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charrob
05-29-2017, 11:36 AM
The Syrian Gov't wants to re-instantiate the Damascus-Baghdad Highway for trade, etc. on sovereign Syrian soil. The Iraqis also want this. The U.S. Military is trying to stop them. In attempts by the Syrian Government to regain control of the al-Tanf Iraqi/Syrian border crossing, if the U.S. Military again tries to stop them and kills more Syrian soldiers, will Russia intervene?




Syrian Army will continue Iraqi border offensive, US warnings ignored: (https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/syrian-army-will-continue-iraqi-border-offensive-us-warnings-ignored/)


The U.S. Air Force dropped leaflets over the Syrian Arab Army’s (SAA) positions in southeast Homs this weekend, demanding they halt their operations near the Tanf border-crossing into Iraq’s Al-Anbar Governorate.

Despite the warning by the U.S. forces, a Syrian Arab Army officer told Al-Masdar News, Monday, that their units will continue operations against the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and Islamic State (ISIL) militants until the entire Iraqi border with southeast Syria is sealed.

The officer also informed Al-Masdar that the Russian military is deeply embedded with the Syrian Arab Army and their allies in southeast Homs; they have given the green light to continue operations.

While the U.S. attempts to strong-arm the Syrian military in favor of the rebels, the government forces greatly outnumber the latter in the region, making it difficult for the Free Syrian Army to maintain a large part of the Homs and Deir Ezzor governorates.

Moreover, the Free Syrian Army does not have the support of the Iraqi government or their powerful Popular Mobilization Units (Hashd Al-Sha’abi).

Without support from Baghdad, the Free Syrian Army will find it very difficult to fend off the Popular Mobilization Units and their allies that are embedded with the Syrian Armed Forces in southeast Homs.

charrob
05-30-2017, 10:42 AM
US Wants Control Over Anbar And Beyond - Iraq and Syria Will Prevent It: (http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/2017/may/30/us-wants-control-over-anbar-and-beyond-iraq-and-syria-will-prevent-it/)


The US is casting its net over the desert between Iraq and Syria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan to install military bases and power-structures that will guarantee major influence in the area for the foreseeable future. A part of that plan is to develop Sunni proxy forces that will keep the government forces of Damascus and Baghdad out of the area. Another part is to privatize important infrastructure to keep it under direct US control.

To privatize the Iraqi Highway 1 between Baghdad and the Jordanian capital Amman, is a major point in these plans. According to the NYT:


As part of an American effort to promote economic development in Iraq and secure influence in the country after the fight against the Islamic State subsides, the American government has helped broker a deal between Iraq and Olive Group, a private security company, to establish and secure the country’s first toll highway.


This map shows Highway 1 from Baghdad to Amman. Notice the road junction east of the Jordan-Iraq border. There the road splits with one branch going north-west towards Damascus. The point where that road crosses from Iraq to Syria is the al-Tanf border station currently occupied by US forces and their British and Norwegian auxiliaries as well some Syrian "rebels" under US control. The US recently bombed a convoy of Syrian and allied Iraqi forces which was moving towards that area. The U.S. military dropped leaflets to Syrian troops to order them to stay away from their own border. Who do those US troops think they are? What is there justification to be there in the first place? Large Iraq and Syrian government forces are now moving towards al-Tanf from the two sides of the border to evict the occupiers. Iraq, Syria, Iran and Russia have agreed that no U.S. position will be tolerated there. US and other foreign troops will either move out voluntary from al-Tanf or they will be removed by force.

Highway 1 and its branch to Damascus is the most important economic lifeline between Syria and Jordan in the west and Iraq and beyond in the east. Whoever controls it, controls major parts of commerce between those countries. Iraq is a country with rich resources. While it is under economic strains after decades of US sanctions and war against it by the US and Takfiri proxy forces it has no long-term need to rent out such major real estate.

Nevertheless the current Iraqi government under Prime Minister al-Abadi signed a preliminary agreement for a 25 year contract with the U.S. company:


Mr. Abadi has awarded the development project to Olive Group, although the final details are still being worked out. The project would include repairing bridges in western Anbar Province; refurbishing the road, known as Highway 1; and building service stations, rest areas and roadside cafes. It would alsoinclude mobile security by private contractors for convoys traveling the highway.

Al Abeidi is now under pressure from the Shia majority who elected him into office to renounce the deal. It is obviously that the deal is not in their interest nor that of the country. According to US diplomats one purpose of the deal is:


pushing back on the influence of Shiite Iran, whose growing power in Iraq has alarmed important Sunni allies of the United States like Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

Iran has little to do with the road. It is the Shia majority of Iraq that would benefit most from free flowing traffic and commerce on it.

Turkey and Saudi Arabia have enabled the Sunni insurgency in Iraq of which ISIS is just the latest incarnation. To allow the US to control the road and thereby Anbar province in the name of Turkey and Saudi Arabia would guarantee that future Sunni insurgencies could threaten Baghdad whenever "needed." Just remember how Obama said he used ISIS to throw then Prime Minster Maliki out of office:


The reason, the president added, “that we did not just start taking a bunch of airstrikes all across Iraq as soon as ISIL came in was because that would have taken the pressure off of [Prime Minister Nuri Kamal] al-Maliki.

A US controlled west-Iraq and south-eastern Syria would be a highway for Saudi Arabian miscreants from their country up towards Baghdad and Damascus. It would be an incarnation of the "Salafist principality" the U.S. and other early ISIS supporters have wished for since at least 2012.

The US is willing to obfuscate and to lie to further its imperial plans. The NYT is, as usual, complicit in that:


Playing on painful memories and fears of Iraqis, news outlets have also run false reports that Blackwater — the private security firm that acted with impunity in the early days of the American occupation and gunned down innocent Iraqis in Baghdad’s Nisour Square in 2007 — had taken on the project.

“The politics of this country are challenging,” said Christian Ronnow, executive vice president of Constellis, the parent company of Olive Group, a private security firm that has worked for years in Iraq.

What the NYT claims are "false reports" are in fact reasonable conclusions:


The [Constellis] Group combines the specialized skills and operational excellence of ACADEMI, Edinburgh International, Strategic Social and Triple Canopy,

ACADEMI


is an American private military company founded in 1997 by former Navy SEAL officer Erik Prince as Blackwater, renamed as XE Services in 2009 and now known as Academi since 2011 after the company was acquired by a group of private investors.

Olive Group is Constellis Group is Academi is Blackwater - the "false reports" in Iraqi media are way more truthful on that than the NYT is.

The US project in Anbar province and its potential control of Highway 1 through private US forces threatens to put an economic stranglehold on Iraq, Syria and Jordan. I trust that nationalist forces in those countries as well as their allies will do their best to prevent it.


http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/2017/may/30/us-wants-control-over-anbar-and-beyond-iraq-and-syria-will-prevent-it/

charrob
05-30-2017, 10:49 AM
Moscow: U.S. threats to Syrian Armed Forces “rather alarming:” (https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/moscow-u-s-threats-syrian-armed-forces-rather-alarming/)


Moscow is concerned over Washington’s threats to use force against Syria’s military, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday.

“As you know, there have been not only threats, but a fact of using force in this area [Al-Tanf border crossing between Syria and Iraq],” Lavrov said.

“I believe this situation is rather alarming as it directly affects Syria’s sovereignty. Certainly, these issues need to be solved, and our troops are doing this now,” Russia’s top diplomat said.

The effort is underway now through a channel set up to prevent unintentional incidents between Russia’s Aerospace Forces and the US-led coalition, Lavrov said.

“But of course, the effort would be much more efficient if in addition to the channel, which has a rather limited agenda, the US agreed to join the work on coordinating parameters of de-escalation zones,” the Russian diplomat stressed.

The discussion is ongoing and the sides will discuss the results at another meeting in the Astana format, which is due to take place soon.

As the US-led coalition headquarters reported, on May 18 the aircraft struck pro-Syrian government forces operating within the established de-escalation zone northwest of Al-Tanf. The statement claimed that these units posed a threat to the United States and its partners.

At the same time, Moscow is ready to welcome Washington joining the work aimed at defining the parameters of the Syrian de-escalation zones:

“We are ready to welcome the United States joining not only the attempts to avoid incidents but also the work to define de-escalation zones,” Lavrov said.


https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/moscow-u-s-threats-syrian-armed-forces-rather-alarming/

charrob
06-01-2017, 05:50 PM
US forces increasing combat power at Tanf, preparing for fight with pro-Syrian regime militias: (http://www.militarytimes.com/articles/tanf-syria-combatpower-iran)


WASHINGTON — Over the past several days, the U.S. military has been increasing its combat power at a remote training facility near the Tanf border crossing in Syria in preparation for any aggression by pro-regime and Iranian-backed militias, which have been massing forces in the area, according to Col. Ryan Dillon, a spokesperson for Operation Inherent Resolve.

The development comes as militias aligned to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and groups backed by Iran have steadily massed forces just outside the 55 kilometer-radius deconfliction zone around the Tanf region since the beginning of May. Those forces have tanks, artillery and modified pickup trucks with mounted heavy weapons, Dillon said.

The training facility at Tanf rests near a strategic border crossing between Syria and Iraq and houses a couple hundred coalition and partner forces. Force protection at the remote base has been a primary concern, according to officials at U.S. Central Command. The U.S. military has “ensured our forces are prepared and ready to defend themselves,” Dillon said. U.S. air-power has “constant coverage over our forces at Al Tanf,” to respond to hostile actors and to watch threats to U.S. and partner forces at the facility.

On May 18, coalition jets launched a strike against a pro-regime convoy that had trespassed into the deconfliction zone after that convoy refused to react to a show-of-force flyover and warning shots. The airstrike destroyed an armored vehicle and bulldozer. Those forces halted their forward progress but are still deep within the zone, and are considered a threat, Dillon said.

Forces outside the deconfliction zone are continuing to mass and are actively patrolling the area, he said.

Officials in Baghdad are still trying to convince the pro-regime militias that they need to vacate the area. Over the weekend, U.S. forces dropped leaflets warning the militias to leave the zone.

The U.S. is also using the telephone hotline established with the Russians to avoid mid-air mishaps. We are “offering [the militias] a way to vacate the area through the deconfliction line with the Russians,” Dillon said.

The militias responded, via the Russians, that they are in the area to fight ISIS, he said. However, analysts suspect the militias’ primary goal is to establish a land corridor to link Iran with Damascus and its Shia proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon. “it is a key part of a network of connections for Iran," said Luke Coffey, director of the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy at The Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C.

U.S. and coalition forces operating at the Tanf training facility use the location to train two partner forces, the Maghawir al-Thawra and Shohada al-Quartayn. CENTCOM contends these groups are anti-ISIS fighters, but in the past they have fought against the Assad regime.

There has not been another incident between U.S. and pro-regime forces near Tanf since May 18, despite the increasing level of tension. It is “difficult to say why there have not been any kinetic actions again,” Coffey told Military Times. “It could be the next step,” but commanders on the ground have the tactical situational awareness to make such a call, he said.

“No doubt the local commander will have the proper rules of engagement to defend the base,” Coffey said. The Trump administration has provided more leeway to ground commanders to make tactical and strategic decisions, which will greatly aid the situation, a stark change in policy from the previous administration, Coffey said. “When the time is right, ground commanders will act.”



http://www.militarytimes.com/articles/tanf-syria-combatpower-iran