Operation Featherweight: Month 46, Week 4, Day 4.

A direct continuation of Wednesday's post; https://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2018/05/operation-featherweight-month-46-week-4.html

On April 23rd (23/4/18) and April 24th (24/4/18) the Foreign Ministers of the Group of 7 (G7) met.

The G7 of course used to be the G8. However Russia was expelled from the group over its opposition to groups such as Al Qaeda and ISIL and its support for the Syrian government. Using the civil war the US started in Ukraine as an excuse.

Canada's Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland did attend this Summit. Not only that it was held in her home constituency of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The Mayor of Toronto is John or Johnny Tory.

As the Summit was getting underway on April 23rd (23/4/18) there was a runover attack in Toronto. A man drove a van into pedestrians along Yonge Street killing 10 and wounding 16 around 15km (10 miles) from the G7 Summit venue.

The driver who was arrested at the scene has been identified as Alek Minassian. An ethnic Armenian.

Although I doubt many of you can find it on a map Armenia is something of an interesting country at the moment.

In one of his final acts at the end of his second five year term of office Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan changed his nation's political system from a Presidential system to a Parliamentary system in 2015. 

Sargsyan did so on the promise that he would not seek to extend his time in power by becoming Prime Minister under the Parliamentary system.

On April 17th (17/4/18) the Armenian Parliament elected Serzh Sargsyan Prime Minister. This triggered mass protests which forced Sargsyan to resign on April 23rd (23/4/18). 

Just on Tuesday (1/5/18) the Armenian Parliament failed to elect protest leader Nikol Pashinyan as Prime Minister. Despite there being no other candidates. Unless a Prime Minister is found by May 8th (1/5/18) Armenia's government will fall and fresh elections will have to be held.

The attack in Toronto also occurred the day before April 24th. This is widely recognised as Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day.

As the Ottoman Empire collapsed in 1915 the Turks conducted a genocide of around 1.5 million Armenians. This along with the associated ethnic cleansing is why today you still find more ethnic Armenians living outside of Armenia than within Armenia.

As we all seem to be rushing to create a new Ottoman Empire it seems worth remembering what the old Ottoman Empire was like.

Due to modern Turkey's continued refusal to acknowledge the 1915 Genocide it almost goes without saying Christian Armenia has a poor relationship with its Muslim neighbour. Christian Armenia also has a poor relationship with its other Muslim neighbour - Azerbaijan.

Armenia and Azerbaijan continue to be locked in the World's longest frozen conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh Region (NKR). This dispute has its roots in the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917 and only intensified following the break up of the Soviet Union in the early 1990's.

The Nagorno-Karabakh Region conflict places Russia in a difficult position. It is closely allied with both Armenia and Azerbaijan. When the two nations fight it makes it hard for Russia to support both.

In April 2016 Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan goaded Azerbaijan into attacking Armenian forces in the NKR triggering a four day war. 

This bout of fighting came at a time of massive tension between Turkey and Russia. That tension was triggered by Turkey shooting down a Russian aircraft over Syrian in November 2015.  

As such Erdogan triggered fighting in the NKR to put pressure on Russia by placing it in a difficult position.

During Erdogan's recent offensive against the SDF Afrin Canton Turkish forces have been writing messages on the bombs and artillery shells they've been using. Many of these have claimed the Afrin operation is being done to help liberate the NKR from Armenia and return it to Azerbaijan.

That seems like an attempt to at the very least reduce Russian pressure on Turkey over the Afrin Canton operation by raising the spectre of renewed conflict in the NKR or taking Azerbaijan out of Russia's sphere of influence by turning it into a Turkish ally. Likely a part of the new Ottoman Empire.

If you follow Turkish politics in any level of detail you would know that Erdogan operates in a paranoid and delusional state. 

Although I doubt he believes it Erdogan frequently claims that any problems that befall Turkey or anyone who voices opposition to him are part of a vast conspiracy headed by exiled Turkish Cleric Fethulah Gulen.

According to Erdogan the SDF are the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and they are in league with ISIL as part of this vast FETO conspiracy against him. Apparently all the fighting and dying between the SDF and ISIL is just an elaborate ruse to help further the conspiracy.

Erdogan claims that also part of this vast conspiracy are an Armenian group called the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA). They were never more than a Cold War rumour and have certainly not been active since the late 1980's.

There has been some debate over whether Alek Minassian's attack in Toronto should be classed as a terrorist attack.

Prior to launching his attack Minassian made a series of social media posts declaring his actions to be the start of; "The Incel Rebellion."

Incel is a portmanteau of "Involuntarily Celibate." This is a loose Internet ideology amongst men who cannot get wives or girlfriends and are extremely angry about it. Minassian described himself as a 25 year old virgin.

The war in Syria began against the backdrop of popular revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt. By dubbing this the; "Arab Spring" foreign powers including Erdogan's Turkey and the US under former President Obama saw this as an opportunity to grab power for themselves across the Middle-East, North Africa (MENA) Region.

One of the main drivers of popular displeasure in the secular MENA nations like Tunisia, Egypt and Syria is that they have very large, well educated youth populations. However they have terribly under performing economies. As a result they have very high levels of youth unemployment.

Arab states are patriarchal societies where women are considered the property of men. Therefore sex outside of marriage is strictly forbidden and marriage can only be entered into when you are rich enough to effectively buy a wife from her father.

As a result high youth unemployment means low rates of marriage and lots of extremely frustrated young men and women.

So in many ways Minassian was wrong. The Incel Rebellion began in Tunisia in 2010.

Some in  secular MENA nations have responded to this by demanding economic reforms to bring down unemployment. Others have demanded increased women's rights so a young couple in love could get married even if they can't really afford it. Like many young couples do in western nations.

Then you have the Islamists such as ISIL, the UTA and the Army of Islam. Their response to this involuntary celibacy is to kidnap women, rape them and sell them as sex slaves. Many of these groups offer as a recruiting tool the fact that they will provide women and sex lives for their members.

So the Toronto runover attack places Foreign Minister Freeland and Prime Minister Trudeau in a difficult position.

On the one hand they seem sworn to support Erdogan in every way they can by declaring his enemies to be terrorists.

On the other hand they seem sworn to support Erdogan in every way they can by protecting his genocidal virgins by portraying them as innocent victims standing up to tyranny.

At 16:55 on 3/5/18 (UK date) I'll pick this up later. 

Edited at around 18:30 on 3/5/18 (UK date).

Erdogan's operation against the SDF in Afrin Canton had an extremely detrimental effect of the SDF's operations against ISIL in Shangri-La. So much so that SDF's operations in Shangri-La had to be suspended on March 6th (6/3/18). They only resumed yesterday (2/5/18).

The suspension of the SDF's operation relieved the pressure on ISIL, allowed them to regroup and again pose a threat. Both against the SDF to the north of the Euphrates River and to the Syrians to the south of the Euphrates.

The Syrians operations against ISIL to the south of the Euphrates were also significantly disrupted by a series of events.

On February 10th (10/2/18) a drone belonging to Iranian forces in Syria crossed the Golan Heights into Israel from Syria. Israel responded by shooting down that drone.

This incident occurred the first full day after the Opening Ceremony of the 2018 Winter Olympics held in the Republic of Korea (RoK/South) on February 9th (9/2/18).

Following its liberation from Japanese Imperial rule in 1945 the Korean Peninsula was partitioned. This led to the creation of the RoK and the Democrat People's Republic of Korea (DPRK/North) and the Korean war which technically continues to this day.

The Opening Ceremony dealt with this difficult period of Korean history by focusing on the human story of families torn apart by partition and war. It paid particular attention to the way in which the conflict had led to the RoK's traditional Animist religions being replaced by Christianity.

Korea's traditional Animist religions are similar to the Druze religion. This is primarily practiced by people living in Lebanon, Syria and Israel. 

Therefore the story of the Druze is very similar to the story of the Opening Ceremony. One day following the 1967 war people who'd lived all their lives as Syrian Druze woke up to discover they were Israeli Druze and were unable to visit their relatives who remained as Syrian Druze. The Army of Islam's attempted genocide of Syrian Druze is a story many of the backers of the war in Syria still refuse to tell.

The Opening Ceremony was attended by Kim Yo-jong. The sister of the DPRK leader Kim Jong-un. 

In February 2017 their brother Kim Jong-nam was killed at an airport in Malaysia. Supposedly using the Chemical Weapons agent VX. This seemed to be the start of the process which led to the April 2017 Chemical Weapons attack in Khan Sheikhoun. For which the Syrians were blamed.

The DPRK's nuclear weapons program has been an essential element of former US President Obama's "Pivot Towards the Pacific" policy. The economic element of that policy features Myanmar/Burma. Through the rise of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) Erdogan has been trying to force his way into that discussion.

As such the 2018 Winter Olympics were certainly something participants in the Syria conflict needed to keep an eye on. Having a drone shot down over the Golan Heights seems a rather effective way of doing that.

Unfortunately this occurred at a time when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was facing possible criminal indictment in numerous corruption cases. Weakened at home Netanyahu over reacted. Rather than simply shooting done the drone he ordered the Israel air force to attack the T4 Air Base from where it was launched.

The T4 Air Base sits in central Syria. Roughly 80km (50 miles) east of Homs City and around 55km (30 miles) west of Palmyra. It is one of the main bases for Iranian forces in Syria.

This attack rather backfired on Israel. In the conflicts between Israel and Iran and its proxies there is a well established pattern. One side attacks the other. Then the other side retaliates.

On this occasion Iran has opted not to retaliate. Instead it has taken the purely defensive measure of upgrading its air defences by deploying missiles systems - believed to be 9K330-Tor - to its bases in Syria.

This has sent Israel into a bit of a paranoid spiral. On the one hand they are expecting an Iranian retaliation but they are also watching their ability to respond to that retaliation diminish.

As a result Israel has started frantically conducting airstrikes to prevent these new anti-aircraft missiles being deployed in Syria. On April 8th (8/4/18) they again struck T4 Air Base although I think that owed more to events in East Ghouta the previous day. Just on Sunday (29/4/18) struck the Syrian 47th Brigade base just south of Hama City.

Immediately following claims of a Chemical Weapons attack in East Ghouta on April 7th (7/4/18) the UK, the US and France pledged to carry out strikes against the Syrians. Those strikes eventually took place on April 14th (14/4/18).

During that week groups supported by the US fuelled by the anti-Iranian rhetoric coming out of the US demanded that these strikes be used to help them purge the Syrians and Iranians from Deir-ez-Zour City. Leading these calls were the Revolutionary Commando Army/Maghawir al-Thawra which the US continues to protect at the Bobby Sands base.

In response to this massively increased threat of airstrikes Iran started moving its forces out of Syria and into Iraq where they would be safe. With the bulk of the Syrian forces engaged in operations in and around Damascus this allowed ISIL to regain its strength around the Euphrates River.

20:05 on 3/5/18 (UK date).