al-qaida chief ayman al-zawahiri the coordinator 2016 part 29-oil-jihad-20

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CdW Intelligence to Rent -2016- In Confidence [email protected] Al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahiri The Coordinator 2016 Part 29-Oil-Jihad-20 While we talk Oil; "IS uses water systematically and consistently. The terror group "Islamic State" has taken control of six of the eight major dams in Syria and Iraq. It is systemically exercising control by using water. The decline of "IS" now actually poses another kind of threat. Apart from cutting off water and flooding, there is another way of using water as a weapon: contamination or poisoning. It has always been hard to accept the argument that the series of wars in the Middle East since 2001 have been about oil. Afghanistan is not an oil state and most of the oil which will be produced from Iraq will end up in China and the Far East rather than in the US or Europe. On the other hand what is happening now in Syria and Northern Iraq shows that oil and power are inseparably linked. "Our most critical resource for life on this planet hangs in a delicate balance - between growing populations and energy demands, between rising seas and melting ice and between those who have access to clean water and those who do not, Oil, one of the group’s biggest sources of funding, plays an especially important role in its calculations — something the countries fighting the Islamic State are increasingly coming to realise. But what is less talked about, although no less important, is the Islamic State’s use of water in its fight to establish a caliphate. Its tactics have brought water to the forefront of the conflict in Iraq and Syria, threatening the very existence of the people living under its oppressive rule. Civilizations have long battled for access to water and “Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster” ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War CdW Intelligence to Rent Page 1 of 15 30/08/2022

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Page 1: Al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahiri The Coordinator 2016 Part 29-Oil-Jihad-20

CdW Intelligence to Rent -2016- In Confidence [email protected]

Al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahiri The Coordinator 2016 Part 29-Oil-Jihad-20

While we talk Oil; "IS uses water systematically and consistently. The terror group "Islamic State" has taken control of six of the eight major dams in Syria and Iraq. It is systemically exercising control by using water. The decline of "IS" now actually poses another kind of threat. Apart from cutting off water and flooding, there is another way of using water as a weapon: contamination or poisoning.

It has always been hard to accept the argument that the series of wars in the Middle East since 2001 have been about oil. Afghanistan is not an oil state and most of the oil which will be produced from Iraq will end up in China and the Far East rather than in the US or Europe. On the other hand what is happening now in Syria and Northern Iraq shows that oil and power are inseparably linked.

"Our most critical resource for life on this planet hangs in a delicate balance - between growing populations and energy demands, between rising seas and melting ice and between those who have access to clean water and those who do not, Oil, one of the group’s biggest sources of funding, plays an especially important role in its calculations — something the countries fighting the Islamic State are increasingly coming to realise. But what is less talked about, although no less important, is the Islamic State’s use of water in its fight to establish a caliphate. Its tactics have brought water to the

forefront of the conflict in Iraq and Syria, threatening the very existence of the people living under its oppressive rule. Civilizations have long battled for access to water and founded their empires around great rivers. Today, drought and low rainfall compete with the manmade disaster of terrorism to destroy the same, once-fertile swathe of land stretching along the two rivers.Governments and non-state actors alike have used water as a weapon for centuries. The Islamic State is no exception.Since the group began expanding its territorial claims in western Syria, it has used water as a tool in its broader strategy of advancing and establishing control over new land. Recognition of the Islamic State’s intention to organize its new caliphate around the Tigris-Euphrates Basin may prove helpful in the long-term fight against the group. While the oil and natural gas fields it seized along the way were a means for the group to threaten military forces and make money, the bodies of water and infrastructure were a means to hold the entire region hostage. With water at the core of its expansionist strategy, the Islamic State has also ensured that bodies of water and their corresponding infrastructure have moved to the forefront of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.The control of major water resources and dams has, in turn, given the Islamic State a firm grip on the supplies used to support agriculture and electricity generation. Because of its

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importance to both electricity generation and agricultural production, water has the power to run or ruin an economy.

And since bodies of water often extend beyond any one country’s borders, history shows that the competition for water resources can often only be settled peacefully through regional cooperation.Before Iraq and Syria deteriorated, and groups like the Islamic State arose, countries around the Tigris and Euphrates rivers had only each other to contend with. There is no doubt that the Islamic State has a very clear strategy, one that extends even beyond Syria and Iraq and into the wider region. The group has established bases throughout North Africa, following a similar path of controlling key resources and using them as weapons against the populations and governments it seeks to coerce or destroy. It is time that nearby states and the international community re-examine what they know about the Islamic State’s tactics and formulate a new plan of action. Forces fighting the Islamic State must look at the region as a single integrated basin and bring bodies of water — and by extension, the populations dependent on them — to the forefront of their strategies.Water has always formed the core of civilizations; the Middle East — not to mention an Islamic State caliphate — is no different. In the Middle East, ISIS has waged war over water, scurrying to control dams in the parched land of Syria and Iraq. In China and Laos, more dams are being erected to redirect water to drier regions, leaving downstream countries like Cambodia and Vietnam to wonder whether the great rivers of the continent will one day be reduced to a trickle by the time it reaches them. In Africa, countries like Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan are staking their water claims, signing treaties that will dictate the fate of the Nile and the farmland surrounding it.

Water, not oil or gold, is the world’s most precious commodity. Water not only keeps every living organism alive, it is the basis for all human economic activity. Build a community well in an impoverished, subsistence level African village and suddenly people are going to school, starting businesses and serving on local committees. Fresh water advocate and radio host Sharon Kleyne believes that nearly every conflict on Earth is ultimately either a water war or has water as a component. This includes the conflicts involving Israel-Palestine, ISIS and Syria.Israel-Palestine: While water is not the primary cause of this conflict, says Kleyne, it is very much a factor. Despite a joint Israel-Palestine commission on water allotment, Israel asserts nearly total control over water rights in the Judean Highlands and Gaza Basin. Both are supposedly Palestinian areas. The average Israeli living in a Palestinian area uses 300 gallons of water per day while the average Palestinian uses 70 gallons per day. This has an enormous impact on Palestinian economic development.ISIS: Although ISIS bases its ambitions on philosophy and theology, Kleyne explains, water is integral to their strategy. The primary water sources in Iraq are the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. The primary water source in Syria is the Euphrates. Both rivers originate in Turkey. Iraq and Syria were the earliest ISIS targets and their initial strategy was to attempt to capture the three biggest reservoirs in Iraq and the biggest in Syria.Syria: The ongoing internal conflict, Kleyne notes, was triggered in part by a spike in food prices caused by an extended drought. Most Syrian rivers, including the Euphrates, begin in Turkey, which, because of the same drought, has been removing water before it reaches Syria.Iraq: In the rebellion following the Gulf War, according to Kleyne, Saddam Hussein punished the Iraq's Shiite Muslim “Marsh Arabs," by draining the marshes where the Tigris-Euphrates River empties into the Persian Gulf – an area believed by some to have

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been the site of the Garden of Eden. Thousands of Marsh Arabs either died or fled. Since the Iraq War, the United States has restored 75 to 90 percent of the

marshes.Yemen: In this failed, impoverished and constantly war torn state, says Kleyne, al-Qaida is extremely powerful, in part because they finance well-drilling projects for local tribes. Because of constant drought, many people are moving to the cities, which also have severe fresh water problems.

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) militants fired rocket propelled grenades at the Salah gas facility in Algeria on March 18. Despite there were no casualties or damage reported, the Norwegian oil and gas company Statoil and the British oil and gas company BP plc, which mange the attacked infrastructure, have announced that they will temporarily withdraw some of their staff from two natural gas treatment plants.[Transcript of Video]The Statoil-BP infrastructure in Algeria was already attacked in 2013 resulting in the death of 40 oil workers on the In Amenas facility located near the Libyan border. Unlike 2013, the recent attack was made from the territory of Mali on the up-country object which shows significant problems in the Algerian security.Furthermore, AQIM released a video statement threating an attack on Statoil-BP facilities in few hours prior to attack. Considering that militants were able to transport and use 130-mm rockets and launchers, it becomes clear that the Algerian security services aren’t able to provide security for the crucial country’s infrastructure. An important fact is AQIM’s video included a demand for foreign companies to cut the links with the Algerian government and a suggestion to launch negotiations on terms of future works on the development of gas and oil fields. In other words, AQIM asks money for safety of Statoil-BP facilities. The video also included a threat of non-demonstration attack if AQIM’s demands will be ignored. This is likely why Statoil and BP have decided to temporarily withdraw staff from the gas facilities.Nonetheless, it couldn’t be ignored that AQIM may be carrying out an order of some foreign power which pursues its own interests in the region. For instance, Saudi Arabia has differences with Algeria on the conflicts in Yemen, Syria and Iran. In this case, the recent attack showed that Algeria is vulnerable for such unfriendly acts.In the contemporary situation, the Algerian government will seek to demonstrate that it’s able to control the situation in the country. This issue becomes especially acute amid ISIS’ statements to open the war against Algeria.

Oct 2015, a new study found that the Persian Gulf might be so hot as to be uninhabitable for humans by 2071. Between now and then, countries in the Middle East will continue to face war and humanitarian crises, and rising temperatures and water scarcity will only make those conflicts deadlier. Consider the exodus from Syria into Turkey and the Mediterranean as a preview of this thirsty, desperate future — one the United Nations is increasingly trying to head off. https://www.inverse.com/article/7565-the-u-n-is-protecting-water-in-iraq-to-prevent-another-civil-war

Isis and the war for oilNick Butler |Jan 10 It has always been hard to accept the argument that the series of wars in the Middle East since 2001 have been about oil. Afghanistan is not an oil state and most of the oil which will be produced from Iraq will end up in China and the Far East rather than in the US or

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Europe. On the other hand what is happening now in Syria and Northern Iraq shows that oil and power are inseparably linked.

As the FT reported in October, in building its caliphate Isis has not followed al-Qaeda in relying on donations from rich supporters in Saudi Arabia or other parts of the Persian Gulf. Instead the Isis leadership created its own economic structure in the territories it controlled based almost entirely on oil revenue. Another report published in December recorded in fascinating detail how oil from fields such as al-Tamak and al-Omar in the eastern Syrian province of Deir Exxor and from the Qayyara field close to Mosul in northern Iraq made its way mostly in trucks to other parts of both countries and beyond. In an almost medieval economy, some was even carried in pans on the backs of mules or donkeys. Even rebels fighting Isis within Syria turned out to be dependent for their basic fuel supplies on purchases of illicit oil which helped to fund their opponents.At one point, Isis was earning as much as $40m a month from oil, using a professional operation which was tightly controlled from the centre. That money allowed Isis to create the semblance of an effective government and no doubt also funded the purchase of arms and weaponry.That position has now been degraded by the bombing campaigns initiated by the French and the Russians which the British have recently joined. As well as attempting to decapitate the leadership structure of Isis, the air strikes have clearly targeted a number of key elements in the chain of activities from production and refining to the transport links which allowed Isis to make money from whatever it could produce.A recent article in Iraq Oil Report summarised the state of play towards the end of 2015:• Production is down as field infrastructure has been hit by bombing. Some oil continues

to flow automatically and has to be stored temporarily in holes dug hurriedly in the ground.

• Key refining links have been broken forcing the use of primitive techniques using open pits to make usable products.

• The fall in the price has cut margins – already low because of discounting and is discouraging the black market trade because the risks involved now far outstrip the rewards especially for the tanker drivers.

This, however, is far from the end of the story. Isis has not been defeated. The Iraqi army, no doubt with a good deal of help from outside, has retaken territory north of Baghdad. The situation on the ground is not quite trench warfare, but the unending conflict over narrow strips of land which pass from one side to another at enormous cost in terms of lives and physical damage is reminiscent of the battles of the first world war.As well as the human suffering, the environmental damage must be horrendous. What remains of Ramadi ( 80 per cent of the city is said to be in ruins ) is for the moment in Iraqi hands, but the major city of Mosul, despite promises of a renewed assault by Iraqi forces, is not. There and elsewhere across the region Isis still appears to be in control.An undefeated Isis remains a serious threat – in the immediate region and beyond. So far there has been no impact on the world market from any action taken by Isis because the volumes involved have been so small. Even at its peak, oil production from territory controlled by Isis never exceeded 70,000 barrels per day. That position could change.In northern Iraq Isis now has a clear incentive to try to take further oil installations of which there are many around Mosul, particularly to the east and area of Kirkuk. The main fields should be well defended but others are more vulnerable. An Isis move towards Kirkuk would widen the physical conflict and that could bring the bombing campaign close to areas holding much more significant volumes of oil.At the same time there is evidence that Isis appreciates the potential to use attacks on oil

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installations to weaken their opponents. Last week’s attack on facilities near al-Sidra in Libya is just one example of what can be done to cut revenue and

to discourage new investment in a country where oil provides 95 per cent of exports and 75 per cent of the national budget.Isis has every incentive to make sure that Libya declines into being a failed state.Even if the oil producing region in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia is assumed to be too well defended for Isis to penetrate, there are still substantial potential targets in Egypt, Algeria and the wider oil producing regions of Iraq itself. Isis has shown that while the principal focus is on the territory it holds the organisation still has the ability to venture into other areas in order to undermine existing regimes and to demonstrate its remaining power. If one of the aims of the caliphate is to drive foreigners out of the region another successful attack on oil facilities could well prove successful.The bombing campaign has changed the game in Syria and northern Iraq. Isis can no longer depend on a steady flow of revenue through the creation of a quasi national oil enterprise. That business model – “Isis Inc” in the words of the first FT report – looks dead. But the war for oil and power across the region is far from over.

The Secret Stupid Saudi-US Deal on Syria. Oil Gas Pipeline WarThe Kerry-Abdullah Secret DealBy F. William EngdahlGlobal Research, March 16, 2016 This incisive article first published by GR in October 2014 sheds light on the unfolding war in Syria and the confrontation between Russia and the US.The details are emerging of a new secret and quite stupid Saudi-US deal on Syria and the so-called ISIS. It involves oil and gas control of the entire region and the weakening of Russia and Iran by Saudi Arabian flooding the world market with cheap oil. Details were concluded in the September meeting by US Secretary of State John Kerry and the Saudi King. The unintended consequence will be to push Russia even faster to turn east to China and Eurasia.One of the weirdest anomalies of the recent NATO bombing campaign, allegedly against the ISIS or IS or ISIL or Daash, depending on your preference, is the fact that with major war raging in the world’s richest oil region, the price of crude oil has been dropping, dramatically so. Since June when ISIS suddenly captured the oil-rich region of Iraq around Mosul and Kirkuk, the benchmark Brent price of crude oil dropped some 20% from $112 to about $88. World daily demand for oil has not dropped by 20% however. China oil demand has not fallen 20% nor has US domestic shale oil stock risen by 21%.What has happened is that the long-time US ally inside OPEC, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, has been flooding the market with deep discounted oil, triggering a price war within OPEC, with Iran following suit and panic selling short in oil futures markets. The Saudis are targeting sales to Asia for the discounts and in particular, its major Asian customer, China where it is reportedly offering its crude for a mere $50 to $60 a barrel rather than the earlier price of around $100. [1] That Saudi financial discounting operation in turn is by all appearance being coordinated with a US Treasury financial warfare operation, via its Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, in cooperation with a handful of inside players on Wall Street who control oil derivatives trading. The result is a market panic that is gaining momentum daily. China is quite happy to buy the cheap oil, but her close allies, Russia and Iran, are being hit severely.The dealAccording to Rashid Abanmy, President of the Riyadh-based Saudi Arabia Oil Policies

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and Strategic Expectations Center, the dramatic price collapse is being deliberately caused by the Saudis, OPEC’s largest producer. The public

reason claimed is to gain new markets in a global market of weakening oil demand. The real reason, according to Abanmy, is to put pressure on Iran on her nuclear program, and on Russia to end her support for Bashar al-Assad in Syria.[2]When combined with the financial losses of Russian state natural gas sales to Ukraine and prospects of a US-instigated cutoff of the transit of Russian gas to the huge EU market this winter as EU stockpiles become low, the pressure on oil prices hits Moscow doubly. More than 50% of Russian state revenue comes from its export sales of oil and gas.The US-Saudi oil price manipulation is aimed at destabilizing several strong opponents of US globalist policies. Targets include Iran and Syria, both allies of Russia in opposing a US sole Superpower. The principal target, however, is Putin’s Russia, the single greatest threat today to that Superpower hegemony. The strategy is similar to what the US did with Saudi Arabia in 1986 when they flooded the world with Saudi oil, collapsing the price to below $10 a barrel and destroying the economy of then-Soviet ally, Saddam Hussein in Iraq and, ultimately, of the Soviet economy, paving the way for the fall of the Soviet Union. Today, the hope is that a collapse of Russian oil revenues, combined with select pin-prick sanctions designed by the US Treasury’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence will dramatically weaken Putin’s enormous domestic support and create conditions for his ultimate overthrow. It is doomed to fail for many reasons, not the least, because Putin’s Russia has taken major strategic steps together with China and other nations to lessen its dependence on the West. In fact the oil weapon is accelerating recent Russian moves to focus its economic power on national interests and lessen dependence on the Dollar system. If the dollar ceases being the currency of world trade, especially oil trade, the US Treasury faces financial catastrophe. For this reason, I call the Kerry-Abdullah oil war a very stupid tactic.The Kerry-Abdullah secret dealOn September 11, US Secretary of State Kerry met Saudi King Abdullah at his palace on the Red Sea. The King invited former head of Saudi intelligence, Prince Bandar to attend. There a deal was hammered out which saw Saudi support for the Syrian airstrikes against ISIS on condition Washington backed the Saudis in toppling Assad, a firm ally of Russia and de facto of Iran and an obstacle to Saudi and UAE plans to control the emerging EU natural gas market and destroy Russia’s lucrative EU trade. A report in the Wall Street Journal noted there had been “months of behind-the-scenes work by the US and Arab leaders, who agreed on the need to cooperate against Islamic State, but not how or when. The process gave the Saudis leverage to extract a fresh US commitment to beef up training for rebels fighting Mr. Assad, whose demise the Saudis still see as a top priority.” [3]For the Saudis the war is between two competing age-old vectors of Islam. Saudi Arabia, home to the sacred cities of Mecca and Medina, claims de facto supremacy in the Islamic world of Sunni Islam. The Saudi Sunni form is ultra-conservative Wahhabism, named for an 18th Century Bedouin Islamic fundamentalist or Salafist named Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahha. The Taliban derive from Wahhabism with the aid of Saudi-financed religious instruction. The Gulf Emirates and Kuwait also adhere to the Sunni Wahhabism of the Saudis, as does the Emir of Qatar. Iran on the other hand historically is the heart of the smaller branch of Islam, the Shi’ite. Iraq’s population is some 61% majority Shi’ite. Syria’s President, Bashar al-Assad is a member of a satellite of the Shi’ite branch known as Alawite. Some 23% of Turkey is also Alawite Muslim. To complicate the picture more, across a bridge from Saudi Arabia sits the tiny island country, Bahrain where as many as 75% of the population is Shi’ite but the ruling Al-Khalifa family is Sunni and firmly tied

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to Saudi Arabia. Moreover, the richest Saudi oil region is dominated by Shi’ite Muslims who work the oil installations of Ras Tanura.

An oil and gas pipeline war

These historic fault lines inside Islam which lay dormant, were brought into a state of open warfare with the launching of the US State Department and CIA’s Islamic Holy War, otherwise known as the Arab Spring. Washington neo-conservatives embedded inside the Obama Administration in a form of “Deep State” secret network, and their allied media such as the Washington Post, advocated US covert backing of a pet CIA project known as the Muslim Brotherhood. As I detail in my most recent book, Amerikas’ Heiliger Krieg, the CIA had cultivated ties to the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood death cult since the early 1950’s.Now if we map the resources of known natural gas reserves in the entire Persian Gulf region, the motives of the Saudi-led Qatar and UAE in financing with billions of dollars the opposition to Assad, including the Sunni ISIS, becomes clearer. Natural gas has become the favored “clean energy” source for the 21st Century and the EU is the world’s largest growth market for gas, a major reason Washington wants to break the Gazprom-EU supply dependency to weaken Russia and keep control over the EU via loyal proxies like Qatar.The world’s largest known natural gas reservoir sits in the middle of the Persian Gulf straddling part in the territorial waters of Qatar and part in Iran. The Iranian part is called North Pars. In 2006 China’s state-owned CNOOC signed an agreement with Iran to develop North Pars and build LNG infrastructure to bring the gas to China.[4]The Qatar side of the Persian Gulf, called North Field, contains the world’s third largest known natural gas reserves behind Russia and Iran.In July 2011, the governments of Syria, Iran and Iraq signed an historic gas pipeline energy agreement which went largely unnoticed in the midst of the NATO-Saudi-Qatari war to remove Assad. The pipeline, envisioned to cost $10 billion and take three years to complete, would run from the Iranian Port Assalouyeh near the South Pars gas field in the Persian Gulf, to Damascus in Syria via Iraq territory. The agreement would make Syria the center of assembly and production in conjunction with the reserves of Lebanon. This is a geopolitically strategic space that geographically opens for the first time, extending from Iran to Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.[5] As Asia Times correspondent Pepe Escobar put it, “The Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline – if it’s ever built – would solidify a predominantly Shi’ite axis through an economic, steel umbilical cord.”[6]Shortly after signing with Iran and Iraq, on August 16, 2011, Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian Ministry of Oil announced the discovery of a gas well in the Area of Qarah in the Central Region of Syria near Homs. Gazprom, with Assad in power, would be a major investor or operator of the new gas fields in Syria. [7] Iran ultimately plans to extend the pipeline from Damascus to Lebanon’s Mediterranean port where it would be delivered to the huge

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EU market. Syria would buy Iranian gas along with a current Iraqi agreement to buy Iranian gas from Iran’s part of South Pars field.[8]

Qatar, today the world’s largest exporter of LNG, largely to Asia, wants the same EU market that Iran and Syria eye. For that, they would build pipelines to the Mediterranean. Here is where getting rid of the pro-Iran Assad is essential. In 2009 Qatar approached Bashar al-Assad to propose construction of a gas pipeline from Qatar’s north Field through Syria on to Turkey and to the EU. Assad refused, citing Syria’s long friendly relations with Russia and Gazprom. That refusal combined with the Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline agreement in 2011 ignited the full-scale Saudi and Qatari assault on Assad’s power, financing al Qaeda terrorists, recruits of Jihadist fanatics willing to kill Alawite and Shi’ite “infidels” for $100 a month and a Kalishnikov. The Washington neo-conservative warhawks in and around the Obama White House, along with their allies in the right-wing Netanyahu government, were cheering from the bleachers as Syria went up in flames after spring 2011.Today the US-backed wars in Ukraine and in Syria are but two fronts in the same strategic war to cripple Russia and China and to rupture any Eurasian counter-pole to a US-controlled New World Order. In each, control of energy pipelines, this time primarily of natural gas pipelines—from Russia to the EU via Ukraine and from Iran and Syria to the EU via Syria—is the strategic goal. The true aim of the US and Israel backed ISIS is to give the pretext for bombing Assad’s vital grain silos and oil refineries to cripple the economy in preparation for a “Ghaddafi-”style elimination of Russia and China and Iran-ally Bashar al-Assad.In a narrow sense, as Washington neo-conservatives see it, who controls Syria could control the Middle East. And from Syria, gateway to Asia, he will hold the key to Russia House, as well as that of China via the Silk Road.Religious wars have historically been the most savage of all wars and this one is no exception, especially when trillions of dollars in oil and gas revenues are at stake. Why is the secret Kerry-Abdullah deal on Syria reached on September 11 stupid? Because the brilliant tacticians in Washington and Riyadh and Doha and to an extent in Ankara are unable to look at the interconnectedness of all the dis-order and destruction they foment, to look beyond their visions of control of the oil and gas flows as the basis of their illegitimate power. They are planting the seeds of their own destruction in the end.William Engdahl is author of A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics in the New World Order. He is a contributing author at BFP and may be contacted through his website at www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net where this article was originally published.Notes:[1] M. Rochan, Crude Oil Drops Amid Global Demand Concerns, IB Times, October 11, 2014     http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/crude-oil-drops-amid-global-demand-concerns-1469524[2] Nihan Cabbaroglu, Saudi Arabia to pressure Russia Iran with price of oil, 10 October 2014, Turkish Anadolu Agency, http://www.aa.com.tr/en/economy/402343–saudi-arabia-to-pressure-russia-iran-with-price-of-oil[3] Adam Entous and Julian E. Barnes, Deal With Saudis Paved Way for Syrian Airstrikes: Talks With Saudi Arabia Were Linchpin in U.S. Efforts to Get Arab States Into Fight Against Islamic State, Wall Street Journal, September. 24, 2014, http://online.wsj.com/articles/deal-with-saudis-paved-way-for-syrian-airstrikes-1411605329?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories[4] POGC, North Pars Gas Field, Pars Oil and Gas Company website, http://www.pogc.ir/NorthParsGasField/tabid/155/Default.aspx[5] Imad Fawzi Shueibi , War Over Gas–Struggle over the Middle East: Gas Ranks First,

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17 April, 2012. http://www.voltairenet.org/article173718.html[6] Pepe Escobar, Why Qatar Wants to Invade Syria, Asia Times, September

27, 2012, http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32576.htm[7] Ibid.[8] F. William Engdahl, Syria Turkey Israel and the Greater Middle East Energy War, Global Research, October 11, 2012, http://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-turkey-israel-and-the-greater-middle-east-energy-war/5307902

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