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Israel Rocked By Rocket Attacks is the Iranian Two-Front Strategy Beginning

We’ve all seen how since late Friday, Israel has been facing an unending series of rocket and mortar attacks which has kept the country on alert. Hamas from their enclaves in Gaza has launched, to date over 200 rockets and mortars on the Israeli territory around Sderot. Most of the rockets fell into open fields or were shot down by Israeli Iron Dome air defense systems. But one rocket hit just outside a family’s home injuring three while another hit a synagogue although it was empty at the time.

The Israelis have responded with their heaviest air strikes since the 2014 Operation Protective Edge. More than 40 targets were hit including a Hamas training facility that the IDF has stated contained underground tunnels for training as part of Hamas’ tunnel network operations. Hamas claimed that the facility was empty and only two teenaged passersby across the street were killed.

Reports were surfacing of a ceasefire brokered by Egypt which will reportedly stop the rockets for now and the Israeli counter strikes. It will only put off the inevitable because this was just the opening salvo of the Iranian two-front strategy.

This strategy is already well-known by the IDF chiefs in Tel Aviv. It is simple as it aims to put the Israelis under a two-front scenario that they cannot win. They are pumping rockets into Gaza with Hamas and together with the Syrian offensive aimed at retaking the southern areas of the country back from the rebels during the on-going civil war, they are planning on having a presence on the Israeli border at the Golan Heights.

Rather than use Hezbollah’s bases in Lebanon which would invite an Israeli incursion, they are going to establish Iranian bases in southern Syria. That’s what Tehran wants, an Iranian presence in the Golan. Under the current de-escalation agreements between the United States, Russia and Jordan, the southern area of Syria were supposedly off-limits. However, Syrian forces under the Assad regime are actively attempting to retake the southern areas and return them to government control with a heavy dose of Russian air power in support.

President Putin has frequently stated that only Syrian troops will occupy the borders along the Jordanian/Israeli.Syrian border. And that any Russian or Iranian troops will withdraw soon after the area is retaken. Right now the Syrian troops are moving east towards Daraa close to the Jordanian frontier. It is when they turn southwest towards Quneitra that things are likely to get dicey. It is no secret that Iranian militias are embedded with the Syrian troops.

Israel has made it clear that it will tolerate no Iranian bases or troops along its border. In the past several months, their intelligence has been able to pinpoint the Iranian bases inside Syria and they’ve been decimated by air attacks. But these bases were mainly Iranian bases. Once embedded with Syrian forces it presents another factor entirely. Will Putin and the Russian Air Force, which hasn’t lifted a finger to stop the Israeli airstrikes thus far respond now as they’ll be attacking both Syrian and Iranian troops? Right now the answer is no, but this has all the earmarks of a quagmire in the area.

The Iranians know that of right now an all-out conventional conflict with Israel will go badly. But that’s not what they’re looking for. A two-front conflict with Israel with rockets poised in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza will effectively stop the Israelis from acting decisively in any location.

And the Iranians haven’t even been trying to do so covertly, they’re broadcasting their aims openly over social media. Back in June, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) deputy commander Hossein Salami spelled out Iran’s plan to use Hezbollah, which he called a “mighty power” with 100,000 rockets aimed at Israel.

He also called upon the “Islamic Army in Syria, operating in the Golan Heights was awaiting orders “to eradicate the evil regime.” He added that the Palestinians, armed with missiles can now act against Israel, the Americans and the west.

In typical Iranian rhetoric, Salami said that Iran controlled the shipping lanes that operate out of the gulf and that any attempt by the West (read Europe) will result in the Islamic Republic squeezing the Europeans off from their oil and goods shipped thru the gulf.

Some of his comments during the Quds speech are here:

The Islamic Revolution created a mighty power called Hezbollah, that today, as the Zionist regime itself acknowledges, has over 100,000 missiles ready for launch. Hezbollah today has tremendous might on the ground that can on its own break the Zionist regime. The Zionist regime has no strategic-defensive depth, and in some places, the breadth of this regime is barely 34 km, and in order to destroy it, it will take only one ‘Jerusalem operation to destroy it.

“Today an international Islamic army has been formed in Syria, and the voices of the Muslims are heard near the Golan… Orders are awaited so that the custom of God vis-à-vis the eradication of the evil regime [Israel] will land and the life of this regime will be ended for good. The life of the Zionist regime was never in danger as it is now.

“Once, the Palestinians fought with stones and slingshots, but today they are armed with missiles. Every regime site is today under fire from the missile launchers. The farther and more deeply [we look], the more we see that there is a politically and militarily powerful regime in the world that raises the flag of fighting evil. This regime is Iran.”

“Iran Invites The Muslims To Jihad”

“We Have A Duty To Defend The Palestine Movement That Is Now Fighting… We Are Creating Might In Lebanon Because We Want To Fight Our Enemy From There With All Our Strength”

“Does today’s world know that [its] energy is under Iranian security control? They must know that if their industry flourishes thanks to Persian Gulf energy, they owe this to Iran, and they must not annoy Iran. Their life’s vein is in our hands. The security of their interests is in our hands.”

The Israelis were well aware of the Iranian plans and hard-liners in the government were already debating whether the IDF should hammer Gaza hard now before the Iranians are digging into southwestern Syria.

In regard to Iran, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is of the opinion that if war is coming with Iran, it is better to deal with it now rather than later. The Israelis know that an Iranian presence on their border is going to lead to conflict between the two countries. Tehran is wanting for the low-intensity type with the Israelis being hamstrung between two fronts and limited to carrying out airstrikes in Gaza and Syria, without the capability to decisively deal with either threat.

The leaders in Tehran have no issue, as in the past by using the Palestinians for that purpose. Meanwhile, the mainstream media ties the recent rocket attacks from Gaza as a continuation of the “protests” along the border that hit the area recently. It is not. Nor will it, as is repeatedly stated effect the “peace process” between the Israelis and Palestinians. Hamas is of the opinion that Israel doesn’t have the right to exist.

What this is, however, is a power play by Tehran and how events unfold in southwestern Syria will bear watching in the very near future.

Photo: AP

Fauda: Israeli Series in The War on Terror Is Gritty, Brutal, Must-Watch TV

It isn’t often that I get surprised like this weekend when a very good friend of mine mentioned the Netflix series “Fauda” that is produced in Israel. He and his wife had been watching it and called me to recommend it. The exact words were, “if you like ‘Homeland’ then you’ll love Fauda”

The story centers around an Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), Special Operations/Intelligence team which is part of the Commando Brigade that works across the border into the Palestinian territory. The 24-part, two-season series begins with the protagonist Doron Kavillio who was part of the team but stepped away when family issues arose. He’s called back when Israeli intelligence learns that a senior terrorist, Taufiq Hammed, Doron believed he killed 18 months earlier, is alive and preparing to resurface for his brother’s wedding. Hammed, who goes by the codename “The Panther” is the most wanted man in Season 1. 

Fauda which means chaos in Arabic was developed by Lior Raz and Avi Issacharoff who based the story off of many of their own experiences while serving in the IDF’s Duvdevan Unit. Doron and his team, are part of a Mista’arvim unit, who are specially trained units that are tasked with working undercover in the Arab areas with their ability to assimilate in the cities and towns. And their operations are seldom without events going awry as they frequently do and the very first operation at the wedding is a testament to that. 

What makes Fauda so damned compelling is the outstanding character development on both sides of the border. While the story centers around “the unit” as they call themselves, they are hardly just the forces of good here. Each of the characters has his flaws, none as much as the hard-boiled Doron. If you’re looking for a suave, debonair James Bond-type character in a tuxedo and driving an Aston Martin, Fauda isn’t for you.

Doron is a shorter, heavy-set, balding, foul-tempered badass with a permanent five o’clock shadow. His marriage is falling apart, his wife is screwing another member of the unit after he ignored her for several years. In one moment Doron is seen cuddling and cooing with his children whom he adores, the next, he breaks the teeth out of a Palestinian suspect with over the top brutality.

When a member of the unit gets kidnapped by Hamas, Donor snatches the terrorist’s daughter and when they’re doing a prisoner exchange, straps one of the Palestinian suicide vests on the seven-year-old girl threatening to blow her to bits. No, this isn’t your father’s John Wayne hero here. But at the same time, whenever he’s onscreen, you can’t take your eyes off of Doron, he’s like a wolf in the backyard. He may not be exerting any overt hostility but you have to watch him because he’s apt to explode at any second.

Captain Gabi Ayub, the Israeli interrogator is another compelling character. The suave, slightly oily Gabi is a master manipulator. He knows exactly which buttons to push. In one scene, his eyes look positively doe-like while he talks to a Palestinian mother about saving her children. The next moment after another woman tells an Israeli female interrogator to “Shut up you Zionist bitch.” Gabi turns on the devil eyes. He storms into the room and tells the pregnant Palestinian that he’ll make her suffer a miscarriage in exactly one minute if she doesn’t tell him what he needs to know.

I’ve read that the show is a smash hit not only in Israel but in Palestine as well. The Hamas, ISIS and Palestinian Authority players get the same treatment, they are far from the one-dimensional characters that we’re used to seeing on screen. The very evenhandedness by the producers towards the Palestinians is one of the biggest draws of the show. The series shows both points of view in every scenario and takes great pains to show the plight of the Palestinians. While little is shown about the West Bank and the border other than the benign checkpoints, the contrast between the Israeli countryside and the rundown, seedy Palestinian territory is stark.

Nowhere is the plight of the Palestinians shown better than the tragic case of Dr. Shirin Al Abed. A half-French, half Palestinian woman of 32, whose husband died of MS. She spent most of her life in Paris, worked for Doctors Without Borders and only moved to Palestine to be closer to her mother.

Shirin is forced to work for Hamas after they kidnap her mother. He gets taken advantage of from both sides. Doron goes undercover and woos here while telling her he is a member of the Palestinian Preventive Security. Her life gets turned upside down as she’s caught up in the intrigue and bloody killing that she wanted no part of.    

Although the story is told basically from the standpoint of the unit, the differences between the Israelis and the Palestinians gets mighty blurry. Both sides threaten, torture and kill with increasing reckless abandon. Both the unit and the terror cells have big issues with individuals losing discipline, ignoring orders and going off on killing sprees.

The one thing Doron, Hammed and in Season 2, al-Makdasi have in common is the personal enmities and blind hate the characters have for one another that trumps their duties and responsibilities.

The action, though bloody isn’t too graphic, it is, however,  very gritty. Israel likes to tout its army as the “most moral military in the world” but Fauda lays waste to that claim and Doron and the unit, routinely snatch Palestinians off the street, torture and beat their captives in an attempt to gather information and kill the Palestinians with callous disregard.

The series shows the awful price of the type of war that the two sides are fighting both physically and mentally. And the price paid by the families in this series is very steep. And like all wars, there are very, very few black and white issues, but various shades of grey. Are there plot holes in the series? Yes. Were there believability issues as well? At times, sure. It is like that with virtually every film Hollywood has done.

But if you tune into to Season 1, clear your calendar.  As I said I was surprised and in a good way. I binge watched all 24 episodes this weekend and can’t wait for Season 3. This is most recommended and despite it being broadcast in Hebrew and Arabic with English subtitles, it doesn’t take away from the story at all.

Photo Netflix

Green Berets and Afghan Commandos Take ISIS Stronghold

U.S. Green Berets and Afghan special operations troops captured a town that the Islamic State (ISIS) had claimed as their local capital. The large joint operation has been on-going for several weeks and culminated with the capture of Gurgoray on Saturday.

No Americans or Afghan troops were killed in the offensive, which the U.S. military said killed 167 fighters from the Islamic State group – also known as ISIS or Daesh – and involved a complex multipronged attack on Gurgoray, a town purported to be the group’s capital in Deh Bala district in Nangarhar province.

“This area, two months ago, was controlled by Daesh,” Brig. Gen. John W. Brennan Jr., commander of NATO forces in eastern Afghanistan, said at a special operations outpost in Deh Bala. “We pushed them into the mountains, so they cannot harm the people here.”

The U.S. and Afghan offensive involved five Special Forces teams and three Afghan commando companies. In total, 600 members of the U.S. Army Special Forces, also known as Green Berets, participated in the mission, which began in April and continued into June, a U.S. military officer said.

Checkpoints manned by U.S. Special Forces, Afghan commandos and police now rise high above the valleys of Deh Bala, while American fighter-bombers continue to blast the Gurgoray Valley to stifle movements there by ISIS remnants.

Nangarhar province is one of the few places Americans continue to fight alongside Afghan forces in battle, and it has also been the deadliest spot for U.S. servicemembers, with a third of American combat deaths occurring there last year.

The finger-like mountain ridges and wheat-filled valleys of Deh Bala district in Nangarhar have long provided shelter to insurgents – the Taliban, al-Qaida and now ISIS.

The district’s center lies 21 miles south of Jalalabad, the provincial capital where ISIS claimed recent deadly suicide attacks, and 11 miles west of Aachin, where the U.S. military in April 2017 dropped the largest bomb in its arsenal, “the mother of all bombs,” on an ISIS cave network.

Due to its location on the border with Pakistan, Deh Bala served as a key supply route for ISIS.

“ISIS was using this site as a site to prepare and stage high-profile attacks,” said Lt. Col. Joshua Thiel, commander of 3rd Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group.

After airlifting Afghan commandos and Special Forces teams to the ridges surrounding the valley, the coalition troops controlled the high ground and put the ISIS fighters under fire as they gradually closed the noose as they forced them out.

U.S. officials said they found evidence of ISIS fighters from 10 different countries in Gurgoray.

To read the entire article from Stars and Stripes, click here:

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

Tehran Upping the Ante, Training Taliban Fighters in Iran

With the Trump administration pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal and looking to impose new sanctions which will hurt Tehran’s ability to finance terrorism around the world, Iran is looking to increase their influence everywhere in the Middle East and they’re playing both sides by training some of the Taliban’s best fighters inside Iran.

The Times from the U.K. was the first to report that Iran is training the Taliban’s fighters, something the Iranians strongly rejected calling the allegations, “fake and undocumented” in an official press release from their Kabul embassy. The Iranians stated that instead of making “baseless” accusations against Afghanistan’s neighbors, they should seek to “find the root causes of the failure of the so-called anti-terrorism fight by certain governments in the country.”

Tehran, like China and Russia, is looking to push back against Washington’s influence everywhere they can, they’ve established bases in Syria and now have a strong presence in Iraq. And while the Ayatollah has had good relations with the government in Kabul, they’re hedging their bets by training the Taliban in Iran, something that will be a lot harder to prove than conducting the training across the border into Afghanistan.

But yet, the Taliban are making their fighters available to the press to talk about the training they are receiving from Iran and the Iranian SOF. The Ayatollahs have always had a friendly relationship with the Kabul government and an enemy of the Taliban. But the Quds Forces, the SOF of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards is courting the Taliban in ever larger numbers. This duality will definitely bear watching in the future.  

The Times quoted a Taliban source at their headquarters in Pakistan where he clearly stated, “The Iranian offer of training came with two demands: that we should put more focus on attacking American and Nato interests in Afghanistan, and devote more forces to attacking Daesh (ISIS).”

The Iranians immediately began planning this move months ago when President Trump began to make noise about pulling out of the Iran Nuclear deal. And the Iranians then decided to take “the best and the brightest” Taliban fighters and bring them to Iran and receive a six-month training course run by Iranian special forces troops.

The training is being conducted in Kermanshah in the western part of the country. The base is a permanent military facility complete with barracks, classrooms, mess halls, weapons and demolition ranges, a gym and a mosque. One young Taliban commander who goes by the name of Nawheed stated that there were 500-600 Taliban in various stages of training. Iranian SF are training them on tactics, leadership, recruitment, bomb-making and advanced weapons training.

He was selected to speak with the media as the Taliban is rattling its saber to show how they plan to escalate the fighting if the peace talks with Kabul government fail. The message is clear. With the U.S. looking to increase sanctions, Iran is planning on hitting the U.S. interests in Afghanistan hard.

After completing a basic course of instruction, Taliban fighters are chosen for advanced courses in explosives, field communications, IT, mortars, sniping, recruiting, ambush and infiltration according to the Taliban.

But yet the Tehran government continues with the rhetoric that they are interested in only furthering the peace process. “As the Islamic Republic of Iran has repeatedly said, it has never extended its rifts with other countries to Afghanistan’s domestic affairs and seeks an increase in global efforts to reinforce the Afghan government and decrease its people’s suffering,” they added in their statement before denying the Taliban connection.

The Taliban has only boosted its campaign of violence across the country, targeting both civilians and security forces in bloody assaults, they said. “Terrorism and extremism are joint threats to all the countries if the region; collective attempts to fight such a phenomenon is an undeniable necessity,” the statement said.

The Kabul government has the scant support of the people. A good example is the recent pitched fighting that took place in Farah, a provincial capital in western Afghanistan. The Taliban attacked the city and the government troops with massive amounts of troop insertions and airstrikes.

After a 36-hour battle where the Taliban were driven out, and the government made a big to-do over the confiscated weapons they captured during the fighting, many citizens said, corrupt government officials were turning around and selling the weapons right back to the very insurgents they were captured from.

Local security forces are weak and stretched far too thin. The Taliban enjoys a great deal of support among the population in the region. The local commander in Farah said he was “100 percent certain” that Iran was supporting the Taliban there. The Iranians were using the Taliban as proxies to keep Daesh (ISIS) at bay, especially along the border the two countries share.

A Washington Post article quotes an Afghan civilian who firmly believes the Iranians are behind the attack. “If the situation stays the same, the Taliban will be back,” said a day laborer named Rashid, 28. “It’s a complicated fight. Around here, one brother is with the Taliban, and another one is with the government. But the weapons are definitely coming from Iran.”

The government has also been building dams, which is another sore point between the two countries as they’ve been negotiating over water rights as they heavily depend on water from Afghanistan’s rivers.

The drought problems, as well as other issues, are an increasing headache for the Tehran government. There have been widespread protests against the government by the people in recent months as the Iranian economy, boosted by the influx of money from the Obama deal has bottomed out. The Iranian rial is now officially trading at 42,000 for the U.S. dollar but black-market sites are trading at 90,000.

The protests which have now spread to Tehran were addressed by President Hassan Rouhani as he told the people first that the economic problems were the fault of the United States and then saying that the protests were caused by “foreign media propaganda.”

The government crushed the demonstrations in the spring as the people growing increasingly fed up with graft, corruption and government lies, took to the streets in about 100 cities. The boatloads of money that were released by the Obama administration in the nuclear deal were supposed to bring better economic times for the people.

Instead, the ayatollahs have spent the money, the way they always have..by financing their Quds Forces, exporting terrorism thru their proxies, Shiite militias in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon. And now despite being friendly with Kabul regime, they are arming the Taliban.

Photo: Wikipedia

Trump Administration Weighing Terrorist Label for Iran’s IRGC

There is an ongoing debate in the Trump administration on whether the United States should label the powerful Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization. The move is seen as using everything in their power to halt Iran’s force projection in several areas.

While some warn a designation could pose risks to US personnel and installations overseas, it would allow the White House to freeze IRGC assets, impose travel bans and levy criminal penalties on top of pre-existing economic sanctions imposed by President Donald Trump.

“The United States is trying to change malign behavior of the Iranians and deter their aggression,” said Chris Costa, the executive director of the Spy Museum and a recently retired special adviser to Trump on counterterrorism. For that goal, “the special designation is a very important tool,” he said.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is in favor of the designation, sources familiar with his thinking say.

“There’s lots of things that are being discussed, things that will prove, we believe, very effective at the end goal-which is, at the end of the day, what matters, right?” Pompeo told CNN in a recent interview. “The end goal is to convince the Islamic Republic of Iran to be a normal country.” He declined to discuss specific plans for future sanctions and designations.

But labeling an official state military as a terror group, particularly a group with the reach and force of the IRGC, would be unprecedented and could expose US diplomatic and military officials to additional hazards, some warn.

The powerful military and security body is key to Iran’s influence in the Middle East, often linked to Iran’s support for terrorism. The organization controls wide swaths of the Iranian economy, including the energy sector.

The IRGC “provides weapons, training for regional proxies, regional forces … it focuses on terrorist groups, including Lebanese Hezbollah, the Houthis,” Costa, the former National Security Council counterterrorism adviser told CNN. “They’re a regional spoiler.”

Many in the intelligence community have always felt the IRGC is a terrorist group and saying that labeling them as such will not increase the threat level for US personnel in close proximity to them anyway.

To read the entire article from CNN, click here:

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

Calls To Boost Military Budget Adding to Growing Unease in UK

The United States and Great Britain have been staunch allies thru World War I, World War II, the Korean conflict as well as in the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan and in Syria. But the lack of spending in the British military has some fearing that the UK’s military prowess will be looked upon as irrelevant unless they receive a huge shot in the arm with budget boosts.

 “There is a concern that the U.K. is falling ever further behind and becoming even more useless from a U.S. point of view,” said Andrew Dorman, an associate fellow at Chatham House, a think tank in London.

Britain has traditionally seen itself as one of the world’s leading military powers, and its annual defense spending of 35.3 billion pounds (around $46.6 billion) is still the largest in Europe

But years of squeezed budgets and rising demand in other areas, such as the publicly funded National Health Service, have dented Britain’s military prowess, some warn.

At risk, these experts say, is the so-called special relationship with the U.S., a widespread source of pride among many politicians and the defense establishment.

The British Army has shrunk to 82,000 personnel, which the BBC pointed out is the smallest it’s been since the Napoleonic Wars some 200 years ago.

And in January a government spending watchdog warned that the Ministry of Defense’s shopping list over the next decade was “not affordable” — leaving it as much as 21 billion pounds short (about $27.7 billion).

On Tuesday, lawmakers in the U.K.’s Defense Select Committee published a report urging the government to boost military spending by at least 8 billion pounds a year (around $10 billion) to plug this gaping “black hole” and improve capability elsewhere.

Not only does the U.K. risk “failing both its citizens and its allies,” the report said, but it is also in danger of becoming obsolete in the eyes of its American partners and losing traction in NATO.

“Defense spending is an area where a strong message needs to be sent to our allies and adversaries alike,” said Defense Committee chairman Julian Lewis.

There are many in the British government that fear with President Trump calling for the European allies in NATO to pull more of their own share in defense spending, that the UK will be left far short to defend itself from threats, mainly from the east.

To read the entire article from NBC News click here:

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

Russia Calls Off Ceasefire With US in SW Syria, Israel Hits Iranian Base

With what was termed breaches of the ceasefire agreements by insurgent groups in southwest Syria, the Russian air force in Syria announced the end of the ceasefire agreement they reached with the United States and Jordan in the area.

Meanwhile, government forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad are staging a new offensive to retake one of the last rebel-held regions in that area of the country.

The Hmeymim base, an airfield located in the west coast province of Latakia, is one of two major Russian-leased military installations in Syria, the other being a naval base about 40 miles down the coast in Tartous. Russian warplanes—likely based in Hmeymim—reportedly struck targets Monday in the southwestern province of Daraa, where Russia and Syria had agreed last year to a ceasefire with rebel groups attempting to overthrow Assad since a 2011 uprising backed by the U.S., Turkey and Gulf Arab states.

“The end of the period of reduced escalation in southern Syria can be confirmed after it was breached by extremist groups and illegitimate armed groups operating against Syrian government forces, while the agreement remains in the Syrian province of Idlib,” the Central Channel for the Hmeymim Military Base wrote on Facebook.

The base also denied reports of civilian casualties in a later message, maintaining that “Russian bombers do not target civilian sites by any means. Our missions are limited to the destruction of the terrorist bases belonging to the Nusra Front and ISIS [Islamic State militant group] terrorists, in order to support friendly land forces advancing on the ground.”

The ceasefire collapse also occurred as airstrikes reportedly struck Damascus International Airport on Tuesday. While the attack remains unclaimed, it has been widely blamed on Israel, who rarely takes responsibility for strikes against Iranian and pro-Iran targets in neighboring Syria. The U.K.-based, pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that Israeli warplanes struck “a shipment of Iranian weapons” that had arrived at the airport, while Russia’s state-run Sputnik News highlighted reports claiming an Iranian cargo plane may have been the target.

Iran-backed groups, such as the Lebanese Shiite Muslim Hezbollah movement, have reportedly pulled back from southwestern Syria as part of a recent agreement, but Iran has maintained that it would not leave Syria unless asked to do so by the local government. The latest airstrikes in Damascus, however, may indicate that the deal has fallen apart or did not preclude Israeli attacks elsewhere in the country. Last week, unclaimed airstrikes blamed on both the U.S. and Israel reportedly killed dozens—including Iraqi militias—in Syra’s far eastern province of Deir Ezzor.

Assad has kept close relationships with both Moscow and Tehran during the Civil War but has called for the forces of both the United States and Turkey, which they claim are in their country illegally and without permission to leave immediately.

To read the entire article from Newsweek, click here:

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

US Denies Responsibility For Airstrike on Iraqi/Syrian Border Units

Syrian state media said on Monday that an airstrike that targeted Syrian army positions along the Iraqi border was carried out by U.S.-led coalition aircraft causing deaths and injuries, but the U.S. military denied responsibility.

The attack took place in al-Harra, southeast of the town of Albu Kamal, state news agency SANA said, citing a military source. SANA said the attack caused an unspecified number of deaths and injuries.

A commander in the alliance fighting alongside Damascus told Reuters that drones that were “probably American” had bombed the positions of Iraqi factions between Albu Kamal and Tanf, as well as Syrian military positions.

The commander, who is not Syrian and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the strike had killed and injured some Iraqi fighters but he did not give any numbers.

Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces, a grouping of mostly Iran-backed Shi’ite paramilitaries, said a U.S. air strike on the Iraqi border with Syria killed 22 of its members and wounded 12 others.

“At 22:00 last night a U.S. plane hit a fixed headquarters of the Popular Mobilization Forces’ 45th and 46th brigades defending the border strip with Syria, using two guided missiles which led to the martyrdom of 22 fighters,” it said in a statement.

It demanded an explanation from the United States.

An Iraqi military statement later said no Popular Mobilization Forces or other Iraqi troops tasked with securing the Iraqi-Syrian border had been hit by the air strike, and it had taken place inside Syria.

The United States has about 5200 troops in Iraq including Special Operations troops and air assets that are battling Islamic State (ISIS) militants and have Special Operations troops in Syria supporting Syrian Arab and Kurdish militia fighting Islamic State militants there as well.

“No member of the U.S.-led coalition carried out strikes near Albu Kamal,” Major Josh Jacques, spokesman for the U.S. Central Command said.

To read the entire article from Reuters, click here:

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

Assad Says He’s Open to Allowing Iranian Bases in Southern Syria

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has stated that he’s open to having an Iranian presence in the southern area of Syria and blamed the U.S. and Israel for supporting “terrorists”. The interview on Iranian-funded, Arabic news channel Al-Alam, also stated that Syria will make the final decision and not anyone else.

The interview started with questions about southern Syria, which has become contentious and a source of media speculation regarding stories about the possibility of Russia-Israel negotiations to block Iranians from having a presence anywhere in that area. Assad said the choice in the south has been the same as all over: Either make peace with the armed groups or “resort to force.” He blamed Israel and the United States for supporting what he called “terrorists” and for the lack of an agreement so far.

When asked specifically about any deal regarding Iran in southern Syria, Assad said relations between the two countries are “strategic and will not be influenced by issues relating to the north or the south.” He said Saudi Arabia has repeatedly conveyed to him that if he were to cut ties with Tehran, the situation in the country “would return back to normal,” but he said he is not going to “trade away” ties with Iran.

Assad also said the deal to have Iranians not be involved in operations in the south was an Israeli pitch. Assad said he viewed the possibility of a deal as part of an anti-Iranian propaganda, and that any deal regarding Iran would be made between the two countries and no one else.

Regarding Israeli strikes on Syria and the possibility of a Syrian response, Assad said Syria would always respond within the framework of its possibilities. However, he said the best response to Israeli strikes was to hit back at forces inside Syria who were receiving Israeli support and who he accused of “clearly taking actions in favor of Israeli interests.”

Regarding reports about differences within the coalition of Syria, Iran and Russia, Assad first said that relations between Iran and Syria have been stable for 40 years. He added that Syria has had relations of varying degrees with Russia for seven decades. On the issue of differences, Assad said it is natural to have differences on “daily tactical” issues, but these differences are resolved through negotiations between the sides involved.

Questioned as to why Iranian and Syrian officials typically refer to Iranians in Syria as “advisers” (media reports show that a large number of Iranians have been killed in battle), Assad said the term “adviser” is a general term. He said there are Iranian advisers and also Iranian volunteers. He said that when these “advisers” enter a battle, they become “fighters.” However, he indicated that what is meant by “advisers” is that there are no Iranian units fighting in Syria— meaning no battalions, brigades or divisions.

Assad mentioned that Iran has not requested a permanent base in Syria and that he hopes to visit Tehran soon.

To read the entire article from AI Monitor, click here:

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

Google Drops the Pretenses, Military Millions Rule the Day

Ah, those ethical do-gooders over at Google. Don’t you just love the perks the millennials receive for working there? Slides, laundry service, free meals and on-site gyms with free exercise classes, free massages for those stressed out workers make it one of the best places to work in terms of job satisfaction.

And the company stands for something, after all, wasn’t their motto, “Don’t Be Evil” or a reasonable facsimile thereof? So, when the powers that be over at Google decided to partner up on an Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) project with the Pentagon that would better interpret imagery from the military drones called “Project Maven”, all hell broke loose.

That upset the delicate sensibilities of those employees and 4000 of those Google hirelings signed a letter of protest and demanded  the company “never build warfare technology.” Several resigned. No more free lunches and game rooms in the workplace. After all, a millennial has to stand up for what is right. But in that line of protest wouldn’t “Don’t Be Evil” apply to the United States military…right? Under pressure from the employees, the powers that be at Google decided to pull out of Project Maven.

So, the spoiled, pampered do-gooders over at Google are too principled to work for the very people who protect their right to work in their insulated little cocoons? News flash children, there is real evil in the world and the people in the United States military aren’t part of it. The people that they’re fighting in ISIS, al-Qaeda and the Taliban definitely wear the black hats in an increasingly gray world.  Does this mean the Pentagon is perfect? Hell no, ask anyone who ever served in any service and they’d laugh at that suggestion.

But the military goes to great lengths to do no harm to civilians at or near the battlefields of today. Often to the point of putting their own troops in harm’s way. Think about that shit for a moment; the military at times puts its own troops in danger by trying to limit the number of civilian casualties. Isn’t that a perfect “Don’t Be Evil” example? Apparently not to the people of Google.

Project Maven at its core is a classic case of their motto, to begin with. Instead of “damaging Google’s brand” as they feared, they would ensure that no innocents would be targeted. This project was meant to ensure that only the bad guys get targeted.. Unless the people there believe that the people of the Islamic State are just misunderstood frat boys, who, you know the men who cut down thousands of Iraqi and Syrian civilians and beheaded countless others. Aren’t they, and the al-Qaeda people in the Middle East and beyond, the same ones who brought down the World Trade Center the evil ones? They must have slept through those nasty incidents in their nap pods.

One would think any technology that would spare innocent civilian lives would appeal to Google. This project is supposed to do just that, by giving military men and women the technology to differentiate between armed hostile forces and innocent men, women, and children. That is saving lives and is far from being evil.

It wasn’t a very well thought-out protest, because it didn’t even protect Google’s own interests. Last year, Google spent $1.1 billion dollars to buy a piece of HTC in Taiwan that makes its excellent Pixel smartphones. Earlier this year, Google made what was characterized as the largest investment ever in that nation by an international tech company. What was the investment for? Artificial Intelligence. The research and development of the AI project along with their other projects makes Taiwan the largest R&D center for Google in Asia.

China has long stated that it wants the island of Taiwan back under its sway, and they’ll be willing to use force if necessary. So while the company invested billions in Taiwan, who exactly did they think was protecting it from the “evil” Red China? The Chinese are spending a huge amount of money on their own AI project and they’ve made it clear that want to have the world’s most powerful military. If they overtake the US as the world’s predominant military power, who will defend Taiwan then?

But in the end, pragmatism won out. Those military millions of dollars are very rarely a one-time investment by Uncle Sam, and they will continue to generate millions in revenue for the company. That will pay for a heckuva lot of cooking and guitar lessons. Google also saw that there was no shortage of their competitors who would jump at the chance to take over working for the evil Pentagon and cash in.

And now it is reported that Google, Amazon along with Microsoft and other tech companies, are pursuing contracts to build the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure Cloud (JEDI), potentially the largest IT procurement project in history.  according to Pentagon officials, the purpose of JEDI is to “increase lethality and readiness” of the military.

So, in a self-serving message that caters to the wishes of their employees who try to put their heads in the sand about the world they live in, Google CEO Sundar Pichai revealed new internal guidelines that the company will follow.

Google stated that the company will have no part in building weapons or “other technologies whose principal purpose or implementation is to cause or directly facilitate injury to people,” and also ruled out surveillance technologies like those sold by Amazon.

Wasn’t this Google’s stance before Project Maven? Yes, it was. So what changed? Nothing. But as we stated above, they get to keep their heads in the sand while, cashing in on the fat Pentagon contract. The key number in this? 88,110.

That is how many employees are in the pay of Google and the powers that be there are continuing their contracts and bidding on others to keep the perks flowing at the campuses of the tech giant while protecting their R&D in Taiwan.

Who said there is no such thing as a free lunch?

Photo: DOD