With Turkey reportedly unhappy at the rate in which the US is
participating in joint patrols on the Syrian border, a Thursday report
claimed the Pentagon would send about 150 more troops to Syria to
participate.
Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, the head of CENTCOM, insists that’s not the case, saying that the US
has no intention of increasing its presence in Syria just for patrols,
and that he believes the US has enough troops as it is.
Reports estimated that the US has in the ballpark of 1,000 troops in
Syria right now, and that there aren’t plans to increase that at all.
The exact figures are difficult to say with certainty, as the Pentagon
no longer publicly confirms troop levels.
Turkish officials have said the US involvement in the patrols is only
“cosmetic” and that they are deliberately dragging their feet. Turkish
FM Mevlut Cavusoglu has threatened to send troops to unilaterally
conduct the operations.
Pentagonians no long reveal troop levels to their enemy; Americans,
Exactly, censorship for the US electorate
The more interesting report is the one above it which allegedly reports that Putin told Netanyahu to stop screwing around with air strikes in Syria and Lebanon. And that Russia has directly stopped Israel from conducting certain airstrikes near its and the Syrian military’s facilities, directly threatening Israel with shoot down of Israeli jets if they conducted them.
I don’t know how Russia would know of presumably secret Israeli plans to hit certain targets in Syria, unless Israel is notifying Russia in advance, which I suppose is possible, as part of avoiding “accidents”. But in any event, apparently Putin made it clear to Netanyahu that he was unhappy with Israeli attacks, and specifically on Lebanon as well.
This reinforces my view that Russia offered a “military cooperation” agreement with Lebanon a year or so ago as a signal to Israel to keep its hands off Lebanon. Presumably Russia knows full well that if Hezbollah is degraded in Lebanon, then the probability of a war with Iran will increase dramatically. That move by Russia also explains why the US wants to increase military training agreements with Lebanon’s military.
It would be interesting to see how far Russia would go to involve itself in a war between Israel and Hezbollah. I assume at this point that Russia would keep out of it, even if the US involved itself on Israel’s side. However, I do believe Russia would involve itself if that war extended into Syria. And it could easily do so if Hezbollah and/or Iran-backed militias in Syria in the Golan Heights region were to support Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel.
This is probably why Netanyahu went to Russia – to gauge what Russia’s reaction would be if Israel attacks Lebanon in the near future. And Putin made it clear that Russia would be “unhappy” and *is* unhappy about Israel’s violations of Lebanon’s sovereignty.
We all know what those poor 500 fighters are stationed in Syria for. It’s a bait for the Iranian and Syrian proxies to make a mistake to kill to justify an all out war.
The only way I can understand all wars in the Levant and Middle East: Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Libya is that these wars were or are civil wars into which foreign forces intervened. They are all the Spanish Civil war of the 1930’s redone.
In Syria we are the Germans, the Turks are the Italians, and the Russians are the Soviets. The Israeli’s? Must be extraterrestrials.
Oh, and I just found this interesting piece of news:
US destroyer parks in Lebanon as ‘security reminder’ amid Israeli-Hezbollah tensions
https://www.sott.net/article/420441-US-destroyer-parks-in-Lebanon-as-security-reminder-amid-Israeli-Hezbollah-tensions
Note: “the first US warship to do so since 1984”
“Security reminder” – yeah, right…How about, “we’re signaling Israel we have their back when the war with Hezbollah starts…”