US Concerned With Proxy Fighters In Syria

US Concerned With Proxy Fighters In Syria

By Countercurrents

14 July, 2014
Countercurrents.org

Eric Holder, the US attorney general, is concerned: Fighters from Europe and the US who are supporting the Syrian intervention are joining forces with Yemeni bomb makers.

A Reuters report citing Holder telling on ABC's "This Week," broadcast on July 13, 2014, said:

"In some ways, it's more frightening than anything I think I've seen as attorney general".

"That's a deadly combination, where you have people who have the technical know-how along with the people who have this kind of fervor to give their lives in support of a cause that is directed at the United States and directed at its allies," Holder said in the interview that was recorded last week.

"If they are able to consolidate their gains in that area, I think it's just a matter of time before they start looking at the West and at the United States in particular," he said.

Holder last week met with European justice ministers in London .

Holder urged countries in Europe and elsewhere to do more to keep their citizens from traveling to Syria to fight, saying they could learn from US efforts to conduct undercover sting operations.

He said the worry is not only about the actions of foreign fighters in Syria , but when they return to their home countries.

The FBI has dozens of investigations under way on American fighters who have gone to Syria and made their way home, said Holder.

Intelligence reports say bomb makers in Yemen have been joining forces in Syria with the foreign fighters is particularly concerning, he added.

Holder said Sunni extremists flowing into Iraq from Syria who have seized towns in the North do not yet represent a threat to the West. But that could change.

The Washington datelined report said:

US intelligence agencies estimate around 7,000 of the 23,000 violent extremists operating in Syria are foreign fighters, mostly from Europe .

Extremists have tried to recruit Westerners and send them back home with a mission.

Jeh Johnson, the US Homeland Security secretary, has said Syria has become a matter of homeland security.

The report by Timothy Gardner said:

A Nigerian man who attempted to detonate explosives on a flight from Amsterdam to Michigan in 2009, and who became known as the underwear bomber, was linked to an extremist group that operates in Yemen .

The report headlined “ U.S. concerned foreign fighters in Syria are working with Yemenis” said:

Earlier this month, a Denver woman accused of trying to fly to Syria to support insurgents there was arrested in the US , and last month two men in central Texas were arrested on similar charges.

One of the Texas men was charged with "attempting to provide material support to terrorists," violating a law that Holder urged other countries to copy.

An old document on Syria

Barry L. Ritholtz, founder and chief investment officer of Ritholtz Wealth Management, cites a document that tells an old Anglo-US plan regarding Syria :

“BBC reports that – in 1957 – the British and American leaders approved the use of Islamic extremists and false flag attacks to topple the Syrian government:

“Nearly 50 years before the war in Iraq , Britain and America sought a secretive ‘regime change' in another Arab country… by planning the invasion of Syria and the assassination of leading figures.

“Newly discovered documents show how in 1957 [former prime minister of the UK] Harold Macmillan and [US] president Dwight Eisenhower approved a CIA-MI6 plan to stage fake border incidents as an excuse for an invasion by Syria's pro-western neighbors, and then to ‘eliminate' the most influential triumvirate in Damascus.

Barry was named one of the “15 Most Important Economic Journalists” in the US , and has been called one of “The 25 Most Dangerous People in Financial Media”.

He writes:

“Although historians know that intelligence services had sought to topple the Syrian regime in the autumn of 1957, this is the first time any document has been found showing that the assassination of three leading figures was at the heart of the scheme. In the document drawn up by a top secret and high-level working group that met in Washington in September 1957, Mr. Macmillan and president Eisenhower were left in no doubt about the need to assassinate the top men in Damascus.

“Mr. Macmillan ordered the plan withheld even from British chiefs of staff, because of their tendency ‘to chatter'”.

The write up in the web blog “the big picture” (July 14, 2014, http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2014/07/how-the-west-uses-islamic-extremists-to-topple enemies/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheBigPicture+%28The+Big+Picture%29 *) said:

“Driving the call for action was the CIA's Middle East chief Kermit Roosevelt, grandson of former president Theodore Roosevelt.

“Kermit Roosevelt had a proven track record in this sort of thing.  According to the New York Times, he was the leader of the CIA's coup in Iran in 1953, which – as subsequently admitted by the CIA - used false flag terror to topple the democratically elected leader or Iran .”

“More importantly, Syria also had control of one of the main oil arteries of the Middle East, the pipeline which connected pro-western Iraq 's oilfields to Turkey .

“The report said that once the necessary degree of fear had been created, frontier incidents and border clashes would be staged to provide a pretext for Iraqi and Jordanian military intervention. Syria had to be ‘made to appear as the sponsor of plots, sabotage and violence directed against neighboring governments', the report says. ‘CIA and SIS should use their capabilities in both the psychological and action fields to augment tension.'

“The plan called for funding of a “Free Syria Committee” [hmmm ... sounds vaguely familiar], and the arming of ‘political factions with paramilitary or other actionist capabilities' within Syria . The CIA and MI6 would instigate internal uprisings, for instance by the Druze [a Shia Muslim sect] in the south, help to free political prisoners held in the Mezze prison, and stir up the Muslim Brotherhood in Damascus.

The write up headlined “How the West Uses Islamic Extremists to Topple Enemies” added:

“Is it purely coincidence that the U.S. has heavily armed Al Qaeda Muslim extremists in Syria , and trained the jihadis who later became ISIS ?

“Regime change in Syria was not a once-off plan.   Neoconservatives also planned regime change in Syria more than 20 years ago … in 1991.”

The write up said:

“The Western powers agreed 100 years ago to arbitrarily divvy up the Middle East , without regard for historical boundaries.

“Neo-conservatives in the U.S. and Israel have long advocated for the balkanization of Syria into smaller regions based on ethnicity and religion.

“The goal was to break up the country, and to do away with the sovereignty of Syria as a separate nation. (The same goal has long applied to Iraq and other Arab states as well.)

“In 1982, a prominent Israeli journalist formerly attached to the Israeli Foreign Ministry allegedly wrote a book expressly calling for the break up of Syria :

“All the Arab states should be broken down, by Israel , into small units ….

“Dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unique areas such as in Lebanon , is Israel 's primary target on the Eastern front in the long run.

“In any event, it is well-documented that – in 1996 – U.S. and Israeli Neocons advocated:

“Weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria ….

“Michel Chossudovsky pointed out last month:

“Destabilization and political fragmentation in Syria is also contemplated: Washington 's intent is no longer to pursue the narrow objective of “regime change” in Damascus . What is contemplated is the break up of both Iraq and Syria along sectarian-ethnic lines.

“And the following map prepared by Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters (retired colonel of the U.S. National War Academy) in the Armed Forces Journal in June 2006 shows a balkanized Syria and Middle East:

“In summary, we don't have conclusive proof that the U.S. , Israeli or their allies have intentionally broken up Syria . But in light of such claims – and the 57-year old American-British plan to stir up Muslim Brotherhood and other religious extremists  in Syria – maps showing the Islamic jihadi group ISIS' carving up of Syria (and Iraq) into “the Islamic State” are interesting, indeed:

* the big picture, © Copyright Ginormous Content Limited 2014. All Rights Reserved.