Assad to Saddam’s Rescue
In two covert operations this week, US special forces blew up the Iraqi-Syrian pipeline that was carrying illegal oil exports from Mosul and Kirkuk in the north to the Syrian Mediterranean oil terminal on the Banias for sale overseas, as well as the Syrian-Iraq railroad that was Saddam’s only route for importing war supplies. Nonetheless, Syrian president Basher Assad kept the smuggling routes running with the help of giant tanker trucks prepared in advance; weapons and arms components are reaching Iraq by means of trucks and other vehicles impounded by Syrian troops.
Assad also roped in his military intelligence and transport commands to enlist and move thousands of volunteers from Palestinian camps in Lebanon and Syria across the border to Baghdad in hired buses and trucks. They are given weapons and their families get cash payments. Assad is also forcing Damascus-based Palestinian groups – Hamas, Jihad Islami, Jibril, Popular Front etc. – to enlist their followers for Saddam’s war against the Americans.
Thursday, hundreds of Lebanese Hizballah fighters were taken in convoy to Iraq to join Saddam’s army in an operation organized by Syria.
Last week, an American F-15 warplane fired a rocket at a Syrian bus killing five passengers, who turned out to be Palestinian volunteers on their way to Baghdad. Syria complained and Washington apologized, but both knew that the American rocket was a last warning to the Syrian president to halt his aid to Saddam Hussein. That warning was not heeded
France and Germany to Turkey’s Rescue
The break between Turkey and Washington appears irretrievable.
The US president’s personal envoy Zalmay Khalilzad left Ankara Wednesday after receiving a stiff notice from Turkey’s new prime minister Tayyip Erdogan that Ankara had resolved to turn its back on its traditional political and military alliance with the United States dating back to the days of the Cold War.
Instead, Turkey was throwing in its lot with two European powers, France and Germany, the most steadfast opponents of the Bush administration’s war on Iraq. Both have assured Ankara that if the British veto Turkey’s admission to the European Union, Paris and Berlin will provide Turkey with the same benefits as those enjoyed by full member-states.
Iran‘s Revolutionary Guards Support… US War on Iraq
US, British and Iranian navies have forged a watery entente cordiale to protect Gulf waters against Iraqi attempts to drop mines and launch speedboats packed with explosives against US war vessels. The naval arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards has caught more Iraqi rogue vessels than the US and British fleets combined. The first forces to enter Faw Peninsula were not British as planned but Iranian to establish a helicopter base for the anti-terror naval operation. Two low-flying Iranian helicopters hunting Iraqi boats crashed this week over Gulf waters.
The Iranian leadership is divided over whether to help the America-British war effort in this manner. The supporting faction is led by the Revolutionary Guards commander General Yahya Rahim Safavi, his deputy Brigadier Mohammed Bagher Zolghadr, defense minister Admiral Ali Shamkhani, the liaison officer between the Revolutionary Guards and regular army General Hassam Firouz-Abadi and the navy commander Brigadier Abbas Mohtaj.
Its opponents are the hard-line spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, head of Islamic propaganda Ayatollah Mohammad Iraqi, who is also in charge of Tehran-sponsored overseas terrorist organizations, the Lebanese Hizballah and the Palestinian Jihad, as well as Baker Hakim, head of the leading anti-Saddam Shiite opposition group. He says he does not trust the Americans to keep faith with Iraq’s Shiites.
