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Page added on November 20, 2015
Obama, Putin Agree on One Thing: Bombing Islamic State’s Oil
When Vladimir Putin met with Barack Obama in Turkey on Sunday to discuss the terrorist attacks in Paris, he brought along some photos.
The satellite images showed rows of trucks laden with Islamic State oil stretching into the Syrian horizon, a person familiar with matter said. Putin’s point was that U.S. bombing alone can’t eliminate the vast smuggling network that provides much of the extremist group’s funding.
Obama was already well into a stepped-up campaign against the group’s oil resources and that night U.S. aircraft destroyed 116 tankers hauling crude from seized fields. The raid, the largest of its kind since U.S. military action in Syria started last year, happened to coincide with a new phase of Russia’s assault on the same nexus. While Obama has publicly refused Putin’s offer to coordinate, their actions have started to align since the downing of a Russian airliner in Egypt and the carnage in France, indicating movement toward a more robust alliance against terrorism.
“After the events in Paris and over the skies of Sinai, the EU and the U.S. are showing greater willingness to support Russia’s idea of forming a common front to fight Islamic State,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Thursday.
In Putin’s meeting with Obama, the Russian president “stressed the need” to step up the fight against Islamic State’s oil business, said his spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, without providing more details.
A united front would be bad news not just for the jihadists, but for everyone they do business with. The U.S. and Russia are both widening their target lists to include the middlemen who help the group make money off illicit oil sales.
While the U.S. has struck refineries and other oil targets held by Islamic State in Syria and Iraq more than 260 times since last summer, only now is it starting to hit links in the chain operated mainly by civilians, according to U.K. research group Chatham House and Washington-based Foreign Reports Inc.
“This is a major escalation,” Foreign Reports Vice President Matthew Reed said. “The big shift is that middlemen are now in the cross hairs. Those are people who are in it for the money, they aren’t true believers and could be scared away from the trade.”
‘Galvanizing’ Attacks
The U.S. is hoping the Paris bloodbath “will galvanize others to do even more” in the effort against terrorism, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Tuesday, according to the Pentagon.
Putin is doing just that. This week, Russian warplanes, backed by increased satellite capabilities, started to “free hunt” vehicles illegally transporting fuel in Islamic State areas. They destroyed around 500 trucks over several days, the Defense Ministry said in a statement, without saying exactly when the attacks occurred.
Russian Tu-22 long-range bombers carried out strikes on Thursday against oil infrastructure controlled by Islamic State in the provinces of Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor. The latter produces around two-thirds of the group’s oil revenue, according to the Pentagon. The planes destroyed three large refining complexes and a crude transport facility, Russia’s Defense Ministry said on its website.
While the ministry in Moscow declined to comment on whether the U.S. and Russia are cooperating on the ground, a Russian official said on condition of anonymity that some coordination has started at an operational level.
‘Fundamental Shift’
The Pentagon on Wednesday said the U.S. military isn’t coordinating with the Russians in Syria and isn’t planning to, in part because some of its airstrikes have hit groups supported by the U.S. rather than Islamic State. On Thursday, Obama said Putin will have to make a “fundamental shift” in his allegiance to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for any kind of joint action between the U.S. and Russia to work.
France, too, is preparing to escalate its assault on Islamic State, which has been concentrated on the group’s Syrian stronghold of Raqqa.
French President Francois Hollande said Wednesday that the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle had set off from the Mediterranean port of Toulon, boosting the number of jets available for strikes to 48 from 12. Hollande is due to meet his U.S. and Russian counterparts in Washington and Moscow next week to discuss coordinating actions.
The U.S. may have delayed attacking fuel convoys in the past because its initial priority was to destroy targets directly controlled by Islamic State and more central to the production process, according to Valerie Marcel, an associate fellow at Chatham House. It hit depots and makeshift refineries first, which forced the group to sell crude “directly at the wellhead” and ended most of its sales into Turkey’s lucrative black market, she said.
Targeting trucks is a “new element” of the war against the extremists and “a good strategy,” Marcel said. “Last year, they controlled the whole supply chain up to the border, but now the situation has changed dramatically.”
Terrorist Funding
What’s less clear is the impact the new offensive is having on the terrorist group’s ability to raise funds, which is largely a guessing game amid a civil war that has claimed a quarter-million lives and sparked Europe’s worst refugee crisis since World War II.
Islamic State could be earning $500 million a year from its oil trade, according to officials at the U.S. Department of the Treasury – five times as much as U.S. intelligence officials estimated last year.
Its oil facilities withstood last year’s strikes better than thought, returning to action after just a couple of days, U.S. Army Colonel Steve Warren said on Nov. 13. Still, the picture is cloudy: Chatham House estimates the group is pumping 40,000 barrels and making $300,000 a day, while the Brookings Doha Center argues production is much lower, covering just a fraction of the group’s own needs rather than providing extra income.
Underscoring the difficulty in ending the trade, the crude the group sells is often loaded onto trucks and even donkeys and smuggled into Iraq and Kurdistan, according to a report by Christina Schori Liang, a fellow at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy.
Beyond oil, the self-declared caliphate is believed by U.S. officials to have assets including $500 million to $1 billion that it seized from Iraqi bank branches last year, untold “hundreds of millions” of dollars that U.S. officials say are extorted and taxed out of populations under the group’s control, and tens of millions of dollars more earned from looted antiquities and ransoms paid to free kidnap victims.
‘Level Everything’
The U.S. and its allies continue to face a difficult balancing act, attempting to pinpoint airstrikes that will cripple refineries and other facilities for a year or more but not wipe them out because that would remove a critical resource for Syria’s postwar future.
“The war will end,” State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner said. “We don’t want to completely and utterly destroy these facilities to where they’re irreparable.”
Russia’s Islamic State position is much less circumspect.
The new campaign targets the interests of all who were benefiting from Islamic State’s oil trade, including Turkey, Gulf states and even Assad’s own officials, Frants Klintsevich, deputy head of the Defense Committee in Russia’s upper house of parliament, said in an interview on Thursday.
“We’ll level everything there,” Klintsevich said. “We’ll get them no matter where they hide around the globe,” he said about terrorists.
34 Comments on "Obama, Putin Agree on One Thing: Bombing Islamic State’s Oil"
makati1 on Fri, 20th Nov 2015 8:07 pm
Another tornado of spin from the Imperial Bullshit Machine. The US wants to dominate Syria, period. They don’t give a damn about oil there. They are funding and supplying ISIS through The KSA and always have been. Real facts out of the West are like hen’s teeth these days. Russia is forcing their lies out into the open and creating a dilemma in Washington. More RIGPORN.
twocats on Fri, 20th Nov 2015 10:21 pm
I was going to start joking about suppliers dumping crude oil into the ditches (like agricultural producers during the Great Depression, so I’ve been told). This bombing of ISIS oil would equate to the same thing. Onion = Real Life yet again. If true, as an accelerationist – I approve
meshpal on Fri, 20th Nov 2015 11:24 pm
Fully agree with makati1. USA bombing ISIS is a joke. How can you bomb your own creation? But Russian bombing is serious; they are now cleaning house. And a few more weeks of Russian action and there is not going to be any ISIS infrastructure left.
So is the Western strategy going to change? Are they going to give up their dream of taking out Syria with ISIS?
Now that Russia is there, they may get their no fly zone – but only for Russian aircraft.
Not sure of the multi-level games that the elites are playing here, but it sure seems like a dumb idea to get Russia to rack up so much war time on their new military equipment. Rotating flight crews to spread hours, data logging the equipment for fine tuning, technical people seeing how well the stuff is working in action, and even making marketing videos of equipment that the world can now buy. I guarantee that Russian military sales are going to skyrocket. But the biggest problem is that Russia has now been able to test their military systems in action. Give them a few months to let their suppliers and commanders fix the various issues that were uncovered, and you now have a heck of a military on your hands.
The West is too bankrupted to invest in a lot of new weapon systems. And the F-35 is a great example of money changers designing an aircraft – let’s see how well that works out for the Western military.
I may be wrong, but it is starting to look like end of the USA Empire here. Unless they can pull a rabbit out of their hat somehow and save the day. We will see.
Anonymous on Fri, 20th Nov 2015 11:50 pm
What an idiotic article…
Haha, Obama does not ‘agree’ with Putin on this matter, at all. In reality, him and his handlers are probably (secretly)hopping mad about Russia’s destruction of ‘ISIS’ tanker fleets. While the US likes its proxies to be self-financing where possible, oil smuggling alone will hardly pay ‘ISIS’ bills. A good example is the US’s hands off policy re the drug trade in Afghanistan, same idea. But the bulk of the funding for the fake ‘ISIS’ group comes from the same place it always has. The US, by way of the GCC and Turkey in this case, and sometimes direct funding under the rubric of funding ‘moderate’ rebels.
The oil smuggling trope is just so much smoke and mirrors. It brings in chump change compared to the billions funneled to ‘ISIS’ through the CIA, Pentagon and the GCC thugs over the years.The US faux-rage over oil-smuggling is just so much BS.If ‘ISIS’ wasn’t getting that revenue, then who would normally? Well,Its rightful owners for starters, the people of Iraq and Syria that its being stolen from. And I hardly think the US is upset by any of that. Think the US wants to see that lost revenue back where it belongs, to the lawful and legitimate gov’t of Syria or the people of Iraq even?. You know, the same Syrian gov’t they are(still) trying to overthrow?
I dont think so. But President Putin has to go meetings with a two-faced liar and faux-liberal like ‘Obama’ and pretend they are both on the same ‘team’. Both of them know the US regards Russia as an best, a quasi-ally to be cooperated with when its suits America;s interests, or at worst an outright enemy to be defeated and subverted, by any means possible when it does not.
Just like they are trying to do to Syria…..
GregT on Sat, 21st Nov 2015 3:18 am
The body language in the above photo says it all.
rockman on Sat, 21st Nov 2015 7:06 am
Ignoring the strategic military angle Russia destroying IRAQ OIL PRODUCTION INFRASTRUCTURE is good for Russian business. It might be controlled by ISIS today allowing them enhanced capability against Putin’s buddy Assad. But when the Iraq govt regains control an amount of oil competing with Russian exports won’t be on the market for some time.
Win-win for the P man. In fact think how thrilled he would be if ISIS took control of some of the Saudi or Kuwait oil fields so he could justify destroying some of their production capability. He would be happier then a puppy with two peckers. LOL.
Davy on Sat, 21st Nov 2015 7:12 am
Meshpal “USA bombing ISIS is a joke. How can you bomb your own creation?” The US only created ISIS inadvertently. We could go all the way back to the Russians and say their invasion of Afghanistan started these fanatical Muslim groups in motion. ISIS really had its start in the fight against the American occupation and the unfair treatment by the Shia dominated government and in Afghanistan and Pakistan border regions. These border regions were a breeding ground of ideas and tactics of extremism. The deterioration of Iraq and Syria has allowed these extremist groups to evolve into a potent and powerful force of extremism.
Iraq and Syria should never been countries considering the ethnicities and religious differences. These countries were perfect breeding grounds of extremism that is clear. It is also clear history not any one country created this environment. In Syria the brutal Russian support Assad regime inflamed ethnic and religious hatred and resentment. Sadam’s Iraq was likewise brutal and divisive in the same way. These Muslim extremist are so far ahead of any creation by the US. They are a creation of and by ideology in circumstance.
Your statement is the typical shallow statements we routinely see on the web that talk black and white when the real story is multicolored and evolving. If the US did anything it cultivated extremism in two cases Afghanistan/Pakistan and Syria/Iraq for strategic purposes. It did not create Muslim extremism. This potent force was always there and will be there until it destroys itself in a civil war of human nature. The US through failed foreign policy strategy that was reacting to failed global geopolitical conditions cultivated a dangerous and destructive extremism. These people are smart and effective in their own right and nothing the US could ever directly create.
Davy on Sat, 21st Nov 2015 7:26 am
Anonymous said “President Putin has to go meetings with a two-faced liar and faux-liberal like ‘Obama’ and pretend they are both on the same ‘team’. Both of them know the US regards Russia as an best, a quasi-ally to be cooperated with when its suits America;s interests, or at worst an outright enemy to be defeated and subverted, by any means possible when it does not.
Anonymous when was the international system any different? It is all about self-interest and bargaining. When has Putin ever done anything for the US without a price? If he did he would not be the exceptional statesmen he is. If Putin and Obama want something it will be a horse trade not a Kumbya exercise. It has always been this way.
I feel conditions are becoming more in sink for a significant ME geopolitical shift. This shift will be multipolar and all-inclusive now that the Russians and the Americans are directly involved along with all the lessor powers in the region directly involved. Either an all-inclusive agreement or a regional war that will destroy our global system. Those are the alternatives. To peg the Americans a two-faced liars is to miss the point of the great game that never ends.
Davy on Sat, 21st Nov 2015 7:52 am
Rock said “Win-win for the P man. In fact think how thrilled he would be if ISIS took control of some of the Saudi or Kuwait oil fields so he could justify destroying some of their production capability. He would be happier then a puppy with two peckers. LOL.”
Rock, the reality is if much more production capability is destroyed Putin’s oil will be worth even less because the global economy will not be able to use it. Russia is a commodity influenced nation that is not economically diversified enough to survive a global economic downturn. The Russian economy will fall apart like the rest of the world albeit slower. Russia is probably the best place of all major powers for the collapse of globalism but only to a point. IMA with a locust horde of people in Asia right on its border how long will Russia be immune to vast movements of desperate populations. When will Russia not be Russia anymore? There will be a cascade of consequences when the global system unwinds. We are in the unwind process now but I suspect the real nastiness is only a few years down the road for everyone.
makati1 on Sat, 21st Nov 2015 9:24 am
Do those blinders pinch, Davy? LOL
Davy on Sat, 21st Nov 2015 10:22 am
Makster, good evening, does the truth cause you to squirm?
apneaman on Sat, 21st Nov 2015 10:55 am
Who Supports The Islamic State (ISIS)? Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, Israel, UK, France, USA
Infographics
By Prof. Tim Anderson
http://www.globalresearch.ca/who-supports-the-islamic-state-isis-saudi-arabia-turkey-qatar-uk-france-usa/5490271?utm_content=buffer20098&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
makati1 on Sun, 22nd Nov 2015 5:12 am
Davy, What truth? There is none in the article above. Lots of bullshit but as GregT said, body language says everything. O is so squeezed together, it must hurt, while P is so open and relaxed, he is enjoying the situation.
Davy on Sun, 22nd Nov 2015 7:38 am
Read my comments Makster and your response to those comments. My comments were post article subjects in a multiple comment feed. We can then have another side discussion of the above article with comments and responses. You are famous for putting words in people mouths when you hear something you don’t like.
Face it you’re a silly old man with an agenda of hate and resentment for a failed life in the US. Your entire existence revolves around satisfying that unhealthy mental illness. You dwell in a tiny covey in a cheap apartment in some lonely tower among 20MIL people in the foul air of Manila spewing hate and discontent anywhere on the web that will hear you.
As for the article I think you and other anti-Americans can’t stand the idea of the US and Russia cooperating. This goes against the winner looser mentality. You can’t stand the fact that Russia is leveling Syria like it did Grozny. This is more rejection of your agenda by the truth.
The previous leveling of your agenda by the truth was your proselytizing ascendancy of Asia and the bric countries to economic superpowerdom. Look at the bric countries now every one of them an economic basket case. This US apocalypse was going to include the end of the dollar. Dollar is chugging along with the Chinese yuan tanking in devaluation and capital flight. Many times you went as far as saying the end of the US in collapse and or NUK war with Asia decoupling with her bastard step child Russia in a new and powerful “phoenix economy”. You had glory and war lust in your comments.
How things have changed one year on. Now you have egg on your face and you have little left of your agenda except stupid petty cultural attacks like obesity or school test scores. The reality is I have bitch slapped you Makster in our battles of truth over agenda. Truth was on my side mental illness on yours. Get a life and follow what is fair and balanced in the scientific method and history research not science fiction and fictional revisions to history per your dumbass.
The reality is we are all going down together Makster. Russia is an evil killing machine just like the US. The bric economies are turds just like the decaying west. Trying to create fiction out of non-fiction works for a very short time. What’s next on your fictional agenda? God only knows what your evil mind will dream up next.
Boat on Sun, 22nd Nov 2015 11:38 am
One of the things I like about this site are the numerous conspiracy theory’s presented. Let’s look at a new one from Obama’s side.
If Obama went in and took over Syria who would he hand it off to. After the experience in Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq, history tells us finding a moderate willing to work for all the people is hard to find and may not exist. Syria is no different.
Many think oil to the world is the must long term goal for the entire region and most of the conflict is about bad actors that threaten the flow of oil. For the sake of this conspiracy let’d go with that.
In the case of Assad his influence is greatly diminished. The numbers change but one faction or another controls about 75% of Syria.
As long as the oil flows I am guessing Obama doesn’t care about conflict. No matter what any country does there is going to be conflict.
In Iraq as long as the oil flows I think Obama has no desire to take out any one group because there is simply no political solution.
So after a decade of conflict is the oil flowing, check. Has Obama learned to control the conflict without ground troops? Mostly yes, check.
Conclusion, The US and it’s coalition will continue to bomb and slow down any group that is serious about stopping the oil flow. But all the action will happen without ground troops because control of the politics buys nothing but existing division. In that context Russia and the gulf states are spending more and more money while the US spends less and the oil flows. Is Obama now a battle field master general? It seems like he has what he wants.
GregT on Sun, 22nd Nov 2015 1:49 pm
Well that certainly is an imaginative conspiracy theory Boat, unfortunately it doesn’t jive with the geopolitical strategies advanced since the end of WW2. Most of which are well documented and available for you to read in the public domain.
onlooker on Sun, 22nd Nov 2015 3:14 pm
US will continue to use its’ strongest weapon in the Geo-political Grand game and that is the military. Nothing knew under the sun.
GregT on Sun, 22nd Nov 2015 3:32 pm
” We could go all the way back to the Russians and say their invasion of Afghanistan started these fanatical Muslim groups in motion.”
Davy, it was the CIA that supported the mujahedeen in Afghanistan, in a bid to collapse the former Soviet Union.
Ghost Wars: How Reagan Armed the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan
During Reagan’s 8 years in power, the CIA secretly sent billions of dollars of military aid to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan in a US-supported jihad against the Soviet Union. We take a look at America’s role in Afghanistan that led to the rise of Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda with Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Steve Coll, author of Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001.
http://www.democracynow.org/2004/6/10/ghost_wars_how_reagan_armed_the
onlooker on Sun, 22nd Nov 2015 3:39 pm
Absolutely, “Davy, it was the CIA that supported the mujahedeen in Afghanistan, in a bid to collapse the former Soviet Union.” This is widely known in fact within the government circles they have a term for that blowback. Apparently, lots of blowbacks have happened especially now because of all the meddling by the potent countries especially US.
Boat on Sun, 22nd Nov 2015 4:50 pm
GregT,
Brother ding. Obama wasn’t in office until 2008. LOL Your reading comprehension is so bad you should just quit trying. He couldn’t have had a strategy after WWII, he wasn’t born yet.
Davy on Sun, 22nd Nov 2015 5:55 pm
Greg and onlooker, do you think I don’t know that the CIA supported the Mujahedeen? My point is if Russia would have never gone into Afganistan this whole process may not have begun. How is that?
GregT on Sun, 22nd Nov 2015 6:41 pm
Davy,
The Soviets were fighting against radical Islamists in Afghanistan, and they are still fighting against radical Islamists today in Syria. The US supported radical Islam in Afghanistan, and continues to support radical Islam in Syria.
GregT on Sun, 22nd Nov 2015 6:58 pm
@Boat,
Obama doesn’t write foreign policy, and he is not a geopolitical strategist. Obama is a politician. An actor and an orator Boat, even his speeches are written for him.
Davy on Sun, 22nd Nov 2015 7:05 pm
Greg,
the Soviets (Russia) inflamed the Islamist in the ME and Afghanistan when they invaded and brutally suppressed the Afghan population and their legitimate aspirations of governance. That was one of the actions and events instrumental in the beginnings of Islamic extremism. I am not arguing the American part of your comment. I am clarifying the Russian part of your comment.
GregT on Sun, 22nd Nov 2015 8:01 pm
Davy,
The Soviets invaded Afghanistan to stop Islamic extremism on their southern border. The US supported those extremists, who later on supposedly brought down the twin towers on 9/11. The US is still doing the same today. Supporting terrorists in an attempt to bring down yet another sovereign state in Syria. Maybe it would be a good idea to stop supporting radical Islam, and to join the Russians in an attempt to eradicate them.
Boat on Sun, 22nd Nov 2015 8:27 pm
GregT,
You know so little if American politics.
GregT on Sun, 22nd Nov 2015 8:35 pm
Apparently I know much more about your political system than you do Boat. I’ll bet you even still believe that you live in a democracy. You don’t, and you haven’t for decades.
Boat on Sun, 22nd Nov 2015 10:13 pm
GregT,
With your twisted brain I have no clue as to what you would think a democracy is or should be. After reading your comments of the world I know you would never get the US. It’s to complicated and ever changing.
apneaman on Sun, 22nd Nov 2015 10:30 pm
Boat says “…I have no clue…”
They’re playing your song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9bk2MrMGaA
GregT on Sun, 22nd Nov 2015 10:48 pm
It’s too complicated for you to understand Boat. Not; “It’s to complicated.” For most rational people it really isn’t very difficult to understand.
‘U.S. is no longer a democracy, it’s an oligarchy’: Jimmy Carter
‘We’ve become now an oligarchy instead of a democracy, and I think that’s been the worst damage to the basic moral and ethical standards to the American political system that I’ve ever seen in my life.’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3245948/Jimmy-Carter-claims-absolutely-not-able-president-today-U-S-politics-oligarchy-requires-300m-backing.html
Boat on Sun, 22nd Nov 2015 11:08 pm
GregT,
Well then, words are just words. It was the rich that put their money to fund the revolution. It was the rich that ran our government from day one. Google George Washington. If you think anything has changed much when it comes to the rich influencing policy through Congress you are delusional and shows your lack of understanding of US history. It was always about the money.
GregT on Sun, 22nd Nov 2015 11:13 pm
You don’t make any sense Boat. You are not rational.
apneaman on Sun, 22nd Nov 2015 11:23 pm
Boat says “It was the rich that put their money to fund the revolution.”
Yeah Louis XVI and it cost him his head.
Is that the bullshit they teach in your schools, boat? George and the other enlightened colonial 1%ers forked over their personal fortunes for merican freedom? The rich get richer from war not the other way round. You are the one who lacks understanding – dumbest fuck on here.
apneaman on Sun, 22nd Nov 2015 11:25 pm
Boat the cartoon historian.