The Syrian battlefield is now witnessing an escalation of the war. This is despite the fact that it is supposed to be a time of cessation of hostilities brokered by the US and Russia.
The Syrian war has two major fronts. The first and most important is in southern Syria, on the borderline with Israel and the occupied territories of the Syrian Golan Heights. This area is divided into two areas: the liberated area of Al-Quneitra, and the occupied area of the Golan Heights where Jabhat Al-Nusra and Al-Qaeda’s base their fighters.
Israel has been attempting to drive the Syrian army out of Al-Quneitra. Israel’s objective is to join this part of the Golan Heights to the territory it controls, thereby creating a buffer zone like the one it once had in southern Lebanon. In order to achieve this objective Israel regularly bombs Syrian military positions in the area, including Syrian Arab Army artillery positions, radar stations, etc.
There is a UN Security Council Resolution (UNSC Resolution number 338) dated 22nd October 1973, which supposedly established a Syrian-Israeli ceasefire in this area. There is also a UN force – UNDOF – set up in 1974, which is supposed to supervise the ceasefire line. However, Israel has forced out most of UNDOF from the area, and in practice Israel simply ignores the terms of Resolution 338 and violates it at will.
By attacking the Syrian Army in Al-Quneitra Jabhat Al-Nusra – Al-Qaeda’s local franchise – is helping Israel. Al-Nusra and Al-Qaeda fighters are attacking Syrian military positions important for the defence of Syria and of the Arab nation from Israeli aggression.
These Al-Nusra and Al-Qaeda attacks would not be possible without air support from Israel. Indeed, Israel has admitted many times that it supports these terrorists, whom it calls “moderate rebels”.
Israeli hospitals actually treat Al-Nusra terrorists, and Israeli ambulances regularly enter Syria to evacuate injured Al-Nusra terrorists via the Jbata crossing in northern Al-Quneitra to the Occupied Palestinian territories. Many of the weapons seized by the Syrian army from the terrorists as they tried to cross into Sweda Province in southern Syria to surround Damascus were made in Israel.
Lately the Syrian Army has carried out a series of successful offensives in the area, defeating the Western and Arab Gulf-backed “rebels”. Over the last few months the position of these so-called “rebels” has become desperate.
For that reason Israel has recently stepped its attacks on Syrian positions inside liberated Al-Quneitra, launching missiles into Syrian territory from its positions in the Israeli occupied section of the Golan Heights.
The Syrian military reported these attacks to the Syrian government. A senior Syrian official visited the area. He ordered the Syrian military in the area act to defend Syrian territory from Israeli attack. The very next day Syrian Air Defence shot down an Israeli F-16 warplane and an Israeli drone. The F16 was brought down on the border line in a place called Bir Ajam, which is under al-Nusra control. The drone was brought down in a place called Sa’sa’, which is inside Syrian army controlled territory.
This action marked a dramatic shift of policy on the part of the Syrian government, decisively responding to the attacks by the Israelis. It represents a direct counter to Israel’s aggression on Syrian land.
At around this time the US and the Russians, after prolonged negotiations, announced a ceasefire, the terms of which are secret.
The general opinion in Syria is that the terms of the ceasefire are secret because the US has longstanding obligations to the “moderate rebels” – who are neither “moderate” nor “rebels” but are actually terrorists – but has had to accede to demands from the Russians that it separates and identifies those fighters it supports from those it does not.
Had the US announced the terms of the ceasefire, the the morale of the fighters would have collapsed, since they would have confirmed that they had in effect been defeated. They might even have rebelled against the US.
However, what followed next shows that the US – the true master of this war, and the one which confers immunity on its chosen terrorists by calling them “moderate rebels” – can never be trusted in any quest for a peaceful solution to the war against Syria. The U.S. broke the ceasefire by striking a Syrian military airbase in Deir Al-Zour, located in the Thardeh Mountains.
This is a tough target for ISIS to capture, and it requires coordination between the US led coalition and ISIS against the Syrian Arab Army to give them the chance to do so. The objective is for ISIS to capture the airbase there, which will give ISIS control of the city and ultimately over the whole province.
The US claims that despite its powerful satellites and other methods of surveillance it could not identify the Syrian Arab Army’s positions and that the attack was a “mistake”.
We – the Arab people of Syria and Iraq – have long become accustomed to such “mistakes”. After all we remember the US-led coalition using similar rhetoric to drop weapons for ISIS in their stronghold along the border with Iraq, which it just so happens is also, interestingly enough, the border of Deir Al-Zour province.
That was the US’s gift to the barbarians of ISIS. Over 100 brave Syrian soldiers were martyred, and Syrian military positions resisting ISIS were destroyed and overrun.
Maybe I have got it the wrong way round. Maybe I should say it another way: What a great gift the barbarians of ISIS have given to the US – giving them the pretext to bomb Syria – the main country of the Resistance Front, and the only Arab country which together with Hezbollah resists Israel!
Meanwhile, Israel bombed a Syrian site in the south of Syria, claiming the life of another Syrian soldier.
Are we to believe this is all just coincidence?
The good news is that the Syrian Arab Army with Russian air support has been able to stop ISIS taking over the airbase near Deir-ez-Zour. However in the fighting the terrorists, who have been given advanced anti-aircraft weapons, managed to down a Syrian airplane.
Syrians deserve the right to counter any aggression against their country and their army. They deserve the right to respond in the same way that they have recently responded to the aggression launched against them by Israel.
I have personally met a Syrian soldier who survived the US coalition bombing in Deir-ez-Zour. He told Syrian Formal TV that US drones were flying over the airbase for more than four and a half hours before the US aircraft made their “mistake”. He said that he originally thought they were scanning the area to help the fight against ISIS. However he gradually realised that the drones were actually undertaking surveillance of the base itself – of its equipment, tanks, ammunition, etc. Later, the US aircraft destroyed all this whilst the ISIS terrorists were screaming Allah Akbar!
That brought back memories of the US led coalition drone that flew over the Presidential Palace in Lattakia, which our air defenses shot down over a year ago.
Would any sovereign country accept foreign powers bombing its army in its own land?
Add to that the Turkish troops in northern Syria who are – under UN cover – wanting to send 40 trucks of who knows what into Syria!
The UN prevented the Syrian authorities from checking these trucks, but they were still labeled “humanitarian aid.” What kind of aid is it really and who is it heading to? “Moderate” suicide bombers? ISIS?
And why are so many areas in Syria that are being besieged by terrorists being ignored by the UN? After all no one asks the ‘international community’ (ie. the US and its friends) to lift the unjust sanctions on Syria to prevent starvation!
Syrians are wondering: is our war really with ISIS and Al-Qaeda or with the US and Israel – the true aggressors and puppet-masters – who have always wanted a long war against Syria in order to break and occupy us?
Originally published on 2016-09-21
About the author: Afraa Dagher is a Syrian journalist who regularly writes under the name Syrian Afra’a.
We would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.
World leaders gathered in Paris on Sunday under the Arc de Triomphe to mark the centennial anniversary ending World War I. In an absurd way, the Napoleon-era arc was a fitting venue – because the ceremony and the rhetoric from President Emmanuel Macron was a “triumph” of lies and platitudes.
Among the estimated 70 international leaders were US President Trump and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, each sitting on either side of Macron and his wife. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was also given pride of place beside the French president.
Macron’s address to the dignitaries was supposed to be a call for international ...
The name of the modern land-locked country north of Greece, with its capital at Skopje, has returned to the news. It is officially called FYROM, but embedded in that name is “Macedonia” which is a reflection of the longstanding attempt to take over the modern Greek province of Macedonia as reflected in maps used in many places, including schools.It is clear that this naming implies territorial ambitions which have long been understood (http://macedonia-evidence.org/documentation.html). If that threat to the stability of the southern Balkans is to be stopped permanently, I suggest that the following must happen:1) the country should be named ...
As it appears Lithuania expects major changes in the near future. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevičius was on an official visit to the United States of America from the 20 to the 24 of February 2017. During a visit he said that Lithuania seeks the permanent presence of United States troops in its territory."We have requested stationing of military forces in our country on a more permanent basis - not only rotational but also more permanent," the minister told BNS in the telephone interview from Washington D.C.Linas Linkevicius' call for the permanent presence of United States troops in Lithuania territory ...
Led by the US and NATO, the clash of imperialist powers accounts for the absence of stability not just in the Middle East and Africa, but also the Ukraine and parts of Asia. Behind the rhetoric of democracy, national security, and anti-terrorism there are direct diplomatic and indirect diplomatic efforts through government-financed and pro-business NGO’s. There are overt and covert military operations carried out by the US, EU, China, Russia and their less powerful allies motivated by aggressive intentions for spheres of influence and markets. Behind the “war on terror” and regional conflicts around the world rests the reality of ...
In late November 2013, the ‘Euromaidan’ in Kiev began as a popular protest against a generalized state of corruption and cronyism in Ukraine. The spark that ostensibly ignited the protests was the inability of then President Yanukovych to sign an EU Association Agreement that would cut Ukraine’s economic and military ties to Russia in favor of a closer relationship with the EU and NATO.
The EU had made the release of former Ukrainian prime minister and “gas princess” Tymoshenko a precondition for signing the agreement. But the fact that Tymoshenko was/is a convicted embezzler of state funds, combined with the rather ...
The details are supplied in an exhaustive 1,000-page biography of Jean Monnet by Éric Roussel, which was published only in France in 1996, and which seems to have been successfully suppressed. It has never been translated, and has no reviews even at Amazon. However, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of UK's Telegraph newspaper has provided some of the core information from it. Furthermore, Richard J. Aldrich's 2003 The Hidden Hand also provides key details, such as by Aldrich's saying, on page 366, about the American Committee for a United Europe: ACUE, more than any other American front organization of the Cold War, was a ...
After escalated provocations with Mexico, until he obtained the necessary pretext in 1846, President James Polk announced, “War exists,” thus explaining away how it really happened. After defeating Spain, William McKinley said he wanted to “uplift and civilize and Christianize” the Filipinos, and “by God’s grace do the very best we could by them.” But they’d already declared independence, so doing the “best” actually meant allowing the worst — killing and burning villages during a 12-year war of resistance.In 1947, Harry Truman (image right) wanted to “assist free peoples to work out their own destinies in their own way.” But ...
The U.S. public loves fascists; they elect them, constantly. Donald Trump, who “says he would raise the minimum wage and stop the endless efforts at regime change,” is called a fascist by some. But Hillary Clinton “is happy to bomb Libya or Syria or any other country,” and played a major role in mass Black incarceration. Barack Obama is the war-maker and deporter-in-chief. “All of the major party candidates fit the F word description in some way.”“No one comes into office with any intention of undoing America’s leadership as the world’s worst jailer.”Donald Trump is the ill spoken, boorish, graceless ...
Yada…yada…yada. The discussion on the unprovoked and planned aggression by Georgia on South Ossetia is futile and moot because Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced last week that the Russian Government would recognize the independence and freedom of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. On August 25, 2008, both houses of the Russian Parliament or Duma voted unanimously to recognize the independence of both South Ossetia and Abkhazia. On August 26, 2008, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced that the government of the Russian Federation officially recognized the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.Save your rhetoric. Georgia has lost those areas permanently. Ossetians and ...
Albert Einstein’s 1948 letter to the New York Times
If we want to understand the real history of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, we can turn to a trustworthy Jewish source: Albert Einstein. Einstein was a humanitarian and peace activist, in addition to being one of the greatest scientists of all time. What did this extremely intelligent, wonderfully wise and warmly humane Jew have to say about Israel’s treatment of Palestinians? In a landmark open letter to the New York Times in 1948, Einstein clearly and candidly explained why Israel’s militant Zionist leaders were not to be trusted and did not deserve money ...
The week-long deification of the late John McCain was quite the deep-state performance: Three “state funerals”(in Phoenix, D.C., and Annapolis) accompanied by the constant clucking of the “mainstream” media about how the epitome of a deep-state insider — son and grandson of U.S. Navy admirals, mass murderer of Vietnamese peasants, “Keating Five” criminal conspirator, friend of “the right kind” of Middle East terrorists, lifelong government employee whose senate office was ground zero for defense industry lobbyists for the past several decades — is somehow an anti-establishment “maverick.” The televised sobbing of the very appropriately named Senator Jeff Flake was rich, ...
The Western power centers use the “Republic of Kosovo” as a testing ground for working out the ways to create a quasi-state that could be defined as an abnormal criminal case of global scope. The final goal is reshaping the whole of South East Europe. (www.strategic-culture.org)
The states below the «first echelon» are subject to the formula «back to slavery and barbarity». This is a model of authoritative outside governance entailing devastation of natural environment, extraction of resources and creation of disastrous economy and ‘stillborn» state structures along with extreme pauperization of population. And this is not all. Control over vast ...
"We are a peaceful nation," claimed Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson in an interview with Katie Couric late last year.Carson voiced a view that is held by many in our society. Like most people around the world, we naturally like to think of ourselves as a peace loving country.Unfortunately, the record does not bear this out. It, in fact, indicates something quite opposite: The United States has had a long and bloody history of aggression and war making.A survey of history shows that America has either been involved in armed conflict or conducted some form of military operations during 223 ...
Atrocities and war crimes are subjectively defined as acts of violence that exceed military necessity. All war includes atrocities. The stress of combat includes a build up of emotion during action that leads to vicious attacks on the enemy when the opportunity arises. American military units are trained and indoctrinated to avoid inhuman treatment of enemy combatants. Soldiers who violate the norms are prosecuted. This reduces but does not eliminate the problem.
Photo of Vietnamese civilians killed by an American unit
Atrocities During the Vietnam War
The actions of armies in war have seldom been as humane as the modern American military -- ...
The recent announcement by United States President Donald Trump that the US will recognise Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights draws attention yet again to the double standards applied by NATO and its satraps including Australia to the issues of territorial integrity, the right to self-determination, and international law. Three cases illustrate the duplicity and double standards of the Western nations. They may be reviewed chronologically.A picture taken on July 4, 2018 from the Israeli-annexed Syrian Golan Heights shows displaced Syrians from the province of Daraa staging a protest (top L) calling for international protection, in the Syrian the ...
Study: Joel Beinin & Lisa Hajjar, "Palestine, Israel and the Arab-Israeli Conflict. A Premier", Published by the Middle East Research & Information Project (MERIP), February 2014, pp. 16
Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!
Donate to Support Us
We would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.
[wpedon id="4696" align="left"]
Grenada is an independent state, a member of the U.N., located in the southern portion of the Caribbean Sea very close to the mainland of the South America (Venezuela). The state is composed by southernmost of the Windward Islands combined with several small islands which belong to the Grenadines Archipelago, populated by almost 110,000 people of whom 82% are the blacks (2012 estimations). The state of Grenada is physically mostly forested mountains’ area (of volcanic origin) with some crater lakes and springs. In the valleys are bananas, spices and sugar cane grown. The country is out of any natural wealth ...
It is now fully five years since the greatest upheavals in the modern history of the Arab World started in Tunis. Always impressed by the latest events, we tend to forget the deep roots of the current violent struggle. But unless we confront the causes, there is little chance that the symptoms will be healed.
(A partial version of this article in Spanish was published earlier in Free Haifa)
The wave of refugees that has reached Europe and the terror attacks in Paris reminded many people in Europe and beyond of the crisis in our region – but at the same time ...
“All that is a lie. This is a NATO-style trial.”The defiant words of General Mladic to the judges of the NATO controlled ad hoc war crimes tribunal for Yugoslavia rang out loud and clear the day they pretended to convict him. He could have added ‘but history will absolve me” and a lot more but he was thrown out of the room by the chief judge, Orie, in his condescending style, as if he was dealing to a truant schoolboy, instead of a man falsely accused of crimes he did not commit.The Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, echoed the ...
Ever since the end of World War II, the United States, rightly or wrongly, but most of the time, wrongly, has fancied itself as the «world’s policeman». Even a disastrous and costly military intervention in Southeast Asia did not deter the United States from acting as the chief arbiter of what governments were «in» and which were «out» as evidenced by Central Intelligence Agency interloping in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Angola, Haiti, and Colombia. Two military interventions in Iraq and a U.S.-led military campaign directed against Yugoslavia were not enough to pry the United States from its self-appointed role as the ...
SHORT LEGAL DISCLAIMER: The website’s owner & editor-in-chief has no official position on any issue published at this website. The views of the authors presented at this website do not necessarily coincide with the opinion of the owner & editor-in-chief of the website. The contents of all material (articles, books, photos, videos…) are of sole responsibility of the authors. The owner & editor-in-chief of this website is not morally, scientifically or legally responsible for any inaccurate or incorrect statement in the contents of all material found on this website. The owner & editor-in-chief of this website is not responsible for the content of external internet sites. No advertising, government or corporate funding for the functioning of this website. The owner & editor-in-chief and authors are not morally, scientifically or legally responsible for any inaccurate or incorrect statement in the text and material found on the website www.global-politics.eu
Israel has been attempting to drive the Syrian army out of Al-Quneitra. Israel’s objective is to join this part of the Golan Heights to the territory it controls, thereby creating a buffer zone like the one it once had in southern Lebanon. In order to achieve this objective Israel regularly bombs Syrian military positions in the area, including Syrian Arab Army artillery positions, radar stations, etc.
