Russia’s Interdiction of ISIS-Turkey Oil Trade and Attacks on Turkmen jihadi militants Poses Risk of Enlargement of Syrian Conflict

UPDATED

By: JiminNH

The increasing velocity of events in Syria indicates that the conflict may be ready to spill over into a larger conflagration and direct conflict between the forces of the AZ hegemon and the Resistance thereto. A couple of apparently un-related events have rapidly coalesced into armed conflict between an NATO member state and Russia, the consequences of which are yet to be revealed, but unlikely to be anything but more fuel on the fires of the not only the Syrian conflict but the war between the AZ empire and Russia.

Follow the Oil:

Followers of this blog are undoubtedly aware that Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin was outspoken in his comments at a post G-20 press conference on Nov. 16th regarding not only direct aid and support to ISIS by Western allied G-20 member states, but also the nature of those same Western allies who aid ISIS in the transshipment and sale of contraband ISIS oil.

The western “free press” has still yet to report on that presser wherein Pres. Putin stated that he provided evidence of “our data on the financing of Islamic State units by natural persons in various countries. The financing comes from 40 countries, as we established, including some G20 members”, and further where he told of providing imagery and intelligence data that shows the massive oil tanker truck convoys that ship oil from ISIS controlled territory, in his words “convoys stretching for dozens of kilometers, going beyond the horizon when seen from a height of four-five thousand meters”.
Source:

Readers to this blog are also probably aware of the deep ties between Turkish Pres. Erdogan and the various Wahhibi and Salafist groups in Syria, to specifically include Turkish collusion with ISIS in both military support as well as financial support. That financial involvement includes claims that Bilal Erdogan, the son of Turkish Pres. Recip Tayyep Erdogan, is the principal conduit of the transshipment and sale of contraband ISIS oil supplies, and that his company BMZ Ltd. owns and operates both the tanker trucks that send ISIS’s ill-begotten oil to Turkey, and from their onto Ceylan where it is sold on the world markets. BMZ also owns oil tanker ships that then transport the oil to end destinations, in EU markets, Japan and, reportedly, Israel.
Source:

In recent weeks, Russia has been straightforward in reporting its attacks on ISIS’s financial lifeline, i.e. the sale of oil. RuAF bombers and cruise missiles have attacked both oil infrastructure (tanks and transshipment points), as well as the fleet of oil tanker trucks that transship said oil to Turkey.

Sources: RT

and ZeroHedge

Not surprisingly, the Pentagon disputes those assertions.
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Of course, it is only “coincidental” that the USAF-led “coalition” that has been putatively bombing ISIS for over 16 months failed to hit a single one of those convoys until literally hours after Putin’s as-yet unreported press conference.
Source:

Russia’s air war against the financial aid rendered to ISIS by Turkey and its western allies through the illicit and eminently illegal sale of stolen Syrian (and Iraqi) oil by ISIS through Turkey poses a dire threat to ISIS, as well as causes a catastrophic loss to Erdogan’s family business empire.

Russian Air Operations against Turkmen Militiants in Northen Latakia Province

In another sequence of event, Russia’s air expeditionary wing has been engaged in close air support and other air operations targeting the anti-Assad jihadi militias, including the al Qaeda/al Nusra affiliated “Turkmen Brigade”, in the northern Latakia province of Syria. In response to those punitive air operations, the Turkmen militants openly called out for help from Turkey against the RuAF. An article was posted on the Turkish newspaper Todays Zaman regarding the plea for help, in an article headlined:
“Syrian Turkmens ask for Turkey’s help under heavy bombardment by Assad, Russia”

Source:

Also days ago, Turkish P.M. Davutoglu warned Russia about bombing the same ethnic Turkmen militias in Latakia province.

Confluence of Events Leads to Direct Conflict

It appears that Davutoglu is a man of his word. These two events have coalesced into an incident whereby Turkish F-16 fighters have apparently shot down the RuAF SU-24 Fender bomber in Syrian airspace, with the pilot and navigator ejecting over Syrian territory. Reports indicate that the Turkmen militants exacted typical jihadi vengeance against the RuAF crewmembers by killing them while parachuting to the ground and/or on the ground. Reports also indicate that a RuAF search and rescue helicopted was likewise attacked by militants, the results of which are not known to this author at the moment.

Russian Pres. Putin has clearly articulated his viewpoint that Russia has been “stabbed in the back delivered by the accomplices to terrorists.” He stated emphatically that the Russian plane posed no threat to Turkey, and that it was operating solely in Syrian airspace against “terrorists” The implication is clear – he just called NATO member Turkey an accomplice to terror, not to mention the killer of two Russian servicemen. While there will undoubtedly be a duel of radar tracking to show whether or not the Fencer violated Turkish airspace, as claimed by Davutoglu, the reality is that a NATO jet just shot down the first Russian aircraft since the formation of the NATO alliance, an operation conducted in support of Turkmen jihadi’s and likely in revenge for Russia’s destruction of the ISIS/Erdogan Oil company.

Likely Outcome:

From this moment forward, we can expect that NATO will provide 100% support for the Turkish claims of the Fencer violating Turkish airspace. After all, since readers to this blog are fully aware that the multiplicity of Wahhabi and Salafist jihadi militants in Syria are but proxy armies for the AZ empire, and its armed forces in the form of NATO militaries, such an outcome is only to be expected.

The real question is what can we expect to be Russia’s response. Beyond FM Lavrov cancelling his scheduled meeting with Turkey, and his call for Russian citizens to boycott Turkey’s tourist destinations, we can fully expect Russia to respond in the military domain.

The respons is likely to be in multiple domains. Reports have already emerged that the Russian naval flotilla off Syria will provide heightened air defense coverage, likely moving naval assets closer to the Turkish/Syrian border.

In the air, at a minimum we coud anticipate that Russia will enhance its fighter cover in support of CAS (close air support) operations near the Turkish border. To accomplish that feat, it is likely that Russia will need to enlarge its air expeditionary wing in Syria with more advanced air-to-air combat fighters.

Russia may well enhance its air-to-air fighter assets in an effort to close of Syrian airspace to Turkish fighter/bombers, which have repeatedly violated Syrian sovereign airspace in operations putatively directed against the Kurds, but likely directed against the Syrian Arab Army and other Syrian assets in the “undeclared” war on the Syrian Arab Republic.

Another likely result is that Russia will formally recognize that reports of the presence of the S-400 SAM system is present in Syria, and that it will be employed in defense of Russian air operations over northern Syria. I would also anticipate that such surface to air missile coverage, perhaps the more mobile Sa-22 Pantsir SAM system, will be moved as far north in the Latakia province as possible to provide more timely protection to RuAF CAS operations.

If so, we will undoubtedly read of Russian SAM operators “lighting up” Turkish and other NATO jets operating in the border region, locking onto those targets with firing solutions in case those SAMS are actually deployed to prevent another shootdown of a Russian plane or to take down the plane(s) that engage in such an attack in the future.

Finally, other unconventional means of protecting airborne assets, such as electronic warfare operations conducted by the fleet, by airborne assets and/or ground based EW systems could well be used to shield and protect the bomber forces. The inherent risk of significant use of EW assets, however, would be that NATO could discover previously unknown Russian capabilities in that crucial domain and have a “head start” on developing EW countermeasures for the likely next phase of the AZ war on Russia.

The key question is whether this unjustified attack on the RuAF plane operating in Syrian airspace will be the incident that causes Russia to provide additional support to its air operations in support of Syrian sovereign rights of self defense in the form of introduction of ground forces. Such ground forces could now justifiably be deployed directly along the Syrian-Turkish border, at a minimum against the Turkmen Brigade which just butchered two RuAF servicemen, but perhaps more expansively along larger swaths of the open border and thereby help close off not only the NATO-ISIS arms supply lines (the reporting of which cost Serena Shim her life) but also the Erdogan family’s illicit enterprise of shipping and selling ISIS oil supplies in western oil markets.

Whatever the case, the gloves appear to be coming off, and those who back the terrorists in Syria, NATO member Turkey among them along with the AZ empire’s GCC allies of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, are increasingly easy to discern. The question is whether Turkey’s “throwing down the gauntlet” and challenging Russia’s air operations will be the trigger event for more conflict, or perhaps the warning shot that makes all parties realize the heightened risks of global conflict that the neo-Ottoman Caliph Erdogan attack against the Russian Air Force just engendered.

Respectfully submitted by JiminNH

JiminNH is a USAF veteran who resides in NH. The motto “Live Free or Die” on the license plate should not be just a quaint historical relic of a once great constitutional republic