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The Turkish-Russian War

When I wrote yesterday’s analysis of the Turkish-Russian disagreement, I had not read the Debka File’s recent reports. Their analysis not only confirms what I wrote, but tell us that the Turkish-Russian war has already started, although it is still an undeclared war being fought on Syrian soil.

The Russian passenger jet was shot down in the northern Sinai on October 31. Fulford reported that it had been shot down by the Israelis, but ISIS took credit for it. The Russians apparently believe ISIS, because they began to bomb ISIS more heavily than before, and I see no evidence that Putin is angry with the Israelis over that incident.

But after Turkey shot down the Russian bomber in Syrian territory, the Russians have been bombing everything Turkish that moves in Syria, cutting off ISIS’ main supply route. More than 500 tank trucks hauling oil from ISIS-controlled oil fields into Turkey, by which they are funded, have been destroyed. Wounded ISIS terrorists are not even able to go to Turkey for hospital treatment any more.

Most important, after Russia deployed its advanced S-300 and S-400 anti-aircraft missile to Syria, Turkey knows that its planes would surely be shot down if they dared to enter Syria. That is the new reality. So Turkey’s warplanes have stopped flying into Syrian airspace, so they no longer bomb the Kurds who are fighting ISIS. As long as the Turkish air force stays in Turkey and is willing to stay out of Syria, they might avoid an open war.

Debka ran an article yesterday with the headline: Russia bombs every Turkish target in Syria. The article begins:

Turkey suspended its flights over Syria as part of its partnership with the US for air strikes against the Islamic State. According to DEBKAfile’s military sources, Ankara decided to avoid the risk of being shot down by the highly advanced Russian S-300 and S-400 anti-air missile systems newly deployed to Syria.

http://www.debka.com/article/25046/Turkey-suspends-flights-over-Syria-Russia-launches-electronic-warfare-against-Ankara

The problem is that if someone, somewhere wants to start a war, it is now much easier to do so, because the tinder is very dry and needs only a small spark to explode.

 DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources report that since Wednesday night, Nov. 25, Russian heavy bombers and warplanes have been hitting every Turkish vehicle moving or stationary inside Syria.

They bombed the Bab al-Hawa border crossing, located on the Turkey-Syria frontier, as well trailers and tractors parked in an area belonging to the Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation, on the Syrian side of the border.

It was this group (a terrorist association in disguise) that five years ago organized a flotilla to break Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip. The lead-ship the Marmora was boarded by Israeli troops and 12 “aid workers” were killed in a clash, an incident that sparked a major clash between Ankara and Jerusalem. Erdogan then insisted he had never heard of the organization although their strong links were uncovered.

Putin has made no allegations. He simply sent his bombers to destroy the organization's vehicles and plough up their parking area on the Syrian side of the border. He also refuses to take calls from Erdogan.

All these circumstances are features of a very active war waged between the two countries - albeit on Syrian soil - since Turkish warplanes downed the Russian Su-24….

His bombers are not only settling accounts with Erdogan, but continuing to attack the Syrian rebel groups which received military aid from the US, France, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Israel, both in northern Syria and also in the south, only a few kilometers from Syria’s borders with Israel and Jordan.

With trade relations suspended between the two nations, Debka says,

More than 1,000 trucks loaded with Turkish farm produce and industrial products for the Russian market are stuck at the Georgian-Russian border.

These quotes are all from the same link given earlier.

To end this war, both sides are demanding apologies from the other side. It is not likely that either will comply. Presidents of nations never apologize unless they are forced to do so, usually by being beaten in a hot war. So Turkey has to decide if it still wants to help ISIS or not. It has to decide if it wants to continue its war against the Kurds in Syria and Iraq. If they don’t back out quickly, they risk a hot war with Russia, and if that happens, NATO will enter the war on Turkey’s side.

Let’s hope NATO doesn’t push Turkey into war. But after the Paris attack, and with the France-Italy-Russian coalition against ISIS, NATO is certainly divided in its Russian policy. It is more likely that Europe will move to end the Russian trade sanctions and snub the US government’s push for World War III.

Meanwhile, Russia is busy flattening Raqqa, the capital of the ISIS Caliphate, after ISIS claimed responsibility for downing the Russian airliner. Debka reported this on November 21.

Russia has launched a merciless blanket air campaign, backed by Kalibr cruise missiles fired from the Caspian and Mediterranean Seas, for the object of wiping the Islamic State’s Syrian center of Raqqa off the map, DEBKAfile’s military sources report.

Western and Middle East sources tracking the campaign since Friday, Nov. 20, report that at least 75 air sorties have been conducted and are systematically razing the town of 200,000 inhabitants 160km east of Aleppo, district by district, irrespective of civilian town dwellers.

Moscow wants the entire Middle East and Muslim world to see the price exacted for launching a terrorist attack on Russia after the downing of the Metrojet airliner that killed 224 people over Egyptian Sinai on Oct. 31. Russian bombers and cruise missiles rained death and destruction on the ISIS administration center after the jihadists claimed responsibility for that disaster and published photos of a soft drink can claimed to have been rigged as a bomb for blowing the plane up.

When the Russians are done, the town will be a pile of rubble, an intelligence source told DEBKAfile.

http://www.debka.com/article/25032/Massive-Russian-blanket-air-bombardment-is-flattening-Raqqa

Of course, the questions yet remains: Why didn’t the US planes bomb ISIS headquarters in Raqqa earlier?? If the US was as serious about fighting ISIS as the president claims, they would have done this a long time ago. The article continues:

Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported Friday that 15 Syrian oil facilities seized by ISIS had been destroyed this week and 525 of their trucks, costing the jihadists $1.5 million a day in revenue.

The main business of buying oil from ISIS is done by President Erdoğan’s son, Bilal. In January 2014 Bilal was caught meeting with a big Saudi fundraiser for al-Qaeda.

Turkey’s political crisis took a dark turn this week. Photos of Prime Minister Erdoğan’s son meeting a suspected al-Qaeda financier in an Istanbul hotel were leaked to the press. The photos allegedly show Bilal Erdoğan meeting Saudi Arabian businessman Yasin al-Qadi, whom the US blacklisted in April 2013 as an al-Qaeda funder. 

http://www.the-american-interest.com/2014/01/07/erdogans-son-caught-with-al-qaeda-financier/

F. William Engdahl writes about Bilal:

The prime source of money feeding ISIS these days is sale of Iraqi oil from the Mosul region oilfields where they maintain a stronghold. The son of Erdoğan it seems is the man who makes the export sales of ISIS-controlled oil possible.

Bilal Erdoğan owns several maritime companies. He has allegedly signed contracts with European operating companies to carry Iraqi stolen oil to different Asian countries. The Turkish government buys Iraqi plundered oil which is being produced from the Iraqi seized oil wells. Bilal Erdoğan’s maritime companies own special wharfs in Beirut and Ceyhan ports that are transporting ISIS’ smuggled crude oil in Japan-bound oil tankers….

Gürsel Tekin vice-president of the Turkish Republican Peoples’ Party, CHP, declared in a recent Turkish media interview, “President Erdoğan claims that according to international transportation conventions there is no legal infraction concerning Bilal’s illicit activities and his son is doing an ordinary business with the registered Japanese companies, but in fact Bilal Erdoğan is up to his neck in complicity with terrorism, but as long as his father holds office he will be immune from any judicial prosecution.” Tekin adds that Bilal’s maritime company doing the oil trades for ISIS, BMZ Ltd, is “a family business and president Erdoğan’s close relatives hold shares in BMZ and they misused public funds and took illicit loans from Turkish banks.”

Worse yet, President Erdoğan’s daughter runs a hospital where wounded ISIS terrorists are treated in Turkey, so that they can later rejoin the fight in Syria.

In addition to son Bilal’s illegal and lucrative oil trading for ISIS, Sümeyye Erdoğan, the daughter of the Turkish President apparently runs a secret hospital camp inside Turkey just over the Syrian border where Turkish army trucks daily being in scores of wounded ISIS Jihadists to be patched up and sent back to wage the bloody Jihad in Syria, according to the testimony of a nurse who was recruited to work there until it was discovered she was a member of the Alawite branch of Islam, the same as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad who Erdoğan seems hell-bent on toppling.

http://m.journal-neo.org/2015/08/24/erdogan-s-dirty-dangerous-isis-games/

Now that Russia has closed the supply line from Turkey to ISIS, it is probable that this hospital now has far fewer ISIS patients. Do I hear complaints from the Humanitarian Department? Earlier this month, no-nonsense Putin made the statement, “To forgive the terrorists is up to God, but to send them to Him is up to me.”

http://nation.foxnews.com/2015/11/17/putin-forgive-terrorists-god-send-them-him-me

Finally, it was reported yesterday that two journalists were arrested in Turkey for publishing the fact that Turkey was supplying arms to Syrian rebels.

Two prominent Turkish journalists were arrested on charges of "spying" and "revealing state secrets" after they published a story alleging that members of the state intelligence agency were sending weapons into Syria.

The Cumhuriyet newspaper's Editor-in-Chief Can Dundar and Ankara Bureau Chief Erdem Gul were placed in pre-trial detention after the court decision to charge them on Thursday night, Turkish media reported.

"Don't worry, this ruling is nothing but a badge of honour to us," Dundar told reporters and civil society representatives at the court before being taken into custody….

According to the Cumhuriyet, Turkish security forces in January 2014 intercepted a convoy of trucks near the Syrian border and discovered boxes of what the daily described as weapons and ammunition destined for rebels fighting against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The May report linked the seized trucks to an operation by the Turkish National Intelligence Organisation.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan denied the story, saying the trucks were carrying "humanitarian and logistics aid" to ethnic Turkmens in Syria. The revelations enraged the president, who vowed that Dundar would pay a "heavy price"….

The Cumhuriyet daily was awarded the media watchdog's 2015 Press Freedom Prize last week and Dundar travelled to Strasbourg to receive the award.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/11/turkey-arrests-journalists-revealing-state-secrets-151127062456674.html

This is what happens when journalists “reveal state secrets” that dictatorial governments do not want the public to know. I am waiting for President Obama to condemn these actions taken by the president of Turkey. Oh, wait, I just remembered what happened when Edward Snowden did this.

Anyway, thousands in Istanbul protested this arrest, as the NY Times reported yesterday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/28/world/europe/thousands-protest-arrest-of-2-turkish-journalists-on-spying-charges.html?_r=0

The Bottom Line: Personal

Thirty years ago I had a (rare) dream which revealed to me that I had a calling to Muslims. In the dream I was on a mission in Turkey at an unknown seaport. It was a time of revolution, for I saw violent clashes between demonstrators and police/military. I wonder if Turkey is sliding toward this chaos, and I wonder if the Turkish-Russian conflict will push alarmed Turks into protesting the president’s policies.

If so, this might also provide me with evidence that the time is drawing near for that dream to be fulfilled.