Obama to seek arms, training for Syrian opposition

WASHINGTON — US President Barack Obama will ask Congress to quickly authorize the arming and training of Syrian opposition forces but will press forward without formal sign-off from lawmakers on a broader military and political effort to combat militants in Syria and Iraq, administration officials said Tuesday.

Obama was to outline his plans Wednesday in a rare prime-time address to the nation, a format that underscores the seriousness of the threat posed by the Islamic State militants. The president’s broader strategy could include more wide-ranging airstrikes against targets in Iraq and possibly in Syria, and hinges on military and political commitments from allies in Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere.

Ahead of his address, the president huddled with congressional leaders at the White House. Following the hourlong discussion, the White House said Obama told lawmakers that he “has the authority he needs to take action” against the Islamic State militants but would still welcome action from Congress that would “aid the overall effort and demonstrate to the world that the United States is united in defeating the threat.”

Even before Obama’s meeting with Senate and House leaders Tuesday, some lawmakers suggested a congressional vote on the president’s plans was unlikely before the midterm elections in November.

“As a practical matter, I don’t really see the time that it would take to really get this out and have a full debate and discuss all the issues,” said Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

For Obama, a sustained US intervention in the Middle East is at odds with the vision he had for the region when he ran for president on a pledge to end the war in Iraq, where the role of American fighting forces drew to a close nearly three years ago. The timing of his announcement Wednesday night was all the more striking, with Obama’s address to the nation scheduled just hours before anniversary commemorations of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Among the president’s most urgent priorities will be seeking authorization from Congress to arm more moderate elements of the opposition fighting Syrian President Bashar Assad. The president asked lawmakers earlier this year for a $500 million train-and-equip program, but the plan stalled on Capitol Hill.

With Obama ruling out sending US ground troops into combat in Iraq or Syria, bolstering the capacity of the Iraqi security forces and Syrian opposition will be crucial to efforts to root out the militant group that has moved freely across the blurred border between the two countries. US airstrikes could help give the forces in both countries the space to make gains against the Islamic State.

Administration officials said Obama sees a congressional authorization for a Syrian train-and-equip message as sending a strong signal to allies who are considering similar efforts. Secretary of State John Kerry was traveling to the region for discussions in Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

On Capitol Hill, there was little consensus on the scope of Obama’s authorities. While some lawmakers said the president has the authority he needs under the Constitution, others were seeking a more central congressional role in the effort.

“I think it is to his advantage and the country’s advantage to have Congress buy into that,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said before joining other Republican and Democratic leaders in the Oval Office Tuesday afternoon for a meeting with Obama.

None of the leaders spoke to reporters as they left the White House.

However, an aide to House Speaker John Boehner said the Ohio Republican expressed support for efforts to increase the effectiveness of the Iraqi security forces and for equipping the Syrian opposition. Boehner also said he would support the deployment of US military personnel to Iraq in a training and advisory role and to “assist with lethal targeting” of Islamic State leadership, according to the aide, who spoke only on condition of anonymity to discuss the private meeting.

Credit to The Times of Israel



Read more: Obama to seek arms, training for Syrian opposition | The Times of Israel http://www.timesofisrael.com/obama-to-seek-arms-training-for-syrian-opposition/#ixzz3CsrnJk4u

NATO MEMBER TURKEY OPENLY AIDING ISIS

WASHINGTON – As the North Atlantic Treaty Organization considers what action to take against ISIS, concern is mounting about the response of Turkey, a NATO member that continues to allow its borders to be crossed by Islamic fighters and launders money to finance jihad.

Informed sources tell WND that Turkey continues to keep open its borders to allow jihadists seeking to join ISIS, or Islamic State, to cross into Syria. Many of the fighters are from Europe and the United States.

Turkey has been a major gathering point for fighters throughout the world to obtain training and logistical support to join various jihadist groups and the Syrian opposition fighting Shiite-Alawite Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Now, many fighters from various Sunni jihadist groups have sworn allegiance to ISIS, although some openly oppose the group. The opposition, however, now appears to be waning because of ISIS’ spectacular gains in recent months and its declaration of a Sunni caliphate ruled by Islamic law.

In addition, the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Turkey remains an even greater conduit of money laundering to ISIS than Qatar.

Qatar and Saudi Arabia are known financial sources to ISIS, and the funds generally are channeled through Turkey to ISIS in neighboring Syria, sources tell WND.

Analysts say Turkey is afraid of cutting off ISIS because of threats of reprisal the group has made through Turkish media.

In addition, sources say, ISIS continues to hold hostage some 49 Turkish diplomats who were captured when it took over Mosul last June. The development has been one reason for Turkey to go along with ISIS demands.

However, there appear to be more compelling reasons for Turkey to continue working with ISIS.

Turkey’s backing hasn’t gone unnoticed by ISIS, whose leadership now is considering rewarding Turkish businesses with contracts in ISIS-occupied Sunni areas of Iraq.

Turkey’s minister of economy, Nihat Zeybekci, is receptive to the notion and has been open about encouraging Turkish businesses to invest in ISIS-occupied portions of Iraq.

”Our exports to Iraq are now down to 35 percent, but Iraq cannot easily substitute other sources,” Neybekci said. ”We think there will be a boom in demand soon. We also know that IS (ISIS) is contacting individual Turkish businessmen and telling them, ‘Come back, we won’t interfere.’ That is not easy, of course. But when it the future Iraq is rebuilt, it will be Turkey doing it.”

WND requests for comment from the Departments of Defense and State Department on NATO-member Turkey’s involvement with ISIS went unanswered. The inquiries also included a request for comment on Qatar’s financial contributions to ISIS even though the U.S. has an air force base in Qatar, which also is headquarters to U.S. Central Command.

ISIS has declared creation of a caliphate extending from northeastern Syria and into western and central Iraq where all residents would be subjected to strict Islamic law, or Shariah.

ISIS also intends to extend its caliphate into the rest of the Levant, including all of Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Jordan, and has indicated a desire to take over Saudi Arabia. However a recent WND report suggests the Saudi kingdom may have paid ISIS extortion money not to attack.

Turkey’s former foreign minister and now prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, denies Turkey is providing assistance to ISIS. Last December, Turkey placed ISIS on its own country’s terrorist list.

However, Turkey to this day hasn’t closed border access to Syria through which fighters and logistical equipment to ISIS in Syria flow. Critics accuse government officials of looking the other way while ISIS admits it receives help from Turkey.

In addition, Turkey continues to offer hospital assistance to ISIS fighters to recover from wounds received in fighting in Syria.

According to Middle East expert Daniel Pipes, a photo surfaced in April 2014 showing ISIS commander Abu Muhammad in a bed in Hatay State Hospital receiving treatment.


Abu Muhammad of ISIS in Hatay State Hospital in April, recovering from wounds received fighting in Syria.

There also are claims that energy-starved Turkey has been sending close to a billion dollars to ISIS for oil shipments, predominantly from ISIS-occupied Syria and Iraq. ISIS is known to be working oil drilling installations in areas it occupies to raise revenue from illicit oil sales.

Estimates are that ISIS is exporting up to 4,000 tons of fuel to Turkey daily and is earning in return $15 million each month from energy sales. Because Turkish border guards tend to look the other way when such shipments occur, villages along the border with Syria continue their smuggling virtually in the open.

Turkish expert Hilmi Demir, who also is a professor at the Hitit University Religious Studies department, said Turkey doesn’t consider ISIS as part of al-Qaida and believes the Sunni group was giving Sunnis a bad name.

Instead, Demir told Al-Monitor, ISIS similarly poses a serious threat to the Sunni population in the region. He said the Sunni label has been misused to show it is non-Shiite and instead should be regarded as Salafist-jihadists.

Demir said that making the distinction between al-Qaida and ISIS has helped ISIS to establish itself in Turkey.

”With that, Turkey also opened the door to negotiations with this group as Ankara did not consider it directly linked to al-Qaida,” Demir said.

Demir also accused the Free Syrian Army, or FNA, which uses Turkey as its base to oppose the Assad government, of joining ISIS units. The Obama administration, however, continues to receive pressure from Congress to arm the FNA to go against the militant jihadists as well as the Syrian government.

Credit to WND
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/09/nato-member-openly-aiding-isis/#h7IieS4GdDKAac0R.99

Russia mulls closing airspace in response to new Western sanctions

Russia does not rule out the possibility that it might close its airspace in response to new Western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis, prime minister Dmitry Medvedev said Monday.

"If there are sanctions connected with energy or further restrictions on our financial sector, we will have to strike back in an asymmetric way, such as restrictions in the transport sphere," Medvedev said in an interview with Vedomosti, a business daily.

"We will have to respond to the restrictions imposed on us," he said. "If Western carriers cannot overfly our airspace, it may lead to the bankruptcy of many airlines that are teetering on the brink of survival."

Medvedev, however, admitted it would be a bad option. "We would just like our partners to realize that."

He stressed that additional sanctions would not help bring peace to Ukraine, but only threaten the global security system. He warned that "sanctions are always double-edged." Moreover, Medvedev expressed his hope that the Western sanctions can be turned into chances for the domestic industry to develop, adding that Russia may make further adjustments of counter sanctions imposed on Western countries.

"We should try to use the situation to bring benefits to the country and our economy," he said. "We should not harm our citizens; this is the first and most important consideration."

The European Union (EU) was due to announce fresh sanctions on Russia later Monday, although a ceasefire between government and rebel forces is generally taking hold in eastern Ukraine.

Russia's Foreign Ministry said on Saturday that Russia will "certainly" react if the EU imposes new sanctions against it for allegedly "destabilizing eastern Ukraine."

The EU and the United States have slapped sanctions against Moscow to punish its alleged military assistance to insurgents in eastern Ukraine. In early August, Russia imposed a one-year ban on food imports from the EU, the United States, Australia, Canada and Norway in counter measures.

Credit to China Times

Here Is Why Europe Just Launched The "Nuclear Option" Against Russia

Europe's leaders, we assume under pressure from Washington, appear to be making a big weather-related bet with their taxpayers' lives this winter.  As they unleash funding sanctions on Russia's big energy producers, Europe has pumped a record volume of natural gas into underground inventories in an effort to 'outlast' Russia and mitigate any Napoleonic "Winter War" scenario. The plan appears to be to starve Russian energy firms of cashflow - as flows to Europe are already plunging - and remove their funding ability, potentially forcing severe hardship on Russia's key economic drivers. There appears to be 3 potential problems with this plan...

As Bloomberg reports,

Europe’s reliance on Russian natural gas shipments via Ukraine is declining after the region pumped a record volume of the fuel into underground inventories, minimizing the risk of shortages during the coming winter.

The blue line above shows average daily flows at Velke Kapusany on the Slovakian-Ukrainian border, the biggest single entry point for Russian gas into the European Union, last month fell to a record, according to data from Slovak grid operator Eustream AS going back to 2011. The red histogram shows the 28-nation bloc has pumped a record volume of gas into storage, according to Gas Infrastructure Europe, a lobby group in Brussels.

Natural gas flows from Russia to the EU haven’t been affected in the current crisis. Storage sites in Slovakia, which had to seek emergency imports after its supplies were cut in 2009, were 92 percent full on Sept. 4, according to Gas Infrastructure Europe.

*  *  *

So Europe is stocking-up - which makes perfect sense - just in case Russia pulls the plug... but has now taken the situation to "11" on the Spinal Tap amplifier of escalating tensions by planning sanctions on Russia's energy providers.

The plan appears clear:

stock-up now (to survive the winter)...

starve Russian firms of cashflow (thanks to stockpiles)...

cut off their funding source (sanctions)...

force Putin's economy into a tailspin...

Putin folds and it all ends happily ever after

*  *  *

There appears to be 3 problems with this plan...

1) What if the weather is considerably colder than normal this winter? (i.e. they need more supply)

It already appears as though the developing El Nino pattern may mean noticeably colder weather this winter...

Central based El Nino's seem to be associated with much colder European winters than eastern based El Nino's. Temperature anomalies come out on average 2-3c colder than a "normal" European winter.

With a central based El Nino forecast for winter 2014/2015 this would suggest a chance of some brutal cold moving much of central and northern Europe at times this winter.

For the United Kingdom and Ireland a central based El Nino does suggest a colder than average winter as well - Because of our proximity to the Atlantic Ocean the negative anomaly is much less extreme for Great Britain than it is for central Europe and Russia. Nevertheless, with the temperature anomaly coming out at 1c colder than average, the UK would still have a greater chance of a colder than average winter than an eastern based El Nino.

2) Russia has already committed to supporting the sanctioned firms (and we would hardly be shocked if China chipped in)

The Russian government, according to Bloomberg, is ready to provide 1.5 Trillion rubles financing to Rosneft to support production at current level, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev says in Vedomosti interview.

Details, ways of support are under review

Support wouldn’t be in one yr; needed to sustain output because Rosneft is budget’s main taxpayer

and furthermore, Gazprom appears to be quickly funding before the sanctions are actually put in place...

As Bloomberg reports, European banks may organize new borrowing for Gazprom, Interfax reports, citing people familiar it doesn’t identify.

The company's board to consider some loans Sept. 23, no details yet, news service reports

Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov declined to comment when reached by Bloomberg

3) What happens in Spring? German industrials need energy?

It appears that Putin is a patient man... why not wait till the stockpiles have dwindled, winter is over, and then press...?

*  *  *

It appears Europe's short-term plan to mitigate the "Winter War" may have bigger boomerag consequences than they seem to believe (and bear in mind the consequences of cold, pissed off Europeans in the past).

*  *  *

We point out that planned sanctions are on Gazprom Neft will be sanctioned (not the gazprom nat gas entity) as Europe appears to be focused on the crude oil side of things for now.

As WSJ reports,

New European Union sanctions on Russia will expand the number of Russian companies unable to raise money in the bloc's capital markets to include three state-owned oil companies, according to documents seen by The Wall Street Journal.

The documents show the EU seeking to hit Russian oil companies, but leaving unscathed those involved in gas production and export, which are critical to many European countries' energy supplies.

...

Under a modest expansion of sanctions introduced in late July, the three oil companies - Gazpromneft, the oil-production and refining subsidiary of OAO Gazprom, oil transportation company Transneft, and oil giant Rosneft - will be forbidden from raising funds of longer than 30 days' maturity.

*  *  *

So jab at oil companies, and mitigate natural gas restriction blowback?

Credit to Zero Hedge

Russia Sanctions Aimed At Collapsing Western Economies?

Russia's Response To European Capital Sanctions In One Word

While the West continues to press the "Russia is increasingly isolated" meme, it appears - as we noted ironically previously, that Vladimir Putin is finding plenty of friends... most notably China. While threats of 'asymmetric' retaliation over European sanctions may have been enough to worry Europe's leaders, the slew of news overnight regarding increased cooperation between China and Russia is likely more damaging to Western strategy (and egos).

Not so isolated...

h/t @PersonOfAwesome

As overnight news shows... China and Russia are ramping up their cooperation...

First, as Reuters reports, Russia and China pledged on Tuesday to settle more bilateral trade in rouble and yuan and to enhance cooperation between banks, Russia's First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said, as Moscow seeks to cushion the effects of Western economic sanctions...

Russia's First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said told reporters in Beijing that he had agreed an economic cooperation pact with China's Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli that included boosting use of the rouble and yuan for trade transactions.

The pact also lets Russian banks set up accounts with Chinese banks, and makes provisions for Russian companies to seek loans from Chinese firms.

"We are not going to break old contracts, most of which were denominated in dollars," Shuvalov said through an interpreter.

"But, we're going to encourage companies from the two countries to settle more in local currencies, to avoid using a currency from a third country."

*  *  *

So that blows the oil/gas funding sanctions plan out of the water as Russian firms will merely fund via China.

*  *  *

Second, as RBTH reports, The Chinese company CNPC is to get up to 10 percent in Russia’s Vankor oilfields, Rosneft’s biggest production asset...

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the plan at the construction launch of the Power of Siberia gas pipeline on 1 September, business newspaper Kommersant reported.

“The plan will secure state support, and we will encourage your participation,” said Putin to the members of the Chinese delegation.

“There are no restrictions for our Chinese friends,” he said. According to Kommersant, the Chinese state company CNPC could get up to 10 percent in Vankorneft for approximately $1 billion.

*  *  *

So that knocks another leg out of the sanctions stool as investment in energy infrastructure and technology is covered.

*  *  *

And finally, as ITAR-TASS reports, Russian Railways are set to get RUB400 Billion investment from Chinese investors...

Chinese investors have expressed their willingness to invest 400 billion rubles. in the construction of high-speed highway Moscow - Kazan. Itar-Tass said the first vice-president of Russian Railways Alexander Misharin.

"Even today, the Chinese banks, China Development Bank in the first place, ready to raise the funding needed for this project, we are talking about the order of 400 billion rubles." - Said Misharin, noting that the final decision on the construction of high-speed rail is in Russian government.

Misharin emphasized that the stated funds are sufficient to "provide funding for the project in terms of funds raised."

*  *  *

But apart from that, yeah Russia is isolated...

Credit to Zero Hedge

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