Mulled Sending More Troops to Syria Before Trump's Call to Leave – Reports
US Mulled Sending More Troops to Syria Before Trump's Call to Leave – Reports

The media outlet reported that the US military had been working on plans to dispatch dozens of troops to Syria before President Donald Trump announced that the United States would "be coming out of Syria, like, very soon," letting others take care of it.

National Security Council meeting is allegedly set for Tuesday, with fighting Daesh* and the presence of the estimated 2,000 US troops in war-weary Syria on the agenda.

On March 29, Trump made a surprise remark on withdrawing from Syria, appearing to contradict previous comments by his administration, including senior Pentagon and State Department officials, saying that American troops would maintain an open-ended presence in Syria.


On Tuesday, President Donald Trump confirmed his decision about the US troops' early withdrawal from Syria, saying that he wants "to get out" of this Arab country.

04.04.2018 Pentagon Says Mission not Over as Trump Wants to Bring Troops Back From Syria
Pentagon Says Mission not Over as Trump Wants to Bring Troops Back From Syria

Speaking at the US Institute of Peace in Washington, General Joseph Votel, commander of US Central Command, made it clear that American troops will remain in Syria in the future.

"There still are some areas where they are present and that we will have to continue to operate on," Votel pointed out.

He was echoed by Brett McGurk, US State Department's senior envoy to the anti-Daesh coalition, who said that ISIL is yet to be "finished."

We are in Syria to fight ISIL [Daesh]. That is our mission and our mission isn't over, and we're going to complete that mission,' McGurk told the Washington gathering.
The two's remarks came after President Donald Trump promised the US troops' early withdrawal from Syria.

"We'll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon. Let the other people take care of it," Trump said during a speech in Ohio last week.

Shortly after, he confirmed the move by saying that the US "almost completed" the task of destroying Daesh in Syria and that he wants "to get out and bring our troops home."

In separate development, Turkey's Anadolu news agency cited "trustworthy local sources" as saying this week that the US military has established two bases in the Manbij region in northern Syria's, Aleppo Governorate in northern Syria, controlled by the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
 
I see storm clouds appearing over the future of the "Reckless Thugs" US operation in Syria. It looks like now there is a good potential for:
1. Alliance announces the establishment of a No Fly Zone to ground any US or NATO planes East of the Euphrates.
2. Iraq crosses the border and begins attacking the US~SDF~ISIS bunch from the east with the SAA crossing the river from the west, creating a pincer to crush the illegal occupiers.
3. Syrian local guerilla groups increasingly attacking the thugs in the established 'East of Euphrates Pincer Zone'
4. Turkey increases pressure from the north, enhancing the junkyard car crusher effect on US~SDF~ISIS.

US hysterical reaction muffled by stockmarket crashes. Military funding problems, hasty retreat for 'the boots on the ground'. US soldiers and mercenaries wage pay problems, pennyless US soldiers becoming grounded refugees in Syria. Their side not being able to ferry them home anymore.
 
April, 04, 2018 - Iranian President Meets Russian, Turkish Counterparts in Ankara (Photos)
Iranian President Meets Russian, Turkish Counterparts in Ankara - Tasnim News Agency

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani held separate talks with his Russian and Turkish counterparts, Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, about a range of issues, including the latest developments in the Middle East.

In their meeting in Ankara on Wednesday, Rouhani and Putin exchanged views on a host of issues, ranging from the protracted crisis in Syria to ways to cement the ties between Tehran and Moscow.

Also on Wednesday, Rouhani met with Erdogan in the Turkish capital, discussing the latest regional and international developments and the bilateral relations between Tehran and Ankara in all areas.

The presidents of Iran, Russia and Turkey, the three guarantor countries of the de-escalation zones in Syria, will later hold a trilateral summit in Ankara about the Syrian crisis.

As the three countries launched Syria peace talks in Astana, they held a series of summits in Russia's Black Sea city of Sochi to bring together the conflicting parties in Syria.

Within the framework of these efforts, they agreed in Astana to establish de-escalation zones in the Arab country's northern province of Idlib and parts of neighboring Latakia, Hama and Aleppo. Under the Astana agreement, Turkey is to gradually establish 12 observation points from Idlib's north to south to monitor and sustain the current cease-fire agreement for the de-escalation zones, deliver humanitarian aid and ensure the secure return of displaced people.

The leaders of the three countries have been stressing that the de-escalation zones deal has been successful in ending clashes in various locations. However, a countrywide cease-fire to end the armed conflicts has not been achieved so far.


April, 05, 2018 - US, Israel Behind Extremism in Region: Iranian Minister
US, Israel Behind Extremism in Region: Iranian Minister - Tasnim News Agency

Iran’s Defense Minister Brigadier General Amir Hatami blamed extremist and terrorist activities in the Middle East on the US and the Zionist regime of Israel, saying extremism serves their interests in the region.

“Employing terrorist groups in order to plunder the assets of regional countries has always been an objective of the hegemonic system,” the Iranian defense minister said in a meeting with his Kazakh counterpart on the sidelines of a security conference in Moscow.

Denouncing the US and Israeli role in extremist activities in the Middle East, General Hatami said Iran developed a full understanding of causes of terrorism and rushed to help Syria and Iraq in the war against terrorists.

He also called for continued interaction between Iran and Kazakhstan in international organizations.

For his part, Kazakh Minister of Defense and Aerospace Industry Beibut Atamkulov hailed the coalition of Iran, Russia and Turkey in the battle against terrorism that prevented an escalation of the crisis in Syria.

He also expressed the hope that finalization of the Caspian Sea’s legal regime would lead to enhanced political, military and economic cooperation among the littoral states.

Heading a military delegation, the Iranian minister has travelled to Russia to attend the 7th Moscow Conference on International Security (MCIS) and hold talks with foreign military officials.


April, 05, 2018 - Trump 'Persuaded' Not to Withdraw Troops from Syria: US Officials
Trump 'Persuaded' Not to Withdraw Troops from Syria: US Officials - Tasnim News Agency

US officials said President Donald Trump has been persuaded not to pull the military out of Syria immediately, despite his declaration last week that the US would "be coming out of Syria very soon".

Advisers reportedly convinced him that it could risk a resurgence by the Daesh (ISIL or ISIS) terror group.

The White House said on Wednesday the US military mission in Syria was coming to a "rapid end". But it has not announced a timetable for a full troop withdrawal.

A senior administration official told NBC News that the president had agreed at a meeting on Tuesday to keep troops in Syria for an undetermined period, but "wasn't thrilled about it, to say the least".

Last week, Trump announced that he wants to withdraw US troops from Syria, complaining that Washington has wasted trillions of dollars in Middle East wars.

But Trump’s policy shift came after he demanded additional $4bln from Daesh financiers, Saudi Arabia in particular, to keep uninvited US troops in Syria.

The US has about 2,000 personnel on the ground in eastern Syria purportedly supporting an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias called the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).


05.04.2018 - Photos show new US Military Base in Syria while Trump demands Troop withdrawal
PHOTOS Show New US Military Base in Syria While Trump Demands Troop Withdrawal

Despite the fact that US President Donald Trump has announced his intent to pull out American forces from Syria, it appears that the US military has established yet another base in the war-torn Middle Eastern country.

US-led coalition forces operating in Syria have established another military installation in the province of Aleppo, Al Masdar News reports.

The base is located to the northwest of the city of Manbij currently held by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces.

According to the media outlet, the US presence in the area was recently bolstered by the arrival of 200 servicemen accompanied by armored vehicles and construction machinery.

Earlier US President Donald Trump promised to withdraw US troops from Syria, claiming that their primary mission in Syria is nearly complete.

However, he later declared that US will remain in the country "a little longer", apparently after his top advisors insisted that a complete withdrawal of US troops now would risk all the gains already made.


05.04.2018 - Future of US Troops in Syria unclear as "Divided Counsels" argue in Washington
Future of US Troops in Syria Unclear as ‘Divided Counsels' Argue in Washington

US President Donald Trump revealed to officials Wednesday that he wants to get US troops out of Syria relatively soon, but that they would have to stay a little longer to help fully defeat Daesh there.

POTUS stated in a Tuesday meeting at the White House that he wanted to immediately withdraw US forces from the war-torn country, arguing that the US had already won the battle against the terrorist group.

"I want to get out — I want to bring our troops back home," Trump said during his meeting with leaders of several Baltic nations. "It's time. We were very successful against ISIS."

Speaking to Radio Sputnik's Loud & Clear, Peter Ford, former British ambassador to Syria, said that Trump's eagerness to withdraw US troops doesn't mean the process will be easy.

"I have a feeling that there are divided counsels within the Pentagon, definitely in the White House [regarding the troop removal]," Ford told show hosts Brian Becker and John Kiriakou. "Trump sincerely wants to get out since it's what he campaigned on, but whether he'll be allowed to by elements of the deep state is the question."

Trump is not, however, alone in his desire to get the US out. "I sense that some within the Pentagon aren't necessarily happy about lingering in Syria without a clear objective. The military love a clear objective… but a mixed mission, the military don't like," Ford said, before noting that the situation in Washington, DC, is "very messy."

And while US hawks might try to trade an early withdrawal for a role in rebuilding the country, this wouldn't be a winning plan, Ford commented.

"This would be a reasoning from the [war] hawks, [but] even if the United States hangs on in Syria, they're not going to be able to bargain away their departure for something else," Ford explained. "It's not like [Syrian President Bashar] Assad is going to stand down so it can get rid of 2,000 US troops… Iran is not going to up the stakes just to get rid of US troops."

"This justification is very weak," Ford concluded.


05.04.2018 - US has over 400,000 Troops in Asia-Pacific Region -- Russian Intelligence
US Has Over 400,000 Troops in Asia-Pacific Region – Russian Intelligence

The United States has deployed more than 200 military facilities in the Asia-Pacific region, where over 400,000 servicemen are stationed, First Deputy Chief of Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) Igor Kostyukov said Thursday.

“To implement its guidelines, including creating conditions for the projection of force through the rapid deployment of troops anywhere in the Asia-Pacific region, the United States has created a contingent of more than 400,000 troops. At the moment, more than 50 large military bases are operating in the region, there are more than 200 US military facilities,”
Kostyukov said at the Moscow Conference on International Security (MCIS).

The official added that at least six US B-52, B-1 and B-2 bombers were permanently stationed at the US Andersen Air Force Base in the Mariana Islands to patrol the skies over the Pacific Ocean. He noted that the number of US bombers in the base sometimes reached 15.

“At the same time, mainstreaming of the North Korean threat factor has allowed the White House to encourage the allies to increase their spending and acquire new US-made weapons … Irresponsible actions taken by the United States and its allies lead to the deterioration of the situation in the Asia-Pacific region, the disruption of the balance of power, the aggravation of numerous problems and provoke an arms race,” Kostyukov said.

The United States is trying to involve as many Asia-Pacific countries as possible in territorial disputes in order strengthen its influence in the region, Igor Kostyukov said.

“The United States is trying to internationalize China's territorial disputes with Japan, Vietnam’s disputes with the Philippines to consolidate its role as an allegedly impartial arbitrator in order to have additional leverage over Beijing, at the same time encouraging partners to cooperate with Washington,” Kostyukov said at the Moscow Conference on International Security (MCIS).
 
South Front
Published on Apr 6, 2018 (Accompanied with Transcript) /15:42
Based on the analysis of Dennis Nilsen, Independent Political Analyst and Adjunct Professor at George Washington University and Northern Virginia Community College, Washington, DC
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Press TV
PressTV-US, allies set up more Syria posts, risking Turkey standoff
Fri Apr 6, 2018 09:27AM
The United States and allies Britain and France
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have been setting up new outposts in northeastern Syria, despite a lack of permission from Damascus to have military presence in sovereign Syrian territory.
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Officials from a coalition of Arab and Kurdish militants operating in northeastern Syria said Friday that they had been witnessing increased activity by Western forces in the region, adding that military forces from the US, Britain, and France had been setting up new bases around the city of Manbij.

“The United States and France have increased the number of their military in Manbij,” said Helil Bozi, the commander of the so-called Military Council of Manbij of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). He said British forces, too, had been deployed to the same territories.

Bozi, whose ragtag militant group has been allied to US forces over the past years, said the increased presence was clearly a bid to counter a potential Turkish military offensive into Manbij, as Ankara has vowed to expand its operation from areas in the northwest of Syria, where it has been battling Kurdish militants, to the east.

“The US has deployed its Special Forces units near the Sajur River, thereby setting a red line the crossing of which will be seen by the [US-led] coalition forces as an attack and will prompt retaliatory actions,” he said.

Bozi added that the increased presence proved that the US had no intention of leaving the Kurdish-dominated territories in northern Syria — as demanded by Turkey.

Other Kurdish official confirmed the increased military presence of coalition forces in the region, saying US, British, and French forces had also been deployed to Tell Abyad, Dayr al-Zawr, Raqqah, and Tabqa.

The increased deployment comes despite US President Donald Trump’s earlier expression of his tendency to withdraw US forces from Syria “very soon.” He was reportedly later persuaded by his top aides to take back that stance.

Images of new US bases in Manbij have confirmed earlier plans by the Pentagon to expand US presence in Syria.

US military officials said, however, that the new deployments were not against Trump’s will for a pullout, saying they were necessary to adapt to the operational needs of the military on the ground.

The US has reportedly more than 2,000 troops stationed in eastern Syria, in addition to several thousand others in the Arab country’s north.

Apart from the troops on the ground, the US and a number of its allies have been bombarding what they say are Daesh positions inside Syria since September 2014, without any authorization from the Damascus government or the United Nations.
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Published on Apr 3, 2018
Interview with Rear Admiral Guillaume Goutay, Chief of the French Navy Naval Aviation (ALAVIA), about Chesapeake 2018.
Twelve French Navy (Marine Nationale) Rafale M aircraft and one E-2C Hawkeye will join the US Navy Naval Base Oceana, on the East Coast of the United States. The carrier-borne aircraft are participating in the "Chesapeake" deployment. From April 3 to May 27, 2018, nearly 350 sailors from aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle and its carrier air group (CAG) will be deployed in the United States of America to continue their operational training.
This deployment, dubbed "Chesapeake" in reference to the Battle of Chesapeake Bay, aims to maintain the skills of French sailors and as well as maintain the high level of interoperability between the Marine Natioanle and the US Navy. It will consist of an onshore phase, at Naval Air Station (NAS) Oceana, followed by an at-sea phase aboard the aircraft carrier (CVN) USS George H.W. Bush.
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PressTV-US keeping troops in Syria ‘only to save face’
Fri Apr 6, 2018 01:32PM Video 03:11

4-5-18
 
 
Haaretz
Trump on Syrian chemical attack: Putin, Iran backing 'animal' Assad
Apr 08, 2018 4:06 PM
One of
President Donald Trump's top homeland security advisers said on Sunday the Unites States will not rule out launching a missile attack in response to new reports about a chemical attack on a rebel-held town in eastern Ghouta, Syria.
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Trump tweeted early Sunday morning, "Many dead, including women and children, in mindless CHEMICAL attack in Syria. Area of atrocity is in lockdown and encircled by Syrian Army, making it completely inaccessible to outside world. President Putin, Russia and Iran are responsible for backing Animal Assad. Big price..."

"I wouldn't take anything off the table," White House Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Adviser Thomas Bossert said in an interview on ABC's "This Week." :shock:

"We are looking into the attack at this point," he said, adding that the photos of the incident are "horrible."
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Old New Story: MSM Claims 70 People Killed In Douma Chemical Attack By "Assad Regime"
08.04.2018

What timing as the SAA just secured Ghouta.
 
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And as if on cue, only yesterday there was a big story in German evening news about "activists" claiming there was a humanitarian disaster in Ghouta because of Syrian/Russian bombs... They didn't even bother telling us who those "activists" are. That's very low even for the MSM.
 
Windmill knight said:
So the Russians have been warning for a while about a false flag attack with chemical weapons to frame Assad:

Russian top brass warn al-Nusra, Free Syrian Army plotting chemical attacks in Syria

The Syrian Army has discovered terrorist 'factories' of chemical weapons: {...}

And now we have this:

False flag for war: New Syrian chemical weapons attack being reported by all the usual suspects

False flag for war: New Syrian chemical weapons attack being reported by all the usual suspects -- Sott.net

Trump is already tweeting very much according to the war-party line:

https://twitter.com/x/status/982966315467116544

https://twitter.com/x/status/982967389028569088

https://twitter.com/x/status/982969547283161090
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I'm having mixed gut feelings - as to "what Trump is up to" here with these Tweets?

On the one hand, Trump wants to extract all U.S. Military Troops out of Syria (like yesterday - already) and now he is laying it heavy on Assad and Putin and including Iran (for good measure) but there is something in Trumps last Tweet (that seems odd to me) like a signal or cryptic message ...

Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump 4h4 hours ago

If President Obama had crossed his stated Red Line In The Sand, the Syrian disaster would have ended long ago! Animal Assad would have been history!

Is Trump signaling Putin (to put extra defenses up to protect Syria) due to his own Intel - like when Trump/CIA warned Putin about a possible staged attack inside Russia, a few months ago ... and Putin acknowledged their help in breaking up a terrorist ring?

Apr 8, 2018 - BREAKING: Syrian, Russian air forces on red alert after Trump’s deranged tweets
BREAKING: Syrian, Russian air forces on red alert after Trump's deranged tweets - Fort Russ

DAMASCUS, Syria – Both the Syrian and Russian air forces have been put on red alert after US President Donald Trump made deranged tweets directly threatening not only Syria and Russia, but also Iran. (Note - notice the words "red line" and the corresponding "red alert" in reference to the "deranged" tweets?)

Trump in a series of tweets that can be seen here warned Russia and Syria that it has a “big price to pay”
for the chemical weapon attack that occurred in terrorist-held Duma in Syria’s East Ghouta to the east of Damascus city center.
Trump’s war mongering comes as there is zero evidence provided that the Syrian government were responsible for the attack. In fact, it has virtually been debunked as seen in this article.

The US President has proven in the past strike Syrian Army positions when allegations, with no evidence or investigations made, that they were responsible for a chemical attack.

Meanwhile Russia has passed off the allegations as “fake news“.
 
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