Putin Offers to Coordinate Anti-ISIS Strikes

At the Franco-Russian summit held in Moscow on Thursday, President Putin opened a new phase of anti-terrorist unity with his statement that “We are ready to cooperate with the coalition which is led by the United States.” As the Washington Post noted on Friday, this “…was the most forthright commitment to a joint effort between Russia and the West since Moscow’s seizure of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.” The Tax Wall Street Party welcomes this important development.

The two Presidents also agreed to join forces to attack the oil tanker trucks notoriously used to smuggle stolen oil through the Jarablus corridor and into Turkey. This smuggling is widely known to be controlled by the Erdogan Crime Family, and is managed by Bilal Erdogan, the president’s son. The oil is stolen in various parts of the Caliphate, and thence shipped into Turkey. This illegal oil traffic is critical for the ability of ISIS/Daesh to procure foreign exchange which it then uses to purchase ammunition, weapons, spare parts, and food, and to finance the shipping in of new fanatical recruits as cannon fodder.

The attack on these oil tank trucks was begun by the US forces ten days ago. At that time, at the end of the Antalya G-20 summit of November 15-16, and presumably in response to Erdogan’s truculent refusal to stop supporting terrorism and a very unsatisfactory face to face meeting with Obama, the US had already sent Erdogan a message when American warplanes destroyed about 10% of the ISIS-Erdogan oil tank truck fleet, which is estimated at 1,000 to 1,100 trucks. As the New York Times wrote at that time, “United States warplanes for the first time attacked hundreds of trucks on Monday that the extremist group has been using to smuggle the crude oil it has been producing in Syria, American officials said. According to an initial assessment, 116 trucks were destroyed in the attack, which took place near Deir al-Zour, an area in eastern Syria that is controlled by the Islamic State. The airstrikes were carried out by four A-10 attack planes and two AC-130 gunships based in Turkey.” Leaflets were dropped over the area warning civilian drivers to abandon their trucks and flee. The facile Pepe Escobar, who claims the US never attacked any oil trucks, will please take note. A few days ago, the Pentagon upped the US claim for tank trucks destroyed to 280. All in all, ISIS should soon be hurting for cash.

The Tax Wall Street Party urges nations opposed to terrorism to join with the Syrian Arab Army in the west and the YPG Kurds in the east to concentrate their efforts on finally and definitively closing the Jarablus corridor, which is the aorta of ISIS logistics.

Putin and Hollande have agreed to attack ISIS and al Qaeda. This is not as restrictive as it might seem. Al Qaeda in Syria operates as the Nusra brigades, which operates as an umbrella for scores or hundreds of terrorist gangs and sectlets.

According to Russia Today, as a result of the Putin-Hollande summit,

“Russia will hit – hard – anything that suspiciously moves on every transport corridor in and out of Turkey. Turkish “humanitarian” convoys – carrying, what else, weapons – were pulverized in Azaz, which is only five kilometers from the Turkish border. And truck distribution points were also bombed near Raqqa.’”

This is most welcome news.

The international news media, as for example Reuters, are only now beginning to catch up with the Tax Wall Street Party analysis that ISIS/Daesh has been lashing out in Lebanon, Paris, and in the Sharm el Sheikh destruction of a Russian airliner because the terrorists are imploding as the result of a series of crushing military defeats associated with names like Sinjar, Ramadi, Aleppo, Kweiris, and the bombing of Raqqa. As Reuters comments:

… Facing French and intensified Russian air strikes in response, Islamic State is on the backfoot [on the defensive]. It has recently lost ground to U.S.-backed Kurdish and Arab forces, the Syrian army, and other rebels who are fighting both Assad and Islamic State. The most notable progress by the army and its allies against anti-Assad rebels has been in the northwestern province of Latakia and to the south of Aleppo, though rebels this week launched a counter-attack there. The army and its allies are trying to capture the main Damascus-Aleppo highway from rebels. The government side has also recorded gains against Islamic State forces to the east of Aleppo, where it recaptured an air base, and in Homs province, where they have driven jihadists from villages seized recently by the group. But in Hama, rebels equipped with plentiful supplies of TOW missiles have advanced at the government’s expense, capturing a town on the north-south highway and managing to halt an attack in the strategically vital Ghab Plain. “In the last two or three weeks, the Russian air strikes have started to show their results. This is apparent in southern Aleppo and Latakia,” said Rami Abdulrahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks the war. In rural Latakia region – where the Russian warplane was shot down – the army and its allies have recently seized several hill tops [such as Kizilidag and Jabal Aterra], endangering rebel control over surrounding areas [and thus key supply lines on major highways], said a rebel with the Ahrar al-Sham group contacted by Reuters. “The loss of hills has exposed vast areas which are under our control. It’s the loss of these defensive outposts that has created a crisis for us,” the rebel said. “The regime has made progress by heavy artillery bombardment and aerial bombing so their troops advance in territory that becomes open to them.”

Regular readers will recognize many details from our briefing of last Tuesday entitled “The Terrorist Front in Northwest Syria Appears Close to Collapse.” What is needed most right now is for Obama to officially repudiate the crackpot plan to dismantle the Assad government.

He may be considering this right now. And so it is hardly a surprise if Thanksgiving Day has brought yet another White House fence jumper, this time named Joseph Caputo, symbolizing yet another warning to Obama from the rogue network to keep the foreign wars going. Caputo made it over the fence while the entire Obama family was at home for the holiday.
Thanksgiving afternoon at the White House brought with it another lone fence jumper to remind President Obama that the rogue network can get to him anytime and anywhere. Obama was enjoying Thanksgiving dinner with his family in the residence when this incident occurred.