War in Syria: Latest & Analysis

[Southpark Fan]

Golan Heights and international law

The Israeli government gave the concession to Genie in the disputed Golan Heights in 2013 when the US-led destabilization of the Syrian Assad regime was in full force. Conveniently, Israel also began building fortifications at that time to seal off the illegally-occupied Golan Heights from Syria, knowing there was little Assad or Syria could do to stop it. In 2013, as Genie Energy began moving into Golan Heights, Israeli military engineers overhauled the forty-five mile border fence with Syria, replacing it with a steel barricade that includes barbed wire, touch sensors, motion detectors, infrared cameras, and ground radar, putting it on par with the Wall Israel has constructed in the West Bank.

Now, as Damascus fights for its life, apparently, Genie has discovered a huge oil field precisely there.

The Golan Heights, however, are illegally occupied by Israel. In 1981, Israel passed the Golan Heights Law, imposing Israeli "laws, jurisdiction and administration" to the Golan Heights. In response the UN Security Council passed Resolution 242 which declared Israel must withdraw from all lands occupied in the 1967 war with Syria, including the Golan Heights.

Again in 2008 a plenary session of the UN General Assembly passed a resolution 161 - 1 in favor of a motion on the Golan Heights that reaffirmed Security Council resolution 497, which was passed in 1981 after the Israeli de facto annexation, declaring the Golan Heights Law, "null and void and without international legal effect," and called on Israel to desist from "changing the physical character, demographic composition, institutional structure and legal status of the occupied Syrian Golan and, in particular, to desist from the establishment of settlements...from imposing Israeli citizenship and Israeli identity cards on the Syrian citizens in the occupied Syrian Golan and from its repressive measures against the population of the occupied Syrian Golan."

Israel was the only nation to vote against the resolution. As recently as June 2007 Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert sent a secret communique to Syrian President Bashar Assad saying that Israel would concede the Golan Heights in exchange for a comprehensive peace agreement and the severing of Syria's ties with Iran and militant groups in the region.

**Genie Energy claims huge discovery

On October 8, into the second week of Russian airstrikes against ISIS and other so-called "moderate" terrorists at the request of the Assad government, Yuval Bartov, chief geologist from Genie Energy's Israeli subsidiary, Afek Oil & Gas, told Israel's Channel 2 TV that his company had found a major oil reservoir on the Golan Heights: "We've found an oil stratum 350 meters thick in the southern Golan Heights. On average worldwide, strata are 20 to 30 meters thick, and this is 10 times as large as that, so we are talking about significant quantities."

This oil find has now made the Golan Heights a strategic "prize" that clearly has the Netanyahu government more determined than ever to sow chaos and disorder in Damascus and use that to de facto create an Israeli irreversible occupation of Golan and its oil. A minister in the Netanyahu coalition government, Naftali Bennett, Minister of Education and Minister of Diaspora Affairs and leader of the right-wing religious party, The Jewish Home, has made a proposal that Israel settle 100,000 new Israeli settlers across the Golan in five years. He argues that with Syria "disintegrating" after years of civil war, it's hard to imagine a stable state to which the Golan Heights could be returned. Further a growing chorus in Tel Aviv is arguing that Netanyahu demand American recognition of Israel's 1981 annexation of the Golan as an "appropriate salve to Israeli security concerns in the wake of the nuclear deal with Iran."

Energy war has been a significant component of US, Israeli, Qatari, Turkish, and, until recently, Saudi, strategy against Syria's Assad regime. Before the latest Golan Heights oil discovery, the focus on Assad pivoted on the huge regional natural gas resources of both Qatar and of Iran on opposite sides of the Persian Gulf, comprising the largest known gas discovery in the world to date.

**Genie Energy - a little-known Newark, New Jersey oil company. Dick Cheney, James Woolsey, Bill Richardson, Jacob Lord Rothschild, Rupert Murdock, Larry Summers and Michael Steinhardt are members of the Strategic Advisory Board of a Newark, New Jersey-based oil and gas group with the name, Genie Energy. It's quite a collection of names.

[Southpark Fan]

Outspoken Turkish writer who discovered Erdogan lied about university degree found dead
22 April, 2016 | Katehon

So many of our 'leaders' are frauds. They lie for a living. Many of their bio's are suspect. Why fake someone's genealogy? Unless the game is fixed from years before? Wouldn't surprise me at all. We already know the process of Democracy is a fraud. It only works for whores to corporations, intelligence trolls and lackeys for organised crime.

Turkish writer Ergun Poyraz, who had earlier said that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has no actual higher education and as president he received this education illegally, is found dead.


Turkish writer Ergun Poyraz pictured at left being taken to court by counterterrorism police

Poyraz organized an investigation that proved that Erdogan's diploma is a fake and he did not study at the university. Poyraz published the original version of Erdogan's diploma, which he allegedly wrote while studying at Marmara University. It turned out that the diploma is dated when the University of Marmara was not existent.

It should be noted that the 4-year college education is mandatory for the election of the President of Turkey.

Turkish party "Salvation of the people" on the basis of the investigation lead by Poyraz appealed to the court, stating that Erdogan presented a fake diploma to participate in the elections.

Poyraz soon began to face various difficulties in Turkey. Now, he was found dead.

Russia: Sorry, Israel, Golan Heights is Syrian territory

[Southpark Fan]

Syria, Russia Consider Creating Joint Banks to Simplify Trade
25.04.2016 | Sputnik

Syria and Russia are considering the possibility of setting up joint banks to carry out transactions between the two countries, Syrian Prime Minister Wael Nader Halqi told Sputnik.

"The Russian-Syrian business council has expressed a wish to open a joint Russian-Syrian bank with an equity participation of 50 percent by each side. The Syrian participation will be provided by Syrian businessmen with sufficient banking experience. This bank would be controlled by the countries' central banks," Halqi said.

[Fintan]

<iframe id="ytplayer" type="text/html" width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WOERUP9miZ4" frameborder="0"></iframe>

Discover what RT Doc crew found in oil-rich areas
that were under ISIS occupation only days ago.

The documentary contains exclusive footage from towns
liberated from ISIS, and features interviews with locals
who had worked on ISIS oil refineries as well as testimonies
from the ISIS members captured by Kurdish YPG soldiers.


An RT Documentary crew filming in northern Syria has seen Islamic State documents abandoned by retreating terrorists and found by the Kurds that, along with captured IS recruits, provide a stunning insight into the ISIS oil trade.

Only ten days after the town of Shaddadi in Syrian Kurdistan was liberated from the ISIS militants, an RT Doc film crew followed Kurdish soldiers around houses that had been abandoned in haste by fleeing jihadists.

There, they found documents shedding light on the ISIS oil trade, jihadist passports with Turkish entry stamps, an instruction booklet - printed in Turkey - on how to wage war against the Syrian government, and more.

The areas surrounding Shaddadi has large natural oil reserves, and until recently, ISIS militants profited from it, forcing members of the local population to work in their oil industry. Piles of detailed invoices used by ISIS to calculate daily revenues from selling oil were found on the site.

Local residents attested that intermediaries from Raqqa and Aleppo arrived to pick up the oil and often mentioned Turkey, while a captured ISIS recruit admitted on camera that the terrorist group sells oil to Turkey. He and another foreign fighter from Saudi Arabia also revealed that it had been easy to cross the Turkish border.

[Southpark Fan]

Caught on camera: US Special Forces on ISIS frontline in Syria
27 May, 2016 | RT

Say 'cheese' fellas; click, click, click...

US Special Forces operatives have been photographed fighting alongside the Kurdish militia in northern Syria in a drive against the Islamic State-held city of Raqqa. The Pentagon insists the Americans are there in “advise and assist” capacity only, however.

American Green Berets in Syria are wearing Kurdish militia insignia on their uniforms

A photographer for Agence France-Presse (AFP) took pictures of the American special operatives in what The Washington Post identified as the village of Fatisah, roughly 30 miles (48 km) north of Raqqa. Kurdish fighters from the People’s Protection Units (YPG) – part of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighting against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) in northern Syria – identified the men as Americans.

Images: http://www.gettyimages.ca/photos/-village-of-fatisah

The SDF launched a push against the IS capital this week, following the secret visit to the northern Syrian region by General Joseph Votel, head of the US Central Command (CENTCOM).

The Post’s Checkpoint blog confirmed the identification, noting that one of the images shows three men operating a 40mm Mk 47 automatic grenade launcher, a specialized weapon used by US Special Operations units.

There were more than a dozen US troops in the village, according to the photographer. The White House has admitted to the presence of up to 300 US operatives in Syria.

Some of the men can be seen wearing the YPG insignia. The Kurdish militia forms the bulk of the SDF and has been responsible for most of the gains against the IS in northern Syria. Turkey, a key US ally in the region, regards the YPG as a terrorist organization. Some of the US-backed rebel groups in Syria are likewise hostile to the Kurds, and may take offense at the US troops’ use of the patch, Checkpoint noted.

“Our special operations forces in the past have, yes, worn insignias and other identifying marks with their partner forces,” Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook told reporters on Thursday.

They “do what they can to blend in with the community” and enhance their own protection, Cook said, citing operational security in refusing to confirm or deny any details about the troops involved.

Cook also ducked repeated questions from reporters on whether the troops that were supposed to advise and assist the local militia were actually taking part in combat on the front lines.

“They are not on the forward line. They are providing advice and assistance,” Cook said, adding that their “advise-and-assist role has not changed.”

Pressed to explain the distinction between the front line and the forward line, Cook replied, “I don’t have a yardstick for you. This is a fluid situation.”

The village of Fatisah is not exactly on the front line of SDF operations against IS. It can be seen in the upper left corner of this map of combat operations north of Raqqa, made by a Canadian cartographer following the war in Syria.

[kiwikeith]

Footage released by Iraqi airforce on June 30, shows a big ISIS convoy of over 700 vehicles given safe passage to escape from Falujah into the desert.

The US-led coalition refused to bomb them according to IQAF officials and prevented any fixed wing (Iraq has several F16s) aircraft to fly nearby, it was no choice other than using helicopters to do the task before being hit and scattered.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c55_1467 ... wCmZMxC.99[/url]

[James D]

Just as ISIS is cut off ...
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 25276.html

and Turkey invades Syria to stop the Kurds getting ideas ...

... here's a graphic Channel 4 video on who was fighting who -

<embed src="//www.youtube.com/v/zArK07RQd1s?hl=en_GB&version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="640" height="360" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed>

Chaos or design - it's now a clusterfuck!

5 explosive secret intelligence memos on Syria everyone must read [VIDEO]
http://www.thecanary.co/2016/09/06/5-ex ... ead-video/

...
1) British and American special forces were already on the ground advising anti-Assad militants in the first year of the Syrian conflict (2011)
...
2) Saudi Arabia was committed to overthrowing the Syrian government “by all means available”
...
3) US military intelligence warned the White House in 2012 that the West’s covert war in Syria would produce “an Islamic State” (precisely what Daesh (Isis/Isil) claimed to be creating two years later in 2014)
...
4) A formerly classified US policy paper found within Hillary Clinton’s emails (archived by WikiLeaks), promoting the forceful overthrow of Assad as “a massive boon to Israel’s security”, and as a way to start a war with Iran.
...
5) Google secretly teamed up with the US government to create online tools that would encourage and aid regime change in Syria
...

<embed src="//www.youtube.com/v/Z1aDciHCejA?hl=en_GB&version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="640" height="360" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed>

Well, we probably all knew most of that, I guess ...
... but does anyone know what Pepe Escobar's latest take on it all is? - He's a hard man to pin down

[James D]

http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2016/09/21 ... n-bombing/


https://www.rt.com/news/360248-assad-ap ... irstrikes/

https://sputniknews.com/world/20160922/ ... shortening

US military officials opposed to Syria truce:
http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2016/09/1 ... r-Peterson

Press TV has spoken to Brian Becker, with the ANSWER Coalition from Washington, and Frederick Peterson, a US congressional defense policy advisor from New York, to review the recent US airstrike that targeted Syrian army troops in the city of Dayr al-Zawr.

Brian Becker said, the reason behind a US-led airstrike against a Syrian army base in Dayr al-Zawr is that the Pentagon, US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter and some American generals are “openly critical of the agreement” that was signed between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to put in place a ceasefire in Syria.
...

[Fintan]

JamesD: Chaos or design - it's now a clusterfuck!

Isn't it just!

And worse still, seems there are certain vested interests determined
to refuse to admit they failed. They are now keeping it a cluster**ck!?
FFS.

JamesD: Anyone know what Pepe Escobar's latest take on it all is?

As for Pepe, he has a new one out which I put in the newsfeed:

@fintandunne
NON-ALIGNED NATIONS BATTLE THE NWO
By Pepe Escobar http://bit.ly/2ddsFO1

[stillsearchingtruth]

Sounds like scores of israeli/UK/American agents have been killed in Aleppo.
Surprisingly enough the western media has fallen verrrrry silent on that one.

[je-demande]

Sounds like scores of israeli/UK/American agents have been killed in Aleppo.

Russians Killing Israeli's?

Somehow I don't think so?

[stillsearchingtruth]

According to the times of israel

http://www.timesofisrael.com/russia-mos ... po-strike/