On March 30th (30/3/16) the Indian manufacturing giant Tata announced that they were putting the Port Talbot steelworks in South Wales, UK up for sale. With no apparent buyer this places 4,000 jobs at risk in an already impoverished area. As such it has been one of the main stories within UK politics over the past month.
I've avoided commenting on it up until now because it is a complex issue and I am rather busy. Plus I don't have much to bring in the way of good news.
During the debate much has been made of Britain's proud history of steel making which stretches back almost 200 years. However during the steel industry's heyday the UK also had a vibrant mining industry producing not only the raw materials such as Iron ore needed to make steel but also the coal to power the furnaces.
With that now all gone the UK is in a position where it has to import all the raw materials and then try to sell the finished steel back to the nations the raw materials came from at a lower price than it costs them to make the steel themselves. To me that doesn't sound like a particularly sustainable business model. It also discredits the claim that the UK governments needs to protect the steel industry as a strategic asset. After all in a war or in the face of an economic collapse it would still be easier for the UK to just import the finished steel rather than all the raw materials.
With the Paris Agreement on climate change being opened for signing and ratification last Friday (22/4/16) there is one element of the Port Talbot debate that I do need to comment on. The increased costs of energy that have been brought about by so-called "Green Taxes" as part of the Kyoto Protocol - the forerunner of the Paris Agreement.
I should start by pointing out that this element has been somewhat overstated. Energy costs including the costs of raw materials only account for around 6% of the Port Talbot plants total expenditure. That works out at around £60,000 of the £1million the plant is losing every week. As such I don't think it is the decisive factor.
Also the UK participates in the Kyoto Protocol as part of the European Union (EU). Therefore if the German steel industry or the Italian steel industry aren't also in crisis then the problem isn't with the Kyoto Protocol. Instead it is with the way the UK government has chosen to implement the Kyoto Protocol.
That said these green taxes - Carbon Pricing as its known in the jargon - have never been a particularly effective tool in reducing Green House Gas (GHG) emissions. The problem is that they bear absolutely no relation to the cost of reducing GHG emissions or the costs of adapting to the effects of climate change. Instead they're completely arbitrary and therefore open to abuse by the governments that set them.
Carbon pricing was introduced in the UK by the New Labour government of Tony Blair. That government's entire election was based on the promise of increased public spending but no increases in taxes - particularly income tax. In order to deliver on the promise Blair's government introduced a vast array of what are termed "Stealth Taxes" such as green taxes on energy production. These tax revenues obviously boosted the amount of money the government had to spend whilst at the same time they were protecting the environment rather than breaking their tax pledge.
One of the main problems currently facing the global steel industry is China's subsidy of their own steel industry. Essentially the Chinese government is paying to produce steel at a loss so it can continue to create new jobs. Although China - the World's largest emitter of GHG's - is currently growing its emissions rather than taking steps to reduce them such as setting green taxes it should be easy to see how they would use carbon pricing to give a further boost to their steel industry. They simply make sure the carbon price they set is much lower than their competitors.
The solution to this would be to replace carbon pricing with a market based mechanism - sometimes known as Cap and Trade. This would mean that if you are in an industry such as steel making that produces a lot of GHG emissions you would have to pay a nation like Brazil to preserve their Rainforests in order to scrub those emissions out of the atmosphere.
This would obviously drive up the cost of production for energy intensive industries such as steel making. However it would do so globally with the cost being determined by supply and demand meaning that it would be impossible for one nation to gain a competitive advantage over another.
The main barrier to introducing a global market based mechanism has been the Kyoto Protocol itself.
It requires only 36 nations - 28 of them EU member states - to take action to reduce the GHG emissions. So although a prototype carbon market has developed within the EU this doesn't produce enough demand to sustain itself. Also the market doesn't include nations like Brazil that would provide the supply of what are termed Carbon sinks.
The hope then was that not only would the Paris Agreement replace the Kyoto Protocol but it would go further obligating more nations to participate in a market based mechanism strengthening that market in order to make it self-sustaining.
The problem arose in the form of US President Barack Obama.
The US of course did not sign up to the Kyoto Protocol and Obama has made it a key part of his legacy that he wants to be the first US President to sign up to a global climate change agreement. Obviously that would be a hard task for him. Not only would he have to win over the climate change deniers in Congress who will block anything that will harm the profits of the fossil fuel companies that pay for their campaigns Obama would also have to make sure the new agreement removed the problems that gave the US legitimate grounds not to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol.
Unfortunately Obama doesn't like hard work so he went in a different direction.
In October 2015 - two months before negotiations closed - the US ripped up everything that everybody had been working on for the past five years. In its place they introduced a draft that kept the main problem with the Kyoto Protocol - known as; "Binary Differentiation" - but removed any legal obligation on any party to actually uphold the agreement. In short Obama introduced a version of the Kyoto Protocol that was so watered down he thinks he can bypass Congress and ratify it into law by executive order. He even managed to get that bit wrong.
Not only does the Paris Agreement fail to expand the obligation to reduce GHG emissions beyond the 36 nations of the Kyoto Protocol it actually removes the obligation on those 36 because there are no longer any consequences if they don't comply. This obviously permanently removes the demand needed for a market based mechanism killing the idea stone dead.
Due to this failure many governments have rushed to tout Carbon Pricing as a solution with some 90 nations including some sort of Green Tax plan. This newfound drive towards stealth taxes that do nothing to reduce GHG emissions has been led both by Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. When Obama first took up office everyone in the UK quickly realised that they'd seen it all before in the form of Tony Blair. Trudeau has been touted as "Canada's Obama" and is very much in that style over substance mould of politics.
The other advantage of a market based mechanism is that it would provide a ready stream of income to poor nations such as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). This would allow them to adapt to the effects of climate change and develop their economies in an environmentally sustainable manner. With that option being killed off by the Paris Agreement it has been suggested that the void could be filled by what are termed Private Finance Initiatives (PFI's). These are another one of Tony Blair's scams.
Essentially rather than having to pay for public infrastructure such as hospitals upfront private companies pay for them under PFI's with no initial cost to the taxpayer. The government then rents the infrastructure from the private company on a long term basis. As the recent closure of 17 schools in Edinburgh, Scotland demonstrates these PFI's very nearly destroyed the UK economy. The private companies do substandard work for a huge profit before the taxpayer has to pay again to actually provide the service.
As such forcing impoverished nations without strong political and anti-corruption systems to rely on PFI's to help them adapt to climate change is rather like sending lambs to the slaughter. The Bloomberg group however seem to really like the idea.
With last Friday's signing ceremony for the Paris Agreement owing nothing to efforts to combat climate change and everything to Obama's ego it is telling that Obama didn't attend. Instead he was on an official visit to the UK primarily to visit the Queen.
The day before Obama's visit the Queen celebrated her 90th birthday. Obviously being invited to a private audience with her so soon after such an important event would be considered both a huge honour and a mark of respect. On his visit Obama was also offered the chance to write an article for the Daily Telegraph newspaper and give an in depth interview for the BBC on the subject of the UK's upcoming referendum on remaining part of the EU. It is fitting with Obama's ego that he would think that he alone could alter the outcome of the vote.
Having appeared to have tricked Obama into boycotting the signing ceremony for the Paris Agreement the UK then seemed to turn the entire visit into a spirited protest against the Paris Agreement.
At around 17:15 on 25/4/16 (UK date) I will be back to expand on that after dinner.
Edited at around 18:35 on 25/4/16 (UK date) to add;
In the week proceeding Obama's visit the UK suddenly became rather noisy. For example it was announced that British police still believed they could find Madeline McCann alive.
For me at least global climate change negotiations have been heavily intertwined with the fate of my grandmother. I actually ended up spending three of the last five Conference of Parties (COP) Summits arguing the case in the Court of Protection (COP). On the final occasion the case was heard by the same Judge who ruled that Madeline McCann is still alive. Needless to say there are significant question marks over her integrity and competence.
At roughly the same time British popstar Lily Allen gave a series of media interviews after a man was convicted of harassing/stalking her. Although I've only actually met her a couple of times many of those occasions were on "Mayday" anti-capitalist protests which were covered by extensive police surveillance. As such Lily Allen and I are cross-referenced in each other MI5 files.
The big disruption for the 2013 COP19 Summit was Rihanna's Diamonds World Tour. This caused me to become utterly obsessed with Rihanna's every move constantly searching for secret messages she'd hidden in her songs, video and social media posts. I suspect the longterm objective was that this would lead to me getting into some sort of legal/medical trouble.
On the day of the ceremony the British theme park Alton Towers plead guilty to negligence charges over a crash on their "Smiler" ride on June 2nd 2015 (2/6/16). That was an attempt by the UK to disrupt the June SB42 meeting at which final climate change negotiations were taking place. If the UK hadn't been so disruptive maybe the Paris Agreement wouldn't have been so terrible.
Later in the day a sort of crime mystery emerged with the discovery of two bodies at an address on May Street in Hull, UK.
With the exception of the Alton Towers apology there didn't seem to be any rhyme nor reason to all this noise. Instead the purpose was to disrupt the Paris Agreement signing ceremony by putting pressure on everybody to search for a meaning that didn't exist.
The best bit about this effort was that the US was forced to join in adding to the confusion.
On Thursday (21/4/16) in the US state of Delaware a 16 year old girl was beaten to death in a high school bathroom by a group of girls some of whom filmed the attack on their cell phones. This was a reference to my so-called lesbian wife. It almost goes without saying that the rest of Britain's lesbian community did not take news of the marriage in good grace.
The fact the killing occurred in the bathroom is a reference gender neutral bathrooms debate that is currently going on in the US. Obviously being able to use phrases like "lesbian wife" I have things that I could contribute to this debate. Not that I can be bothered.
On Friday (22/4/16) 8 people were found dead in a mass shooting in the US state of Ohio. Obviously when that news flashes up without any other detail people immediately start wondering what the cause could be with terrorism being very high up on the list.
Also Obama has made gun control a major part of his legacy. So there was some interest to see whether he would cancel his press conference with UK Prime Minister in order to exploit the tragedy to further his agenda as he has done with so many other mass shootings. The shooting occurred in an area known as "Union Hill." I suspect that name comes from the area supporting the Union forces against the Confederate forces during the US civil war. Through his constant race baiting Obama seems intent on starting the next US civil war.
After two days of mystery is was revealed yesterday (24/4/16) that the shootings had taken place at an illegal Marijuana farm hinting that the killings were linked to organised crime. Although I'm not sure how much detail I want to go into I am somewhat familiar with the fringes of that World. While it didn't involve me directly this became a bit of an issue during COP19 due to a much less dramatic shooting.
Since Friday the US has been trying to style out the situation by continuing the noise to give the impression that there was some urgent discussion going on rather than Obama being tricked into protesting his own legacy. For example on Saturday (23/4/16) night there was another evacuation on the Red Line of Washington D.C's Metro system. This was intended to look like a discussion about the terror threat facing Europe and an apology for the lack on communication.
Despite the noisy and spectacular protest the UK then went and contradicted itself by signing the Paris Agreement. As with any other signatory to the agreement this doesn't place any real obligation on the UK to do anything about climate change.
However it does make it more difficult should we decide we want to do something about climate change at some point in the future.
19:30 on 25/4/16 (UK date).
Monday, 25 April 2016
Tuesday, 19 April 2016
Operation Featherweight: Month 21, Week 4, Day 4.
On Saturday April 9th (9/4/16) the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) entered the centre of the city of Hit. By April 11th (11/4/16) they had secured the centre of the city from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Last Thursday (14/4/16) the ISF fully liberated the city.
Obviously there is still work to be done clearing the city of the hundreds of landmines and Improvised Explosive Devices (IED's) that ISIL have left behind along with clearing the last few pockets of resistance between Hit and Haditha. However the liberation of Hit marks a significant victory for the ISF because it allows them to open the Highway 12 road that runs between Haditha some 65km (40 miles) to the north-west and Ramadi which sits around 50km (30 miles) to the south-east.
Crucially this will allow free movement between Ramadi and the Al-Baghdadi Air Base some 30km (20 miles) north-west of Hit when the US-led coalition - Combined Joint Task Force: Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTFOIR) - has been training members of the ISF.
With Hit liberated it raises the question of where the ISF should focus their efforts on liberating next. The obvious choice is the city of Fallujah. This represents ISIL's last significant area of occupation in Anbar province sitting between Ramadi 50km (30 miles) to the west and the Iraqi capital Baghdad 50km (30 miles) top the east.
Then of course there is the outstanding matter of the so-called Hawija triangle. This is a triangle of ISIL occupied territory centred around the town of Hawija between the cities of Tikrit, Kirkuk and the town of Baiji some 265km (160 miles) north of Baghdad.
Liberating Fallujah will be the harder task. When the US launched a operation to capture Fallujah back in the spring of 2004 it took a force of roughly 2,200 made up of well equipped and elite units such as the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions alongside 1st Marine Expeditionary Group and two Special Forces groups almost 4 weeks to defeat an enemy nowhere near as entrenched and motivated as ISIL. The second battle in the winter of 2004 involved roughly 13,000 US & coalition troops and lasted almost 12 weeks.
However as a major population centre and therefore source of tax revenue Fallujah is the bigger prize. Plus the liberation of Fallujah will effectively mean the complete liberation of Anbar province allowing the ISF to focus the bulk of their efforts elsewhere.
Unfortunately the US still seems utterly focused on forcing the ISF to rush ahead with an operation to liberate the city of Mosul - some 400km (240 miles) north of Baghdad - despite there still being so much unfinished business. As ISIL's de facto capital in Iraq Mosul will be even harder to liberate than Fallujah.
The operation will also have to involve close cooperation between the ISF, the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga and the Shia militias that are collectively known as the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF). More than two years in these groups seem to be being driven further apart by the pressure of the ISIL occupation of Iraq.
Yesterday (18/4/16) the US Secretary of Defence Ash Carter visited Iraq and used the opportunity to announce that a further 217 US ground troops will be sent to Iraq. Despite US President Obama's pledge of no boots on the ground this will bring the total number of US troops deployed to Iraq to over 4,000.
It is understood that some of these additional troops will be Special Forces operators who will be training ISF and Peshmerga troops. However the majority will be support staff for an unspecified number of AH-64 Apache helicopter gunships that the US will also be deploying.
Although it has not been officially stated the purpose of this latest deployment seems intended to put pressure on the ISF to begin an operation to liberate Mosul. This is despite the operation to liberate a number of villages centred around al-Nasr (Nasser) that sit between the town of Makhmur and Mosul being suspended indefinitely. Likewise a PMF operation to clear ISIL from the village of Bashir close to the town of Taza some 10km (6 miles) south of Kirkuk has also been aborted amid heavy casualties.
Fortunately there is absolutely no reason why those Apaches can't be used in operations to liberate other areas of Iraq such as Fallujah or the Hawija triangle. For the operation to liberate Fallujah they could be conveniently stationed at either Baghdad Airport of Al-Baghdadi Air Base.
As I've covered extensively on March 31st (31/3/16) the Army of Conquest coalition used the Geneva peace talks as cover to launch a largescale offensive across large areas of the north-west of Syria.
The Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF) is of course a coalition of Sunni extremist groups headed by Al Qaeda's Syrian affiliate Al Nusra Front (ANF) alongside groups such as the Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant/Harakat Ahrar as-Sham al-Islamiyya (Ahrar al-Sham) and the Army of Islam/Jaish al-Islam (JAI). They are joined by the Syrian Turkmen Brigades (STB) which itself is a coalition within a coalition made up of groups such as the Falcons of the Levant/Suqur al-Sham and the Levant Legion/Faylaq al-Sham.
Centred in a roughly 100km (60 mile) stretch of the Syria/Turkey border between Azaz in the west and the Euphrates River in the east known as "Erdogan's Pocket" which functions as their main supply route this latest Army of Conquest offensive has been focused on forcing Syrian government forces - the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) - out of Aleppo province. On the borders between Aleppo, Latakia and Idlib provinces this immediately brought the Army of Conquest into conflict with the SAA particularly around villages in the Latakia mountains on the border with Turkey.
Within Aleppo province itself the Army of Conquest's offensive seems focused on first surrounding and then capturing the provincial capital - Aleppo City.
To this end the Army of Conquest have advanced to occupy villages on the high ground surrounding the city. From there they have been launching repeated artillery barrages against the Kurdish controlled Sheikh Maqsood district which is under the protection of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) - the main anti-ISIL force within Syria. These have included at least two chemical weapons attacks. The Army of Conquest have also been moving to capture and cut the main M5 Highway that links Aleppo City with the rest of Syria.
On April 12th (12/4/16) the Army of Conquest's advance on the M5 Highway brought them into contact with the SAA who were able to stop the advance driving the Army of Conquest back from the town of Al-Eis. Since then the SAA have launched a counter-offensive focused on securing the areas around the 214 Highway and the Tel Rifat road which both run north from Aleppo City to Azaz. The intention seems to be to end the Army of Conquest's offensive by cutting their supply lines between Erdogan's Pocket and Aleppo City.
On April 13th (13/4/16) Syrians went to the polls in their Parliamentary election. Although the results are yet to be formally announced it is expected that the incumbent Ba'ath Party of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will win by a large margin. After all anyone who is voting is likely to have already decided that they support the Syrian government.
In order to distract from Syria's Parliamentary election and the deep support for the Syrian government that it shows the United Nations (UN) of all people decided to resume the Geneva peace talks on April 13th (13/4/16). Due to the election the Syrian government delegation did not attend those resumed talks and won't do so until the election is complete.
On Sunday (17/4/16) one of the lead negotiators for the High Negotiations Committee (HNC) which is opposed to the Syria government Mohammed Alloush - who also happens to be the head of the Army of Islam - declared the talks to be dead. He went on to call for the Army of Conquest coalition to ignite on all fronts urging them to strike at the throats of supporters of the Syrian government invoking a Qu'ranic verse that calls for the death of unbelievers.
On Monday (18/4/16) the Army of Conquest obliged Alloush and announced that it is launching a fresh offensive against the Syrian government they have named "Retaliation For Grievances." For the most part it has been impossible to distinguish this new offensive from the Army of Conquest offensive that has been ongoing since March 31st (31/3/16). However it seems to have triggered new fighting in Hama province centred around the town of Hakura close to the border with Latakia province.
Later on Monday (18/4/16) the rest of the HNC used the offensive they had launched as reason to withdraw from the Geneva talks. However their delegation will remain in Switzerland in order to participate in what they term "technical talks."
On Thursday (21/4/16) both US President Obama and US Secretary of State John Kerry will attend the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It is of course Saudi Arabia that formed the HNC for the Geneva talks on Syria.
As such it should be obvious that this Army of Conquest offensive and HNC walkout have been carefully staged in order to put pressure on the US to re-affirm at the GCC Summit that the purpose of the Geneva talks is not to bring peace to Syria. Instead it is simply another mechanism alongside war to overthrow the Syrian government and install the Army of Conquest in power in the country.
If Obama wants to bring peace to Syria it is clear what he needs to do.
17:25 on 19/4/16 (UK date).
Obviously there is still work to be done clearing the city of the hundreds of landmines and Improvised Explosive Devices (IED's) that ISIL have left behind along with clearing the last few pockets of resistance between Hit and Haditha. However the liberation of Hit marks a significant victory for the ISF because it allows them to open the Highway 12 road that runs between Haditha some 65km (40 miles) to the north-west and Ramadi which sits around 50km (30 miles) to the south-east.
Crucially this will allow free movement between Ramadi and the Al-Baghdadi Air Base some 30km (20 miles) north-west of Hit when the US-led coalition - Combined Joint Task Force: Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTFOIR) - has been training members of the ISF.
With Hit liberated it raises the question of where the ISF should focus their efforts on liberating next. The obvious choice is the city of Fallujah. This represents ISIL's last significant area of occupation in Anbar province sitting between Ramadi 50km (30 miles) to the west and the Iraqi capital Baghdad 50km (30 miles) top the east.
Then of course there is the outstanding matter of the so-called Hawija triangle. This is a triangle of ISIL occupied territory centred around the town of Hawija between the cities of Tikrit, Kirkuk and the town of Baiji some 265km (160 miles) north of Baghdad.
Liberating Fallujah will be the harder task. When the US launched a operation to capture Fallujah back in the spring of 2004 it took a force of roughly 2,200 made up of well equipped and elite units such as the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions alongside 1st Marine Expeditionary Group and two Special Forces groups almost 4 weeks to defeat an enemy nowhere near as entrenched and motivated as ISIL. The second battle in the winter of 2004 involved roughly 13,000 US & coalition troops and lasted almost 12 weeks.
However as a major population centre and therefore source of tax revenue Fallujah is the bigger prize. Plus the liberation of Fallujah will effectively mean the complete liberation of Anbar province allowing the ISF to focus the bulk of their efforts elsewhere.
Unfortunately the US still seems utterly focused on forcing the ISF to rush ahead with an operation to liberate the city of Mosul - some 400km (240 miles) north of Baghdad - despite there still being so much unfinished business. As ISIL's de facto capital in Iraq Mosul will be even harder to liberate than Fallujah.
The operation will also have to involve close cooperation between the ISF, the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga and the Shia militias that are collectively known as the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF). More than two years in these groups seem to be being driven further apart by the pressure of the ISIL occupation of Iraq.
Yesterday (18/4/16) the US Secretary of Defence Ash Carter visited Iraq and used the opportunity to announce that a further 217 US ground troops will be sent to Iraq. Despite US President Obama's pledge of no boots on the ground this will bring the total number of US troops deployed to Iraq to over 4,000.
It is understood that some of these additional troops will be Special Forces operators who will be training ISF and Peshmerga troops. However the majority will be support staff for an unspecified number of AH-64 Apache helicopter gunships that the US will also be deploying.
Although it has not been officially stated the purpose of this latest deployment seems intended to put pressure on the ISF to begin an operation to liberate Mosul. This is despite the operation to liberate a number of villages centred around al-Nasr (Nasser) that sit between the town of Makhmur and Mosul being suspended indefinitely. Likewise a PMF operation to clear ISIL from the village of Bashir close to the town of Taza some 10km (6 miles) south of Kirkuk has also been aborted amid heavy casualties.
Fortunately there is absolutely no reason why those Apaches can't be used in operations to liberate other areas of Iraq such as Fallujah or the Hawija triangle. For the operation to liberate Fallujah they could be conveniently stationed at either Baghdad Airport of Al-Baghdadi Air Base.
As I've covered extensively on March 31st (31/3/16) the Army of Conquest coalition used the Geneva peace talks as cover to launch a largescale offensive across large areas of the north-west of Syria.
The Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF) is of course a coalition of Sunni extremist groups headed by Al Qaeda's Syrian affiliate Al Nusra Front (ANF) alongside groups such as the Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant/Harakat Ahrar as-Sham al-Islamiyya (Ahrar al-Sham) and the Army of Islam/Jaish al-Islam (JAI). They are joined by the Syrian Turkmen Brigades (STB) which itself is a coalition within a coalition made up of groups such as the Falcons of the Levant/Suqur al-Sham and the Levant Legion/Faylaq al-Sham.
Centred in a roughly 100km (60 mile) stretch of the Syria/Turkey border between Azaz in the west and the Euphrates River in the east known as "Erdogan's Pocket" which functions as their main supply route this latest Army of Conquest offensive has been focused on forcing Syrian government forces - the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) - out of Aleppo province. On the borders between Aleppo, Latakia and Idlib provinces this immediately brought the Army of Conquest into conflict with the SAA particularly around villages in the Latakia mountains on the border with Turkey.
Within Aleppo province itself the Army of Conquest's offensive seems focused on first surrounding and then capturing the provincial capital - Aleppo City.
To this end the Army of Conquest have advanced to occupy villages on the high ground surrounding the city. From there they have been launching repeated artillery barrages against the Kurdish controlled Sheikh Maqsood district which is under the protection of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) - the main anti-ISIL force within Syria. These have included at least two chemical weapons attacks. The Army of Conquest have also been moving to capture and cut the main M5 Highway that links Aleppo City with the rest of Syria.
On April 12th (12/4/16) the Army of Conquest's advance on the M5 Highway brought them into contact with the SAA who were able to stop the advance driving the Army of Conquest back from the town of Al-Eis. Since then the SAA have launched a counter-offensive focused on securing the areas around the 214 Highway and the Tel Rifat road which both run north from Aleppo City to Azaz. The intention seems to be to end the Army of Conquest's offensive by cutting their supply lines between Erdogan's Pocket and Aleppo City.
On April 13th (13/4/16) Syrians went to the polls in their Parliamentary election. Although the results are yet to be formally announced it is expected that the incumbent Ba'ath Party of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will win by a large margin. After all anyone who is voting is likely to have already decided that they support the Syrian government.
In order to distract from Syria's Parliamentary election and the deep support for the Syrian government that it shows the United Nations (UN) of all people decided to resume the Geneva peace talks on April 13th (13/4/16). Due to the election the Syrian government delegation did not attend those resumed talks and won't do so until the election is complete.
On Sunday (17/4/16) one of the lead negotiators for the High Negotiations Committee (HNC) which is opposed to the Syria government Mohammed Alloush - who also happens to be the head of the Army of Islam - declared the talks to be dead. He went on to call for the Army of Conquest coalition to ignite on all fronts urging them to strike at the throats of supporters of the Syrian government invoking a Qu'ranic verse that calls for the death of unbelievers.
On Monday (18/4/16) the Army of Conquest obliged Alloush and announced that it is launching a fresh offensive against the Syrian government they have named "Retaliation For Grievances." For the most part it has been impossible to distinguish this new offensive from the Army of Conquest offensive that has been ongoing since March 31st (31/3/16). However it seems to have triggered new fighting in Hama province centred around the town of Hakura close to the border with Latakia province.
Later on Monday (18/4/16) the rest of the HNC used the offensive they had launched as reason to withdraw from the Geneva talks. However their delegation will remain in Switzerland in order to participate in what they term "technical talks."
On Thursday (21/4/16) both US President Obama and US Secretary of State John Kerry will attend the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It is of course Saudi Arabia that formed the HNC for the Geneva talks on Syria.
As such it should be obvious that this Army of Conquest offensive and HNC walkout have been carefully staged in order to put pressure on the US to re-affirm at the GCC Summit that the purpose of the Geneva talks is not to bring peace to Syria. Instead it is simply another mechanism alongside war to overthrow the Syrian government and install the Army of Conquest in power in the country.
If Obama wants to bring peace to Syria it is clear what he needs to do.
17:25 on 19/4/16 (UK date).
Sunday, 17 April 2016
The Earth Seems Furious.
On Friday (22/4/16) nations will gather at the United Nations (UN) building in New York City, US to sign the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.
Otherwise known as the 12/12 Atrocity this is the agreement that was drawn up on December 12 2015 (12/12/15) at the close of the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held in Paris, France.
So far 130 nations have confirmed that they will be attending Friday's signing ceremony. With the European Union (EU) being amongst them these signatories will be enough to bring the agreement into force. This will represent one of the greatest environmental crimes ever committed.
If the war against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) permits then I would like to go through the agreement line-by-line detailing everything that is wrong with it. However the text of the agreement has not changed since COP21. Therefore the fatal flaws I identified at the time have not been resolved.
The main problem with the 12/12 Atrocity is that it requires only the 36 states that ratified the Kyoto Protocol (KP) to take action to reduce their Green House Gas (GHG) emissions. However even this small group will be placed under less of an obligation to take action because unlike the KP this new agreement is not legally binding and contains no enforcement mechanism to punish those who fail to meet their obligations.
Two crucial countries that are not covered by this new agreement as China and India. Based on 2013 figures these are the largest and the fourth largest emitters of GHG's on the planet. With China and India not only being under no obligation to cut their GHG emissions but actually being given permission to increase them the 12/12 Atrocity will do absolutely nothing to stop or in any way mitigate global warming.
It will though create an unlevel playing field distorting the global market place in China and India's favour allowing them to massively expand their economies at the expense of the 36 nations who ratified the KP - essentially the EU.
On Wednesday (13/4/16) a 6.9 magnitude struck northern Myanmar (Burma) right on the border with China. This 'quake was felt across both China and India putting those two nations firmly in the spotlight. Myanmar is one of the extremely oppressive South-East Asian nations that the US opening up as a free trade partner in order to undercut China's growing economic power. Quite how the US reconciles that with the signing of the Paris agreement is beyond me.
On Thursday (14/4/16) a 6.2 magnitude earthquake struck Japan. This was quickly followed by a 6.5 magnitude 'quake. However these were just foreshocks for the 7.1 magnitude earthquake that struck Japan on Friday (15/4/16).
With the Kyoto Protocol being named after Kyoto, Japan where is was drawn up it almost goes without saying that Japan was one the first of the 36 nations to ratify it. Given the increasing tensions between Japan and its neighbour China - particularly over the South China Seas - it does seem odd that Japan would hand China a massive economic advantage by ratifying the 12/12 Atrocity.
The other main fatal flaw with the Paris agreement is that it places an unsustainable burden on the least developed nations. Under the agreement they are required to submit new Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) plans every five years. These plans will have to include full inventories of all GHG emission sources and absorption sinks.
For a nation such as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) this means completely cataloguing a Rainforest roughly the same size as the nation of Spain or twice the size of the US state of Oregon. This is simply an impossible task for them.
At the same time as placing an undue burden on them the 12/12 Atrocity also massively reduces the funding available for the developing nations to meet even their existing burdens by completely removing the possibility of a global emissions trading scheme. After all if no-one is under any obligation to reduce their GHG emissions there's no market for the carbon credits that the DRC has to sell.
Although they are in no way caused by climate change earthquakes provide a stark contrast in the way that developed and developing nations are able to adapt and respond to environmental hazards.
An environmental hazard that is caused by climate change is the emerging famine in Africa's Sahel Belt. The first warnings about this were issued in the autumn of 2015 and UN Security Council (UNSC) briefings were held in January 2016. However it is only now that we're starting to see the effects of this crisis start to emerge in the form of malnourished people. It will be several months before we will start seeing the large numbers of deaths that we know are coming because it takes at least 6 weeks to starve to death.
By contrast in an earthquake the majority of the death and destruction is caused in an instant meaning we can see it immediately.
The reason why I've taken until now to comment on Japan's earthquakes is because I know they are a rich and technologically advanced nation well used to dealing with earthquakes. So while the 32 people who've died have my empathy I'm not sure of anything I can contribute to help the situation.
By contrast on April 25th 2015 (25/4/15) a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck the economically and technologically less developed nation of Nepal. Although only being 60 times more powerful than Friday's (15/4/16) earthquake in Japan this instantly killed around 8,000 people.
Today a 7.8 magnitude earthquake has struck Ecuador which includes the famous - amongst environmentalists - Galapagos Islands. So far this is confirmed to have killed 77 people and I while I mean them no offence I already know that the Ecuadorian governments is going to be no where near as effective as the Japanese governments.
While all this has been going on there have been a series of small, but significant, earthquakes affecting the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) such as Vanuatu in the south Pacific. These are the nations that will be most affected by the rising sea levels brought about by Climate Change.
11:05 on 17/4/16 (UK date).
Otherwise known as the 12/12 Atrocity this is the agreement that was drawn up on December 12 2015 (12/12/15) at the close of the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held in Paris, France.
So far 130 nations have confirmed that they will be attending Friday's signing ceremony. With the European Union (EU) being amongst them these signatories will be enough to bring the agreement into force. This will represent one of the greatest environmental crimes ever committed.
If the war against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) permits then I would like to go through the agreement line-by-line detailing everything that is wrong with it. However the text of the agreement has not changed since COP21. Therefore the fatal flaws I identified at the time have not been resolved.
The main problem with the 12/12 Atrocity is that it requires only the 36 states that ratified the Kyoto Protocol (KP) to take action to reduce their Green House Gas (GHG) emissions. However even this small group will be placed under less of an obligation to take action because unlike the KP this new agreement is not legally binding and contains no enforcement mechanism to punish those who fail to meet their obligations.
Two crucial countries that are not covered by this new agreement as China and India. Based on 2013 figures these are the largest and the fourth largest emitters of GHG's on the planet. With China and India not only being under no obligation to cut their GHG emissions but actually being given permission to increase them the 12/12 Atrocity will do absolutely nothing to stop or in any way mitigate global warming.
It will though create an unlevel playing field distorting the global market place in China and India's favour allowing them to massively expand their economies at the expense of the 36 nations who ratified the KP - essentially the EU.
On Wednesday (13/4/16) a 6.9 magnitude struck northern Myanmar (Burma) right on the border with China. This 'quake was felt across both China and India putting those two nations firmly in the spotlight. Myanmar is one of the extremely oppressive South-East Asian nations that the US opening up as a free trade partner in order to undercut China's growing economic power. Quite how the US reconciles that with the signing of the Paris agreement is beyond me.
On Thursday (14/4/16) a 6.2 magnitude earthquake struck Japan. This was quickly followed by a 6.5 magnitude 'quake. However these were just foreshocks for the 7.1 magnitude earthquake that struck Japan on Friday (15/4/16).
With the Kyoto Protocol being named after Kyoto, Japan where is was drawn up it almost goes without saying that Japan was one the first of the 36 nations to ratify it. Given the increasing tensions between Japan and its neighbour China - particularly over the South China Seas - it does seem odd that Japan would hand China a massive economic advantage by ratifying the 12/12 Atrocity.
The other main fatal flaw with the Paris agreement is that it places an unsustainable burden on the least developed nations. Under the agreement they are required to submit new Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) plans every five years. These plans will have to include full inventories of all GHG emission sources and absorption sinks.
For a nation such as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) this means completely cataloguing a Rainforest roughly the same size as the nation of Spain or twice the size of the US state of Oregon. This is simply an impossible task for them.
At the same time as placing an undue burden on them the 12/12 Atrocity also massively reduces the funding available for the developing nations to meet even their existing burdens by completely removing the possibility of a global emissions trading scheme. After all if no-one is under any obligation to reduce their GHG emissions there's no market for the carbon credits that the DRC has to sell.
Although they are in no way caused by climate change earthquakes provide a stark contrast in the way that developed and developing nations are able to adapt and respond to environmental hazards.
An environmental hazard that is caused by climate change is the emerging famine in Africa's Sahel Belt. The first warnings about this were issued in the autumn of 2015 and UN Security Council (UNSC) briefings were held in January 2016. However it is only now that we're starting to see the effects of this crisis start to emerge in the form of malnourished people. It will be several months before we will start seeing the large numbers of deaths that we know are coming because it takes at least 6 weeks to starve to death.
By contrast in an earthquake the majority of the death and destruction is caused in an instant meaning we can see it immediately.
The reason why I've taken until now to comment on Japan's earthquakes is because I know they are a rich and technologically advanced nation well used to dealing with earthquakes. So while the 32 people who've died have my empathy I'm not sure of anything I can contribute to help the situation.
By contrast on April 25th 2015 (25/4/15) a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck the economically and technologically less developed nation of Nepal. Although only being 60 times more powerful than Friday's (15/4/16) earthquake in Japan this instantly killed around 8,000 people.
Today a 7.8 magnitude earthquake has struck Ecuador which includes the famous - amongst environmentalists - Galapagos Islands. So far this is confirmed to have killed 77 people and I while I mean them no offence I already know that the Ecuadorian governments is going to be no where near as effective as the Japanese governments.
While all this has been going on there have been a series of small, but significant, earthquakes affecting the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) such as Vanuatu in the south Pacific. These are the nations that will be most affected by the rising sea levels brought about by Climate Change.
11:05 on 17/4/16 (UK date).
Saturday, 16 April 2016
Operation Featherweight: Month 21, Week 4, Day 1.
Since the end of March fighting has resumed in northwestern Syria with the Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF) coalition launching a fresh offensive. Particularly centred around Aleppo province and its capital Aleppo City.
The Army of Conquest coalition is headed by Al Qaeda's Syrian affiliate Al Nusra Front (ANF). As such no group acting as part of the coalition is covered by ceasefire agreement. Syrian government forces - the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) - have belatedly begun a counter-offensive to stop the Army of Conquest in their tracks. You would expect them to be supported by the Russian Air Force in this effort.
The US though has been placing intense pressure on the Russians not to fight back and allow Al Qaeda seize control of Aleppo. On Tuesday (12/4/16) an unnamed CIA official gave an off the record briefing to reports declaring that if the Russians were to back the SAA in the battle for Aleppo then US President Barack Obama would supply Man Portable Air Defense Systems (MANPADS) - essentially "Stinger" missiles - to Al Qaeda to allow them to shoot down Russian aircraft.
This is not the first time this threat has been issued. There has been talk of supplying MANPADS to insurgent groups to shoot down Syrian aircraft pretty much continuously over the five years of the conflict. These calls intensified in October 2015 when Russia entered the conflict. In February 2016 a similar CIA briefing led the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) to publish a story about the plan. This seems to have been done to intimidate Russia into accepting the ceasefire agreement and scaling back its air operations at the end of that month.
On Tuesday (12/4/16) shortly after the CIA had briefed reporters two unarmed Russian Su-24 jets flew within 30 metres (100ft) at an altitude of 300 metres (1000ft) of the US warship the USS Donald Cook in the Baltic Sea. Although the aircraft were visibly unarmed this type of manoeuvre is consistent with a simulated attack on the ship.
You may remember that the Su-24 is the type of aircraft that was shot down by Turkey over Syria on November 24th 2015 (24/11/15). As such this seems intended to send the message to the US that doing something as reckless, provocative and dangerous as providing MANPADS to Al Qaeda in order to shoot down Russia aircraft would not be without consequence.
I think the Russians actually displayed great responsibility by keeping the discussion amongst highly trained military professionals rather than firing a warning shot at a civilian airliner with a MANPADS. After all that is the type of consequence we are talking about.
On Wednesday (13/4/16) US President Obama and his National Security Council (NSC) paid a visit to the CIA's headquarters. As such Tuesday's (14/4/16) CIA briefing seems intended to produce headlines that would publicly embarrass Obama over his failure to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and associated groups such as the Army of Conquest during that visit to the CIA.
Looking at the public remarks that Obama gave following his visit to the CIA it is easy to see why his strategy or complete lack thereof is giving the CIA plenty to protest about.
Obama once again attempted to justify his failure to act against ISIL and their associates on the grounds that they don't present "An existential threat to the US."
On this point Obama is quite correct because ISIL and their associates most certainly do exist and they certainly represent a real threat to the US. As such there are no existential questions to be asked about whether the US is trying to define its identity through the creation of an imaginary other.
However I suspect what Obama meant is that ISIL and their associates don't pose a threat to the complete existence of the the US. Again this is true but it completely misses the point.
During the Cold War the US did face a threat to its very existence in the form of nuclear war with the Soviet Union. During this period many calculations were made and strategies drawn up.
However it is generally understood that the US was prepared to seem up to 40 million of its population of 200 million killed in order to defeat the Soviet Union in a nuclear first-strike. In terms of the Soviets launching a first-strike the US estimated a death-toll in the region of 90-100 million until such an attack became unsurvivable for the nation as a whole.
I may be going soft in my old age but when it comes to protecting the US from terrorism I think the bar should be set a little lower than 50% of the population being wiped out before the President is prepared to take action.
Following the March 22nd (22/3/16) Brussels attacks US President Obama declined to attend a NATO summit on the attack on one of its members. He also declined to visit Belgium. Instead Obama pushed ahead with the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit (NSS) which is the last Nuclear Security Summit ever to be held.
The reason why NSS2016 is to be the last Nuclear Security Summit held is because the entire thing is simply a vanity project of the Obama Presidency which comes to an end in January 2017. It began at the start of Obama's Presidency back when he thought he would rid the World of nuclear weapons, bring peace to the Middle-East, end global warming and cure racism.
However over the years the Nuclear Security Summit process has developed into a mechanism for Obama's "Pivot Towards the Pacific" policy.
The objective of this policy is to contain the growing power of China by building the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK/North) into a nuclear bogeyman to the region. In order to get US protection to this existential threat South-East Asian nations must open themselves up to freetrade agreements with the US.
At the same time this places China in a difficult position because if the block US sanctions on the DPRK they risk looking like a threat to their neighbours. However is they support those sanctions they risk the economic collapse of the DPRK triggering a flood of refugees across the land border the two nations share that would make the current European refugee crisis look tame in comparison.
So in order to assess the success or failure of the US' policy on the DPRK's nuclear program you don't need to look at what type of warheads they're building or what type of rockets they're launching.
Instead you need to look at the fate of Chinese manufacturing firms who are being forced to outsource to nations like Vietnam and Cambodia in order to keep wages low. China's entire economic/political model is based on creating ever more, better paid jobs in order to stave off social unrest.
In order to justify pressing ahead with NSS2016 rather than meeting with NATO in response to the Brussels attacks the Obama administration was keen to play up the work it could do to keep nuclear materials out of the hands of groups like ISIL who would want to build a so-called "Dirty Bomb."
Building a dirty bomb has long been an aspiration of various Islamist terror groups and something that ISIL seem very keen to do. Amongst the intelligence collected in the aftermath of the Brussels attack was evidence that the terror network had been researching various nuclear sites across Europe. However it must be said that the attraction of dirty bombs to terrorists comes not from their ability to cause largescale death and destruction but because of the fear they create.
A dirty bomb is simply a conventional bomb that disperses radioactive material across a wide area. As such how dangerous a particular dirty bomb is depends very much on the type of nuclear material it disperses. If it is something like granite that is used in most buildings then the terrorists would be better off just setting off a larger conventional bomb.
However even if a dirty bomb were to contain a powerful beta/gamma emitter such as Caesium-137 which is produced through the fission of Uranium-235 in a nuclear reactor it is unlikely it would immediately cause more deaths than the initial explosion.
About 9 months to a year after the attack though you would start to see birth defects emerging. Then 4-5 years later you would start to see a spike in childhood cancers. 20-30 years you would also see an spike in adult cancers. During this time the explosion site would have to be sealed off to humans much like the areas around the Chernobyl nuclear plant or the Fukashima nuclear plant.
Terrorists and Islamist terrorists such as ISIL in particular are very motivated by what is known as; "The Propaganda of the Deed." This means they want the fear and frankly terror off their attacks to echo far beyond the people who were actually caught up in them. By rendering parts or all of a major city uninhabitable for many years along with this generational fear of health problems such as cancer a dirty bomb represents a huge propaganda victory for terrorists.
However if ISIL and their associates just wanted to kill large numbers of people they would simply continue their work on chemical weapons which they are already using in both Syria and Iraq.
Probably the most potent chemical weapon is a nerve agent known simply as "VX."
This was developed by a civilian chemical company in, I think, the 1920's who were working on a pesticide. However they discovered that the compound they'd developed was so lethal they immediately stopped work on it. Britain resumed work on VX in the 1940/50's specifically to use it as a chemical weapon. The technology was traded with the US it return for the atom bomb because as a weapon it is equivalent to a nuclear bomb.
Assuming professional grade gas properly dispersed into the atmosphere as little as 10grams (0.3oz) of VX released in a major city could rapidly kill in the region of 70-80,000 people. This is equivalent to the atomic bomb being dropped on Hiroshima. A very sticky substance VX is also notoriously hard to clean up meaning that it would be a lenghty and expensive process to decomaninate the affected area.
As with the twin bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki twin VX attacks on two major US cities would not on their own before enough to wipe America out of existence. However I think Obama or any President would have a very hard time justifying the 160,000 civilians deaths let alone the long term economic impacts.
What is particularly worrying about VX is that the base substance it is synthesised from is an industrial grade Organophosphate pesticide. Although their use was largely discontinued in the 1990's there is still rather a lot of it still in circulation and if you've got the skill you can certainly synthesise your own Organophosphate from widely available base chemicals.
Even below the threat of VX there are still much less potent nerve agents such as Sarin that are even easier to manufacture. Even a Sulphur Mustard Gas attack on a crowded area such as a sports stadium would still be pretty nasty.
So I don't think that Obama has, in any way, grasped the threat posed by groups like ISIL let alone the need to eliminate them before these doomsday scenarios start becoming a reality.
15:35 on 16/4/16 (UK date).
The Army of Conquest coalition is headed by Al Qaeda's Syrian affiliate Al Nusra Front (ANF). As such no group acting as part of the coalition is covered by ceasefire agreement. Syrian government forces - the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) - have belatedly begun a counter-offensive to stop the Army of Conquest in their tracks. You would expect them to be supported by the Russian Air Force in this effort.
The US though has been placing intense pressure on the Russians not to fight back and allow Al Qaeda seize control of Aleppo. On Tuesday (12/4/16) an unnamed CIA official gave an off the record briefing to reports declaring that if the Russians were to back the SAA in the battle for Aleppo then US President Barack Obama would supply Man Portable Air Defense Systems (MANPADS) - essentially "Stinger" missiles - to Al Qaeda to allow them to shoot down Russian aircraft.
This is not the first time this threat has been issued. There has been talk of supplying MANPADS to insurgent groups to shoot down Syrian aircraft pretty much continuously over the five years of the conflict. These calls intensified in October 2015 when Russia entered the conflict. In February 2016 a similar CIA briefing led the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) to publish a story about the plan. This seems to have been done to intimidate Russia into accepting the ceasefire agreement and scaling back its air operations at the end of that month.
On Tuesday (12/4/16) shortly after the CIA had briefed reporters two unarmed Russian Su-24 jets flew within 30 metres (100ft) at an altitude of 300 metres (1000ft) of the US warship the USS Donald Cook in the Baltic Sea. Although the aircraft were visibly unarmed this type of manoeuvre is consistent with a simulated attack on the ship.
You may remember that the Su-24 is the type of aircraft that was shot down by Turkey over Syria on November 24th 2015 (24/11/15). As such this seems intended to send the message to the US that doing something as reckless, provocative and dangerous as providing MANPADS to Al Qaeda in order to shoot down Russia aircraft would not be without consequence.
I think the Russians actually displayed great responsibility by keeping the discussion amongst highly trained military professionals rather than firing a warning shot at a civilian airliner with a MANPADS. After all that is the type of consequence we are talking about.
On Wednesday (13/4/16) US President Obama and his National Security Council (NSC) paid a visit to the CIA's headquarters. As such Tuesday's (14/4/16) CIA briefing seems intended to produce headlines that would publicly embarrass Obama over his failure to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and associated groups such as the Army of Conquest during that visit to the CIA.
Looking at the public remarks that Obama gave following his visit to the CIA it is easy to see why his strategy or complete lack thereof is giving the CIA plenty to protest about.
Obama once again attempted to justify his failure to act against ISIL and their associates on the grounds that they don't present "An existential threat to the US."
On this point Obama is quite correct because ISIL and their associates most certainly do exist and they certainly represent a real threat to the US. As such there are no existential questions to be asked about whether the US is trying to define its identity through the creation of an imaginary other.
However I suspect what Obama meant is that ISIL and their associates don't pose a threat to the complete existence of the the US. Again this is true but it completely misses the point.
During the Cold War the US did face a threat to its very existence in the form of nuclear war with the Soviet Union. During this period many calculations were made and strategies drawn up.
However it is generally understood that the US was prepared to seem up to 40 million of its population of 200 million killed in order to defeat the Soviet Union in a nuclear first-strike. In terms of the Soviets launching a first-strike the US estimated a death-toll in the region of 90-100 million until such an attack became unsurvivable for the nation as a whole.
I may be going soft in my old age but when it comes to protecting the US from terrorism I think the bar should be set a little lower than 50% of the population being wiped out before the President is prepared to take action.
Following the March 22nd (22/3/16) Brussels attacks US President Obama declined to attend a NATO summit on the attack on one of its members. He also declined to visit Belgium. Instead Obama pushed ahead with the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit (NSS) which is the last Nuclear Security Summit ever to be held.
The reason why NSS2016 is to be the last Nuclear Security Summit held is because the entire thing is simply a vanity project of the Obama Presidency which comes to an end in January 2017. It began at the start of Obama's Presidency back when he thought he would rid the World of nuclear weapons, bring peace to the Middle-East, end global warming and cure racism.
However over the years the Nuclear Security Summit process has developed into a mechanism for Obama's "Pivot Towards the Pacific" policy.
The objective of this policy is to contain the growing power of China by building the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK/North) into a nuclear bogeyman to the region. In order to get US protection to this existential threat South-East Asian nations must open themselves up to freetrade agreements with the US.
At the same time this places China in a difficult position because if the block US sanctions on the DPRK they risk looking like a threat to their neighbours. However is they support those sanctions they risk the economic collapse of the DPRK triggering a flood of refugees across the land border the two nations share that would make the current European refugee crisis look tame in comparison.
So in order to assess the success or failure of the US' policy on the DPRK's nuclear program you don't need to look at what type of warheads they're building or what type of rockets they're launching.
Instead you need to look at the fate of Chinese manufacturing firms who are being forced to outsource to nations like Vietnam and Cambodia in order to keep wages low. China's entire economic/political model is based on creating ever more, better paid jobs in order to stave off social unrest.
In order to justify pressing ahead with NSS2016 rather than meeting with NATO in response to the Brussels attacks the Obama administration was keen to play up the work it could do to keep nuclear materials out of the hands of groups like ISIL who would want to build a so-called "Dirty Bomb."
Building a dirty bomb has long been an aspiration of various Islamist terror groups and something that ISIL seem very keen to do. Amongst the intelligence collected in the aftermath of the Brussels attack was evidence that the terror network had been researching various nuclear sites across Europe. However it must be said that the attraction of dirty bombs to terrorists comes not from their ability to cause largescale death and destruction but because of the fear they create.
A dirty bomb is simply a conventional bomb that disperses radioactive material across a wide area. As such how dangerous a particular dirty bomb is depends very much on the type of nuclear material it disperses. If it is something like granite that is used in most buildings then the terrorists would be better off just setting off a larger conventional bomb.
However even if a dirty bomb were to contain a powerful beta/gamma emitter such as Caesium-137 which is produced through the fission of Uranium-235 in a nuclear reactor it is unlikely it would immediately cause more deaths than the initial explosion.
About 9 months to a year after the attack though you would start to see birth defects emerging. Then 4-5 years later you would start to see a spike in childhood cancers. 20-30 years you would also see an spike in adult cancers. During this time the explosion site would have to be sealed off to humans much like the areas around the Chernobyl nuclear plant or the Fukashima nuclear plant.
Terrorists and Islamist terrorists such as ISIL in particular are very motivated by what is known as; "The Propaganda of the Deed." This means they want the fear and frankly terror off their attacks to echo far beyond the people who were actually caught up in them. By rendering parts or all of a major city uninhabitable for many years along with this generational fear of health problems such as cancer a dirty bomb represents a huge propaganda victory for terrorists.
However if ISIL and their associates just wanted to kill large numbers of people they would simply continue their work on chemical weapons which they are already using in both Syria and Iraq.
Probably the most potent chemical weapon is a nerve agent known simply as "VX."
This was developed by a civilian chemical company in, I think, the 1920's who were working on a pesticide. However they discovered that the compound they'd developed was so lethal they immediately stopped work on it. Britain resumed work on VX in the 1940/50's specifically to use it as a chemical weapon. The technology was traded with the US it return for the atom bomb because as a weapon it is equivalent to a nuclear bomb.
Assuming professional grade gas properly dispersed into the atmosphere as little as 10grams (0.3oz) of VX released in a major city could rapidly kill in the region of 70-80,000 people. This is equivalent to the atomic bomb being dropped on Hiroshima. A very sticky substance VX is also notoriously hard to clean up meaning that it would be a lenghty and expensive process to decomaninate the affected area.
As with the twin bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki twin VX attacks on two major US cities would not on their own before enough to wipe America out of existence. However I think Obama or any President would have a very hard time justifying the 160,000 civilians deaths let alone the long term economic impacts.
What is particularly worrying about VX is that the base substance it is synthesised from is an industrial grade Organophosphate pesticide. Although their use was largely discontinued in the 1990's there is still rather a lot of it still in circulation and if you've got the skill you can certainly synthesise your own Organophosphate from widely available base chemicals.
Even below the threat of VX there are still much less potent nerve agents such as Sarin that are even easier to manufacture. Even a Sulphur Mustard Gas attack on a crowded area such as a sports stadium would still be pretty nasty.
So I don't think that Obama has, in any way, grasped the threat posed by groups like ISIL let alone the need to eliminate them before these doomsday scenarios start becoming a reality.
15:35 on 16/4/16 (UK date).
Friday, 15 April 2016
Operation Featherweight: Month 21, Week 3, Day 7.
Having concentrated on the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant's (ISIL) main areas of operation in Syria and Iraq I need to take some time to focus on their third front: Europe.
On August 21st 2015 (21/8/15) a Moroccan member of ISIL - Ayoud El Khazzani - boarded a Thayls high speed train travelling through Belgium en route from the Netherlands to France. He carried with him an AK-47 assault rifle and a 9mm handgun along with 270 rounds of ammunition for both. He also carried with him a container of petrol.
Shortly after boarding the train El Khazzani emerged from the toilets brandishing his weapons and started attack passengers. In the first carriage he entered his assault rifle jammed and he was confronted by two American passenger both of whom had military training and combat experience. With the help of other passengers they overpowered El Khazzani bringing his attack to an end.
Without that extraordinary good fortune El Khazzani would have been able to unleash one of the worst acts of violence seen in either the Netherlands, Belgium or France since the end of the Second World War. Even before you factor in the use of firearms an accelerant fire aboard a crowded train travelling at speeds approaching 300km/h (185mph) represents a significant threat to life.
Very early on in the investigation it became apparent that El Khazzani had been operating as part of a wider ISIL network. This network was headed by Abdelhamid Abaaoud and was based in the Molenbeek district of the Belgian capital Brussels. It had previously been linked to a March 24th 2014 (24/3/14) attack on a Jewish museum in Brussels in which four people were killed.
Despite this the Belgian authorities seemingly did very little to eradicate the ISIL network and the threat that it posed.
On November 13th 2015 (13/11/15) seven ISIL members attacked multiple targets in the French capital Paris including the Stade de France stadium and the Bataclan theatre with assault rifles, grenades and suicide bombs. During the course of these attacks they murdered 130 people.
Again the Paris massacres were quickly linked to the ISIL network headed by Abaaoud that was operating out of the Molenbeek district of Brussels. On November 18th (18/11/15) French police tracked Abaaoud to an apartment in the Saint-Denis district of Paris where he was killed in a raid. His right-hand man Saleh Abdeslam though was able to flee France back to Brussels.
Again the Belgian authorities seemingly did very little to eradicate the ISIL network and the threat that it posed despite being forced to deploy troops to the streets and introduce a nationwide lockdown due to that threat.
With nothing happening for several months on March 15th 2016 (15/3/16) the French police seemed to force the Belgian authorities hand by leading a joint raid on an apartment the Forest district of Brussels which is adjacent to the Molenbeek district where the ISIL were known to be based.
During the raid French and Belgian police came under heavy, suppressing fire which allowed Abdeslam and another man to escape. After the gunman - Mohamed Belkaid - had been killed and the apartment searched the police discovered automatic weapons and detonators along with documents and flags linking the property to ISIL.
On March 18th (18/3/16) again as part of a French led operation Saleh Abdeslam was finally captured in Brussels. To the surprise of absolutely no-one he was found to be hiding in the Molenbeek district where local residents attacked police with rocks and petrol bombs in an effort to protect Abeslam.
Four days after the arrest of Abdeslam on Tuesday March 22nd (22/3/16) four ISIL members launched triple suicide bomb attacks against Brussels' Zaventerm Airport and the city's underground rail (Metro) system. 32 civilians were murdered in these attacks and a further 316 were wounded.
Again the Belgian authorities response to the worst ever terror attack on their country was lackadaisical at best.
Take for example their hunt for the fourth, surviving attacker who quickly became dubbed "The Man in the Hat."Initially the Belgian authorities identified this man as Faycal Cheffou and arrested him on March 24th (24/3/16).
"Faycal" is the Turkish spelling of the common Arabic name "Faisal."
All of the attackers in Paris, Brussels and aboard the Thayls train had travelled through Turkey to join ISIL in Syria. They also all travelled back through Turkey to Europe before carrying out their attacks.
One of the Zaventerm bombers in particular - Ibrahim El Bakraoui - seems to have been transported back to Europe by Turkey. Despite being a Belgian citizen he was deported back to the Netherlands at the end of June 2015. It took the Turkish authorities a further two weeks to notify the Belgians of this. That course of action by Turkey seemed intended to make it as difficult as possible for the Belgian authorities to intercept Ibrahim El Bakraoui on his return.
Four days prior to the Brussels attacks Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan gave a speech marking the end of the Gallipoli campaign in World War One. Although they won the battle this really marked the beginning of the end of the Ottoman Empire. The fact that Mustafa Kemal Ataturk who went on to form modern Turkey from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire is credited with the Gallipoli victory remains a source of anger for Erdogan's Justice & Development Party (AKP).
During his speech Erdogan spoke on the topic of terrorism and said simply; "Brussels will be next." Two days prior to the Brussels attacks on Sunday March 20th (20/3/16) Turkey dramatically called off the Istanbul football derby between Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe claiming that a terrorist attack was imminent. The day before the Brussels attacks on Monday March 21st (21/3/16) Turkey declared that it was aware of three ISIL suicide bombers who were about to launch an attack.
Cheffou is a self-styled citizen journalist. The rumour I've heard is that he was actually arrested outside police HQ whilst doing a report for his website about the manhunt for the Man in the Hat.
From the very start the war in Syria has been a propaganda war.
One of the most high profile combatants in the early phases was a self-styled citizen journalist by the name of Danny Dayem. This British national just happened to be in the Syrian city of Homs when the fighting started equipped with semi-professional quality broadcasting equipment. His role was to provide gruesome footage of the aftermath of fighting that were then picked up to mainstream media outlets who broadcasted them to a wider audience.
Dayem's 'reports' obviously didn't cover the context that had led up to the violence - such as the attacks against the Syrian police/military - and certainly didn't question whether any of the scenes had be faked. The professional media outlets such as CNN, BBC, ITN or Al Jazeera who really should know better re-broadcast Dayem's videos verbatim also without asking these basic questions about the credibility of Dayem's footage.
Dayem was far from alone in this effort. Almost immediately as the violence started western governments such as the US and the UK announced that they were sending no-lethal aid to the insurgents. By this they meant video cameras, audio recording equipment and satellite upload systems to aid the insurgents with the production of what is termed "Atrocity Propaganda." Under Hillary Clinton the US State Department even forced the Internet giant Google to provide special services to the insurgents.
Eventually these propaganda efforts developed into the Syrian Civil Defence (White Helmets) group who still provide most of the footage of Syrian government 'atrocities' to the western media.
The purpose of this atrocity propaganda was to radicalise the general public both domestically and in Syria against the Syrian government.
As such it is undeniable that this propaganda war has also played a significant role in tricking European citizens - particularly Sunni Muslims - into joining ISIL and carrying out terror attacks against Europe.
Therefore the arrest of Faycal Cheffou seemed to provide a discreet way for those in the business to discuss these issues.
However four days later the Belgian authorities sensationally dismissed all charges against Cheffou and released him. This seemed to send the message that Belgium did not consider the discussed issues to be relevant and was dismissing them.
Obviously there is a strong possibility that the Belgians had simply arrested the wrong man. Even so they could certainly managed their mistake better.
For example they could have held him for the maximum time allowed by law - around 1 week I think - and then released him on bail pending further investigations. Then they could have quietly dropped the matter either when the discussion had ended or they'd arrested the right person.
Last Friday (8/4/16) the Belgian authorities did arrest the actual Man in the Hat who they identified as Mohamed Abrini. Again to the surprise of absolutely no-one he was found hiding out in the Schaarbeek district of Brussels which is adjacent to the Molenbeek district. However the Belgians seem to have been reluctant to do even this.
Earlier in the day French authorities sensationally announced that they were releasing on bail another terror suspect. For the life of me I cannot remember this suspects name but he had driven Abrini to the airport to allow him to travel to join ISIL in the first place. Personally I think this reckless French decision was taken to protest US President Obama's far more reckless decision to effectively let Al Qaeda out on bail by resuming the Train & Equip program.
However the Belgian authorities seemed to respond by going; "If everyone knows where Abrini is hiding out we've got no choice other than to arrest him."
Having finally arrested him the speed at which the Belgian authorities made public the details of Abrini's interrogation was also surprising. Everybody who has undergone any level of counter-interrogation training - ISIL fighters certainly have - knows that eventually staying silent is not an option. Particularly when torture is involved. Therefore you've got to have a coherent cover story that you can 'reveal' to your interrogators in order to throw them off the scent.
Abrini's initially statements seem to be exactly of that nature. By claiming that the decision to attack Brussels had been taken at the last minute he seems to be trying to protect Turkey from further accusations of collusion. The claim that the Euro 2016 football tournament was the original target - a claim that was supported by the planted laptop - seemed intended to disrupt the tournament by increasing public fear. In short terrorism without the effort of actually having to launch an attack.
There are two possible explanations for the Belgian authorities lack of effort in response to the Brussels attacks.
Firstly Belgium has long been an aggressive supporter of both ISIL and the war against Syria.
As a percentage of the population Belgium has contributed more recruits to ISIL than any other nation - including Syria and Iraq. This is the result of the Belgian intelligence services recruiting young Muslim men and then sending them to Syria. The main complaint of the "Mothers of Molenbeek" group is that when they would report their sons as potential ISIL recruits the Belgian authorities would step in to assist in sending them to Syria rather than trying to stop them.
Having radicalised and recruited these young men for what they see as "Their War" the Belgian intelligence services obviously don't view them as an enemy or a threat to national security. Instead they view them as returning heroes and are therefore opposed to imprisoning them let alone blocking their return to Belgium.
Obviously the people who will recruit fighters for ISIL don't see things like the Brussels attacks as a tragedy. Instead they see them as an opportunity to increase their budgets and introduce increasingly repressive security measures that make them more powerful. That obviously gives them no incentive to stop the attacks.
Secondly Belgium has long been a fractured country. One part is made up of French speakers while the other is made up of Flemish speakers. The Flemish regions desire for independence has caused long term political stability within Belgium. Between June 2010 and December 2011 the country was unable to form a government for 589 days - almost two full years. This is a World Record.
Whilst Belgium was without a government it was up to the civil service to keep the country running on a day-to-day basis. In order to avoid exceeding their authority and becoming a dictatorship Belgium's civil servants weren't able to introduce new policies on things like security. Instead they were limited to keeping the existing policies going no matter how outdated they'd become.
Although Belgium does now have a government things remain fragile. This means that politicians are afraid of making bold decisions that would offend their coalition partners once again collapsing the government. Just this past week Belgium has opened a special prison wing for Islamist terrorists. This had been delayed for years and due to coalition wrangling has only been opened on condition that it holds no more than 4 prisoners at any one time.
Whatever the cause of the problem Belgium does need to rapidly sort itself out. Almost a month on from the Brussels attacks and five months on from the Paris Massacres NATO is still no closer to invoking its Article 5 mutual defence clause.
It is becoming increasingly clear that if ISIL are to be defeated and this terrorist threat lifted then US President Obama is going to need adult supervision.
15:50 on 15/4/16 (UK date).
Wednesday, 13 April 2016
Operation Featherweight: Month 21, Week 3, Day 5.
Today Syrians are going to the polls in a Parliamentary election.
If you've believed the western narrative of the Syria conflict being about an oppressed minority bravely protesting for democracy only to be cut down by a brutal dictatorship this is obviously quite difficult to understand.
However that narrative has always ignored the fact that Syria has long been one of the most democratic Arab nations in the Middle-East. Despite the civil war over the past five years the nation has tried to continue holding elections in accordance with its secular constitution.
The last Parliamentary election took place on May 7th 2012 (7/5/12) saw a 51% voter turn out which resulted in 8 parties and 77 independents being elected to Parliament with the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party securing a majority of 134 seats. The last Presidential election took place on June 3rd 2014 (3/6/14). It was contested by 24 candidates and saw a 73% voter turn out. The incumbent Bashar al-Assad was re-elected with 88% of votes cast.
Obviously the fact that Bashar al-Assad and the Ba'ath Party keep winning elections by popular vote presents a huge problem for the coalition of nations calling for the overthrow of Assad and the Syrian government. So they have moved to block this latest election by resuming the Geneva negotiations today.
Due to the elections the Syrian government delegation will not be attending the start of those talks. As such it seems the main topic of conversation during the first few days will be about how the foreign coalition can keep Assad and the Ba'ath Party off of any future ballots so the Syrian people don't have the option of re-electing them.
An area where Syrians will be prevented from voting for the Ba'ath Party or indeed any party at this is election is the north-western region of the country where fighting has resumed in the run-up to the election.
A large part of this renewed fighting has focused on the border between Idlib and Latakia provinces as the Islamist Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF) coalition try to capture positions in the Latakia mountains from the Syrian government.
Although fierce this renewed fighting doesn't seem to be yielding much in the way of results for either side in an area where fighting low ago slowed into the meat grinder of trench warfare. For example on Monday (11/4/16) the JAF advanced a few hundred metres/yards on villages centred around Agcabayir. Today the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) seems to have recovered the ground amid heavy artillery barrages by both sides.
The Army of Conquest coalition seem to be making more progress in Aleppo province. Here they have been steadily amassing some 10,000 fighters in the villages and fields surrounding the provincial capital - Aleppo City. Their objective seems to be cut the main M5 Highway running through Hama and Homs cities to Damascus - the Syrian capital. This will allow them to lay siege to the city.
Just before the February ceasefire came into effect at the time the SAA liberated the M5 Highway horror stories began to circulate about the humanitarian disaster that would unfold should Aleppo City be placed under siege by the SAA. If Aleppo City were to be placed under siege by the Army of Conquest the humanitarian catastrophe is likely to be much worse. The villages of Fuaa and Kafraya and the city of Deir ez-Zour have shown us what happens when civilian populations are placed under siege by JAF and their Islamist associates.
Fortunately on Sunday (10/4/16) the United Nations did finally see fit to deliver humanitarian aid to civilians trapped in Deir ez-Zour. They have also belatedly identified the need to deliver humanitarian aid to the Iraqi city of Fallujah where civilians are starving to death under siege from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
The far worse situation would arise if the Army of Conquest were allowed to enter Aleppo City.
The largest faction within the JAF coalition is Al Qaeda's Syrian affiliate the Al Nusra Front (ANF). Whenever they advance into an area massacres immediately follow. Just a quick Google search reveals the December 2013 Adra massacre where ANF slaughtered 100 Shia Muslim, Christian and Druze civilians in the town of Adra. The Qalib Loze massacre where 24 Druze were slaughtered in June 2015. The Abu al-Duhur massacre where ANF slaughtered 56 Shias in September 2015.
The actions of another significant faction within the Army of Conquest coalition - the Army of Islam/Jaish al-Islam (JAI) - are even more horrific.
In June of 2015 the JAI went on a rampage through numerous Shia, Christian and Druze villages in south-western Syria close to the Golan Heights killing hundreds of civilians. During this time they also released a propaganda video showing them executing members of ISIL on the grounds that ISIL were not doing enough to exterminate Syria's religious and ethnic minorities. This killing spree was only brought to an end when neighbouring Israel threatened to intervene to end it under pressure from its own domestic Druze population.
The Army of Islam have already given us a clear statement of intent of what they will do if they are allowed to enter Aleppo City.
On April 8th (8/4/16) the JAI launched a barrage of rockets containing chemical weapons agents in the Kurdish Sheikh Masqood neighbourhood of Aleppo City. They immediately claimed responsibility for this war crime claiming that it was the work of a rogue commander who would be punished. Yesterday (12/4/16) the Army of Islam launched another chemical weapons attack - believed to be Chlorine gas - against civilians in the Sheikh Masqood neighbourhood.
The Army of Islam is of course attending today's talks in Geneva as a "moderate opposition group."
Fortunately the JAF's advance has reached the point where it is now putting them in contact with the SAA. Yesterday (12/4/16) the SAA were able to liberate the town of Al-Eis on the outskirts of Aleppo City reducing the pressure on the M5 Highway keeping supply lines into the city open.
The reason for this recent resumption of fighting and the Army of Conquest coalition's strength in Aleppo province is the 100km (60 miles) stretch of territory along Syria's border with Turkey between Azaz in the west and the Euphrates River they control. Known as "Erdogan's Pocket" this is JAF and ISIL's main supply route in and out of Turkey. It was declared re-opened on March 28th (28/3/16) when the US Train & Equip program was resumed during an official Turkish visit to the US.
Over the last couple of days ISIL and Turkey have taken to exchanging light artillery fire between Azaz in Syria and Kilis in Turkey. The purpose of this fire has been to convince the outside world that Turkey and ISIL are enemies rather then allies in order to reduce pressure for the Erdogan's Pocket supply line to be closed.
For its part the US seems focused on exerting pressure on Russia to not assist the SAA in pushing the Army of Conquest all the way back from Aleppo City.
Yesterday (12/4/16) an unnamed CIA official gave an off the record briefing in which it was claimed that US President Barack Obama is seriously considering giving Man-Portable Air Defences Systems (MANPADS) - capable of shooting down civilian passenger jets - to Al Qaeda in order to allow them to seize Aleppo City.
Also yesterday (12/4/16) ISIL were able to seize control of around 80-90% of the Yarmouk camp for Palestinian refugees in the suburbs of Damascus. This of course provides further evidence of the collusion between the Army of Conquest and ISIL because the ANF faction of the JAF who were in control of Yarmouk simply switched allegiance and joined ISIL.
You may remember that the last time ISIL seized control of Yarmouk it triggered a humanitarian crisis so severe that a special campaign had to be launched by the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA).
16:40 on 13/4/16 (UK date).
If you've believed the western narrative of the Syria conflict being about an oppressed minority bravely protesting for democracy only to be cut down by a brutal dictatorship this is obviously quite difficult to understand.
However that narrative has always ignored the fact that Syria has long been one of the most democratic Arab nations in the Middle-East. Despite the civil war over the past five years the nation has tried to continue holding elections in accordance with its secular constitution.
The last Parliamentary election took place on May 7th 2012 (7/5/12) saw a 51% voter turn out which resulted in 8 parties and 77 independents being elected to Parliament with the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party securing a majority of 134 seats. The last Presidential election took place on June 3rd 2014 (3/6/14). It was contested by 24 candidates and saw a 73% voter turn out. The incumbent Bashar al-Assad was re-elected with 88% of votes cast.
Obviously the fact that Bashar al-Assad and the Ba'ath Party keep winning elections by popular vote presents a huge problem for the coalition of nations calling for the overthrow of Assad and the Syrian government. So they have moved to block this latest election by resuming the Geneva negotiations today.
Due to the elections the Syrian government delegation will not be attending the start of those talks. As such it seems the main topic of conversation during the first few days will be about how the foreign coalition can keep Assad and the Ba'ath Party off of any future ballots so the Syrian people don't have the option of re-electing them.
An area where Syrians will be prevented from voting for the Ba'ath Party or indeed any party at this is election is the north-western region of the country where fighting has resumed in the run-up to the election.
A large part of this renewed fighting has focused on the border between Idlib and Latakia provinces as the Islamist Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF) coalition try to capture positions in the Latakia mountains from the Syrian government.
Although fierce this renewed fighting doesn't seem to be yielding much in the way of results for either side in an area where fighting low ago slowed into the meat grinder of trench warfare. For example on Monday (11/4/16) the JAF advanced a few hundred metres/yards on villages centred around Agcabayir. Today the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) seems to have recovered the ground amid heavy artillery barrages by both sides.
The Army of Conquest coalition seem to be making more progress in Aleppo province. Here they have been steadily amassing some 10,000 fighters in the villages and fields surrounding the provincial capital - Aleppo City. Their objective seems to be cut the main M5 Highway running through Hama and Homs cities to Damascus - the Syrian capital. This will allow them to lay siege to the city.
Just before the February ceasefire came into effect at the time the SAA liberated the M5 Highway horror stories began to circulate about the humanitarian disaster that would unfold should Aleppo City be placed under siege by the SAA. If Aleppo City were to be placed under siege by the Army of Conquest the humanitarian catastrophe is likely to be much worse. The villages of Fuaa and Kafraya and the city of Deir ez-Zour have shown us what happens when civilian populations are placed under siege by JAF and their Islamist associates.
Fortunately on Sunday (10/4/16) the United Nations did finally see fit to deliver humanitarian aid to civilians trapped in Deir ez-Zour. They have also belatedly identified the need to deliver humanitarian aid to the Iraqi city of Fallujah where civilians are starving to death under siege from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
The far worse situation would arise if the Army of Conquest were allowed to enter Aleppo City.
The largest faction within the JAF coalition is Al Qaeda's Syrian affiliate the Al Nusra Front (ANF). Whenever they advance into an area massacres immediately follow. Just a quick Google search reveals the December 2013 Adra massacre where ANF slaughtered 100 Shia Muslim, Christian and Druze civilians in the town of Adra. The Qalib Loze massacre where 24 Druze were slaughtered in June 2015. The Abu al-Duhur massacre where ANF slaughtered 56 Shias in September 2015.
The actions of another significant faction within the Army of Conquest coalition - the Army of Islam/Jaish al-Islam (JAI) - are even more horrific.
In June of 2015 the JAI went on a rampage through numerous Shia, Christian and Druze villages in south-western Syria close to the Golan Heights killing hundreds of civilians. During this time they also released a propaganda video showing them executing members of ISIL on the grounds that ISIL were not doing enough to exterminate Syria's religious and ethnic minorities. This killing spree was only brought to an end when neighbouring Israel threatened to intervene to end it under pressure from its own domestic Druze population.
The Army of Islam have already given us a clear statement of intent of what they will do if they are allowed to enter Aleppo City.
On April 8th (8/4/16) the JAI launched a barrage of rockets containing chemical weapons agents in the Kurdish Sheikh Masqood neighbourhood of Aleppo City. They immediately claimed responsibility for this war crime claiming that it was the work of a rogue commander who would be punished. Yesterday (12/4/16) the Army of Islam launched another chemical weapons attack - believed to be Chlorine gas - against civilians in the Sheikh Masqood neighbourhood.
The Army of Islam is of course attending today's talks in Geneva as a "moderate opposition group."
Fortunately the JAF's advance has reached the point where it is now putting them in contact with the SAA. Yesterday (12/4/16) the SAA were able to liberate the town of Al-Eis on the outskirts of Aleppo City reducing the pressure on the M5 Highway keeping supply lines into the city open.
The reason for this recent resumption of fighting and the Army of Conquest coalition's strength in Aleppo province is the 100km (60 miles) stretch of territory along Syria's border with Turkey between Azaz in the west and the Euphrates River they control. Known as "Erdogan's Pocket" this is JAF and ISIL's main supply route in and out of Turkey. It was declared re-opened on March 28th (28/3/16) when the US Train & Equip program was resumed during an official Turkish visit to the US.
Over the last couple of days ISIL and Turkey have taken to exchanging light artillery fire between Azaz in Syria and Kilis in Turkey. The purpose of this fire has been to convince the outside world that Turkey and ISIL are enemies rather then allies in order to reduce pressure for the Erdogan's Pocket supply line to be closed.
For its part the US seems focused on exerting pressure on Russia to not assist the SAA in pushing the Army of Conquest all the way back from Aleppo City.
Yesterday (12/4/16) an unnamed CIA official gave an off the record briefing in which it was claimed that US President Barack Obama is seriously considering giving Man-Portable Air Defences Systems (MANPADS) - capable of shooting down civilian passenger jets - to Al Qaeda in order to allow them to seize Aleppo City.
Also yesterday (12/4/16) ISIL were able to seize control of around 80-90% of the Yarmouk camp for Palestinian refugees in the suburbs of Damascus. This of course provides further evidence of the collusion between the Army of Conquest and ISIL because the ANF faction of the JAF who were in control of Yarmouk simply switched allegiance and joined ISIL.
You may remember that the last time ISIL seized control of Yarmouk it triggered a humanitarian crisis so severe that a special campaign had to be launched by the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA).
16:40 on 13/4/16 (UK date).
Monday, 11 April 2016
Operation Featherweight: Month 21, Week 3, Day 3.
I should start with some good news from Iraq.
On Saturday (9/3/16) the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) continued their liberation of Hit by entering the centre of the city. Today they have confirmed that they have secured full control of that city centre. This brings them closer to taking full control of both the city and the Highway 12 road that runs through it linking the Ain al-Assad Air Base around 35km (20 miles) to the north-west with the recently liberated city of Ramadi around 50km (30 miles) to the south-east.
The slow and steady pace of the operation seems not to come from particularly stiff resistance by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Instead the ISF seem to be operating methodically in order to minimise the risk to Hit's civilian population and damage to the city itself. ISIL's main tactic seems to be to prevent civilians leaving the city by placing landmines and Improvised Explosive Devices (IED's) on the roads out of the city in order to target fleeing civilians and slow the ISF advance. Just today 6 people were killed and a further 12 wounded when an ISIL suicide bomber attacked civilians as they were escaping Hit.
Elsewhere in Iraq the operation was launched on March 24th (24/3/16) to liberate the villages centred around al-Nasr (Nasser) that sit between the Makhmour frontline and the city of Mosul now seems to be permanently on hold. Again I consider this to be a good thing because the US ordered operation seemed to be launched in order to steal headlines away from the Russian-backed liberation of Palmyra on March 27th (27/3/16) rather than for any legitimate strategic military reason. The ISF's seeming inability to fully finish one operation before starting another one has been a growing problem in efforts to liberate Iraq from ISIL.
A prime example of this has been the area of Saladin province between the provincial capital Tikrit, the town of Baiji 50km (30 miles) to the north and the city of Kirkuk 110km (65 miles) north-east of Tikrit which has become known as the "Hawija Triangle." Despite Tikrit being officially liberated back in the spring of 2015 ISIL was never fully expelled from the Hawija Triangle and they actually appear to be re-grouping in Saladin province after being forced out of Anbar province and the provincial capital Ramadi.
At the US' insistence the Shia militia's that are collectively known as the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) have been denied permission to participate in the liberation of the predominately Sunni Anbar province. They have also been denied permission to participate in the Makhmour operation. Finding themselves at a bit of a loose end on Sunday (10/4/16) the PMF decided to launch an operation of their own to drive ISIL out of the village of Bashir. This sits around 25km (15 miles) south-west of Kirkuk.
More crucially though Bashir sits around 8km (5 miles) south-west of the town of Taza and has been used to launch attacks on Taza's civilian population for almost two years now. This includes the chemical weapons attack of March 12th (12/3/16) that sparked mass protests.
As such this operation seems to be a particularly good use of the PMF's time. However only if it is intended as a defensive operation to force ISIL out of range of Taza's civilians rather than a larger operation to liberate Bashir and the surrounding area. That type of operation will require much more careful planning and again shouldn't be attempted while the Anbar operation is still ongoing.
To give you an idea of the complexity of such a wider operation it would appear that in the first day of the operation against Bashir alone the PMF have met stiff resistance from ISIL with around 100 PMF fighters being reported as killed, wounded or missing.
Despite the progress being made in Iraq the situation across the border in Syria seems to be deteriorating.
Turkish irregular forces known collectively as the "Syrian Turkmen Brigades (STB)" have continued their advances in an area known as "Erdogan's Pocket." Stretching for some 100km (60 miles) along Syria's border with Turkey between the town of Azaz in the west and the Euphrates River in the east this has become ISIL's main supply route with Turkey and something that Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan has become desperate to keep open.
On April 5th (5/4/16) the STB launched an offensive to expand their presence within Erdogan's Pocket by capturing a number of villages centred around Al-Rai which act as a gateway to the town of Cobaney. This sits right on the border with Turkey around 50km (30 miles) west of the Euphrates and controls a road that runs to Raqqa - ISIL's de facto capital in Syria. On Saturday (9/4/16) the STB entered Cobaney and declared themselves to be in control of the town.
However today is seems that the STB have ceded control of not just Cobaney but also Al-Rai and the surrounding villages back to ISIL.
In light of events since Saturday this could be an attempt to portray the STB as an opponent rather than an ally of ISIL. After all when Erdogan ordered the town of Marea to be ceded to ISIL back in August 2015 opening up Erdogan's Pocket there was a small amount of fighting in order to avoid it looking like control of the area being divided up between allies. However it may also be an early indication that the STB is to terminate its operation and Turkey is slowly coming to terms with the fact that Erdogan's Pocket is to be closed permanently.
Hopefully it is the latter because the STB operate as part of a wider coalition of extremist groups known as the Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF). Alongside the STB this includes Al Qaeda's affiliate Al Nusra Front (ANF), the Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant/Harakat Ahrar ash-Sham al-Islamiyya (Ahrar al-Sham) and the particularly extreme Army of Islam/Jaish al-Islam (JAI).
On March 28th (28/3/16) US President Barack Obama took the highly questionable decision to re-start the US' Train & Equip program to train and equip JAF at the start of an official Turkish visit to the US. Even before that week long visit had ended on April 3rd (3/4/16) the JAF took this as US permission to resume offensive operations in Syria's Aleppo province launching attacks on the frontlines with both Latakia and Homs provinces.
However the Army of Conquest's main focus seemed to be the Kurdish Sheikh Masqood neighbourhood of Aleppo City which is under the protection of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) - the main anti-ISIL force within Syria. Since April 2nd (2/4/16) this Kurdish area has come under sustained rocket and artillery fire by the JAF coalition. This onslaught included the April 8th (8/4/16) chemical weapons attack.
This renewed fighting poses a somewhat interesting question of whether the ceasefire that came into effect on February 26th (26/2/16) remains in effect or whether the US, Turkey and their Army of Conquest coalition have completely violated it rendering void.
On the one hand it has always been agreed that this ceasefire has never applied to ISIL, ANF or any other individual, group, undertaking or entity associated with either ISIL or ANF. The JAF are very clearly a group, undertaking or entity associated with ANF having fought alongside them for more than a year. So technically the ceasefire never applied to JAF in this area of north-western Syria or anywhere else in the World.
However this fresh JAF offensive over the past two weeks has certainly brought renewed fighting to an area where there had been no fighting since the end of February.
This obviously places great pressure on Turkey to show that it is part of the international coalition fighting against terrorism rather than a state sponsor of terrorism fighting against that international coalition. In the past Turkey has tried denying that it is supporting terrorism by staging bomb attacks against itself. The purpose being to show that it is a victim of terrorism that the international community should rally behind.
At the risk of boring everyone to tears I've recently started going back to the gym. At this early stage this requires a degree of forward planning. Not only do I need to find time to actually go to the gym I've also got to schedule recovery time in order to avoid getting injured. Last Wednesday (6/4/16) I was debating whether to go to the gym next on Friday (8/4/16) or yesterday (11/4/16). A large part of my decision was based on a presumption that Turkey would carry out its next bombing on Sunday (11/4/16) and I would have to deal with it today.
Across much of the Middle-East region including Israel the weekend is based on Jewish and Islamic law running from Friday to Saturday making Sunday the first day of the working week. In much of the rest of the World including Turkey the weekend runs from Saturday to Sunday making Monday the first day of the working week. Starting the working week on a Sunday by carrying out a bomb attack allows Erdogan's Justice & Development Party (AKP) to subtly show off their Islamist credentials.
Plus yesterday in particular Turkish Embassies staged anti-terrorism demonstrations across a number of European cities. Particularly in Germany and Belgium. Obviously though the "terrorism" the Turkish government was protesting about was the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the increasingly long and bizarre list of groups they claim are linked to the PKK. A faked terror attack on Turkey during those demonstrations would certainly have given the Turkish government plenty of opportunity to say; "We told you so."
It seems though I wasn't the only one aware of this and on Friday (8/4/16) Israel issued a warning to its citizens to leave Turkey because of an impending attack. In turn this prompted the US to issue a similar warning on Saturday (9/4/16). This mounting pressure seemed to have an effect with Turkey cancelling Sunday's big spectacular in favour of the small explosion of a stun grenade in Istanbul on Saturday.
At around 17:20 on 11/4/16 (UK date) I will be back to deal with that more fully.
Edited at around 18:40 on 11/4/16 (UK date) to add;
Rather than making any definitive statement this incident was intended more to pose questions.
It is debatable whether setting off a stun grenade counts as a terror attack so much as a public nuisance. However if you view it as an attack then its intended target was a bus/tram stop outside Trump Towers.
The significance of a bus/tram stop being targeted is the series of suicide bombings that struck bus/tram stops in the Russian city of Volgograd at the end of 2013 in the run up to the 2014 Winter Olympics that were held in near-by Sochi. By escalating the the conflict over the Nagorno-Karabkh region it is clear that Turkey intends to repeat this model to punish Russia for its opposition to ISIL, ANF and their associates in Syria.
On Friday (8/4/16) the Russian security services arrested an ISIL linked terror group - "Pallasovsky Assembly/Pallasovsky Jamaat" who were planning attacks in the Volgograd. The implication being that this group was supported by and working in conjunction with the Turkish government. Saturday's explosion provided Turkey with an opportunity to poll international reaction to this development.
The significance of Trump Towers being targeted is of course Donald Trump - the building's owner and presumptive Republican nominee for the 2016 US Presidential election.
Back in December 2015 presumptive Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton claimed that groups like ISIL and their associates were using Donald Trump as a recruiting tool. She was promptly humilated when she was asked to provide evidence to support this claim and was unable to do so.
In January 2016 the Al Qaeda linked Somali terror group Al-Shabaab decided to do Hillary a favour by releasing a propaganda video featuring footage of Donald Trump. Following the March 22nd (22/3/16) attacks in Brussels, Belgium ISIL followed suit and also released a video featuring Donald Trump.
In short groups like ISIL and their associates are actively campaigning for Hillary Clinton because she gave them so much support during her 2008-12 spell as Secretary of State.
By setting this explosion outside Trump Towers the Turks were obviously trying assess reaction to this while giving Hillary a little bit more support.
The people who are most opposed to Donald Trump are the American and European left. The image that the Turkish government is trying to present both to its domestic population and the wider world is that it is under attack from a conspiracy of far left groups led by the PKK and backed by the Soviet Union - Erdogan seems unaware that Russia hasn't been the Soviet Union for a very long time.
One of the larger groups that Erdogan claims is in league with the vast PKK/Russian conspiracy is the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party–Front (DHKP-C). A revolutionary Marxist-Leninist group who incorporate the Soviet Hammer & Sickle in their logo the DHKP-C are about as hard left as you can get. They tend to base their operations in and around Istanbul. Therefore an attack on Trump Towers in Istanbul seems intended to make people think the DHKP-C were responsible.
Today ISIL linked terrorist carried out an unsuccessful suicide attack in Stavropol which is in southern Russia on the edge of the Caucus region that includes Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia. Here three attackers tried to force their way into a police station before detonating their suicide bombs. The attackers succeeded in killing no-one but themselves making this less of a suicide attack and more just a suicide.
It is debatable whether the DHKP-C have ever really existed. However certainly since the collapse of the Soviet Union they have only existed as an extension of the Turkish intelligence services. They serve as a sort of bogeyman justifying Turkey's security state.
Following a long period of silence the DHKP-C suddenly returned with a suicide bombing at at police station in Istanbul on January 6th 2015 (6/1/15). However the fact that the attacker in that incident has since been identified as a member of ISIL and the wife of an ISIL fighter has rather cast doubt on the official position that it was a DHKP-C attack.
Today's attack in Stavropol seems intended to mimic the tactics of the DHKP-C. Particularly that 6/1/15 attack. As such it was supposed to be seen as a heroic Turkish retaliation for the 'Russian attack' that was scheduled to have struck Turkey yesterday.
Obviously the fact that Turkey were forced to call off yesterday's scheduled 'DHKP-C/Russian attack' under international pressure does make this retaliation look even more bizarre and aggressive.
19:30 on 11/4/16 (UK date).
On Saturday (9/3/16) the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) continued their liberation of Hit by entering the centre of the city. Today they have confirmed that they have secured full control of that city centre. This brings them closer to taking full control of both the city and the Highway 12 road that runs through it linking the Ain al-Assad Air Base around 35km (20 miles) to the north-west with the recently liberated city of Ramadi around 50km (30 miles) to the south-east.
The slow and steady pace of the operation seems not to come from particularly stiff resistance by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Instead the ISF seem to be operating methodically in order to minimise the risk to Hit's civilian population and damage to the city itself. ISIL's main tactic seems to be to prevent civilians leaving the city by placing landmines and Improvised Explosive Devices (IED's) on the roads out of the city in order to target fleeing civilians and slow the ISF advance. Just today 6 people were killed and a further 12 wounded when an ISIL suicide bomber attacked civilians as they were escaping Hit.
Elsewhere in Iraq the operation was launched on March 24th (24/3/16) to liberate the villages centred around al-Nasr (Nasser) that sit between the Makhmour frontline and the city of Mosul now seems to be permanently on hold. Again I consider this to be a good thing because the US ordered operation seemed to be launched in order to steal headlines away from the Russian-backed liberation of Palmyra on March 27th (27/3/16) rather than for any legitimate strategic military reason. The ISF's seeming inability to fully finish one operation before starting another one has been a growing problem in efforts to liberate Iraq from ISIL.
A prime example of this has been the area of Saladin province between the provincial capital Tikrit, the town of Baiji 50km (30 miles) to the north and the city of Kirkuk 110km (65 miles) north-east of Tikrit which has become known as the "Hawija Triangle." Despite Tikrit being officially liberated back in the spring of 2015 ISIL was never fully expelled from the Hawija Triangle and they actually appear to be re-grouping in Saladin province after being forced out of Anbar province and the provincial capital Ramadi.
At the US' insistence the Shia militia's that are collectively known as the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) have been denied permission to participate in the liberation of the predominately Sunni Anbar province. They have also been denied permission to participate in the Makhmour operation. Finding themselves at a bit of a loose end on Sunday (10/4/16) the PMF decided to launch an operation of their own to drive ISIL out of the village of Bashir. This sits around 25km (15 miles) south-west of Kirkuk.
More crucially though Bashir sits around 8km (5 miles) south-west of the town of Taza and has been used to launch attacks on Taza's civilian population for almost two years now. This includes the chemical weapons attack of March 12th (12/3/16) that sparked mass protests.
As such this operation seems to be a particularly good use of the PMF's time. However only if it is intended as a defensive operation to force ISIL out of range of Taza's civilians rather than a larger operation to liberate Bashir and the surrounding area. That type of operation will require much more careful planning and again shouldn't be attempted while the Anbar operation is still ongoing.
To give you an idea of the complexity of such a wider operation it would appear that in the first day of the operation against Bashir alone the PMF have met stiff resistance from ISIL with around 100 PMF fighters being reported as killed, wounded or missing.
Despite the progress being made in Iraq the situation across the border in Syria seems to be deteriorating.
Turkish irregular forces known collectively as the "Syrian Turkmen Brigades (STB)" have continued their advances in an area known as "Erdogan's Pocket." Stretching for some 100km (60 miles) along Syria's border with Turkey between the town of Azaz in the west and the Euphrates River in the east this has become ISIL's main supply route with Turkey and something that Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan has become desperate to keep open.
On April 5th (5/4/16) the STB launched an offensive to expand their presence within Erdogan's Pocket by capturing a number of villages centred around Al-Rai which act as a gateway to the town of Cobaney. This sits right on the border with Turkey around 50km (30 miles) west of the Euphrates and controls a road that runs to Raqqa - ISIL's de facto capital in Syria. On Saturday (9/4/16) the STB entered Cobaney and declared themselves to be in control of the town.
However today is seems that the STB have ceded control of not just Cobaney but also Al-Rai and the surrounding villages back to ISIL.
In light of events since Saturday this could be an attempt to portray the STB as an opponent rather than an ally of ISIL. After all when Erdogan ordered the town of Marea to be ceded to ISIL back in August 2015 opening up Erdogan's Pocket there was a small amount of fighting in order to avoid it looking like control of the area being divided up between allies. However it may also be an early indication that the STB is to terminate its operation and Turkey is slowly coming to terms with the fact that Erdogan's Pocket is to be closed permanently.
Hopefully it is the latter because the STB operate as part of a wider coalition of extremist groups known as the Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF). Alongside the STB this includes Al Qaeda's affiliate Al Nusra Front (ANF), the Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant/Harakat Ahrar ash-Sham al-Islamiyya (Ahrar al-Sham) and the particularly extreme Army of Islam/Jaish al-Islam (JAI).
On March 28th (28/3/16) US President Barack Obama took the highly questionable decision to re-start the US' Train & Equip program to train and equip JAF at the start of an official Turkish visit to the US. Even before that week long visit had ended on April 3rd (3/4/16) the JAF took this as US permission to resume offensive operations in Syria's Aleppo province launching attacks on the frontlines with both Latakia and Homs provinces.
However the Army of Conquest's main focus seemed to be the Kurdish Sheikh Masqood neighbourhood of Aleppo City which is under the protection of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) - the main anti-ISIL force within Syria. Since April 2nd (2/4/16) this Kurdish area has come under sustained rocket and artillery fire by the JAF coalition. This onslaught included the April 8th (8/4/16) chemical weapons attack.
This renewed fighting poses a somewhat interesting question of whether the ceasefire that came into effect on February 26th (26/2/16) remains in effect or whether the US, Turkey and their Army of Conquest coalition have completely violated it rendering void.
On the one hand it has always been agreed that this ceasefire has never applied to ISIL, ANF or any other individual, group, undertaking or entity associated with either ISIL or ANF. The JAF are very clearly a group, undertaking or entity associated with ANF having fought alongside them for more than a year. So technically the ceasefire never applied to JAF in this area of north-western Syria or anywhere else in the World.
However this fresh JAF offensive over the past two weeks has certainly brought renewed fighting to an area where there had been no fighting since the end of February.
This obviously places great pressure on Turkey to show that it is part of the international coalition fighting against terrorism rather than a state sponsor of terrorism fighting against that international coalition. In the past Turkey has tried denying that it is supporting terrorism by staging bomb attacks against itself. The purpose being to show that it is a victim of terrorism that the international community should rally behind.
At the risk of boring everyone to tears I've recently started going back to the gym. At this early stage this requires a degree of forward planning. Not only do I need to find time to actually go to the gym I've also got to schedule recovery time in order to avoid getting injured. Last Wednesday (6/4/16) I was debating whether to go to the gym next on Friday (8/4/16) or yesterday (11/4/16). A large part of my decision was based on a presumption that Turkey would carry out its next bombing on Sunday (11/4/16) and I would have to deal with it today.
Across much of the Middle-East region including Israel the weekend is based on Jewish and Islamic law running from Friday to Saturday making Sunday the first day of the working week. In much of the rest of the World including Turkey the weekend runs from Saturday to Sunday making Monday the first day of the working week. Starting the working week on a Sunday by carrying out a bomb attack allows Erdogan's Justice & Development Party (AKP) to subtly show off their Islamist credentials.
Plus yesterday in particular Turkish Embassies staged anti-terrorism demonstrations across a number of European cities. Particularly in Germany and Belgium. Obviously though the "terrorism" the Turkish government was protesting about was the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the increasingly long and bizarre list of groups they claim are linked to the PKK. A faked terror attack on Turkey during those demonstrations would certainly have given the Turkish government plenty of opportunity to say; "We told you so."
It seems though I wasn't the only one aware of this and on Friday (8/4/16) Israel issued a warning to its citizens to leave Turkey because of an impending attack. In turn this prompted the US to issue a similar warning on Saturday (9/4/16). This mounting pressure seemed to have an effect with Turkey cancelling Sunday's big spectacular in favour of the small explosion of a stun grenade in Istanbul on Saturday.
At around 17:20 on 11/4/16 (UK date) I will be back to deal with that more fully.
Edited at around 18:40 on 11/4/16 (UK date) to add;
Rather than making any definitive statement this incident was intended more to pose questions.
It is debatable whether setting off a stun grenade counts as a terror attack so much as a public nuisance. However if you view it as an attack then its intended target was a bus/tram stop outside Trump Towers.
The significance of a bus/tram stop being targeted is the series of suicide bombings that struck bus/tram stops in the Russian city of Volgograd at the end of 2013 in the run up to the 2014 Winter Olympics that were held in near-by Sochi. By escalating the the conflict over the Nagorno-Karabkh region it is clear that Turkey intends to repeat this model to punish Russia for its opposition to ISIL, ANF and their associates in Syria.
On Friday (8/4/16) the Russian security services arrested an ISIL linked terror group - "Pallasovsky Assembly/Pallasovsky Jamaat" who were planning attacks in the Volgograd. The implication being that this group was supported by and working in conjunction with the Turkish government. Saturday's explosion provided Turkey with an opportunity to poll international reaction to this development.
The significance of Trump Towers being targeted is of course Donald Trump - the building's owner and presumptive Republican nominee for the 2016 US Presidential election.
Back in December 2015 presumptive Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton claimed that groups like ISIL and their associates were using Donald Trump as a recruiting tool. She was promptly humilated when she was asked to provide evidence to support this claim and was unable to do so.
In January 2016 the Al Qaeda linked Somali terror group Al-Shabaab decided to do Hillary a favour by releasing a propaganda video featuring footage of Donald Trump. Following the March 22nd (22/3/16) attacks in Brussels, Belgium ISIL followed suit and also released a video featuring Donald Trump.
In short groups like ISIL and their associates are actively campaigning for Hillary Clinton because she gave them so much support during her 2008-12 spell as Secretary of State.
By setting this explosion outside Trump Towers the Turks were obviously trying assess reaction to this while giving Hillary a little bit more support.
The people who are most opposed to Donald Trump are the American and European left. The image that the Turkish government is trying to present both to its domestic population and the wider world is that it is under attack from a conspiracy of far left groups led by the PKK and backed by the Soviet Union - Erdogan seems unaware that Russia hasn't been the Soviet Union for a very long time.
One of the larger groups that Erdogan claims is in league with the vast PKK/Russian conspiracy is the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party–Front (DHKP-C). A revolutionary Marxist-Leninist group who incorporate the Soviet Hammer & Sickle in their logo the DHKP-C are about as hard left as you can get. They tend to base their operations in and around Istanbul. Therefore an attack on Trump Towers in Istanbul seems intended to make people think the DHKP-C were responsible.
Today ISIL linked terrorist carried out an unsuccessful suicide attack in Stavropol which is in southern Russia on the edge of the Caucus region that includes Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia. Here three attackers tried to force their way into a police station before detonating their suicide bombs. The attackers succeeded in killing no-one but themselves making this less of a suicide attack and more just a suicide.
It is debatable whether the DHKP-C have ever really existed. However certainly since the collapse of the Soviet Union they have only existed as an extension of the Turkish intelligence services. They serve as a sort of bogeyman justifying Turkey's security state.
Following a long period of silence the DHKP-C suddenly returned with a suicide bombing at at police station in Istanbul on January 6th 2015 (6/1/15). However the fact that the attacker in that incident has since been identified as a member of ISIL and the wife of an ISIL fighter has rather cast doubt on the official position that it was a DHKP-C attack.
Today's attack in Stavropol seems intended to mimic the tactics of the DHKP-C. Particularly that 6/1/15 attack. As such it was supposed to be seen as a heroic Turkish retaliation for the 'Russian attack' that was scheduled to have struck Turkey yesterday.
Obviously the fact that Turkey were forced to call off yesterday's scheduled 'DHKP-C/Russian attack' under international pressure does make this retaliation look even more bizarre and aggressive.
19:30 on 11/4/16 (UK date).
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