Guest views are now limited to 12 pages. If you get an "Error" message, just sign in! If you need to create an account, click here.

Jump to content

Search the Community

Showing results for tags 'saudi arabia'.

  • Search By Tags

    Type tags separated by commas.
  • Search By Author

Content Type


Forums

  • Welcome to DinarVets!
    • Rules, Announcements & Introductions
    • Questions and Tech Support
  • VIP Area
    • VIP Section
    • VIP Section
  • Iraq Topics
    • Iraq & Dinar Related News
    • Dinar Rumors
    • RV & Dinar Questions
    • Opinions, Perspectives, and Your Two Cents on the Iraqi Dinar
    • Chat Logs
    • ISX (Iraqi Stock Exchange)
    • Warka and Iraqi Banking
    • Dinar-ify me!
    • Buying and Selling Dinar
    • LOPster tank
    • Debate Section
  • General Topics
    • Off Topic posts
    • Natural Cures and Health Talk
    • Politics, 2nd Amendment (Gun Control)
    • Iraqi Inspiration and Stories of our Soldiers
    • World Economy
    • Music Videos etc
    • DV Weekly Powerballs.
  • Investing
    • Forex Discussion
    • Penny Stocks
    • Wall Street
    • Gold & Precious Metals
    • Foreign Currencies
    • Tax Discussion
    • Investment Opportunities and Wealth Management

Calendars

There are no results to display.

There are no results to display.

Product Groups

  • VIP Membership Packages
  • OSI Products
  • Just a Text
  • RV Intel and the Cash In Guide!

Genres

There are no results to display.

There are no results to display.


Find results in...

Find results that contain...


Date Created

  • Start

    End


Last Updated

  • Start

    End


Filter by number of...

Joined

  • Start

    End


Group


Phone Number (for VIP text message)


AIM


ICQ


Jabber


Location


Interests


Biography


Location


Interests


Occupation


My Facebook Profile ID


My Twitter ID

Found 6 results

  1. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/15/world/middleeast/iran-iraq-iranian-power.html Middle East Middle East|Iran Dominates in Iraq After U.S. ‘Handed the Country Over’ Tehran's Turn Iran Dominates in Iraq After U.S. ‘Handed the Country Over’ By Tim Arango July 15, 2017 Image Members of the Popular Mobilization Forces, a mostly Shiite militia group, at their post at the Iraqi border with Syria.Credit...Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times BAGHDAD — Walk into almost any market in Iraq and the shelves are filled with goods from Iran — milk, yogurt, chicken. Turn on the television and channel after channel broadcasts programs sympathetic to Iran. A new building goes up? It is likely that the cement and bricks came from Iran. And when bored young Iraqi men take pills to get high, the illicit drugs are likely to have been smuggled across the porous Iranian border. And that’s not even the half of it. Across the country, Iranian-sponsored militias are hard at work establishing a corridor to move men and guns to proxy forces in Syria and Lebanon. And in the halls of power in Baghdad, even the most senior Iraqi cabinet officials have been blessed, or bounced out, by Iran’s leadership. When the United States invaded Iraq 14 years ago to topple Saddam Hussein, it saw Iraq as a potential cornerstone of a democratic and Western-facing Middle East, and vast amounts of blood and treasure — about 4,500 American lives lost, more than $1 trillion spent — were poured into the cause. From Day 1, Iran saw something else: a chance to make a client state of Iraq, a former enemy against which it fought a war in the 1980s so brutal, with chemical weapons and trench warfare, that historians look to World War I for analogies. If it succeeded, Iraq would never again pose a threat, and it could serve as a jumping-off point to spread Iranian influence around the region. In that contest, Iran won, and the United States lost. Over the past three years, Americans have focused on the battle against the Islamic State in Iraq, returning more than 5,000 troops to the country and helping to force the militants out of Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul. But Iran never lost sight of its mission: to dominate its neighbor so thoroughly that Iraq could never again endanger it militarily, and to use the country to effectively control a corridor from Tehran to the Mediterranean. “Iranian influence is dominant,” said Hoshyar Zebari, who was ousted last year as finance minister because, he said, Iran distrusted his links to the United States. “It is paramount.” The country’s dominance over Iraq has heightened sectarian tensions around the region, with Sunni states, and American allies, like Saudi Arabia mobilizing to oppose Iranian expansionism. But Iraq is only part of Iran’s expansion project; it has also used soft and hard power to extend its influence in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan, and throughout the region. Iran is a Shiite state, and Iraq, a Shiite majority country, was ruled by an elite Sunni minority before the American invasion. The roots of the schism between Sunnis and Shiites, going back almost 1,400 years, lie in differences over the rightful leaders of Islam after the death of the Prophet Muhammad. But these days, it is about geopolitics as much as religion, with the divide expressed by different states that are adversaries, led by Saudi Arabia on one side and Iran on the other. Iran’s influence in Iraq is not just ascendant, but diverse, projecting into military, political, economic and cultural affairs. At some border posts in the south, Iraqi sovereignty is an afterthought. Busloads of young militia recruits cross into Iran without so much as a document check. They receive military training and are then flown to Syria, where they fight under the command of Iranian officers in defense of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. Passing in the other direction, truck drivers pump Iranian products — food, household goods, illicit drugs — into what has become a vital and captive market. Iran tips the scales to its favor in every area of commerce. In the city of Najaf, it even picks up the trash, after the provincial council there awarded a municipal contract to a private Iranian company. One member of the council, Zuhair al-Jibouri, resorted to a now-common Iraqi aphorism: “We import apples from Iran so we can give them away to Iranian pilgrims.” Politically, Iran has a large number of allies in Iraq’s Parliament who can help secure its goals. And its influence over the choice of interior minister, through a militia and political group the Iranians built up in the 1980s to oppose Mr. Hussein, has given it substantial control over that ministry and the federal police. Perhaps most crucial, Parliament passed a law last year that effectively made the constellation of Shiite militias a permanent fixture of Iraq’s security forces. This ensures Iraqi funding for the groups while effectively maintaining Iran’s control over some of the most powerful units. Now, with new parliamentary elections on the horizon, Shiite militias have begun organizing themselves politically for a contest that could secure even more dominance for Iran over Iraq’s political system. To gain advantage on the airwaves, new television channels set up with Iranian money and linked to Shiite militias broadcast news coverage portraying Iran as Iraq’s protector and the United States as a devious interloper. Partly in an effort to contain Iran, the United States has indicated that it will keep troops behind in Iraq after the battle against the Islamic State. American diplomats have worked to emphasize the government security forces’ role in the fighting, and to shore up a prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, who has seemed more open to the United States than to Iran. But after the United States’ abrupt withdrawal of troops in 2011, American constancy is still in question here — a broad failure of American foreign policy, with responsibility shared across three administrations. Iran has been playing a deeper game, parlaying extensive religious ties with Iraq’s Shiite majority and a much wider network of local allies, as it makes the case that it is Iraq’s only reliable defender. A Road to the Sea Iran’s great project in eastern Iraq may not look like much: a 15-mile stretch of dusty road, mostly gravel, through desert and scrub near the border in Diyala Province. But it is an important new leg of Iran’s path through Iraq to Syria, and what it carries — Shiite militiamen, Iranian delegations, trade goods and military supplies — is its most valuable feature. It is a piece of what analysts and Iranian officials say is Iran’s most pressing ambition: to exploit the chaos of the region to project influence across Iraq and beyond. Eventually, analysts say, Iran could use the corridor, established on the ground through militias under its control, to ship weapons and supplies to proxies in Syria, where Iran is an important backer of Mr. Assad, and to Lebanon and its ally Hezbollah. At the border to the east is a new crossing built and secured by Iran. Like the relationship between the two countries, it is lopsided. The checkpoint’s daily traffic includes up to 200 Iranian trucks, carrying fruit and yogurt, concrete and bricks, into Iraq. In the offices of Iraqi border guards, the candies and soda offered to guests come from Iran. No loaded trucks go the other way. “Iraq doesn’t have anything to offer Iran,” Vahid Gachi, the Iranian official in charge of the crossing, said in an interview in his office, as lines of tractor-trailers poured into Iraq. “Except for oil, Iraq relies on Iran for everything.” The border post is also a critical transit point for Iran’s military leaders to send weapons and other supplies to proxies fighting the Islamic State in Iraq. After the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, ISIL or Daesh, swept across Diyala and neighboring areas in 2014, Iran made clearing the province, a diverse area of Sunnis and Shiites, a priority. It marshaled a huge force of Shiite militias, many trained in Iran and advised on the ground by Iranian officials. After a quick victory, Iranians and their militia allies set about securing their next interests here: marginalizing the province’s Sunni minority and securing a path to Syria. Iran has fought aggressively to keep its ally Mr. Assad in power in order to retain land access to its most important spinoff in the region, Hezbollah, the military and political force that dominates Lebanon and threatens Israel. A word from Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, Iran’s powerful spymaster, sent an army of local Iraqi contractors scrambling, lining up trucks and bulldozers to help build the road, free of charge. Militiamen loyal to Iran were ordered to secure the site. Uday al-Khadran, the Shiite mayor of Khalis District in Diyala, is a member of the Badr Organization, an Iraqi political party and militia established by Tehran in the 1980s to fight against Mr. Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war. On an afternoon earlier this year, he spread a map across his desk and proudly discussed how he helped build the road, which he said was ordered by General Suleimani, the commander of the Quds Force, the branch of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps responsible for foreign operations. General Suleimani secretly directed Iran’s policy in Iraq after the American invasion in 2003, and was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers in attacks carried out by militias under his control. “I love Qassim Suleimani more than my children,” he said. Mr. Khadran said the general’s new road would eventually be a shortcut for religious pilgrims from Iran to reach Samarra, Iraq, the location of an important shrine. But he also acknowledged the route’s greater strategic significance as part of a corridor secured by Iranian proxies that extends across central and northern Iraq. The connecting series of roads skirts the western city of Mosul and stretches on to Tal Afar, an Islamic State-controlled city where Iranian-backed militias and Iranian advisers have set up a base at an airstrip on the outskirts. “Diyala is the passage to Syria and Lebanon, and this is very important to Iran,” said Ali al-Daini, the Sunni chairman of the provincial council there. Closer to Syria, Iranian-allied militias moved west of Mosul as the battle against the Islamic State unfolded there in recent months. The militias captured the town of Baaj, and then proceeded to the Syrian border, putting Iran on the cusp of completing its corridor. Back east, in Diyala, Mr. Daini said he had been powerless to halt what he described as Iran’s dominance in the province. When Mr. Daini goes to work, he said, he has to walk by posters of Iran’s revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, outside the council building. Iran’s militias in the province have been accused of widespread sectarian cleansing, pushing Sunnis from their homes to establish Shiite dominance and create a buffer zone on its border. The Islamic State was beaten in Diyala more than two years ago, but thousands of Sunni families still fill squalid camps, unable to return home. Now, Diyala has become a showcase for how Iran views Shiite ascendancy as critical to its geopolitical goals. “Iran is smarter than America,” said Nijat al-Taie, a Sunni member of the provincial council and an outspoken critic of Iran, which she calls the instigator of several assassination attempts against her. “They achieved their goals on the ground. America didn’t protect Iraq. They just toppled the regime and handed the country over to Iran.” The Business of Influence The lives of General Suleimani and other senior leaders in Tehran were shaped by the prolonged war with Iraq in the 1980s. The conflict left hundreds of thousands dead on both sides, and General Suleimani spent much of the war at the front, swiftly rising in rank as so many officers were killed. “The Iran-Iraq war was the formative experience for all of Iran’s leaders,” said Ali Vaez, an Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group, a conflict resolution organization. “From Suleimani all the way down. It was their ‘never again’ moment.” A border dispute over the Shatt al Arab waterway that was a factor in the hostilities has still not been resolved, and the legacy of the war’s brutality has influenced the Iranian government ever since, from its pursuit of nuclear weapons to its policy in Iraq. “This is a permanent scar in their mind,” said Mowaffak al-Rubaie, a lawmaker and former national security adviser. “They are obsessed with Baathism, Saddam and the Iran-Iraq war.” More than anything else, analysts say, it is the scarring legacy of that war that has driven Iranian ambitions to dominate Iraq. Particularly in southern Iraq, where the population is mostly Shiite, signs of Iranian influence are everywhere. Iranian-backed militias are the defenders of the Shiite shrines in the cities of Najaf and Karbala that drive trade and tourism. In local councils, Iranian-backed political parties have solid majorities, and campaign materials stress relationships with Shiite saints and Iranian clerics. If the Iraqi government were stronger, said Mustaq al-Abady, a businessman from just outside Najaf, “then maybe we could open our factories instead of going to Iran.” He said his warehouse was crowded with Iranian imports because his government had done nothing to promote a private sector, police its borders or enforce customs duties. Raad Fadhil al-Alwani, a merchant in Hilla, another southern city, imports cleaning supplies and floor tiles from Iran. He slaps “Made in Iraq” labels in Arabic on bottles of detergent, but the reality is that he owns a factory in Iran because labor is cheaper there. “I feel like I am destroying the economy of Iraq,” he said. But he insists that Iraqi politicians, by deferring to Iranian pressure and refusing to support local industry, have made it hard to do anything else. Najaf attracts millions of Iranian pilgrims each year visiting the golden-domed shrine of Imam Ali, the first Shiite imam. Iranian construction workers — many of whom are viewed as Iranian spies by Iraqi officials — have also flocked to the city to renovate the shrine and build hotels. In Babil Province, according to local officials, militia leaders have taken over a government project to set up security cameras along strategic roads. The project had been granted to a Chinese company before the militias intervened, and now the army and the local police have been sidelined from it, said Muqdad Omran, an Iraqi Army captain in the area. Iran’s pre-eminence in the Iraqi south has not come without resentment. Iraqi Shiites share a faith with Iran, but they also hold close their other identities as Iraqis and Arabs. “Iraq belongs to the Arab League, not to Iran,” said Sheikh Fadhil al-Bidayri, a cleric at the religious seminary in Najaf. “Shiites are a majority in Iraq, but a minority in the world. As long as the Iranian government is controlling the Iraqi government, we don’t have a chance.” In this region where the Islamic State’s military threat has never encroached, Iran’s security concerns are mostly being addressed by economic manipulation, Iraqi officials say. Trade in the south is often financed by Iran with credit, and incentives are offered to Iraqi traders to keep their cash in Iranian banks. Baghdad’s banks play a role, too, as the financial anchors for Iraqi front companies used by Iran to gain access to dollars that can then finance the country’s broader geopolitical aims, said Entifadh Qanbar, a former aide to the Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi, who died in 2015. “It’s very important for the Iranians to maintain corruption in Iraq,” he said. The Militias’ Long Arm For decades, Iran smuggled guns and bomb-making supplies through the vast swamps of southern Iraq. And young men were brought back and forth across the border, from one safe house to another — recruits going to Iran for training, and then back to Iraq to fight. At first the enemy was Mr. Hussein; later, it was the Americans. Today, agents of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards openly recruit fighters in the Shiite-majority cities of southern Iraq. Buses filled with recruits easily pass border posts that officials say are essentially controlled by Iran — through its proxies on the Iraqi side, and its own border guards on the other. While Iran has built up militias to fight against the Islamic State in Iraq, it has also mobilized an army of disaffected young Shiite Iraqi men to fight on its behalf in Syria. Mohammad Kadhim, 31, is one of those foot soldiers for Iran, having served three tours in Syria. The recruiting pitch, he said, is mostly based in faith, to defend Shiite shrines in Syria. But Mr. Kadhim said he and his friends signed up more out of a need for jobs. “I was just looking for money,” he said. “The majority of the youth I met fighting in Syria do it for the money.” He signed up with a Revolutionary Guards recruiter in Najaf, and then was bused through southern Iraq and into Iran, where he underwent military training near Tehran. There, he said, Iranian officers delivered speeches invoking the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, the revered seventh-century Shiite figure whose death at the hands of a powerful Sunni army became the event around which Shiite spirituality would revolve. The same enemies of the Shiites who killed the imam are now in Syria and Iraq, the officers told the men. After traveling to Iran, Mr. Kadhim came home for a break and then was shipped to Syria, where Hezbollah operatives trained him in sniper tactics. Iran’s emphasis on defending the Shiite faith has led some here to conclude that its ultimate goal is to bring about an Iranian-style theocracy in Iraq. But there is a persistent sense that it just would not work in Iraq, which has a much larger native Sunni population and tradition, and Iraq’s clerics in Najaf, including Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the world’s pre-eminent Shiite spiritual leader, oppose the Iranian system. But Iran is taking steps to translate militia power into political power, much as it did with Hezbollah in Lebanon, and militia leaders have begun political organizing before next year’s parliamentary elections. In April, Qais al-Khazali, a Shiite militia leader, delivered a speech to an audience of Iraqi college students, railing against the United States and the nefarious plotting of Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Then, a poet who was part of Mr. Khazali’s entourage stood up and began praising General Suleimani. For the students, that was the last straw. Chants of “Iran out! Iran out!” began. Scuffles broke out between students and Mr. Khazali’s bodyguards, who fired their rifles into the air just outside the building. “The thing that really provoked us was the poet,” said Mustafa Kamal, a student at the University of al-Qadisiya in Diwaniya, in southern Iraq, who participated in the protest. Mr. Kamal and his fellow students quickly learned how dangerous it could be to stand up to Iran these days. First, militiamen began threatening to haul them off. Then media outlets linked to the militias went after them, posting their pictures and calling them Baathists and enemies of Shiites. When a mysterious car appeared near Mr. Kamal’s house, his mother panicked that militiamen were coming for her son. Then, finally, Mr. Kamal, a law student, and three of his friends received notices from the school saying they had been suspended for a year. “We thought we had only one hope, the university,” he said. “And then Iran also interfered there.” Mr. Khazali, whose political and militia organization, Asaib Ahl al-Haq, is deeply connected with Iran, has been on a speaking tour on campuses across Iraq as part of an effort to organize political support for next year’s national election. This has raised fears that Iran is trying not only to deepen its influence within Iraqi education, but also to transform militias into outright political and social organizations, much as it did with Hezbollah in Lebanon. “It’s another type of Iranian infiltration and the expansion of Iran’s influence,” said Beriwan Khailany, a lawmaker and member of Parliament’s higher-education committee. “Iran wants to control the youth, and to teach them the Iranian beliefs, through Iraqis who are loyal to Iran.” Political Ascendancy When a group of Qatari falcon hunters, “including members of the royal family, were kidnapped in 2015 while on safari in the southern deserts of Iraq, Qatar called Iran and its militia allies — not the central government in Baghdad. For Mr. Abadi, the prime minister, the episode was an embarrassing demonstration of his government’s weakness at the hands of Iran, whose proxy militia Kataibb Hezbollah was believed to be behind the kidnapping. So when the hostage negotiations were about to end, Mr. Abadi pushed back. Around noon on a day in April, a government jet from Qatar landed in Baghdad, carrying a delegation of diplomats and 500 million euros stuffed into 23 black boxes. The hunters were soon on their way home, but the ransom did not go to the Iranian-backed militiamen who had abducted the Qataris; the cash ended up in a central bank vault in Baghdad. The seizure of the money had been ordered by Mr. Abadi, who was furious at the prospect of militias, and their Iranian and Hezbollah benefactors, being paid so richly right under the Iraqi government’s nose. “Hundreds of millions to armed groups?” Mr. Abadi said in a public rant. “Is this acceptable?” In Iraq, the kidnapping episode was seen as a violation of the country’s sovereignty and emblematic of Iran’s suffocating power over the Iraqi state. In a post on Twitter, Mr. Zebari, the former finance minister, who was previously foreign minister, called the episode a “travesty.” Mr. Zebari knows firsthand the power of Iran over the Iraqi state. Last year, he said, he was ousted as finance minister because Iran perceived him as being too close to the United States. The account was verified by a member of Parliament who was involved in the removal of Mr. Zebari, and who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid angering Iran. Mr. Zebari, who recounted the events in an interview from his mountainside mansion in northern Iraq, said that when President Barack Obama met with Mr. Abadi last September at the United Nations, the American leader personally lobbied to save Mr. Zebari’s job. Even that was not enough. Mr. Abadi now finds himself in a difficult position. If he makes any move that can be seen as confrontational toward Iran, or as positioning himself closer to the United States, it could place a cloud over his political future. “He had two options: to be with the Americans or with the Iranians,” said Izzat Shahbander, a prominent Iraqi Shiite leader who once lived in exile in Iran while Mr. Hussein was in power. “And he chose to be with the Americans.” Mr. Abadi, who took office in 2014 with the support of both the United States and Iran, has seemed more emboldened to push back against Iranian pressure since President Trump took office. In addition to seizing the ransom money, he has promoted an ambitious project for an American company to secure the highway from Baghdad to Amman, Jordan, which Iran has opposed. He has also begun discussing with the United States the terms of a deal to keep American forces behind after the Islamic State is defeated. Some are seeing an American troop commitment as a chance to revisit the 2011 withdrawal of United States forces that seemingly opened a door for Iran. When American officials in Iraq began the slow wind-down of the military mission there, in 2009, some diplomats in Baghdad were cautiously celebrating one achievement: Iran seemed to be on its heels, its influence in the country waning. “Over the last year, Iran has lost the strategic initiative in Iraq,” one diplomat wrote in a cable, later released by WikiLeaks. But other cables sent warnings back to Washington that were frequently voiced by Iraqi officials they spoke to: that if the Americans left, then Iran would fill the vacuum. Ryan C. Crocker, the American ambassador in Iraq from 2007 to 2009, said that if the United States left again after the Islamic State was defeated, “it would be effectively just giving the Iranians a free rein.” But many Iraqis say the Iranians already have free rein. And while the Trump administration has indicated that it will pay closer attention to Iraq as a means to counter Iran, the question is whether it is too late. “Iran is not going to sit silent and do nothing,” said Sami al-Askari, a senior Shiite politician who has good relationships with both the Iranians and Americans. “They have many means. Frankly, the Americans can’t do anything.”
  2. Urgent source for News} {Euphrates: the arrival of the Saudi foreign minister to Baghdad History of edits:: 02.25.2017 11:59 • 110 visits readable {Baghdad} Euphrates News source at the Saudi Embassy in Iraq told {Euphrates News} The arrival of Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al - Jubeir to the capital Bgdad..itba
  3. Is this President O's big legacy? If this is true, how will it affect the RV? https://www.superstation95.com/index.php/world/884 Russia will have no choice but to use Tactical (Battlefield) Nuclear Weapons to defend Syria once a ground invasion begins within 18 days, by 350,000 troops, 20,000 Tanks, 2,450 military planes and 460 Helicopters from 25 countries massing in northern Saudi Arabia. Syria has warned "any aggressor entering the country will go home in wooden coffins;" Russia has said "any country sending ground troops into Syria without permission will be considered a declaration of war." Thousands of soldiers from regional countries are set to participate in what is being "called" a military "exercise" media reports say. Saudi media said some 350,000 forces from Persian Gulf Arab states and a number of other countries will take part in a Saudi-led military maneuver in the area of Hafer al-Batin in northern Saudi Arabia. In addition to the massive troop build-up, some 2,540 warplanes, 20,000 tanks and 460 helicopters will also participate in the "exercise," dubbed “North Thunder.” The "exercise" is scheduled to last 18 days, during which the airspace over northern Saudi Arabia will be closed. Media reports say the "exercise" will be the largest in the history of the region. However, SuperStation95 has done research and there is no known example of this much military power being massed for an "exercise" . . . anywhere . . . ever. It seems quite obvious to any thinking person that the notion of an "exercise" is fraudulent on its face; this is an invasion force and when it moves, it will mean war. Egypt, Sudan, Pakistan and Persian Gulf Arab states are among the 25 countries that will also take part in the "exercises." The maneuver comes at a sensitive time after Saudi Arabia announced readiness to participate in any ground incursion in Syria if the US-led coalition decides to start such an operation. (Gee, what a coincidence.) Saudi Arabia is a member of the US-led coalition that has been conducting air raids inside Syria. The airstrikes have been going on without any authorization from the Syrian government or a UN mandate since September 2014. The Saudi "exercise" is believed as preparation for a possible ground incursion into Syria. Reacting to the troop deployment, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem said Saturday, “Let no one think they can attack Syria or violate its sovereignty because I assure you any aggressor will return to their country in a wooden coffin.” Pavel Krasheninnikov, a deputy of Russia’s State Duma, has warned Saudi Arabia that any military ground operation in Syria without Damascus’ consent would amount to a declaration of war. WHY NOW? The civil war which has been wrecking Syria for the past several years has been funded and backed by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United States and other countries. Months ago, when Russia entered the fray to protect their ally, Syria, the Russians began impacting the rebels in a big way. Within the last week, it became very clear that the rebel/ISIS stronghold in Alleppo, Syria would be surrounded and cut-off by the Russians and the Syrian Arab Army. Once Alleppo is liberated by the legitimate Syrian government, the entire rebel effort will collapse. That's why this past weekend, Saudi Arabia publicly floated the "offer" of providing 150,000 ground troops for a "U.S. lead invasion force to enter Syria to fight ISIS." Trouble is that ISIS is part of the rebel effort and the Saudis, Qataris' Turks and the USA all knew it. If the Saudis, Qataris, Turks and USA enter with ground troops, it will NOT be to "fight ISIS" but rather will be to protect the rebels! US Defense Secretary Ash Carter publicly replied that the Saudis had a good idea and he would take it up with our other allies. But if Alleppo falls, then the final holdout of the terrorists and rebels, a city called Raqqa, will fall as well and at that point, the civil war is over and the bad guys will have lost. As of tonight, February 10, 2016, Alleppo is now surrounded and cut-off. The Saudis are getting desperate to help their rebel/terrorist buddies. The only way the Saudis, Qataris, Turks and USA can possibly _hope_ to protect their rebel pals is to enter in such massive force, they overwhelm the Russians. This triggers another problem: Russia has a doctrine of using tactical nuclear weapons FIRST to protect their interests and their territory. TACTICAL NUKES MUST BE USED - NO OTHER CHOICE During the Cold War, when the old Soviet Union posed an invasion threat to western Europe, NATO's war plan called for NATO to use tactical nuclear weapons FIRST to stop the . . . 20,000 Russian tanks and overwhelming troops. The same way NATO knew that's the only way to stop 20,000 tanks and several hundred thousand man invasion force, the Russians know it too! And the Russians will be FORCED to use tactical nukes in order to protect Syria. As soon as those troops and tanks begin to cross into Syria, the Russian S-300 and S-400 missiles will begin taking-out the 2,450 military planes and 460 helicopters. The S-400 is probably the single most advanced anti-aircraft system in the world and the aggressor jets will drop like flies. But when the 350,000 troops and 20,000 tanks start crossing the border, the ONLY solution for the Syrians and the Russians will be to use tactical nukes. Perhaps those artillery-launched nukes would be fired inside Syria, but they would detonate on the border with Jordan, or Iraq (wherever the troops are entering from) and the wind will start carrying the fallout deeper into those countries. Perhaps the nukes would be fired into Saudi Arabia itself (because that's where the mass of troops is coming from.) Either way, the Arabs do not seem to realize who they are dealing with. Russia is a nuclear super power. Russia will NOT allow itself to be over-run or humiliated in Syria. Russia will do what Russia HAS to do; and an awful lot of Arab troops, who were lead down the primrose path by the US who is probably telling them they have nothing to worry about, will find out what it's like to see a sudden, bright, white flash, as their troops get vaporized. The U.S. will not strike Russia back on behalf of the Arabs, because the US knows Russia would then start launching missiles into the US heartland. The Arabs will have been lead down the road to utter destruction, by a US President whose allegiance is questionable. Is he Sunni . . . . or is he Shia? Has anyone bothered to verify it? He certainly gave Iran a sweetheart nuclear deal. Iran is Shia, isn't it? HERE IS HOW THIS WILL BE PRESENTED TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE Right now, the mass media in the US is totally silent about how close we are to war. This is by design. When the Saudis and their pals begin the invasion and the Syrians and Russians are FORCED to use tactical nukes to stop them, the American people will suddenly be told "Russia has just attacked our ally, Saudi Arabia, with nuclear weapons. We must enter to defend our allies!" The American people, kept blissfully ignorant of who really started this and why, will say to themselves, "My God, those filthy bastards used nukes . . . .let's get em!" . . . . . and off to war we go. Obama - if he is Shia - would then achieve another goal: destroying "the Great Satan" as Iran has called us! So we in the US have to ask ourselves, is Obama a Christian - as he has claimed - or is he a Muslim as many have said? And again, if he is Muslim, is he Sunni or is he Shia? We need only look at the sweetheart deal he gave to Iran to get a very good idea of the actual answer! DIVERT ATTENTION FROM ECONOMIC COLLAPSE The reason this is going to take place is simple: The government in the US, and those in Europe, need a DIVERSION to shift the public's attention away from the coming economic collapse. Right now, banks throughout Europe are on the edge of collapse from their bad loans, speculation and corruption. In Germany, for instance, Deutsch Bank has seen more than fifty percent (50%) of its stock value get wiped out, with 40% of that fall since January 1. People are pulling money out in droves. The banks are becoming unstable. If (or when) Deutsch Bank collapses, they are exposed to "Derivatives" worth $50 TRILLION. When the bank fails, the $50 TRILLION hits the rest of the banks and they collapse too. In the USA, the "too big to fail" banks are now also heading into collapse because instead of changing when they needed bailouts in 2008, they kept right on doing what they were doing! Now they are all bigger and in worse debt! The governments do not have the credit or the cash to bail out the banks again, so when the banks go under -- and they will -- the governments need to divert people's attention from the fact that their life savings and retirement moneys have been wiped out; and a "limited nuclear war" is just what they need to shift people's attention away from losing their life savings! IT MAY ALREADY BE TOO LATE We may not be able to stop what's coming, but we have to at least TRY. There does not have to be a war. There is no reason or legitimate interest, in overthrowing the government of Syria and we are backing the bad guys if we continue trying to do that. If we allow Saudi Arabia and their Muslim buddies to go into Syria, it absolutely, positively will result in immediate war with Russia, and the Saudis are massing so much firepower and armor that the only way Russia can defend Syria is to use tactical nukes. Once that happens, the US will get sucked-in and our children will be sent to fight and die . . . . all as a diversion from the economic collapse caused by greedy bankers and inept politicians. Please post links to this article via FACEBOOK, TWITTER, Google+, Pinterest, Instagram, Craig's List and whatever bulletin boards or forums you frequent. We HAVE to get the word out about what is taking place so our fellow citizens are not blind-sided by a war that does not have to take place. Time is of the essence. There are only a maximum of 18 days left before it all goes to hell, and it may happen sooner than that. Update: Saudi’s decision to send troops to Syria in an attempt to bolster and toughen efforts against militants is “final,” the spokesman of the Saudi-led coalition force in Yemen announced on Thursday. Brig. Gen. Ahmed Al-Assiri, said that Riyadh is “ready” and will fight with its U.S.-led coalition allies to defeat ISIS militants in Syria, however, he said Washington is more suitable to answer questions on further details about any future ground operations. “We are representing Saudi’s [decision] only” in sending troops, he said.
  4. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-08-11/families-911-victims-verge-proving-government-cover-court Families Of 9/11 Victims On Verge Of Proving Government Cover-Up In Court 08/11/2015 19:30 FBI national security Reality Saudi Arabia Washington D.C. inShare2 Submitted by SM Gibson via TheAntiMedia.org, For many years, rumors have circulated regarding the U.S. government’s involvement in an active cover-up of a sinister connection between Saudi Arabia and the terrorist attacks of 9/11. In fact, 28 redacted pages from a congressional intelligence report are said to contain damning information that implicates the Saudis in the 2001 mass murder of American citizens. Despite a bipartisan effort to release the information, the now notorious 28 pages are still being withheld from the public under the predictable guise of “national security.” Now, thanks to a federal lawsuit in a Manhattan court, there may be a light at the end of the tunnel. Two authors of the concealed pages may soon be called to testify in a court case currently pending against the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Former FBI investigator Michael Jacobson and former Justice Department attorney Dana Lesemann, both of whom investigated the terror strikes for the FBI, were given the assignment to track down possible leads connecting Saudi officials to the hijackers and then document their findings. The evidence they compiled was recorded in the infamous 28 pages. The duo also went on to work with the independent 9/11 Commission, where they unveiled even more corroboration. They uncovered an association between the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles, the Saudi Embassy in Washington D.C., and the the tragic events in 2001. At a court hearing on July 30, lawyers for the victims’ families stated that the most major of allegations against the Saudis were purposefully left out of the final draft of the 9/11 Commission report. “They were removed at the 11th hour by the senior staff,” said attorney Sean Carter, who called the decision a “political matter.” “[T]hey had documented a direct link between the Saudi government and the Sept. 11 plot based on the explosive material they had uncovered concerning the activities of Fahad al-Thumairy and Omar al-Bayoumi,” explained Carter. Thumairy worked as a religious cleric and Saudi diplomat in Los Angeles at the time, while Bayoumi was employed by the Saudi Arabian Civil Aviation Authority in San Diego. The judge presiding over the case now has a 60-90 day window to either dismiss the case or proceed on behalf of the victims’ families. Jerry Goldman, an attorney for the plaintiffs, feels good about the future of the proceedings. “(The Judge) wasn’t buying their spin,” Goldman said. “The burden is on the kingdom to prove we are wrong, and they didn’t do that.” With so many unanswered questions surrounding 9/11, there is no telling what may be disclosed if the case is allowed to move forward. The terrifying reality is that if the Saudis are found guilty of involvement in the events of 9/11, such a conclusion would only raise more questions than it would answer. Who inside the United States government would be covering for the kingdom of Saudi Arabia for so many years— and more importantly, why?
  5. http://rt.com/op-edge/168064-isis-terrorism-usa-cia-war/ ISIS in Iraq stinks of CIA/NATO ‘dirty war’ op William Engdahl is an award-winning geopolitical analyst and strategic risk consultant whose internationally best-selling books have been translated into thirteen foreign languages. Get short URL Published time: June 24, 2014 10:22 Iraqi Kurdish forces take position near Taza Khormato as they fight jihadist militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) positioned five kilometers away in Bashir, 20 kms south of Kirkuk (AFP Photo / Karim Sahib) 9.7K83175 Tags Intelligence, Iraq, Syria, Terrorism, USA For days now, since their dramatic June 10 taking of Mosul, Western mainstream media have been filled with horror stories of the military conquests in Iraq of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, with the curious acronym ISIS. ISIS, as in the ancient Egyptian cult of the goddess of fertility and magic. The media picture being presented adds up less and less. Details leaking out suggest that ISIS and the major military ‘surge’ in Iraq - and less so in neighboring Syria - is being shaped and controlled out of Langley, Virginia, and other CIA and Pentagon outposts as the next stage in spreading chaos in the world’s second-largest oil state, Iraq, as well as weakening the recent Syrian stabilization efforts. Strange factsThe very details of the ISIS military success in the key Iraqi oil center, Mosul, are suspect. According to well-informed Iraqi journalists, ISIS overran the strategic Mosul region, site of some of the world’s most prolific oilfields, with barely a shot fired in resistance. According to one report, residents of Tikrit reported remarkable displays of “soldiers handing over their weapons and uniforms peacefully to militants who ordinarily would have been expected to kill government soldiers on the spot.” We are told that ISIS masked psychopaths captured “arms and ammunition from the fleeing security forces” - arms and ammunition supplied by the American government. The offensive coincides with a successful campaign by ISIS in eastern Syria. According to Iraqi journalists, Sunni tribal chiefs in the region had been convinced to side with ISIS against the Shiite Al-Maliki government in Baghdad. They were promised a better deal under ISIS Sunni Sharia than with Baghdad anti-Sunni rule. According to the New York Times, the mastermind behind the ISIS military success is former Baath Party head and Saddam Hussein successor, General Ibrahim al-Douri. Douri is reportedly the head of the Iraqi rebel group Army of the Men of the Naqshbandi Order as well as the Supreme Command for Jihad and Liberation based on his longstanding positions of leadership in the Naqshbandi sect in Iraq. In 2009, US ‘Iraqi surge’ General David Petraeus, at the time heading the US Central Command, claimed to reporters that Douri was in Syria. Iraqi parliamentarians claimed he was in Qatar. The curious fact is that despite being on the US most wanted list since 2003, Douri has miraculously managed to avoid capture and now to return with a vengeance to retake huge parts of Sunni Iraq. Luck or well-placed friends in Washington? The financial backing for ISIS jihadists reportedly also comes from three of the closest US allies in the Sunni world—Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. US passports?Key members of ISIS it now emerges were trained by US CIA and Special Forces command at a secret camp in Jordan in 2012, according to informed Jordanian officials. The US, Turkish and Jordanian intelligence were running a training base for the Syrian rebels in the Jordanian town of Safawi in the country’s northern desert region, conveniently near the borders to both Syria and Iraq. Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the two Gulf monarchies most involved in funding the war against Syria’s Assad, financed the Jordan ISIS training. Advertised publicly as training of ‘non-extremist’ Muslim jihadists to wage war against the Syrian Bashar Assad regime, the secret US training camps in Jordan and elsewhere have trained perhaps several thousand Muslim fighters in techniques of irregular warfare, sabotage and general terror. The claims by Washington that they took special care not to train ‘Salafist’ or jihadist extremists, is a joke. How do you test if a recruit is not a jihadist? Is there a special jihad DNA that the CIA doctors have discovered? Militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) parading with an Iraqi army vehicle in the northern city of Baiji in the in Salaheddin province. (AFP Photo / HO / Youtube) Jordanian government officials are revealing the details, in fear that the same ISIS terrorists that today are slashing heads of ‘infidels’ alongside the roadways of Mosul by the dozens, or hundreds if we believe their own propaganda, might turn their swords towards Jordan’s King Abdullah soon, to extend their budding Caliphate empire. Former US State Department official Andrew Doran wrote in the conservative National Review magazine that some ISIS warriors also hold US passports. Now, of course that doesn’t demonstrate and support by the Obama Administration. Hmm... Iranian journalist Sabah Zanganeh notes, "ISIS did not have the power to occupy and conquer Mosul by itself. What has happened is the result of security-intelligence collaborations of some regional countries with some extremist groups inside the Iraqi government." Iraq’s Chechen commanderThe next bizarre part of the ISIS puzzle involves the Jihadist credited with being the ‘military mastermind’ of the recent ISIS victories, Tarkhan Batirashvili. If his name doesn’t sound very Arabic, it’s because it’s not. Tarkhan Batrashvili is a Russian - actually an ethnic Chechen from near the Chechen border to Georgia. But to give himself a more Arabic flair, he also goes by the name Emir (what else?) Umar al Shishani. The problem is he doesn’t look at all Arabic. No dark swarthy black beard: rather a long red beard, a kind of Chechen Barbarossa. According to a November, 2013 report in The Wall Street Journal, Emir Umar or Batrashvili as you prefer, has made the wars in Syria and Iraq “into a geopolitical struggle between the US and Russia.” That has been the objective of leading neo-conservatives in the CIA, Pentagon and State Department all along. The CIA transported hundreds of Mujahideen Saudis and other foreign veterans of the 1980s Afghan war against the Soviets in Afghanistan into Chechnya to disrupt the struggling Russia in the early 1990s, particularly to sabotage the Russian oil pipeline running directly from Baku on the Caspian Sea into Russia. James Baker III and his friends in Anglo-American Big Oil had other plans. It was called the BTC pipeline, owned by a BP-US oil consortium and running through Tbilisi into NATO-member Turkey, free of Russian territory. Batrashvili is not renowned for taking care. Last year he was forced to apologize when he ordered his men to behead a wounded ‘enemy’ soldier who turned out to be an allied rebel commander. More than 8,000 foreign Jihadist mercenaries are reportedly in ISIS including at least 1,000 Chechens as well as Jihadists Saudi, Kuwait, Egypt and reportedly Chinese Uyghur from Xinjiang Province. Jeffrey Silverman, Georgia Bureau Chief for the US-based Veterans Today (VT) website, told me that Batrashvili “is a product of a joint program of the US through a front NGO called Jvari, which was set up by US Intelligence and the Georgian National Security Council, dating back to the early days of the Pankisi Gorge.” Jvari is the name as well of a famous Georgian Orthodox monastery of the 6th century. According to Silverman, David J. Smith—head of something in Tbilisi called the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies, as well as the Potomac Institute in Washington where he is listed as Director of the Potomac Institute Cyber Centerr—played a role in setting up the Jvari NGO. Silverman maintains that Jvari in Rustavi, near the capital, Tbilisi, gathered together Afghan Mujahideen war veterans, Chechens, Georgians and sundry Arab Jihadists. They were sent to the infamous Pankisi Gorge region, a kind-of no-man’s lawless area, for later deployment, including Iraq and Syria. Batrashvili and other Georgian and Chechen Russian-speaking Jihadists, Silverman notes, are typically smuggled, with the assistance of Georgia’s Counterintelligence Department and the approval of the US embassy, across the Georgia border to Turkey at the Vale crossing point, near Georgia’s Akhaltsikhe and the Turkish village of Türkgözü on the Turkish side of the Georgian border. From there it’s very little problem getting them through Turkey to either Mosul in Iraq or northeast Syria. Silverman believes that events in Northern Iraq relate to “wanting to have a Kurdish Republic separate from the Central government and this is all part of the New Great Game. It will serve US interests in both Turkey and Iraq, not to mention Syria.” Very revealing is the fact that almost two weeks after the dramatic fall of Mosul and the ‘capture’ by ISIS forces of the huge weapons and military vehicle resources provided by the US to the Iraqi army. Washington has done virtually nothing but make a few silly speeches about their ‘concern’ and dispatch 275 US special forces to allegedly protect US personnel in Iraq. Whatever the final details that emerge, what is clear in the days since the fall of Mosul is that some of the world’s largest oilfields in Iraq are suddenly held by Jihadists and no longer by an Iraqi government determined to increase the oil export significantly. More on this aspect in an upcoming article. More links: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/14/america-s-allies-are-funding-isis.html http://www.crescent-online.net/2014/06/us-saudi-funded-isis-spreads-terror-in-iraq-crescent-onlinenet-4513-articles.html
  6. Greetings, The Price of Oil and Gasto head downward by 2020? Iraq, Iran Plot Oil Revolution, Challenge Saudi Posted on 29 January 2014 Iraq and Iran, which together hold more oil reserves than Saudi Arabia, are planning to challenge Saudi Arabia's grip on OPEC and its status as the "swing producer" in the cartel, according to a report from The Telegraph. With Iraq poised to triple its capacity to 9 million bpd by 2020, the result could be a dramatic fall in oil prices. Hussain al-Shahristani, Deputy Prime Minister for Energy, said: "We feel the world needs to be assured of fuel for economic growth ... It's very difficult to predict actual world (oil) demand by 2020 because the world economy is unpredictable ... Iran has been in touch with us; they want to share our contracts model and experience."
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.