The threat of the US military intervention in Iraq and Syria erupting into a far wider war has increased sharply in the wake of a series of Turkish air strikes against Syrian Kurdish militia forces that are aligned with Washington. The Turkish government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has reported that Turkish war planes carried…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pD4O49-UE5M On October 15, the US artillery and the US-led coalition’s airpower delivered massive strikes on ISIS targets inside and outside the city of Mosul, de-facto starting a long-awaited operation to liberate the last major ISIS stronghold in Iraq. The Iraqi military, the semi-autonomous, predominantly Shia, Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), the Kurdish Peshmerga, some pro-government…
As Turkish forces in northern Syria continue to advance south taking more ground from ISIS for the rebels pro-Erdogan press reports that Russia’s president Vladimir Putin called his Turkish counterpart and congratulated him on the extension of his occupation zone in Syria. My hunch is this in fact never happened, particularly since Moscow has previously pointed out…
The recent finger pointing and recriminations between the US authorities and Russian president Vladimir Putin has made it only too apparent that the US is determined to create “a threat to strategic stability” through its “unfriendly actions” towards Russia. The US is only too happy to use regional countries to suit its aggressive purposes, as…
Sunni Civil/Cold War Turkey and Saudi Arabia battle it out for the hearts, minds, and territory of the region’s majority Sunni population, with multipolar-leaning Ankara coming to heads with unipolar-devoted Riyadh and possibly even teaming up with the Kingdom’s hated Shiite rival Iran in order to ‘outflank’ the US’ main regional ally. Nagorno-Karabakh Continuation War…
Moody’s ratings agency cut Turkey’s sovereign credit rating to junk thus concluding its post-coup review. Late Friday the agency cut Turkey’s long term issuer and senior unsecured bond ratings to non-investment grade Ba1 from Baa3. The downgrade accounted for “the risks related to the country’s sizeable external funding requirements and the weakening in previously supportive…
