AMERICAN and allied forces may directly intervene in the ongoing Ukraine conflict against Russia even without a threat to any member of the US-led NATO military alliance, former US spy chief and Army general David Petraeus has said.
If Russia took any action in Ukraine which was ‘so shocking and so horrific’, it would then prompt a response from the United States and other nations, the ex-CIA director said on Saturday during an interview with France’s weekly magazine, L’Express.
He said they ‘might react in one way or another, but as a multinational force led by the United States and not as a NATO force.’
Petraeus, who also commanded the US occupation forces in Afghanistan from 2010 to 2011, suggested that Washington might form a new ‘coalition of the willing’ in such a scenario and use it instead of a NATO force to engage against Russia.
He further implied that NATO would remain bound to the terms of the military alliance and would only join the war if one of its members came under attack.
However, according to a CBS report, an elite military unit from the United States is already prepared to fight in Ukraine if the conflict ‘escalates’.
Earlier this month, Petraeus claimed that the US could wipe out all Russian forces in Ukraine – along with the Russian Black Sea fleet – if Moscow resorted to the use of nuclear weapons in the country.
The decorated retired Army general doubled down on such claims during the Saturday interview by insisting that Washington’s response to any Russian use of nukes would involve ‘more than diplomatic … economic and legal actions.’
Petraeus further underlined that his earlier remarks only raised ‘just one’ of ‘many options’ America has in store should Moscow resort to the use of nuclear arms, which would be ‘an extremely bad decision’.
The former top US military and intelligence official insisted, however, that Moscow is not interested in escalating the Ukraine conflict and turning it into a global war, and a wider conflict is ‘the last thing’ Russia’s President Vladimir Putin needs right now.
Pointing to recent Western press reports about major counter-attacks and gains scored by Kiev forces, Petraeus also claimed there is nothing Russia can do to change the situation on the frontlines, which, he said, is unfavourable to Moscow.
This is while Moscow insisted on Saturday that Russian forces had repelled an attack by Ukraine in the southern region of Kherson, where Kiev forces have reported advances in recent weeks.
Russia has asked civilians to evacuate the city of Kherson in anticipation of a wider Ukrainian counter-offensive.
The Russian Defence Ministry declared in a statement that ‘all attacks have been repulsed, and the enemy has been pushed back to their initial positions.’
It added that Ukrainian forces pressed their offensive towards the areas of Piatykhatky, Suhanove, Sablukivka, and Bezvodne, on the west bank of the Dnieper River, and Russian forces had also repelled attacks in Lugansk and Donetsk regions in eastern Ukraine.
Petraeus commanded United States forces in Afghanistan from 2010 to 2011, presiding over America’s highest death toll during the 20-year war, and increased civilian casualties.
During that time, he persuaded then-US president Barack Obama to deploy an additional 30,000 soldiers to the war-torn country, but his so-called counterinsurgency plan, which hinged on ‘securing and serving’ the local population, proved disastrous.
He was later appointed director of the CIA spy agency in 2011, only to resign the following year after a scandal involving his extramarital affair with a woman who was supposedly writing his biography.
- The Turkish military reportedly plans to construct two new military facilities in the northern part of war-ravaged Syria, as the Ankara government attempts to flush out members of the US-backed Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militant group from areas close to its border.
The Arabic-language Enab Baladi news website reported that the two bases are believed to be built near Deir Balut and al-Ghazawiyah crossings, which connect the northern regions of Aleppo province to neighbouring Idlib province.
The crossings link the regions occupied by Turkish-backed militants from the so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA) to the areas controlled by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham Takfiri terrorists.
A top FSA member told Enab Baladi that Turkish forces have been stationed in the district where these two military bases are expected to be built, but the construction has not started yet.
He said it remains unclear whether Turkey intends to establish permanent or temporary bases there.
The high-ranking militant said that the main reason behind constructing the military facilities is apparently to monitor the departure of HTS members from the areas under the control of FSA terrorists.
Marsad80 website, which is affiliated with the Syrian opposition groups, also reported that Turkey is building the bases with the ‘aim of preventing further conflicts’ in the region.
Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham Takfiri terrorists have taken control of the predominantly Kurdish city of Afrin in Syria’s Aleppo province.
Turkey is deploying forces in Syria in violation of the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Ankara-backed militants were deployed to northeastern Syria in October 2019 after Turkish military forces launched a long-threatened cross-border invasion in a declared attempt to push members of the US-backed YPG militant group away from border areas.
Ankara views the YPG as a terrorist organisation tied to the homegrown Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been seeking an autonomous Kurdish region in Turkey since 1984.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and other senior officials have said Damascus will respond with all legitimate means available to Turkey’s ongoing ground offensive.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has already stated that a new Turkish operation against the YPG militants will remain on the agenda until security concerns are addressed.
Both Iran and Russia, which have been aiding Damascus in its anti-terror campaign, have warned Turkey against launching such an offensive.
- As the US continues to push for more sanctions to hamper Iran’s scientific progress, the Iranian National Observatory (INO) says its world-class, 3.4-metre optical telescope has received its ‘first light’ after becoming operational.
INO Project Director Habib Khosroshahi announced last Wednesday that the National Telescope’s debut images, simultaneously with its first light, were received late last month.
‘It is very rare that the first astronomical images are received simultaneously with the first light, but we received an image of Arp 282, located 320 megalight-years distant from the Earth with the first light,’ Khosroshahi said.
‘In fact, if the Hubble Space Telescope was used on the Earth to observe the sky and record images, perhaps the quality of its image of (Arp 282) would be the same as the image that we took with the National Telescope.’
He added that the second image received from the National Telescope was of NGC 23, a spiral galaxy around 173.5 megalight-years distant from the Milky Way.
Iran’s National Observatory, is a project described by authorities as one of the best in the world.
Gerry Gilmore, an astronomer at the University of Cambridge and chair of INO’s international advisory board, said the project was just a dream when INO started it.
‘No one in Iran had attempted anything on this scale before,’ he told Science Magazine.
‘What surprises me is that the know-how came so fast,’ optical engineer Lorenzo Zago, a consultant and advisory board member, said. ‘They’ve been working like hell!’
In an article, Iran’s Nour News hailed the country’s progress in the fields of aerospace and astronomy, saying: ‘Although the cruel sanctions have hindered some scientific and technical cooperation, they have not prevented the realisation of a strong Iran.’
Iran’s National Observatory, a totally home-grown project, was inaugurated only last year. Its astronomers faced unprecedented problems in building INO, including sanctions that curtail high-tech imports and visa restrictions limiting their travel abroad.
The Observatory is built on a mountain top in the city of Kamoo in Isfahan province at an altitude of 3,600 metres. Initial launch plans were laid in the 1990s, but construction stalled due to financial and technical problems.
- Commander of the Iranian Army’s Navy, Rear Admiral Shahram Irani, has confirmed the seizure of two US unmanned vessels by the country’s naval forces.
Addressing a welcoming ceremony for the 84th Naval Fleet at the end of its 86-day mission to international waters last Friday, Irani said the sea drones were seized for posing threats to the safety of maritime traffic.
‘The US should know that it must comply with international laws of navigation,’ the Navy commander stated, adding that Iran, with its powerful presence in the region, will respond decisively to any move that endangers the security and safety of shipping.
In early September, the Iranian Navy’s Jamaran destroyer seized two US maritime drones and then released them in the Red Sea in order to prevent naval incidents in the international shipping lane, warning Washington to avoid repeating similar incidents.
Iran has carried out numerous operations in recent months against fuel smuggling in the Persian Gulf. Its naval forces have succeeded in escorting and protecting thousands of oil tankers and commercial ships in international waters in recent years.
