Iraqi security forces continued to gain ground in the western city of Ramadi in Anbar province and expect to dislodge Daesh militants from the strategic city within days, local television reported on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, the army won back the al-Dubat neighborhood and al-Jirayshi district in the South of Ramadi city.

Iraqi forces also retook Al-Armal neighborhood and killed over a dozen terrorists.

"In the coming days will be announced the good news of the complete liberation of Ramadi," Iraqia TV quoted the army chief of staff Lt. General Othman al-Ghanemi as saying on Wednesday.

The Anonymous hacktivist group has taken responsibility for a powerful cyber-attack on the Turkish sector of the internet last week. It promised to continue waging cyber warfare on .tr domains until Ankara stops the "insanity" of supporting Islamic State.

The massive Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack on Turkish websites last week, initially attributed to spooky "Russian hackers," has been clarified with Anonymous issuing a video claiming responsibility and declaring cyber war on Turkey for supporting terrorists of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).

Barack Obama's repeated insistence that Bashar al-Assad must leave office - and that there are 'moderate' rebel groups in Syria capable of defeating him - has in recent years provoked quiet dissent, and even overt opposition, among some of the most senior officers on the Pentagon's Joint Staff. Their criticism has focused on what they see as the administration's fixation on Assad's primary ally, Vladimir Putin. In their view, Obama is captive to Cold War thinking about Russia and China, and hasn't adjusted his stance on Syria to the fact both countries share Washington's anxiety about the spread of terrorism in and beyond Syria; like Washington, they believe that Islamic State must be stopped.

The military's resistance dates back to the summer of 2013, when a highly classified assessment, put together by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, then led by General Martin Dempsey, forecast that the fall of the Assad regime would lead to chaos and, potentially, to Syria's takeover by jihadi extremists, much as was then happening in Libya. A former senior adviser to the Joint Chiefs told me that the document was an 'all-source' appraisal, drawing on information from signals, satellite and human intelligence, and took a dim view of the Obama administration's insistence on continuing to finance and arm the so-called moderate rebel groups. By then, the CIA had been conspiring for more than a year with allies in the UK, Saudi Arabia and Qatar to ship guns and goods - to be used for the overthrow of Assad - from Libya, via Turkey, into Syria. The new intelligence estimate singled out Turkey as a major impediment to Obama's Syria policy. The document showed, the adviser said, 'that what was started as a covert US programme to arm and support the moderate rebels fighting Assad had been co-opted by Turkey, and had morphed into an across-the-board technical, arms and logistical programme for all of the opposition, including Jabhat al-Nusra and Islamic State. The so-called moderates had evaporated and the Free Syrian Army was a rump group stationed at an airbase in Turkey.' The assessment was bleak: there was no viable 'moderate' opposition to Assad, and the US was arming extremists.

In a commentary published December 17 in the Washington Post, columnist David Ignatius, who has close connections with the US military-intelligence apparatus, comments on the debate within US ruling circles about the scale and timing of an escalation of the US military intervention in Iraq and Syria.

After noting that President Obama has so far rejected calls to deploy substantial numbers of US ground troops against ISIS, Ignatius poses this revealing question:

"What would cause Obama to change his mind and treat the war against the Islamic State as an existential crisis requiring a major US military intervention? Probably the trigger would be a big, orchestrated terrorist incident that so frightened the public that it began to prevent the normal functioning of America. At that point, Obama might decide there was no alternative to taking ownership of the Middle East mess with tens of thousands of US troops."

Russia lays a mine under Erdogan - intends to normalize relations with the Kurds and Turkish opposition

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia Sergey Lavrov may meet with the leader of the Pro-Kurdish opposition People's Democracy party of Turkey, Selahattin Demirtash, informed RIA Novosti with reference to its sources in the Russian Foreign Ministry. It is known that Demirtash arrives in Moscow on Tuesday, he had earlier expressed the desire to meet with Lavrov.

The People's Democracy party is a serious political force in Turkey. According to the results of the last parliamentary elections, it received 13% of votes and formed its own faction, along with three other major political forces of the country. The main difference of the party of Demirtash from the others in that it openly supports the Kurds and opposes President Erdogan.

It is important to note that the planned meeting between Lavrov and Demirtash will take place amid a sharp deterioration in Turkey's domestic situation. In the southeastern provinces predominantly populated by Kurds, there is currently fighting between the Kurdish militia and the Turkish army. Data on casualties from both sides varies, but we are talking about dozens of dead and wounded. On Sunday there were street battles in Istanbul between police and thousands of protesters demanding to stop the military operation. We can safely say that the internal political situation in Turkey is heating up, and not in favor of Erdogan.

Turkish officials were involved in illegal transport of oil from Iraq long before the emergence of the so-called Islamic State (ISIL/ISIS/IS/DAESH). Their illegal trade expanded to the Syrian Arab Republic with the intensification of the conflict in Syria. Turkey, however, is not the only player involved in the illegal oil trade in Syria and Iraq. The operations of the Anglo-Turkish company Genel Energy PLC, which works in Iraqi Kurdistan and Malta, illustrates the constellation of financial and energy sector interests involved.

General Energy PLC

Genel Energy PLC has its headquarters in the English Channel's Crown Dependency of the Bailiwick of Jersey, which is an offshore tax haven governed by Britain's monarchy as a separate entity from the United Kingdom and its overseas territories. With the involvement of Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Cazenove, the Jersey-based energy company surfaced in 2011 after a £2.5 billion reverse merger takeover of Genel Enerji International Limited by Vallares PLC, an investment company setup by former BP oil conglomerate executive Anthony («Tony») Bryan Hayward, JNR Limited financier and banking dynasty scion Nathaniel («Nat») Rothschild, Nat's financer cousin Thomas («Tom») Daniel, and Dresdner Kleinwort and Goldman Sachs investment banker Julian Metherell. Vallares is modeled on the Jersey-incorporated predecessor of Asia Resource Minerals PLC, Vallar (later BUMI PLC), which in 2010 raised £707.2 million in initial public offering and was co-founded by Nat Rothschild and Tom Daniel.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's plane will be escorted by four Russian fighter jets during his upcoming visit to Iran, reports said, adding that the US coalition has been alerted to stand down as the Russian jets will have the permission to fire at will at any incoming aircraft.

"Four strategic Russian fighter jets will accompany the plane carrying the Syrian president during the visit to and from Iran," the Lebanese al-Diyar daily reported on Sunday.

The newspaper also added that the Syrian president is due to travel to Tehran via the Iraqi airspace.

The Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen is to blame for a disproportionate number of civilian deaths and the destruction of infrastructure in the conflict, said the UN human rights chief who urged the UN Security Council to step up ceasefire efforts.

"Failure to act decisively does not only spell misery for the millions of vulnerable people in Yemen today. It would inevitably push the country into an irreversible process of Balkanization, the consequences of which would lie outside of anyone's control," High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein told the 15-member body.

The need to establish a long-lasting ceasefire is vital as instability on the ground creates a breeding ground for jihadist fighters who not only threaten Yemen, but the entire region as a whole.

Russian diplomacy achieved a trio of Security Council Resolutions over the last month which give Russia a decisive advantage

At the beginning of Russia's intervention in Syria - in an interview for Radio Sputnik - I predicted the Russians would seek legal cover for their actions in the form of a Security Council mandate. In the event, months of intense diplomatic activity have resulted in three separate but complimentary Security Council Resolutions, all passed in just a few weeks. Taken together with reports of continued advances by the Syrian army, these Resolutions give Russia what is starting to look like a winning hand.

To understand this however requires looking at each of these Resolutions in detail, and then seeing how they all work together.

Resolution 2249

The first of these Resolutions is Resolution 2249 passed unanimously on 20th November 2015. Its full text can be found here.

Its key provision is paragraph 5 which reads as follows:

"5. (The Security Council) Calls upon Member States that have the capacity to do so to take all necessary measures, in compliance with international law, in particular with the United Nations Charter, as well as international human rights, refugee and humanitarian law, on the territory under the control of ISIL also known as Da'esh, in Syria and Iraq, to redouble and coordinate their efforts to prevent and suppress terrorist acts committed specifically by ISIL also known as Da'esh as well as ANF, and all other individuals, groups, undertakings, and entities associated with Al-Qaida, and other terrorist groups, as designated by the United Nations Security Council, and as may further be agreed by the International Syria Support Group (ISSG) and endorsed by the UN Security Council, pursuant to the statement of the International Syria Support Group (ISSG) of 14 November, and to eradicate the safe haven they have established over significant parts of Iraq and Syria."

I have discussed Resolution 2249 previously here.

International Military Review - Syria (Dec. 22)