Syrian War Report – November 4, 2019: ‘Withdrawing’ US Troops Setting Up New Military Bases
The Syrian Army and Turkish-led forces are strengthening their positions on a contact line in northeastern Syria. A large convoy of Syrian Army reinforcements deployed in the towns of Abu Rasin and Umm Harmalah south of Ras al-Ayn. The convoy included T-72 battle tanks, BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicles, Gvozdika self-propelled 122 mm howitzer and BM-21 Grad 122 mm rocket launchers. At the same time, the Turkish Army sent additional troops and equipment to the countryside of Ras al-Ayn.
On November 1, 2 and 3, clashes between the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and Turkish-backed militants were ongoing in a number of gray area villages, including Azizah, al-Jamilyah and Faysaliyah, in northwestern al-Hasakah. Pro-SDF sources claim that Kurdish fighters re-captured over 10 villages from Turkish-led forces. Pro-Turkish sources claim that SDF members are on retreat. In fact, a large part of the territory south of Ras al-Ayn remains a no-man land.
On November 3, the Russian military and the SDF reportedly established a coordination center the town of Ain Issa. The center will be tasked with coordination of efforts to implement the northeastern Syria ‘safe zone’ agreement and improving coordination between the Syrian-Russian-Iranian alliance and the SDF, in general.
The Russian Aerospace Forces have carried out airstrikes on positions of al-Qaeda-linked groups near the towns of Kafar Sijnah, Jbala, Rakaya Sijneh, Hass, Ma`arat al-Nu`man and Kbani in the southern part of the Idlib de-escalation zone.
The strikes were conducted in response to recent attempts by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and its Turkish-backed allies to advance on Syrian Army positions south of Kbani. At least 7 Syrian Army troops were killed and several pieces of military equipment were destroyed in that clashes, according to pro-militant sources.
The US military is consolidating its control over oil areas on the eastern bank of the Euphrates. According to pro-militant sources, additional US troops were deployed at the Heemo military garrison near Qamishly and a former base of the Syrian Air Defense Forces’ 113th Brigade in Deir Ezzor may soon be turned into a US military base.
On October 31, it became known that members of the North Carolina-based 4th Battalion, 118th Infantry Regiment and the South Carolina-based 218th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade started deployment in oil-rich areas in eastern Syria. They are accompanied with M2A2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles.
What is that Russian word again? for someone who is just not negotiable with, or does not understand how to keep to a deal.
недоговороспособны
Mod- nithogovorosposobni
“Mod- nithogovorosposobni”
nedogovorosposobny or nedogovorosposobni
Недостойно доверия.
Auslander
—————-
Google-translate: from the mod.
“Not trustworthy.”
Недостойно доверия.
Unworthy of trust.
Original phrase by CEE, translation by CEE.
Auslander
Some time ago, a conversation took place with a friend whom I had not seen in years. When the talking converged on politics, I was asked, somwhere along, kind of, out the blue, ‘Do you like Trump?’. I had never thought about that, but responded, spontaneously, ‘well, to me he seems so American in every conceivable way, you might as well have asked, “do you like Americans’. A question I don’t think I would be qualified to answer for lack of depth (on my part). But at least with Trump, what you see is what you get. As others have commented already, what’s so beautiful about this latest ruse- anncouncing withdrawal, only to return with a vengeance – is that all masks are off. What you see is what you get, and you can make up your mind accordingly.
I don’t think that Trump is a case of what you see is what you get. I think he has been controlled by very clever and deceptive handlers for years. For example, investigative reporter Whitney Webb has demonstrated just how deep into the swamp he is, especially since the Rothschild bankers headed by Wilbur Ross bailed him out in the 1990s, but his campaign slogan was to “drain the swamp.” Clever and deceptive.
Donald Trump is a classic Controlled Opposition frontman in that his political role is to mold, manipulate, and steer populist discontent in the USA in the direction that his Deep State handlers want it steered.
In many ways, Trump is merely the White nationalist version of Barack Obama, whose role was very similar to Trump.
The differences between Obama and Trump (or Democrat and Republican) are merely in their political target audiences and propaganda they use to sucker these audiences into following them.
Drain the Swamp?
No, it’s more like Fill the Swamp–even as you claim to be draining it.
To understand how America’s fake democracy works, one needs to remember the following dictum: The essence of American politics is the manipulation of populism in the service of elitism.
John Dewey noted that in America ‘…politics is the shadow cast on society by big business’, and Peter Dale Scott argues, pretty cogently I would say, that the ruling ‘Deep State’ of intelligence, political and criminal organisations and their endless collaborations, collusions and conspiracies, is the mechanism by which the owners of society maintain their total control, despite the idiotic facade of ‘democracy’.
As one Native American noted, the Americans broke every promise that they ever made to the Indigenous-the promise to steal their land. Hundreds of ‘treaties’, ‘agreements’ etc, ALL broken. When you think of yourself as Chosen People, with a Manifest Destiny to rule the world forever with ‘Full Spectrum Dominance’, promises made with untermenschen are ‘writ in water’. I really cannot see how we will survive either the collapse of the Real Evil Empire, or any great further period of its dominance and hegemony.
The withdrawal of US forces in north Syria along the Turkei border was a necessary move and all this shuffling of forces was arranged by VVP, Assad and Erdogan.
President Trump has ordered for over a year all US troops out of Syria. However, it seems the Five Points fails to understand an order from the Commander in Chief of US Armed Forces and makes their own decisions as to what’s needed and what ain’t. The ‘guarding the oil’ gig is a sham, pure and simple, and it’s simply an excuse for Five Points to keep US troops in Syria in addition to the IGIL training and recruitment base at Al Tanf near the Jordan border, said base being the location, supposedly, of a massive civilian ‘camp’ wherein the inmates are not allowed to leave and are under the ‘control’ of IGIL terrorists with the able and conniving assistance of United States Army troops.
There has been a US base at Dier Azor for years, a substantial base that has to an extent ‘guarded’ the main Syrian oil fields to continue the flow of illicit oil to Irak, the monies from this lucrative trade going directly in to the pockets of the several organizations of ‘contractors’ assisting US forces in their depredations against Syrian Arab Army and Syrian civilians. Perhaps this base, and others, remaining was part of the deal between VVP/Assad/Erdogan, but I certainly don’t know. Remember when at the very beginning of Russian invited involvement in the Syrian mess, one of the first things Russia Air Force did was bomb the mortal puppy snot out of the massive convoys of oil tankers going from the Syrian oil fields to Turkei, effectively ending in mere days a years long massive income to Erdogan and his favorite son. No one said a word, and the convoys ceased heading to Turkei and instead headed for Irak.
The bottom line is eventually Syrian Arab Army forces will show up at the gates of the bases and invite the uninvited guests to leave. Will it come to a fight when that happens? Maybe so and maybe not, but one thing is as certain as the sun rising every morning, eventually all United States Army and related troops will have to leave Syria, as the Spartans used to say ‘with your shield or on it’ albeit in a different context.
All the screaming, hair pulling and tooth gnashing about VVP not acting as he should, not pushing for full withdrawal right now, is just window dressing. VVP will force the uninvited guests out in good time and hopefully with no fighting and the intensely related ‘collateral damage’, read deaths of yet more thousands of Syrian civilians.
Auslander
Author
Never The Last One, paperback edition. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1521849056 A deep look in to Russia, her culture and her Armed Forces, in essence a look at the emergence of Russian Federation.
An Incident On Simonka, paperback edition. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1696160715 NATO Is Invited To Leave Sevastopol, One Way Or The Other.
I’m not so sure it’s “window dressing,” I see it as an attempt to escalate the conflict, or at least to portray to the world that the US is still in charge. You have to understand that the people who run foreign policy in the US are sociopaths. The US knows that the tanker trucks transporting the stolen oil can easily be prevented from leaving the country; they are daring the Syrians and especially the Russians to take action.
There may be an easy way to deal with these thieves. Oil platforms cannot run without electricity so the Syrians should simply cut off power to the U.S. occupied oil fields.
Most of them run on in house diesel generators. To the best of my knowledge, there is no extant power grid in those areas albeit there may be a few.
Auslander
I remember reading an article that made the same argument. If I’m not mistaken it stated that the electricity to these oil fields was supplied by one power plant that was controlled by the Syrian government. The question that comes to mind is, if this is the case why wasn’t the electricity shut down a long time ago? I suspect the answer to be that the electricity can’t be selectively shut off, that if the electricity was turned off water pumps in the region would stop functioning and civilians would be deprived of running water.
why wasn’t the electricity shut down a long time ago?
Possibly because of the payment for the electricity, which would be in dollars. Remember the sanctions. In his recent interview given to al-Sourya and al-Ikhbarya TVs, (there is a transcript on this website), President al-Assad said
Let me give you an example: one factor which people are not aware of, is that the liberation of an area does not necessarily serve the Syrian Pound, because by liberating an area, we are removing its access to dollars which were paid to the terrorists to cover their needs and expenses. This is one of the tools we benefited from. I mean that things are not absolute, and we cannot say that terrorists were serving us in this regard. Not every positive step has a positive impact. That is why I am saying that the issue is complicated. Some experts say that there is a process of drying the region up of dollars and the whole region is paying the price of the dollar. But notice the difference between us and neighbouring countries. The Turkish Lira, for instance, lost about two percent of its value in the last few days; yesterday I believe, due to a decision taken by the American Congress. Countries are totally subject to these fluctuations. Despite our circumstances, we do not succumb entirely – we suffer, we defend, we fight all the whilst having a war waged against us. Whereas these other countries do not have a war waged against them, yet they can barely support their currency, and moreover, the currency is supported by external financial and political measures. So, there are challenges but once again the solution is not difficult. The solution is not the dollar game, but an economic game.
I fail to see an escalation. Reality is all the ‘coalition’ troops have left most of Syria and their little enclaves where they supported IGIL for years and participated in the depredations against Syrian Arab Army and Syrian civilians, and this includes not only SehSha troops, but British, French, Dutch, German and Italian troops with their ‘contractors’ as well.
For heaven’s sake, when Russia was asked for help President Assad’s government was within but two weeks of falling. In the ensuing time, SehSha has had to abandon their bases all over Syria and now parts of northern Syria. All that is left for them is a few of them and their imbeds in Idlib with their IGIL lackies and east of the river.
Putin is playing the long game, knowing full well that with time the ‘new’ bases in northeast Syria will be untenable and will be abandoned. Do you know the logistics of keeping those widely scattered little ‘kill me now’ bases? They can’t exist without massive supply and support efforts at a cost that is literally unbelievable. When all is said and done, one liter of petrol or diesel costs in excess of $30 to deliver and store to them. How much diesel do you think each little base uses to power their commo and elint equipment, let alone the cooling systems for their canvas, and unbelievably expensive, ‘barracks’, let alone the kitchens, food refrigerators, mess halls, ‘fun rooms’ and all the other creature comforts foreign ‘soldiers’ are used to and demand?
What do you think is going to happen when the locals, and there are some not small numbers, get tired of foreigners and start going after them like in Afghan? Yeah yeah, I know SehSha has more and larger ‘mine resistant’ vehicles, but Afghan has proven the fallacy of that gig by simply making their road bombs bigger and the casualties are arriving with some pretty rough, and comfortable life ending, injuries, mainly compression fractures of limbs and spines. Sure, almost all of them survive, but they will never be the same again and their service is over. For what?
The CiC of the US Armed Forces has told them to leave Syria multiple times. He does not have absolute power but methinks if he wins in 2020, and survives, it’s going to be a rough couple months for the three letter agencies. That is when the proof will be in the pudding, and with any luck that will also see the end of the ‘advisers’ so extant in the lines facing Novorossiya.
Auslander
I understand the expense of the logistics, there’s a reason why the US is trillions of dollars in debt. The smuggling of oil is not something that is about to start, it’s been happening throughout this war. According to the Russian ministry of defense, American corporations working with private military contractors and supported by US special forces and air power were generating over $30 million a month by smuggling oil out of Deir ez-Zor.
It’s really not about the oil; it’s about preventing the progress of countries ruled by secular governments; it’s about maintaining Israel as the primary force in the region. The escalation will only happen if Syria and Russia seek to repatriate the oil fields. How long are they going to tolerate this situation?
The situation will be tolerated as long as President Assad and President Putin decide it will be tolerated. I have no doubts that the day will come when all foreign forces, either ‘regular’ or mercenary, will be invited to leave Syria and this invitation will be accompanied by a veiled but mailed fist. That day will come, but that day is not this day.
The million dollar a day theft benefits not only the mercenary organizations but rumor has it that some folks floating around some of the three letter agencies are enhancing their retirement plans with a little padding from stolen oil and priceless artifacts. Who that is or if it’s even true I have no idea, but rumors are strong. It’s not like outright theft has never padded pension plans before, vast fortunes were made during the demise of the Third Reich, both enemy and ‘friend’, and reality is in the confusion of war there is always profit, either on the ledgers or off.
Auslander
“The situation will be tolerated as long as President Assad and President Putin decide it will be tolerated.”
Indeed,
and AMEN!
Thank you, Aus.
rumor has it that some folks floating around some of the three letter agencies are enhancing their retirement plans with a little padding from stolen oil and priceless artifacts.
Given the generally larcenous nature of the Greater Israel project, I have no doubts that what you say is true.
“I have no doubts that the day will come when all foreign forces, either ‘regular’ or mercenary, will be invited to leave Syria”
U.S. is still in Germany and Japan almost 3/4 of a century after those wars ended. What makes you think the U.S. can be kicked out so easily? The SAA won’t dare touch the U.S. troops – even after U.S. bombed and killed hundreds of them in one attack – they did nothing.
Anon 8:35
Germany and Japan were and are totally different scenarios, both suffered catastrophically destructive defeats the likes of which few countries in history have endured.
What was SAA supposed to do when some of their units were ‘accidentally’ bombed by ‘coalition’ forces including Israel? They did what they could do and persevered, continuing their struggle against the coalition and it’s proxies, IGIL/DAESH or whatever they want to call themselves today.
I stand by my statement, the day is coming when all uninvited foreign mercenaries, proxies and troops will be invited to leave Syria one way or the other.
Auslander
Yes, people who are saying Russia isn’t doing anything and US is still having its way, need to watch a time line map. We are now seeing Syrian and Russian deployments in Northeastern Syria. Before, it was claimed they would never get it back and partitions would take place. Now that they are there, it is “oh no they will never get the oil back”. Western people expect reactions to their childish provocations.
“We are now seeing Syrian and Russian deployments in Northeastern Syria.”
Yes seeing deployments because the Turkish government decided to invade Syria and the Kurds chickened out and called for the Syrian government to come back into the area.
Now Syrian troops are being attacked and killed by Turkish-backed forces there. So Kurds got themselves safely out of the way all for the SAA to contend with that.
It has to be escalation, because the USA and Israel don’t do compromise or retreat, and the anti-Iranian and anti-Hezbollah Colour Revolutions in Iraq and Lebanon say so as well.
Northern Observer…. I would have said complete blood drenched psychopaths. Remember Mark Esper’s very specific threat last week of what would happen if either Syria or Russia tried to retake the oilfields.
The sooner this debauched Empire goes, the better for all of us.
@Gezzah Potts, I’m not sure there is a consensus on what constitutes a psychopath or what constitutes a sociopath. According to one psychologist I watched being interviewed, a person is born a psychopath whereas sociopathy is learned behaviour, i.e. a person becomes a sociopath. Whatever you wish to call them, these people who establish US foreign policy aren’t much troubled by thousands of innocent people being killed. In their minds the less people on the planet the better, it’s good for the ecosystem.
Some of the people commenting here get upset when others point out that these latest maneuvers by the US is an escalation in the confrontation. What else would you call it when US officials declare that if Russia or the Syrian army tries to reclaim the oilfields they will be met with “overwhelming force?” Stating that this is an escalation is not equivalent to stating that “Russia isn’t doing anything,” or that the Americans are winning, as many have apparently misconstrued.
“The situation will be tolerated as long as President Assad and President Putin decide it will be tolerated.”
Of course it is the afflicted who decide if they are going to tolerate it or not, and for how long.
SehSha is practicing brinkmanship. Exactly what ‘overwhelming force’ does SehSha think it can bring to bear? The only force they have is aircraft and missiles, nothing else stands a snowball’s chance in hell of getting anywhere near these little desert outposts sitting out there and swinging in the breeze. To suddenly appear in force over Syria will lead to open contretemps between SehSha and Russian Federation/Syrian air assets which would be an unwelcome and, to be honest, worrisome, escalation to voice an understatement of vast proportions.
On the other hand, the Commander in Chief of US Armed Forces ordered his forces o-u-t OUT of Syria. Some denizens of Foggy Bottom and Five Points not only ignored this order but actively, and publicly, voiced their opposition to this order. The turmoil in USA is reaching boiling point with ‘clandestine whistle blowers’, lawyers for said blowers openly stating on public media that ‘the coup has started’ couple years ago, closed, read secret, ‘impeachment’ hearings and the lapdog media eating it all up like a ravenous puppy. Problem is The Deplorables are not stupid and they, with a goodly number of ‘ordinary citizens’ in US, totally recognize a coup d’etat when they see one and that is exactly what is going on in USA, a coup d’etat against the sitting and legally elected President of the United States of America.
With all the turmoil going on in SehSha, how the heck do you think SehSha can have a cognizant and recognizable foreign policy? Today you have some non elected fetid mouth saying something about ‘overwhelming force’ when said mouth has precisely zero authority to say so, and tomorrow you have another self anointed mouth saying the exact opposite. It’s no wonder VVP is sitting back and watching, his finger on the pulse, and not doing anything to upset the apple cart as he, and we in this bucolic valley, watch SehSha and that ghastly inflamed boil on the bumm of the world, ‘eu’ , self destruct. The only thing VVP, and we, are worried about is how to prevent this self destruction from affecting The World in a catastrophic death ride of the morons planting their fat and useless asses in the festering sewers in Brussels and on the Potomac. All I can say to those asses is to quote my comrade from a few years ago: Damn you, damn your eyes, damn your souls, back to Satan whose spawn you are. Leave us in peace…..or else.
Auslander
Author
Never The Last One, paperback edition. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1521849056 A deep look in to Russia, her culture and her Armed Forces, in essence a look at the emergence of Russian Federation.
An Incident On Simonka, paperback edition. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1696160715 NATO Is Invited To Leave Sevastopol, One Way Or The Other.
Yes, but where is Bibi and Co. in all this? It looks, from the outside, like the Izzies are calling the shots, or at least their interests are front and center.
The question seems to be whether the reappearance of US troops in Deir ez-Zor Governorate. is an escalation. a provocation, or something else.
Some facts:
The timeline had US special forces rudely evicted from their strongholds in NE Syria by the unleashed Turkish backed fighters. This has to have created resentment among the geniuses in Centcom.
The troops who have been deployed in Eastern Syria to protect the oil wells are not special forces; rather they are National Guard and regular army. There is little for them to do, other than try to repair some of the machinery. There are too few of them to mount a resistance to an SAA assault.
Their presence is a distraction from the battle for Idlib. Their presence is an enticement for some sort of conflict Syria does not need to have; they could also be sitting ducks for a black flag operation.
There is no military objective they can possibly achieve except to be the fodder for some staged outrage that provides cover for Centcom to bomb Damascus.
I think they will be ignored and/or hemmed in until Idlib is returned to government control, at least, and perhaps Afrin, too. Then, as others have noted, Assad will tell them to leave and the Coalition of Sanity will make it impossible for them to stay.
One other thought concerning the switch-over from special forces to national guard: Special forces that left the country had knowledge of deceit and sabotage against the government of Syria, and probably Turkey and the Kurds as well, whereas the replacements do not. So if captured ….
As I have said before, the desire to sabotage Syria’s rebuilding by delaying recovery of the oil wells smells of Israel, as does the sheer idiocy of trying to do so with too few troops. Thus, there is probably a propaganda initiative we have not yet seen.
I essentially agree with el gallinazo, anonymous 1:37pm, Mulga Mumblebrain, Northern Observer & James Speaks about the intentions of israel’s pindo proxies’ making a very visible stand at the oil fields. It is a provocation, and a desperate attempt to prolong the israeli war against Syria. And also agree that trump is a total fraud, is very much on board this war criminal behaviour and is happily engaging in his assigned role as the “mouth” the zionazi-gays use to dispense their psywar bs.
The idea that trump’s underlings are “disobeying” him is simply ludicrous. This nonsense is actually an important part of the zionazi-gay psywar which is used to keep trump “credible” as an opposition figure.
Well, just what I expected. It was too good to be true that the US suddenly compounded its losses by withdrawing from Syria and handing it over to Assad. It has been planned all along to replace the Kurds with SNF which is acceptable to Turkey. The US picked the wrong candidate to divide Syria. Turkey had issues with the SDF. Now that the SDF is replaced, or about to be, US and Turkey can now work together in toppling Assad. This was just got messier. I only hope that Assad manages to reunite the country.
Not at all hunkey dorey USA Tuekey today 8 Nov
“Today, we started our second joint patrol as part of the agreement with Russia. Unfortunately, the United States is holding separate patrols with the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) terrorist group. However, they were expected to leave! How will the United States explain this? There is no such a thing in our agreement,” Erdogan told reporters, according to Sputnik.
A US Congressional panel openly plans for the de facto balkanization of Syria in which the Americans will colonize one-third of Syria (that just so happens to be resource rich) while obstructing the reconstruction of Syria, which is to be left as “rubble.”
US congressional panel plots next phase of the dirty war on Syria: Occupy oil fields and block reconstruction
https://thegrayzone.com/2019/11/05/us-economic-war-strategy-syria-oil-reconstruction/#more-16208
This is truly sociopathic and sadistic behavior–and yet another American crime against humanity that rivals its criminal war against Iraq.
This is what they are planning, true. However, like every single other American plan in recent memory, it will fail. Every single occupation soldier will be given the boot right out of Syrian soil, and as for the United States, it will likely devolve into a civil war scenario with multiple factions fighting for dominance within. Things are about to get pretty ugly, but the result will be that the “Neocons” are all hanged and humanity will re-gain freedom, peace, and prosperity, ascending into a new golden age for all of mankind.
One is tempted to wonder if some right to protect assasinations by forces designated to protect Syria could act against these peoples might make a difference …..sighs.
So Russia is reportedly planning to lease the military/airbase at Qamishli in NE Syria. If this is true it would be an interesting move, given the location:
https://www.defenseworld.net/news/25784/Russia_to_Lease_New_Military_Airbase_in_Syria#.XcNvi3dFzm0
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/russia-mulling-lease-of-qamishli-airport-to-challenge-us-influence-in-eastern-syria-report/
https://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/map/syria-map.htm
Was this base in Syrian hands before the US withdrawal? I am thinking it was.
Israel ‘aiding Kurds’ in Syria, advocating for them in talks with US – deputy FM
https://www.rt.com/newsline/472780-israel-kurds-syria-turkey/
“Israel is assisting Syrian Kurds battered by a month-old Turkish incursion, and advocating for them in talks with the United States, the deputy Israeli foreign minister said on Wednesday.
Ankara launched its assault targeting the Kurdish YPG militia after the abrupt withdrawal of 1,000 US troops from northern Syria in early October. Israel sees Syrian Kurds as a counterweight to “Iranian influence.”
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu offered humanitarian aid to the “gallant Kurdish people” on October 10, saying they faced possible “ethnic cleansing” by Turkey and its allies in Syria.
Tzipi Hotovely, Israel’s deputy foreign minister, told parliament on Wednesday that the offer had been taken up, Reuters said. “Israel has received many requests for assistance, mainly in the diplomatic and humanitarian realm,” she said. “We identify with the deep distress of the Kurds, and we are assisting them through a range of channels.”
Hotovely did not elaborate on the Israeli assistance. Syrian Kurdish officials have not commented on the statement.”
This US think tank reveals more plans to further torture Syria:
https://twitter.com/BenjaminNorton/status/1191808201177604096/video/1