Does anyone still believe that the bombing in Deir Ezzor was an accident? Let me list the indications that is was not:
- conflicting reports: some say that the area had been observed by the US for days. Others that the decision was made on the spot.
- the Pentagon is trying to deflect the attention with an investigation whether the targeted soldiers were "former prisoners turned into makeshift conscript soldiers". Of course this is completely irrelevant.
- ISIS was ready and attacked immediately after the bombing
- strategic importance: this was not just the killing of a few of the thousands of Syrian soldiers in the area. It was a very strategic attack that gave ISIS control over the mountains near the airport and that way makes it impossible for the Syrian army to use the airport for its supplies. It may well lead to the fall of Deir Ezzor to ISIS.
- the Pentagon had made it very clear that they didn't like the truce. This was the perfect way to sabotage it.
- it is the second US led attack on Syrian government positions in the East of Syria. Previously we saw the US had the Kurds attack government positions in Hasakah. Note also that the US did nothing when in May 2015 ISIS conquered Palmyra and according to reports considered it even a good development. Interestingly now too the US had its allies (Danes, Australians and Brits) doing the dirty work.
- If the US had really felt sorry about inadvertently helping ISIS it would acknowledged the damage that it had caused - now it suggested just to have killed some Syrian troops that it didn't like anyway -, it would have transferred the responsible commander, appointed some high ranking person to lead the investigation, involved at least one of the other countries that had participated in the bombing and made some other moves to make it clear that it really regretted what happened. We saw nothing of it. Other than a vague announcement of an investigation the US acted as if nothing had happened.
- And then there was the performance of Samantha Power, one of the leading neocons, at the United Nations. She didn't show any regret at all and was in full attack mode.
- the timing of the attack - one day before the Russian elections - may have been no coincidence.
- When Russia contacted its American contact person for monitoring the truce he initially wasn't there. Only on a second attempt did they succeed in contacting and was the air attack on Deir Ezzor cancelled - after nearly an hour. Here too, the Pentagon is in attack mode, calling the first Russian call incoherent and blaming that for that reason they weren't understood well. This doesn't show any regret or desire for improvement. It is a deliberate insult that can only harm the cooperation.
- And finally there is that attack on the aid convoy. We see the classical contradicting statements: first the US claimed that Syrian planes did it and later they shifted the accusations towards the Russians, claiming that the Syrian army was not advanced enough to have done this. Yet rebels claimed that barrel bombs had barrel bombs had been used - a specialty of the Syrian army. In fact the attack carries all the classical symptoms of a false flag incident: the Syrians and Russians had nothing to gain from it while for the US and the rebels it comes very convenient to detract the attention from the Deir Ezzor incident and to have one more reason to end the truce.
Postscript:
See this article: US strikes on Syrian troops: Report data contradicts 'mistake' claims:
The report, released by US Central Command on 29 November, shows that senior US Air Force officers at the Combined Air Operations Center (CAOC) at al-Udeid Airbase in Qatar, who were responsible for the decision to carry out the September airstrike at Deir Ezzor:
• misled the Russians about where the US intended to strike so Russia could not warn that it was targeting Syrian troops
• ignored information and intelligence analysis warning that the positions to be struck were Syrian government rather than Islamic State
• shifted abruptly from a deliberate targeting process to an immediate strike in violation of normal Air Force procedures
The Russians were informed that the targets were nine kilometres south of Deir Ezzor airfield: they were actually only three and six kilometres from that airfield, respectively, according to the summary of its findings.
Originally, the CAOC had initiated a process called “Deliberate Targeting”, which is used for fixed targets and requires extensive and time-consuming work to ensure the accuracy of the intelligence on the targets, according to the report. But that had been changed abruptly to “Dynamic Targeting”, which involves “fleeting targets” – those that are either moving or about to move - for which intelligence requirements are less stringent.
The authors of the report found that change to be improper, given that the sites being targeted were clearly identified as defensive positions and could not justify such a switch to a hastily prepared strike. But again, it offers no explanation as to why.
No comments:
Post a Comment