Thomas Wictor

CBS News has published a story on what they say is the chaos in Syria, as two American-backed opposition groups fight each other. The 13th Division of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) is said to be firing BGM-71 TOW missiles at the Kurdish Peoples’ Defense Units or YPG. In April of last year the 13th Division joined Fatah Halab (Aleppo Conquest), a joint operations room of Syrian rebels.

There are two reasons why I think the video isn’t real. One is that the truck was not hit by a BGM-71 TOW, which has a red flare on the tail. You can see no such flare in the footage.

Here’s what a BGM-71 TOW antitank guided missile (ATGM) looks like in flight.

So the “YPG truck” wasn’t hit by a BGM-71.

Order from chaos

Though the missile wasn’t a TOW, it had a thermobaric or fuel-air warhead. Here’s the cloud of vaporized fuel right before it explodes.

The shock wave shattered a window in the building.

This is a secret, incredibly powerful weapon. There’s absolutely no way that it would be given to the unreliable, poorly trained Syrian rebels. A professional special operator fired it. The only special forces in Syria are Arab League and their allies; the Arab League supports the Kurds. Also, Saudi Arabia supports the 13th Division. Therefore this is manufactured chaos. It’s deception.

Who benefits from chaos?

All sorts of hell seems to be breaking loose. On February 17, 2016, there was a suicide bombing in Ankara that killed 28 Turkish soldiers and civilians. A group called the Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK) claimed responsibility. They released a photo of the bomber, a Turk named Abdulbaki Sonmez.

However, the photo is fake. It’s based on a Turkish stock image called “male passport photo.”

The Turkish government says the suicide bomber was a Syrian named Salih Najjar, and he was a member of the YPG.

What’s going on here?

I don’t know. My gut tells me that someone is trying to frame the YPG, but it isn’t Turkey. The YPG is secular and isn’t known for suicide bombings. In 2014 the YPG had to adopt conscription because they couldn’t find enough young men willing to fight. The YPG even broke down doors to fill their ranks. Service is only six months. I doubt that very many Syrian Kurds are eager to become suicide bombers.

Turkey has been shelling Syria since February 14, 2016, using their T-155 Fırtına self-propelled howitzers.

So far I can find no evidence that 155mm high-explosive shells have hit any YPG positions or Kurdish villages. The video below is said to show the result of Turkish shelling in the Syrian village of Maryamayn.

Well, the damage was clearly caused by rockets, not 155mm artillery rounds. The signature of 155mm high-explosive fragmentation artillery rounds is this.

These photos below are said to show Turkish artillery rounds landing in Syria at night.

They’re fake. The trajectory is far too shallow. When the Turkish T-155s fire, this is the angle of their guns.

The further away the gun, the steeper the angle of the descending trajectory. Those “Turkish rounds” should be coming almost straight down.

So what’s been happening since February 11, 2014?

Chaos as camouflage

Here’s the latest from Syria.

West of the Euphrates, the Syrian Democratic Forces (QSD) have taken this territory.

East of the Euphrates, they took a major Islamic State stronghold.

Do you remember Saddam Hussein blowing up the oil wells in Kuwait during the Gulf War? He tried it again in 2003; Iraqi oil fields were all booby trapped, but the Coalition sent in the US Navy SEALS and the Polish GROM.

Guess why the Grupa Reagowania Operacyjno-Manewrowego (GROM) was created? Because after Poland helped Russian Jews make aliyah to Israel in 1987, Hezbollah threatened to retaliate. So the Poles organized one the world’s finest, most ruthless special-operations units.

To prevent the Iraqis from blowing up their oil wells in 2003, the SEALs and GROM quietly went in and killed everybody. That’s what’s happening in Syria. The QSD is capturing their targets intact. Before they do so, someone sneaks up and kills the guards.

What seems like total disorder is actually one of the most brilliant war plans ever implemented. The enemy is deceived into becoming overconfident; when something potentially disastrous like the Ankara suicide bombing takes place, the side that suffered the loss uses it as a distraction to cover a lighting-fast, completely unexpected advance. We saw this once before.

In Yemen.

Chaos brings out the worst

Here’s what Russia said about the QSD taking Shaddadi.

Units of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which Russia backs with airstrikes, have retaken some 47 villages in an advance on the city of ash-Shaddadi in northeastern Syria, a source told al-Mayadeen television.

Ash-Shaddadi is a key town for Daesh, which allows the group to transport forces to fight both Syrian army and SDF positions in Hasakah province, and transfer more forces to Deir ez-Zor, where the Syrian army battles Daesh with Russian support.

And here’s what Russia said about the QSD taking Shaddadi.

I’m sick of poseurs, especially incompetent blowhards who make everything worse. I’m glad I’m not this guy.

He and the Israelis are far better and smarter people than me. I couldn’t treat this face-lifted munchkin with respect.

If I had the armed forces of Israel and the Arab League, there would be so many dead bastards lying around that the entire Middle East would have to wear medieval plague masks for a year.

And that’s why it’s very good that I’m a blogger, not a minister of defense.

Update

The crisis is being defused.

Turkey’s presidency said U.S. President Barack Obama had shared his concerns over the Syrian conflict and promised his support on Friday, hours after a tense exchange between the two NATO allies over the role of Kurdish militants.

In a phone conversation that lasted one hour and 20 minutes, Ankara said Obama had told his counterpart President Tayyip Erdogan that Turkey had a right to self-defense, and expressed worries over advances by Syrian Kurdish militias near Turkey’s border.

Obama stressed to Erdogan that Syrian Kurdish YPG forces should not seek to exploit recent gains by the Syrian government to seize additional territory, the White House said in a statement.

Face is saved. The war plan continues unabated. This latest attempt to knock it off course has failed.