Russia 'unmasks' US in Syria

As noted by NEO magazine, the headlines in the Western media in recent days have hailed the capture of large gas fields around Deir Ez Zor province as a victory for Syria. But is the truth as reported by the media?

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.

Typical headlines read “SDF Recaptures Syrian Gas Fields From ISIS.” Note the word “recapture,” which implies that the original owner of the gas fields, the Syrian state, has taken back economically valuable resources from ISIS terrorists. However, in reality, the opposite is true, NEO notes.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), backed by the Pentagon, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), and other enemies of the Assad government, have declared control over key Syrian gas fields originally exploited by the Houston, Texas-based oil company Conoco. The SDF’s move was described by prominent Western media outlets as follows:

"US-backed Syrian forces have seized the Conoco gas plant from the Islamic State in the oil-rich Deir Ezzor region, depriving IS militants of a key source of revenue."

According to NEO, behind this description lies the dirty truth as US forces have been exposed as having been guiding both the IS terrorist group and the SDF. IS has occupied Deir Ez-Zor province along with its oil and gas fields since 2014, depriving the Assad government of one of its most important sources of income and energy.

Earlier, on September 24, the Russian Defense Ministry released aerial images showing military equipment of US special forces north of the city of Deir ez-Zor, where IS fighters were deployed. The images showed that US military units provided free passage for the mainly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), allowing the SDF to pass through the battle formations of IS terrorists, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement.

"Without resistance from IS fighters, SDF forces are moving along the left bank of the Euphrates River towards the town of Deir ez-Zor," the statement said.

“Despite the fact that the US military bases are located in the areas where IS militants are deployed, there are no signs of organizing a combat outpost,” the Russian Defense Ministry statement added. Apparently, US servicemen in the middle of IS-controlled territory still feel completely safe.

Thierry Meyssan, a French Middle East expert based in Damascus, noted: "In August, the Pentagon announced a tender to purchase and transfer $500 million in weapons and ammunition, mainly from the former Soviet Union. The first 200 trucks were delivered to the Kurdish People's Protection Units — YPG in Hasakah on September 11 and 19, through Iraqi Kurdistan, without being attacked by Islamist extremists."

This confirms that both the US-trained and -armed Kurdish SDF and IS are proxies of the US and are being used by the US to protect Syria’s strategic oil and gas fields near the border with Iraq, where Iraqi Kurds, under US- and Israeli-backed leader Massoud Barzani, recently voted by more than 92% in favour of establishing an independent Kurdistan (Kurdistan is the name of the Kurdish state if it splits from Iraq), a move supported by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and backed by Washington. According to the Financial Times, in 2015, Israel imported 77% of its oil supplies from Barzani-led Kurdistan.

It is the Pentagon’s long-term plan, first outlined in the 2006 edition of Armed Forces Magazine, for an independent Kurdish state backed by the United States and Israel to break away from Iraq, Syria, NATO member Turkey and eventually Iran, that is coming to light. Until now, the plan has been largely hidden in the shadows of the more than six-year-long US-sponsored, Saudi-led war to overthrow the democratically elected government of Bashar al Assad, the main obstacle to America’s plan to carve up the region.

The Pentagon said that Washington was fighting in Syria to destroy IS terrorists, but according to international law the US had committed an act of aggression, illegal because it was an invasion of a sovereign state against the UN Charter, which has now been completely exposed as a lie.

The Pentagon, the CIA and private mercenaries have been repeatedly accused of creating ISIS from Al Qaeda in Iraq and Syria in an effort to overthrow Assad and seize control of strategic oil and gas reserves and pipelines. Syria’s energy future and the potential of the European Union and Asia are at stake.

It was not a whim of US Defense Secretary James Mattis to use the Syrian Kurds to gain control of key energy corridors in Syria after other options had failed. The plan dates back at least to a 2006 article by Colonel Ralph Peters in Armed Forces magazine, in which Peters outlined a plan to radically redraw the post-World War I borders of the entire Middle East.

In the article, he argued that "A free Kurdish state, stretching from Diyarbakir to Tabriz, would be the most pro-Western state between Bulgaria and Japan." He went on to assert that "The most glaring injustice in the notoriously unjust land between the Balkans and the Himalayas is the absence of an independent Kurdish state. There are currently between 27 and 36 million Kurds living in border regions in the Middle East." Peters even spoke of an Iraqi Kurdish independence referendum, in which "Nearly 100% of Iraqi Kurds would vote for independence."

The referendum took place, and the result was 92% of Kurdish voters voted for independence, with reports of Barzani’s supporters threatening “no” voters. Barzani is reportedly worth billions of dollars through operations he directed his family members to carry out. Since 2015, Barzani has ruled as an illegitimate president after the Iraqi parliament asked him to step down.

Kurdish girls during the referendum on the independence of Iraqi Kurdistan. Photo: AFP 2017/ DELIL SOULEIMAN

Last July, at the G20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany, US President Donald Trump announced that he was cutting the budget for the CIA and Pentagon’s fight against radical Islamic terrorism in Syria and the Middle East. It is now clear that instead of training ISIS and real terrorists and sending them to fight Assad, a war that radical Islamic mercenaries lost miserably as soon as Russia entered the war in September 2015, the US budget was transferred to the Kurdish military group known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Following Mr Trump’s announcement, massive shipments of US-supplied weapons were sent to the SDF, including heavy machine guns, mortars, anti-tank guns, armored vehicles and engineering equipment. In May, Mr Trump signed a license to arm the Kurdish SDF militia. By June, some 348 trucks and military aid had been delivered to the force, according to Türkiye’s Anadolu news agency. According to the news agency, the Pentagon’s list of weapons delivered to the force included 12,000 Kalashnikov rifles, 6,000 machine guns, 3,000 grenade launchers and about 1,000 anti-tank weapons of Russian or US origin.

It is now clear that the US arms shipments to the Kurdish SDF are aimed at a new war against Bashar al Assad's Syrian Arab Army (SAA) to prevent Assad's army from retaking the oil and gas-rich lands around Deir ez-Zor.

Russian warships launch a series of Kalibr missiles at IS targets in Deir ez-Zor. PHOTO: PRESS SERVICE OF THE RUSSIAN DEFENSE MINISTRY

In early September, Assad’s military forces, backed by Hezbollah and Russian air power, finally broke the three-year IS siege of the strategic city of Deir ez-Zor, the center of Syria’s oil and gas reserves. At the same time, the US-backed and now US-armed Kurdish SDF captured gas fields north of Deir ez-Zor.

On August 18, the US special presidential envoy for the international coalition against IS, Brett H. McGurk, met with local tribal leaders who had apparently been bribed to pledge allegiance to IS. They are now said to have followed the money and switched their support to the US-backed SDF to fight Mr. Assad.

Most recently, the US installed a former IS fighter, Ahmad Abu Khawla, as the commander of the newly formed Deir Ezzor military council controlled by US Special Forces. Abu Khawla is a convicted car thief, extortionist and all-around criminal. Going from IS to the SDF is a piece of cake, as long as there is money.

However, due to the recent victories of the Syrian army and its allies with the support of the Russian air force, the war is turning into a direct confrontation between Russia and the United States that will certainly seriously threaten world peace. Like many times before, the Kurds in Syria and Iraq are being toyed with by the Western powers in a game of complete control over the vast energy resources of the entire Middle East and of the entire world. Eventually, the game will end, but not before the insane and inhuman massacres continue to cause irreparable pain and loss.

According to Sputnik