Kurdish Minority - Turkey: Silopi & Cizre

ꕤ Article SOURCE http://www.trust.org/item/20151225123010-d3ncy Silopi =  district of Şırnak Province =  Turkey's south-eastern Anatolia Region =  close to borders of Iraq & Syria ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- Article (Reuters) Turkey 2-year ceasefire between: Ankara &  Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fell apart July 2015 --> Kurdish south-east = military target. In 3 decades of conflict between Turkey & PKK Kurdish minority --> over 40,000 people have been killed. Cizre in Turkey (near Syria border) --> 1,000s Turkish troops deployed, tanks, helicopters --> govt. shelling randomly Turkey Cizre & Silopi 30 km (19m) away near Iraqi border =  intense fighting since 24/7 curfew declared both towns mid Dec. Turkish state media says: 68 PKK militants killed in ops. Pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) say 38 civilians killed. Silopi Turkey civilians are without electricity & sheltering in basements of houses / under Turkish troops assault. Turkey vs. PKK conflict is urban: PKK youth wing --> set up barricades & dug trenches to keep out Turkish forces. PKK  leader:   Abdullah Ocalan (in prison) / designated 'terrorist' group by: Turkey US EU http://www.trust.org/item/20151225123010-d3ncy PHOTOGRAPHS Silope (Kurdish region) Turkey Under 24/7 Curfew Turkish Troops & Heavy Shelling Civilians [ Click to Enlarge ] [ Click to Enlarge ] [ Click to Enlarge ]   [ Click to Enlarge ]   [ Click to Enlarge ] 40-year old, mother of seven Shot in neck by Turkish authorities [ Click to Enlarge ] ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- COMMENT Must try to keep an eye on this. It caught my attention recently and then I sort of forgot about it. European Union wants Turkey and Turkey wants to join the EU, I understand. But look at the way Turkey treats its Kurdish minority:  troops are shelling indiscriminately & shelling civilians. ꕤ

Pepe Escobar - 'How Russia is Smashing the Turkish Game in Syria'

ꕤ Article SOURCE http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/12/03/how-russia-is-smashing-the-turkish-game-in-syria/ December 3, 2015 How Russia is Smashing the Turkish Game in Syria by Pepe Escobar So why did Washington take virtually forever to not really acknowledge ISIS/ISIL/Daesh is selling stolen Syrian oil that will eventually find is way to Turkey? Because the priority all along was to allow the CIA – in the shadows – to run a “rat line” weaponizing a gaggle of invisible “moderate rebels”. As much as Daesh – at least up to now – the Barzani mob in Iraqi Kurdistan was never under Washington’s watch. The oil operation the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) runs to Turkey is virtually illegal; stolen state-owned oil as far as Baghdad is concerned. Daesh stolen oil can’t flow through Damascus-controlled territory. Can’t flow though Shi’ite-dominated Iraq. Can’t go east to Iran. It’s Turkey or nothing. Turkey is the easternmost arm of NATO. The US and NATO “support” Turkey. So a case can be made that the US and NATO ultimately support Daesh. What’s certain is that illegal Daesh oil and illegal KRG oil fit the same pattern; energy interests by the usual suspects playing a very long game. What these interests are focused on is to control every possible oil asset in Iraqi Kurdistan and then in “liberated” Syria. It’s crucial to know that Tony “Deepwater Horizon” Hayward is running Ug Genel, whose top priority is to control oil fields that were first stolen from Baghdad, and will eventually be stolen from Iraqi Kurds. And then, there’s the Turkmen powder keg. The key reason why Washington always solemnly ignored Ankara’s array of shady deals in Syria, through its fifth column Turkmen jihadis, is because a key CIA “rat line” runs exactly through the region known as Turkmen Mountain. These Turkmen supplied by Ankara’s “humanitarian” convoys got American TOW-2As for their role in preserving prime weaponizing/ smuggling routes. Their advisers, predictably, are Xe/Academi types, formerly Blackwater. Russia happened to identify the whole scam and started bombing the Turkmen. Thus the downing of the Su-24. The Turkmen fifth column Now the CIA is on a mission from God – frantically trying to prevent the rat line from being definitely smashed by the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) on the ground and Russia in the air. The same desperation applies to the Aleppo-Azez-Killis route, which is also essential for Turkey for all kinds of smuggling. The advanced arm of the “4+1” alliance – Russia, Syria, Iran, Iraq, plus Hezbollah – is taking no prisoners trying to re-conquer these two key corridors. And that explains Ankara’s desperation – with a little help from His Masters’ Voice – to come up with an entirely new rat line/corridor through Afrin, currently under Syrian Kurd control, before Damascus forces and Russia air power get there. Once again it’s important to remember that a gaggle of Turkmen outfits are Ankara’s fifth column in northern Syria. Most Turkmen live in Kurdish territories. And here’s the ultimate complicating factor; the majority happens to live in the Jarablus region, currently controlled by ISIS/ISIL/Daesh. It’s exactly this area that is cutting the geographic connection between the two Kurdish cantons, Kobani and Afrin. So imagine a continuous Syrian Kurd control/autonomy/corridor all across the Turkish-Syrian border. For Ankara this is the ultimate nightmare. Ankara’s strategy is to move its Turkmen pawns, with added “moderate rebels”, all across the Jarablus region. The pretext: wipe Daesh off the map. The real reason: prevent the two Kurdish cantons – Afrin and Kobani – from merging. And once again Ankara will be directly pitted against Moscow. The Russian strategy rests on very good relations with Syrian Kurds. Moscow not only supports the Syrian Kurd canton merger, but qualifies it as an important step on the way to a new Syria rid of takfiris. Russia will even officially recognize the PYD (Democratic Union Party) and allow them a representative office in Russia. Ankara regards the PYD and its paramilitary arm, the YPG (People’s Protection Units) as branches of the PKK. It gets curioser an curioser when we know that both Moscow and Washington are cooperating with the YPG against ISIS/ISIL/Daesh. The predictable All-Out Ankara Freak Out came in the form of Sultan Erdogan declaring the Euphrates a “red line” for the YPG. If they try to move westward to fight Daesh, sending them out of the Jarablus area, the Turkish Army will strike. It’s absolutely key for Turkey to control this area between Jarablus and Afrin because here is the site of the would-be “safe zone”, actually a no-fly zone, which Ankara dreams of implementing using the 3 billion euros just extorted from the EU to house refugees but also control northern Syria. Turkmen would be in charge of the area – as well as the Azez-Aleppo line, assuming the SAA does not clear it for good. The case for UEBA So Ankara is looking at two very unpleasant Turkmen-filled scenarios to say the least. Turkmen instrumentalized by Ankara to become gatekeepers against the Kurdish YPG; that means a nasty sectarian divide, orchestrated by Turkey, whose greatest loser is the unity of the Syrian nation. Meanwhile, the SAA and Russian air power are on the verge of total control of Turkmen Mountain. This will allow the “4+1” to go much deeper fighting against the so-called Army of Conquest and its twin-headed reptile, Jabhat al-Nusra (a.k.a. al-Qaeda in Syria) and Ahrar al-Sham, the whole lot “supported” and weaponized by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The “4+1” inexorable advance comes with extra benefits; the end of all rat lines in the region, and no more possible threats to Russia’s air base in Hmeimim. Make no mistake that Moscow will inflict as much pain on Sultan Erdogan as possible. As Turkish newspaper Radikal quoted him, Prof. Abbas Vali of Bogazici University confirmed, “The PYD was pleased about Russia’s intervention in Syria. An alliance between the PYD and Russia is inevitable. Russia’s bombardment of the radical Islamist groups on the ground will have a huge impact on the PYD operations.” So no matter which way we look, Turkey and Russia are on a serious collision course in Syria. Moscow will support Syrian Kurds no holds barred as they push to link the three major Kurdish cantons in northern Syria into a unified Rojava. As for Washington’s “strategy”, it now boils down to the CIA need of a new rat line. That could imply sitting on the – weaponized – sidelines watching Turkmen and Kurds slug it out, thus creating an opening for the Turkish Army to intervene, and the Russian Air Force to prevent it, with all hell guaranteed to break loose. The fact remains that Sultan Erdogan badly needs a new CIA-secured rat line to weaponize not only his fifth column Turkmen but also Chechens, Uzbeks and Uyghurs. And Bilal Erdogan, a.k.a. Erdogan Mini Me, desperately needs new oil smuggling routes and a couple of new tankers; Russia is watching their every move. The latest news from Russia’s Defense Ministry has struck like a volcanic eruption; the Erdogan family mob was branded as “criminals”, with Moscow presenting only an appetizer of the all the evidence it has in store. So we have the Afghan heroin rat line. The Libyan oil racket (now over). The Ukraine fascist rat line. The Libya to Syria weapon rat line. The stolen Syrian oil trade. The northern Syrian rat lines. Let’s call them UEBA: Unregulated Exceptionalist Business Activities. What’s not to like? There’s no business like war business. Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).  His latest book is Empire of Chaos. He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com. http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/12/03/how-russia-is-smashing-the-turkish-game-in-syria/ ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- COMMENT Hope Assad & Russia win. ꕤ

IRAQ - ISLAMIC STATE - ISIS - KURDS - SINJAR

TWITTER New Yorker link - here.

Noticed this appears to be Carnegie Endowment retweeted.

Imagine Carnegie Endowment aren't friends of Palestine.

Carnegie Endowment is a foreign policy 'think tank'.  Would you believe they've got a Moscow centre?

Don't know about these NGOs (or is it a GO ... haven't checked funding).  Who would want foreign influence in their countries?

Sinjar is a town on the Iraq-Syria border.

Like what's happening anywhere else in the world changes what's happened in Gaza!

Gaza's like shooting fish in a bucket.

Sinjar's either Iraq or Kurd.

ISIS has a fair bit of weaponry by the sound of it.  Hey, they've also changed their name, I think.  Now they're the Isamic State, as far as I know.

The New Yorker writes:

Yesterday, a senior U.S. official told me that the Obama Administration is contemplating an airlift, coördinated with the United Nations, of humanitarian supplies by C-130 transport planes to the Yazidis hiding in the Sinjar mountains. There are at least twenty thousand and perhaps as many as a hundred thousand of them, including some peshmerga militiamen providing a thin cover of protection.  The U.N. has reported that dozens of children have died of thirst in the heat. ISIS controls the entrance to the mountains. Iraqi helicopters have dropped some supplies, including food and water, but the refugees are hard to find and hard to reach.

ISIS rolls over local forces and consolidates power. ISIS is not Al Qaeda. It operates like an army, taking territory, creating a state. The aim of the Sinjar operation seems to be control of the Mosul Dam, the largest dam in Iraq, which provides electricity to Mosul, Baghdad, and much of the country. According to one expert, if ISIS takes the dam, which is located on the Tigris River, it would have the means to put Mosul under thirty metres of water, and Baghdad under five.

One way to protect the innocent and hurt those who are terrorizing them would be for the U.S. to launch air strikes on ISIS positions. That option has been discussed within the administration since the fall of Mosul, in June, but it runs against President Obama’s foreign-policy tendencies. “The President’s first instinct is, ‘Let’s help them to do it,’ ” the official told me. “The minute we do something, it changes the game.” This time, unlike in Syria, it isn’t hard to figure out how to “help them to do it”: send arms to the Kurds, America’s only secular-minded, pluralistic Muslim allies in the region, and the only force in the area with the means and the will to protect thousands of lives.  

It seems delusional to imagine that there is such a thing as an Iraqi central government that should be given priority over stopping ISIS and preventing a massacre. That dream of the American project in Iraq is gone. But perhaps the Obama Administration is being more realistic. Yesterday, I also learned that the U.S. is, in fact, sending arms to the Kurds—just not openly. This was even more welcome news, though it’s too bad that the weapons didn’t reach the peshmerga in time to defend Sinjar. The U.S. Joint Operation Center in Erbil is helping peshmerga ground troops and the Iraqi air force to coordinate attacks on ISIS, providing intelligence from the sky. It’s a breakthrough that the Kurds and the Iraqis are cooperating at all. “For the moment,” the senior official said. “And it could all fall apart, because it’s lightning in a bottle.”

*Yazidi is Kurdish people linked to Zoroastrianism.  I think Zoroastrianism was the original faith in Iran (Persia).  How cool's that!  Didn't think there were any beyond India, where they fled to centuries ago, I think it was.  Find them interesting.

That sounds pretty full on.

If ISIS/IS operate as an army, what do al-Qaeda do?

It would seem odd to overtake territory and then to just leave it, which I'm guessing is what happens.