Category Archives: Middle East

Is Turkey About to Copy the Russian Invasion Plan?

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Primer: Today as this is posted, the United States has an estimate 900 troops in Syria sharing bases with the Syrian Defense Force located in the Hassekeh and Raqqa provinces.

Erdogan does not seem to care, one NATO member country to another….

Turkey wants full control of key regions in Syria….sounds much like much like the selected oblasts in Ukraine that Russia works to control. Could it be that Iran is out of money and tired of Syria and has moved on to embellish their relationship with Moscow?

In Syria, Erdoğan is off to make war… "in the name of peace" - KEDISTAN source

FNC:

Turkey’s impending invasion of northern Syria likely results from “political reasons” rather than a national security need, and it remains unclear how officials will declare “mission success,” experts told Fox News Digital.

“This is a politically motivated military incursion rather than a sort of, you know, tactically sound or, you know, strategically oriented ambition,” Sinan Ciddi, an expert on Turkish domestic politics and foreign policy for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said. “The timing of this operation will have been much closer to the upcoming Turkish presidential election, so they can reap maximum political benefit out of it.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week ordered a series of airstrikes against Kurdish militias in northern Syria and vowed to order a land invasion of the territory as tensions surrounding border disputes peaked.

The Pentagon urged Turkey to stand down on its plan to invade Syria as U.S. officials warned that the operation could endanger U.S. troops in the country.

A spokesperson for the Turkish Embassy in Washington, D.C., told Fox News Digital that officials have “time and again pointed out threats against our national security, posed by the PKK/YPG terrorist network in Syria and Iraq.”

“We have always called for unequivocal and genuine solidarity in the face of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations,” the spokesperson said. “Notwithstanding, the terrorist organization continued its attacks, recently targeting innocent civilians in the heart of Istanbul.”

The spokesman pointed to Turkey’s commitment to help fight DAESH – the Arabic name for ISIS – and is “the only NATO ally that has put boots on the ground and fought DAESH chest-to-chest since the outset,” even though U.S. officials have warned that the invasion could lead to the release of detained ISIS members.

Sinam Sherkany Mohamad, the representative of the Syrian Democratic Council mission in the U.S., said that democratic forces – located in northern and eastern Syria – remain prepared for the invasion but “hope it will not happen.”

“We don’t want war, we don’t want to create another conflict zone in the region,” Mohamad said. “We already, as Syria, suffered a lot [in] 12 years from the Syrian crisis, so we don’t want to create another conflict zone or a war in the region that is not in the interest of anyone, neither the United States nor Syrian nor Turkey.”

“We hope that the international community and the main powers, like Russia and the United States, could stop us from [facing] any ground invasion in the coming [days and weeks],” she added.

Mohamad praised the U.S. efforts to pressure Turkey to prevent the invasion from happening, echoing concerns for U.S. troop safety, and she urged U.S. officials to consider sanctions against Turkey should Erdogan authorize the invasion.

“There are many mechanisms that the U.S. administration can do to prevent Turkey from this ground invasion,” she said, stressing that any invasion would result in a “humanitarian catastrophe” with millions of displaced people.

Biden lied about Afghanistan, Proof from General Frank McKenzie

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We can never forget the tragic deaths of our war fighters in Kabul and prayer for those Gold Star families daily.

 

In spite of the lies, the consequences of this failed operation is worse than we can imagine and while Biden lied, this White House and the Pentagon continue to be passive on the whole deadly scandal.

Source: Authorities in Herat found a 10-ton cache of weapons marked with Chinese, Russian, and Persian (Pajhwak Afghan News) September 14, 2007 (RFE/RL) — U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte says Washington has complained to Beijing about Chinese weapons shipments to Iran that appear to be turning up in the hands of Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.

Negroponte confirmed the U.S. concerns over China’s weapons deals with Tehran after a 10-ton weapons cache was discovered in the western Afghan province of Herat.

The cache found in Ghurian district, near the border with Iran, included artillery shells, land mines, and rocket-propelled grenade launchers with Chinese, Russian, and Persian markings on them.

Britain’s Foreign Office has also confirmed that it has complained to Beijing about Chinese-made HN-5 antiaircraft missiles confiscated from Taliban fighters who were captured or killed by British Royal Marines in Helmand Province. Beijing has said that it would investigate allegations that the weapons were forwarded to the Taliban through Iran.

When asked in Kabul on September 11 about the Taliban’s use of sophisticated new Chinese weapons, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte also suggested that Iran has been a transit point for Chinese arms deliveries to the Taliban.

“A subject that I have discussed with the Chinese in the past is the fact of their weapons sales to the country of Iran and our concern,” Negroponte said. “We have tried to discourage the Chinese from signing any new weapons contracts with Iran. We are concerned by reports — which we consider to be reliable — of explosively formed projectiles and other kinds of military equipment coming from Iran across the border and coming into the hands of the Taliban.”

“I have no doubt that Iran has been involved in channeling money and arms to various elements in Afghanistan, including the Taliban, for the last few years… There are Pashtuns and non-Pashtuns who are being funded by Iran.” — Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid

In June, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said Washington had no evidence proving a direct role by the Iranian government in smuggling weapons to the Taliban. But Gates said Washington suspects Tehran is involved.

“I haven’t seen any intelligence specifically to this effect, but I would say, given the quantities we are seeing, it is difficult to believe that it is associated with smuggling or the drug business or that it is taking place without the knowledge of the Iranian government,” Gates said.

***

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) failed to properly vet and screen Afghan evacuees coming into the U.S. and may have allowed multiple national security and public safety threats into the U.S., according to a new report by the department’s office of inspector general.

The report by the DHS Office of Inspector General found that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) “did not always have critical data to properly screen, vet, or inspect the evacuees.”

“We determined some information used to vet evacuees through U.S. Government databases, such as name, date of birth, identification number, and travel document data, was inaccurate, incomplete, or missing. We also determined CBP admitted or paroled evacuees who were not fully vetted into the United States,” the report says.

“As a result, DHS may have admitted or paroled individuals into the United States who pose a risk to national security and the safety of local communities,” the report continued.

FBI ‘ACTIVELY’ INVESTIGATING AFGHAN EVACUEES IN US FLAGGED AS SUSPECTED TERRORISTS, SECURITY THREATS: WRAY

***

Just some more important details:

US military equipment, including armoured vehicles worth hundreds of thousands of dollars each, have reportedly been spotted in Iran following the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, several social media accounts have reported.

Kian Sharifi, a BBC journalist focused on Iranian politics and social media, tweeted on Wednesday several photographs of Humvees and other military vehicles on a highway connecting the central city of Semnan to the city of Garmsar, southeast of the capital Tehran.

Sharifi said the photos came from an Iranian Telegram channel, which speculated the vehicles were either sold by the Taliban to Iran, or were taken from Afghan soldiers fleeing the country after the group took over most of the country, including the capital, Kabul, last month.

According to the Russian outlet Sputnik’s Persian language service, Iran allegedly bought armoured US-supplied ground vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and helicopters belonging to the Afghan army. source in 2021

***

Taliban delivers US military vehicles to Iran | Arab News source and photographer

In addition to the weapons and military equipment these special forces brought with them to Iran, they have an intimate knowledge of the U.S. military and its tactics in the region, know-how that is highly sought after by Iran’s terrorist proxy groups and other jihadi militants.

“These commandos are trained, highly trained, on how we do signals intelligence, how we do human intelligence, how we operate,” Rep. Michael Waltz (R., Fla.), a combat veteran, said in the report. “We know that the Taliban are hunting them down. They are seeking to force them through coercion to hand over that information so that they can use it and they can understand how we operate.”

Beyond Iran, Russia and China are also looking to recruit these forces for their inside knowledge about American military tactics. source

***

Was it really just $7 billion left behind?

The fall of the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan gave Taliban fighters access to more than $7 billion worth of American military equipment, according to data in a report submitted this week to U.S. lawmakers and confirmed by the Pentagon.

The findings, first reported by CNN, shed light on the extent to which Washington sought to build, support and maintain the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) as a counterbalance to the Taliban and terror groups such as al-Qaida and the Islamic State Khorasan.

The report also details the bounty of weaponry and equipment awaiting Taliban officials once the last U.S. troops left Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on August 30, 2021, nearly two decades after the first U.S. forces arrived. source

The Fall of Afghanistan Report, One Year Later

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Axios is reporting in part:

The White House is planning to circulate a new memo on Capitol Hill defending President Biden’s decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan and claiming the move strengthened national security by freeing up critical military and intelligence agents, according to a copy of the document obtained by Axios.

Why it matters: The memo comes as many across Washington are still seeking answers about the flawed evacuation. Republicans in particular are planning to use the one-year anniversary to reexamine the failures that led to the Afghan capital swiftly falling into the hands of the Taliban.

Driving the news: The memo was written by National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson in part as an attempt to preempt criticism from Republicans who are releasing an interim report on Sunday outlining what they see as the failures of the administration’s preparations for the evacuation.

  • The GOP report, led by Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the likely chair of the panel if Republicans take back the majority next year, claims the Biden administration left key decisions on how to evacuate civilians from Kabul until the final hours before the city fell to the Taliban.
  • “There was a complete lack and a failure to plan. There was no plan and there was no plan executed,” McCaul said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday morning.

Details: The memo argues the GOP report is “riddled with false claims” and puts the onus on former President Trump for striking a 2020 deal with the Taliban — known as the “Doha agreement” — to evacuate the U.S. from the region by May 2021.

***

While some Afghanis fled to Iran were offered immunity to return, the report to soon be released is in stern opposition to the Biden White House positive spin. And while often inviting Biden administration officials to participate, especially the U.S. State Department, none did.

From the Military Times in part:

Thousands of Afghan security personnel, including special forces troops, likely fled to Iran with U.S. equipment and military knowledge as their country fell to Taliban insurgents last year, according to a new report released by House Republican leaders on Monday.

The 119-page document accuses President Joe Biden’s administration of failing to adequately prepare for the evacuation of Afghan allies in the months leading up to the full withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country in August 2021. This includes using just 36 consular officers to process more than 100,000 requests for evacuation.

The authors said their findings come from interviews with whistleblowers, previously unreleased State Department memos and interviews with individuals on the ground in Afghanistan in the days leading up to the withdrawal.

It does not include any direct testimony from senior administration officials, who have previously criticized Republicans’ work on the issue as politically motivated.

***

There is a somewhat accurate report published by GZERO…it reads as follows:

Contrary to the hopes of optimists, no “Taliban 2.0” has emerged. The regime hasn’t really reformed, and is as hardline as it was when it ruled the country from 1996 to 2001.

There is no constitution. Religious policing is back with a vengeance. The media is muzzled. And the recent US killing of al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in a Kabul enclave that houses senior members of the Haqqani Network — whose boss is the current interior minister — has confirmed the skeptics who thought the Taliban could or would never disassociate from international terrorism.

Financially, things are as bad as they can get. The economy has essentially collapsed under the weight of international isolation, sanctions, and aid cuts. It was so hooked to the war that six months after the American withdrawal, GDP fell by a third. Now, Afghanistan is near universal poverty and starvation.

Women and girls have had it the worst. Millions of them have found themselves out of school, out of jobs, and out of public life altogether. The Taliban’s supreme leader vetoed a government edict to let them back to class in March, a political development that underscores serious schisms within the regime’s conservative and moderate — by Taliban standards — elements.

On Sunday, on the eve of the re-establishment of the “Islamic Emirate,” a few brave women marched in a rare protest in Kabul. They were beaten and scared off by automatic gunfire.

Afghan women wearing traditional burqas walk past a cemetery in Kabul (AFP via Getty Images) More details here

Afghan women wearing traditional burqas walk past a cemetery in Kabul (AFP via Getty Images)

But the United States is financially providing money support in Afghanistan….

Please note –>

SIGAR noted in its January 2022 report that,4

    • The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that donors contributed $1.67 billion for Afghanistan humanitarian assistance programs in 2021. The United States contributed the largest amount, over $425 million. These amounts far exceeded previous years’ humanitarian assistance.

 

    • …On December 22, the Treasury Department broadened the types of activities authorized under U.S. licenses, and the UN Security Council established a UN sanctions exemption to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian and other forms of aid to Afghanistan.

 

    • On January 11, 2022, the White House announced an additional $308 million in U.S. humanitarian aid for Afghanistan. On that same day, the UN launched a $5 billion funding appeal for its 2022 Afghanistan Humanitarian Response Plan, the largest single- country aid appeal in UN history.

 

  • On January 26, the UN announced an additional appeal for $3.6 billion as part of its Transitional Engagement Framework. In total, the framework calls for more than $8 billion in humanitarian and other aid for Afghanistan.

No one can really estimate what is really required at this point or what arrangements the U.S. and other outside powers can make to allocate such aid to the Taliban or any other successor government, but the current outlook of estimates – that are even as high as $8.6 billion – seem to ignore several critical aspects of the financing of the past Afghan central government and the impact of its spending on the Afghan people before it was defeated and collapsed.

    • Some 75% of all Afghan government spending came from aid. As SIGAR notes, “prior to the collapse of the Islamic Republic, international aid contributed to around 40% of Afghanistan’s GDP and 75% of public expenditures.5 Total government spending financed most of the modern sector of the Afghan economy except for hard currency earnings from the export of narcotics.

 

  • For political reasons, much of the economic data on Afghanistan did not include narcotics exports. However, UNDOC estimates that, “the gross output of the Afghan opiate economy was between $1.8 and $2.7 billion in 2021, comprising the equivalent of 9–14% of Afghanistan’s GDP and exceeding the value of all of Afghanistan’s officially recorded licit exports for 2020 (estimated at 9% of GDP).6

Rainbow Bullets Promoted at the USMC

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It was November of last year, 2021 that the Commandant of the Marine Corps admitted the Corps was going woke. General David Berger planned a big overhaul and it is clearly happening. The Marines have an alleged diversity problem and a recruiting problem so the decision was made to reach out to the LGBT community to solve the issue…by painting bullets in rainbow colors to be worn in the helmet strap.

Exactly what is really going on at the Pentagon? Where is the advisory council? Is the SECDEF really good with this? How does this work in the Middle East verses militant Islam?

How about Semper Taeter Marines?

General Berger went on to retool the Corps by saying to compete we need to ‘shake its MANPOWER model’.

The Marine Corps marked the start of Pride month with an image of a combat helmet adorned with rainbow-colored bullets on Wednesday — sparking outrage over the mixing of warfare and wokeness.

“Throughout June, the USMC takes #Pride in recognizing and honoring the contributions of our LGBTQ service members,” the Marines tweeted on their official account.

“We remain committed to fostering an environment free from discrimination, and defend the values of treating all equally, with dignity and respect.”

The message was accompanied by an image reminiscent of the poster for the 1987 Vietnam War movie “Full Metal Jacket,” which featured a helmet with rounds of high-powered rifle ammo tucked into its band.

But instead of having “BORN TO KILL” scrawled across the helmet’s camouflage cover, the updated version has “PROUD TO SERVE” written on the band — and bullets colored red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple.

USMC Pride Helmet
The image of the helmet with rainbow bullets was widely mocked on social media.
@USMC
Full Metal Jacket Poster
The poster for director Stanley Kubrick’s 1987 film.
©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett C

The tweet quickly prompted thousands of responses, with Erick Aguilar, a Republican congressional candidate in Florida, sarcastically asking, “Ummmm….. Is this satire?”

Jason Buttrill, whose profile says he’s a former Marine and Defense Department analyst, wrote, “F–k out of here with this. We don’t take political sides, and we don’t engage in social commentary. We kill the enemy… period.”

User @Hannibalsbarka snarked, “Getting killed by a rainbow bullet is so progressive.”

Another user, @TheRealEJones, lamented, “What the actual F. My Corp [sic]. And a great movie cover destroyed by wokism.”

User @VrishnikG also referenced “Full Metal Jacket” by posting a meme of the movie’s drill instructor, played by the late R. Lee Ermey, telling his recruits, “Here, you are all equally worthless.”

“They should’ve stuck with this message,” the tweet added.

Christina Pushaw, a spokeswoman for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, said, “Seriously? How does fixating on differences foster cohesion and unity?”

A similar sentiment was voiced by user @JackedTNT, who urged, “Focus on building warriors and less about social bulls–t.”

Legendary Marine Lt. General Lewis “Chesty” Puller was invoked by user @RufusDryer, who said the Corps’ most-decorated member “is rolling in his grave.”

 

 

Identified Released Bagram Prisoner Killed our Marines in Kabul

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SIS-K suicide bomber who carried out deadly Kabul airport attack had been released from prison days earlier

Where is the outrage? This is on Biden….

NYP: The United States has put together a profile of the suicide bomber who killed 13 US troops outside Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul four months ago.

The Islamic State terrorist attack — which also left 200 Afghans dead — was carried out by Abdul Rahman Al-Logari, the New York Times reported. The terrorist was a one-time engineering student was freed from a high security prison by the Taliban.Abdul Rahman al-Logari

As the militants overran the country, they emptied jails stocked with both their own prisoners and Islamic State terrorists opposed to them and the US.

“It’s hard to explain what the thinking was in letting out people who were a threat to the Taliban,” Edmund Fitton-Brown, a senior U.N. counterterrorism official said during a recent conference in Qatar, the outlet said.

Al-Logari has been active in terrorist for years before. A 2017 plot he was involved with in New Delhi, India was foiled and Al-Logari was eventually transferred to the CIA which stuck in at Parwan prison near Bagram Air Base.

The base — and its two runways — was infamously abandoned and overrun by the Taliban on July 1. The situation forced the US do conduct its later evacuation from the more exposed and less well-equipped Hamid Karzai International Airport.

***

The US controlled the base until it abandoned Bagram in early July. The revelation underscores the chaos around the final days of the withdrawal from Afghanistan and the struggle of the US to control a rapidly deteriorating situation around the airport as it relied on the Taliban to secure the perimeter of the airport.
The US handed Bagram Air Base over to the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) on July 1, as the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan neared 90% completion.
At the time, there were approximately 5,000 prisoners at Bagram, an Afghan Ministry of Defense spokesman told CNN. A few hundred were criminals, but the vast majority were terrorists, the spokesman said, including members of al Qaeda, the Taliban, and ISIS. There were also foreign prisoners from Pakistan, Chechnya, and the Middle East detained there. It was up to the Afghans to secure the compound.
As the US was turning over Bagram to the ANDSF, the Taliban accelerated their sweep across the country, claiming to control 150 of Afghanistan’s 407 districts by July 5. It was a sign of things to come, as provincial capitals began falling to the Taliban offensive in rapid succession. By mid-August, the Taliban were on the doorstep of Kabul and the complete collapse of the Afghan military was virtually complete.Biden said, “We will not be deterred by terrorists… we will continue the evacuation.” He said that ISIS-K leadership and facilities will be attacked. More than 100,000 people were “taken to safety in the last 11 days. In the last 12 hours or so, another 7,000 have gotten out,” he said. “These ISIS terrorists will not win. We will rescue the Americans who are there…America will not be intimidated.”

He called those who died “part of the bravest, most capable and selfless military on the face of the earth.. the backbone of America, the spine of America, the best the country has to offer. Jill and I, our hearts ache for all those Afghan families who lost loved ones, including small children, in this vicious attack. We’re outraged.” source