Only a handful of mostly sick or elderly Christians remain in the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa, and Syrian Christians fear the forces that have brought that city’s population of Gospel followers to the brink of extinction could do the same for the entire nation.
An estimated dozen Christian families are still in the northern city, forced under threat of execution to convert, pay an “infidel” tax or go into hiding. Forbidden from leaving, they also face death from attacks directed at ISIS by Damascus, Russia and the U.S.-led Western coalition.
“We are trying to help them escape or stay safe, in hiding,” said Ayman Abdel Nour, executive director of Syrian Christians for Peace. “Their life is horrible. The people of Raqqa are being forced to live like it was 1,400 years ago.”
The plight of Christians in Raqqa is the eye of a storm that threatens to engulf all of the embattled nation whose ties to Christianity are as old as the faith itself. Terror, bombings and systematic persecution designated as genocide by the U.S. has left the close-knit community of Syrian Christians fearing for their future.
“We are facing terrorist action in the whole geography of Syria,” the Rev. Ibrahim Nseir, pastor of the National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon and the Presbyterian Church in Aleppo, told FoxNews.com from the conflict-torn city. “They are destroying our churches, killing and kidnapping Christians, stealing our homes and our businesses.” (Read more from “‘Life Is Horrible’: Syria’s Christians Fear Total Genocide” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/cross-295848_960_720.jpg720960Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-05-16 01:06:562016-05-16 01:06:56‘Life Is Horrible’: Syria’s Christians Fear Total Genocide
What seemed like an encouraging headline a few weeks ago was really all smoke and mirrors—far from pulling out of Syria, Russia has been rolling in even more troops and equipment. Russian President Vladimir Putin has once again proven that he cannot be trusted.
On March 14, Putin began ordering troops to return home from Syria. It is true that some troops did leave the country, but we now know that this announcement was more about distracting the world and portraying Russia as part of the solution in Syria rather than being part of the problem.
Even though Russia might have removed some troops, it left behind advanced anti-aircraft systems, plenty of fighter planes and bombers, and hundreds of troops and special forces. Don’t forget that Russia entered Syria last year with only a naval base located at Tartus and is now leaving Syria with an additional air base at Hmeimim.
Less than a month later, evidence was released of more troops filtering back into the war-torn country. The cover story was that they were supposedly there to clear out a number of mines, but no one really knew their true intentions.
Russia is still conducting airstrikes, even after their cessation of hostilities agreement with the United States. Russian special forces and air force helping Assad’s army were involved in fighting for the ancient city of Palmyra. There is talk that a Russian-supported offensive against Aleppo is in the works.
Currently, Russia is transporting artillery units into northern Syria and the White House is definitely concerned. According to Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser for the U.S., President Barack Obama told Putin that “Russia should focus its efforts on the diplomatic process.” However, it doesn’t seem like Moscow will heed this instruction.
As shown, Russia doesn’t exactly have the best track record for keeping its word. Moscow routinely violates its cease-fire arrangement with Ukraine and continues to supply weapons to Ukrainian separatists.
So why is Russia even in Syria to begin with? One explanation could be its desired military presence around the world to show that it is a global power. Another explanation is to use its influence in Syria to secure a stronger negotiating position on other issues like Ukraine.
Clever propaganda run directly from the Kremlin has largely affected the world’s perception of the country. The Kremlin wants the world to think of Russia as part of the solution to many of the world’s problems when the opposite is true. The Russian people have done poorly in a declining economy while Putin and his cronies become richer and richer each year.
Whether it is in Georgia, Ukraine, or Syria, Putin will do anything to make it seem that Russia is a global power on equal footing with the United States. As long as the West lets him get away with it, Putin will keep on lying. It is time for the world to wake up. (For more from the author of “How Russia Is Lying to Us About Syria” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/I2ExDlublYfgAT4J3FSotqA5HEjPJr5Y.jpg580940Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-04-28 01:27:532016-04-28 01:27:53How Russia Is Lying to Us About Syria
President Barack Obama will announce on Monday he plans to send as many as 250 additional U.S. troops to Syria, a sharp increase in the American presence working with local Syrian forces fighting Islamic State militants, U.S. officials said.
The deployment, which will increase U.S. forces in Syria to about 300, aims to accelerate recent gains against Islamic State and appears to reflect growing confidence in the ability of U.S.-backed forces inside Syria and Iraq to claw back territory from the hardline Sunni Islamist group.
Obama will explain his decision in a speech at 11:25 a.m. (0925 GMT) in Hanover, where he discussed the Syria crisis with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday. They will meet with other major European leaders after his remarks.
Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, controls the cities of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria and is proving a potent threat abroad, claiming credit for major attacks in Paris in November and Brussels in March.
While Obama has resisted putting U.S. troops into Syria, where a five-year civil war has killed at least 250,000 people, he sent 50 U.S. special operations forces to Syria last year in what U.S. officials described as a “counterterrorism” mission rather than an effort to tip the scales in the war. (Read more from “Obama Plans 250 More U.S. Troops for Syria, Boosting Force to 300” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/Defense.gov_News_Photo_100627-N-6903G-203_-_U.S._Army_Pfc._Robert_Parker_2nd_from_left_provides_fire_support_for_his_squad_membe.jpg15002100Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-04-25 00:17:332016-04-25 00:17:33Obama Plans 250 More U.S. Troops for Syria, Boosting Force to 300
By BBC. In a surprise move, Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered his military to start withdrawing the “main part” of its forces in Syria from Tuesday.
He said the Russian intervention had largely achieved its objectives.
The comments come amid fresh peace talks in Geneva aimed at resolving the five-year Syrian conflict.
Russia is a key ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose office said in a statement he had agreed to the move.
The pullout was “in accordance with the situation on the ground”, the statement said. (Read more from “Putin Orders Surprise Syria Withdrawal” HERE)
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Putin’s Shock Plan to Pull Troops From Syria Puts Pressure on Assad
By Jake Rudnitsky, Ilya Arkhipov and Henry Meyer. Russia said it will start withdrawing forces from Syria in a surprise move that puts pressure on its ally President Bashar Al-Assad, as well as opposition groups, to reach a deal at the peace talks that got under way hours earlier in Geneva.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose military intervention last year in support of Assad turned the tide in Syria’s five-year civil war, said the partial pullout should begin on Tuesday. A Russian air base and a naval facility will continue to function, he said in Moscow. Assad didn’t request the withdrawal, said Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov.
Russia has urged the Syrian leader to be “constructive” in the latest peace talks, aimed at ending a conflict that’s killed a quarter-million people, sparked a refugee exodus to Europe and allowed Islamic State a foothold. For Putin, who’s worked with the U.S. to promote diplomacy in Syria even though the two powers backed opposite sides in the war, it’s an opportunity to display peacemaking credentials while preserving the gains Assad’s army made under Russian air cover.
“Putin is a wily guy. He is showing he’s a statesman,” said Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East studies at the University of Oklahoma. “Russia is also sending a message to Assad who has been sounding too confident.” (Read more from “Putin’s Shock Plan to Pull Troops From Syria Puts Pressure on Assad” HERE)
350,000 soldiers, 20,000 tanks, 2,450 warplanes and 460 military helicopters are massing in northern Saudi Arabia for a military exercise that is being called “Northern Thunder”. According to the official announcement, forces are being contributed by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain, Sudan, Kuwait, Morocco, Pakistan, Tunisia, Oman, Qatar, Malaysia and several other nations. This exercise will reportedly last for 18 days, and during that time the airspace over northern Saudi Arabia will be closed to air traffic. This will be the largest military exercise in the history of the region, and it comes amid rumors that Saudi Arabia and Turkey are preparing for a massive ground invasion of Syria.
If you were going to gather forces for an invasion, this is precisely how you would do it. Governments never come out and publicly admit that forces are moving into position for an invasion ahead of time, so “military exercises” are a common excuse that gets used for this sort of thing.
If these exercises are actually being used as an excuse to mass forces near the northern Saudi border, then we should expect an invasion to begin within the next couple of weeks. If it happens, we should expect to see the Saudi coalition storm through western Iraq and into Syria from the south, and it is likely that Turkey will come in from the north.
The goal would be to take out the Assad regime before Russia, Iran and Hezbollah could react. For the past couple of years, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and their allies have been funding the Sunni insurgency in Syria, and they were counting on those insurgents to be able to take down the Assad regime by themselves.
You see, the truth is that ISIS was never supposed to lose in Syria. Saudi Arabia and her allies have been funneling massive amounts of money to ISIS, and hundreds of millions of dollars of ISIS oil has been shipped into Turkey where it is sold to the rest of the world.
The major Sunni nations wanted ISIS and the other Sunni insurgent groups to take down Assad. In the aftermath, Saudi Arabia and her allies intended to transform Syria into a full-blown Sunni nation.
But then Russia, Iran and Hezbollah stepped forward to assist the Assad regime. Russian air support completely turned the tide of the war, and now the Sunni insurgents are on the brink of losing.
Aleppo was once the largest city in Syria, and Sunni insurgents have controlled it since 2012. But now relentless Russian airstrikes have made it possible for Syrian, Iranian and Hezbollah ground forces to surround the city, and it is about to fall back into the hands of the Syrian government.
If this happens, the war will essentially be over.
Saudi Arabia, Turkey and their allies have invested massive amounts of time, money and effort into overthrowing Assad, and they aren’t about to walk away now.
If the war was to end right at this moment, a weakened Assad regime would remain in power, and Iran and Hezbollah would be the dominant powers in the country for years to come. And once Assad died, it would be inevitable that Iran and Hezbollah would attempt to transform Syria into a full-blown Shiite nation. This is something that Saudi Arabia and Turkey want to avoid at all costs.
So they are actually considering what was once absolutely unthinkable – a massive ground invasion of Syria.
But if Saudi Arabia, Turkey and their allies go in, they run the risk of a full-blown war with Russia, Iran and Hezbollah. Just consider some of the comments that we have seen in recent days…
Reacting to a potential 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, Press TV reported.
We could literally be looking at the spark that sets off World War 3. I can’t believe that Saudi Arabia and Turkey are actually considering this.
And if it does happen, you can rest assured that Barack Obama gave them the green light to go in.
Unfortunately, it sounds like the decision may have already been made. Just consider what Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu is saying…
“If we have such a strategy, then Turkey and Saudi Arabia may launch a ground operation,” he added, fueling concerns that a foreign troop invasion may soon further complicate the already turbulent situation in the war-torn country.
Earlier, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE voiced their readiness to contribute troops for a ground operation in Syria on the condition that the US would lead the intervention. Damascus and its key regional ally, Iran, warned that such a foreign force would face strong resistance.
And in addition to all of the forces massing in northern Saudi Arabia, the London Independent is reporting that the Saudis have sent troops and aircraft to a military base in Turkey…
Saudi Arabia is sending troops and fighter jets to Turkey’s Incirlik military base ahead of a possible ground invasion of Syria.
The Turkish foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, confirmed the deployment in a statement to the Yeni Şafak newspaper on Saturday, days before a temporary ceasefire is due to come into force.
There are reports that Saudi officials are saying that the decision to send in ground troops is “irreversible”, and Reuters is reporting that the Syrian government claims that some Turkish troops have already entered the country…
The Syrian government says Turkish forces were believed to be among 100 gunmen it said entered Syria on Saturday accompanied by 12 pick-up trucks mounted with heavy machine guns, in an ongoing supply operation to insurgents fighting Damascus.
“The operation of supplying ammunition and weapons is continuing via the Bab al-Salama crossing to the Syrian area of Azaz,” the Syrian foreign ministry said in a letter to the U.N. Security Council published by state news agency SANA.
Of course the Turkish government is not going to confirm that report, but what we do know is that Turkey is shelling Kurdish forces on the Syrian side of the border. The funny thing is that these Kurdish forces are actually being supported and supplied by the U.S. government.
So the Turks are not supposed to be doing this, but according to Reuters they have been doing it for two days in a row anyway…
The Turkish army shelled positions held by Kurdish-backed militia in northern Syria for a second day on Sunday, killing two fighters, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.
Turkey on Saturday demanded the powerful Syrian Kurdish YPG militia withdraw from areas that it had captured in the northern Aleppo region in recent days from insurgents in Syria, including the Menagh air base. The shelling has targeted those areas.
The hostility between Turkey and the Kurds goes back a long, long way. The Syrian Kurds are not threatening Turkey in any way right now, but Turkey is using the instability in the region as an excuse to lob artillery shells at a hated enemy. It is an act of naked aggression that the Obama administration should be loudly denouncing.
In addition, it is being reported that Syrian government forces have also been getting shelled by the Turkish military…
Anatolia news agency reported that the Turkish military hit Syrian government forces on Saturday, adding that the shelling had been in response to fire inflicted on a Turkish military guard post in Turkey’s southern Hatay region.
Turkish artillery targeted Syrian forces again late on Saturday, according to a military source quoted by RIA Novosti. The attack targeted the town of Deir Jamal in the Aleppo Governorate.
Needless to say, the Russians are quite alarmed by all of this.
In fact, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev is warning about what could happen if things spiral out of control…
In the wake of Saudi Arabia’s proposal to send in ground troops on Thursday, the Russian Prime Minister claimed the move could spark a new world war.
“A ground operation draws everyone taking part in it into a war,” he told the Handelsblatt newspaper.
“The Americans and our Arab partners must consider whether or not they want a permanent war.”
If Saudi Arabia, Turkey and their allies launch an invasion and make a mad dash to take out the Assad regime in Damascus, the Russians will inevitably respond.
And if tactical nuclear weapons are necessary to keep the invading forces out of Damascus, the Russians will not be shy about using them.
I don’t know if I have ever seen a scenario which was more likely to initiate World War 3 than the one that we are watching unfold right now.
So what has the mainstream media been saying about all of this?
Incredibly, they have been almost entirely silent. When he went looking for news about these events, James Bailey could find almost nothing on either Fox News or CNN…
I just visited the home page for Foxnews.com and found not one single mention of the insane events now unfolding in the Middle East. I could not believe it, so I used my Find tool to search for Syria and Saudi Arabia. Not one mention!
Of course that could change at any moment, but nothing there when I checked. Their stories were all about the meaningless Presidential election, which has already been decided regardless of what we think about it, and other stories about entertainment, sports, Congressional political theater, etc.
So I went to CNN and found just about the same thing with one news story about the Syrian cease fire, but when I read it there was no mention of any of the big events that have developed this week. This is truly an amazing media blackout!
But Fox News does have space to run headlines like these…
–Spanish man skipped work for 6 years, still got paid
–48 people rescued from stuck tram cars at New Hampshire ski resort
–Lovelorn elephant takes out his rage on more than a dozen cars
And CNN apparently thinks that these news stories are more important than the potential beginning of World War 3…
–Kanye West drops album, says he’s $53 million in debt
–Dutch cops train eagles to hunt drones
–Teen hands out 900 flowers to girls at school
If Saudi Arabia, Turkey and their allies are going to conduct an invasion of Syria, the most likely time for this to happen will be by the end of this month during these military exercises.
If we can get to March 1st and no invasion has happened yet, perhaps we can breathe a little sigh of relief.
But if it does happen, and the Russians and the Iranians decide to shoot back, it really could be the start of World War 3.
If you have not been paying attention up until now, you need to start, because this could literally change everything. (For more from the author of “World War 3 Could Start This Month: 350,000 Soldiers in Saudi Arabia Stand Ready to Invade Syria” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/War-Soldiers-Public-Domain-460x276.jpg276460Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-02-14 23:37:112016-04-11 10:52:39World War 3 Could Start This Month: 350,000 Soldiers in Saudi Arabia Stand Ready to Invade Syria
Russia warned of “a new world war” starting in Syria on Thursday after a dramatic day in which Gulf states threatened to send in ground forces.
Foreign and defence ministers of the leading international states backing different factions in the war-torn country met in separate meetings in Munich and Brussels following the collapse of the latest round of peace talks.
Both Russia and the United States demanded ceasefires in the long-running civil war so that the fight could be concentrated against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) – but each on their own, conflicting terms.
But the Gulf states, led by Saudi Arabia, staged their own intervention, saying they were committed to sending ground troops to the country. Their favoured rebel groups have been pulverised by Russian air raids and driven back on the ground by Iranian-supplied pro-regime troops.
They said their declared target was Isil. But the presence of troops from Gulf states which have funded the Syrian rebels would be taken as a hostile act by the Assad regime and its backers, and a sign that they were committed to staking their claim to a say in the final Syrian settlement. (Read more from “Russia Warns of ‘New World War’ Starting in Syria” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/hqdefault-25.jpg360480Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-02-11 19:45:472016-04-11 10:52:46Russia Warns of ‘New World War’ Starting in Syria
One of the greatest sources of historical shame for Christians is the way that Church leaders blithely approved of unjust, destructive wars.
From the wars against Native Americans to our own civil war — in which slaveowners quoted the Bible to justify their fight — to colonial conquests in Asia and Africa, all too often believers and pastors, bishops and generals, have overlooked the strict criteria which Christians have always accepted for what makes a war “just” or not. These ecumenically accepted conditions are narrow and demanding:
the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
there must be serious prospects of success;
the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated.
Some conflicts absolutely meet this test. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and Germany declared war on the U.S., only deluded pacifists would have denied that we should fight. When Afghanistan harbored Al Qaeda in the wake of 9/11, again the answer was obvious.
But all too often our leaders are willing to send our troops into war when the conflict is not necessary and wouldn’t even be wise. Rulers throughout the centuries have launched unnecessary and foolish wars for a long list of reasons. Sometimes they wanted to assert their nation’s strength, at others to promote the national ideology and impose their own system of government on another country that was unwilling or unready for it. Some adventurous politicians today want to throw American weight around and spread “democracy” in a Muslim world that has shown no aptitude for it AND no commitment to protecting the rights of religious minorities. Christian churches and villages from Benghazi to Baghdad lie in rubble as a result.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)79%, Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, and John Kasich have said that the U.S. should go way beyond fighting ISIS—that we should send our pilots to confront Russian airplanes and threaten to shoot them down. For what purpose? To topple the dictatorship of Bashir Assad in Syria, and make room for the Islamist militias that are fighting to take the country—militias allied with Al Qaeda and funded by the bigoted regimes in Saudi Arabia and Turkey, where few Christians dare to live. None of these powerful militias are committed to religious tolerance. Few Christians are left alive in the areas they control.
Indeed, the proposed U.S. invasion of Syria seems likely to go like Iraq all over again. In that conflict American soldiers stood idly by—following misguided orders from the State Department—while more than a million Christians were killed, robbed, raped, or driven into exile. I have worked with, met with, and talked with Iraqi Christian survivors. And what they ask us is this: “How could you American Christians, and your Christian president, do this to us? The people you put in power let Muslim militias ethnically cleanse our villages, burn our 1700-year-old monasteries and churches, drive us into unheated containers to freeze in the winter and sweat in the summer. You paved the way for the rape squads of ISIS. What did we ever do to you?”
What can we say? That we thought it more important to rally around the Republicans, who were led by a school of utopian dreamers? That we didn’t bother to think about what would happen to them? That because they weren’t Western, we lumped them in with Muslims? At least we had some reason to consider Iraq a threat to the United States. No one even pretends that the embattled Syrian government poses any danger to us today.
We don’t have access to the statements of Iraqi Christian leaders before the U.S. invasion, but there are Christian leaders in Syria now, and we owe it to them to listen to what they have to say before we decide on electing a president committed to invading their country and turning them over to their intolerant Islamist enemies—men little better than ISIS. Here is what the local bishop, Gregorios III, the worldwide leader of millions of Melkite Catholics, told Aid to the Church in Need:
If [the West] helps moderates in Syria in a direct way, [it is] helping ISIS in an indirect way. If you give money to the weak, moderate groups one day, it will get into the hands of the powerful, militant groups the next. We see this happening every day…
Under pressure from U.S.- and Saudi-backed Islamist militias as much as from ISIS itself:
every day people are leaving the country, some with visas, some without. Sometimes, people take with them thousands of dollars in the hope of getting to Europe—leaving themselves open to exploitation or worse.
Other religious minorities, such as Syria’s Shiites and Alawites, are also in danger of genocide and of falling victim to Sunni Muslims’ century-long project of “cleansing” Arab countries of “infidels” and “heretics,” which began with the Armenian genocide exactly 100 years ago. Countries such as Iraq and Turkey that once boasted rich religious diversity, with Christian and Jewish communities living side by side, are now monolithically Sunni Muslim, and monasteries and churches that date back to the second century are now being used as mosques or lying in heaps of rubble. That is not an accident. It a program, and Syria is next on the list.
I don’t see how Christians can support such a policy, or a candidate such as Marco Rubio who favors it—any more than they could support a defender of partial birth abortion. I challenge my fellow Christians to listen to the voices of the martyrs, the plea of our brother Christians threatened with persecution. We rightly spoke out when the HHS mandate imposed itself on our religious freedom, when judges attacked Christian business owners, as in Oregon. How dare we take freedom away from unarmed, besieged fellow Christians in Syria in the name of spreading “democracy” or asserting U.S. prestige? If we are complicit in using our nation’s military to subject our fellow Christians to violent persecution — out of misguided patriotism, lazy idealism, or rank partisan loyalty — do we deserve such freedom ourselves?” (For more from the author of “Rubio, Christie, and Bush Would Use Our Military to Permit a Genocide of Christians in Syria” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/syria-church-bullethole-AP-640x480.jpg480640Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-02-07 23:46:052016-04-11 10:52:57Rubio, Christie, and Bush Would Use Our Military to Permit a Genocide of Christians in Syria
Photo Credit: APRussia has unleashed another barrage of airstrikes against targets in Syria, including the first combat launch of a new cruise missile from a Russian submarine in the Mediterranean Sea, the country’s defense minister said Tuesday.
The Kalibr cruise missiles launched by the Rostov-on-Don submarine successfully hit the designated targets in Raqqa, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported to President Vladimir Putin. The submarine was in a submerged position during the launch, he added.
Putin noted that the new cruise missile can be equipped with both conventional and nuclear warheads, adding he hopes that the latter “will never be needed.” (Read more from “Russia Launches New Airstrikes in Syria” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-12-09 00:22:342016-04-11 10:55:20Russia Launches New Airstrikes in Syria
As Syria sinks ever deeper into civil war, evidence is starting to emerge that a brutal and bloody conflict that has left more than 100,000 people dead and displaced as many as two million is now also being fuelled by both the export and consumption of rapidly increasing quantities of illegal drugs.
Separate investigations by the news agency Reuters and Time magazine have found that the growing trade in Syrian-made Captagon – an amphetamine widely consumed in the Middle East but almost unknown elsewhere – generated revenues of millions of dollars inside the country last year, some of which was almost certainly used to fund weapons, while combatants on both sides are reportedly turning to the stimulant to help them keep fighting.
According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Syria has long been a transit point for drugs coming from Europe, Turkey and Lebanon and destined for the wealthy Gulf states. But the breakdown of law and order, collapse of the country’s infrastructure and proliferation of armed groups have now turned it into a major producer, Reuters says. Production in Lebanon’s Bekaa valley – a traditional centre for the drug – fell 90% last year from 2011, with the decline largely attributed to production inside Syria.
Neither investigation found conclusive evidence that the warring sides were using profits from the drug directly to buy weapons, but both quoted experts and officials as saying this was highly likely. A former US Treasury official, Matthew Levitt, pointed out that the Iranian-funded, Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah, which is robustly backing Syria’s Assad regime, “has a long history of dabbling in the drug trade to help with funding”. (Read more from “Captagon: The Amphetamine Fueling Syria’s Civil War” HERE)
The U.S. will send a small number of U.S. special operations forces into Syria as part of a shift in its strategy against ISIS, White House officials announced Friday.
President Barack Obama has authorized a contingent of fewer than 50 commandos to deploy into northern Syria and work with moderate opposition forces who are fighting the militants.
While the White House has consistently said it would not put U.S. boots on the ground, spokesman Josh Earnest insisted that they will be there in a “train, advise and assist mission” — and not in a combat role.
“It will not be their responsibility to lead the charge up the hill,” he said. But he acknowledged they will be in a perilous situation: “There is no denying the amount of risk they are taking on here.”
Earnest called the additional forces an “expansion” but not a “change” in U.S. strategy against ISIS. He was unable to detail what the special operators will do, citing security concerns. (Read more from “U.S. To Deploy Special Operations Forces in Syria” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-10-31 00:37:232016-04-11 10:56:42U.S. To Deploy Special Operations Forces in Syria
What seemed like an encouraging headline a few weeks ago was really all smoke and mirrors—far from pulling out of Syria, Russia has been rolling in even more troops and equipment. Russian President Vladimir Putin has once again proven that he cannot be trusted.
President Barack Obama will announce on Monday he plans to send as many as 250 additional U.S. troops to Syria, a sharp increase in the American presence working with local Syrian forces fighting Islamic State militants, U.S. officials said.
