As Russian President Vladimir Putin followed up his request before the United Nations General Assembly for a grand coalition to combat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) by launching Russia’s first air strikes on ISIL positions near Homs in Syria, President Barack Obama belatedly got around to issuing sanctions and asset freezes on a number of ISIL officers and fighters tied to Western intelligence services.
In a frosty meeting at UN headquarters, Putin told Obama in no uncertain terms that if the United States were serious about defeating ISIL, it would stop demanding the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar al Assad and get serious about fighting ISIL. Obama’s program to “train and equip” Syrian “moderate” rebels has been exposed as a fraud since even the Pentagon admitted that U.S. weapons and ammunition destined for the “moderates” ended up in the hands of Al Qaeda allies in Syria.
After rejecting Putin’s offer of a coalition on the model of the Allied pact that defeated Adolf Hitler in World War II, Obama held a photo-op “anti-terrorism” conference in New York attended only by Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg, and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius. The French foreign minister, who takes a generally pro-Israeli line, announced that France was opening up a war crimes inquiry against Assad even as the United States moderately softened its position by stating that Assad’s departure is not a prerequisite for concerted international action against ISIL.
All Obama could announce at his much-ballyhooed anti-terrorism “summit” was a freeze on the assets and other sanctions against top ISIL field commander in Syria Col. Gulmurod Khalimov, the former chief of Tajikistan’s OMON Special Forces who was trained in the United States by CIA, Blackwater, and U.S. Special Operations Command personnel. A year after France submitted the name of French citizen Emilie Konig, who traveled to Syria in 2012 to fight for ISIL, Obama decided to sanction her, as well. Obama also sanctioned French citizen Maxime Hauchard who joined ISIL ranks.
It was not until September 2014 that Obama decided to sanction ISIl’s U.S.-trained Georgian field commander in Syria, Tarkhan Batirashvili, also known as “Omer the Chechen” and Abu Umar al-Shishani. Omer, while a member of the Georgian Special Forces, was trained by U.S. Special Forces and was considered one of their “star pupils.” Originally under orders to fight alongside U.S. troops in Iraq, Omer was instead sent to fight the Russians in South Ossetia. He then “defected” to ISIL after spending time in Istanbul.
Omer’s Chechen-Georgian colleague in ISIL, Murad Margoshvili, also known as Muslim Abu Walid al Shishani, and the head of Junud al Sham in Syria, an ISIL affiliate, is said to have been recruited by Batirashvili in the Pankisi Gorge of Georgia to help fight Russian troops in the Caucasus republics of Chechnya and Karachay-Cherkessia. The presence of so many anti-Russian terrorists in Syria is reason enough for Putin to take decisive action against them. The fact that so many American weapons have fallen into the hands of these Georgians, Chechens, and other from the Caucasus coupled with the fact that some received U.S. training at secret bases in Turkey and Jordan has infuriated Putin about Obama’s actual motives in Syria and beyond.
Not sanctioned by Obama were Kevin Guiavarch and Salma Oueslati, a married French couple who joined the Al Nusra Front in 2012. Although Al Nusra combatants have been linked to both Al Qaeda and ISIL, they have received U.S. weapons, ammunition, and training as part of the now-failed U.S. program to train Syrian “moderate” guerrillas. Also not sanctioned is Oumar Diaby, the Senegalese commander of an Al Nusra force in Syria. Also just sanctioned by Obama is Sally Jones, the 45-year old British mother from Kent, England who said she joined ISIL to “behead Christians with a blunt knife.”
The U.S. has dragged its feet on sanctioning other ISIL fighters from Indonesia, Kosovo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, China’s Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Republic, and Uzbekistan. The presence of as many as 3,000-4,000 Uighurs from China among ISIL forces in Syria prompted China to send to the Syrian port of Tartus an aircraft carrier, Liaoning-CV-16 and a guided missile destroyer. Chinese military advisers are said to accompany the ships. At the same time, Russia is recommissioning its long-abandoned airbase at Latakia, Syria by turning it into a forward operating base where Russian planes are already conducting sorties against ISIL around Homs.
The Chinese war ships, along with the Russian guided missile cruiser Moskva, the guided missile destroyer Smetlivy, the intelligence ship Donuzlav, and the landing ship Novocherkassk have put the United States and Israel on notice that the two super powers will no longer put up with half-hearted U.S. and Western action against ISIL. Putin recently told Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in Moscow that any Israeli interference with Russian military action against ISIL in Syria would be met with force. Netanyahu, who has already alienated Obama, was left with little room to maneuver and he has no other choice but to comply with Putin’s stand-down order in Syria and over the eastern Mediterranean.
There are also reports that Iran is preparing to send a naval force to Syrian waters to assist the Russians and Chinese. Last year, it dispatched the frigate Alvand and a supply ship to the eastern Mediterranean as a show of support for Assad’s government. Iran has reportedly sent some 1,000 troops, including members of the elite Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Qods Force, to Syria to bolster Lebanese Hezbollah forces already in the country.
Armenia, which has hosted thousands of ethnic Armenian refugees from Syria and Iraq and which has recently established an air defense union with Russia, may also play a role in providing troops to establish a final bulwark against ISIL in the Syrian coastal region around Latakia and Tartus where a number of Armenians, as well as Alawites, Greek Orthodox, and Shi’as remain.
Putin is correct in claiming that Obama was always more interested in deposing Assad and his government than in seriously taking on ISIL. The Islamist caliphate declared by ISIL receives its financial and moral support from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates and logistical support from Israel.
This Western alliance with the Wahhabists has been countered by a new intelligence-sharing pact between Russia, Iran, Iraq, and the Syrian government in Damascus. With China sending its ships to Tartus and Russia beefing up its military squadrons in Latakia, a new military alliance is shaping up in the Middle East, one that does not take its orders from either Washington or Jerusalem.
Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report (subscription required).
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Putin shows Obama to be a weak-kneed incompetent on ISIL
Posted on October 2, 2015 by Wayne Madsen
As Russian President Vladimir Putin followed up his request before the United Nations General Assembly for a grand coalition to combat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) by launching Russia’s first air strikes on ISIL positions near Homs in Syria, President Barack Obama belatedly got around to issuing sanctions and asset freezes on a number of ISIL officers and fighters tied to Western intelligence services.
In a frosty meeting at UN headquarters, Putin told Obama in no uncertain terms that if the United States were serious about defeating ISIL, it would stop demanding the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar al Assad and get serious about fighting ISIL. Obama’s program to “train and equip” Syrian “moderate” rebels has been exposed as a fraud since even the Pentagon admitted that U.S. weapons and ammunition destined for the “moderates” ended up in the hands of Al Qaeda allies in Syria.
After rejecting Putin’s offer of a coalition on the model of the Allied pact that defeated Adolf Hitler in World War II, Obama held a photo-op “anti-terrorism” conference in New York attended only by Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg, and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius. The French foreign minister, who takes a generally pro-Israeli line, announced that France was opening up a war crimes inquiry against Assad even as the United States moderately softened its position by stating that Assad’s departure is not a prerequisite for concerted international action against ISIL.
All Obama could announce at his much-ballyhooed anti-terrorism “summit” was a freeze on the assets and other sanctions against top ISIL field commander in Syria Col. Gulmurod Khalimov, the former chief of Tajikistan’s OMON Special Forces who was trained in the United States by CIA, Blackwater, and U.S. Special Operations Command personnel. A year after France submitted the name of French citizen Emilie Konig, who traveled to Syria in 2012 to fight for ISIL, Obama decided to sanction her, as well. Obama also sanctioned French citizen Maxime Hauchard who joined ISIL ranks.
It was not until September 2014 that Obama decided to sanction ISIl’s U.S.-trained Georgian field commander in Syria, Tarkhan Batirashvili, also known as “Omer the Chechen” and Abu Umar al-Shishani. Omer, while a member of the Georgian Special Forces, was trained by U.S. Special Forces and was considered one of their “star pupils.” Originally under orders to fight alongside U.S. troops in Iraq, Omer was instead sent to fight the Russians in South Ossetia. He then “defected” to ISIL after spending time in Istanbul.
Omer’s Chechen-Georgian colleague in ISIL, Murad Margoshvili, also known as Muslim Abu Walid al Shishani, and the head of Junud al Sham in Syria, an ISIL affiliate, is said to have been recruited by Batirashvili in the Pankisi Gorge of Georgia to help fight Russian troops in the Caucasus republics of Chechnya and Karachay-Cherkessia. The presence of so many anti-Russian terrorists in Syria is reason enough for Putin to take decisive action against them. The fact that so many American weapons have fallen into the hands of these Georgians, Chechens, and other from the Caucasus coupled with the fact that some received U.S. training at secret bases in Turkey and Jordan has infuriated Putin about Obama’s actual motives in Syria and beyond.
Not sanctioned by Obama were Kevin Guiavarch and Salma Oueslati, a married French couple who joined the Al Nusra Front in 2012. Although Al Nusra combatants have been linked to both Al Qaeda and ISIL, they have received U.S. weapons, ammunition, and training as part of the now-failed U.S. program to train Syrian “moderate” guerrillas. Also not sanctioned is Oumar Diaby, the Senegalese commander of an Al Nusra force in Syria. Also just sanctioned by Obama is Sally Jones, the 45-year old British mother from Kent, England who said she joined ISIL to “behead Christians with a blunt knife.”
The U.S. has dragged its feet on sanctioning other ISIL fighters from Indonesia, Kosovo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, China’s Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Republic, and Uzbekistan. The presence of as many as 3,000-4,000 Uighurs from China among ISIL forces in Syria prompted China to send to the Syrian port of Tartus an aircraft carrier, Liaoning-CV-16 and a guided missile destroyer. Chinese military advisers are said to accompany the ships. At the same time, Russia is recommissioning its long-abandoned airbase at Latakia, Syria by turning it into a forward operating base where Russian planes are already conducting sorties against ISIL around Homs.
The Chinese war ships, along with the Russian guided missile cruiser Moskva, the guided missile destroyer Smetlivy, the intelligence ship Donuzlav, and the landing ship Novocherkassk have put the United States and Israel on notice that the two super powers will no longer put up with half-hearted U.S. and Western action against ISIL. Putin recently told Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in Moscow that any Israeli interference with Russian military action against ISIL in Syria would be met with force. Netanyahu, who has already alienated Obama, was left with little room to maneuver and he has no other choice but to comply with Putin’s stand-down order in Syria and over the eastern Mediterranean.
There are also reports that Iran is preparing to send a naval force to Syrian waters to assist the Russians and Chinese. Last year, it dispatched the frigate Alvand and a supply ship to the eastern Mediterranean as a show of support for Assad’s government. Iran has reportedly sent some 1,000 troops, including members of the elite Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Qods Force, to Syria to bolster Lebanese Hezbollah forces already in the country.
Armenia, which has hosted thousands of ethnic Armenian refugees from Syria and Iraq and which has recently established an air defense union with Russia, may also play a role in providing troops to establish a final bulwark against ISIL in the Syrian coastal region around Latakia and Tartus where a number of Armenians, as well as Alawites, Greek Orthodox, and Shi’as remain.
Putin is correct in claiming that Obama was always more interested in deposing Assad and his government than in seriously taking on ISIL. The Islamist caliphate declared by ISIL receives its financial and moral support from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates and logistical support from Israel.
This Western alliance with the Wahhabists has been countered by a new intelligence-sharing pact between Russia, Iran, Iraq, and the Syrian government in Damascus. With China sending its ships to Tartus and Russia beefing up its military squadrons in Latakia, a new military alliance is shaping up in the Middle East, one that does not take its orders from either Washington or Jerusalem.
Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.
Copyright © 2015 WayneMadenReport.com
Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report (subscription required).