La "Operación Mosul" huele a podrido por donde la miren,
chicos. Parece, más bien, una operación de mudanza: sacamos a los ISIS de
Mosul y los movemos al noreste de Siria, especialmente a Raqqa y a Deir Ezzor (en el mapa de arriba, Ar Raqqah y Dayr Az Zawr, respectivamente). Morirán unos cuantos terroristas en la mudanza, claro, y ni qué decir de los civiles, pero en fin, lo importante es que el caos continúe, así (1) se sigue ejerciendo presión sobre Siria, (2) se parte a este último país en al menos dos pedazos, y (3) el Imperio puede decir que representa el orden. Va a ser interesante ver cómo reaccionarán los sirios, rusos, iraníes y el Hezbollá ante esta movida turística. Alguien dijo por ahí que habría acuerdos para que el Imperio maneje lo que está al Este del Eufrates, mientras que los rusos hacen lo propio con lo que está al Oeste. Veremos. Leemos en el sitio web Moon of Alabama:
Título: ISIS Moves To Syria Where Erdogan Still
Aims For Aleppo
Texto: The Iraqi army started a large operation to liberate Mosul from
Islamic State jihadists. But the forces, in total some 40,000, are still
several dozen kilometers away from the city limits. They will have to capture
several towns and villages and pass many IED obstacles before coming near to
the center and house to house fighting. It might take many month to eliminated
the last stay-behind ISIS cells in Mosul.
About one million civilians live in Mosul. Many, many more than in east-Aleppo. Many of
them were sympathetic with the new overlords when ISIS stormed in two years
ago. French, American, Kurdish, Iraqi and Turkish artillery are pounding them
now. Airstrikes attack even the smallest fighting position. When the city will
be conquered it will likely be destroyed. The imminent fight over Mosul might
be the reason why John Kerry dialed down his hypocritical howling over
east-Aleppo in Syria which is under attack from Syrian and Russian forces.
The attack on Mosul proceeds on three axes. From the north Kurdish
Peshmerga under U.S. special force advisors lead the fighting. Iraqi forces
attack from the east and south. The way to the west, towards Syria, is open.
The intend of the U.S. is to let ISIS fighters, several thousand of them, flee
to Deir Ezzor and Raqqa in Syria. They are needed there to further destroy the
Syrian state.
We pointed out here that this move will
create the "Salafist principality" the U.S. and its allies have
striven to install in east-Syria since 2012. The "mistake" of the
U.S. bombing of Syrian army positions in Deir Ezzor was in support of that plan. Other
commentators finally catch up with that conclusion.
The Turks are openly talking about such an escape plan for ISIS in Mosul.
The Turkish news agency Anadolu published this
"sensitive" operations plan. Point 4 says:
"An escape corridor into Syria will be left for Daesh so they can vacate
Mosul"
Two points in the Turkish plan will not come true:
· * The Iraqi government has ordered that no Turkish troops take part in the
Mosul operation and will designate them as enemies should they try.
·
* * The Sunni "Nineveh Guard", trained by Turkey, paid by the Saudis
and led by the former Anbar governor Atheel al-Nujaifi, will also be excluded.
It was the Saudi proxy al-Nujaifi who practically handed Anbar over to ISIS
by ordering his troops to flee when ISIS attacked. He and his Saudi and Turkish
sponsors want to create an independent Sunni statelet in west Iraq just like
the Kurds created their own entity within north Iraq.
The U.S. hopes that the influx of ISIS fighters into Syria will keep the
Russians and Iranians trapped in the "quagmire" Obama prescribed and
finally destroy the Syrian state. It seems to have mostly given up on other
plans. The U.S. military now acknowledges that fighting the
Russian air defense in Syria would be a real challenge:
"It’s not like we’ve had any shoot at an F-35,” the official said of
the next-generation U.S. fighter jet. “We’re not sure if any of our aircraft can defeat the S-300.”
There is a "no-fly zone" over west-Syria and it is the Russians
who control it. All U.S. and Turkish talk about such a zone is moot. The Obama
administration has for now also given up on other plans. The recent National
Security Council meeting deferred on further decisions:
Consideration of other alternatives, including the shipment of arms to
U.S.-allied Kurdish forces in Syria, and an increase in the quantity and
quality of weapons supplied to opposition fighters in Aleppo and elsewhere,
were deferred until later, officials said. U.S. military action to stop Syrian
and Russian bombing of civilians was even further down the list of
possibilities.
The only U.S. "hope" for its Syria plans is now the facilitation
of another ISIS influx. That and the CIA coordinated actions of its allies. The
Saudis Foreign Minister announced that his country will
increase weapons flow to its al-Qaeda proxies in Syria. The "rebels"
are still receiving TOW anti-tank missiles
and other heavy weapons.
Turkish proxy forces, some Syrians, some "Turkmen" from Chechnya
and elsewhere, have taken Dabiq from ISIS. The village is said to become a
focal point of a future apocalyptic Christian-Muslim battle. A lot of
"western" commentators pointed to that as a reason why ISIS would
fight for it. But that battle is only predicted for the period after the return
of the Mahdi which has not been announced. The current ideological value of
Dabiq is therefore low and, like in Jarablus, ISIS cooperated well and moved
out before the Turkish proxies moved in.
The Russians had allowed Turkey to enter Syria only within a limit of some
15 kilometers south of the Turkish border. Heavy artillery would have to stay
on the Turkish side. The sole original purpose of the Turkish invasion was to
prevent a Kurdish corridor from the eastern Kurdish areas in Syria to Afrin in
the west. Such a corridor would have limited ISIS access to Turkey.
The Kurdish corridor has been prevented and ISIS access to Turkish
controlled areas and Turkey itself is as open as ever. The Turkish military sees this as sufficient for
its aims:
Taking control of Dabiq had eliminated the threat to Turkey from rockets
fired by the jihadists, the Turkish Armed Forces said in a written statement.
The Turkish military wants to halt the operation. But Erdogan and his
proxies forces want to go further south and west to attack the Syrian army
encirclement of east-Aleppo:
President Tayyip Erdogan's spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said on Sunday Dabiq's
liberation was a "strategic and symbolic victory" against Islamic
State.
He told Reuters it was important strategically that the Turkey-backed
forces continue their advance toward the Islamic State stronghold of al-Bab.
To move to al-Bab Turkish artillery, with its units relying on conscripts,
would have to move south of the Turkish-Syrian border. Any attack on them by
the Syrian or Russian forces would thus become legal. Kurdish guerilla would be
a constant threat. This explains the new split between the Turkish military and
political forces. It will be interesting to watch how that dispute develops.
For Thursday the Russian command announced a unilateral temporary ceasefire
in east-Aleppo to let the Jihadis move out. British and other special forces,
said to be embedded with al-Qaeda, will be happy for the chance to leave.
In Iraq some Shia militia are moving towards Tal Afar to cut of the ISIS
path to the west. Russia promised to take political and military measures should it detect an ISIS
move. In east-Syria the Russian and Syrian air-forces, Hizbullah and more Shia
militia from Iraq are now preparing surprises for the expected ISIS influx from
Mosul. How much can they risk when the U.S. provides further air-support for
the ISIS move?
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