YUP, we're screwed! Turkey buying oil from ISIS!!! EU may invite Turkey in and lv Russia out!! US spins intel on ISIS!!!

The panicked European Union has called for an EU-Turkey summit on Sunday in a bid to sort out the deepening refugee crisis, which has shaken the EU to its roots.

The summit is a first in the 56-year tumultuous relationship, which started in 1959 and has so far been fruitless for Turkey as Brussels has strongly resisted the prospects of Turkish membership despite the commencement of accession talks in 2005.
The summit will be held between the 28 member countries and Turkey on Sunday in Brussels to discuss how to re-energize the moribund accession process and to stem the flow of refugees, announced Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council.

In a visit to Brussels on Oct. 5, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan asked for four basic conditions to be met in order for Turkey to help stop the wave of refugees, whose number has reached 900,000 in the first 10 months of 2015. Erdoğan asked for 3 billion euros in aid in fresh money (not from pre-accession funds already allocated for Turkey's EU bid), speeding up visa-free travel for all Turkish citizens (not just for students or businessmen), opening at least five new chapters in accession talks and holding summits with candidate country Turkey.


[link to www.todayszaman.com]

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called for de-escalation in tensions between Turkey and Russia after the recent downing of Russian warplane that violated Turkish airspace.

“Of course, every country has a right to protect its territory,” Merkel said Wednesday during her speech at the preliminary session of the German parliament in Berlin.

“But, on the other hand, we know what kind of a tense situation we have in Syria and in the surrounding region. I have talked with Turkish prime minister yesterday and urged to do everything to de-escalate the situation,” she said.

“We must now do everything to prevent an escalation,” she said.



[link to www.aa.com.tr]

Turkmen fighters have taken control of Kızıldağ (Jebel al-Ahmar in Arabic), a strategic part of the predominantly-Turkmen town of Bayırbucak in Syria's northwestern Latakia province, a Turkmen source said Tuesday.


On Monday, Syrian regime forces -- backed by Russian air power -- had taken control of Kızıldağ.

According to Abdullah, Turkmen forces have been clashing with regime troops for the last three days, during which three of their fighters had been killed and more than a dozen injured.

He went on to note that the brigades was holding one of two pilots who ejected from a Russian plane that had gone down on Syria's border with Turkey.

[link to www.dailysabah.com]

NEWS 23.11.2015 : 21:23
EU-Turkey meeting on refugees likely as pressure builds on Greek border

A spokesperson for the German government on Monday suggested that a meeting may take place between officials from Berlin, Athens and Ankara in the next few days to discuss cooperation in curbing the inflow, though Athens did not confirm it.

A senior EU official also said that a summit may take place on Sunday. “There is a deal between Turkey and the Commission about reinvigorating Turkey’s EU accession talks and at the same time stemming migration flows to Europe,” the official was quoted by Reuters as saying.


[link to www.ekathimerini.com]

Nov. 23, 2015, 12:16 PM


The Pentagon is expanding its investigation into claims that Defense Department analysts altered intelligence on the terrorist group ISIS (also known as the Islamic State), according to The New York Times.

Former intelligence officials told The Times that supervisors at US Central Command (or Centcom) were "particularly eager to paint a more optimistic picture of America’s role in the [Iraqi] conflict than was warranted," according to the newspaper.

The Pentagon is expanding its investigation into claims that Defense Department analysts altered intelligence on the terrorist group ISIS (also known as the Islamic State), according to The New York Times.

Former intelligence officials told The Times that supervisors at US Central Command (or Centcom) were "particularly eager to paint a more optimistic picture of America’s role in the [Iraqi] conflict than was warranted," according to the newspaper.

The Pentagon has now seized a "large trove" of emails and other documents from military servers and dedicated more investigators to the job.

[link to www.businessinsider.com]

Last Edited by Digital mix guy Spock on 11/25/2015 04:28 PM

September 2015: Barack Obama’s intelligence chief is said to be in frequent and unusual contact with a military intelligence officer at the center of a growing scandal over rosy portrayals of the war against the Islamic State, the Guardian has learned.

James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, is said to talk nearly every day with the head of US Central Command’s intelligence wing, Army Major General Steven Grove – “which is highly, highly unusual”, according to a former intelligence official.

Grove is said to be implicated in a Pentagon inquiry into manipulated war intelligence.

In communications, Clapper, who is far more senior than Grove, is said to tell Grove how the war looks from his vantage point, and question Grove about Central Command’s assessments. Such a situation could place inherent pressure on a subordinate, sources said.



[link to www.theguardian.com]

That sounds like a good deal. Most of the "refugees" would probably go through Turkey...right?

Well hell it seems like a great idea to just pay Turkey to keep 'em there.

Am I missing something?

Sept 2015:
As the war in Iraq deteriorated, a senior American intelligence analyst went public in 2005 and criticized President George W. Bush’s administration for pushing “amateurish and unrealistic” plans for the invasion two years before.

Now that same man, Gregory Hooker, is at the center of an insurrection of United States Central Command intelligence analysts over America’s latest war in Iraq, and whether Congress, policy makers and the public are being given too rosy a picture of the situation.

As the senior Iraq analyst at Central Command, the military headquarters in Tampa that oversees American military operations across the Middle East and Central Asia, Mr. Hooker is the leader of a group of analysts that is accusing senior commanders of changing intelligence reports to paint an overly optimistic portrait of the American bombing campaign against the Islamic State. The Pentagon’s inspector general is investigating.


Although the investigation became public weeks ago, the source of the allegations and Mr. Hooker’s role have not been previously known. Interviews with more than a dozen current and former intelligence officials place the dispute directly at the heart of Central Command, with Mr. Hooker and his team in a fight over what Americans should believe about the war.

Gregory Hooker is critical of reports on the ISIS fight.
Mr. Hooker, who declined to comment, has been an Iraq analyst for more than two decades. Some on his team were at Central Command, or Centcom, when American troops poured into Iraq in 2003. The analysts remained focused on the country long after President Obama officially ended the war in 2011.

“This core group of Iraq analysts have been doing this for a long time,” said Stephen Robb, a retired Marine colonel and a former head of the Centcom Joint Intelligence Center. “If they say there’s smoke, start looking for a firehouse.”


[link to www.nytimes.com]

Sept 2015: Analysts Detail Claims That Reports on ISIS Were Distorted
NYTIMES. COM|BY MARK MAZZETTI

[link to www.nytimes.com]

thanks for your comment! well, yup. IF we make Turkey an EU member, then all refugees suddenly have a full legal right to enter the EU. and that is what "EU Accession talks" means.

Last Edited by Digital mix guy Spock on 11/25/2015 04:37 PM

So yes...I was missing something.

hey, thanks bro. you get 5 stars in my book for joining the discussion here, and also for being open to new info. thanks!





Last Edited by Digital mix guy Spock on 11/25/2015 04:41 PM

some general intel:

...The Kurdish YPG has been working closely with the U.S.-led anti-IS coalition since early this year, and has to date proved Washington's most effective partner on the ground against IS in Syria.

The United States, which announced on Friday it was to station its first ground troops in Syria for the war on IS, has dropped ammunition to rebels in the north of Syria but without specifying which group the aid was intended for.

"With the participation of all the factions... and with support and coordination with the planes of the international coalition to fight Daesh, we announce the start of the liberation of the southern countryside of Hasaka," the spokesman said, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

Map of Syria locating Russian and U.S. led air strikes since Sept. 30.Reuters

The campaign would "continue until all occupied areas in Hasaka are freed from Daesh," he said, urging local residents to stay away from IS-controlled areas of Hasaka.


[link to www.businessinsider.com]

...the comments are not likely to stave off intense scrutiny of Europe's broadly open-door policies.

One of the attackers reportedly entered Greece with a Syrian passport — the authenticity of which has not been confirmed — on October 3, which has added fuel to calls for Europe to tighten its borders.

“The president of the [French] republic announced a state of emergency and temporary border controls, and that’s all well and good,” said Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right National Front party who has become known for her strong rhetoric against immigration.

“But what about the European Union? It is essential that France takes back control of its national borders.”

Both Juncker and French President Francois Hollande responded to these calls on Sunday by calling for parliamentarians to keep discussions on refugees and terrorism separate.

"We should not mix the different categories of people coming to Europe," Juncker said.






[link to www.businessinsider.com]

Some Turkish officials have ‘direct financial interest’ in the oil trade with the terrorist group Islamic State, Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev said as he detailed possible Russian retaliation to Turkey’s downing of a Russian warplane in Syria on Tuesday.

LIVE UPDATES: Russian warplane shot down at Syria-Turkey border

“Turkey’s actions are de facto protection of Islamic State,” Medvedev said, calling the group formerly known as ISIS by its new name. “This is no surprise, considering the information we have about direct financial interest of some Turkish officials relating to the supply of oil products refined by plants controlled by ISIS.”

“The reckless and criminal actions of the Turkish authorities… have caused a dangerous escalation of relations between Russia and NATO, which cannot be justified by any interest, including protection of state borders,” Medvedev said.



[link to www.rt.com (secure)]

Nov 25th!!! Syria is fighting ISIS....AND buying oil from it??!!!


Nov. 25, 2015 2:47 p.m. ET
21 COMMENTS
WASHINGTON—The Obama administration on Wednesday accused Syria’s government of purchasing oil from the Islamic State and sanctioned a Syrian businessman for allegedly facilitating these transactions.

The U.S. Treasury Department also sanctioned Russian and Cypriot businessmen and companies for allegedly helping the Syrian central bank evade international sanctions through a web of companies based in Russia, Cyprus and Belize.

Among those blacklisted is Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, a former president of the autonomous Russian Republic of Kalmykia. Mr. Ilyumzhinov is a long-serving president of the World Chess Federation, according to the Treasury Department.

Treasury’s actions bar U.S. nationals from doing business with the designated entities and freeze any assets they hold in the U.S. financial system.

U.S. officials have long voiced concerns that the regime of Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad was strengthening the Islamic State’s finances by purchasing oil produced by the group on territory previously controlled by Damascus. However, Wednesday’s charges are the most explicit and direct accusations by the U.S., and the first time sanctions have been imposed for the regime’s oil trade.
[link to www.wsj.com]

Is Turkey Buying Oil From ISIS? After Downed Plane, Putin Slams Islamic State's Black Market Fuel Sales
By Elizabeth Whitman @elizabethwhitty [email protected] on November 24 2015


[link to www.ibtimes.com]

A former CIA director says concerns about environmental impact have prevented the White House from bombing oil wells that finance the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

“We didn’t go after oil wells, actually hitting oil wells that ISIS controls, because we didn’t want to do environmental damage, and we didn’t want to destroy that infrastructure,” Michael Morell said Tuesday on PBS’s “Charlie Rose.”


Morell cautioned that he does not “sit in the room anymore” where strategic decisions are made, but said prior to the Paris terrorist attack earlier this month, “There seemed to have been a judgment that, look, we don’t want to destroy these oil tankers because that’s infrastructure that’s going to be necessary to support the people when ISIS isn’t there anymore, and it’s going to create environmental damage.”

[link to thehill.com]

The United States has sanctioned 10 targets for supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, including those who have helped the Syrian government buy oil from Islamic State militants, the US Treasury Department said on Wednesday.



[link to www.jpost.com]

Weeks before the attacks that killed 129 people in Paris, U.S. warplanes resumed sorties above Syria and Iraq, targeting anew oil fields and other parts of a vast petroleum infrastructure that fuels—and funds—Islamic State, one of the richest terrorist armies the world has known.

These airstrikes were launched not because U.S. officials were prescient. They came after the Obama administration found and quietly fixed a colossal miscalculation. U.S. intelligence had grossly overestimated the damage they’d inflicted during airstrikes on the militants’ oil production apparatus last year, while underestimating Islamic State’s oil revenue by $400 million.

According to U.S. Department of the Treasury officials and data they released in the wake of the Paris mayhem, the terrorist group is actually taking in $500 million from oil a year. What’s more, just a few hours before the first Islamic State suicide bomber blew himself up outside the Stade de France on Nov. 13, U.S. Army Colonel Steve Warren conceded at a press briefing that some American airstrikes disrupted IS oil operations for no more than a day or two.


[link to www.bloomberg.com]

the world’s attention is now concentrated on the activities of ISIS and the prescriptions for defeating (as opposed to containing) them. Their finances are a major part of this. The Western powers have had some success curtailing hostile groups by attacking their financial flows, restricting movements of cash from ideological supporters and/or members of an ethnic diaspora. However, ISIS has proved more resilient, partly because of its territorial control but also because as much as half of its money is thought to come from petroleum production.

....ISIS found a large-scale (perhaps 200 tbd), albeit mostly dormant, network that was capable of smuggling oil to either wholesalers and pipeline connections, mingling it with the legitimate oil stream, or to small-scale refiners who would supply local customers with products. The huge fleet of tanker trucks recently attacked by the US is basically a leftover from the days of Saddam Hussein and is highly decentralized and thus difficult to target. And basic of its simplicity, most aspects are easy to repair or replace. Cutting the oil revenues of ISIS will thus be a challenging proposition, although their costs can be increased significantly so as to lower their revenue.





[link to www.forbes.com]

Is Vladimir Putin right to label Turkey ‘accomplices of terrorists’?
The relationship hinted at by Russian leader after warplane was shot down is a complex one, and includes links between senior Isis figures and Turkish officials

...links to some aspects of Isis continued to develop. Turkish businessmen struck lucrative deals with Isis oil smugglers, adding at least $10m (£6.6m) per week to the terror group’s coffers, and replacing the Syrian regime as its main client. Over the past two years several senior Isis members have told the Guardian that Turkey preferred to stay out of their way and rarely tackled them directly.

Concerns continued to grow in intelligence circles that the links eclipsed the mantra that “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” and could no longer be explained away as an alliance of convenience. Those fears grew in May this year after a US special forces raid in eastern Syria, which killed the Isis official responsible for the oil trade, Abu Sayyaf.

A trawl through Sayyaf’s compound uncovered hard drives that detailed connections between senior Isis figures and some Turkish officials. Missives were sent to Washington and London warning that the discovery had “urgent policy implications”.


Shortly after that, Turkey opened a new front against the Kurdish separatist group, the PKK, with which it had fought an internecine war for close to 40 years. In doing so, it allowed the US to begin using its Incirlik air base for operations against Isis, pledging that it too would join the fray. Ever since, Turkey’s jets have aimed their missiles almost exclusively at PKK targets inside its borders and in Syria, where the YPG, a military ally of the PKK, has been the only effective fighting force against Isis – while acting under the cover of US fighter jets.

Senior Turkish officials have openly stated that the Kurds – the main US ally in Syria – pose more of a threat than Isis to Turkey’s national interests. Yet, through it all, Turkey, a Nato member, continues to be regarded as an ally by Europe. The US and Britain have become far less enamoured, but are unwilling to do much about it. The worry in both capitals is that to do so would introduce yet another variable into an already highly volatile region, where alliances, strategies, and implications are constantly changing.




[link to www.theguardian.com]

Last Edited by Digital mix guy Spock on 11/25/2015 04:52 PM

Yep, first off France has to give more money to Turkey as a thanks for the Paris killings

block the turkey-syria and turkey-iraq borders and that will be the end of isis

turkey has given isis everything: fake passports, armor, supplies, food, medical equipment

"Yesterday’s attack by the Turkish Air Force against a Russian aircraft shows the situation with illegal oil trade and the underground oil industry which the IS has created in its territory in a new light. Yesterday’s incident happened after Russian warplanes had started delivering quite effective and targeted strikes against those tank trucks and oil fields," Lavrov said.

The strengthening of Islamic State “became possible partly due to irresponsible U.S. politics” that focused on fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad instead of joining efforts to root out terrorism, Medvedev was cited as saying in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday.

President Barack Obama earlier on Sunday said that Russia is facing a strategic choice as Assad can’t stay. The Obama administration declined to comment Sunday on Medvedev’s statement.

The U.S. contributed to the strengthening of al-Qaeda, which led to the events of Sept. 11, Interfax reported, citing Medvedev. The terrorist threat can only be fought jointly, he said.

Medvedev and Obama met in the Malaysian capital at the East Asia Summit that followed a week of talks and conferences in Asia dominated by the battle against terrorism. The United Nations on Friday unanimously endorsed a resolution calling for countries to take “all necessary measures” to combat Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.


[link to www.bloomberg.com]