20th June: Putin confirmed Russia’s complete support for the efforts of the Iraqi government to speedily liberate the territory of the republic from terrorists.
20th June: Thirty Shia militiamen are killed in Muqdadiyah, a town north east of Baghdad. The town lies on the main approach to Baqouba in Diyala province. The militants attacking the town were repulsed.
22nd June: The leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei, has opposed any US intervention in Iraq: “The US is displeased with the current process of election with the people’s high turnout and election of people’s choices because the US intends to dominate Iraq and bring to power those who OBEY it.”
22ndJune: An advisor to Moqtada As Sadr claims that any US “advisors” sent to Iraq will be seen as occupiers and legitimate targets.
23rd June: Secretary of State of the United States, John Kerry, meets with politicians in Baghdad. Maliki tells him that the current crisis: “represents a threat not only to Iraq but to regional and international peace,” not to mention oil prices.
23rd June: Kuwait denies the withdrawal of its ambassador from Iraq.
23rd: The fate of Tal Afar is not clear. All indications are that its airport and the city itself have fallen to the rebels. However, the spokesman for Iraqi Army Qassim Atta claims that the army is still fighting for control of the town.
23rd June: Daash has sent an ultimatum to the residents of Sinjar district to hand over Abu Walid, the Iraqi Major General who was spearheading resistance in Tal Afar before his forces withdrew. The Major General had withdrawn along with his coterie of bodyguards.
23rd June: Tribal leaders from both Shia and Sunni tribes from Tal Afar have sent a delegation to Erbil. They are asking the Kurdish authorities to include Tal Afar in Iraqi Kurdistan.
23rd June: Hugh Evans, the British Council in Iraqi Kurdistan, has allegedly stated that “he hopes to see the Republic of Kurdistan soon.” This was during celebrations organized to celebrate the Queen’s Birthday. He also asked Kurdish authorities to work with the authorities in Baghdad, praised the Kurds for taking in refugees from other parts, and highlighted his government’s aid of 8 million USD.
23rd June: Clashes have now broken out in Salahuddin province between Daash fighters and those loyal to the Islamic Army. The clashes were over allegiance that Daash was insisting on from all groups fighting with/under it. Five militants are reported killed.
23rd June: The head of the Al-Abeed tribe in Iraq, Sheikh Anwar al-Assi, has refused to pay allegiance to Dassh. His home was attacked, property looted and life threatened. He has been shifted to Sulaymaniyah by the governor of Kirkuk.
23rd June: Iraqis in Australia have attended a rally denouncing Daash and its appeal. Abu Yahya ash Shami, the Daash militant from Australia had stated in his video appeal “Hello my brothers in Australia. This is the message I want to send to you. From a Muslim brother’s heart to another brother’s heart. Look and see and wake up and understand why this happening. Wake up. Wake up and be part of this effort.” Australia has decided to deport any citizen having relations with Daash.
23rd: Baiji refinery is still under government control. However, it has fewer than 300 security personnel defending it. Siege by militants is ongoing.
23rd: Dash has taken 57 families hostage in the north east of Baiji. The families, consisting of women, children, and the elderly were fleeing Al Alam sub district for the town of Hawija. Daash has warned the Al Alam district to surrender or it will execute the hostages and dump them in the Tigris River.
23rd June: Iraqi officials tried to convince John Kerry for the need of targeted airstrikes. John Kerry remained concerned about “civilian casualties.” Who says the United States does not have a sense of humor? Or honor?
23rd June: The spokesman for the Iraqi Army, Qassem Atta, has stated that the Iraqi army withdrew from the Western cities of Rawa and Anah as a tactical withdrawal.
23rd June: Certain sections of Sunni society in Syria are worried that Daash’s gains in Iraq will intensify fighting in Syria. They know the kind of “freedom” that awaits the civilians of Mosul.
23rd June: The UK has made more than 40 Daash related arrests in the first three months of 2014. The former director of MI6, Richard Barrett, has warned the UK authorities that they face an “impossible task” of tracking Daash related subjects of the Queen.
23rd June: Mourners gather in their thousands in Al Jouf, Saudi Arabia to bury the Saudi student stabbed to death in the UK.
23rd June: The Israeli Ai Force carries out attacks on Syrian positions in the Golan Heights.
The next major confrontation that faces the government in Baghdad is Haditha. Government troops are protecting the town and the dam that is of strategic importance. But, it lies in the Sunni heartland. So far the rebels are proving to be more tenacious and motivated than the government.
So far it seems that each side is consolidating its hold. Most of Sunni Iraq is now in Rebel hands, and most of South and East Iraq with the Shia headed government. The North East is with the Kurds, the only force that has so far held off the rebels. Any struggle to take back the Sunni areas will be long drawn out and, if Syria is an example, very destructive. A Sunni advance on the South and East seems unlikely to succeed.
Further Reading:
Robert Fisk in US slang “ripping” the Americans and Saudis a new one:
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/if-history-and-petropolitics-teach-us-anything-its-that-the-collapse-of-iraq-shouldnt-come-as-surprise-9555097.html
On Iranian and Kurdish cooperation in the past. And the price the Kurds paid:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mersad
23rd June: Hugh Evans, the British Council in Iraqi Kurdistan, has allegedly stated that “he hopes to see the Republic of Kurdistan soon.”
I am sure NATO ally Turkey will be thrilled to hear this.
I: The initial hopes of above the table rapprochement between Iran and America have been scuttled, even though, sub rosa, it is happening.
Both sides are committed to the territorial integrity of Iraq for their own reasons. I am of the school that separating people and redrawing borders leads to peace and prosperity for all.
The Zionists just couldn’t abide by that, so they have scuttled it, at least in appearance.
II: If Khameni, Putin and Maliki are going to back up their lofty talk with achievements on the ground, they are going to have to fight a Napoleonic war of sorts. Iraq doesn’t currently have the Army to do this due to multiculturalism and American training, but the Shiite militias could be fashioned into a Shiite Army and get into some pretty significant frontal, attritional warfare.
That is why separating people and redrawing borders is always better, but the Ivy League psychopaths can’t have that.
III: After the Shiites have been subjected to an unholy bombing campaign for years, after being subjected to Sunni oppression for decades and centuries before that, how can they even be asked to work with the other side, while Sunnis are boasting of a genocidal campaign against them?
If we really want the terrorism to stop, we have to shut down Saudi funding, along with CIA and Mossad operational assistance.
If Kurd and Kurdistan are not brazen code for Israel/Empire, and if Sunni and Shi’ite are at each other’s throats—I’m a monkey’s uncle. Only the Goy hating Talmudists say neighbour hates neighbour.
“While the Western media portray the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant as a group of jihadists reciting the Qur’an, the ISIL has started the oil war in Iraq. With the help of Israel, it has cut off Syria’s supply and guaranteed the theft of oil from Kirkuk by the local government of Kurdistan. The sale will be assured by Aramco who will camouflage this diversion as increased “Saudi” production.”
More at: http://www.voltairenet.org/article184382.html
Gary Leupp on the ignorance of Dick Cheney:
Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz had published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal advocating renewed U.S. military involvement in Ira to prevent a seizure of power by the al-Qaeda spin-off ISIS (or ISIL) and opining, “Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many,”
Citing this comment, Fox anchor Megyn Kelly unexpectedly snapped, “But time and time again, history has proven that you got it wrong as well sir.” She referred specifically the false accusation about weapons of mass destruction used to sell the Iraq War. A flustered Cheney fumbled his interrogator’s name (“Reagan, um, Megyn”) before declaring, “You’ve got to go back and look at the track record.” (As though Megyn were doing something other than precisely that.) “We inherited a situation where there was no doubt in anybody’s mind about the extent of Saddam’s involvement in weapons of mass destruction … Saddam Hussein had a track record that nearly everybody agreed to.
The Dick Cheney Problem – Counterpunch
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Another blow for the oligarchs trying to loot Ukraine. Shell has pulled out of the deal to explore for shale gas in the east of Ukraine. It has “blamed air strikes by the government in Kiev against its own citizens in southern Ukraine as the reason” but the real reason is likely to be simple economics – test wells revealed no gas.
Franklin Lamb on DAASH and their objectives:
[…]DAASH (ISIS) means the Levant or Eastern Mediterranean including Cyprus, Palestine, Jordan, Syria, and southern Turkey. ISIS has just announced that Raqqa, the only one of 14 Governorates its controls in Syria, is now the “Capital” of their emerging “Caliphate”, which so far is a swathe of territory encompassing much of eastern and northern Syria and western and northern Iraq. The Emir is to be their military strategist and leader and successor of Abu Mus‘ab Zarqawi, Dr. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Those interviewed at length include sympathizers, students of politics and of the Islamist ‘spring’ in Syria and Iraq, as well as a few shadowy claimed jihadist recruiters, some working with a claimed new specialized DAASH unit organized at the beginning of 2013 and which focuses exclusively on destroying the Zionist regime occupying Palestine. DAASH’s “Al Quds Unit” (AQU) is currently working to broaden its influence in more than 60 Palestinian camps and gatherings from Gaza, across Occupied Palestine, to Jordan, and Lebanon up to the north of Syria seeking to enlist support as it prepares to liberate Palestine.
Will ISIS Create al-Sham Caliphate and Liberate Palestine? – Foreign Policy Journal
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For the french reader, an interesting point of view from Luc Michel :
http://vimeo.com/98677628
Yonaton,
HAH! I think Shell realizes the money it’ll put in up front won’t really pay off even if prices double — and that’s in peacetime. Lookin’ like that ol’ shale bubble be gonna burst…
Meanwhile, the Russian Foreign Ministry had a few (gently dry) comments re: Sikorski’s phone call, saying they “testify to his political realism.”
And somehow the article’s concluding statement,
“Excerpts from Sikorski’s remarks published by mass media on June 22 describe relations between Poland and the United States as useless and even harmful as they give Poles a false feeling of security and lead to conflicts with Germany, France and Russia.”
led me to realize how INDREDIBLY POWERFUL an alliance between Russia, Poland and Germany would be. Invincible is perhaps a better word — and Ukraine could join in, or not… But MY GOSH (and yes, I know I’m dreaming, but all three countries could certainly unite on the basis of common interest plus something a whole lot stronger — let’s just call it “disillusionment” with us.) Wow, what a bloc they would be.
Thanks, Mindfriedo.
Last week the Empire spoke of bombing the rebels in Iraq. This week Al Malaki called the Empire’s bluff. He asked them to bomb Dash’s positions. The Empire declined on grounds that civilians might be hurt. The truth is Dash are their boys and they don’t want to see them getting hurt.
RT’s Crosstalk has a show on the Iraq mess.
http://rt.com/shows/crosstalk/167744-iraq-us-invasion-freedom/
The show is pretty much on target, but again fails to pinpoint who is behind the scenes funding and guiding this whole mess.
Though, Michael O’Brien does start to splill some real truth mentioning 200,000 AK-47s that just disappeared, but quickly bites his toung. RT has to be carefull not to say too much directly against the beast and only offer hints or they will loose their license in the US.
Anyone have some links to some info on Michael O’Brien. Google seems to have him blacklisted as nothing is found, not even an image.
Afterthought:
I agree redrawing borders will lead to peace in many circumstances, but the powers that be are right to be wary. Look at Europe and imagine just how many cans of worms could potentially be opened up with this still despite all the population transfers, deportations, and expulsions since 1918.
1) Flanders (French and Belgian Flanders)
2) Eupen/Malmedy/Aarlon
3) Alsace/Lorraine
4) Val d’Aosta
5) South Tyrol
6) Polish Belarus/Lithuania
7) Aland Islands/Coastal Finland
8) Tranistria
9) Transyvania
10) Bosnia
11) Vojvodina
12) Budjak/Dobrudja
13) Donbass/Novorossiya
14) Narva
15) Daugvilpils
16) Boykoland/Lemkoland
17) Transcarpathia
18) Hungarian Slovakia
19) Krijina
20) South Ossetia
In Iraq, now, where do the Arab Shia go? In their own state? Do they join the Arab Shia of Iran (or do those in Iran get carved off?) How about the Arab Shia along the Gulf? If Kurdistan, does it extend into Turkey and Iran? If it extends into Iran, why not a united Azerbaijan? Then what about Baluchistan, union of the Tajiks, and union of Kazakhs in China and Kazakhstan? You see where this is going, right?
Thank you for the SITREP. I strongly recommend reading two articles on VoltaireNet, which is one of the best sources that is regarding the real mechanisms of power on the world stage with its unique access to highly situated sources (others being Gordon Duff, Sibel Edmonds, Christof Lehman, William Engdahl):
Jihadism and the Petroleum Industry
How NATO organized invasion of Iraq
Hopefuly the real, truthful world anti-terror front will be organized involving Putin, Obama, Assad, Maliki, Rouhani, China, Malaysia, BRICS, EU…
This should be the core activities now, which was also the planned agenda for the failed (because of the sabotage from the deep political global regime using GLADIO/JSOC/Blackwater/NATO) Geneva II conference.
ExxonMobil is in deep shit because of the access denial to the Ukrainian/Crimean vast energy resources.