Analysis: Russian airstrikes stop NATO’s terrorist convoys in their tracks
Oil trucks destroyed by Russian airstrikes in Syria.
For years, NATO has granted impunity to convoys packed with supplies bound for ISIS and Al Qaeda. Russian airstrikes have stopped them dead in their tracks. If a legitimate, well-documented aid convoy carrying humanitarian supplies bound for civilians inside Syria was truly destroyed by Russian airstrikes, it is likely the world would never have heard the end of it.
Instead, much of the world has heard little at all about a supposed “aid” convoy destroyed near Azaz, Syria, at the very edge of the Afrin-Jarabulus corridor through which the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) and Al Qaeda’s remaining supply lines pass, and in which NATO has long-sought to create a “buffer zone” more accurately described as a Syrian-based, NATO-occupied springboard from which to launch terrorism deeper into Syrian territory.
The Turkish-based newspaper Daily Sabah reported in its article, “Russian airstrikes target aid convoy in northwestern Syrian town of Azaz, 7 killed,” claims:
“At least seven people died, 10 got injured after an apparent airstrike, reportedly by Russian jets, targeted an aid convoy in northwestern Syrian town of Azaz near a border crossing with Turkey on Wednesday.”
Daily Sabah also reported:
“Speaking to Daily Sabah, Serkan Nergis from the Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH) said that the targeted area is located some 5 kilometers southwest of the Öncüpınar Border Crossing.”
Nergis said that IHH has a civil defense unit in Azaz and they helped locals to extinguish the trucks. Trucks were probably carrying aid supplies or commercial materials, Nergis added.
Daily Sabah’s report also reveals that the Turkish-Syrian border crossing of Oncupinar is held by what it calls “rebels.” The border crossing of Oncupinar should be familiar to many as it was the scene of Germany’s international broadcaster Deutsche Welle’s (DW) investigative report where DW camera crews videotaped hundreds of trucks waiting at the border, bound for ISIS territory, apparently with full approval of Ankara.
The report was published in November of 2014, a full year ago, and revealed precisely how ISIS has been able to maintain its otherwise inexplicable and seemingly inexhaustible fighting capacity. The report titled, “‘IS’ supply channels through Turkey,” included a video and a description which read:
“Every day, trucks laden with food, clothing, and other supplies cross the border from Turkey to Syria. It is unclear who is picking up the goods. The haulers believe most of the cargo is going to the “Islamic State” militia. Oil, weapons, and soldiers are also being smuggled over the border, and Kurdish volunteers are now patrolling the area in a bid to stem the supplies.”
The report, and many others like it, left many around the world wondering why, if the US is willing to carry out risky military operations deep within Syrian territory to allegedly “fight ISIS,” the US and its allies don’t commit to a much less riskier strategy of securing the Turkish-Syrian border within Turkey’s territory itself – especially considering that the United States maintains an airbase, training camps, and intelligence outposts within Turkish territory and along the very border ISIS supply convoys are crossing over.
Ideally, NATO should have interdicted these supply convoys before they even crossed over into Syria – arresting the drivers and tracking those who filled the trucks back to their source and arresting them as well. Alternatively, the trucks should have been destroyed either at the border or at the very least, once they had entered into Syria and were clearly headed toward ISIS-occupied territory.
That none of this took place left many to draw conclusions that the impunity granted to this overt logistical network was intentional and implicated NATO directly in the feeding of the very ISIS terrorists it claimed to be “fighting.”
Russia Steps In
Obviously, any nation truly interested in defeating ISIS would attack it at its very source – its supply lines. Military weaponry may have changed over the centuries, but military strategy, particularly identifying and severing an enemy’s supply lines is a tried and true method of achieving victory in any conflict.
Russia, therefore, would find these convoys a natural target and would attempt to hit them as close to the Syrian-Turkish border as possible, to negate any chance the supplies would successfully reach ISIS’ hands. Russian President Vladmir Putin noted, regarding the Azaz convoy in particular, that if the convoy was legitimately carrying aid, it would have been declared, and its activities made known to all nations operating military aircraft in the region.
The trucks hit in the recent airstrikes, just as they were during the DW investigation, were carrying concrete and steel, not “milk and diapers” as the West would lead audiences to believe. That the supplies were passing through a “rebel” controlled crossing means that the supplies were surely headed to “rebel” controlled territory – either Al Qaeda’s Al Nusra Front in the west, or ISIS in the east.
Russian airstrikes insured that the supplies reached neither. […]
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I’m not a huge cheerleader for Noam Chomsky, but he makes some great points few western intellectuals have been willing to address here about the Turkish government’s support for terrorists and suppression of its press:
http://www.todayszaman.com/diplomacy_chomsky-syrian-al-nusra-main-recipient-of-turkish-aid_404345.html
And this before PlaneGate, when bashing Russia was unquestionably the hip thing for any self-styled leftist to do.
The problem western governments have is their populations recognize Russia’s legitimacy. They may call it losing the propaganda war when it’s losing public support to continue the criminals acts they’ve been conducting. I think it may be a desperate act by politicians like Cameron to get their own countries involved [under instruction from the US and Israel], in the crazy hope once their troops are in Syria support will follow. But that’s to believe their own propaganda.
The UK no longer has a military strength and Cameron will drag us into defeat. If he makes the mistake of introducing a draft the working class of this country, who have long been mistreated, will fight against the government not for it.
Its difficould and hopeless to coment anything this days, Turkmen tribes, well, whom was living in that area Before the Turkmens ISIS came along, huh. This kinds of kooking the realitys is no even new, the same rethorical consensusses to make the situation diversifyed and to then use this diversifying as an exuse to make more lies about whats going on. And a lott of dissinfo is spreaded thrue out this days, so Il back out since I cant verify anything anymore. This Turkmen is fake, period. The Kurds arent even talke about, weird isnt it, Israel isnt talke about, weird isnt it, its THEIR backyard. Its to convinient this silence, to silent simply, and the MSM focus is sollely upon Russia and not a word about the rest as the Kurds, witch have all the time been helped and founded by the Imperial banana republic and Israel. Yea, the… Read more »
Yes.
Forget NATO – they have little or no role in any of this. The real movers and shakers behind all this is the Turks, who are bent on restoring the former Ottoman Empire. They are supported by the Saud, Qatar and Jordan “royal” families, who are also anti-Assad and anti-Iran (though they fail completely to understand Erdogan’s real imperialist agenda).
Even the once-mighty US has lost control over the ISIS terrorists they created, armed and trained.
It is Turkey which now calls the shots – literally in the case of shooting down a Russian bomber aircraft when it was engaged in bombing ethnic Turkmen separatists on the Turkey/Syrian border.
John, you’re certainly right about Erdogan’s long-term ambitions – no-one can deny that his aims are imperialist and he’s fed the growth of Islamism in Turkey – but I don’t agree that the US is now subordinate to Turkey’s interests in the region. Check out this piece of news: after the shooting of the Russian plane, Turkey suddenly stopped violating Greek airspace for the first time in many years.
https://www.rt.com/news/323861-turkey-greek-airspace-violations/
I don’t think Turkey suddenly decides to swallow its pride and make that decision on its own – that strikes me as American strong-arming, in case Greece decides to call out Turkey’s hypocrisy. If it became widely known that one NATO member’s planes make daily hostile sorties into another’s airspace and are intercepted rather than shot down, it would be highly embarrassing.
If you are honest, you are guessing at Turkey’s motivation to ceasing encroachment on Greek air space. My guess would be that Turkey has enough on their plate with the dispute with Russia, which has now stopped 3,000,000 Russian tourists from visiting Turkey annually – that must really hurt Turkey’s economy! I also guess that the US has lost control over their “tame” ISIS terrorists, just like they did in Afghanistan – where the Pakistan military ISIS (Inter-Service Intelligence) ended up calling the shots with the Mujahideen/Taliban). What the US and all the other regional dumb clucks have failed to realise is that Turkey holds the absolute whip hand where ISIS is concerned, and THE agenda item for them is restoration of their former Ottoman Empire. We now have a truly bizarre situation in which EU countries (including Britain to the tune of £400 million) are paying Turkey £2 billion… Read more »
Europe will never go back to a pre-1914 position, and Erdogan knows this. The age of empires is over, so is the age of colonialism. The name of the game today is cultural and economic hegemony, Erdogan is taking all his cues from American multinational capitalism. Same thing with Germany – they control Europe, not through force, but because they’re Europe’s most neoliberal state. A half-century under what effectively amounted to American control, fighting “the reds,” will do that to you. This is why Erdogan hasn’t actually invaded any countries – his policy has been to achieve Turkish foreign policy through soft power, promoting Turkey in its former colonies in the Middle East and Europe, spending billions of dollars to rehabilitate the Ottoman Empire and ensure denial of the Armenian and Assyrian genocide, and to present Turkey as a modern, democratic, western state (it isn’t) in the west, and as… Read more »
Investigate the Banks, NGO, Corporations and Governments through “International Transparent Forensic Accounting” and you find the money sources that feed ISIS.
There are certain US government officials that know about the money trail that leads all the way back to the US taxpayer. These dark officials need to be flushed out to expose the lies that are being told by the US Government and its Allies.
Now, what was it that Victoria Nuland said about the EU……………………..?????????????????
Re-blogged this on EU: Ramshackle Empire (private blog).
Photograph is from Afghanistan, July 2014 – Oil tankers in Kabul destroyed by Taliban raiders.
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/07/05/taliban-destroys-hundreds-oil-tankers-fueling-usnato-war
I am grateful to this blog for bringing this information to an ex-guardian reader like me, who has been fed a diet of lies about what is really going on in Syria.
The existence of independent bloggers has really been instrumental in stripping away the curtain behind which is truly evil governments hide.
NATO which is the US and its vassals in Europe created and feed Isis. They don’t care that it has killed Iraqi and Syrian people, they just blame Assad!!!
It is the truly sickening how the MSM maintains the pretence that they are fighting isis, when stories like this reveal the opposite.
They don’t leave the hotel. The journalists
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blockquote>Copper briefed Boot as follows: “A few sharp victories, some conspicuous acts of personal bravery on the Patriot side and a colourful entry into the capital. That is The Beast policy for the war… We shall expect the first victory about the middle of July.”<\blockquote>
Evelyn Waugh – Scoop