It took Reuters quite a while to be allowed to report that US President Barack Obama had approved an intelligence finding [1] letting the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) loose in its support for the weaponized "rebels" fighting for regime change in Syria.
Whenever the CIA wants to leak something it uses a faithful scribe, such as David Ignatius from the Washington Post. Already on July 18, Ignatius was reproducing his briefing,[2] according to which "the CIA has been working with the Syrian opposition for several weeks under a non-lethal directive ... Scores of Israeli intelligence officers are also operating along Syria's border, though they are keeping a low profile."
How lovely. How low profile do you get along Syria's borders? An Instagram surrounded by a bunch of grinning truck drivers?
As for the Mossad's "low profile," the spin in Tel Aviv is that Israel is able to "control" the swarm of hardcore Wahhabis and Salafi-jihadis now infesting Syria. Even if that is manifest nonsense, one juicy point is clear; Israel is in bed with al-Qaeda-style Islamists.
What this means is that the Not Exactly Free Syrian Army (FSA), crammed with Muslim Brotherhood diehards and infiltrated by Salafi-jihadis, is following the agenda not only of their financiers and weaponizers -- the House of Saud and Qatar -- but also Tel Aviv, alongside Washington and its trademark poodles London and Paris. So this is not just a proxy war -- it's a multiple, concentric proxy war.
Meet the triangle of death
Tel Aviv's agenda is clear; a weakened Syrian government, an over-extended army in disarray, sectarian hatred all around and a relentless slouching towards balkanization. The ultimate goal; not only the Lebanonization, but the Somalization of Syria and environs.
Turkey's agenda remains incredibly murky -- apart from the wishful thinking of post-Assad Syria becoming a mild, civilized version of the AKP reign in Ankara (it won't happen).
As reported by ATol for months now, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) until a while ago was running a command and control center in Iskenderun, in Hathay province. Recently, it was finally leaked to Reuters the news of a joint Turkey-Qatar-Saudi Arabia "secret" base in Adana, 100 kilometers from the Syrian border. Adana happens to be the home of Incirlik, the immense NATO base. A local ATol source for weeks has been reporting of frantic cargo movements at Incirlik.
It was Saudi Deputy Foreign Minister Abdulaziz bin Abdullah al-Saud who requested, in person, for the base to be set up, to Ankara's delight.
Ankara-Riyadh-Doha; talk about a triangle of death. Yet the spin from Qatar is once again of the "leading from behind" variety. Turkey is doing the military heavy lifting; the CIA is "hands off"; and Qatar is just taking pictures like an innocent tourist (while directing operations via its military intelligence). The heavy-duty guys are all unspecified "middlemen."
Obama has not authorized a drone war -- yet -- and the CIA may not be weaponizing the "rebels"; that's the "triangle of death's" business. An inflation of Russian rocket-propelled grenades bought in the black market has been responsible for recent "rebel" surges in Damascus and Aleppo. Now an inflation of shoulder-fired anti-tank missiles and surface-to-air missiles is to be expected; NBC News has already reported about a "gift" of nearly two dozen surface-to-air missiles to the FSA -- delivered via, where else, Turkey.
Qatar and Saudi Arabia are taking no prisoners. No one in Washington seems to be looking back to post-jihad Afghanistan before making a decision. By the way, this is the 1980s Afghan jihad all over again -- with Saudi Arabia and Qatar playing the role of Pakistan, the FSA as the glorious mujahideen "freedom fighters" and Obama as Ronald Reagan. The only element missing is Obama approving a "memorandum of notification" to his initial intelligence finding, authorizing Washington to weaponize the freedom fighters and introducing a swarm of drones.
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