Operation Featherweight: Month 36, Week 2, Day 2.

In my post yesterday I covered the developments at the fourth round of meetings in the Astana Process on Syria. These took place on May 3rd (3/5/17) and May 4th (4/5/17).

Since then the wider political landscape in the region has shifted dramatically.

On May 22nd (22/5/17) the Manchester Evening News Arena (MENA) in the UK city of Manchester came under terrorist attack. A Libyan suicide bomber detonated his device amongst crowds that were leaving a concert by US popstar Ariana Grande. This attack killed 22 people and wounded 59.

On June 3rd (3/6/17) three terrorists of different nationalities conducted a marauding run-over and stabbing attack in the London Bridge area of the UK capital London. This attack killed 8 people and wounded 48.

Both of these attacks were directed by the nation state of Qatar.

The main objective was to give the UK Labour Party a boost at the June 8th (8/6/17) General Election in order to weaken Britain.

The thinking being that a weakened Britain to be less able to press for the closure of the Garvaghy Road area of Syria. This would allow Qatar to transfer fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) from Syria to Libya where Qatar is using them to seize control of that nation and its vast oil reserves.

Sadly Qatar's plan succeeded. The Labour Party did not hesitate to exploit the terror attacks resulting a swell in support for them at the election. This meant that the Conservative Party were denied an outright Parliamentary majority and leaving the UK without a functioning government.

The Labour Party however have not been prepared to stop there.

Over the night of June 13th (13/6/17) into June 14th (14/6/17) a fire completely destroyed the 120 apartment Grenfell Tower on the Lancaster West housing estate in the Kensington area of the UK city of London. This has left now 80 people dead or missing presumed dead.

At the very least the Labour Party have decided to exploit the Grenfell Tower fire to further destabilise Britain and ultimately overthrow the British government. In the 14 days since the fire there have been at least 7 incidents of urban disorder - basically rioting - as supporters of the Labour Party have clashed with police across London.

The Labour Party's conduct in response to particularly the Grenfell Tower fire has become a global issue. I am still fielding questions on the matter from as far afield as Asia and South America. So it has certainly inhibited my ability to act against groups like ISIL and their associates in Syria and beyond.

The general consensus is that the UK will not tolerate with the Labour Party's behaviour. There is even some disbelief that the UK has put up with it for this long.

The UK's allies in the Gulf region have certainly not been prepared to put up with it.

Immediately following the London Bridge attack Gulf states led by Saudi Arabia placed Qatar under economic blockade on June 5th (5/6/17).

Saudi Arabia's main objection is Qatar's relationship with Iran. I do not think it is possible for me to overstate just how much Saudi Arabia dislikes Iran or how irrational that dislike can be. Qatar on the other hand is currently working with Iran to develop the South Pars/North Dome natural gas field in the Persian Gulf. Saudi Arabia even objects to it being referred to as; "The Persian Gulf."

The second main driver behind the Gulf States blockade of Qatar is Qatar's support for the Muslim Brotherhood. It is through this organisation that Qatar is allied with Turkey to destabilise not only Syria and Iraq but also Egypt and Libya.

The agreement seems to be that Turkey's President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan will get his new Ottoman Empire including Syria, Egypt and parts of Iraq while Qatar will get Libya and its oil reserves.

One of the Saudi conditions for lifting the blockade on Qatar is Qatar shutting down its state-run Al Jazeera TV network. Particularly within Egypt this is used as the propaganda arm of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Gulf States blockade of Qatar also has a direct impact on the battlefield in Syria.

For the sake simplicity I frequently talk about the Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF) Islamist coalition fighting within Syria.

If I'm feeling particularly detailed I sometimes break the coalition down into its constituent groups. Such as the Al Qaeda affiliate The Support Front/Jabhat al-Nusra (ANF), the United Turkmen Army (UTA), the Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant/Harakat Ahrar ash-Sham al-Islamiyya (Ahrar al-Sham), the Army of Islam/Jaish al-Islam (JAI) etc.

However to really understand what is going on in Syria it is not enough to break down the Army of Conquest into the smaller groups that make it up. You actually have to break it down to the level of specific individuals and how those individuals function within the dynamics of groups of only around 150 people.

Both Saudi Arabia and Qatar support different factions within both Ahrar al-Sham and the Army of Islam. Another of Saudi Arabia's conditions for lifting the blockade on Qatar is Qatar ending its support for those factions. Thus leaving Saudi Arabia in complete control of Ahrar al-Sham and the Army of Islam.

With Qatar also expect to end its relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood it will also end its influence over the UTA element of the coalition.

Yesterday (27/6/17) Qatar's Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani travelled to Washington D.C to meet his US counterpart Rex Tillerson.

So the World was treated to the Petya Ransomeware Cyberattack.

In the immediate aftermath of the MENA bombing Qatar boasted about what it had done. This involved Qatar's state news agency publishing and then retracting an inflammatory speech that Qatar's leader Shiekh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani gave to a graduating class of military officers on May 21st (21/5/17).

The general message of this speech was that Saudi Arabia had humiliated itself by inviting US President Donald Trump for a state visit on May 20th (20/5/17). Hamad al-Thani felt there was no need acknowledging President Trump because Qatar would soon overthrow him and install a puppet that would allow Qatar to dominate not just the region but the World.

After taking it down the Qataris then claimed that this speech had never taken place. It was a fake that had been placed on the website of their news agency by computer hackers. This was a reference to the WannaCry ransomware attack the UK treated the World to on May 12th (12/5/17).

The WannaCry virus was really a stunt to provide a talking point at the Eurovision Song Contest that was taking place at the time. Although it created a lot of news coverage and seemed very dramatic for a few hours it was a deeply flawed virus that didn't actually do any damage.

The name WannaCry was a joke on US supporters of Hillary Clinton who seem to have been on the verge of tears ever since she was defeated in the November 8th 2016 (8/11/16) US Presidential Election by President Trump. Since then they have been trying to overthrow President Trump using wild accusations of Russian hacking. It is through the Muslim Brotherhood that Qatar is coordinating this campaign.

The Petya virus is based on the same EternalBlue exploit created by the US National Security Agency (NSA) as the WannaCry virus. However it is much nastier. It actually reads as though someone has gone through a checklist of all the deliberate mistakes included in WannaCry and corrected them.

The first targets of the Petya virus was actually the Russian oil companies Rosneft and Bashneft. However it then quickly spread to Shamali Province where it seems to have done the most damage. The Northern or Shamali Province of ISIL created in the territory that used to be Ukraine in order to sanction Russia over its opposition to ISIL and the Army of Conquest.

Just before the Petya virus spread to Shamali Province Colonel Maksim Shapoval of their Military Intelligence was killed in a car bomb in the Solomensky district of Kiev. 

This was very reminiscent of the series of events that occurred between the March 15th (15/3/17) and March 16th (16/3/17) meetings in the Astana Process and the March 23rd (23/3/17) to March 31st (31/5/17) meetings in the Geneva Process.

On March 23rd (23/5/17) there was a massive fire at an arms depot in the disputed east of Shamali Province. That same day former Russian MP and now dissident Denis Voronenkov was assassinated in Kiev.

Under former President Obama the US would have immediately blamed both of these incidents on Russia and demanded more sanctions placing more pressure on the country during the Syria meetings.

The main target of the Petya virus in Shamali Province though seems to have been  the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. Site of the April 26th 1986 (26/4/86) disaster. There computers monitoring the radiation levels that still persist at the site were frozen by Petya virus forcing manual radiation monitoring to take place.

What everyone seems to forget about the Chernobyl disaster is that it was actually a fire. Out of control heating caused a steam explosion causing the Graphite in the reactor core to catch fire. The design of the building caused a chimney effect spreading the fire to the buildings roof. That fire then burnt for 9 days spewing radioactive material as far as the Republic of Ireland and the Atlantic Ocean.

So there are certainly many differences. However there are also a number of similarities between the Grenfell Tower fire and the Chernobyl disaster. The experience of Chernobyl certainly dismisses the Labour Party's claim that the fire would not have happened if the building had been clad in a type of mineral insulation such as Graphite.

As I've said the spy's grapevine has been full of rumours of documents linking the Labour Party to an arson attack on Grenfell Tower being obtained by computer hackers. In fact these days its more of a discussion of who is going to make these documents public and when.

Also last night Qatar's Muslim Brotherhood ally Turkey started shelling the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) within the Afrin Canton. Turkey attacking the SDF particularly in the Afrin Canton is not an uncommon event. So common in fact that if its only a short barrage the SDF often don't bother mention it.

However last night's artillery barrage was accompanied by a social media barrage. Turkish Tweeters forced "Afrin" to the number 6 position in the global trends for a good couple of hours yesterday evening. This seems to be a reference to the Muslim Brotherhood-led social media campaigns in support of ISIL and the Army of Conquest.

Also a few hours before the Tweet-storm began I do seem to remember challenging Twitter users to try and ruin my evening.

16:50 on 28/6/17 (UK date).