Libya = Pentagon Vs China

China's interests in Libya, which supplies 3-5% of its oil, also act as a gateway to its tens of billions of dollars worth of investments across Africa in mining, infrastructure development and oil & gas.

Asia Time's Pepe Escobar :

"The Muslim Brotherhood is a weaponised, ideological arm of Saudi Arabia."

"The problem is there are different Washington agendas, White House, national security agencies, the CIA, the Pentagon."

"The next domino to fall, if we follow the agenda established by the Pentagon is Syria....The Pentagon is basically the Africa agenda, they want to win the war in Libya, install a Africa base in Africa....then there are the dominoes, Libya, Ivory Coast, Eritrea, Zimbawbe, Somalia. So these are the next dominoes to fall, according to the Africa Pentagon agenda. Then later on the big dominoes would the countries where China has substantial interests. Example, Angola, Algeria, Nigera, Equitorial Guinea...."

"China...their counter strategy, if they see they're foundering in Africa....they would renew their ties with South America and Central Asia..."

Russia, China Square Up To West Over War On Libya




By Darryl Mason

Despite apparently being almost out of money, the United States, France and the UK have all found the necessary cash to launch a new war on Libya, under the guise of enforcing a UN-mandated No Fly Zone. For the United States alone, the cost of military action against Libya is estimated at more than $100 million per day.

The official American government/media narrative is that Libyan rebels are a rag-tag bunch of freedom fighters trying to take down one of the world's most evil & sadistic tyrants. Well, Gaddafi is now, again, anyway, an evil tyrant, after being feted and praised for planning to open up his country to more western oil deals and development in the past few years by a conga-line of world includes including Bush, Obama, Blair & Sarkozy.



But Libya is not Egypt, or Bahrain, or Tunisia. Libya is an energy, water & resources rich nation with tens of billions in trade, energy and development deals with Russia and China.

Russia's Putin could not speak anymore plainly about what he believes is the real motivation behind the War On Libya :



Russia is, in fact, warning that the attacks on Libya could lead to a wider, world war :

“Any bombing of Libyan territory could provoke a large-scale conflict between the so-called West and the so-called Arab world,” a Russian Parliament leader said commenting on French and British plans to carry out aerial attacks in Libya.

“Any foreign military intervention will give Libya legal grounds to defend itself. We should do our best to avoid this highly dangerous scenario,” said Konstantin Kosachyov, head of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian Parliament.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned ground operations by foreign forces will lead them deeper into protracted war :

“You and I understand what ground operations mean: they probably mean the beginning of war, and not civil war but war involving international forces.”

Now China is getting involved :

China's most important political newspaper ratcheted up the country's criticism of Western airstrikes against Libya on Monday, comparing them to the U.S.-led invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Communist Party's flagship newspaper, The People's Daily, said in a commentary that the United States and its allies are violating international rules and that in places like Iraq "the unspeakable suffering of its people are a mirror and a warning."

"The military attacks on Libya are, following on from the Afghan and Iraq wars, the third time that some countries have launched armed action against sovereign countries," it said.

"No matter what pretext the military actions were under, they should not be at the cost of people's lives and properties. This is not only the moral standard, but also the appeal from the world's people," it continued.

"People have good reason to express misgivings about the consequences that this military action may precipitate," it said.

China is getting very, very involved :



Why is China getting involved?

China's deep involvement with the North African dictatorship has also exposed a vulnerability in the world's second-largest economy.

In Libya, the world's 12th-largest oil exporter, China has emerged as a major investor and financial partner of strongman Moammar Kadafi. China is now the third-largest buyer of Libyan crude behind Italy and France. European and American oil firms have worked in Libya for years, but their governments have long sought to punish Kadafi for terrorist ties. Meanwhile, China has stuck to a hands-off policy it has dubbed "non-interventionism."

Before the Libyan conflict erupted, about 75 Chinese firms reportedly were laboring on an estimated $18 billion worth of contracts there, including construction of rail lines, irrigation systems, and Internet and cellphone networks.

But China's primary interest is energy. State-owned China National Petroleum Corp. has partnered with Libya's national oil company to build hundreds of miles of pipeline and explore for oil and gas offshore.

The world's No. 2 petroleum user, China imports more than half of the 8.3 million barrels it consumes daily. It buys from nations including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Venezuela, which also supply the United States, the world's top oil consumer. Libyan oil accounts for only about 3% of China's imports, but it won't be easy to replace.

Paul McGeough :

Even if Gaddafi is eliminated from the equation - figuratively or literally - a daunting number of what-ifs will remain. What if the internal conflict in Libya is less a democracy uprising that unites the nation and more a tribal civil war? What if the Western intervention gives a leg-up to one side, the rebels, who in time could be no better and no worse that the Gaddafi loyalists - sans Gaddafi?

There is no evidence to support Gaddafi's claims that al-Qaeda and teen drug addicts have fomented the uprising. But there is historical evidence of tribal enmity in Libya that could support the colonel's claim that the revolt is a tribal war of those from the east against those in the west.

What if the country fell back to its pre-Gaddafi iteration of tribal distrust and infighting - and what if one side, in what could become a prolonged conflict, has been armed by the West? We could hardly be surprised if in such a stalemate , the underdog was drawn to or co-opted by al-Qaeda or its ilk.

The War On Libya has only just begun, is barely a few days old in fact, but already the 'coalition of support' is said to be crumbling,

AntiWar's Justin Raimondo :

Barely 24 hours after the first Allied air strikes, President Obama’s high-flying Libyan adventure is losing altitude. The smoke hadn’t cleared from the first air strikes when the head of the Arab League complained that “what happened differs from the no-fly zone objectives. What we want is civilians’ protection, not shelling more civilians.” Russia and China, who abstained at the Security Council, are already getting restless.

There’s trouble on the horizon.

'Fate Of World Peace, Order Lies In Future Of China-Russia Ties'

This will probably prove to be one of the most important news stories of the decade, but most of the world's media barely noticed.

From the Daily Times :

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev praised on Saturday recent close ties between Moscow and Beijing as a key to global stability and said the two countries wanted to strengthen their strategic partnership.

In remarks that sounded like a veiled reference to the United States, Medvedev rejected what he said was opposition to Russian-Chinese cooperation. “Some don’t like such strategic cooperation between our countries, but we understand that this cooperation serves the interests of our people, and we will strengthen it, regardless of whether others like it or not,” he said, speaking at a university a day after he and Chinese President Hu Jintao criticized US missile defense plans.

“Russian-Chinese relations are one of the most important factors of maintaining stability in modern conditions,” he said. The former Cold War rivals have forged close political, military and commercial ties since the Soviet collapse, trying to counter what they see as US global dominance. On Friday, Medvedev and Hu said they wanted to see the peaceful use of space and rejected the deployment of weapons there, a reference to US plans for an orbiting missile-defence system.

In Saturday’s appearance at elite Tsinghua University, Hu’s alma mater, Medvedev never mentioned the United States by name and said the Russian-Chinese alliance “is not directed against any other nation. “It is aimed at maintaining a global balance,” he said. Medvedev said Russia and China support international law and a “decisive role” for the United Nations. Moscow has accused Washington and other Western governments of abusing international law in Iraq and Kosovo.

Russia also strengthened its role as a supplier to China’s booming nuclear power industry Friday, signing a US$1 billion deal to build a fuel enrichment facility and supply uranium. The joint Russian-Chinese criticism of US missile defence plans appeared to raise the stakes for Washington, which has been trying to persuade Beijing and especially Moscow not to see them as a threat. The diplomatic cooperation masks Russian unease at China’s growing power, and differences over military and energy sales. The White House said Friday it was disappointed that Medvedev had not changed the opposition expressed by his predecessor, Vladimir Putin. “We’re going to work with them to work through these concerns, and we think we can resolve any concerns that anyone has about this and the true nature of the programme,” White House spokesman Tony Fratto said.

After a slow warming in the 1990s, Beijing and Moscow have in recent years joined together in opposing Kovoso’s independence and on Iran’s nuclear crisis. The two have held joint military manoeuvres on each other’s turf and created a regional security grouping, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, to keep the West out of energy-rich Central Asia.

China, Russia Oppose Military Action On Iran

The Neocons want War On Iran. They want to destabilise Iran, sow chaos amongst its people, control its oil and reduce Iran to the shattered state status now suffered by the people of Iraq.

BushCo. say they want peace with Iran, but refuse to rule out military action. But both the US and Israel have laid out their chief reason why they will attack Iran : they cannot allow Iran to get nuclear weapons.

The International Atomic Energy Agency says Iran isn't pursuing nuclear weapons. Iran says it isn't pursuing nuclear weapons. But the Neocon think tanks and media allies continually state that Iran wants nuclear weapons and it is so close to developing them that the world cannot wait.

But what you don't hear so much in the Western media is the reaction from China and Russia. Both China and Russia are now key financial, business and energy allies with Iran. And both China and Russia have clearly stated over the past two years, repeatedly that Iran does not pose a threat and that they will not tolerate attacks on Iran from either Israel or the United States.

From Reuters :

China is opposed to threatening Iran with war over its nuclear program and stands for a diplomatic solution, a government spokeswoman said on Tuesday.

The United States, Germany, France, Britain, Russia and China have backed two rounds of U.N. sanctions against Iran over its refusal to halt uranium enrichment and other sensitive work that could be used to make nuclear weapons.

"We believe the best option is to peacefully resolve the Iranian nuclear issue through diplomatic negotiations, which is in the common interests of the international community," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said at a regular briefing.

"We do not approve of easily resorting to threatening use of force in international affairs," Jiang said when asked to comment on remarks by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner raising the prospect of war with Iran.

Kouchner said on Sunday that Paris must prepare for the possibility of war with Tehran, although it was not an immediate danger.

Washington is leading a drive in the Security Council for a third sanctions resolution to punish Iran for enrichment, and White House spokesman Dana Perino said the United States was looking for a diplomatic solution.

China is one of five veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council.

From the UK Guardian :

Russia today joined the chorus of concern at the possibility of war in Iran while conflicts continued in Iraq and Afghanistan.

At a news briefing in Moscow, the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said: "We are worried by reports that there is serious consideration being given to military action in Iran. That is a threat to a region where there are already grave problems in Iraq and Afghanistan."

His comments, after a meeting with his French counterpart, Bernard Kouchner, followed a stark warning yesterday from the UN's chief nuclear weapons inspector aimed at the US.

"I would not talk about any use of force," Mohamed ElBaradei told reporters at the International Atomic Energy Agency headquarters in Vienna. "There are rules on how to use force, and I would hope that everybody would have gotten the lesson after the Iraq situation, where 700,000 innocent civilians have lost their lives on the suspicion that a country has nuclear weapons."

Fears of a military conflict with Iran rose a notch after comments on Sunday night by Mr Kouchner, who said: "We have to prepare for the worst ... the worst is war."

In addition, reports from Washington indicate that administration hawks led by the vice-president, Dick Cheney, are winning the argument for tough action against Tehran.

The US has accused Iran of supplying Shia extremists in Iraq with explosive devices that are taking a deadly toll on American troops.

France, under its new president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has adopted a much tougher line on Iran, saying that a nuclear-armed Iran poses a dangerous threat to the west.

Mr Sarkozy last month called the Iranian stand-off "the greatest crisis" of current times, saying the world faced "a catastrophic alternative: an Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran".

Mr Kouchner told reporters in Moscow that the world should not shy away from sanctions to put pressure on Iran.

"The worst thing to happen would be a war, and in order to avoid it we need to continue talks and be firm enough regarding sanctions," he said. "We have to work on precise sanctions that would demonstrate the world community's serious approach to this problem."

But Russia is trying to cool down the situation. In an interview published in the Russian magazine Vremya Novostei, the deputy foreign minister, Alexander Losyukov, said any military intervention in Iran would be a "political error" with catastrophic results.

"We are convinced that there is no military solution to the Iranian problem ... besides, it is quite clear that there is no military solution to the Iraqi problem either," he said.

Russia, China, Iran 'Warn' US To Stay Out Of Central Asia

Russia And China Hold War Games

Russia Returns To "Permanent" Long Range Strategic Bomber Flights Across Pacific And Arctic


The economic, strategic and military alliance between China, Iran and Russia continues to firm, as war games in the mountains of Southern Ural involving thousands of Russian and Chinese soldiers, and military units from all member states of theSCO, draw to a close.

Barely reported in Western media was that the Iranian president was a guest of the Chinese and Russian presidents during the week of war games and meetings, and India and Pakistan both sent teams of observers.

Russia has now declared that Iran is not a threat to any nation, and China is buffeting approaches from the United States to join them in a renewed push for tighter economic sanctions against Iran.

At a meeting last week of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) before the war games began, the leaders of Russia, China and Iran issued a joint statement, clearing intending to warn the United States to stay out of Central Asia :

The leaders of Russia, China and Iran have warned the outside world to leave Central Asia alone to look after its own stability and security...

"Stability and security in Central Asia are best ensured primarily through efforts taken by the nations of the region on the basis of the existing regional associations," the leaders said at the end of the (SCO) summit in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, an observer at the summit, criticized U.S. missile defense plans as a threat to the entire region. "These intentions go beyond just one country. They are of concern for much of the continent, Asia andSCO members," he said.

(China's President) Hu also said signaled that security for Central Asia was best left to the nations themselves.

"The SCO nations have a clear understanding of the threats faced by the region and thus must ensure their security themselves," he said.

Putin didn't mention the United States in his speech at the summit, but he said that "any attempts to solve global and regional problems unilaterally are hopeless." He also called for "strengthening a multi-polar international system that would ensure equal security and opportunities for all countries" — comments echoing Russia's frequent complaints that the United States dominates world affairs.

The SCO was created 11 years ago to address religious extremism and border security issues in Central Asia. In recent years, with Iran, India, Pakistan and Mongolia signing on as observers, the group has increasingly grown into a bloc aimed at defying U.S. interests in the region, which has huge hydrocarbon reserves.

In 2005, the SCO called for a timetable to be set for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from two member countries, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Uzbekistan evicted U.S. forces later that year, but Kyrgyzstan still hosts a U.S. base, which supports operations in nearby Afghanistan.

Russia also maintains a military base in Kyrgyzstan.

Moscow and Beijing have developed what they dubbed a "strategic partnership" after the Soviet collapse, cemented by their perceptions that the United States dominates global affairs.

The SCO, whose members are some of the world's biggest energy producers and consumers, also discussed ways to enhance energy cooperation. The U.S. has supported plans for new pipelines that would carry the region's oil and gas to the West and bypass Russia, while Moscow has pushed strongly to control the export flows.

China also has shown a growing appetite for energy to power its booming economy.

A further sign of the group's intention to influence energy markets was the participation in the Bishkek summit of Turkmen President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov, whose country is the second-largest producer of natural gas in the former Soviet Union after Russia. Turkmenistan is not a SCO member; the president was attending as a guest

More on the Chinese-Russian war games :

Fighter jets streaked through the air as Russian and Chinese forces held their first joint maneuvers on Russian land Friday in a demonstration of their growing military ties and a shared desire to counter U.S. global clout.

The war games in the southern Ural Mountains involved some 6,000 troops from Russia and China along with a handful of soldiers from four ex-Soviet Central Asian nations that are part of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a regional group dominated by Moscow and Beijing.

The drills coincided with a massive Russian air force exercise in which dozens of Russian strategic bombers ranged far over the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic oceans.

President Vladimir Putin, Chinese leader Hu Jintao and other leaders of the SCO nations attended the exercise, which followed their summit Thursday in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek.

Friday's military exercise involved dozens of aircraft and hundreds of armored vehicles which countered a mock attack by terrorists and insurgents striving to take control of energy resources.

The United States, Russia and China are locked in an increasingly tense rivalry for control over Central Asia's vast hydrocarbon riches.

Moscow objects vehemently to Washington's plans to deploy missile interceptors in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic, saying the system would threaten Russia security. The United States says the missile defenses are necessary to avert the threat of possible missile attacks by Iran.

Virtually all the member states of the SCO, and observer nations, like Pakistan and India, have aired public, or diplomatic level, objections to the United States' plans for a missile defence shield.

For what it's worth, Russia is still denying that the SCO is a military bloc. They're fighting terror, says Putin :

Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed as irrelevant allegations that the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is a military bloc, and highlighted its increasing role in economic cooperation.

Putin said after the exercises: "The SCO today is an organization tackling political and economic issues, and the economic aspect is increasingly coming to the foreground." Comparisons with NATO are entirely untrue, he said.

Although the "Shanghai Six" was originally set up to deal with border disputes that emerged following the breakup of the Soviet Union between the newly-independent states and China, these problems have since been resolved, he said.

The Russian president said that cooperation between member states' militaries is more anti-terrorist than military in nature. Moscow is still faced with the threat of terrorism, and will continue counter-terrorism efforts both at home and abroad, in conjunction with its partners, he added.

To ram the message home that Russia, and the SCO alliance, will not tolerate the United States trying to expand its role as 'global policemen', in effect trying to dominate world events, Russia has renewed "permanent" strategic bomber patrols across the Pacific and Arctic :

We have decided to renew flights of Russian strategic aviation on a permanent basis," Mr Putin said after he and Chinese PresidentHu Jintao attended large-scale joint military exercises near this town in the Urals region.

The flights would resume from Saturday, Mr Putin said.

The announcement came days after Moscow said its strategic bombers had begun exercises over the North Pole, and just a week after Russian planes flew within a few hundred kilometres of a US military base on the island of Guam.

"Russia unilaterally stopped flights of its strategic aviation in distant areas of military action. Unfortunately, not everyone followed our example," he said, in an apparent reference to the United States.

Russia has some 80 long range strategic bombers, many left over from the era of Soviet military build-up, all are said to be capable of carrying nuclear weapons.


The United States is pretending to not be concerned about Russian bomber flights over the Pacific and Arctic :

The United States on Friday shrugged off Russia's decision to resume long-range strategic bomber flights, merely saying it was an "interesting" move.

"If Russia feels as though they want to take some of these old aircraft out of mothballs and get them flying again that's their decision," State Department spokesman SeanMcCormack said.

He was commenting after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced Russia would immediately resume long-range strategic bomber flights on a "permanent" basis, ending its 15-year suspension of such missions.

"That is a decision for them to take; it's interesting," McCormack added.

The announcement came days after Moscow said its strategic bombers had begun exercises over the North Pole, and just a week after Russian planes flew within a few hundred kilometers (miles) of a US military base on the island of Guam.

A top US commander said Tuesday that the long-range Russian bombers were flying more often and closer to US territory.

General Gene Renuart, Commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and US Northern Command, the agencies charged with protecting US and Canadian airspace, said US forces would continue to monitor the activity.

In the five-day exercises over the North pole that began Tuesday, the nuclear-capable bombers practised firing cruise missiles, navigation in the polar region and aerial refueling maneuvers, the Russian air force said in a statement.

More on the welcome the Iranian president received at the SCO summit last week, and the growing expansion of the alliance, which may soon include Afghanistan :

Russia and China today host Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at a summit of a Central Asian security club designed to counter U.S. influence in the region.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization invited Iran to become an observer in 2005, sparking concern in the U.S., and Ahmadinejad called for closer ties to the group when he attended last year's summit in Shanghai. Kyrgyzstan is hosting the one-day annual meeting in its capital, Bishkek.

Chinese and Russian officials say the SCO, set up in 2001 with the stated goal of strengthening regional cooperation and combating terrorism, is focused on maintaining stability in the region. Its six members include the four Central Asian states of Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, whose country is battling a resurgent Taliban, is a guest at the summit. Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Li Hui said Aug. 11 the group wants to cooperate with Afghanistan in fighting drug smuggling and terrorism.

In another unwelcome development for the Americans, Turkmenistan's President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov also accepted an invitation to attend the summit. His long-ruling predecessor, Saparmurat Niyazov, who died last year, had kept the energy-rich country isolated and resisted Russian influence.

Russia in May secured a deal to build a new pipeline to import more gas from Turkmenistan, bolstering its dominant hold on supplies to Europe and heading off a competing U.S.-backed plan that would bypass Russian territory.

Finally, a report on the massive re-arming programs that Russia has launched, as Putin seeks to give Russia a formidable international military presence :

Russian defense spending rose by 22 percent and 27 percent in the past two years, respectively, and could be up as much as 30 percent this year. In February, Sergei Ivanov, then defense secretary and now one of the front-runners to replace Mr. Putin next year, announced an almost $200 billion program of expenditures.

According to Jane's Sentinel Country Risk Assessments, the Russian shopping list includes two new submarine-launched nuclear ballistic missiles, the Bulava and the Sineva — both with a 5,000-mile range and capable of carrying 10 nuclear warheads — and a new anti-aircraft missile, the S-400, which the Russian Defense Ministry claims is effective against incoming missiles. Production of the new SS-27 Topol-M missile, the land-based equivalent of the Bulava, has also begun.

Russia also plans to spend heavily on the new TU-160 strategic bomber, which can launch cruise missiles, the SU-34 "Fullback" fighter-bomber, capable of all-weather attacks on heavily defended targets, and a new fifth-generation fighter, the Sukhoi T-50, which is expected to come into service in 2008 as Russia's main lightweight front-line fighter.

The expanded Russian fleet will include six new nuclear-powered aircraft carriers — a dramatic increase from only one such carrier — and eight ballistic-missile submarines.

The formation and solidifying of 'The Other NATO' would appear to be progressing at an upwards pace comparable to the downwards pace of the Coalition of the Willing's progress in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Between NATO and the CoW, taking in the US, Australia and the UK, primarily, and the growing power and influence of the SCO alliance lies Iran.

China and Russia, along with many other member and observer states of the SCO, regard the protection of Iran as being in their "national interest". NeoCons and US hawks continually push for BushCo. to strike Iran now, and not wait until it begins a nuclear armed nation, if that is Iran's intention. China and Russia state that it is not Iran's intention, and would regard any aggression towards Iran by BushCo. or Israel, as being an act of aggression towards the SCO alliance.

Interesting, dangerous times indeed.


SCO Summit : Putin Says "Security Co-Operation" Is Top Goal

Russia Resumes 'Cold War Era' Long Range Bomber Flights

The Facts On Russia's Long Range Strategic Bombers

It's The West Starting This New Cold War

Russia Says Iran Poses No Threat - Quietly Warns US To Back Off Tighter Sanctions Regime Against Iran

Russia And China Hold War Games - Rattling The West

China, Russia Welcome Iranian President As 'Important Guest' At SCO Summit

China's 'War On Terror' Used As Cover For Brutal Crackdown On Uighur Muslims

The key leaders of the Western alliance of the 'War on Terror', US President Bush, Australia's Prime Minister Howard, and former British PM Blair, consistently denied the 'WoT' was actually a war on Muslims, despite the vast majority of the more than 500,000 civilian deaths in the war being primarily followers of Islam.

In China's 'War on Terror', there are no such denials. In fact, China is using the Western media brand of 'WoT' to flog the hell out of Muslim seperatists in East Turkenstan, in China's far west. Those of the 9 million Uighur Muslims who want to break their homeland away from China, or least publicly declare independence, are 'terrorists'.

The West has been uniformly silent on the crushing of dissent and the long string of executions and police actions undertaken by the Chinese authorities on Uighur Muslims. How can they object? The wide-open doctrine of the 'War on Terror' all but says a country can declare any group or people to be 'terrorists', and then deal with them as the United States deals with the 'terrorists' in Iraq and Afghanistan - executions, torture, massacres, indiscriminate and lengthy detentions without charge.

A solid report from the London Times lays out the details of China's war against the Uighur Muslims, describing the Uighur's fight for a homeland as one of history's great lost causes (excerpts) :

The dying embers of (the Uighurs) struggle flamed into protests, shootings and bombings in the 1990s, all concealed from the world until September 11, 2001, when China discovered the usefulness of the “war on terror”.

Today China is waging a propaganda and security battle to guarantee its control over Xinjiang, its name for the vast province rich in minerals and strategic supplies of oil and gas which are vital to the expanding Chinese economy.

China claims that Al-Qaeda has trained more than 1,000 members of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, classified as a terrorist group by America and the United Nations.

The group took its name from the short-lived Republic of East Turkestan that was declared in Xinjiang after the second world war, then crushed by the communist revolution of 1949.

China has persuaded Pakistan and Kazakhstan to hand over captured militants for interrogation, secret trials and execution, a policy that may have fuelled the fundamentalist rage now gripping Pakistan.

Next month 1,600 Chinese troops will join exercises with Russia and the former Soviet Central Asian republics to cooperate against Islamic extremists.

Chinese security services have also created a pervasive apparatus of informers and deployed new units of black-clad antiterrorist police to patrol around mosques and markets in the cities of Xinjiang.

Two western intelligence officers said the Chinese consistently exaggerated Uighur terrorist links with Al-Qaeda to exploit any opportunity to strike at their home-grown opponents. Chinese information was unreliable and no western intelligence service had handed back Muslim citizens to China, they said.

One of the officers said the real concern was that Chinese repression was creating recruits for terrorism.

In recent weeks has come proof that 58 years of Chinese military occupation have crushed significant opposition but failed to win loyalty. Officials have confiscated the passports of thousands of Muslims in a crackdown to break the growing influence of militant Islam.

Police ordered the Muslims to hand in their passports and told them that the documents would be returned only for travel approved by the authorities.

The aim is to stop Chinese Muslims slipping away to join militants in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

...the clash of civilisations resounds loudest in Kashgar, 2,400 miles west of Beijing, a crossroads of religions, commerce and culture. In January, only 48 miles to the southwest, “antiterrorist” units raided a training camp in the mountains where the old Silk Road winds into Pakistan, and killed 18 men with the loss of one policeman.

The clash was hailed by the state media, which called it a blow to the East Turkestan Islamic Movement. But Chinese residents said the operation was bungled, allowing militants to escape.

In 1949 the Uighurs were 90% of the population of Xinjiang. Today they account for less than half.

In Urumqi, the industrialised capital city of Xinjiang, there was evidence that repression had united Uighurs with rival Muslim sects. A red banner hung from the eaves of a 100-year-old mosque, whose lines recalled a classical Chinese temple and whose congregation were members of the Hui, a Muslim minority from central China. “All pilgrimages to Mecca must be organised by the National Islamic Organisation under the law,” it read.

All over Xinjiang, China can point to growing prosperity, cleaner water, new schools, paved roads, modern hospitals, efficient airports, cybercom-merce and huge energy plants.

The price, say Uighurs, is the slow extinction of their identity. Their children take compulsory Chinese lessons. Teaching in Uighur is banned at the main university. Their fabled literature, poetry and music are fading under the assault of karaoke culture. Their history is rewritten.

Hu Jintao Gets Official Invite To Visit Israel

China Condemns Terror Attack On Convoy Of Chinese Workers In Pakistan

China : US Fury Over Chinese Weapons In Iraq & Afghanistan

US Spreads Anti-Chinese Propaganda In Preparation For The Coming US-China Trade War

Australia Airs "Concern" On Behalf Of US Over China's Arms Build Up

The United States doesn't mined if the Iraqi government, and the Iraqi insurgency, pick up their explosives, guns, bullet belts, mortars and mines from American, British, German, French and Israeli arms manufacturers and dealers. But they're having an absolute shit fit now they've discovered Chinese made weapons are finding their way through the appallingly unregulated international arms trade into the hands of insurgents and militias alike. The same goes for the Taliban, militias and government forces in Afghanistan.

The Pentagon and the US State Department are fighting their early days of the coming trade with China by spreading anti-Chinese propaganda on multiple fronts. The controversy over Chinese weapons reaching anti-American insurgencies, via Iran of course, is a double shot. Both Iran and China can be, somewhat, blamed for the shocking defeat of the American military in Iraq, and the continued wearing down of NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Australia is doing its bit for the the Bush Co./NeoCon anti-China propaganda mission by airing "concern" over China's upgrading of its naval and civil defence capabilities. The irony of Australia criticising China for 'arming up' is gagging.

China is a country of more than 1.2 billion people, with a booming economy, not too far on the global scale from massive Islamist uprisings, provoked in part by the actions of the United States, and China is expected to spend just over $40 billion in the next fiscal year on defence.

Australia is an isolated land mass, with no land meeting hostile borders, and a population of only 21 million people. Geographically, Australia could not be any further from the dangerous instability of the Middle East and Afghanistan and Pakistan. Yet Australia will spend a mind-boggling $23 billion on defence in 2008, at least $26 billion in 2009, and a projected $30 billion-plus in 2010.

China is well aware that the United States is using Australia as a proxy, and vital ally, in the eventual encirclement of China, through the US missile defence shield and the deployment of war ships and submarines to create a ready-to-go blockade of the Malacca Straits, China's energy supply gateway, should the United States ever need Australia to do so.

From Financial Times :

The US has raised concerns with the Chinese government about the discovery of Chinese-made weapons in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Richard Lawless, departing senior Pentagon official for Asia, on Friday said Washington had flagged the issue with Beijing. In recent months, the US has become increasingly alarmed that Chinese armour-piercing ammunition has been used by the Taliban in Afghanistan and insurgents in Iraq.

A senior US official recently told the FT that Iran appeared to be providing the Chinese-made weapons. He said Washington had no evidence that Beijing was complicit, but stressed that the US would like China to “do a better job of policing these sales”. Mr Lawless said the question of origin was less important than who was facilitating the transfer.

The concerns about Chinese weapons follow months of allegations from US officials that Iran is helping attack US troops in Iraq, and more recently Afghanistan, by providing technology for bombs that can destroy Humvees and other heavily armoured US vehicles.

He said the Pentagon was disappointed that China had not given Admiral Michael Mullen, chief of naval operations, the same kind of access that his Chinese counterpart received during a visit to the US. Adm Mullen, who has since been nominated as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, ended up not visiting China.

Mr Lawless also said it was important for China to hold talks with the US about its nuclear forces. A recent Pentagon report concluded Beijing was developing a more survivable nuclear force, including submarine-launched missiles, and mobile land-based missiles.

Since Presidents Hu Jintao and George W. Bush last year discussed increasing military exchanges, China has not responded to an offer for the commander of its strategic nuclear forces to visit US Strategic Command.

“There is a great shortfall in our understanding of China’s intentions,” said Mr Lawless, referring to the overall Chinese military build-up. “When you don’t know why they are doing it, it is pretty damn threatening . . . they leave us no choice but to assume the worst.”

From Forbes :

An Australian defense paper released Thursday warned that strains between the US and China were inevitable in coming decades, identifying Taiwan as a potential regional flashpoint.

The report, released by Prime Minister John Howard, said the US and China had so far managed their relationship well but there would be tensions as power balances in the Asia Pacific region shifted.

'The (US-China) relationship is underpinned by the region's remarkable growth, the economic interdependency between the two countries, and their mutual interest in stability in the region,' it said.

'As with any international relationship there will be tensions from time to time, but we are confident that the maturing relationship will enable the two countries to resolve any differences amicably.'

The report said Australia's alliance with the US was its most important strategic relationship, predicting that the US would remain the predominant power in the region for at least a generation.

It said China had a legitimate interest in protecting it own security but said the Asian giant's military expansion was a potential source of regional instability.

'The pace and scope of its military modernization, particularly the development of new and disruptive capabilities such as the anti-satellite (ASAT) missile tested in January 2007, could create misunderstandings and instability in the region,' it said.

The military forces of the United States and Australia wound up a massive joint training exercise on Australia's far north coast last week. The 'Talisman Saber' exercise saw more than 7000 Australian and 20,000 US troops working through a series of land and sea based defence scenarios pitting them against 'fictional' enemies.

The joint exercises were covered in detail on China's state run television and internet media.

Note : I'm having trouble embedding links in the commentary sections of the above story. Check back in a day or two if you need to see the sources and links to back up the claims made.


China Goes Hunting For Oil In Sudan

China Will Refuse Future, Harsher Sanctions Against Iran, Urges More Diplomacy
The Coming China Vs United States Trade War

China Challenges US & Europe As It Pushes Into Africa

Now US Intel Claims China Is Arming Terrorists In Iraq And Afghanistan, Via Iran

China, Russia Cop The Demonisation Treatment In American Mainstream Media

Monstrous Defence Budgets Always Require Monstrous Enemies

The fact that this story appears in "the Bush family's favourite newspaper", the Washington Times, doesn't make the claims that are raised factually true, or untrue. In reality, it's probably a bit of both.

But it does mean someone in the Pentagon, or the White House, wanted the so-called 'intelligence' on China arming terrorists who are trying to kill Americans to get out into the mainstream media, and to smack heavily onto the news desks of right-wing talkback radio and Fox News.

This is the latest chapter in the growing demonisation of China and her military plans fashioned for an American audience.

At the same time, Russia is also getting the demonisation treatment in the mainstream American media.

As the Bush administration loses further ground in Iraq, and it becomes all but impossible to claim that the troop "surge" is working, or needs more time to work, the media voices blaming Iran, Russia and China for America's problems in Iraq and Afghanistan will only get louder.

Such leaked 'intelligence' serves to not only fill news time and column inches that would otherwise be devoted to the horror of Iraq, or the ceaseless bad news about the Bush administration, but it creates a need in the minds of Americans that they must continue to spend stunning amounts of money on defence - an estimated $530 billion in the next twelve months alone.

That China, as one of the top five weapons and arms manufacturers in the world, is selling military product that eventually winds up in the hands of terrorists and insurgents is barely an issue at all.

The other key arms makers - Russia, France, the UK, Germany, Israel and the US - also sell their weapons of war in open markets across the planet that constantly infiltrated by middle men who see no problem selling weapons on to genocidal thugs in Africa, jihadist tribes in Afghanistan, or IED-planting insurgents in Iraq, and face little international restrictions when it comes to doing so.

The international sales and export of bombs, missiles and bullets and the means to deliver them into humans is the biggest legal industry in the world, worth more than a trillion dollars a year.

When it comes to filling the world with appallingly vicious weapons of war, the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, who also happen to be the five biggest manufacturers of the weapons of war, are all as guilty as each other.

From the Washington Times :

New intelligence reveals China is covertly supplying large quantities of small arms and weapons to insurgents in Iraq and the Taliban militia in Afghanistan, through Iran.

U.S. government appeals to China to check some of the arms shipments in advance were met with stonewalling by Beijing, which insisted it knew nothing about the shipments and asked for additional intelligence on the transfers. The ploy has been used in the past by China to hide its arms-proliferation activities from the United States, according to U.S. officials with access to the intelligence reports.

Some arms were sent by aircraft directly from Chinese factories to Afghanistan and included large-caliber sniper rifles, millions of rounds of ammunition, rocket-propelled grenades and components for roadside bombs, as well as other small arms.

The Washington Times reported June 5 that Chinese-made HN-5 anti-aircraft missiles were being used by the Taliban.

According to the officials, the Iranians, in buying the arms, asked Chinese state-run suppliers to expedite the transfers and to remove serial numbers to prevent tracing their origin. China, for its part, offered to transport the weapons in order to prevent the weapons from being interdicted.

But here's the disclaimer, the double-cover :

The Bush administration has been trying to hide or downplay the intelligence reports to protect its pro-business policies toward China, and to continue to claim that China is helping the United States in the war on terrorism. U.S. officials have openly criticized Iran for the arms transfers but so far there has been no mention that China is a main supplier.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Wednesday that the flow of Iranian arms to Afghanistan is "fairly substantial" and that it is likely taking place with the help of the Iranian government.

Defense officials are upset that Chinese weapons are being used to kill Americans. "Americans are being killed by Chinese-supplied weapons, with the full knowledge and understanding of Beijing where these weapons are going," one official said.

The arms shipments show that the idea that China is helping the United States in the war on terrorism is "utter nonsense," the official said.

Behind the demonisation of China over allegedly supplying weapons to terrorists are a ream of vastly under-reported financial and business-related stories.

The US wants China to devalue its currency, and to help wind back attempts by Iran and Russia to cease pricing its oil and energy in Euros, or other non-US currencies.

Bush himself said that China, and other Asian nations, must encourage its citizens to stop saving so much of their money, and start spending it, preferably on American goods and services, or even better, on American stocks and bonds.

But of course, those stories are nowhere near as exciting, or instantly infuriating, as hearing that China is supplying weapons that terrorists use to kill American soldiers.

War may break out one day between China and the US, probably over the independence of Taiwan, as many have long predicted.

But the trade war between China and the United States is already well underway. As readers of the history of World War I well know, the trade war always begins a few years before the military war fires up.

US Prepared For "Worst" With China As Military Tensions Increase

China, US To Hold 4th Strategic Dialogue In Washingon

China Objects To US Playing Up "China Threat", Warns US Not To Interfere On Taiwan

China Wants To End US Naval Dominance Of The Pacific

China Rejects US Pressure On Currency

Chinese Yuan Hits Highs As Currency Showdown With US Looms

Five Permanent Members Of UN Security Council To Spend More Than $1 Trillion On Weapons

Pentagon Sounds Warnings About China's Military Plans And Build Up

China Heading For Space, Whether The United States Likes It Or Not

It was no doubt with a sense of irony that US state department officials aired concern about how much China was spending on defense, even though China claims most of its claimed $US44 billion budget for 2008 will go on military schools, new uniforms and higher wages.

It was former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, back in 2005, who began a frosting of relations between the two military and economic giants when he repeatedly howled about future threats from China, because of all the money they were spending on buying up military equipment.

The new US defence secretary, Robert Gates, has done a far better job at keeping relations cool to warm between the two superpowers. He has been concerned by the growth in China's military budget, but is downplaying State Department concerns, no doubt as a counter to the growing threats from Russia over US missile defence in Europe.

But not everybody in the Pentagon, or the State Department, believes China's story about how it will spend its $US44 billion budget, nor do they believe that is the actual figure. Some unofficial estimates put the actual defence spending budget at well over $US110 billion. Still well behind the US 2008 defence budget which has already climbed beyond $US500 billion.

From the Washington Times :

The Pentagon's forthcoming annual report on Chinese military power will reveal a growing threat from Beijing's new forms of power projection, including anti-satellite weapons and computer network attack forces.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said yesterday that the report....shows how China "has steadily devoted increasing resources to their military."

According to defense officials familiar with the report, it also highlights new strategic missile developments, including China's five new Jin-class submarines, and states that Beijing continues to hide the true level of its military spending.

The officials also said that the report will detail how China is developing two new types of strategic forces that go beyond what nations have done traditionally using air, sea and land forces by aiming to knock out modern communications methods on which the U.S. military relies for advanced warfighting techniques.

First, U.S. intelligence officials estimate that by 2010 China's ASAT missiles will be capable of delivering a knockout blow to many U.S. military satellites. Second, China also is training large numbers of military computer hackers to deliver crippling electronic attacks on U.S. military and civilian computer networks.

Asked about China's double-digit percent increases in defense spending for more than a decade and advancing weapon technology, Mr. Gates said: "I think some of the capabilities that are being developed are of concern, sure."

China's buildup also appears directed at deploying forces that can be used beyond a regional conflict over Taiwan, which in the past was thought by U.S. officials to be the main objective of China's military modernization.

For example, the report identifies the five new missile submarines, known as the Jin-class, that will each be outfitted with 12 5,000-mile-range JL-2 missiles, vastly improving China's nuclear missile strike capabilities. The new submarines are considered a significant new power projection capability that China did not have from its lone earlier ballistic missile submarine, which stayed in port and did not sail to open ocean.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley stated recently that the ASAT test, which involved a missile ramming into a Chinese weather satellite some 500 miles in space, was as significant as the 1957 Soviet launch of the satellite Sputnik, which launched the space race.

The Pentagon report also bolsters the findings of a congressional commission report produced in February by Pentagon consultant Michael Pillsbury who stated that Chinese military "space hawks" advocate using ASAT weapons in a crisis with the U.S. The Pentagon report suggests that these "space hawks" represent the Chinese military's strategic intentions and are not fringe authors, as some pro-China officials claim.

China is aiming to put its military strength into the upper atmosphere, whether the United States like it or not. Space is the new frontier for weaponisation, and Russia, China, the EU and the US are all too keenly aware that getting massive laser, missile or plasma weapons into orbit will give them vast deterrence capability, as well as future means of striking down enemy missiles in flight, or to take out enemy military and communication satellites.

As with all moves to get weapons into space, China's first steps come as a business model of building and launching communications satellites on behalf of countries like Nigeria and Venezuela.

From the IHT :

For years, China has chafed at efforts by the United States to exclude it from full membership in the world's elite space club. So, lately, China seems to have hit on a solution: create a new club.

Beijing is trying to position itself as a space benefactor to the developing world - the same countries, in some cases, whose natural resources China covets here on Earth. The latest, and most prominent, example came last week when China launched a communications satellite for Nigeria in a project that serves as a tidy case study of how space has become another arena where China is trying to exert its soft power.

Not only did China design, build and launch the satellite for oil-rich Nigeria - it also provided a huge loan to help pay the bill. China has also signed a satellite contract with another major oil supplier, Venezuela. It is developing an earth observation satellite system with Bangladesh, Indonesia, Iran, Mongolia, Pakistan, Peru and Thailand. And it has organized a satellite association in Asia.

Joan Johnson-Freese, chairwoman of the Department of National Security Studies at the U.S. Naval War College, said China still trailed major aerospace companies in the quality and sophistication of its satellites but that the strategy was working on multiple levels.

"They want to play a leadership role for developing countries that want to get into space," Johnson-Freese said in an interview earlier this year. "It's just such a win-win for them. They are making political connections, it helps them with oil deals and they bring in hard currency to feed back into their own program to make them even more commercially competitive."

...the Chinese focus on satellites has also brought suspicions, particularly from the United States, since most satellites are "dual use" technologies, capable of civilian and military applications.

China is overhauling its military in a modernization drive focused, in part, on developing the capability to fight a high-tech war.

Analysts say the Chinese determination to develop its own equivalent to the Global Positioning System is partly because such a satellite system would be critical for military operations if a war were to erupt over Taiwan.

Most alarmingly to Western countries, China conducted an antisatellite test in January by firing a missile into space and destroying one of its own orbiting satellites. Four months later, Washington is still trying to parse the Chinese motivations for the test, while China has offered little in the way of explanation.

Eric Hagt, a director at the World Security Institute, testified in Washington this year that China's increasing investment in space has also made it feel more vulnerable at a time when the United States is advocating missile defense programs in the name of protection against terrorist states. China seems to believe Washington is determined to dominate space, he said.

Adding to the perceived increase in tensions about military budgets, new missile systems and China making its way into space, there is also the looming threat of a full-blown trade war between China and the United States :

The drums are being beaten more insistently, the ominous sound of a march towards a trade war. As Hank Paulson, the US Treasury Secretary, stood with Wu Yi, the Vice-Premier of China, on a Washington stage draped in the flags of their countries, he warned that this historic economic summit would have to be more than a talking shop, if it is to lessen the protectionist pressures building in Congress.

"There is growing scepticism in each country about the others' intentions," Mr Paulson said. "Unfortunately, in America this is manifesting itself as anti-China sentiment as China becomes a symbol of the real and imagined downside of global competition. It is up to us, over these two days and the work that follows, to show that words are precursors to action."

The issues are the same as they have been for several years. China's industrial revolution has turned it into a low-cost manufacturing centre and flooded the world with low-cost goods, in the process creating a $232bn (£118bn) trade deficit for the US with China.

Defenders of US manufacturing say an artificially low currency gives Chinese companies an unfair cost advantage that is turfing thousands of Americans out of their jobs. Meanwhile, US businesses are under huge restrictions if they want to operate in China, and all the while China is refusing to respect intellectual property rights and - in the shrillest commentators words - stealing overseas designs to further their own economic progress.

Before the Iraq War began, some watchers of the world economies suggested that if the United States became bogged down in Iraq, as China warned that it surely would, China would use the Iraq distraction to stake its claim to a far more powerful future.

With China's increasing presence on the African continent, the signing of satellite manufacture and launching deals with Nigeria and Venezuela, and energy deals with Iran, Venezuela and a growing number of African nations, there is plenty of evidence to show that China has firmly staked its claim as the next great superpower, rising as the United States declines in financial power and military influence.

It is no wonder, then, that China is expressing suspicion and distrust towards the United States as it makes plans to unroll is so-called 'missile defence shield' into countries like Japan and Australia, giving the appearance that the United States is aiming to place a missile ring around China and keep it somewhat contained.

As Russia has already made clear, China cannot be expected to tolerate the United States deploying missile batteries in its vicinity, even if they are there because the United States claims it needs to defend itself, and its allies, from 'rogue nations'.

China well knows that there is a likelihood that in the not too distant future, the United States may view China as a 'rogue nation', where the US currently cites the threat that makes its missile shield a necessity as being that supposedly posed by Iran and North Korea.

When It Comes To War, Most Americans Want US Military To Protect Taiwan

China Urges Patience On Sudan, Opposes Sanctions

China Warns Japan Over Visit By Taiwan's Leader

China-US Relations May Not Be As Frosty As Some May Purport

Russia's 'Sizzler' Missile Feared By The US

Capable Of Destroying Entire Aircraft Carrier, Yet US Said To Have Defence Against It

China's Got 'Sizzlers', But What About Iran?

It is the one missile the US military reportedly has no defence against it. The Russians built it, the Chinese have already deployed it, installing it on eight deisel submarines, and the Iranians want it. Or maybe they've already got it.

Whether the US military knows the full scale of defensive weapons and military technology Iran has accumulated since their defeat in the Iran-Iraq war in the late 1980s is debatable.

But what isn't debatable is the awesome destructive capability of the 'Sizzler' missile. What else can you say about a supersonic missile that flies fast and low can take out an aircraft carrier, except 'Oh Shit.'

From Bloomberg :

The U.S. Navy, after nearly six years of warnings from Pentagon testers, still lacks a plan for defending aircraft carriers against a supersonic Russian-built missile, according to current and former officials and Defense Department documents.

The missile, known in the West as the 'Sizzler,' has been deployed by China and may be purchased by Iran. Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England has given the Navy until April 29 to explain how it will counter the missile, according to a Pentagon budget document.

"This is a carrier-destroying weapon,'' said Orville Hanson, who evaluated weapons systems for 38 years with the Navy. "That's its purpose.''

"Take out the carriers'' and China "can walk into Taiwan,'' he said. China bought the missiles in 2002 along with eight diesel submarines designed to fire it, according to Office of Naval Intelligence spokesman Robert Althage.

Charts prepared by the Navy for a February 2005 briefing for defense contractors said the Sizzler, which is also called the SS-N-27B, starts out flying at subsonic speeds. Within 10 nautical miles of its target, a rocket-propelled warhead separates and accelerates to three times the speed of sound, flying no more than 10 meters (33 feet) above sea level.

On final approach, the missile `"has the potential to perform very high defensive maneuvers,'' including sharp-angled dodges, the Office of Naval Intelligence said in a manual on worldwide maritime threats.

The Sizzler is `"unique,'' the Defense Science Board, an independent agency within the Pentagon that provides assessments of major defense issues, said in an October 2005 report. Most anti-ship cruise missiles fly below the speed of sound and on a straight path, making them easier to track and target.

A Pentagon official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Russia also offered the missile to Iran, although there's no evidence a sale has gone through. In Iranian hands, the Sizzler could challenge the ability of the U.S. Navy to keep open the Strait of Hormuz, through which an estimated 25 percent of the world's oil traffic flows.

The Navy's ship-borne Aegis system, deployed on cruisers and destroyers starting in the early 1980s, is designed to protect aircraft-carrier battle groups from missile attacks.

But current and former officials say the Navy has no assurance Aegis, built by Lockheed Martin Corp., is capable of detecting, tracking and intercepting the Sizzler.

Then again, that might be just want the US Navy wants Iran, Russia and China to think.

Turkey Prepares To Invade Iraq To Contain US-Backed Kurdish Push For Independent State

Russia, China Unlikely To Tolerate Regional Threats To Their Strategic Interests

US Warns Turkey About Threats To "Territorial Integrity" Of Northern Iraq, Will Protect Kirkuk

By Darryl Mason

UPDATE - Raw Story reports :

Turkey says that 3,800 Kurdistan Workers' party (PKK) guerrillas are preparing for attacks in south-east Turkey, and that it is "ready to hit back if the Americans fail to act," reports the Guardian Unlimited.

Senior Bush administration officials, meanwhile, have assured Turkey that the US will step up efforts in Northern Iraq to root out PKK fighters.

Faruk Logoglu, a former Turkish ambassador to Washington, warned that military intervention by Turkey in the region could be "disastrous" in terms of destabilizing the region.

Speaking about US support for Iranian Kurds opposed to Tehran he added, "Once you begin to differentiate between 'good' and 'bad' terrorist organisations, then you lose the war on terror."

UPDATE 2 - From the London Times :

A scramble for Kurdish oil licences is expected this summer after Ashti Hawrami, the oil minister for Iraq’s Kurdish region, said yesterday that he wants to achieve a production goal of one million barrels a day by 2012.

The Kurdish move signals that Iraq is poised to open its doors to foreign oil investment.

Kurdish oil is a first step to developing Iraq’s vast potential. Foreign investors have so far shied away, fearing that investment in the Kurdish region will threaten their chances of winning bigger contracts in the south. Iraq produces only two million barrels a day from ageing reservoirs but has reserves estimated at 110 billion barrels — about three times the oil and gas extracted from the North Sea to date.

Previously -

Media reports from Turkey appear to confirm weeks of rumours that Turkey is moving forward with its long-planned invasion of Northern Iraq. The Turkish Military, by far the most powerful in the Middle East, has cancelled all leave and has moved "additional forces" up to Iraq's northern border. The target of the presumed invasion will be the 'outlawed' PKK, otherwise known as the Kurdistan Workers Party.

Turkey's chief concern is that the PKK will move across the border, via mountain passes, when the current snow and ice blocking the paths melts as Spring begins.

The PKK wants an independent Kurdistan nation, primarily in northern Iraq, with the oil-rich city of Kirkuk as its capital, but with territory swallowing up land now under Iranian, Syria and Turkish control.

Kirkuk is a glittering prize coveted by the United States, the Kurds and Israel, as it sits amongst oil fields holding more than 10 billion barrels in proven reserves. The rumour mill in Iraq has long claimed that an oil pipeline from Kirkuk, skirting Jordan, will eventually reach Israel.

Turkey believes that the United States is covertly backing the PKK in its plans for an independent Kurdistan, not only to share in the oil riches such a state would then control, but because it would allow the Americans to use Kurdistan territory for permanent air and army bases, by which the US could expand its reach into Iran and Syria.

From Zaman :

On March 10 Land Forces Commander Gen. İlker Başbuğ visited Diyarbakır in southeastern Anatolia and said that he went to the area to evaluate the current state of affairs with respect to internal security operations under way in the region as well as developments that were likely to arise in spring and summer. He added that they would also make an assessment as to what measures could be taken in the face of emerging conditions.

One week after Başbuğ’s visit, the 2nd and 3rd Armies deployed in the border region were put on alert while Turkish troops were sent to the border and were significantly reinforced.

The Office of the Chief of General Staff acknowledges extraordinary military activity in this region but adds that they are not evaluating a cross-border operation, a measure that is also opposed by the United States. However, Turkey’s decision will be shaped according to the steps the US soon takes.

This activity in the region should not be considered a cross-border operation but as preliminary preparations for a cross-border operation, the intelligence sources say.

STORY CONTINUES BELOW....

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STORY CONTINUES...

In its strongest statements against military action by Turkey against the PKK so far, the United States has made clear it will defend the "territorial integrity" of Northern Iraq if Turkey crosses the border to move against the Kurds.

From the Turkish Daily News :

The United States made it clear on Monday that it "certainly" opposed any Turkish military action inside northern Iraq to fight the terrorist Kurdistan Workers Party's presence there.

A top Turkish military commander at the weekend reaffirmed Ankara's right under international law to send troops into northern Iraq to attack the PKK terrorists hiding there if it saw fit.

But U.S. State Department spokesman Tom Casey said that Washington certainly did not want to see any Turkish military operation in the Iraqi-Kurdish controlled northern Iraq. "We believe in the territorial integrity of Iraq," Casey told reporters.

"We certainly are working well with the government of Turkey, as well as with the government of Iraq, to try and enhance our cooperation in combating the PKK."

Turkey maintains that the PKK is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Turkish civilians and soldiers in terrorist attacks since mid-2004, launched from inside Iraq. Turkey maintains that PKK terrorists are being armed, fed and sheltered by sympathetic Kurds in mountain regions of Northern Iraq, close to the border with Turkey.

The PKK, meanwhile, insists that its intentions are not violent, that it will ultimately be successful in its decades-long battle for an independent Kurdistan, and that it is willing to negotiate with Turkey to end conflict, but would only do so "on its own terms."

From the International Herald Tribune :

Kurdish rebels say they have enough weapons to defend themselves against Turkish raids on their bases in northern Iraq but remain open to a political settlement with Turkey that recognizes Kurdish national identity.

Turkey is pressing Iraq and its American ally to crack down on rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, who launch attacks on Turkey from bases in northern Iraq. The group has been waging a bloody war in southeast Turkey since 1984 in a conflict that has claimed 37,000 lives.

The Turks have not ruled out military incursions into Iraq to hunt PKK fighters, despite U.S. fears that such a move could lead to tensions with Iraqi Kurdish groups, important allies of the U.S. in Iraq.

During an interview last week with the a PKK mountain stronghold, a spokesman for the PKK insisted that the rebels have the weapons to resist any Turkish incursion.

"Our fighters are training very hard since we heard the Turkish threats," Rustam Jawdat said. "We have enough fighters to defend ourselves."

On the diplomatic front, tension is growing between the US and Turkey over a resolution making its way through Congress that, if passed, would see the United States officially recognising the Armenian genocide, during World War I, which resulted in the deaths of more than one million people.

How aggressively would Turkey react to such official recognition by the US of something so sensitive to the Turkish people, which they have long denied? Turkey is likely to react by shutting down a key US air base inside Turkey :

Turkey provides vital support to U.S. military operations. Incirlik Air Force Base, a major base in southern Turkey, has been used by the U.S. to launch operations into Iraq and Afghanistan and was a center for U.S. fighters that enforced the "no-fly zones" which kept the Iraqi air force bottled up after the 1991 Gulf War.

Warnings about the dangerous political and military fallout from the resolution being passed have come from a key US general, as well as from the Bush White House.

The Incirlik Air Force Base is vital for US operations inside Iraq, and Turkey, likewise, is essential to the transport of oil, cargo and supplies for US military operations in the region.

"Turkey opened Incirlik Base to the U.S., there are 22 U.S. war planes there. Turkey admitted 16 U.S. war ships in its ports, and nine of them are supplying goods to the troops in Iraq, while seven of them are transporting oil. 25 percent of the oil used by U.S. troops in Iraq is sent from Habur. 60 percent of the air cargo sent to the U.S. troops in Iraq passes through Incirlik Base."

And there's the billions of dollars in US defence contracts that Turkey may decide are not worth pursuing, including the Joint Strike Fighter :

Turkey will buy 106 planes, and the project is worth 10 billion USD. Turkey will purchase 30 new F-16 war jets in return for 1.65 billion USD. More than 200 F-16s are being renovated in return for 1.6 billion USD. Turkey will buy 1.3 billion USD of air defense system in 2007. Turkish army wants 52 helicopters to be used against the terrorist organization PKK, and Black Hawk is one of the alternatives. Turkey will purchase 21-26 million USD of zeppelins from the U.S. to fight against infiltration of terrorists from Iraq".

In short, if the United States Congress passes the bill officially recognising the Armenian genocide, Turkey will make the US pay, and will put at risk key missions and goals of the Iraq War. Expect one big fat veto from President Bush if the bill is passed.

The United States now finds itself caught between Turkey and the Kurds. And the pressure from the Kurdish Media continues to grow :

It is time the (US) State Department cared more about the legitimate human and national rights of forty million downtrodden Kurds held captive against their will by Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria, than the imperialistic and racist attitudes of a state that is guilty of state terrorism and of cultural and linguistic genocide against an entire people, a state guilty of eradicating the very name of a nation, of what makes a human being a human being and a people a people.

But China and Russia are unlikely to stand idly by if Turkey decides to invade Iraq to deal with the "Kurdish problems". Such a move by Turkey would put at risk billions of dollars of Chinese and Russian business interests, to say nothing of their strategic interests. It would also put at risk deals already being negotiated by Russia and China to access oil from Kirkuk.

Iran may be the focus of the American media, for now, but the brewing war in Northern Iraq between Turkey and the PKK is likely to have far greater consequences for the United States in the long run, and could act as a trigger for an incomprehensible, but realistic, wider World War drawing in Russia and China.

United States Warns Turkey It Will Protect The "Territorial Integrity" Of Iraq Against Turkish Strikes On PKK Terrorists

The Prize : Kurdish Region May Contain 45 Billion Barrels Of Oil, 100 Trillion Cubic Feet Of Natural Gas

Turkey Cancels Military Leave, Prepares For War Against The Kurds

Kurdish Rebels Claim They're "Open" To Peaceful Resolution With Turkey

Kurdish Media : The Tail Wagging The Dog - The United States And Turkey

Official US Recognition Of Armenian Genocide Threatens Rupture With Turkey

Turkey Threatens To Close Down US Military Base Used To Launch Air Strikes In Iraq And Afghanistan