Syria – The Beginning of a Major World War?

ACCRA — The situation in Syria is getting out of control. It is likely that it is heading towards the beginning stages of a major war. I translated a blog post from a well-known Russian military blogger Colonel Cassad about the fast developing situation in Syria with my own commentary at the end. He compiles a list of events happening in quick succession over the past few days.

In the Crimea in connection with the conduct of military exercise, the concentration of military forces has been reinforced. About this President Vladimir Putin was informed by defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, reports “Interfax”.

“The forces in the Crimea, the forces of aviation and air defense have been strengthened to repulse massive air raids of a known enemy,” Shoigu told Putin. The Minister noted that the exercises involved forces of the Southern and Central military districts: They have been deployed to a distance of 3 thousand km and dislocated on 18 ramp- off military polygons. The chief of the General staff Valery Gerasimov arrived to monitor the progress of the exercise in the Crimea, said in a statement from the Ministry of defense.

Shoigu also said that as part of the exercises, the troops and forces of the armed forces, the military units of the Central Military District (CMD), the Southern Military District (SMD) , the airborne troops and military transport aviation have been put in full combat readiness.

Shoigu added that for verification of control systems in the CMD and SMD, mobile field command and control have been deployed, and territorial defense headquarters were formed in the Rostov region, Sevastopol and Simferopol. In addition, troops have been organized for the protection and defense of the engineering equipment in the area of troop dislocation.

Turkey and Saudi Arabia plan to hold joint military exercises, which could potentially lead to tensions between Sunnis and Shiites in the Middle East. According to Turkish diplomats, military exercises will be held as part of the agreement of Ankara and Riyadh “to cooperate in the fight against common threats”.

“The scheduled exercise is not aimed at any specific target,” said to Defense News, high-ranking diplomats in Ankara.

However, analysts remain cautious about these exercises. “This step would obviously provoke a response from Iran,” said one of the Turkish analysts.

On Tuesday, the head of the Saudi Foreign Ministry Adel al-Jubayr has said it is ready to send to Syria Special Forces in a coalition led by the USA to fight the militants of the “Islamic state”. The same statement was made by Saudi Arabia last week. The Saudis offered to coordinate efforts with Turkey. The USA had earlier said that it can’t support a possible ground operation in Saudi Arabia and Turkey on Syrian territory. On Wednesday, the newspaper LOOK reported that the Turkish armed forces intervention in the Syrian army fights with militants near Aleppo could lead to direct confrontation between Russia and Turkey.

The NATO defense Ministers approved the dispatch to Syria of their aircraft systems airborne early warning and control aircraft (AWACS) for the needs of the coalition under U.S. command to combat the terrorist organization “Islamic state”. This was announced today February 11 by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg following the meeting of defense Ministers of the Alliance. Thus, the Alliance as an organization has officially joined the Western coalition under the command of the USA in Syria.

Deputy foreign Minister of Iran Ibrahim Rahmanpour urges Turkey not to bet on Saudi Arabia. It is reported by Hurriyet Daily News.

“We say to our Turkish friends: “Be careful! Do not bet on Saudi Arabia, which is the loser!”, — said Deputy foreign Minister of Iran. According to him, Riyadh will remain a loser because of its wrong policies in the region.

On February 10, Rahmanpour held talks with senior officials from the Turkish foreign Ministry to discuss bilateral and regional issues with Syria as the main focus on discussion.
“Iran is not concerned about the politics of Turkey. I am sure that Ankara takes into account in its actions the interests and position of Tehran. However, we need time to understand how close the cooperation of Turkey and Saudi Arabia is, or it just a matter confined solely to the news stories,” concluded the Iranian diplomat.

Turkish President has accused Tehran of “committing merciless mass massacres” in Syria, Austrian Die Presse writes. Turkey threatens to send troops into Syria. Speaking in Istanbul, Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that someday his country will “lose patience”. Then Ankara will be forced to act more actively.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan lashed out at the UN and the EU’s request for Ankara to open the borders to a new wave of refugees from Syria, reports ANN.az news portal with reference to the BBC. According to him, the UN should rather focus on dealing with the “ethnic cleansing” in the area of the Syrian city of Aleppo, instead of demanding something from Turkey. Without creating a no-fly zone and safe zones to overcome this crisis, it will not work, said Erdogan. “If the bombing of Aleppo continues, a new wave of refugees will increase to 600 thousand people. We are preparing for this,” he said.

The Saudi authorities do not intend to reconsider the decision on carrying out land operations in Syria. Such a statement was made by the adviser Ahmed Asiri to the defense Minister of Saudi Arabia.

“The announcement by Saudi Arabia of its troops participating in a ground operation will not be revised”, – quotes the words of Advisor to the Saudi Minister RIA Novosti.

Asiri stressed that the operation will commence as soon as the coalition makes a decision.
Earlier on, the head of the Saudi foreign Ministry Adel al-Jubayr mentioned the possibility of sending Special Forces of Saudi Arabia to Syria as part of a coalition led by the USA to fight the terrorists of ISIS.

French President Francois Hollande has demanded that Russia stops its support of the Syrian authorities. According to the head of state, President Bashar al-Assad, assisted by Moscow, is engaged in the destruction of his people Moscow should stop supporting the Syrian authorities. This was said in a televised interview with French President Francois Hollande, reports Reuters. “I demand that Russia cease its actions”, — said the head of state.

According to him, because of the bombing “thousands of people were forced to flee.” We need to make sure that Assad will leave power and now, with the help of Moscow, he destroys part of his people, even if he is at the same time struggling with a specific number of terrorists”, — said Hollande.

BRET McGurk, special representative of President Obama’s coalition against ISIS said, “ISIS for us still remains the main terrorist threat. Across Syria there are people living under siege. Millions of people. ISIS surrounds some of them. Some, i.e. the majority of them are trapped by regime forces. Some are surrounded by more radical opposition groups. They must have access to humanitarian assistance.

Russia claims that it is cutting off the corridors of the supply of weapons. But actually it is cutting of humanitarian corridors. So Russia should at least back up her words with fact and immediately open humanitarian corridors to all besieged areas as outlined by the UN.
What Russia is doing, directly helps ISIS. That is one reason for tomorrow’s meeting in Munich, but the ext three days will be very difficult. And still we will stand firm. The situation is completely unacceptable; it is leading to a humanitarian disaster, the strengthening of the Assad regime. And all this only fuels extremism on both sides, both Shia and Sunni. We must find a way to reduce the intensity of the conflict. There must be a political process that will result in the transfer of power in Damascus. From time to time, we hear comments that the collapse of the regime in Damascus will create a vacuum, and the terrorist groups will fill that vacuum. So we need a political process that would allow the transfer of power.”

Authorities in the United States and Saudi Arabia are discussing the possibility of placing Saudi ground troops in Syria. This was stated by the official representative of US state Department mark Toner. “As for ground forces, we continue the discussion on this issue. And we are discussing how these forces can be accommodated”

Another prominent blogger who writes in English under the name of Moon of Alabama is also reporting about the possibility of a major conflagration in the Middle East as Syrian government forces prepare to launch an offensive against the capital of ISIS in Raqqa. They have already captured the town of Tal Madakhah, which is a key node in the strategic direction of Raqqa.

At the Munich Security Conference 2016, which is taking place now, Russian prime Minister Dimitri Medvedev warned that if Arab troops led by Saudi Arabia enter Syria, they could spark a new world war. He said and I quote:

“The Americans and our Arabic partners must think hard about this: do they want a permanent war?”

The deployment of combat ready Russian army groups in the Southern Military District, which has the Middle East in its theater of operations, coupled with the war hysteria coming from the West and its emasculated baboons, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, places the world at the brink of a major global conflagration. Iran is deploying six thousand troops to Syria as we write now. The blatant talk of the West to invade a sovereign country Syria whose representatives still sit in the UN General Assembly is putting the final nail in the coffin of international law.

The lesson for Africa is, you must maintain your sovereignty not by pathetic appeals to peace or to some laughable UN charter but by force of arms. The destruction of Libya and its transformation into a failed state by a Nobel peace prizewinner should be a stark lesson to us in Africa why we need to develop a powerful military deterrent that can guarantee a devastating and unacceptable military response to our eternal sworn “friends” across the pond. If and when they attack us. We are almost a billion in Africa. We can make that happen.