The oil field carnage that Moscow doesn't want to talk about

[gashwin]

@1776

That’s a bloody lot of territory for 1 million people.

37 million in all, look again.

[MortyTuumbo]

@1776

I’m familiar with the last paragraph. The Sudan part is new news to me.

You’ve heard of Africom, right?

Prince has been using their facilities to run mercenary ops in the region stretching from Congo, Central African Republic, and South Sudan even Somalia.

In South Sudan, they trained the presidential guards for a time and secured Kiir. And in return, they got oil money and got to run ops against Machar’s commanders…

Right now they’re doing ops in CAR looking for Joseph Kony and executing rebels lieutenants.

Africa needs to wake up we have given a huge berth to the Americans who are running military ops in Libya all the way to the jungles of Congo.

[GERALD9949]

@Kihii Kiaganu

(CNN)There are growing indications that US airstrikes killed and injured dozens of Russian military contractors in northern Syria earlier this month. But in stark contrast to the death of a Russian pilot shot down by rebels in Syria In January, when the airman was hailed as a hero by the Defense Ministry, Moscow appears to wish this story would go away.

The Kremlin has downplayed reports of mass casualties, not named any of those who died and not said why they were there in the first place.

But families of the dead men are starting to ask questions. And details of just why the mercenaries were in the oil-rich region – and the target of their ill-fated operation – are starting to emerge.
On the night of February 7, a 500-strong force largely made up of the Russian contractors and a Christian militia loyal to the Syrian regime crossed the River Euphrates near Deir Ezzor, a Syrian cityheld by ISIS until the end of last year.

The Russians were working for a paramilitary company called Wagner, which has hundreds of contractors on the ground in Syria, helping both the Russian military and pro-regime forces.

The mission of that night’s operation remains unclear, but the forces were advancing towards a valuable oil and gas field, Coneco, controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a US-backed militia that has been fighting ISIS in Syria.

When the pro-regime forces began shelling a base held by the SDF, the US responded with heavy airstrikes and artillery fire, which continued for about three hours.

US commanders tried to reach their Russian counterparts through what are known as deconfliction channels, to warn of their response. But by the time communications were established, the counterattack was underway.

[SIZE=4]Scenes of carnage[/SIZE]

The results were devastating. The accounts of several of the Wagner contingent, as relayed to friends and family, speak of carnage as US commanders deployed AC-130 attack aircraft, helicopters and artillery in response to the attack.

Valery Shebayev, who visited some of the injured in a Moscow hospital, told CNN the group had been ordered to take what was described as a vacant oil field. But they had no air support. Shebayev, who belongs to a Cossack group from which Wagner draws some of its recruits, described what followed as “a massacre.”

Ruslan Leviev, an activist with the Conflict Intelligence Team in Moscow, a group that monitors Russian involvement in Syria, told CNN that while estimates of the number of varies, “we lean towards 20 to 30 of dead Russian citizens.”

The Russian government has declined to confirm the reports. On Thursday, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova would only concede that five Russian citizens may have been killed.

Pressed by CNN about reports of a much higher casualty figure, Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov tried to draw a line under the story on Friday. “We have no new information about this and we said everything we wanted to say on this matter,” he said.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/02/18/middleeast/us-airstrike-killed-dozens-of-russians-in-syria-intl/index.html

All of them were Russian and Central Asian.Yes.
None of them was Russian Millitary.
Last I checked the Russian Marines are currently in the Province of Latakia and the last time they engaged in battle was the Battle of Palmyra.Only the Russian airforce is working at near full capacity in Syria
In as much as they are useful Russian mercenaries do not always follow the Kremlin’s orders.
Remember when they shot down an airplane in Ukraine?

[GERALD9949]

@1776

That’s a bloody lot of territory for 1 million people.

They are more like 20 million.
A lot of the lands the Kurds claim was formerly occupied by Christians as late as the 1920s.
I often shake my head when they include the area around Lake Van in Turkey.Which was part of Armenia between 100 A.D until the Armenian Genocide in 1919.
What is today South East Turkey and the city of Qamilshli in Syria as well as part of Northern Nineveh was Assyrian.Even today a quarter of the population of the city is Assyrian,who formed a majority until the 70s
Kurds only lived in mountanious regions until the late 19th Century So you would have communities spread over a large area but completely disconnected as the plains would be occupied by other groups.
An example being the Kurds of Nineveh were never connected to the Kurds of Sinjar until the Assyrian Genocide as the plains between them were occupied by Christians.
The Kurds of Syria today live in the plains of Hasaka but traditionally those were Arab and Assyrian lands.In those plains Kurds still form a minority (40%)
So their claim to a Greater Kurdistan is usually false.
It is true that Kurds are widely spread from Iran to Turkey.
What is false is that those lands are continuous.
The only place they can claim beyond their traditional mountains is probably Kirkuk in Iraq,but even that city was founded by Iraqi Turkmen (though the plains around it have always been Kurdish populated for centuries).

[GERALD9949]

@Ubongo

Iran is so vast

And has so many ethnic groups

[GERALD9949]

@1776

That will be an epic showdown. Who do you see Turkey siding with? I see US/Israel on the same side (goes without saying). Turks have refused to give the Kurds autonomy.

Except for Iraq,everyone else has refused to give Kurds autonomy

[1776]

@GERALD9949

They are more like 20 million.
A lot of the lands the Kurds claim was formerly occupied by Christians as late as the 1920s.
I often shake my head when they include the area around Lake Van in Turkey.Which was part of Armenia between 100 A.D until the Armenian Genocide in 1919.
What is today South East Turkey and the city of Qamilshli in Syria as well as part of Northern Nineveh was Assyrian.Even today a quarter of the population of the city is Assyrian,who formed a majority until the 70s
Kurds only lived in mountanious regions until the late 19th Century So you would have communities spread over a large area but completely disconnected as the plains would be occupied by other groups.
An example being the Kurds of Nineveh were never connected to the Kurds of Sinjar until the Assyrian Genocide as the plains between them were occupied by Christians.
The Kurds of Syria today live in the plains of Hasaka but traditionally those were Arab and Assyrian lands.In those plains Kurds still form a minority (40%)
So their claim to a Greater Kurdistan is usually false.
It is true that Kurds are widely spread from Iran to Turkey.
What is false is that those lands are continuous.
The only place they can claim beyond their traditional mountains is probably Kirkuk in Iraq,but even that city was founded by Iraqi Turkmen (though the plains around it have always been Kurdish populated for centuries).

Thank you. This is informative.

[gashwin]

@GERALD9949

A lot of the lands the Kurds claim was formerly occupied by Christians as late as the 1920s.

the people you call Christians - were they not ethnic Kurds converted during the Crusades?

[GERALD9949]

@gashwin

the people you call Christians - were they not ethnic Kurds converted during the Crusades?

No.
1.There were Christians in the Middle East Looong before Islam.
2.There are very few Kurdish Christìans.Historically Kurds are either Muslim and in the case of Sinjar Province and parts of Hasaka,Syria Yazidis,the original Kurdish religion
Last I checked much of the Levant was part of the Greek Byzantine Empire under which the Eastern rite Churches operated.
An example is the fact that half the Christians in Iraq are Assyrians who predate Christianity itself.Arab Christians in Syria for examplè in Homs dates to the era within 100 years of Christ’s death.
Lebanese Christians were converted by Jesus himself who visited Zarepath and Tyre which are in Present day Lebanon.
3.The Crusaders never ruled any territory that is claimed by the Kurds.They ruled the Levantine Mediterranean coast.
They also converted very few people.Except for the Crusader state of Jerusalem,the other three had a Christian majority long before the Crusades because read point 1.
The Kurds do however claim dome Armenian lands that they have no right claiming. Armenia is the oldest Christian Kingdom and it predates Kurdish settlement in Anatolia

[gashwin]

Good attempt at explaining but looks like I’ll have draw a flow chart to un’stand completely @GERALD9949