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Iraq Update: Fighting Continues, Battle For Refinery, PM On The Rocks
Here are all the latest news and updates from the rapidly-changing situation in Iraq, courtesy of Bloomberg.
FRONT-LINE FIGHTING
- Iraqi govt troops retain control of 310k b/d Baiji refinery, but facility surrounded by territory held by ISIL-led militants
- Aerial photos yday showed some storage tanks on fire
- Fierce battles near Baiji and Tal Afar airport: BBC
- Fighting continues around Tal Afar, halfway between Mosul and Syrian border
- Clashes reported between ISIL and Kurds south of Kirkuk
FOREIGN POLITICS
- U.S. to send 300 military advisors to Baghdad; lack sufficient intelligence for imminent air strikes: Gen. Dempsey
- Saudi Arabia warns against outside intervention in Iraq, blames “exclusionary policies” of Iraqi cabinet: Saudi ambassador writes in Telegraph
- ISIL hands over captured foreign workers to police
PRESSURE ON MALIKI
- Obama declines to endorse Maliki, but stops short of calling for him to step down
- Challengers emerging to replace Iraq PM: NYT
OIL PRODUCTION IN NORTHERN IRAQ
- Current output from Iraq’s northern fields cut to 30k b/d; supplying Kirkuk refinery
- Northern fields were producing ~650-700k b/d before March 2 closure of export pipeline to Turkey
IRAQ’S NORTHERN EXPORTS
- Exports from Iraq’s northern fields cut since March 2 when the Iraq-Turkey pipeline was bombed
- Exports of Kirkuk crude from Turkish port of Ceyhan fell to 24k b/d in March, zero in April: Oil Ministry
- NOTE: Iraq still exports crude from southern fields via Persian Gulf
ROLE OF KURDISTAN
- Kurdish forces have taken control of Kirkuk oil field and city after central govt forces fled
- Kurds fighting ISIL forces at Bayshir, south of Kirkuk
- Ashti Hawrami, Kurdish Regional Govt’s natural resources minister, offered to export Kirkuk via Kurdish pipelines, but was rebuffed
- Kurds to boost exports to 200k-250k b/d in July from 125k b/d now; targeting 400k b/d by end-2014
BAIJI REFINERY
- Sprawling complex of storage tanks, processing units
- Primary source of products for N Iraq; also supplies Baghdad
- Linked power plant provides electricity to region
- Represents ~40% of Iraq’s refining capacity; processes crude delivered by pipeline and rail from Kirkuk, Ajeel (formerly Saddam) and other fields operated by North Oil Co.
- Lies on Iraq-Ceyhan pipeline; important source of fuel for both govt and ISIL
- Storage tanks full: Iraq Oil Ministry
- Capture would provide immediate source of fuel for insurgents’ vehicles and for sale in N Iraq.
OIL PRODUCTION/EXPORTS FROM SOUTHERN IRAQ
- Production in south unaffected by fighting so far
- Iraq plans to ship 2.79m b/d from Basrah Oil Terminal in July; most since before 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War
- BP, Exxon, CNPC and Petronas started to evacuate non- Iraqi staff from nation
- Shell ’monitoring the situation very carefully’: Andy Brown, head of Shell Upstream International
- Lukoil has increased security at West Qurna field, where it started production in March
- Southern oil facilities not beyond ISIL’s reach: Barclays
WHO IS ISIL?
- Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is also known as Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS)
- A Sunni jihadist group led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
- Broke away from al-Qaeda in 2013
- Want to create a Sunni caliphate across Iraq, Syria and neighboring countries
- Control large parts of northern Syria
- Well funded through sales of Syrian oil and antiquities
- Vowed to attack Baghdad and Shiite holy cities of Karbala and Najaf
WHAT IS THE CORE ISSUE?
- ISIL insurgents have overrun large parts of northern and central Iraq; Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Shiite Muslim-led govt now seeking to regain control
- 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq and subsequent rise to power of Shiite-Muslim majority alienated Sunni Muslims; Sunnis felt marginalized under Maliki; some support ISIL
- Maliki accuses ISIL of an alliance with Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath party
- Shiites constitute majority in southern Iraq
Source: BBG
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We need more war for some reason.
Everybody knows war is good for the economy(!)
Dark Lord: Ordo ab Chao (maniacal laughter)
Looks like the refinery lost this battle.
Bullish?
Yes. Go long bikes, horses and hiking boots.
It has a new mission statement : to refine beards; shia, sunni and kurdish.
Don't know yet which style will win!
nobody wins, everyone loses something.
Looks like the refinery lost this battle.
In other military news NATO has come out in defence of fracking.
Glad to see we maintain expensive military alliances that work their butts off to protect commercial extraction techniques and technology.
Cannot wait for NATOs next target. A war on shoes? A ringing defense of household detergents? A hellfire up the ass if you dare use oleomargerine?
Apparently Tal Afar has been liberated by Iraqi forces.
http://www.islamicinvitationturkey.com/2014/06/20/iraqi-army-retakes-key...
Prominent Saudi ISIS leader killed in Tikrit
http://www.islamicinvitationturkey.com/2014/06/20/saudi-isil-commander-k...
To Re-iterate, 59 generals brought to court over abandoning mosul starting this all:
http://www.islamicinvitationturkey.com/2014/06/19/59-generals-brought-to...
As for Fracking, that is going to continue here come hell or high water. It is a self perpetuating thing now, these companies have to keep drilling to maintain production let alone expand it. The business model works but it guarantees perpetual drilling if management wants to maintain value.
Regarding the NATO model, I would refer readers to look at Libya, where the radical islamists who were installed there are locked in a protracted battle with tribal militias ( who would be better served in control ) with Oil exports a fraction of what they were and should be.
Either way this ends in IRan since the Settler state on the mediterranean and the Bronze Age savages in Saudi Arabia consider them an existential threat.
p.s. here is a current as of last night map of the Battle from syrianperspective.com
http://www.syrianperspective.com/2014/06/new-map-of-the-military-situati...
NOte on that Map Sinjar. For readers who would like a bit of a history lesson, the sinjar records were a list of terrorists found there which detailed the homes and the designations ( suicide bomber, jihadi ) of a list of terrorists. West Point did an analysis on them and Saudi Arabia was the home run hitter, with Libya, Specifically Ben Gazi being an honorable mention. Figure that one out.
http://tarpley.net/docs/CTCForeignFighter.19.Dec07.pdf
p.p.s. has it even been mentioned once on zerohedge that at least as much fighting has come from former Hussein right hand man Al-Duri and his crew?
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/13/isis-s-secret-allies.html
probably not because that would require re-wiring the entire story.
The latest horror:
NATO accuses "THE DESPICABLE MR. PUTIN" of anti-fracking propaganda.
The military arm of the oil cartel so sayeth.
LOL hilarious. IF you want to know who is pushing anti fracking propaganda, you may want to look at our "allies" Qatar.
We are in bed with the worst of the worst and leave it to the press to peddle provable lies to an increasingly retarded unwashed mass.
Is there anything that would cause more soldier's developing PTSD than having this cunt President letting Iraq be overrun? More and more soldiers realize that they drank too much Kool Aid - many soldiers' suicides must be coming from this. Fuck you, Barry.
Iraq overrun? How about our own borders? This guy's plan was to fundamentally transform America...into just part of the rest of the world, i.e. corrupt, dirty banana republics for the most part. Just one of the things he is doing is encouraging the middle east to go to hell. He is also preventing rule of law domestically, and the consequences of that may be irreversible. Just the legacy this destroyer wants.
I heard the fellow on NPR saying over 90,000 children from Mexico and Central America will walk across the border this year mostly into texas since he said 'that's the easiest place to cross.' He said 47,000 kids have already made it across.
Pretty incredible.
"90,000 children from Mexico and Central America will walk across the border this year"
Maybe we should move Ms Liberty down by the Rio Grande. She'd at least be safe from
hurricanes...
Repub governors in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Florida doing pretty much nothing to stop the invasion.
Tidefighter
That kind of warped thinking about how to "support the troops"
is part of the reason there are so many with PTSD.
Shock & Awe, Bitchez!
Typical Beltway C-i-A and State Dept op where these poor stupid bastards are all in black.
Great color for the desert and a hot climate.
mission accomplished
Next we are going to see dick Cheney go over there and ride a huge fucking sand worm into the refinery.
WB7, can you mock one up?
Would that be considered a slight by the sandworm community?
the trouble will be getting the audience to recognize who is the worm.....
My god that was funny
The Nobel Prize Winner is using the Iraq crisis to push for a wider war after his lies on sarin use by Assad failed to ignite a US war on Syria (http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n24/seymour-m-hersh/whose-sarin):
Obama exploits Iraq crisis as pretext for war against Syria
By Patrick Martin and Joseph Kishore20 June 2014
The Obama administration is utilizing the crisis in Iraq as an opportunity to escalate the US war drive throughout the Middle East, with Syria in the crosshairs.
On Thursday, President Obama held an afternoon press conference in which he announced that the US would send 300 military advisers to Iraq as part of a military deployment that includes plans for a bombing campaign ostensibly targeting an insurgency led by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
Following this announcement, a conference call was held with three unnamed administration officials. When a reporter asked whether US attacks on ISIS would be limited to Iraq, given that ISIS operates on both sides of the Iraq-Syria border, and controls significant territory in eastern Syria, one official responded that “we don't restrict potential US action to a specific geographic space.”
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/06/20/iraq-j20.html
let the fuckers kill each other...
I think bankers was the word you were looking for
Moar Woar.
300 "Military Advisers".....how fucking dumb do they think we are?
It is okay. They will not be allowed to wear boots, just Crocs. Who is the dummy now?
So ... "Crocs on the ground" instead of "Boots on the ground" ?
Cool.
Mongo saw "pm on the rocks" and shit himself a little, was thinking precious metals on the rocks!
they will be again soon, unless somebody nukes someboday else this weekend...
dead man walking = maliki.
Martin Armstrong said the war cycle was at lows. More proof that he is an idiot.
>> More proof that he is an idiot.
Who needed proof?
Armstrong discovered something he wasn't supposed to. He was jailed for it and beaten to within an inch of his life. He cut a deal to be released and now appears to be a disinfo agent.
Armstrong also plead guilty to running a ponzi scheme, which he was in fact running. I can tell by that guy's ego, he won't admit he is wrong even when he is. An ego like that is likely to lie about losses. And that is what he did. I don't have to be an FBI profiler to figure Armstrong out: Convict, has a magic formula for winning in the markets, losses money, blames others and conspiracies, drops names and throws around pictures of himself standing nextr to random famous people. That guy sends my BS detectors into overdrive.
I could PRETEND I understood Iraq, but the only thing I know for sure is that whatever's going on, Obama's gonna have us on the wrong side of it.
Brzezinski's grand chessboard is a good refresher!
Nodebt
I could pretend I understand America, but the only thing I know for sure is that whatever is going on, Obama is going to have us on the wrong side of this.
usa military advisors...
lack sufficient intelligence...
They left it on Lois Lerner's HDD.
Good, concise, summary. Yea !!!
Bullish for Nike sneakers. No boots.
Sauidi / Qatar needs to feed Europe before Russia has a clear shot through Ukraine.
Pipeline warefare beginning to go parabolic
It all comes down to this:
http://www.doomsteaddiner.net/blog/2014/06/17/imf-hit-men/
good link
Get Boots and Coots on speed dial
The article didnt need anymore after that.
G I Air Jordans..the new hot shoe...its not a boot..
Yeah, no boots on the ground-what the hell do they do-levitate?
"Boots on the ground is technically > 10,000 GI's." It's in the new constitution I swear!
"U.S. to send 300 advisors to Bagdad". To advise ISIS or Iraq army?
Hopefully to "advise" our embassy personel on how to get the hell outta Dodge!
You do ask a good question tho.
BUT there's an oil tank burning, causing pollution and global warming! That's the last straw ! Obamao to begin bombing in 5...4...3...
Remember Benghazi!
Some clemency for those in high office who spoke out about Benghazigate. No clemency for those who didn't.
The U.S. military can't take it from the front and the back for much longer without snapping. Good men will be dragged kicking and screaming to a place where they must act. At the end of the day, those with the ordnance rule the block, whether it's the uniformed military or tens of millions of armed Americans.
PM on the rocks /
Typical US supremist strategy : when the shit hits the fan due to past criminal play momentum you change the surrogate head man; the Ngo Dinh Diem in NAM strategy, the Sihanouk/Mossadegh/Saddam/Soekarno/Allende ouster strategies of Pax Americana mayhem plays of past-- with more or less CIA arm twisting behind the curtain--; just like that other exit now being orchestrated in Afghan-Karzai land.
I blame Lawrence of Arabia... “No Prisoners!”
You well might, but Lawrence was duped in his efforts to present a Pan Arab State to al Faisal.
Al-Faisal got Iraq as a consolation prize while the Indian arm of the British Army won out over giving Saud the Arabian Peninsula as an attempt to weaken both leaders from non-acceptance by the locals. Indian Brits didn't want successful Independence movements so close to India.
It almost worked.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD_AejDc1fA
isis is us/saudi backed to realise the us/saudi/israel agenda that is Irak partition
so us will never bomb isis and this explains why they are asking unexpectedly Maliki (who has accused saudi arabia) to step down
Years ago, who among you knew it would be Iraq 3.0 by now?
I put my hand up.
oil war bitchez
Lest us not forget the most important connection here.
The ISIS is allowed to roll into Iraq by Obama's military and knock over a Central Bank in the petrodollar system right as the FED might actually be tapering bond purchases finally now that Belgium isn't buying as much and the FED is trying to create a run from bonds to stawks which would undermine the US government.
The Bloomberg list of supposed
"core issues" ignores the only real core issue.
That one core issue is the brutal drive of the US, Israel, and even the Saudis
to Balkanize the Mideast to better dominate the region, its resources, and control global finances.
That is why the US fabricated reasons to invade Iraq as planned.
That is why the US dismantled the Iraqi government and infrastructure despite knowing the resultant chaos would cost many US and Iraqi lives.
That is why, for over a decade, the US/Israel, Saudis have jointly fostered sectarian mayhem.
That is why they support drug lords and oppressively divisive Iraqi and Afghan governments.
That is why they backed the jihadists in Syria and Iraq, to carve out a separate Sunni region.
here's some links to:
Balkanizing the Mideast according to the "Clean Break" & PNAC plans.
Atomizing the Mideast
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2014/06/17/iraq-will-the-neocons-get-...
US plotting
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-destruction-and-political-fragmentation...
Managing Chaos
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/06/17/is-open-ended-chaos-the-desired-u...
The recent "redirection" to give greater support the Sunnis, including Sunni jihadists, has confused those who continue (incredibly) to assume US policy is geared to prevent "terrorism". However, despite the tactical shift, the overall objectives remain the same.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/06/18/the-isis-fiasco-its-really-an-att...
It is going to cost the Democrats the next election regardless. They look like idiots and can't explain what they think they are doing without looking worse. And what they think they are doing, versus what they are actually doing, are two different things. Treachery this obvious is not un-noticed by the world. I hope the Republicans don't run McInsane again.
The Greater Syria Army (ISIS) is like Bengazhi but 1,000,000x stronger.
We have our guys inside the "compound" and we have our guys attacking the same "compound." Neither side knows what the other is doing and neither sides are allowed to talk freely about what they are doing.
This is like another panel of Spy Verses Spy from Mad Magazine.
We trained these guys up in Jordan and Syria for a year AND we provided them with access to all the things you need to build a modern war machine - transportation, guns, fuel, radios - all those "black flags." The outstanding element here is the integrations of the so-called "foreign fighters" These are guys across the global that do not speak the same languages and many are flat out illiterate. What is the glue that is binding these folks to together? Sure you can say "Islam," or most speaking Arabic but what deus ex machina planning the operational phase of this attack and fanning out across the region?
This op is not unlike the current US immigration "surge" that everyone is freaking out about. But here (again) you have ICE "upholding" immigration laws and process AND shipping illegals deeper inside the country with cash in hand. It's about overwhelming the system in order to collapse it. A collapsed system is "easier" to re-engineer than a functioning one - or so the arm chair generals think.
These two seemingly different events are from the same Cloward-Piven play book. Pay attention because some de-gentrified Dallas neighborhood is not that different than some ramshackle Shia shanty in Baghdad - at least in the minds of The Controllers.
South Dakota got $100 million in grants to help prevent terrorist attacks - hell, I lived in the US all my life and I don't know where South Dakota is, what are the chances a terrorist would be interested?....
you want news ?
http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4532654,00.html
israel will pick up the first oil shipment by the kords....
There is most likely 2 agendas at play here.
Obama's military wants to take control of a standing army to wage jihad and expand the caliphate clown show into other Shia and Sunni regions.
US military just wants to keep both sides tied up in a never ending conflict to make money selling training and weapons to both sides (Syria part deux).
Common agendas
Suck Iran into a conflict to open up retaliation and further aggresion into Iran, try to keep the Central Banks from shorting the US government by letting them know who is boss by knocking over a Central Bank. Without Obama's and the US military coordinating things these operations become second rate and ineffective in their ability and scope to multiply the effects of their resources. By shorting the Treasuries either through real tapering, increasing interest rates cause a bond run they effectively short the ability of the US to keep waging woar outside it's borders (sort of since there is reason why black ops are black).
The relationship between the temples and government has always been symbiotic both need each other going back to the times of ancient Egypt. The Central Banks are the current temples, bankers the priests and money the god. No one will accept an absolute single ruler in the sense of a societal structure since in a master/slave relationship you always need enablers to make it seem like it is 'voluntary' in nature to legitimize the relationship.
funny how cia mi6 mossad run basra is all quiet.
cannot have the oil or the drugs shipments slowed can we.
get hezbollah in these isis sneaker pimps will be wiped out in a week what a chatham house psy op fuckin sham
Politicians hide themselves away, they only started the war.