27 December 2018 - Israeli official confirms Syria airstrikes as Russia objects
Israeli official confirms Syria airstrikes as Russia objects
The ministry, which did not specify which flights had been threatened, added that Syrian air defenses had destroyed 14 of 16 Israeli missiles launched. (File/AFP)
- Israel also destroyed a Syrian anti-aircraft battery that fired at the Israeli planes: official
- Lebanon’s acting Transport Minister Youssef Fenianos later on Wednesday confirmed Russia’s account
JERUSALEM: An Israeli security official on Wednesday confirmed responsibility for overnight airstrikes in Syria, saying the air force had hit a series of targets involved in Iranian arms transfers to the Hezbollah militant group.
Russia had criticized the airstrike, saying it endangered civilian flights. The comments highlighted the increasingly tense relations between Israel and Russia, which have grown strained since the September downing of a Russian plane by Syrian forces responding to another Israeli raid.
The Israeli official said the air force had attacked several Iranian targets in three main locations late Tuesday and early Wednesday. He said the targets were primarily storage and logistics facilities used by archenemy Iran to ship weapons to Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Lebanese group that fought Israel in a 2006 war.
He said Israel also destroyed a Syrian anti-aircraft battery that fired at the Israeli planes, and claimed that Iranian forces are operating less than 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the Israeli border, contrary to Russian assurances.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity under standard Israeli security protocols. The military has not commented on the incident.
Earlier Wednesday, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said that six Israeli F-16 jets launched a “provocative” raid at the moment when two civilian airliners were preparing to land in Damascus and Beirut, creating a “direct threat” to the aircraft.
Lebanon’s acting Transport Minister Youssef Fenianos later on Wednesday confirmed Konashenkov’s account, saying the two airplanes in Lebanese airspace “narrowly” escaped Israeli warplanes, averting a “human catastrophe.”
Fenianos said the Lebanese government will present a complaint to the UN Security Council.
The Syrian military didn’t fully engage its air defense assets to avoid accidentally hitting the passenger jets, Konashenkov said. He added that Syrian air traffic controllers redirected the Damascus-bound plane to a Russian air base in Syria’s coastal province of Latakia.
Konashenkov said the Syrian air defense forces shot down 14 of the 16 precision-guided bombs dropped by the Israeli jets, while the remaining two hit a Syrian military depot 7 kilometers (about 4 miles) west of Damascus, injuring three Syrian soldiers.
But the Israeli official said all targets had been hit, in some cases causing secondary explosions. He said errant Syrian anti-aircraft fire had endangered the civilian flights.
In recent years, Israel has acknowledged carrying out scores of airstrikes in neighboring Syria, most believed to have been aimed at suspected Iranian arms shipments to Hezbollah. Iran and Hezbollah have sent forces to Syria to bolster President Bashar Assad, who appears close to victory after a devastating seven-year civil war.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly said Israel will not allow Iran to establish a permanent military presence in postwar Syria.
That mission has been complicated by the Sept. 17 downing of the Russian reconnaissance aircraft by Syrian fire. Russia, which also backs Assad, has blamed Israel for the friendly-fire mishap and reportedly scaled back a hotline that allowed the two air forces to coordinate and avoid unintended clashes.
Russia also sent Syria sophisticated S-300 anti-aircraft missiles, though the Israeli official said an older system was fired at the Israeli planes in Wednesday’s incident.
Israeli officials have also expressed concern about US President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw US forces from Syria. The US presence has given Israel an extra element of protection.
Speaking at a military ceremony Wednesday, Netanyahu said the US withdrawal will not change his policy.
Although he did not directly mention the airstrikes, he said Israel’s air force has unmatched capabilities and can reach arenas “near and far, very far.”
“We are not prepared to accept the Iranian military entrenchment in Syria, which is directed against us. We will act against it vigorously and continuously, including during the current period,” he told a graduation ceremony of new air force pilots.
Addressing the same ceremony, Israel’s military chief, Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, praised the army’s “many important accomplishments,” including “thwarting the expansion of Iranian influence.”
The Syrian Foreign Ministry accused Israel of exacerbating the crisis in the country and standing in the way of the government’s war on terrorism.
In messages sent to the UN secretary-general and the president of the Security Council, the ministry said the Israeli airstrike wouldn’t have been launched if it wasn’t for what it called “unlimited” US support for Israel.
2018-12-27 - Civilian Flights Into And Out of Lebanon Must be Re-routed to Avoid an Israel Authored Tragedy
Civilian Flights Into And Out of Lebanon Must be Re-routed to Avoid an Israel Authored Tragedy - Eurasia Future
The best way to prevent a horrific man-made “accident” would be to make it so that it could never happen in the first place. Specifically, as Israel’s Russian partner confirmed with dismay that Tel Aviv’s fighter jets used civilian aircraft flying over the Syria-Lebanon border as “shields” during a recent aerial attack on Damascus, several horrific scenarios unfolded
Geopolitical expert Andrews Korybko summarizes the danger based on a very recent tragic friendly fire incident in the region in the following way:
“It’s paradoxical that the “IAF” might be so concerned about the safety of its pilots that it would put dozens of civilian air travelers at risk, but it shouldn’t be forgotten that it did this exact same thing back in September vis-a-vis a Russian spy plane but with dramatically different results. At that time, a Syrian S-200 operator fired a missile that an “Israeli” pilot narrowly avoided by executing a midair tactical maneuver that tricked the armament into hitting the Russian spy plane “shield” instead”.
Therefore it can be concluded beyond any reasonable doubt that there was a chance that Syria could have accidentally downed a civilian jetliner in its attempts to defend against an Israeli air attack, in the same way that when Damascus defended against the last major Israeli air attack, Syria accidentally shot down an allied Russian spy plane.
Beyond this though, as the accidental downing of the Russian plane makes it clear, the aircraft that Israel’s attacking fighters use as shields are in clear and present danger every time Israel’s air force employs this deeply unethical manoeuvre. But taking things a step further, knowing that Israel has been privately upset about the current US withdrawal from Syrian territory, it can be safely assumed that Tel Aviv will do just about anything it can to convince the US to go back on its decision. In exploring the admittedly extreme options that Israel might take, I stated in an earlier piece that Israel
staging a provocation against NATO member Turkey or its allies in Syria could be one such method used by Tel Aviv a force the US back into the conflict.
Yet an even more horrifying scenario exists. While Turkey’s powerful military is well prepared to fight back against such an Israeli provocation if necessary, by engineering a scenario wherein Syria accidentally shoots down a civilian airliner and possibly killing hundreds in the process, while Israel would have crossed yet another line into severely immoral behavior, its powerful ally would inevitably take a different view. Because the US never typically holds Israel to account for its criminal actions, while Russia realistically does not do so either (apart from the occasional rhetorical slap on the wrist), such a provoked atrocity could set Israel up to ask the US to attack western Syria and under such a situation the US might oblige. Under such a worst case scenario, Israel could likely convince the US to blame Syria (and by extrapolation Russia) for a provocation that objectively was engineered by Tel Aviv.
While western Syria still has the proverbial “life insurance policy” of multiple Russian men and weapons on its territory that neither the US nor Israel would dare to attack, the US did twice attack western Syria (albeit with limited results) in the spring of 2018 as well as in the spring of 2017. At a time when multiple factions in Syria and the Astana trio of Turkey, Russia and Iran are firmly focused on forming a constitutional committee to draft a new Syrian Constitution that will form the basis of new elections held in line with UN Security Council Resolution 2254 – the last thing that anyone wants (except Israel) is an escalation in any military action in the country.
With all of this in mind, it would seem that the only option possible that could be taken to save human life that is being recklessly endangered by Israel’s cowardly behaviour, is to re-route all civilian flights approaching the busy Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport so that incoming flights enter Lebanese airspace from the north rather than the east. Of course this will increase flight times, costs to air carriers and inconvenience some people, but this is ultimately a small price to pay given Israel’s track record of negligence when it comes to using civilian aircraft as shields during its acts of aggression against a neighbouring state.
At the time when MH-17 was shot down over Donbass, I went on record saying that such a flight should have never been allowed to fly over a war zone where it was well known that missiles capable of downing an aircraft were in full operation. Ultimately, it was this negligent act of routing the doomed flight over that war zone that could have and should have presented the last clear chance to avoid the tragedy that unfolded. Sadly, air traffic controllers did not take advantage of the last clear chance available to them and tragedy struck.
Lebanese authorities must therefore work with international partners to temporarily re-route all incoming and outgoing civilian air traffic as anything less would represent a substantial risk that is simply not worth taking.
2018-12-27 - Israeli warplanes return to Syrian border after Damascus strikes
https://www.almasdarnews.com/articl...turn-to-syrian-border-after-damascus-strikes/
The Israeli Air Force has returned to the Syrian-Lebanese border after launching airstrikes over western Damascus on Christmas.
According to a source in Damascus city, Israeli warplanes were spotted flying along the Syrian border with Lebanon’s Jabal Al-Sheikh (var. Mount Hermon) region.
The source said that the Israeli warplane had entered Lebanon’s Nabatieh Governorate in the south before making their way to the Jabal Al-Sheikh region this evening.
The last time the Israeli Air Force launched an attack on western Damascus, they used this flight path from southern Lebanon.
2018-12-27 - Syrian military denies Israeli claims of bombing Iranian base
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/syrian-military-denies-israeli-claims-of-bombing-iranian-base/
A source from the Syrian military told Al-Masdar News on Thursday that Israel’s claims of bombing an Iranian base in west Damascus are false.
According to the source in Damascus city, the Israeli military struck the 4th Armored Division’s ammo storage in the large town of Qatana.
The source said no Iranian and Hezbollah military personnel were at the 4th Armored Division base, adding that only Syrian soldiers were present at the time of the bombing.
As a result of the Israeli Air Force attack on the town of Qatana, one Syrian Arab Army (SAA) soldier was killed and three others were badly wounded.
The Israeli Air Force managed to destroy the 4th Armored Division’s base on Christmas, causing several explosions that could be heard from as Damascus city.
The Syrian, Lebanese, and Russian governments have all condemned the Israeli attack, while accusing them over using civilian airplanes as cover when facing the Syrian military’s air defenses.
Israel has confirmed carrying out the airstrikes in Syria on Christmas; they would also deny using the civilian airplanes for cover during the attack.
2018-12-27 - Turkey reveals locations of French military bases in Syria
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/turkey-reveals-locations-of-french-military-bases-in-syria/
For the second time this year, the Turkish state-owned media has revealed the locations of the French military bases in Syria.
“In four of nine military locations the French are protected by Americans, and in the rest, they operate under the protection of PKK,” the Anadolu Agency said.
The article highlighted the French bases that were mostly located in Syria’s northeastern region, including the border governorate of Al-Hasakah.
According to an article from state-owned Anadolu Agency,
a total of 200 French soldiers that are located in the Coalition areas are mostly reliant on the U.S. troops for logistical support.
Previously, the Anadolu Agency released the locations of the French bases in the Deir Ezzor Governorate.
These bases in Deir Ezzor were mostly controlled by the U.S. military, but they allowed for the French Army to use these installations in the battle against the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL/IS/Daesh).
2018-12-27 - Google forced to delete custom-made map of Kurdistan amid pressure from Turkey
https://www.almasdarnews.com/articl...e-map-of-kurdistan-amid-pressure-from-turkey/
Google has taken out a map of Kurdistan from My Maps, a service that enables users to create custom maps with their own notes and lines.
The map in question showed the borders of Kurdistan, a historical region inhabited predominantly by Kurds, superimposed on the borders of Turkey, Syria, and Iran.
According to the Kurdistan-based media group
Rudaw, the tech giant’s move came in response to a complaint from the Turkish government — something that a senior official has confirmed.
“The Information Technology and Communications Body (BTK) has met with the platform [Google]’s relevant representatives for the immediate removal of the mentioned map as part of their obligations in terms of national and international legislation”, said Turkish Transport and Infrastructure Minister Cahit Turan.
Yavuz Agiralioglu, an MP from the right-wing İyi Parti (Good Party), complained that the map violated the Turkish borders, accusing it of being “at the service of terrorist organizations”.
“The most dangerous Turk is the one looking at the map. We laid the Earth flat under our feet and only walked… Let those who fancy dividing our country with fake maps look at our historical record”, the nationalist MP said, apparently nodding at the Armenian Genocide of 1915.
The Kurds are an ethnic minority group living in parts of Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran — and are considered the largest stateless nation in the world. There are an estimated 15 million Kurds in Turkey (over 18 percent of the country’s population).
Various Kurdish insurgent groups have sought autonomy or even separation from Turkey for decades, but authorities in Ankara have opposed the creation of a separate Kurdish state.
The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which demands the establishment of an independent Kurdistan, has been at war with the government since 1984 and is designated as a terrorist organization in Turkey.
December 26, 2018 - US Withdrawal from Syria Paves Way for Israeli Strikes
US Withdrawal from Syria Paves Way for Israeli Strikes - Global Research
The US suddenly and unexpectedly announced the withdrawal of US troops from Syria after years of illegally occupying the country. The US presence aimed at ousting the Syrian government, boosting militant groups the US and its partners have armed and backed since the 2011 conflict started, and denying Damascus access to its own resources, particularly oil concentrated east of the Euphrates River.
The US occupation of Syria is only one part of a much larger, decades-long campaign of achieving, maintaining, and expanding US hegemony across North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia – as well as the ultimate goal of encircling and containing both Russia and China.
A genuine withdrawal from the Syrian conflict would signal a seismic shift in US foreign policy and mark an irreversible decline in American hegemony.
It is difficult to believe such a seismic shift could happen, and so suddenly.
It is also a shift not founded in US foreign policy or fact.
There are several key possibilities to consider:
- A US withdrawal paves way for unilateral Israeli strikes;
- It also paves the way for an expanded Turkish incursion;
- US troops won’t be on the ground as targets in the immediate aftermath of any wider conflict Israel or Turkey provokes;
- US troops can re-enter theater with renewed pretext to fight Damascus directly in defense of allies Israel or Turkey and;
- US troops can re-enter theater along the better formed and protected front Turkey seeks to create.
The above possibilities are drawn not from speculation, but from multiple US policy papers spanning decades.
US Withdrawal From Syria Removes Obstructions to Escalation, Not Peace
US policymakers have drawn up plans for years regarding US primacy in the Middle East. In the 2009 policy paper published by corporate-financier funded think tank – the Brookings Institution – the use of US proxies like Israel to carry out major attacks on Iran were given its own chapter.
However, the only obstruction to this option was the necessity of Israeli warplanes to fly over either US-ally Jordan or US-occupied Iraq.
The report would claim under a chapter titled, “Leave it to Bibi: Allowing or Encouraging an Israeli Military Strike” (.pdf) that (emphasis added):
An Israeli air campaign against Iran would have a number of very important differences from an American campaign. First, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) has the problem of overflight transit from Israel to Iran. Israel has no aircraft carriers, so its planes must take off from Israeli air bases. It also does not possess long-range bombers like the B-1 or B-2, or huge fleets of refueling tankers, all of which means that unlike the United States, Israel cannot avoid flying through someone’s air space. The most direct route from Israel to Iran’s Natanz facility is roughly 1,750 kilometers across Jordan and Iraq. As the occupying power in Iraq, the United States is responsible for defending Iraqi airspace.
It would also state (emphasis added):
From the American perspective, this negates the whole point of the option—distancing the United States from culpability—and it could jeopardize American efforts in Iraq, thus making it a possible nonstarter for Washington. Finally, Israeli violation of Jordanian airspace would likely create political problems for King Abdullah of Jordan, one of America’s (and Israel’s) closest Arab friends in the region. Thus it is exceedingly unlikely that the United States would allow Israel to overfly Iraq, and because of the problems it would create for Washington and Amman, it is unlikely that Israel would try to fly over Jordan.
And finally, the Brookings paper would claim (emphasis added):
An Israeli attack on Iran would directly affect key American strategic interests. If Israel were to overfly Iraq, both the Iranians and the vast majority of people around the world would see the strike as abetted, if not authorized, by the United States. Even if Israel were to use another route, many Iranians would still see the attack as American supported or even American orchestrated. After all, the aircraft in any strike would be American produced, supplied, and funded F-15s and F-16s, and much of the ordnance would be American made. In fact, $3 billion dollars in U.S. assistance annually sustains the IDF’s conventional superiority in the region.
Thus, by removing US troops from Iraq regarding 2009 US plans to have Israel strike Iran then – or to have US troops withdrawn from Syria to distance the US from culpability ahead of Israeli strikes in the near future – the US can remove this critical obstruction toward greater escalation and even major war – not toward peace.
As to what the US would do in the wake of a supposedly “unilateral” Israeli strike – Brookings had an answer for that too (emphasis added):
However, as noted in the previous chapter, the airstrikes themselves are really just the start of this policy. Again, the Iranians would doubtless rebuild their nuclear sites. They would probably retaliate against Israel, and they might retaliate against the United States, too (which might create a pretext for American airstrikes or even an invasion). And it seems unlikely that they would cease their support for violent extremist groups or efforts to overturn the regional status quo in the aftermath of Israeli airstrikes. Their opposition to an Arab-Israeli peace treaty would likely be redoubled. Hence the United States would still need a strategy to handle Iran after completion of the Israeli airstrikes, and this could mean a much longer time frame to achieve all of America’s goals.
This policy within a Syrian context could mean major, unprecedented Israeli strikes on Syrian targets – a major escalation from previous and more limited strikes – but avoiding Russian targets, under the assumption Moscow will fall short of retaliating to avoid full-scale war.
Israel has already made its intentions clear that it will continue confronting “Iran” in Syria after the withdrawal of US forces.
Any retaliation by Damascus – real or staged – will be used to bring the US back into the conflict with a wider claimed pretext to take on Damascus directly – with the added benefit of not having US troops on the ground serving as easy targets in the immediate fallout of a much larger conflict.
Turkey Too?
There is also Turkey to consider – a nation that has played a central role in facilitating the proxy war against Syria since it began in 2011. US policymakers have included Turkey in tandem with Israel as two coordinating pressure points against Damascus for decades.
A 1983 document signed by former CIA officer Graham Fuller titled, “
Bringing Real Muscle to Bear Against Syria” (PDF), states (their emphasis):
Syria at present has a hammerlock on US interests both in Lebanon and in the Gulf — through closure of Iraq’s pipeline thereby threatening Iraqi internationalization of the [Iran-Iraq] war. The US should consider sharply escalating the pressures against Assad [Sr.] through covertly orchestrating simultaneous military threats against Syria from three border states hostile to Syria: Iraq, Israel and Turkey.
The report also states:
If Israel were to increase tensions against Syria simultaneously with an Iraqi initiative, the pressures on Assad would escalate rapidly. A Turkish move would psychologically press him further.
More recently, US policymakers in 2012 Brookings Institution document titled, “
Saving Syria: Assessing Options for Regime Change” (PDF), which stated (emphasis added):
Some voices in Washington and Jerusalem are exploring whether Israel could contribute to coercing Syrian elites to remove Asad.
The report continues by explaining (emphasis added):
Israel could posture forces on or near the Golan Heights and, in so doing, might divert regime forces from suppressing the opposition. This posture may conjure fears in the Asad regime of a multi-front war, particularly if Turkey is willing to do the same on its border and if the Syrian opposition is being fed a steady diet of arms and training. Such a mobilization could perhaps persuade Syria’s military leadership to oust Asad in order to preserve itself.
Regarding events on the ground now – Turkey is already signaling its intentions to enter Syria east of the Euphrates and expand its military occupation across more Syrian territory.
Turkish forces entering into Syria would serve as a front against Syrian forces in the outbreak of wider war with supply lines protected all the way to the Turkish border and deep into Turkish territory. US forces re-entering the theater can do so from Turkey and avoid being cut off in US bases currently scattered across eastern Syria.
Whether or not Russia and Iran have created a sufficient amount of incentives and deterrents to place between Turkey and its continued role in destabilizing Syria since then remains to be seen. Only Moscow, Tehran, and Damascus can know what deals they have with Ankara and where its apparent plans to enter Syrian territory fit into them.
Empire Dies Hard
US involvement in Syria was always aimed at eventually undermining, encircling, containing, and eventually overthrowing first Iran, then closing around Russia further.
Unless we are to believe the US has abandoned its wider hegemonic ambitions – and there is no evidence to suggest that it has – it is irrational and ill-advised to believe the US is truly walking away from Syria without plans to dangerously escalate the conflict while minimizing its own culpability.
The United States has gone from an uncontested global superpower at the end of the Cold War, to an increasing dangerous, desperate fading hegemon today. The weaker it appears, the more unpredictable and dangerous its actions are becoming. A genuine withdrawal from Syria would neither fit America’s current global ambitions, nor fit its recent pattern of increasingly dangerous and desperate policies implemented from Eastern Europe to the Middle East and North Africa, into Central Asia, and across East Asia.
A skeptical public leaves no room for the US to capitalize on the apparent “good will” the US is trying to cultivate through its supposed withdrawal from Syria ahead of provocations by proxy it will have fully underwritten and will immediately move to exploit toward greater war.
