Tag: gas wars

Spain a new link in AFRICOM

The US’ decision to beef up its military presence in southern Spain indicates that a new strategy towards Africa is well underway says Andrew Korybko.

Washington just clinched a deal with Madrid that will see it boosting its military footprint in the south of the country. According to the agreement, up to 2,200 Marines and possibly 40 military aircraft will be deployed within striking distance of all of West Africa, and this massive amount of firepower proves that the US is preparing its forces for engagement all across the continent in the years to come.

Its deployment along the African periphery in Spain complements the existing presence it has in Italy and Djibouti, to say nothing of its mobile naval capabilities, and this arrangement may actually be the most ‘efficient’ of AFRICOM’s speculated formations.

In the short term, it’s predicted that the US’ latest moves are in anticipation of an inevitable leadership transition that may soon take place in Algeria, while the constant, long-term interest is in controlling the transit of significant non-Russian gas supplies to the EU.

Spain’s leaders want US support against the Catalonian independence movement too. They fear that the independence of Catalonia could lead to a chain reaction of similar movements in Spain’s other regions.

AFRICOM is technically only a command and control center for US military operations in Africa, and due to advances in communication and transport technology, it doesn’t even have to be based in the continent itself. It’s currently headquartered in Germany.

US forces are predicted to operate as the storm troopers of unipolarity in Africa, but for prolonged occupation, the French are expected to shoulder the burden, which they’re already doing via their ground deployments in 10 African countries already (nearly a fifth of the continent’s total).

The US’ latest moves in Spain are likely aimed at ‘managing’ a forthcoming leadership transition in Algeria.

Aging President Abdelaziz Bouteflika suffered a stroke two years ago, and it’s not known who will succeed him if he dies in office. Bouteflika’s 15-year-long presidency has been a stabilizing factor in rebuilding Algeria since the decade-long Islamist-inspired civil war ended in 2002, and his death might make the country vulnerable to a Color Revolution, a jihadist uprising, and/or a destabilizing struggle between state security forces.

The chaos in Libya showed signs of seeping through to Algeria in January 2013 during the In Amenas hostage crisis. Terrorists took over a gas processing facility and killed 39 foreign hostages before being defeated by decisive government action.

Most important for the US is Algeria’s contribution to the EU’s gas supply, being the third-largest supplier to the bloc after Russia and Norway.

There’s also discussion of creating a Trans-Saharan Pipeline from gas-rich and under-processed Nigeria through Niger and Algeria to Europe, which would make the North African state the geo-energy ‘Ukraine’ of the Western EU. Because of this, the US must make sure that Algeria stays under Western influence and the pipeline routes are secured, hence the upcoming deployment of 2,200 Marines and 40 military aircraft within striking distance to ensure this.

Failure of the US coup d’État in Macedonia

Macedonia has just neutralised an armed group whose sponsors had been under surveillance for at least eight months writes Thierry Meyssan.

By doing so, it has prevented a new attempt at a coup d’État, planned by Washington for the 17th of May. The aim was to spread the chaos already infecting Ukraine into Macedonia in order to stall the passage of a Russian gas pipeline to the European Union.

On the 9th of May, 2015, the Macedonian police launched a dawn operation to arrest an armed group which had infiltrated the country and which was suspected of preparing a number of attacks.

The police evacuated the civilian population before launching the assault.

The suspects opened fire, which led to a bitter firefight, leaving 14 terrorists and 8 members of the police forces dead. 30 people were taken prisoner. There were a large number of wounded

The Macedonian police were clearly well-informed before they launched their operation. According to the Minister for the Interior, Ivo Kotevski, the group was preparing a very important operation for the 17th May, the date of the demonstration organised by the Albanophone opposition in Skopje.

The identification of the suspects has made it possible to determine that they were almost all ex-members of the Kosovo Liberation Army).

The principal leaders of this operation, including Fadil Fejzullahu killed during the assault, are all close to the United States ambassador in Skopje, Paul Wohlers.

Paul Wohlers is the son of US diplomat Lester Wohlers, who played an important part in Atlantist propaganda, and directed the cinematographic service of the U.S. Information Agency. Paul’s brother, Laurence Wohlers, is presently an ambassador in the Central African Republic.

Paul Wohlers himself is a specialist in counter-espionage. He was the assistant director of the United States Department of State Operations Center, in other words, the service for the surveillance and protection of diplomats.

Although Macedonia is not a member of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg was « following » the police operation in Kumanovo.

To eliminate any doubt about the identity of the operation’s sponsors, the General Secretary of NATO Stoltenberg, intervened even before the assault was over – not to declare his condemnation of terrorism and his support for the constitutional government of Macedonia, but to paint a picture of the terrorist group as a legitimate ethnic opposition.

In January 2015, Macedonia foiled an attempted coup d’état organised for the head of the opposition, the social-democrat Zoran Zaev. Four peole were arrested, and Mr. Zaev had his passport confiscated, while the Atlantist press began its denunciation of an “authoritarian drift by the régime”.

Zoran Zaev is publicly supported by the embassies of the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and Holland. But the only trace left of this attempted coup d’état indicates the responsibility of the US because this coup was coordinated by Mile Zechevich, an employee of one of George Soros’ foundations.

In order to understand Washington’s urgency to overthrow the Macedonian government, we have to go back and look at the gas pipeline war. Because international politics is a huge chess-board on which every move by any piece causes consequences for all the others.

The gas pipieline Turkish Stream was intended to pass through Turkey, Greece, Macedonia and Serbia in order to supply the European Union with Russian gas. On the initiative of Hungarian President Viktor Orbán, the Ministers for Foreign Affairs of each of the countries concerned met on the 7th April in Budapest to coordinate their position facing the United States and the European Union.

The United States have been attempting to sever communications between Russia and the European Union since 2007.

They managed to sabotage the projet South Stream by obliging Bulgaria to cancel its participation, but on the 1st December 2014, to everyone’s surprise, Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a new project when he succeeded in convincing his Turkish opposite number, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, to sign an agreement with him, despite the fact that Turkey is a member of NATO.

It was agreed that Moscow would deliver gas to Ankara, and that in return, Ankara would deliver gas to the European Union, thus bypassing the anti-Russian embargo by Brussels. On the 18th of April 2015, the new Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsípras, gave his agreement that the pipeline could cross his country.

As for Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, he had already conluded discrete negotiations last March.

Finally, Serbia, which had been a partner in the South Stream project, indicated to the Russian Minister for Energy Aleksandar Novak, during his reception in Belgrade in April, that Serbia was ready to switch to the Turkish Stream project.

To halt the Russian project, Washington has multiplied its initiatives in Turkey, Greece, Macedonia and Serbia.

Last comment, but not the least: Turkish Stream will also supply Hungary and Austria, thus ending the alternative project negotiated by the United States with President Hassan Rohani – against the advice of the Revolutionary Guards – for supplying them with Iranian gas.

Thierry Meyssan French intellectual, founder and chairman of Voltaire Network. His columns specializing in international relations feature in daily newspapers and weekly magazines in Arabic, Spanish and Russian. His last two books published in English : 9/11 the Big Lie and Pentagate.

US, EU have yet to answer questions on how MH17 led to sanctions

Russia released military monitoring data in late July, which shows Kiev military jets tracking the MH17 plane shortly before the crash – and posed yet another set of questions to Ukraine and the US over the circumstances of the tragedy.

The plane crash has led to a series of sanctions against Russia from the US and the EU, but disconcerting details of how the the accident occured have yet to be answered.

Military officials – chief of General Staff of the Armed Forces Lt. Gen. Andrey Kartopolov and chief of the Air Force Main Staff Lt. Gen. Igor Makushev – posed a number of questions to Kiev and Washington concerning the possible causes of the catastrophe in Eastern Ukraine that killed almost 300 people.

1. Why did the MH17 plane leave the international corridor?

“Please note that the plane stayed within the corridor until it reached Donetsk but then it deviated from the route to the north,” said Kartopolov.

2. Was MH17 leaving the route a navigation mistake or was the crew following instructions by Ukrainian air traffic controllers in Dnepropetrovsk?

“The maximum deviation from the left border of the corridor was 14 km. Following that, we can see the plane maneuvering to return to the corridor, yet the Malaysian crew did not get a chance to complete the maneuver. At 17.20, the plane began to lose speed, and at 17.23 it disappeared from Russian radars.”

3. Why was a large group of air defense systems deployed to the militia-held area if the self-defense forces have no planes?

“As far as we know, the Ukrainian military had three or four air defense battalions equipped with Buk-M1 SAM systems deployed in the vicinity of Donetsk on the day of the crash. This system is capable of hitting targets within the range of 35 km at the altitude of up to 22 km.”

4. Why did Kiev deploy BUK missile systems on the edge of militia-controlled zones directly before the tragedy?

“We have satellite photos of the places where Ukraine had its air defense units deployed in the southeastern parts of the country. The first three photos were made on July 14. The first photo shows Buk launchers 8 km northwest of Lugansk. You can clearly see a TELAR and two TELs. The second photo shows radars 5 km north of Donetsk. You can see two TARs along with other equipment and technical structures. The third photo shows air defense systems north of Donetsk. You can clearly see a TELAR launcher and about 60 military and auxiliary vehicles, tents for vehicles and other structures.

“Here’s a photo of the same area made on July 17. Please note that the launcher has disappeared. The fifth photo shows a battery of Buk missiles at the village of Zaroshchenskoye 50 km east of Donetsk and 8 km south of Shakhtyorsk on the morning of the same day. The sixth photo shows the same area on July 18. As you can see, the battery has left.”

No Buk missile defense units in Donetsk Region, 5km north of Donetsk city, on July 17, 2014.

5. On the day of the crash Kiev intensified Kupol-M1 9S18 radar activity, key BUK system components. Why?

“Also, July 17 saw increased activity on the part of Ukraine’s Kupol-M1 9S18 radars, which are part of the Buk system. Here on this chart you see that there were seven radars operating on July 15, eight radars operating on July 16, and nine radars operating on July 17 in the area. Then, starting with July 18, the intensity of radar activities radically decreased, and now there are no more than two or three radars operating a day. The reason behind this is yet to be found.”

6. What was a military plane doing on the route intended for civilian flights?

“There were three civilian planes in the area performing their regular flights at this time. There was a flight from Copenhagen to Singapore at 17:17, there was a flight from Paris to Taipei at 17:24, and then there was the flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.”

“Also, Russian monitoring systems registered that there was a Ukrainian Air Force jet, probably Su-25, climbing and approaching the Malaysian Boeing.”

“The Su-25 was 3-5 km away from the Malaysian plane. Su-25 is capable of climbing to the altitude of 10,000 meters for a short period of time. Its standard armament includes R60 air-to-air missiles, which are capable of locking and hitting targets from 12 km and which are guaranteed to hit the target from the distance of 5 km.”

7. Why was the military jet flying at so close to a passenger plane?

“At 17:21’35, with [the Boeing’s] velocity having dropped to 200 kilometers per hour, a new mark detecting an airborne object appears at the spot of the Boeing’s destruction. This new airborne object was continuously detected for the duration of four minutes by the radar stations Ust-Donetsk and Buturinskaya. An air traffic controller requested the characteristics of the new airborne object, but was unable to get any readings on its parameters – most likely due to the fact that the new aircraft was not equipped with a secondary surveillance radar transponder, which is a distinctive feature of military aircraft,” said Makushev.

“Detecting the new aircraft became possible as it started to ascend. Further changes in the airborne object’s coordinates suggest that it was hovering above the Boeing 777’s crash site, monitoring of the situation.

“Ukrainian officials earlier claimed that there were no Ukrainian military aircraft in the area of the crash that day. As you can see, that is not true.”

8. Where did the launcher – from the video circulated by Western media and showing a Buk system being moved allegedly from Ukraine to Russia – come from? As the video was made on the territory controlled by Kiev, where was the launcher being transported?

“I’d like to say that the information we have presented here is based on objective and reliable data from various technical systems – unlike the groundless accusations made against Russia,” said Kartopolov.

“For example, media circulated a video supposedly showing a Buk system being moved from Ukraine to Russia. This is clearly a fabrication. This video was made in the town of Krasnoarmeisk, as evidenced by the billboard you see in the background, advertising a car dealership at 34 Dnepropetrovsk Street. Krasnoarmeysk has been controlled by the Ukrainian military since May 11.”

9. Where is it right now? Why are some of the missiles missing on the launcher? When was the last time a missile was launched from it?

Screenshot from video posted on Ukraine’s Ministry of Interior account, showing a Buk system supposedly being moved from Ukraine to Russia with two out of three missiles.Screenshot from video posted on Ukraine’s Ministry of Interior account, showing a Buk system supposedly being moved from Ukraine to Russia with two out of three missiles.

10. Why haven’t US officials revealed the evidence supporting claims that the MH17 was shot down by a missile launched by the militia?

“US officials claim they have satellite photographs proving the Malaysian airliner was shot down by a missile launched by the militia. But no one has seen these photographs so far. As far as we know, there was indeed a US satellite flying over southeastern Ukraine on July 17 from 17:06 to 17:21 Moscow time.

“This satellite is part of an experimental system designed to track and monitor the launches of missiles of various ranges. If our US colleagues have imagery from this satellite, they should release it for the international community to examine it in detail. This may be a coincidence, but the US satellite flew over Ukraine at exactly the same time when the Malaysian airliner crashed.”

Buk missile defense units in Zaroschinskoe, 50km south of Donetsk city and 8km south of Shakhtyorsk, on July 17, 2014.Photo courtesy of the Russian Defense MinistryBuk missile defense units in Zaroschinskoe, 50km south of Donetsk city and 8km south of Shakhtyorsk, on July 17, 2014.Photo courtesy of the Russian Defense Ministry

This is not the first time Russia asks questions about the plane crash. No explanations have followed with Kiev insisting they have full evidence of Russia being behind the attack, but so far only releasing fake tapes.

The USA, putting the blame on the self-defense forces and Russia, has refused to release any intelligence material.

So far the US and the EU has been backing its statements and sanctions by social media and “common sense.”

Source: RT