Syria: ISIS converging on Deir Ezzor

The airbase had been used by the Syrian government to deliver supplies to an estimated 120 000 civilians trapped in the city, which has been under the siege by the militants who had blocked all other delivery routes.

Four days ago a fresh attack by ISIS on Deir Ezzor was launched and has since continued. Bad weather makes air support from the outside sporadic and difficult. Unless some unforeseen happens it is only a question of time until the airport and the city fall to ISIS, a blogger Moon of Alabama argues.

It is believed the Islamists now involved in the Deir Ezzor offensive came from the Iraqi city of Mosul, where they had been forced out by a US-led military operation against the terrorists. Last month, the Russian Defense Ministry warned that more than 5 000 terrorists had moved to Syria’s Raqqa and Deir Ezzor from Iraq’s Mosul.

“What is very telling in the recent ISIS Deir Ezzor offensive is that many of the groups who have led it are special groups of elite ISIS fighters who come from Iraq. So there is a direct link between what’s happening in Mosul and the intense pressure that ISIS is under, which is translating on the battlefield in Syria,” a Syria analyst told RT.

He says there is “no doubt” that the US-led coalition has seen convoys of ISIS terrorists crossing into Syria from Mosul and heading to Deir Ezzor.

Despite an intervention by the Iraqi premier to cut off their escape road, many ISIS fighters in west Iraq were able to flee across the border with their equipment in tact.

Regime change has been Obama’s only objective in Syria, US Secretary of State John Kerry revealed recently in a leaked interview which the New York Times published. The administration not only hoped ISIS would carry out the task, it gave arms to the jihadist army and its allies, Worldnet Daily reported.

First, only regime change, the removal of Bashar Assad, in Syria was the goal for President Obama. This is admitted and outlined by Secretary John Kerry in the leaked audio.

Secondly, in order to accomplish this primary goal, the White House was willing to watch the rise of ISIS by placing their bet that Takfiri success would force Syrian President Bashar Assad to acquiesce toward Obama’s terms and step down.

Thirdly, in order to facilitate the two objectives, Obama and Kerry intentionally gave arms to ISIS and even, arguably, attacked a Syrian government military convoy to stop a strategic attack upon the Islamic extremists killing 80 Syrian soldiers.

Fourth, by admitting that Washington supported and armed ISIS, John Kerry has destroyed the hollow rhetoric of the “war on terror” by providing evidence of complicity in the the crimes against humanity committed by the terrorist organisation.

The US has thus destroyed most of Syria’s oil and gas infrastructure, on the pretence of fighting jihadists, without having been invited by President Assad, a violation of international Law.