If you’re able, and if you like our content and approach, please support the project. Our work wouldn’t be possible without your help: PayPal: southfront@list.ru or via: http://southfront.org/donate/ or via: https://www.patreon.com/southfront, BTC: 3Gbs4rjcVUtQd8p3CiFUCxPLZwRqurezRZ, BCH: qpf2cphc5dkuclkqur7lhj2yuqq9pk3hmukle77vhq, ETH: 0x9f4cda013e354b8fc285bf4b9a60460cee7f7ea9
On October 11, the Israeli military announced that it had halted flights of F-35I stealth fighter jets following the crash of the US Marine Corps F-35B jet in South Carolina on September 28. The Israeli Air Force (IAF) stated that the F-35B crash was caused by a technical malfunction in the engine’s fuel pipe. So, the IAF decided to make additional precautions and conduct tests on all F-35I aircraft before continuing to employ them.
Earlier, multiple Israeli experts and even top officials claimed that the IAF may soon employ F-35I jets to challenge S-300 air defense systems, which were recently received by the Syrian military. However, it seems any kind of these actions is now delayed.
Heavy clashes erupted between the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and ISIS in the villages of al-Shaafah, al-Susah and al-Baghuz al-Fawqani in the Hajin pocket in the province of Deir Ezzor. According to the SDF, ISIS members used a sandstorm to carry out a series of attacks. The US-backed group also claimed that 35 ISIS members were killed during the 24 hours of the clashes.
In turn, the ISIS-linked news agency Amaq claimed that ISIS attacked 9 SDF positions, killed several US-backed members and destroyed 3 of their vehicles.
The US-led coalition announced in a statement that it and Iraqi security forces had neutralized a key ISIS financial facilitation network during in the Iraqi cities of Baghdad and Erbil in the period from October 7 and October 9.
According to the statement, security forces arrested ten members of the financial network, which is known as the “al-Ray network.” No further details about the detained persons were provided.
“The arrests deal a major blow to ISIS’s capacity to threaten and terrorize civilians … This demonstrates that those who assist in, sponsor, or provide financial, material or technological support to ISIS will face severe consequences,” Major General Patrick B. Roberson, commander of the US-led coalition Special Operation Joint Task Force said in the statement.
The Iraqi government announced defeat of ISIS in the country in 2017. However, multiple ISIS cells and ISIS-linked networks have remained in many desert region sand big cities. These cells still pose a significant security threat.
“Heavy clashes erupted between the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and ISIS in the villages of al-Shaafah, al-Susah and al-Baghuz al-Fawqani in the Hajin pocket in the province of Deir Ezzor. According to the SDF, ISIS members used a sandstorm to carry out a series of attacks. The US-backed group also claimed that 35 ISIS members were killed during the 24 hours of the clashes”
Considering that ISIS and the SDF are both US backed forces then I seriously doubt any such clashes too place. At all. Ever.
A while ago, in northwestern Syria, there was a string of similar reports.
Don’t assume that the American government in unified and monolithic. It is in fact quite possible that the CIA would be arming one bunch of militants, and the Pentagon would be arming a different bunch. In which case, each would probably view the other as big rivals for the flow of money coming down. Each would be afraid that the Americans might decide to only back one group, and the American handlers would likely use that to manipulate the groups.
Governments where authority is based entirely on raw power often breed multiple power centers within the government that then compete with each other. Empires fall because those fights between power centers within the imperial court become more important to the courtiers than any rational policy for the empire.
American politicians and Generals are great comedians threatening anyone offering financial assistance to ISIS. The scope of ISIS in the ME required hundreds of millions if not in the billions of dollars to operate. With the US having it’s dirty paws all over the financial system their is no way ISIS could operate, especially selling stolen oil to Israel and buying truck loads of goods from all over Europe, without US approval. The US could have shut down the ISIS financial arm years ago if they wanted too. Armies may run on their stomachs but wars run on money. One guy who worked for a contractor but had to join the military to work for the military was railroaded and put in a Club FED when he asked why the US wasn’t doing anything to stop ISIS funding. While in the slam he claimed to have met a Swiss banker who flew to the US and met with government officials to turn over to them 22,000 ISIS account details. His reward was arrest and a trip to jail without charges or trial. Eventually the banker worked a deal with the US and was released and received a payment in the millions to keep his mouth shut.
The day I saw the photos of all of those shiny, clean, new Toyota trucks carrying the ISIS fighters, I knew this wasn’t your typical rag-tag bunch of guerilla fighters. Those sorts of columns have any vehicle the rebels can grab and keep running. Rebels don’t have long columns of identical nice new trucks.
Remember also the NSA listens in on conversations, and probably intercepts and decodes all encrypted financial transactions. Which even adds on to your questions about financing and how did they do this without being detected.
I remember when the Russians started bombing ISIS. They had all of these videos of ammo dumps and command posts being blown to bits by Russian planes and missiles. Yet, supposedly, Obama and the Americans had been bombing ISIS for several years. Thus, my question was, how come people who’ve been bombed for years have all of these ammo dumps and command posts sitting around on the surface. Anyone who fights an enemy with air power quickly learns to like caves and basements and bunkers. If they are silly enough to put an ammo dump on the surface, it quickly gets blown up by the air power and they learn the lesson in that manner. It was really odd to see the Russians blowing up all of this stuff when the American news had been saying that the Americans had been bombing ISIS for years.
BTW, I don’t think the ISIS oil trucks were going direct to Israel. They didn’t have too many routes to do that trip without running into Assad’s troops. They were well reported to have been going to Turkey, where the rumor was that family Erdogon was getting a chunk of the profits. From there of course, the oil could be sold and shipped to Israel.
To avoid American law enforcement, don’t do three things. Don’t be a minority, don’t be poor, and don’t be stupid enough to fall for a enforcement scam of informers trying to get you do stupid things like send money to ISIS or to try to fly to ISIS. On the other hand there has been over the years some significant reports of the super-sized American banks being very willing to launder dirty money. In America, ‘the law’ has more to do with who you are and how much money you’ve got. People with money and power can pretty much do anything they want.
A marker on how much America has changed in 40 years. Ollie North got arrested and charged with funding guerrilla fighters from his White House office. A key difference is that then there was media that would report that news, and Congress actually exercised oversight of the executive. Now, Obama was doing this and the pro-Republican media and a Republican congress didn’t say a word, and Trump is doing that without the minority Democrats nor their rabid media outlets raising a peep about it.
One of the sad bits about getting old is being able to look back and see how far this country has declined in my life time. Which makes me wish I’d drunk more and remembered less.
“One of the sad bits about getting old is being able to look back and see how far this country has declined in my life time.”.
Yes. How true!
Sadly, the disintegration continues at an alarming speed.
I feel I’m living in a ‘ Twilight Zone’ version of the US.
Thank you Fox. I really enjoyed your post.
Regards,
Carmel by the Sea
So, pay something like $135 million for an airplane, then the phone rings and a voice says that they recommend that the planes not be flown because it has a serious problem with the fuel system that just killed a pilot and more importantly destroyed a very expensive plane,
I’m guessing that this won’t be the last time you get such a call.
I saw an inspectors report earlier this year that said that American units with this expensive plane averaged about half of them being actually flyable at any time. So, if you want to fly a pair of these planes to go in and stelthily kill people, you’d better buy at least 4 of these very expensive planes in order to get two of them to fly on an average day. If you want to plan on killing people on even a worse than average maintenence day, then you’d probably should buy one or two more of these very expensive planes to be more certain that two of them will actually work on the day you need them.
What a deal! No wonder they have to threaten sanctions upon any who buy the competition.
Chucky, there’s someone who does’t need to worry about one or two or even a dozen of these ultra-expensive Flying Lemons crashing. Little Izzie has got a whole squadron of them to play with for free; courtesy of big, generous Uncle $am.
More on the way too….and I can imagine any crashing could be blamed on the Iranians as Israel will fly provocatively near to Syria.
Never on the Iranians – It will make the Iranians appear too powerful.It will be the usual bird strike
War in Syria won’t end while the US remains there – Lavrov to French media
https://www.rt.com/news/441122-syria-war-us-leave/
“The illegal US presence in Syria is one of the reasons why war there cannot end, especially since Washington is apparently trying to create a quasi-state on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, the Russian foreign minister said.
The pessimistic prediction about the future of Syria came from Sergey Lavrov in an interview he gave to RT France, le Figaro and Paris Match. Asked about a planned disarmament of jihadist forces in Idlib governorate by Turkey and whether it would be an end to the war, which has lasted for over seven years, the Russian officials said solving the Idlib debacle would by no means end the crisis.
“This story will only end when the Syrian people are back in control of Syria and when everyone involved, especially those who came there uninvited, leave,” Lavrov said. He added Idlib is not the last problematic place in Syria.
“There are large territories east of Euprates [river] where absolutely unacceptable things happen. The United States is trying to create a quasi-state there with the help of their allies, mostly Kurds,” he said.
Lavrov said Washington helps creating administrative bodies in areas under its control, provides aid and even considers them good enough to encourage refugees to go back there. This is in sharp contrast to how it treats areas controlled by Damascus, he said.
“I cannot exclude that the US are trying to keep the situation heated up in the region to ensure that everyone is on the edge. It’s easier for them to catch fish in the water they muddy. Such policies never ended well,” Lavrov warned.
The minister also dismissed accusations that Russia engages in all sorts of bad activities, including cyberattacks, meddling in elections and other things. He said the way such accusations are published through the media imply that the accusers are not interested in resolving whatever concerns they have about Russia.
“If our Western colleagues actually expect to put us out of balance with this hysterics, they have not been reading the right history books. If this is all just fuss, this fit of political rabbis will pass naturally. Once they have vented off everything they need to, we will be waiting for them for a serious professional discussion within a legal field, not a propagandistic chat,” he said.
Lavrov also criticized US officials for encouraging the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople to push for a church schism in Ukraine, saying it was not normal for secular authorities to get involved in church affairs.”
See also:
US Trying to Create Quasi-State East of Euphrates With Help of Allies – Moscow
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201810121068837932-us-quasi-state-euphrates/
“According to the Russian minister, the US aims to use its allies in order to create a quasi-state east of the Euphrates River, establishing illegal structures in the region.
“To the east of the Euphrates river, there are vast lands where absolutely unacceptable things happen. The US is trying to use these territories through their Syrian allies, particularly, the Kurds, in order to create a quasi-state there,” he stated.
He noted that the US is encouraging refugee resettlement in the territories under their control, undermining the peace process in the country.
“This is all going on despite the fact that in territories that are under the control of the legitimate Syrian government, neither the United States, nor France, nor other Western countries want to create conditions for the return of refugees until, according to the West, a credible political process begins. The question is why they, on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River which is controlled by the United States and their local associates, do not have to wait until the beginning of a credible political process,” the minister added.
The diplomat also commented on the Idlib agreement with Turkey, underlining that is was temporary.
“The agreement is in fact temporary. This story will only end when the power of the Syrian people is restored in the whole country and all those who are in Syria, especially those who have not been invited there, leave its territory. This is clear to everyone,” the minister said.
Earlier in September, Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) spokesperson stated that Washington builds a new military base in the region in order to boost its military presence in Syria and Iraq.”
an article from antiwar.com by Conn Hallinan:
The Syrian Chess Board
The Syrian civil war has always been devilishly complex, with multiple actors following different scripts, but in the past few months it appeared to be winding down.
The Damascus government now controls 60 percent of the country and the major population centers, the Islamic State has been routed, and the rebels opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad are largely cornered in Idilb Province in the country’s northwest. But suddenly the Americans moved the goal posts and – maybe – the Russians have fallen out with the Israelis, the Iranians are digging in their heels, and the Turks are trying to multitask with a home front in disarray.
So the devil is still very much at work in a war that’s lasted more than seven years, claimed up to 500,000 lives, displaced millions of people, destabilized an already fragile Middle East, and is far from over.
There are at least three theaters in the Syrian war, each with its own complexities: Idilb in the north, the territory east of the Euphrates River, and the region that abuts the southern section of the Golan Heights.
Just sorting out the antagonists is daunting. Turks, Iranians, Americans, and Kurds are the key actors in the east. Russians, Turks, Kurds, and Assad are in a temporary standoff in the north. And Iran, Assad, and Israel are in a faceoff near Golan, a conflict that has suddenly drawn in Moscow.
Idlib
Assad’s goals are straightforward: Reunite the country under the rule of Damascus and begin rebuilding Syria’s shattered cities. The major roadblock to this is Idilb, the last large concentration of anti-Assad groups, jihadists linked with al-Qaeda, and a modest Turkish occupation force representing Operation Olive Branch. The province, which borders Turkey in the north, is mountainous, and retaking it promises to be difficult.
For the time being there is a stand down. The Russians cut a deal with Turkey to demilitarize the area around Idilb city, neutralize the jihadist groups, and reopen major roads. The agreement holds off a joint Assad-Russian assault on Idilb, which would have driven hundreds of thousands of refugees into Turkey and likely have resulted in large numbers of civilian casualties.
But the agreement is temporary – about a month – because Russia is impatient to end the fighting and begin the reconstruction. However, it is hard to see how the Turks are going to get a handle on the bewildering number of groups packed into the province, some of which they have actively aided for years.
Ankara could bring in more soldiers, but Turkey already has troops east of the Euphrates and is teetering on the edge of a major economic crisis. Pouring more wealth into what has become a quagmire may not sit well with the Turkish public, which has seen inflation eat up their paychecks and pensions – the Turkish lira fell nearly 40 percent in value in the past year. Local elections will be held in 2019, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party’s power is built on improving the economy.
The East
In Syria’s east, Turkish troops – part of Operation Euphrates Shield – are pushing up against the Americans and the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces fighting the Islamic State (IS). Erdogan is far more worried about the Syrian Kurds, and the effect they might have on Turkey’s Kurdish population, than he is about the IS.
Ankara’s ally in this case is Iran, which is not overly concerned about the Kurds, but quite concerned about the 2,200 Americans. “We need to resolve the difficulty east of the Euphrates and force America out,” Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said in early September.
That latter goal just got more complex.
The U.S. Special Forces were originally charged with helping the Kurdish and Arab allies drive out the IS. President Donald Trump told a meeting in March, “we’ll be coming out of Syria like very soon.” But that policy appears to have changed.
National Security Advisor John Bolton now says US troops will remain in Syria until Iran leaves. Since there’s little chance of that happening, the US commitment suddenly sounds open-ended. Bolton’s comment has stirred up some opposition in the US Congress to “mission creep,” although Trump has yet to directly address the situation.
The Kurds are caught in the middle. The US has made no commitment to defend them from Turkey, and the Assad regime is pressing to bring the region under Damascus’ control. However, the Syrian government has made overtures to the Kurds for talks about more regional autonomy, and one suspects the Kurds will try to cut a deal to protect them from Ankara. The Russians have been pushing for an Assad-Kurdish détente.
Turkey may want to stay in eastern Syria, but it’s hard to see how Ankara will be able to do that, especially if the Turks are stretched between Idlib and Euphrates Shield in the east. The simple fact is that Erdogan misjudged the resiliency of the Assad regime, and dangerously overreached when he thought shooting down a Russian fighter-bomber in 2015 would bring NATO to his rescue and intimidate Moscow. Instead, the Russians now control the skies over Idlib, and Turkey is estranged from NATO.
The Russians have been careful in Syria. Their main concerns are keeping their naval base at Latakia, beating up on al-Qaeda and the IS, and supporting their longtime ally Assad. Instead of responding directly to Erdogan’s 2015 provocation, Moscow brought in their dangerous S-400 antiaircraft system, a wing of advanced fighter aircraft, and beefed up their naval presence with its advanced radar systems. The message was clear: Don’t try that again.
Israel’s Standoff With Iran
But the Russians held off the attack on Idlib, and have been trying to keep the Israelis and Iranians from tangling with one another in the region around the Golan Heights. Moscow proposed keeping Iran and its allies at least 60 miles from the Israeli border, but Israel – and now the US – is demanding Iran fully withdraw from Syria.
The Assad regime wants Tehran to stay, but also wants to avoid any major shootout between Iran and Israel that would catch Damascus in the middle. In spite of hundreds of Israeli air attacks in Syria, there have been no counter attacks by the Syrians or the Iranians, suggesting that Assad had ruled out any violent reaction.
That all came to end on September 17, when Israeli aircraft apparently used a Russian Ilyushin-M20 electronic reconnaissance plane to mask an attack on Damascus. Syrian antiaircraft responded and ending up shooting down the Russian plane and killing all aboard.
Russia blamed the Israelis and a few days later, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Moscow was sending its S-300 antiaircraft system to Syria, along with a series of upgrades in Damascus’ radar network. Syria currently uses the S-200 system that goes back to the 1960s.
The upgrade won’t really threaten Israeli aircraft – the S-300 is dated and the Israelis likely have the electronics to overcome it – but suddenly the skies over Syria are no longer uncontested. And, if Tel Aviv decides to go after the Syrian radar grid, the Russians have their S-400 in the wings. Not checkmate, but check.
Glimmers of a Solution
How all of this shakes down is hardly clear, but there are glimmers of solution out there.
Turkey will have to eventually withdraw from Syria, but will probably get some concessions over how much autonomy Syria’s Kurds will end up with. The Kurds can cut a deal with Assad because the regime needs peace. The Iranians want to keep their influence in Syria and a link to Hezbollah in Lebanon, but don’t want a serious dustup with Israel.
An upcoming Istanbul summit on Syria of Russia, France, Turkey, and Germany will talk about a political solution to the civil war and postwar reconstruction.
Israel will eventually have to come to terms with Iran as a major player in the Middle East and recognize that the great “united front” against Tehran of Washington, Tel Aviv, and the Gulf monarchies is mostly illusion. The Saudis are in serious economic trouble, the Gulf Cooperation Council is divided, and Israel and the US are increasingly isolated over in hostility to Tehran.
Breaking News
MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Militants from Daesh* have attacked a refugee camp in Syria’s town of Al-Bahra and captured 130 families totaling 700 people, Lt. Gen. Vladimir Savchenko, head of the Russian Center for Syrian reconciliation, said Monday.
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201810151068911840-daesh-attack-syria-refugee-camp/