ISIS update 11/19/2015..Oil on Fire

International Military Review – Syria-Iraq battlespace – Nov. 19, 2015
SOUTH FRONT

Syria Conflict – Current Events
TheMedvedova

Russian airstrikes kill at least 600 terrorists in Syria

Oil on Fire: Russian jets destroy ISIS refineries, trucks and wells

Syria: RuAF Airstrikes over ISIS Controled Omar Oil Field, Deir Ez-Zor

RuAF Long-Range Bombers Conducting Airstrikes on ISIS Targets

Russian TV report from the Syrian town Kessab on the border with Turkey

More Pressure On Turkish Border Officials

“Syrian govt. & opposition groups negotiating ceasefire in Eastern Ghouta”

Obama says Assad must go to end Syria war

Assad’s departure not linked to anti-ISIL coalition in Syria: Lavrov

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani says Daesh aims to promote global Islamophobia

UNSC should lay foundation for true coalition against ISIL: Lavrov

Truth in Media: What the Media Didn’t Tell You About Syria
Ben Swann

ISIS plot to attack Shia pilgrims on Arbaeen foiled
shiawaves English

Rambo patrol the Iraqi city of Imam Ali Abu al-Iraq Azrael ★ 11/18/2015

What is the mission of 50 American special ops troops in Syria? – Fort Russ

November 19, 2015

Abu Ibrahim, a military and political expert, specially for “Russian Spring”

Rusvesna

Translated by Kristina Rus

No one will tell the truth about the mission of 50 American special ops troops in Syria in the near future.

Some, however, believe that one of their tasks

is to direct aviation supporting the offense of forces, advancing in Al-Hasakah and Raqqah on ISIS positions.

American airforce strikes taking off from a Turkish base in Incirlik played an important role in the anti-terrorist coalition troops breaking the stubborn resistance of ISIS in the Tel-Birak.

Another natural and also announced by the State Department task of U.S. special forces is the training of “militia” fighters. This is how they call the self-defense forces and those who in other circumstances might be called militants. It’s a stretch to call them an army yet, and the popular name of “Peshmerga” traditionally refers only to the Kurds.

Americans in Raqqah and Hasakah are now implementing a project of the coalition forces from among the local Arabs — both Muslims and Christians — as well as Assyrians and various Kurdish groups. All together they are solemnly referred to as the “Union of Democratic Forces of Syria.”

However, this name is much more popular in media reports and Internet propaganda, than in real life. In reality the main strike force in the fight against ISIS are the units of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) and close to them at the moment formations of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union.

In essence they are the autonomists.

Just recently, the PKK openly professed the idea of an independent socialist state of Kurdistan.

Socialist, by the way, in order not to depend on traditional Kurdish elites, who do not support the Kurdistan Workers Party. Therefore, the troops of the same Barzani, ruling in Iraqi Kurdistan, until recently, were willing to leave their brothers in blood from the PKK and the Yezidis at the mercy of the Turkish troops and the Islamists.

Currently, as you know, both Turkish troops and ISIS are fighting the PKK.

Everything is clear with ISIS, but the Turkish army recently forgot about the truce which lasted for several years. According to the Turkish side, the PKK militants violated the truce first, returning to Turkish territory from Syria and Iraq. The Kurds respond with their own accusations: the Turks supposedly for the sake of supply of ISIS oil began bombing the Kurds in Syria, so they don’t interfere with the supplies.

As for the Syrian Kurds, they even recently had nowhere to turn. Instructors-’volunteers’ from English-speaking countries and modest financial aid from the West and from the diaspora — is all that local units could count on while facing the advancing ISIS. Sometimes they even got American weapons, although other times it went to the terrorists. Apparently, the US wanted to maintain the parity of the parties of the conflict for some time, so as not to spoil relations with Turkey. Because for Ankara a Kurdish autonomy in a strategic area near its borders is like a knife to its neck.

In such circumstances, previously a part of the Syrian opposition, the Democratic Union of Syrian Kurds began to converge with the Kurdistan Workers Party. It was the only force that could provide serious military assistance. The West apparently didn’t mind, because it was interested not only in alliance with Turkey, but in the Kurdish barrier against the excessive proliferation of ISIS.

With the appearance of Russian planes in the Syrian sky the situation has changed dramatically. Now the US has no need to fear strengthening of one of the opposing parties at the expense of another as a result of American actions. Previously the Americans were interested in the overthrow of the Assad government, but did not want the victory of the terrorists, which is why they supported the fight of Jabhat al-Nusra against ISIS. At the same time, the United States don’t need independent Kurdistan, at least under the version of the Kurdistan Workers Party, because it is fraught with such a crisis in relations with Turkey that it would destabilize all of Europe.

Now Russia has guaranteed the destruction of the terrorist infrastructure in Syria as well as a dialogue and a political settlement. This allows the Americans to get out of the stalemate and begin dealing with ISIS.

But for that you need infantry. Experienced, courageous and numerous infantry with good commanders. There is no force able to not just defend, but also effectively attack among the Syrian forces in the area of Hasaka-Raqqa, as Kurdish and others. Local Kurds and settled Arabs, Bedouins, Assyrians are not on the best of terms with each other, and many armed units are far from being able offer any serious resistance to such an opponent as ISIS, fighting as a regular army.

Therefore the “Union of Syrian Democratic forces” is more of a political project, then military. Peshmerga is the one fighting the most, among which dominate the groups associated with the Kurdistan Workers Party. Their goals are understandable. It’s not just about the salvation of the Kurdish people from genocide. Oil fields and transit infrastructure in Northern Syria may become the basis for the PKK in the battle against enemies such as Turkey and Iraq.

The problem is this jackpot is not located on Kurdish lands. Therefore, PKK leaders offered their units for the coalition, so it doesn’t look like expansion. On the other hand, it is possible that some of the PKK commanders agree to program minimum: Kurdish fighters take back the North of Syria from the terrorists and in return get the opportunity to live on a particular territory under international safeguards from the Turkish justice.

However, such an option should, obviously, imply that the military leaders will abandon the political loyalty to the Kurdistan Workers Party. There is a reason why the formations of Kurdish field commanders so far did not oppose now happening in the towns and villages of Hasaka replacement of PKK appointees for the candidates of the Democratic Union of Syrian Kurds and other local structures, who already reached an agreement with the Turks brokered by the US. And this despite the fact that on the other side of the Turkish border there is very active fighting between the PKK supporters and Turkish security forces.

It seems that the USA are not betting on the Kurdish autonomy, as it seems to some, but on a protectorate in the form of a small confederation based on the sharing of revenues from oil transit.

Stopping ISIS: Follow the Money

By Peter Van Buren

….One source of income for ISIS is and has robustly been oil sales. In the early days of the air campaign, American officials made a point to say that the Islamic State’s oil drilling assets were high on the target list. Yet few sites have actually been targeted. A Pentagon spokesperson explained that the coalition has actually been trying to spare some of ISIS’s largest oil producing facilities, “recognizing that they remain the property of the Syrian people,” and to limit collateral damage to civilians nearby.

The U.S. only this week began a slightly more aggressive approach toward the oil, albeit bombing tanker trucks, not the infrastructure behind them. The trucks were destroyed at the Abu Kamal oil collection point, near the Iraqi border.

Conservative estimates are that Islamic State takes in one to two million dollars a day from oil sales; some see the number as high as four million a day. As recently as February, however, the Pentagon claimed oil was no longer ISIS’ main way to raise money, having been bypassed by those “donations” from unspecified sources, and smuggling…..

Putin – Cometh the Hour, Cometh the Man

Finian Cunningham

……Hollande is to fly to Washington on November 24 to discuss with Obama how to coordinate efforts at combating ISIL in Syria and Iraq. Two days after that, the

French president is due in Moscow to hold the same discussion with Putin. Putin has already acknowledged the appeal from Hollande, saying that he welcomes closer cooperation, adding that Russia has been consistently calling for a greater joint effort in combating terrorism.

Putin has even reportedly offered Russian naval coordination with the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle in the eastern Mediterranean for future airstrikes against ISIL. Within days of the Paris massacre, French warplanes launched extensive strikes against Islamic State bases in eastern Syria.

Russia and its Syrian ally have pointed out that previous military strikes by the US and France are in violation of international law since these operations do not have consent from the government in Damascus. It remains to be seen then how Russia would coordinate military operations with France in Syria owing to the legal implications.

Since the Paris mayhem, several French political figures and former military intelligence personnel have urged Hollande to re-think policy on Syria.

Opposition leader Nicolas Sarkozy, among others, said that “to not coordinate with Russia is absurd”. A think-tank, CF2R, with close links to French military intelligence, also advised the Hollande government to view the Syrian leader not as the enemy, and to dedicate efforts, in conjunction with Russia, on destroying the ISIL and related groups.

In other words, Russia is being proven right about its intervention in Syria. The most effective way to defeat the terror networks of ISIL and other jihadist groups like the Nusra Front is to support the Syrian state, to coordinate with the Syrian Arab Army on the ground, and to target the militants with a full-on campaign.

That is why Putin was received at the G20 summit with a newfound respect among other leaders. When Putin ordered the Russian military intervention in Syria, beginning on September 30, it was not done in half-measures. In a matter of weeks, the Russian air force has achieved more in terms of wiping out terror groups than the US-led coalition did in more than a year of airstrikes.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov noted in an interview this week that the US-led bombing supposedly against the Islamic State has been ineffective due to its conflicting priorities. Lavrov said that since August 2014, the Western so-called anti-ISIL coalition was focused on “weakening” the Damascus government and therefore it did not strike decisively at ISIL formations because they are seen as assets in the Western effort for regime change.

Some analysts go further and argue that the Islamic State and associated jihadist mercenaries are the result of covert Western sponsorship of these groups.

Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Gulf Arab states are also known to have been major funders and facilitators of the jihadist brigades. Putin highlighted these links at the G20 summit when he announced that the financing of the terror networks in Syria has come from “40 states, including members of the G20”.

Thus, while Russia has been vindicated in its strategy and tactics on Syria, the appeal for a “global coalition” against terror has intrinsic limits. This is because key Western powers and their regional allies are committed in principle against such a Russian-defined front.

The United States, Britain and France are among those states insisting that the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has to relinquish power, sooner or later. Russia rejects that demand as a violation of Syrian sovereignty.

These Western states are also known to have supplied weapons, at least indirectly, to the jihadist terror groups.

British leader David Cameron complained at the G20 summit that Russia has hit “non-ISIL opposition to Assad – people who could be part of the future of Syria.” But who or where are these “non-ISIL” groups that Cameron says “could be part of the future of Syria”?

When Russia has asked the West for information and locations on “moderate rebels” to avoid in its airstrikes, the West has refused to provide any details.

France is as guilty as any other of the foreign states for fuelling a covert war in Syria that has spawned the terror problem of Islamic State and its affiliates. A problem that has, in turn, rebounded with horrific results outside of Syria’s borders, killing hundreds of French and Russian citizens in only the past three weeks.

Vladimir Putin has demonstrated true leadership on tackling terrorism in Syria and beyond. As the old English proverb goes: cometh the hour, cometh the man.

However, the more troubling problem is this: how many other statesmen are ready and willing to do the decent thing and follow the Russian lead? Russia’s policy on Syria is the morally and legally correct one.

The Paris and Russian airliner massacres, as well as other recent terrorist atrocities in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and other countries, cry out for a real anti-terror effort based on respecting sovereignty and abiding by international law.

That challenge will expose those states that have built their policies on Syria out of deeply criminal objectives and methods.

URGENT: ISIL’s Top Commanders Evacuating Syria’s Raqqa, ISIL Changing Capital

URGENT: Homs Town Falling back in Syrian Hands

URGENT: Syrian Forces Win Back More Villages in Aleppo

Homs: Al-Dawa Region Taken Back by Syrian Army

Syrian Forces Enter Strategic Town in Homs

URGENT: Army Gains Upper Hand against Militants in Lattakia

Syrian Forces Win Back New Village in Aleppo

Syrian Army Retakes Key Hill in Homs

Syrian Army Clashes with Militants in Jobar

Syrian Forces Hit Militants Hard in Hama, Dara’a, Homs