Reports emerged Monday that ISIS had been defeated in Raqqa, the Syrian city it claims as its capital, signaling a major victory in the years-long battle against the militant group and the near end to its self-declared caliphate. But already there are signs the post-ISIS battles are only beginning: In neighboring Iraq, government forces have recaptured Kirkuk, an oil-rich province that has been under Kurdish control since 2014, after beginning to move on the disputed region over the weekend. Iraqi government forces had retreated from Kirkuk in 2014 amid what seemed at the time to be ISIS’s unstoppable advance in northern Iraq. Kurdish forces known as the peshmerga quickly filled the void, taking control of the region that both the Kurdish government based in Erbil and the Iraqi national government based in Baghdad claim is rightfully theirs. (The Kurdistan Regional Government, .
US-allied forces have captured Syria's largest oil field from the Islamic State group. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who are in a race with Russian-backed Syrian government forces to seize parts of the oil-rich Deir el-Zour province, said they are in full control of the Al-Omar field. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said pro-government forces have retreated from the area around the oil field after coming under heavy fire from Islamic State militants. The SDF says government forces are two miles away from the oil fields. The Islamic State group has lost most of the territory it once held in Syria and neighbouring Iraq. Earlier this month, pro-government forces seized the town of Mayadeen, just across the Euphrates River. IS captured Al-Omar in 2014, when the group swept across large areas in Syria and neighbouring Iraq. The field was estimated to produce around 9,000 barrels
It finally happened… In accordance with an energy cooperation framework agreement signed in late January, Russia will have exclusive rights to produce oil and gas in Syria. The agreement goes significantly beyond that, stipulating the modalities of the rehabilitation of damaged rigs and infrastructure, energy advisory support, and training a new generation of Syrian oilmen. Still, the main international aspect and the key piece of this move is the final and unconditional consolidation of Russian interests in the Middle East. Before the onset of the blood-drenched Civil War, Syrian oil production wavered around 380,000 barrels per day. It has declined for some time then, since its all-time peak production rate of 677,000 barrels per day in 2002. Although the Islamic State was allegedly driven underground, the current output still stands at a devastating 14–15,000 barrels per day. As for gas, the production decline proved
The world was horrified yet again by gruesome images of Syrian children being torn to shreds by indiscriminate shelling and international media seems to have focused once again on the tragedy that is Syria. The conflict has intensified after Turkey launched Operation Olive Branch in the Kurdish-controlled Afrin district in Northern Syria. The operation began as Ankara fears the formation of a Kurdish corridor along its border. The war in Syria has raged on since 2011 and has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians, with nearly half the country’s population displaced. The recent Turkish ground and air offensive has widespread implications for Syria and for what has become a terminally unstable region. At the frontline in Northern Syria, the US and Turkey are heading into a tense face-off. A general in the US army commanding the coalition said,
“Peace with Honor” was President Nixon’s anodyne phrase for futzing around as long as possible in Vietnam to conceal the reality that the US military was getting its ass kicked by what we had initially thought was a 98-pound weakling of a Third World country. That was a half-century ago and I remember it now at age 106 thanks to my diet of kale and pepperoni sticks. Not ironically, the long struggle finally ended a few years after Nixon quit the scene, with the last straggling American evacuees waiting desperately for helicopter airlifts off the US embassy roof. And now, of course, Vietnam is a tourism hot-spot. And so just the other day, the latest POTUS declared (in his usual way) that “we’ll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon. Let the other people take care of it now.” The
pstarr wrote:The point is to destabilize the country, sell weapons to the new owners, and get a little crude ta boot
Plantagenet wrote:
So what is the point of the US war in Syria?
yellowcanoe wrote:Plantagenet wrote:
So what is the point of the US war in Syria?
Perhaps it is something along the lines of "If you have a hammer, everything is a nail!".
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 3 guests