Incredible as it may seem, an Israeli high-ranking military man was "caught with IS pants down" in late October, American-German researcher, historian and strategic risk consultant F. William Engdahl notes.
"In late October an Iranian news agency, quoting a senior Iraqi intelligence officer, reported the capture of an Israeli army colonel, named Yusi Oulen Shahak, reportedly related to the ISIS [ISIL] Golani Battalion operating in Iraq in the Salahuddin front," Engdahl narrates in his latest article for New Eastern Outlook.
The researcher stresses that since the beginning of the Russian military operation against the Islamic State in Syria lots of inconvenient truths about the US-led anti-ISIL coalition and its partners have ultimately come to light.
Netanyahu's Likud and the Israeli military work closely with the US neoconservative warhawks, Engdahl notes, adding that with the help of Washington's neocons Jerusalem is solving its own geopolitical problems in the region. The name of one of these problems is Hezbollah. Interestingly enough, Hezbollah has been spotted fighting fiercely against ISIL.
"Since at least 2013 Israeli military have also openly bombed what they claim were Hezbollah targets inside Syria. Investigation revealed that in fact Israel was hitting Syrian military and Hezbollah targets who are valiantly fighting against ISIS [ISIL] and other terrorists," the researcher continues.
Israel is not the only power who has been chasing its own adversaries under the pretext of an anti-terror war. Much in the same vein Turkish leader Erdogan jumped at the opportunity to bomb the Kurdish militants of the Democratic Union Party (YPG) and Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) under the pretext of the anti-ISIL war.
Needless to say, Washington's year-long air campaign aimed against ISIL also raises a lot of questions.
The researcher draws attention to a largely neglected report released in 2014 by the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) since 1974 stationed along the Golan Heights border between Syria and Israel.
"The UN documents showed that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) were maintaining regular contact with members of the so-called Islamic State since May of 2013. The IDF stated that this was only for medical care for civilians, but the deception was broken when the UNDOF observers identified direct contact between IDF forces and ISIS soldiers, including giving medical care to ISIS [ISIL] fighters," Endahl elaborates.
Since 2013 Israel has repeatedly launched attacks on Syria along the Golan Heights under the pretext of its counter-terror operations against Hezbollah. Furthermore, UNDOF has also been attacked by the Islamic State and al-Nusra Front.
It seems that "someone obviously does not want UNDOF to remain policing the Golan Heights," Engdahl remarks.
Why do Israeli IDF military have such a passionate interest in Syria's Golan Heights?
"In 2013, when UNDOF began to document increasing contact between Israeli military and IS [ISIL] and al-Qaeda along the Golan Heights, a little-known Newark, New Jersey oil company, Genie Energy, with an Israeli daughter company, Afek Oil & Gas, began also moving into Golan Heights with permission of the Netanyahu government to explore for oil," Engdahl narrates.
As Engdahl elaborated in his previous article on the matter, the International Advisory Board of Genie Energy includes, amongst others, such prominent figures as Dick Cheney, former CIA head James Woolsey, Jacob Lord Rothschild and media mogul Rupert Murdoch.
"Of course no reasonable person in their right mind would suggest there might be a link between Israeli military dealings with the ISIS [ISIL] and other anti-Assad terrorists in Syria, especially in the Golan Heights, and the oil find of Genie Energy in the same place, and with Netanyahu's latest Golan Heights 'rethink' appeal to Obama," he notes with an unconcealed sarcasm, adding that it seems that 'Ol Netanyahu' and his military men have got caught "with their hands in a very dirty cookie jar in Syria."
