TOP US military officer General Mark Milley has visited American occupation forces in northern Syria just one day after he’d met with the Israeli regime’s officials in the occupied territories.
The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff made a stop at an undisclosed occupied base in northern Syria on Saturday to talk with American troops and commanders about recommendations for the future of the Pentagon’s operations in the war-wracked country.
The US military has more than 900 troops at various locations in northeastern Syria – without the consent of the Syrian government – for what it claims to be ‘counter-terrorism operations and fight against the remnants of the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group.’
It also trains and advises the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a group of militants that oppose Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government.
Asked by reporters about the deployment of American troops to Syria, Milley tied the mission to the security of the United States and its allies, saying: ‘If you think that that’s important, then the answer is “Yes”.
‘I think that an enduring defeat of ISIS (Daesh) and continuing to support our friends and allies in the region … I think those are important tasks that can be done,’ US president Joe Biden’s top military adviser added.
The US and its allies invaded Syria in 2014 under the pretext of fighting Daesh. The Takfiri terrorist group had emerged as Washington was running out of excuses to extend its meddling in the region.
The US-led coalition maintains its illegal presence on Syrian soil even though Damascus and its allies defeated Daesh in late 2017.
Damascus has repeatedly urged the United Nations Security Council to end the US-led military presence in the country, saying that illegal US deployment is tantamount to occupation and aimed at plundering Syria’s natural resources.
Former US president Donald Trump admitted on several occasions that American forces were in the country for its oil wealth.
Milley’s visit to Syria came a day after he met with the Israeli regime’s officials in the occupied territories, during which they discussed Iran and what they claimed to be ways to stem Iran’s reach to ‘nuclear weapons’.
In his trip, the top US general also tried to prepare the ground for the visit of Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin to the occupied territories of Palestine tomorrow (Wednesday).
Milley’s visit came as tensions are running high in the occupied Palestinian territories amid Tel Aviv’s efforts to legitimise the illegal settlements, and the statement of Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s far-right minister of finance, on ‘wiping out’ the Palestinian village of Hawara.
On Saturday, Smotrich was forced to retract his comments about the destruction of the Palestinian village, days after illegal settlers went on a rampage in Hawara which is near Nablus in the occupied West Bank.
Smotrich was quoted by the Israeli media as excusing his comments earlier this week to ‘wipe out’ Hawara was just a ‘slip of the tongue’.
The Times of Israel newspaper reported that Smotrich had told local media that his ‘word choice was wrong, but the intention was very clear. It was a slip of the tongue in a storm of emotions.’
Hundreds of armed Israeli settlers attacked Hawara and nearby villages on Sunday night and torched dozens of houses and cars. They had been angered at the killing of two Israeli brothers by a Palestinian gunman in Hawara.
One Palestinian was killed during the settler rampage and at least 390 others were injured, with Palestinian media reporting stabbings and attacks against Hawara residents with metal rods and rocks.
The Israeli regime’s forces and settlers have escalated their deadly acts of aggression against the Palestinians since late December 2022, when Benjamin Netanyahu staged a comeback as the regime’s prime minister at the head of a cabinet of hard-right and ultra-Orthodox parties.
Since the start of the year, at least 68 Palestinians have been killed as a result of the violence.
- United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Saturday slammed the world’s rich countries and energy giants for throttling poor nations with ‘predatory’ interest rates and crippling fuel prices.
Speaking in the Qatari capital, Doha, Guterres told leaders of more than 40 of the most deprived states that wealthy nations should provide $500 billion a year to help others ‘trapped in vicious cycles’ that block efforts to boost economies and vital services.
The summit of Least Developed Countries (LDC) is normally held every ten years but has twice been delayed since 2021 because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Afghanistan and Myanmar, two of the poorest countries, were not present at the Doha meeting of 46 LDC states because their governments are not recognised by UN members.
No leader from any of the world’s major economies attended.
At a leaders’ summit ahead of the start of the general LDC conference on Sunday, Guterres immediately hit out at the way poor nations are treated by the more powerful.
‘Economic development is challenging when countries are starved for resources, drowning in debt, and still struggling with the historic injustice of an unequal Covid-19 response,’ he said.
The LDCs have complained that they did not get a fair share of the Covid vaccines that went mainly to Europe and North America.
‘Combating climate catastrophe that you did nothing to cause is challenging when the cost of capital is sky-high’ and the financial help received ‘is a drop in the bucket’, said Guterres.
‘Fossil fuel giants are raking in huge profits, while millions in your countries cannot put food on the table.’
Guterres also said the poorest nations are being left behind in the ‘digital revolution’ and the Ukraine war had fuelled their food and fuel prices.
‘Our global financial system was designed by wealthy countries, largely to their benefit.
‘Deprived of liquidity, many of you are locked out of capital markets by predatory interest rates,’ the UN leader said.
A host of presidents and ministers also hit out at financing conditions for LDCs, whose debt has more than quadrupled in a decade to an estimated $50 billion in 2021.
East Timor’s President Jose Ramos-Horta slammed interest rates as ‘rapacious’ and ‘insensitive’.
Malawi’s President Lazarus Chakwera, the summit chairman, highlighted ‘broken promises’ and said that aid was not ‘an act of charity’ but a ‘moral responsibility’.
UN chief Guterres said wealthy nations had failed to keep a promise to give 0.15-0.20 per cent of their Gross National Income to LDCs.
With poorer states trapped in a ‘perfect storm for perpetuating poverty and injustice’, LDCs require a ‘minimum’ $500 billion a year to overcome their problems, build up job-creating industries and repay debts.
He added that the United Nations would also ‘keep pushing’ richer countries to hand over hundreds of billions of dollars promised separately to help poorer states battle climate change.
Under proposals, a so-called Doha Programme of Action, a food stockholding system, will be set up to help countries facing hunger crises through drought and high prices.
It also calls for new efforts to help LDCs attract foreign funding and lower interest rates to ease the impact of their debts.
Bhutan will this year become one of seven countries – along with Bangladesh, Laos, Nepal, Angola, Sao Tome and Principe and the Solomon Islands – to ‘graduate’ out of LDC status by 2026.
But they will gradually lose trade and aid privileges as they move up the wealth scale.
Guterres warned they risk becoming ‘victims of the cruellest sleight-of-hand trick of support systems vanishing before their eyes.’
