Middle East Report Jan. 15, 2016 King of Jordan Deserts Obama, Aligns With Russia

In a pivotal step reflecting the changeability of military and political deals in Israel’s neighborhood, Jordan has almost overnight agreed to establish a shared war room with Russia for the concerted conduct of their operations in Syria. This represents an extreme reversal of Amman’s policy. Until now, Jordan fought against Russia’s protégée Bashar Assad from a joint war room north of Amman called the US Central Command Forward-Jordan, as part of a lineup with the US, Saudi Arabia and Israel. But this week Jordan shifted onto a new plane.

My Russian military and intelligence sources tell me Jordanian King Abdullah’s decision to team up with Moscow starts a whole new ball game rolling on policy-making and intelligence-sharing. He doesn’t plan to shut down his shared command center with the US and Israel, but the center of gravity of Jordan’s military and intelligence efforts will be redirected to the new center with Russia, representing a major earthquake in those areas.

Amman is working hard to downplay the new partnership, presenting it as designed to foster better coordination between the American and Russian military efforts in Syria and the war on ISIS.

That picture is misleading. Jordanian military and intelligence services are not qualified for the role of coordinator between the two world powers. The US and Russian presidents handle this in person. And in fact, the new Russian-Jordanian war room did come up, according to our Washington and Moscow sources, in the latest telephone conversation between the two presidents on Jan. 13.

Obama then held a quick meeting with King Abdullah at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland and asked for an explanation.   

For the various terrorist militias holding out in large parts of southern Syria, including the Israeli border regions, the new Jordanian-Russian war room is bad news. Hitherto, Jordan provided the terrorists with their main pipeline for fighters, weapons and funds from the US, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The US even ran training camps in Jordan for Syrian terrorist fighters.

This pipeline will now be shut down or reduced to a minimum.

The Jordanians gloss over their shift, claiming it is designed to force the Syrian terrorists of the South to accept a ceasefire and join peace talks with the US and Russia on Syria’s future. That is no more than diplomatic-speak for the real purpose, which is to compel them to give up the fight against Assad, and make way for Moscow to achieve its key objective, which is to restore the Assad regime’s control over the South.

Ever since his intervention in Syria, Putin has tried to persuade Prime Minister Netanyahu to pull the rug from under the Israeli-backed terrorists in the South. They are deemed as a necessary buffer for securing Israel's northern border and blocking the re-imposition of Assad's authority there.
The content of the exchanges between Putin and Netanyahu has only been shared with tight circles of confidants in Jerusalem and the Kremlin, so little is reliably known about their areas of agreement and dispute.
There is no doubt that the prime minister spoke firmly about Israel’s abiding concern that, once Assad regained control of the South, he would open the door up to the Israeli border and let in his allies and Israel’s arch enemies, Hizbollah and the mostly-Iraqi Shiite militias fighting under the command of officers from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.

By teaming up with Jordan for a joint war room to cover operations in southern Syria, Putin has gone around Netanyahu’s back and acquired a helper for evicting Syrian rebels from southern Syria.

Sitrep Syria Jan. 15, 2016, watch the video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llalQhokhw8

Turkish Prime Minister Davutoglu said Thursday afternoon that his country's army attacked ISIS targets in Syria and Iraq, and killed about 200 ISIS fighters, in retaliation for the suicide bombing in Istanbul on Tuesday. The targets were in Bashiqa in northern Iraq and Marea in Syria, about 20 kilometers from the Turkish border.
"After the heinous attack in Istanbul, our armed forces hit in the last 48 hours some 500 positions of Daesh in Syria and Iraq with artillery and tank fire," the prime minister said, using the Arabic acronym for ISIS. He added that the attacks on terror targets would continue. Ten people, mostly German tourists, were killed in the suicide bombing.

Moscow has released the text of the agreement signed with Syria on August 25, 2015, more than a month before Russia launched its military intervention in Syria. This agreement gave Russia the go-ahead for an open-ended military presence in the war-torn country. The bombing campaign was described as targeting the Islamic State group and other “terrorists” at the request of Syria’s President Bashar Assad, with no time limit. Russia was given permission to deploy warplanes and personnel at the Hmeimim airbase in Latakia.

“This is a sign of our might,” Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, pictured above, said after the release of 10 US sailors captured Tuesday in Persian Gulf waters. Araqshi was one of the architects of the nuclear accord and is often praised by US Secretary of State John Kerry. Chairman of Iran’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Alaeddin Boroujerdi sent a letter to Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi commending the action as “brave” and signifying Iran’s control of Persian Gulf security.

In all US administration references to the episode, there is no mention of the Revolutionary Guards as having seized the two US patrol boats – only the Iranian Navy.

The IDF ordered the temporary closure of the Kerem Shalom border crossing in southern Gaza as well as the evacuation of the facility late Thursday afternoon due to heavy exchanges of fire on the Egyptian side of the border, as well as concern that some of the fire could hit the crossing.