Russians, Syrians and Iranians setting up military coordination cell in Baghdad
Lucas Tomlinson, Jennifer Griffin/FoxNews.com/September 25, 2015
EXCLUSIVE: Russian, Syrian and Iranian military commanders have set up a coordination cell in Baghdad in recent days to try to begin working with Iranian-backed Shia militias fighting the Islamic State, Fox News has learned.
Western intelligence sources say the coordination cell includes low-level Russian generals. U.S. officials say it is not clear whether the Iraqi government is involved at the moment.
Describing the arrival of Russian military personnel in Baghdad, one senior U.S. official said, “They are popping up everywhere.”
The Russians already have been building up their military presence in Syria, a subject expected to factor prominently in a planned meeting between President Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin in New York Monday on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.
While the U.S. also is fighting the Islamic State, the Obama administration has voiced concern that Russia’s involvement, at least in Syria, could have a destabilizing effect. Moscow, though, has fostered ties with the governments in both Syria and Iraq. In May, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi flew to Moscow for an official visit to discuss potential Russian arms transfers and shared intelligence capability, as well as the enhancement of security and military capabilities, according to a statement by the Iraqi prime minister’s office at the time.
Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani also was spotted in Baghdad on Sept 22. He met with Shia militias backed by Iran; intelligence officials believe he met with Russians as well. Meanwhile, a U.S. official described to Fox News how, over the weekend, the Russians were able to move 24 attack jets into Syria undetected. The Russian military flew 12 Sukhoi Su-25 “Frogfoot” and a dozen Sukhoi Su-24 “Fencer” attack aircraft in “tight formations” under the “steady stream” of the large Russian An-124 cargo planes that have been ferrying supplies from bases in Russia through Iran before traveling on to Syria, the official said. The large cargo planes appeared as “a big blip” on radar, but flying beneath them were “tight formations” of the smaller Russian fighter jets that used jamming pods and switched off their IFF, which would identify the aircraft to radar.
The large Russian cargo planes have the capability to fly directly from Russia to Syria, but the smaller attack aircraft do not.
“The Russian jets did not have the legs to make it directly from Russia to Syria, and needed a base to refuel,” said the official, who spoke to Fox News under the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose sensitive information. According to the Aviationist, the Russian cargo planes and fighter jets landed at an airbase in Hamadan, Iran, roughly halfway between Baghdad and Tehran on Sept 18-19. Fox News also has learned from U.S. military sources that the Russians have begun flying some of the Sukhoi fighter and attack jets from Bassel al-Assad airport, in Latakia, now a Russian forward operating base along the Mediterranean. The planes are not dropping bombs or conducting attack missions, but just flying around near the base, according to one official. The official also confirmed that Russian destroyers are in position off the Mediterranean coast. On Thursday, State Department spokesman John Kirby denied a U.S. intelligence failure led to U.S. officials being caught unaware of the two dozen Russian warplanes arriving in Syria.
“I can tell you that we’ve been watching this very, very closely … and we have not been ignorant of what the Russians have been doing,” said Kirby. Asked Thursday about Russia’s military involvement in Syria, Defense Secretary Ash Carter cautioned that without Russian support for a “political transition” in Damascus, it could “pour gasoline on the ISIL phenomenon rather than to lead to the defeat of ISIL.”
But just two days ago, Secretary of State John Kerry said the Russian build-up was consistent with defensive measures. “For the moment, it is the judgment of our military and most experts that the level and type represents basically force protection, a level of protection for their deployment to an airbase given the fact that it is in an area of conflict,” Kerry said at the State Department Tuesday. This week, former CIA director Gen. David Petraeus testified on Capitol Hill, warning that inaction in Syria carries risks for the United States. “Russia’s recent military escalation in Syria is a further reminder that when the U.S. does not take the initiative, others will fill the vacuum — often in ways that are harmful to our interests,” Petraeus said. Lucas Tomlinson is the Pentagon and State Department producer for Fox News Channel. You can follow him on Twitter: @LucasFoxNews
Jennifer Griffin currently serves as a national security correspondent for FOX News Channel . She joined FNC in October 1999 as a Jerusalem-based correspondent.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/09/25/russians-syrians-and-iranians-setting-up-military-coordination-cell-in-baghdad/
Palestinians: We Are the New Nazis
Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute/September 26/15
These are people behaving in a way that does not deserve being rewarded with anything, let alone a state. They far more resemble all tyrannical thugs throughout history who spend their lives telling other people how to live, and using violence, or threats of violence, to coerce anyone who does not agree. Sadly, we already have too much of that kind of muscling in our Arab and Muslim world, as Egypt’s forward-looking President, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, as well as many others, regularly point out.
We have now reached the same stage as Germany’s Nazis — the same thing, ironically, we falsely accuse the Jews of being — where the appearance of a Jew on a Palestinian television show is considered as an act of “treason” and a “crime.” In reality, it is we who are the New Nazis.
A Palestinian TV talk show host is facing strong condemnations and threats for hosting an Israeli Jewish singer who is extremely popular among Palestinian youths.
The condemnations expose the ugly face of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS), whose followers are vehemently opposed to any form of “normalization” between Palestinians and Israelis.
The BDS activists are demanding that those who brought the singer, Zvi Yehezkel, to the TV show in Ramallah be punished. The activists do not even seem to care that the singer supports peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
They are more bothered by the fact that a Palestinian TV station in Ramallah dared to invite a Jew to an interview. The BDS activists are also not ashamed to expose their anti-Semitism by expressing their outrage over the fact that Yehezkel is an observant Jew wearing a skullcap.
Judging from the angry reactions to the Yehezkel interview, one can only deduce that members of the BDS movement are a deeply antisemitic racists who hate Jews just because of their faith and appearance.
Dozens of Palestinians took to social media to hurl abuse at the Palestinian TV show and its presenters, calling them “traitors,” “spies,” “dogs” and “pigs.”
Palestinian artist Faten Kabha wrote that she decided to cancel an interview with the TV show “after it hosted a Jewish Zionist in the heart of Ramallah.”
The Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, a body dominated by Fatah activists in the West Bank, and several political groups also joined the bandwagon of denunciations over the Jewish singer’s appearance on a Palestinian TV show; and the “anti-normalization” activists are also targeting the five-star Grand Park Hotel in Ramallah for hosting the Jewish singer.
One of the leaders of the “anti-normalization” campaign, Fadi Arouri, demanded that the hotel distance itself from the TV show, which was recorded in one of its halls, or face being labeled advocates of “normalization” with Israel. It would seem he has more to worry about by being labeled a racist.
Arouri, on his Facebook page, lashed out at the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation and the hotel for bringing the Jewish singer to Ramallah. He threatened to add the hotel to the list of advocates of “normalization” with Israel, saying: “You will be fought against the same way we fight the occupation and its institutions.”
Arouri and his friends are also angry with the TV show for using Hebrew names of Israeli cities during the interview with Yehezkel, who lives in Ashkelon, and argued that the presenter should have used the Arabic name of Majdal instead of Ashkelon.
The Jewish singer is fortunate that Arouri and his friends did not know about his presence in Ramallah in real time, otherwise they would have attacked the TV studio and forced him to flee Ramallah, as these BDS activists have been doing for the past few years: violently breaking up meetings between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, and intimidating the participants like jackbooted thugs. These are people behaving in a way that does not deserve being rewarded with anything, let alone a state. They far more resemble all tyrannical thugs throughout history who spend their lives telling other people how to live, and using violence, or threats of violence, to coerce anyone who does not agree. Sadly, there already seems to be too much of that kind of muscling in our Arab and Muslim world, as Egypt’s forward-looking President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, as well as many others, regularly point out.
Palestinian “anti-normalization” activists disrupt an unofficial Israeli-Palestinian peace conference last year, in Jerusalem’s Ambassador Hotel.
The public outcry over a Jewish singer’s appearance on a Palestinian TV talk show is yet another reminder of how we Palestinians have made ourselves intolerable to Israelis, even to those who are sympathetic to our cause and believe in peace and coexistence.
The campaign on social media against the singer and the TV show also provides proof of increasingly racist sentiments among our people. We automatically dismiss anyone wearing a kippa because we assume he is a “settler” who hates Arabs and Muslims. It is embarrassing to read many of the comments posted by Palestinian activists concerning the singer’s religion and kippa. With such attitudes, how can we ever make peace with Israel? If hosting a Jewish singer on a Palestinian TV talk show has drawn such fierce opposition and denunciations, what will happen the day any Palestinian leader signs a peace treaty with our Jewish neighbors?
How many times have Palestinians appeared in the Israeli media during the past few decades? Has anyone ever heard of such protests by Israeli Jews? Israeli media outlets have even been conducting interviews with some of Israel’s worst enemies, including Palestinians who mercilessly killed innocent Jews. Still, we never saw disgusting and racist reactions like the ones posted on social media after the interview with the Jewish singer.
Over the years, we have taught our people to hate not only Israel, but Jews as well — as is already cemented in the Hamas charter. We have done this through incitement in mosques, media outlets and public rhetoric. We have now reached the same stage as Germany’s Nazis — the same thing, ironically, we falsely accuse the Jews of being — where our people consider the appearance of a Jew on a Palestinian TV show an act of “treason” and a “crime.” In reality, it is we who are the New Nazis.
The case of the Jewish singer shows that the BDS and “anti-normalization” folks are nothing but a group of racist brown-shirts working to destroy any chance of peace and coexistence between Palestinians and Israel. Their hysterical reaction to the TV interview with Yehezkel proves that our people are continuing to march backward, toward more extremism, racism and Nazism.
Bassam Tawil is a scholar based in the Middle East.
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