Wither ISIS?

=By= Elijah J. Magnier (Edited by Ollie Richardson)

The Iraqi Army, the Counter Terrorism units, the Federal police, and Anbar tribes entered the city of Ramadi that was occupied by the self-proclaimed “Islamic State” group (ISIS) for several months. To their biggest surprise, only a few bodies of the terrorist group were found when intelligence gathering by the U.S led coalition and the Iraqi intelligence service confirmed the presence of around 2000 fighters in the city until days before the final assault. Six ISIS fighters were arrested while trying to flee Ramadi among the 442 civilians who left the city one day before the final assault on the city center.

So where did all these ISIS fighters go to?

“The US forces operating in Iraq within the military operation room in Baghdad are the ones who define the units and the time (day and hour) of attacks against ISIS. If we want to benefit from an Air Force to defeat the terrorist group, we should bow to the American command. It is not unlikely for a possible American – Turkish coordination to communicate with “ISIS” and give a free way out to fighters to withdraw in the direction of the Syrian – Iraqi borders. That’s the information our drones collected in the last few days prior the attack of Ramadi.

Our signals and Human Intelligence informed the Americans and us about ISIS movement of troops. We were not allowed to engage against these and no one in the government can contradict the Americans for the moment. The U.S ordered Baghdad to keep al-Hashd al-Sha’bi (PMUs) away from the battlefield of Anbar perhaps to ensure a free passage to ISIS and to reduce the Iranian influence and credit of victories in Iraq”.

“America has asked decision makers in Baghdad to change the heads of anti-terrorism, intelligence and security services of the army and Interior Ministry. Moreover, the Secretary General of the Council of Minister was also  suggested by the Americans and in consequences he has been appointed to this position. The U.S wants a homogeneous team that is friendly to its policy and presence of these (US forces) on the ground in Iraq.

The hostile Era – created by the former Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki that led to a withdrawal of the forces from Mesopotamia – is over and the policy adopted at the moment consists of reducing the influence of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani over a few Iraqi armed groups. What is contributing to the success of such a policy is the fact that the Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi is in a bad terms with Soleimani. Since the start, PM Abadi believed that Soleimani was planning to remove him from power, supporting al-Maliki and promoting other choices to replace the actual Premier”, said the source.

”Iran controls various military organisations fighting within the Popular Mobilisation Units that are strongly present in the battlefield in Iraq and in Syria. Such an influence persuaded al-Abadi to choose the path that leads to ” Uncle Sam ” instead of choosing the one of Welayat-el- faqih. This is why Abadi rejected, following an explicit American demand, to reject any Russia military assistance in the air, in Iraq, unlike the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The Iraqi Prime Minister is aware of the possibility that the U.S would like to see 3 Iraqi cantons, one for the Kurds, one for the Sunni and another one for the Shia. The Americans are also supporting the Turkish presence in Iraq, and met with the Director of the French Intelligence Service who said: The Middle East will never be the same as before. What is becoming more clear now that ISIS is a toy used by players for their agenda and plans to reshuffle the map of the Middle East”.

Source

Article: Fort Russ
Lead Graphic: Ramadi, Iraq – public domain

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First iteration at strategic-culture.org

Requests U.S. Assistance to Bomb Them; U.S. Again Says No. How the Public Get Suckered by ‘News’ Media Ignoring Reality
HYPOCRISY BY US MEDIA AND POLITICIANS REACHES NEW HEIGHTS

Grand Chauvinist Erdogan: Appealing to ever powerful nationalist impulses in the Turkish population but in reality doing Washington’s bidding.

According to Russian Television on December 25th, Russian intelligence has counted “up to 12,000” tanker trucks filled with oil “on the Turkish-Iraqi border,” and “the final destination remains to be Turkey.” In addition, some of those trucks are still heading into Turkey from Syria, but their number is “decreased” because Russia’s Syrian bombing campaign, which started on September 30th, has, ever since they began bombing the oil trucks on November 18th, destroyed “up to 2,000” of those trucks, that were in Syria heading into Turkey.

According to the news report, Russia is requesting help from the U.S. coalition to bomb the “up to 12,000” trucks that are in Iraq carrying ISIS oil into Turkey. ISIS drives them there so that ISIS can become self-sustaining by the oil-sales. ISIS, which had long been supported by America’s allies the Arab oil potentates — all of whom are fundamentalist Sunnis — aims to be self-sustaining now on the sales of this stolen oil through Turkey, which is operating the black market in ISIS’s stolen oil. That’s why Russia wants to stamp out this market. “However, so far, Washington says that it is not ready for such a move,” the report says. [The CIA has also funneled funds via its usual subterranean channels all along, and will likely supply whatever is needed to keep these lunatics in business.—Eds.]

Whereas Russia had begun on November 18th to bomb those trucks en-route into Turkey, and eliminated around 500 of them at that time, the U.S. coalition hadn’t bombed any such trucks until later that day, November 18th, in order to pretend to be competitive with what Russia had been doing since it started on 30 September 2015, to bomb in Syria. Before the U.S. bombed the 116 trucks it destroyed, it warned the drivers 45 minutes in advance.

Here was the shocking admission that was made by the U.S. Defense Department’s press-spokesman at his 18 November 2015 presentation, in which he voluntarily acknowledged that, throughout all of the 14 months during which the U.S. had been bombing in Syria and in Iraq, the U.S. hadn’t previously destroyed any  of the tens of thousands of oil tank-trucks that had been transporting ISIS’s stolen oil out from Iraq and from Syria — the stolen-oil sales that bring $2B per year into ISIS coffers — and that the U.S. had warned 45-minutes in advance:

This is our first strike against tanker trucks, and to minimize risks to civilians, we conducted a leaflet drop prior to the strike. We did a show of force, by — we had aircraft essentially buzz the trucks at low altitude.

So, I do have copy of the leaflet, and I have got some videos, so why don’t you pull the leaflet up. Let me take a look at it so I can talk about it.

As you can see, it’s a fairly simple leaflet, it says, “Get out of your trucks now, and run away from them.” A very simple message.

And then, also, “Warning: airstrikes are coming. Oil trucks will be destroyed. Get away from your oil trucks immediately. Do not risk your life.”

And so, these are the leaflets that we dropped — about 45 minutes before the airstrikes actually began. Again, we combine these leaflet drops with very low altitude passes of some of our attack aviation, which sends a very powerful message.

International Military Review – Syria-Iraq battlespace, Dec. 24, 2015

[dropcap]S[/dropcap]o: not only had the U.S. previously avoided destroying ISIS’s main current source of income (besides the multimillion-dollar donations made by members of the royal families of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, and Kuwait — all of whom are protected by the U.S., and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had urged all of them on 30 December 2009 please to stop funding their terrorists), but, when the U.S. now started to bomb those tank-trucks filled with stolen oil, the U.S. warned in advance the drivers, who were also assets to the jihadist cause the U.S. pretended to oppose, and thus were enemies of the public (and were participants in the evils of ISIS). The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) wanted to protect them — not  to kill them. That was done “to minimize risks to civilians.” Wow!! After the U.S. history of slaughtering millions of civilians in wars, and torturing many, including complete innocents in Iraq and elsewhere, we’re now protecting ISIS’s drivers? Can any hypocrisy exceed this? If the United States were a democracy, its press would have been focusing on this issue for a week. The U.S. protecting ISIS’s financial base, and assets, has mind-boggling implications. On what side are ‘we’ — and who are “we,” and who are “them”? We are not the aristocracy. The aristocracy are them. It includes the top stockholders in firms such as Lockheed Martin. Warren Buffett said in 2006 “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” That’s shocking honesty.

Buffett: Refreshing honesty, but seriously under-reported for the obvious reasons.

Did any of the major U.S. news media, all of which have reporters attending those press conferences, report the U.S. Government’s open admission  there, that the U.S. Government had protected ISIS all along, not bombed any  of ISIS’s oil tank-trucks (until Russia did)? Those trucks providing $2B per year to ISIS terrorists? None  of them reported it. None of them conveyed to their audience this astounding information — essentially, that the U.S. was protecting the money-flow to the jihadists in Syria, and was even protecting their truckers, and its ‘press’ were protecting them.

Another major revelation at this same press conference was that “we right now have no plans to conduct coordinated operations with the Russians” in Syria. And this was reconfirmed on December 25th from the Russian side, as being still the U.S. policy. In other words: the U.S. President is so hostile toward Russia, that, even months after Russia’s request to Washington on September 30th to cooperate in killing all jihadists in Syria, Obama still refuses to work together with Russia, or even just to “coordinate operations with the Russians,” to kill the jihadists. (And, in the Democratic debate on 19 December 2015, Hillary Clinton insisted that eliminating the jihadists in Syria mustn’t have higher priority than, nor occur before, Bashar al-Assad is permanently removed from Syria’s leadership. Her position is at least as anti-Russian as Obama’s.)

Hillary Clinton: A vicious, murderous imperialist whore, by any impartial measure. And this is the woman who still retains the lead in the pathetic Democratic party formation.

The jihadists had flocked into Syria to oust the non-sectarian leader of that country, Assad, and to replace him with an Islamist leader, a Sharia-law Sunni, whom the U.S. Government, and the royal families of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, and Kuwait, approve of as being better than the non-sectarian Assad (who is personally a Shiite, but runs a decidedly unsectarian, secular, government). The jihadists work for the American alliance. 

[dropcap]R[/dropcap]ussia’s position on the matter is that no foreign power possesses the right to determine whom the President of Syria will or won’t be; only the Syrian people do, in an election. Russia insists that it be determined in internationally monitored and overseen elections. However, polls taken by Western polling firms indicate that Assad would overwhelmingly win any such election; so, U.S. President Barack Obama has rejected democracy for Syria. And yet, the U.S. accuses Putin of being dictatorial, and claims itself to be ‘democratic.’ And the U.S. President demands that Syria’s legal President be removed from power and excluded from any possibility of ever again becoming that nation’s President. This is America’s version of ‘democracy’ in Syria.

The DOD spokesperson, Steve Warren, spoke contemptuously of Russia. He said that in Russia’s war against jihadists in Syria, “the Russians are using dumb bombs. Their history has been both reckless and irresponsible.” This statement was being made by a military spokesman for the same Government that in the most “reckless and irresponsible” manner had invaded and destroyed Iraq in 2003. However, his statement here was also, itself, simply false. Russia’s bombings have been with both precision-guided weapons and unguided munitions that are under no control after being fired. 

Warren there was reaffirming a reporter’s question which had asserted: “Getting back to Raqqa, as we all know, the Russians are not using precision munitions. Any sense of any increased civilian casualties in Raqqa as a result of that?” So, Warren was here reaffirming a reporter’s (or actually, a press-appointed government stenographer’s) falsehood — reaffirming an assertion that was either unprofessionally ignorant, or else a knowing lie. On September 30th, when Russia had started its air strikes, the U.S. had said that they were “doomed to failure.” That, too, seems increasingly likely to have been false (that it was “doomed to failure”). (And any such pretended foresight is also a lie when it comes from an official source such as a government. It was mere propaganda.)

Instead of the mainstream U.S. press reporting that the U.S. Government lied there (and this Government does it routinely, because the ‘press’ never report that a lie by the President is  a lie), only a small number of only non-mainstream sites, all online-only, picked up anything from this stunning press conference, regarding any of the important and much-discussed issues that it addressed; and the first such site to do so was a fundamentalist Christian one, which is obsessively pro-Israel, and generally hard-rightwing Republican. Bridget Johnson at PJ Media headlined, on the same day as the press conference (the only site to report at all upon it that day, November 18th), “ISIS Oil Tankers Hit for First Time – With 45-Minute Warning.” This was an admirable reporting coup (though it wasn’t really “for First Time,” since Russian bombers  had already done it), because it covered all of the main points, including the shocking admissions by Mr. Warren. Her news coup had over 1,400 reader-comments.

Paul Joseph Watson, at the generally conservative Republican site InfoWars, bannered on November 23rd, “WHITE HOUSE GAVE ISIS 45 MINUTE WARNING BEFORE BOMBING OIL TANKERS,” and he placed these matters honestly into their geostrategic context, of the Obama Administration’s placing a higher priority upon defeating Russia than defeating jihadism. As is so often the case with the terrific journalist Watson, he penetrated deeply into these matters, and was not at all shy to acknowledge, for example, the following stark contrast, which U.S. ‘news’ media hide:

Compare the Obama White House’s approach to fighting ISIS to that of Russia.

While it took the U.S. fifteen months to even begin targeting ISIS’ oil refineries and tankers, air strikes by Moscow destroyed more than 1,000 tankers in a period of just five days.

In comparison, Col. Steve Warren said that the U.S. had taken out only 116 tanker trucks, the “first strike” to target ISIS’ lucrative black market oil business, which funds over 50 per cent of the terror group’s activities.

So: this, too, like Bridget Johnson’s report, was honest and first-rate news-reporting, from another non-mainstream Republican site. (Note, however, that the mainstream  Republican news-sites, such as Fox News, Wall Street Journal, and Rush Limbaugh, were no more forthcoming on this matter than all of the Democratic Party sites were.) 

The aristocracy’s control over all the mainstream ‘news’ is ironclad — and this includes the political magazines, such as National Review, and The Nation;  as well as ‘intellectual’ magazines, such as Harpers  and The Atlantic.  American ‘news’ media stifle democracy in America; they’re not part of  democracy, in America. They’re like poison that’s presented as being ‘medicine’ instead. Suckers don’t just swallow it; they come back for more of that propaganda.

The next day, November 23rd, “Tyler Durden,” the pseudonymous genius behind his own Zero Hedge blog, headlined “‘Get Out Of Your Trucks And Run Away’: US Gives ISIS 45 Minute Warning On Oil Tanker Strikes,” and he reported using some of the same sources as the others, but supplementing it with additional good sources. He had around 400 reader-comments.

In addition, there were some trashy news-reports at far-right Republican sites, such as one, on November 19th, crediting Bridget Johnson’s news report the day before as its source, “The Obamization of the military, pt. 243.” This was by J.R. Dunn, at the fundamentalist Republican, American Thinker, blog. He pretended that Obama was being bad here because Obama was too concerned to avoid bloodshed: “You see, the important thing isn’t hurting ISIS. No – the important thing is not hurting civilians.” Picking up from the standard Republican meme that torture should be used against ‘bad people’ in order for ‘good people’ to be kept safe, and that civilians in ‘enemy’ nations are okay to be victims of American military attacks, Dunn took Bridget Johnson’s news-report merely as confirmation of his own bigotries and hatreds. He had about 150 reader-comments. Typical was this one: “The Left in America has known that in order to succeed with their agenda the US military had to be infiltrated, compromised, and weakened.” For such suckers, the ‘source’ of America’s problems wasn’t America’s aristocracy; it was America’s Democrats.

On November 24th, Michael Morell, Obama’s CIA Director during 2011-2013, said on the trashy PBS Charlie Rose show (hosted by Mr. Rose, who is such an incompetent interviewer that he’s beloved by aristocrats for his reliably softball interviews), “We didn’t go after oil wells, actually hitting oil wells that ISIS controls, because we didn’t want to do environmental damage, and we didn’t want to destroy that infrastructure.” Of course, Mr. Rose avoided drilling down there to find out why the U.S. Government treats jihadists as being such a minor matter — especially after all of the environmental damage the U.S. routinely does in its invasions, such as the depleted uranium that contaminates today’s Iraq, from the U.S. attacks. And, of course, almost all of the news-media that picked up on that stunning admission from Obama’s former CIA Director, were Republican sites, such as Daily Caller, Washington Times, Breitbart, Real Clear Politics, and American Thinker. In addition, there were a few high quality journalistic sites reporting it, such as Zero Hedge, The Hill, The Economic Collapse, and Moon of Alabama. In other words: only very few Americans came to know about this jaw-dropping stunning admission from an Obama official — and most who did were people who hate Obama for his being such things as ‘against torture’ (in other words: Republican stooges of the aristocracy). 

Basically, in America, only marginal, and mainly right-wing, audiences were being informed even badly, regarding the sensational things that were revealed — and in some instances proudly  revealed — at the November 18th DOD press conference, and also in the November 24th TV interview of Morell. What is traditionally viewed as being America’s “news media” were entirely absent from their job of reporting even one of these two important statements by U.S. Government officials. And none of the news-reports on that astounding DOD press conference, and of that Morell interview, reached Democratic Party voters at all. Republicans hate Obama because he’s a communist Islamic Kenyan, while Democrats love Obama because the wacko Republican Party lies about him constantly and because Obama is to the left of those blithering wackos.

A press like this makes it impossible for there to be intelligent, informed, rather than misinformed and/or stupid, voting in national political elections in the United States.

Perhaps the biggest scandal in America is its rigid aristocratically controlled ‘press,’ which is really nothing more than a whored propaganda-operation that’s run by and for the nation’s aristocracy. The owners of America’s ‘news’ media know that the way for the press to make money in this type of dictatorship is to sell to the aristocrats’ corporations access to the public, and to ‘report’ only ‘news’ that the corporate sponsors don’t mind the public’s knowing about.

So: this is how the public get suckered, in America.

It wouldn’t be so bad if the American Government didn’t hypocritically claim to be a ‘democracy.’ That’s just piling it on, with a shovel.

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of  CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

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By Kit O’Connell Axis of Logic / Mint Press News Wednesday, Dec 23, 2015 Representatives of Daesh insist that they aren’t deliberately selling oil to Israel, but the “black gold” ends up there nonetheless, while millions continue to line the terrorist group’s pockets. It’s widely recognized that Daesh (the Arabic acronym for the terrorist group often called IS, ISIS or ISIL in the West) depends on oil sales to fuel its armies. Until recently, it’s been less clear who is buying Daesh’s oil, and how it ends up in their hands. However, recent reports suggest that the oil flows to Europe and Asia through a complex process that implicates allies of the United States like Turkey and Israel. The U.S. is also facing increasing criticism for its failure to target the terrorist group’s oil infrastructure in a serious way until recently. Cam Simpson and Matthew Philips, writing in November for Bloomberg Businessweek, called recent U.S. attacks on oil trucks an attempt by the Obama administration to “quietly” fix a “colossal miscalculation.” Government experts now argue that the U.S. dramatically underestimated Daesh’s oil profits: “The Obama administration ‘misunderstood the [oil] problem at first (sic), and then they wildly overestimated the impact of what they did,’ says Benjamin Bahney, an international policy analyst at the Rand Corp., a U.S. Department of Defense-funded think tank, where he helped lead a 2010 study on [Daesh’s] finances and back-office operations based on captured ledgers.” U.S. intelligence officials now believe Daesh is making at least $500 million from oil sales each year, $400 million more than previous official estimates. “You have to go after the oil, and you have to do it in a serious way, and we’ve just begun to do that now,” Bahney told Bloomberg. Officials also cited potential civilian casualties to explain their reluctance to go after truckers transporting oil from Daesh-controlled territories. That reluctance apparently ended on Nov. 16, when the U.S. destroyed 116 oil trucks after airplanes “first dropped leaflets warning drivers to scatter.” Reluctance to harm civilians hasn’t prevented the U.S. from creating high civilian death tolls on other fronts of the “global war on terror.” In August, Airwars, a coalition of independent journalists, estimated that at least 459 civilians had been killed in U.S. airstrikes on Daesh, and those numbers are continuing to rise, with the group’s most conservative estimate of civilian casualties now standing at least 682. Additionally, U.S. drone strikes have proven especially ineffective, hitting more civilians than members of al-Qaida, according to a September report from the United Nations. Recent developments suggest that U.S. allies directly benefit from the flow of cheap terrorist oil and, given the United States’ role in the creation of Daesh, this could suggest that the reluctance to target Daesh’s oil profits prior to the Paris attacks may be motivated by self-interest. How ISIS Oil Reaches Israel [dropcap]O[/dropcap]n Nov. 26, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, a London-based media outlet focusing on the Arabic world, published a detailed investigation tracing Daesh’s oil from the massive oilfields in Iraq and Syria to refineries in Israel, where it’s ultimately exported to Europe. The enormous scale of Daesh’s oil production infrastructure in the Middle East is further evidence of the importance of energy exports to the group. The oil is first extracted from captured oil fields: “IS oil production in Syria is focused on the Conoco and al-Taim oil fields, west and northwest of Deir Ezzor, while in Iraq the group uses al-Najma and al-Qayara fields near Mosul. A number of smaller fields in both Iraq and Syria are used by the group for local energy needs. According to estimates based on the number of oil tankers that leave Iraq, in addition to al-Araby’s sources in the Turkish town of Sirnak on the border with Iraq, through which smuggled oil transits, IS is producing an average of 30,000 barrels a day from the Iraqi and Syrian oil fields it controls.” Unfortunately, like many reports on the topic, many of Al-Araby’s sources remain anonymous for their own safety. A member of the Iraqi intelligence services informed the reporters about the complex path the oil takes, traveling in dozens of tankers at a time into Zahko, a city controlled by Iraqi Kurds near the border with Turkey: “After [Daesh] oil lorries arrive in Zakho – normally 70 to 100 of them at a time – they are met by oil smuggling mafias, a mix of Syrian and Iraqi Kurds, in addition to some Turks and Iranians,” the colonel continued.” The gangs compete in sometimes deadly bidding wars to purchase and smuggle the oil onto the next stage, and “[t]he highest bidder pays between 10 and 25 percent of the oil’s value in cash — US dollars — and the remainder is paid later, according to the colonel.” These “oil mafias” then bring the product to rudimentary refineries for simple processing from crude into oil, “because Turkish authorities do not allow crude oil to cross the border if it is not licensed by the Iraqi government,” the colonel explained. Kurdish Smugglers and Turkish elite transport Daesh’s oil Kurdish fuel trucks are seen in northern Iraq. (photo by REUTERS/Azad Lashkari) Al-Araby’s sources reported that from Turkey the oil flows through three ports — Mersin, Dortyol and Ceyhan — into Israel. And from Israel, the oil seeps into Europe: “According to a European official at an international oil company who met with al-Araby in a Gulf capital, Israel refines the oil only ‘once or twice’ because it does not have advanced refineries. It exports the oil to Mediterranean countries – where the oil “gains a semi-legitimate status” – for $30 to $35 a barrel.” Reports also suggests that Daesh’s oil is not just passing through Turkish soil on its way to Israel, but also being aided in its journey by the country’s elite. A July investigation by AWD News accused Bilal Erdoğan, son of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, of owning one of the maritime companies responsible for shipping this contraband oil: “Bilal Erdoğan who owns several maritime companies, had allegedly signed contracts with European operating companies to carry Iraqi stolen oil to different Asian countries. Turkish government unwittingly supports ISIS by buying Iraqi plundered oil which is being produced from the Iraqi sized oil wells. Bilal Erdoğan’s maritime companies own special wharfs in Beirut and Ceyhan ports transporting [Daesh]’s smuggled crude oil in Japan-bound oil tankers.” However, an anonymous writer on ZeroHedge, an economic news website, noted on Nov. 30 that while Bilal Erdoğan does seem to be moving Kurdish oil in his tankers, “we’ve yet to come across conclusive evidence of Bilal’s connection to [Daesh].” In a Nov. 19 investigation, international security scholar and journalist Nafeez Ahmed, documented the mounting evidence of direct ties between Turkey and Daesh, noting that a Turkish daily reported that Daesh fighters had 100,000 fake Turkish passports, a number the U.S. Army’s Foreign Studies Military Office reported was likely exaggerated even as it corroborated reports of the flow of fake passports. Digging further, Ahmed cites a number of other credible reports, from a November Newsweek report that Daesh “sees Turkey as an ally,” to accusations of oil sales in Turkey from June 2014 by a member of Turkey’s opposition party, and leaked Turkish-language documents that show Saudi royalty shipped weapons to Daesh through Turkey. An August report from Financial Times supports Al-Araby’s assertion that massive quantities of oil flow through the hands of Kurdish sellers into Israel. According to David Sheppard, John Reed and Anjli Raval, “Israel turns to Kurds for three-quarters of its oil supplies”. They allege that Israel purchased about $1 billion in oil from the sellers between May and August of 2015. In his analysis of the flow of oil, Shadowproof’s Dan Wright noted that Daesh seems “embarrassed” by the reports of oil sales to Israel. Al-Araby reported that “someone close to [Daesh]” reported via Skype: ‘To be fair, the organisation sells oil from caliphate territories but does not aim to sell it to Israel or any other country,’ he said. ‘It produces and sells it via mediators, then companies, who decide whom to sell it to.’” Even without the potential ties to Daesh, Kurdish oil trading has proven controversial. The Iraqi government is struggling to put an end to the trade that they claim circumvents deals that were made to limit sales, while Kurdish officials claim the sales are necessary to maintain their financial independence. Iraq’s leaders are also threatening lawsuits against maritime shipping companies that accept Kurdish oil. Russia weighs in on Erdogan oil smuggling [dropcap]W[/dropcap]hen Turkey shot down a Russian jet on Nov. 24, Russia responded by claiming the jet had been involved in an anti-terror mission targeting Daesh’s oil transportation infrastructure near the Turkey-Syria border: “According to a press release from Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, [Sergei] Lavrov pointed out that, ‘by shooting down a Russian plane on a counter-terrorist mission of the Russian Aerospace Force in Syria, and one that did not violate Turkey’s airspace, the Turkish government has in effect sided with [Daesh].” … The Russian Minister reminded his counterpart about Turkey’s involvement in the [Daesh’s] illegal trade in oil, which is transported via the area where the Russian plane was shot down, and about the terrorist infrastructure, arms and munitions depots and control centers that are also located there,”   Russian warplanes attacked oil extraction, transport and refinement facilities in areas controlled by ISIS militants. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service) Further complicating the tense international incident, WikiLeaks noted that a pseudonymous whistleblower on Twitter known as Fuat Avni claimed in October that Turkish President Erdogan was considering shooting down a Russian jet plane in order to leverage the resulting international tensions to boost his popularity both before and after recent elections. RT reported that on Dec. 2, Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov offered what he claimed was “proof concerning the illegal oil trade by [Daesh] and Ankara’s ties to it”: “‘According to our data, the political leadership of the country [Turkey], including President Erdogan and his family, is involved in this criminal business,’ Antonov told the journalists in Moscow.” Watch “Erdogan & his family involved in ISIS oil trade – Russian MoD” from RT: Erdogan & his family involved in ISIS oil trade – Russian MoD The defense minister also offered satellite images showing three routes the oil takes through Turkey. On Dec. 1, Newsweek reported Erdogan offered to resign if Russia could prove ties between his government and Daesh. But in his presentation of evidence, Lavrov said he doubted the promise: “The Turkish leadership, particularly Erdogan, won’t resign and won’t acknowledge anything even if their faces will be smeared with the stolen oil.” On Dec. 5, RT reported on the United States’ reluctance to acknowledge the involvement of Turkey, its ally in the region, in smuggling Daesh’s oil into Europe: “‘[O]ur colleagues from the State Department and the Pentagon have confirmed that the photo-proof, which we presented at a briefing [on December 2], of the origin and destination of the stolen oil, coming from the areas controlled by the terrorists, is authentic,’ Major General Igor Konashenkov, a [Russian] Defense Ministry spokesman, told a media briefing on Saturday. ‘However, the U.S. claim that they ‘don’t see the border crossings with tanker trucks crossing the border,’ raises a smile, if only, because the photos are still images,’ he added.” Konashenkov suggested the U.S. had too much to lose from accusing one of its own allies in the fight against Daesh of financially supporting the terrorist group: “So when US officials claim that they do not see oil smuggled by terrorists to Turkey, this is already not dodging the issue, but smacks of a direct patronage.” In November, John Pilger, an award-winning foreign affairs journalist, wrote an incisive analysis of Daesh for WikiLeaks, where he argued that Daesh can only be defeated through support for the traditional enemies of the United States, and a confrontation with some of our closest regional allies: “The only effective opponents of [Daesh] are accredited demons of the west — Syria, Iran, Hezbollah. The obstacle is Turkey, an ‘ally’ and a member of NATO, which has conspired with the CIA, MI6 and the Gulf medievalists to channel support to the Syrian ‘rebels,’ including those now calling themselves [Daesh]. Supporting Turkey in its long-held ambition for regional dominance by overthrowing the Assad government beckons a major conventional war and the horrific dismemberment of the most ethnically diverse state in the Middle East.”

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