And next, Syria?

[Idris2002]

Ta, never seen it done that way,

As the actress said to the bishop.

 

[Coolfonz]

"There is almost no one who is not involved in really horrible atrocities, Russia and Iran are of course supporting the Assad government which has a hideous record."

"The Kurds are the one group who...apparently have a pretty decent government system so observers have felt, and they do merit support. You can't both have them as the ground force attacking ISIS and calling them terrorists, that is not a policy."

"Our comparative advantage is violence. And if you use that comparative advantage you are going to have the effects we have seen, for fifteen years."

Chomsky

 

[Casually Red]

CR will be bricking his local kebab shop's windows tonight.

No, they're Hiberno Italians , so they claim anyway. But I'm still keeping an eye on them.

 

[Patteran]

Reports that Turkish state is pushing ahead with plans for a 'safe zone' around between Jarablus & Azaz. PYD have been saying for a while that Turkish state has repeatedly used military force to impede the YPG crossing the Euphrates by IS-held Jarablus.

Source tells (Qatari financed) Al Araby news - '"Turkey thinks [the zone] will stem the flow of Syrian refugees into Turkey, sever Kurdish communications between Kobani and Afrin and protect its southern border in cooperation with several pro-Turkish opposition factions."

Article here.

Rough map -

 

[teqniq]

Treasury Sanctions Networks Providing Support to the Government of Syria, Including For Facilitating Syrian Government Oil Purchases from ISIL

 

[CNT36]

Treasury Sanctions Networks Providing Support to the Government of Syria, Including For Facilitating Syrian Government Oil Purchases from ISIL

I just came to post this - US accuses Syria of buying oil from Isis - FT.com

Spoiler: Article

High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights. US accuses Syria of buying oil from Isis - FT.com


US accuses Syria of buying oil from Isis


Geoff Dyer in Washington and Jack Farchy in Moscow

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©Aziz Karimov/Getty Images
Fide President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov

The US on Wednesday accused Syria of buying oil from the Islamist militants of Isis and imposed sanctions on a Syrian businessman it claimed is at the centre of the trade.

The US Treasury department also announced sanctions on Cypriot and Russian businessmen who they allege have helped Syria evade international sanctions, including Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the head of the world chess federation.




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While US officials have often claimed that the Syrian government purchases oil from Isis, Wednesday’s announcement represents the most direct accusation yet by the administration about the links between the Syrian regime and Isis.

“The United States will continue targeting the finances of all those enabling Assad to continue inflicting violence on the Syrian people,” said Adam Szubin, acting under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, in a statement.

The four individuals and six entities listed by the Treasury will have any assets in the US frozen and will be barred from doing business with US companies or individuals.

The administration has been criticised for doing too little to go after Isis’s oil infrastructure. However, the sanctions follow three weeks of stepped up air strikes against oilfields and trucks used by smugglers to transport the oil.

They were also announced the day before a visit to Moscow by French President François Hollande when he is expected to discuss international co-operation in the campaign against Isis, including efforts to damage the group’s finances.

The targets of the new sanctions include George Haswani, a Syrian national, and his company, Hesco Engineering and Construction. The Treasury said Mr Haswani, who was placed on an EU sanctions list earlier this year, “serves as a middleman for oil purchases by the Syrian regime from Isis”. It said that Hesco operated oil production facilities in Syria “reportedly in areas controlled by Isis”.

Mr Haswani, who could not be immediately reached on Wednesday for comment, has dismissed the similar European accusations as “fantasies”.

Isis Inc: how oil fuels the jihadi terrorists

Jihadis’ oil operation forces even their enemies to trade with them

Read more

The Treasury also sanctioned a group of Russian and Cypriot businessmen and companies for allegedly helping the Syrian central bank evade international sanctions.

For Mr Ilyumzhinov, the alleged financial association with the government of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad adds to the eccentric Russian millionaire’s already eclectic array of connections — from the Dalai Lama to aliens.

Mr Ilyumzhinov, a soft-spoken chess fanatic with a penchant for Rolls-Royces, was governor of the tiny Buddhist republic of Kalmykia until 2010 and has led the world chess federation (Fide) for two decades.

However, he is best known for his belief in aliens — he has repeatedly recounted an instance when he was abducted in 1997 by “people in yellow spacesuits”.

The Treasury on Wednesday said that Mr Ilyumzhinov had been added to its sanctions list for “materially assisting and acting for or on behalf of” the government of Syria and the Syrian central bank, as well as two Syrian central bank officials.

It did not give further details of the nature of the support, but it pointed to his links with Mudalal Khuri, who the Treasury said “represents [the Syrian] regime business and financial interests in Russia”. It also placed under sanctions Russian Financial Alliance Bank, in which Mr Ilyumzhinov is a shareholder.

Mr Ilyumzhinov has a diverse business empire, stretching from sugar to banking, and a network of contacts to match. He regularly meets the Dalai Lama, and he played chess with Libyan president Muammer Gaddafi shortly before his overthrow.

On Wednesday he reacted with surprise to the Treasury’s announcement. “I’ve visited Syria several times, I have met president Bashar al-Assad and other officials. At one time I used to play chess with Saddam Hussein. In chess there is no politics, we are promoting our sport in all countries and we talk to everyone,” he told R-Sport, a Russian sports news agency.

“As far as the US Treasury is concerned, they are arresting foreign bank accounts, but I don’t have a foreign bank account, or flats, or yachts — nothing.”

He said he would be in the US next week for talks for his next chess world championship match, and had no plans to cancel his trip.

The ISIS oil trade gets murkier and murkier. Rebels (including anti-Daesh ones), regime, Turkey/Turks anyone I'm forgetting?

 

[butchersapron]

Anti-ISIS syrians who need it for their generators. Though they try to get it via anti-ISIS rebel groups.

 

[agricola]

So 70000 "moderate fighters", then?

 

[CNT36]

Anti-ISIS syrians who need it for their generators. Though they try to get it via anti-ISIS rebel groups.

Yeah, and obviously those who live in Daesh controlled areas.

 

[camouflage]

Anti-ISIS syrians who need it for their generators. Though they try to get it via anti-ISIS rebel groups.

You really are something else.

 

[butchersapron]

You really are something else.

What, you don't think people who are against ISIS need fuel for generators to cook, and warm their elderly sick and young, to provide other essential activities, to grow food, to keep themselves alive?

 

[camouflage]

What, you don't think people who are against ISIS need fuel for generators to cook and warm their elderly sick and young, to provide other essential activities, to grow food, to keep themselves alive?

Ah, so you're talking about the Assad government too.

 

[teqniq]

Ah, so you're talking about the Assad government too.

The regime have deals in place with IS to facilitate oil and gas supplies, something I pointed out to you on the Paris shootings thread with a C&P of a FT article from October. Did you read it?

 

[butchersapron]

Ah, so you're talking about the Assad government too.

Given that they're jointly running many places with ISIS, then of course - which undermines your original post and means your "You really are something else." is now aimed directly at yourself - isn't it?

And no, i meant individuals in the rural areas or under siege urban communities who collectively buy from the black market for survival. The sort of thing that makes your yee haw cowboy oil nonsense more than a little complicated.

 

[butchersapron]

The regime have deals in place with IS to facilitate oil and gas supplies, something I pointed out to you on the Paris shootings thread with a C&P of a FT article from October. Did you read it?

Course he didn't - it's been pointed out over the last year numerous times.he's too busy posting fake stories to actually read something properly.

 

[camouflage]

The regime have deals in place with IS to facilitate oil and gas supplies, something I pointed out to you on the Paris shootings thread with a C&P of a FT article from October. Did you read it?

Yes I read it. On the one hand I've seen the media do the hundreds of voices all shouting out the same (what turns out to be) lies or mistruths. On the other hand war does nothing if not destroy, corrupt and hypocracize. I'm not against attacks on the Assad regime because I feel it a Class A governing bureaucracy. My point is that as much as what apron has said applies to the rural villager, also applies to the state itself, making some sort of accommodation with your hated enemy because you need energy and other resources in the midst of a war in which your nation has been placed under siege should be no surprise. Apron is right, necessity is necessity.

He's still a real piece of work though.

 

[teqniq]

Right thanks for the clarification.

 

[butchersapron]

It's going to happen in the north west. JAN run things, some of the non-beardies who got destroyed by JAN have reformed and joined the SDF and went to kuridish afrin. JAN destorys all threat immediately. So stepped up intimidation around afrin city. Non beardies strode out and took areas from them.

 

[Artaxerxes]

So 70000 "moderate fighters", then?

I hear they can be in combat within 30 minutes

 

[hash tag]

Well done Dennis!

 

[frogwoman]

Reports that france has bombed a school in raqqa today killing 5 children.

'At least five children killed' as air strike hits Syrian school

Can anyone confirm this for definite seeing as an earlier report of an air strike on a school in Iraq "seems" to have been debunked:

France wrongly accused of bombing school in Iraq’s Mosul 'killing 28 children'

 

[frogwoman]

surely the more bombs are dropped the more chance there is it's gonna hit something like a school so that's a reason not to do it?

 

[kebabking]

surely the more bombs are dropped the more chance there is it's gonna hit something like a school so that's a reason not to do it?

conversely, surely the more bombs are dropped, the more chances one of them will land on on critical IS infrastructure or people, so thats a reason to do it...

 

[frogwoman]

you dont think a lot of those guys will have evacuated raqqa by now and have moved to somewhere safer (for them that is)

 

[butchersapron]

Well done Dennis!

Not an internatioanlist position but a pro-asssad old-left position. Lovely.

 

[bimble]

This is interesting - independent (I think) monitoring of coalition figures for what the bombing has achieved so far.
Airwars
Enormous gap between the 'reported' and the 'verified as best as we can' civilian deaths so far

 

[kebabking]

you dont think a lot of those guys will have evacuated raqqa by now and have moved to somewhere safer (for them that is)

perhaps they have - fortunately we have the systems to find and follow them, and to then engage them. if the govt gets it way, the RAF won't be restricted to only attack IS in Syria, it will merely be free to follow them wherever they go - if they ditch Raqqa and fuck off the Mosul or wherever we'll just concentrate our fire there. if they do move thats even better, because if theres traffic on the Raqqa to Mosul road, it won't be the UNHCR...

 

[Pickman's model]

been reading thomas e ricks' 'the gamble' about the american 'surge' in iraq under general petraeus, and he basically says what's happened in iraq and syria was seen as being on the cards back in 2006, 2007. unless there's a major change in various governments' policies on isis i think this is not going to get better for many year, and all this talk of bombings seems to me to mean that this isn't going to remain a proxy war on the ground for all that long. someone's posted about bahraini support for isis; how long before pro- and anti-isis proxy forces replaced or supplemented with troops from the various interested states?

 

[bimble]

someone's posted about bahraini support for isis;

Just before reading that I read this ..
"Of the 12 nations that have so far bombed Daesh in Iraq and Syria, only Canada has consistently said where and when it attacks. At the bottom of the accountability list is Bahrain, which has said nothing of its airstrikes in Syria."
(From the people at the airwars website)

 

[teqniq]

On Thursday David Cameron set out his case in the House of Commons for a UK bombing campaign in Syria.

We have all been horrified by the despicable attacks in Paris and are determined to see ISIS defeated.

The issue now is whether what the Prime Minister is proposing strengthens, or undermines, our national security.

I put a series of questions in response to the Prime Minister's statement, raising concerns about his case that are on the minds of many in the country. You can read my response here.

There could not be a more important matter than whether British forces are sent to war.

As early as next week, MPs could be asked to vote on extending UK bombing to Syria.

I do not believe that the Prime Minister made a convincing case that British air strikes on Syria would strengthen our national security or reduce the threat from ISIS.

When I was elected I said I wanted Labour to become a more inclusive and democratic party.

So I am writing to consult you on what you think Britain should do. Should Parliament vote to authorise the bombing of Syria?

Let me know your views, if you are able to, by the start of next week:http://www.labour.org.uk/page/s/syria-consultation

Yours,

Jeremy Corbyn MP
Leader of the Labour Party