The post Military Situation In Syria On October 10, 2026 (Map Update) appeared first on South Front.

By Kit KLARENBERG

Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su

Private messages show show Hamish De Bretton-Gordon, a top British pundit on the Salisbury poisoning incident, was a close associate of the MI6 officer who handled the Russian intelligence defector at the center of the scandal — and reaped considerable benefits from his proximity to the case.

This September, a former British Army officer named Hamish De Bretton-Gordon filed a column with the UK Telegraph complaining that “Russian bots” had “tried to make out that I’m part of a security service conspiracy.” Having shot to prominence as a media commentator on chemical and biological weapons after the alleged poisoning of turncoat Russian spy Sergei Skripal, De Bretton-Gordon dismissed accusations that he collaborated with UK intelligence as the product of the “Kremlin’s malign tactics.”

Despite his fervent denials, leaked emails reviewed by The Grayzone indicate that De Bretton-Gordon has spent years privately coordinating his public statements with senior British military and intelligence figures. The correspondences show him training operatives in Turkey and instructing Israeli military figures on Syria’s still-elusive stockpile of chemical weapons, “and a bit of Novichok,” referring to the Russian toxin supposedly used to poison Skripal.

They also suggest he stood to profit personally from exaggerating the threat posed by Russia. In the emails, De Bretton-Gordon described his day job as “flogging gas masks” to British military and law enforcement. He seemingly grew his firm’s business with outlandish warnings of imminent Novichok hand grenade attacks by Russian agents. As his prominence grew, the BBC hired De Bretton-Gordon to serve as an advisor on a drama about the Skripal poisoning.

His principal contact listed in the emails is Pablo Miller, an MI6 officer and veteran of the Royal Tank Regiment. Miller is widely believed to have recruited and handled Skripal before the Russian GRU defector was allegedly poisoned in Salisbury, England in March 2018 under questionable circumstances.

After the Salisbury incident, the British government issued a D-notice to prevent mainstream reporters from investigating Miller’s relationship with Skripal. Despite being an obvious subject of interest, Miller went completely unmentioned during the rolling coverage that dominated British media for months as a result.

The emails show Miller was nonetheless following that coverage closely. In June 2018, he wrote to De Bretton-Gordon thanking him for his “sterling media work” during what he called the “dark days of March and April.” During that period De Bretton-Gordon appeared in British newspapers and television reports on the poisoning on a near-daily basis, consistently attributing blame to the Kremlin without evidence and emphasizing the chemical weapons threat he claimed Russia posed.

The next month, De Bretton-Gordon sent his MI6 pal a lengthy Telegraph article warning of potential all-out chemical and biological wars with “rogue” states. De Bretton-Gordon’s commentary featured extensively in the piece, which framed Britain as a sitting duck in the event that Moscow were to target the country with missiles equipped with nerve agents or other toxic weapons.

When not hyping up De Bretton-Gordon’s apocalyptic warnings of potential Russian chemical weapons attacks, the article functioned as a long-form infomercial for his then-employer, Avon Protection Systems. The firm, which manufactures protective equipment for military, law enforcement and fire personnel, stood to profit handsomely from inflated perceptions of what governments call Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) threats. De Bretton-Gordon’s email signature at the time identified him as the company’s Managing Director for CBRN.

De Bretton-Gordon’s big break

The Telegraph noted the company’s business was “booming,” with orders “flooding in” from government clients the world over, supposedly reflecting how “a new age of poison weapons is upon us.” Later in the piece, an Avon executive boasted that the Salisbury incident and other recent alleged CBRN usage had “been good for us.” Britain’s elite SAS were among the cited customers for the “sinister looking” gas masks sold by Avon Protection Systems, which were said to be “worthy of Darth Vader.”

At no point did the Telegraph article mention De Bretton-Gordon’s employment by Avon.

But thanks to his newfound media prominence, De Bretton-Gordon wouldn’t have to stay with the company much longer. In January 2020, he emailed Pablo Miller bragging that he had “been offered a fellowship” at Cambridge University. De Bretton-Gordon wrote that he’d decided to accept the role because, in his words, “it beats flogging gas masks!”

Four months later, De Bretton-Gordon founded a dedicated personal “CBRN and bio security” consulting firm, in an apparent attempt to derive profit from his talent for stoking public fears of looming chemical and biological catastrophe.

De Bretton-Gordon helps MI6 officer avoid media scrutiny

The leaked emails show De Bretton-Gordon quickly emerged as a preferred adviser for the BBC, and repeatedly served as a go-between for Miller and the British broadcaster, whose journalists had apparently become aware that Miller was an MI6 officer.

Correspondence from November 2018 shows De Bretton-Gordon was also rewarded for his relentless media appearances with a position as a “senior CBRN mentor” in Britain’s Ministry of Defence. Though the work was unpaid, he received an MOD ID card and Ministry railcard, saving him substantial sums on train travel. De Bretton-Gordon wrote Miller to inform him of his new title, noting that he was currently advising the BBC on what he derided as “CBRN ‘pisch’” for a forthcoming “drama on Salisbury.”

“I’ve been asked by the writer if you would be interested in contributing,” he mentioned to Miller, adding that he’d told the British broadcasters that the spy was unlikely to agree. The MI6 veteran responded, “you correctly guessed my answer to the BBC question… it would not be appropriate for me to comment in public on the issue.”

Miller lamented that the British state broadcaster’s cognizance of his clandestine involvement with Skripal indicated his “true professional provenance” had “long ceased to be much of a secret.” But he wished De Bretton-Gordon good luck, telling his colleague that he was sure the drama would succeed given his “expert guidance.”

The next January, De Bretton-Gordon explicitly described Skripal as Miller’s friend when forwarding him a Forces News article on the removal of the roof of the Russian defector’s former home, excitedly informing him, “I see your mate is in the news again!”

De Bretton-Gordon was quoted liberally in the report, explaining it was necessary to remove the roof as it had allegedly accumulated “enough Novichok to kill thousands of people.” The chemical warrior claimed British authorities were now “much better prepared to deal” with future CBRN attacks in the aftermath of the incident.

Weeks later, De Bretton-Gordon emailed Miller to warn him Salisbury “will be awash with journos” on the March 4 anniversary of Skripal’s poisoning. In response, Miller thanked his friend for the “heads-up,” and wrote that he’d likely be leaving the country to ensure he was far away from the city while it filled up with reporters.

The correspondence also reveals how close the two men had become, and how their relationship had begun to blur into commercial territory. In October 2019, Miller asked De Bretton-Gordon to help publicize a Kickstarter for his daughter’s theatre production — a personal favor suggesting a friendship rather than a purely professional engagement. But Miller refused to let media contacts anywhere near it, explaining that following the Salisbury incident his daughters were forced to close their social media accounts after being relentlessly hounded by the press.

During the same exchange, De Bretton-Gordon reminded Miller he’d been contracted for an upcoming BBC drama on Salisbury, and once again offered him a role. Miller declined, saying he was firmly opposed to playing “any part for any BBC show. Ever.” De Bretton-Gordon defended his participation in the project by revealing that the MOD had specifically requested he “help on the Salisbury piece… to make sure the military bit looks right.”

The production in question was a three-part BBC One series that aired in 2020 called “The Salisbury Poisonings.” The project’s IMDB page lists De Bretton-Gordon as a “military advisor.”

De Bretton-Gordon wants critics “prosecuted for treason”

As The Grayzone previously revealed, De Bretton-Gordon played a deeply malign, multifaceted role throughout the Syrian dirty war. On top of endless media appearances as a bogus “expert” on CBRN matters, he was part of a covert MI6 effort to smuggle soil samples out of opposition-controlled areas in an effort to prove the Syrian government used chemical weapons. A report on this initiative in the Mirror tabloid made clear the purpose of British intelligence was prodding the US into military intervention against Assad.

It seems plausible whatever samples De Bretton-Gordon gathered in Syria were concocted, perhaps by his own hand. He provided evidence to a number of official investigations into purported chemical attacks during the conflict. In at least one instance – an OPCW/UN Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) probe into an alleged April 2014 toxic gas strike in Talmenes – videos submitted by an opaque NGO De Bretton-Gordon founded called CBRN Taskforce were found to show clear signs of falsification.

De Bretton-Gordon’s communications with his spy buddy contain references to him visiting Turkey, “to do a bit of training.” The country was the central hub for MI6 and CIA operations during the dirty war on Syria. It is an open question whether his training sessions covered staging chemical weapons attacks, and if other states in the region were taught in this dark art.

 

The self-styled CBRN expert also bragged about sharing his purported expertise with the Israeli military. In an email sent in December of 2018 De Bretton-Gordon boasted to Miller that he’d just returned “from Israel,” where he said he’d been “briefing the IDF (and no doubt others!) on Syrian [chemical weapons] and a bit of Novichok.”

He was clearly impressed by the Israelis, crowing, “Those boys don’t mess about!”

De Bretton-Gordon’s work overseas was apparently taking a toll on his day job, however. In an email that month to Miller, he explained how he was “always on the edge of sacking with all my ‘extra’ activities.” These machinations also put him in conflict with Peter Ford, Britain’s ambassador to Syria from 2003 to 2006, who’d become an outspoken critic of the dirty war against Damascus.

After De Bretton-Gordon authored an op-ed for The Telegraph in May 2019 demanding the West intervene to prevent Syrian government forces from recapturing Syria’s Idlib, Ford issued a response nailing his failure to acknowledge that the province was at the time under the control of the MI6-supported Al Qaeda affiliate, Hayʼat Tahrir al-Sham.

In response, De Bretton-Gordon emailed Miller a note deriding Ford as a “complete See You Next Tuesday” who parroted “Assad and Putin propaganda.” He called for Ford – and the members of a now-defunct collective of antiwar academics known as the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media – to be “prosecuted for treason.” De Bretton-Gordon seemed particularly piqued that the academic collective had poked holes in the narrative he’d spun about Syrian chemical attacks.

De Bretton-Gordon cheers as his enemies “exposed”

In August that year, De Bretton-Gordon contacted Miller to celebrate The Times publishing a hit piece on David Miller, a member of the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media.

“Glad to see that some of Assad’s and Putin’s ‘useful idiots’ who try and give me a hard time are being exposed,” De Bretton-Gordon cheered, before suggesting “must get more of them out in the open.”

This prompted a wider discussion about the so-called “stooges” who publicly challenged established, MI6-approved media narratives on Syria and Russia.

For his part, Pablo Miller expressed disgust over a recent “fawning evaluation” of Putin’s 20 years in power by dissident journalist Mary Dejevsky. Miller derided Dejevsky as one of many media figures who foolishly believed “Putin was the answer to Russia’s woes,” and suggested without evidence that she was likely “taking Moscow gold.” Thankfully, he added, events “Crimea, Syria, and Salisbury” had managed to “wake the twits up.”

The slanted manner in which these events were framed in the media did indeed coincide with a perceptibly negative shift in public sentiment towards Russia throughout the West, helping make a world-threatening standoff with Moscow a fait accompli. At every step, De Bretton-Gordon and other intelligence-aligned commentators acted as military and intelligence propagandists, ensuring the media and popular culture was constantly deluged with paranoia over a multi-spectrum Russian “threat.” Those who question the narrative are denigrated as “useful idiots,” and much worse.

This August 6, De Bretton-Gordon based an entire op-ed for the Telegraph on a conversation he’d recently had with an unnamed “Western intelligence officer” of his acquaintance. Could that anonymous spy have been Pablo Miller?

The self-styled chemical warfare expert was clearly not keen to discuss his relationship with the MI6 man. De Bretton-Gordon immediately hung up the phone when I reached him and identified myself as a journalist.

Original article:  thegrayzone.com

By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | October 8, 2026

A US and Syrian official said Syria is considering sending troops to Saudi Arabia as the kingdom battles Ansar Allah in Yemen.

Reuters reported on Thursday that a US official and a Syrian defense official said that Damascus may send Syrian forces to Saudi Arabia. Riyadh has reached out to several allies for support in its war against Ansar Allah.

On Monday, Turkey and Pakistan agreed to provide military support to Saudi Arabia under the Mecca Accords, a mutual defense pact signed by the three countries earlier this year.

A joint statement released by the Mecca Accords members explained, “The Committee decided to move immediately to the practical implementation of the collective defense commitments and to take the necessary measures to provide the agreed military forces and capabilities and ensure their rapid deployment in the Kingdom, in accordance with the approved arrangements and the national legislation of the Parties, thereby enhancing readiness, military integration, and the collective capacity to confront and counter threats.”

Turkey indicated it would provide Saudi Arabia with military capabilities rather than ground troops, which would require parliamentary approval, while Pakistan did not provide details on the forces or capabilities it plans to deploy.

The statement was released following an emergency meeting of the alliance to discuss the situation in Saudi Arabia. The fighting between Ansar Allah and Saudi Arabia reignited in July after the kingdom attacked the Sanaa airport. In recent weeks, Ansar Allah has taken a significant amount of territory from the Saudi-backed forces in Yemen and attacked several energy sites in Saudi Arabia.

Riyadh has reached out to international partners for support. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman requested that President Donald Trump order direct attacks on Ansar Allah positions. So far, Trump has limited US involvement to intelligence sharing and battlefield planning, and refused to conduct direct strikes on Ansar Allah.

Saudi Arabia has also asked China and Pakistan to place pressure on Iran to rein in Ansar Allah. According to three Iranian sources speaking with Reuters, Beijing privately asked Tehran to rein in Ansar Allah after receiving a request from Riyadh. The sources told the outlet that Iran responded that stability in the region depended on US and Israeli aggression.

While Saudi Arabia’s ties to the US and Ansar Allah’s relationship with Tehran allow the war between the two to appear to be a part of a larger regional war, the conflict began over a decade ago. Additionally, Ansar Allah did not begin its offensive following the US and Israeli surprise attack on Iran, but rather after Saudi-backed forces attacked the Sanaa airport, prompting Ansar Allah to resume attacks on Saudi Arabia.

Western officials and media often label Ansar Allah as a proxy of Iran. However, while Iran has provided support to Ansar Allah, there is little public evidence that Tehran directs the group’s military operations.

While Syria was a long-time [resistance] ally under the rule of Bashar al-Assad and his father, Damascus fell to rebels, led by former al-Qaeda members, in 2024. Syria is now led by President Ahmed al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, who previously led al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate.

Among the towns and villages impacted by Israel’s incursions into southwest Syria, few have had more problems than Jabata al-Khashab. The village, in northern Quneitra Governorate, is within the UNDOF demilitarized zone and subsequently is de facto occupied by the Israeli military, who seized much of the UNDOF zone starting at the end of 2024. […]

The post Military Situation In Syria On October 8, 2026 (Map Update) appeared first on South Front.

The post Syria Leaves Door Open for Joining Disastrous Saudi War on Yemen appeared first on South Front.

Syria is considering sending troops, including foreign jihadists, to help Saudi Arabia fight against Ansar Allah in Yemen, according to media reports, as Riyadh continues to seek international support for the war, which it reignited in July by bombing the Sanaa International Airport. Reuters first reported that Syria, which is led by former al-Qaeda Commander […]

The incidents of Israeli forces shooting Syrian civilians inside Syrian territory have continued to grow today, with reports that, after three were shot earlier this week in two separate incidents, a fourth was shot, wounded, and ultimately detained on Wednesday. The latest incident took place in the northern Quneitra town of Jabata al-Khashab, a town […]

The post Syria Is Preparing to Join Saudi War on Yemen, and It Would Be a Big Mistake appeared first on South Front.

Israeli ground troops have been conducting more and more infiltration into southwestern Syria, with at least eight such incidents reported in the last 24 hours. The cross-border raids have been done chiefly in Quneitra Governorate, along what was previously a UNDOF demilitarized zone. That demilitarized zone was occupied by the Israeli military in late 2024, […]

introduction by Gospa News Editorial Staff

9/11 & 10/7 AWFUL FALSE-FLAG Intel Plots

VERSIONE IN ITALIANO

Originally posted on October, 7, 2026 – updated on October, 8, 2026

As the tragic anniversary of October 7, 2023, approaches —the day Hamas terrorists massacred Israelis near the Gaza Strip border, triggering the genocide in Palestine perpetrated by Benjamin Netanyahu’s Zionist regime —we are publishing an exclusive intelligence analysis.

This video marks the launch of a new Gospa News series titled “TOP SECRET Interview” by Fabio G.C. Carisio—founder and director of Gospa News—which will also be republished on the long-standing American site VT UnCensored Foreign Policy (where Carisio hosts a column).

This features an interview with Antonio Evangelista, a top Italian police official and counter-terrorism expert who spent seven years as Interpol official in Jordan, and who is now an author of geopolitical essayes and novels concerning international intrigue.

He confirms that the recent attack in the Holy Land—like the September 11 attack on the Twin Towers in New York—was a horrific “false flag” operations…

A “false flag” operation is one carefully premeditated over a long period by a foreign intelligence entity to implicate an enemy nation and discredit it in the eyes of global public opinion. It is planned down to the finest detail, carrying the risk of causing actual casualties.

In fact, if unforeseen “collateral damage”—such as unexpected deaths beyond the planned injuries or killings—occurs during the operation, the orchestrators are even more pleased, as the resulting bloodshed lends greater credibility to the terrorist attack.

Historically, the CIA (US counter-intelligence) and Mossad (Israeli counter-intelligence) have been recognized masters of such plots, occasionally utilizing partners such as the secret services of other nations or terrorist groups.

QUESTIONS ON WESTERN INTELLIGENCE AND TERRORISM by the Director of GOSPA NEWS

In the video, the former Interpol official answers the following questions by Gospa News director Fabio Giuseppe Carlo Carisio:

1. Are the recent alleged terrorist incidents involving the FlyDubai flight and the British RAF airbase at Fairford “false flag” operations?
2. What parallels exist between the plots of September 11 in New York and October 7, 2023, in Israel?
3. What has been the historical strategy of Western intelligence agencies regarding terrorist actions by Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and Hamas?
4. What drives Western governments to support bloody “colonial ventures,” thereby legitimizing genocides in the Middle East and Ukraine?
5. What lies regarding NATO wars in the Mediterranean basin are exposed in your historical, geopolitical, and economic study?
6. Do US, Europe and Italy face a real risk of a world war?

No summary today. If you want to hear the answers, watch the video to the end.

Below the video, you will find links to the major investigations mentioned in the footage.

VIDEO INTERVIEW to ANTONIO EVANGELISTA – Former Interpol official in Jordan

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Trump, an ARMS TRAFFICKER between two AL QAEDA BUTCHERS. Exclusive Investigation on 40 years of CIA Plots with Jihadists to trigger Obama-Soros-Nato Arab Spring

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Update – INTEL DROP by CIA ex Agent: Hamas-Israel Fighting, likelihood “False Flag” to Wipe Gaza Off the Map. Warnings by Egypt Ignored

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9/11 – The Avoidable Massacre Allowed by CIA. Helped Al Qaeda in Balkans, Obstructed FBI Investigations. Tribute to John O’Neill Killed in the Towers

Turkish papers: 21 Erdogan’s jihadist militias supported by Cia, Pentagon and armed with TOW missiles

The Grim NATO’S JIHADs. How Atlantic Intelligence “14 Eyes” uses ISLAMIC TERRORISTS: from Italy to Libya, Ukraine and Syria

“Jihadist Terrorist Danger in the West”. Due to Israeli Genocide on Gaza & its Gas Affairs! Interpol Officer reveals in Exclusive Interview

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Israeli forces continue to operate in southwestern Syria, with incidents reported in Quneitra, Daraa, and Rif Damasq Governorates. While most of the cross-border incidents involve the Israeli military searching homes and establishing temporary checkpoints in Syrian territory, there are also increasingly destructive incidents to report. Up in Rif Damasq, Israeli troops not only entered a […]

• Syria condemned Israel’s renewed work on the Sofa 53 military project, a network of roads and fortifications in Quneitra;
• Israeli forces blew up an abandoned military position near Beit Jinn in the western Damascus countryside;
• Two Alawite men were killed in a suspected sectarian shooting near Safita in rural Tartus;
• Israeli army killed a man who allegedly attempted to breach a military post in southern Syria and detained two others who approached another post on a motorcycle.

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MORE ON THIS TOPIC:

 

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By Kamran Yeganegi | The Cradle | October 3, 2026

Saudi oil tankers are loading again at Yanbu, less than three weeks after drone strikes shut down the East–West Pipeline that supplies the Red Sea port. On 24 September, crude was reported to be flowing west again, although no ship had yet loaded a cargo.

By 29 September, trade sources and shipping data showed that loadings had resumed. The interruption and recovery have offered a costly demonstration of what an oil route around the Strait of Hormuz can, and cannot, do.

Yanbu, Ceyhan and Baniyas sit at three very different points on that spectrum.

Yanbu has a 1,200-kilometer pipeline in operation and an established export terminal. Ceyhan is already loading Iraqi crude, though current Iraqi flows are measured in hundreds of thousands–not millions–of barrels a day. Baniyas could eventually give Iraq a major Mediterranean outlet, but for now it remains a project that depends on new infrastructure and financing, political agreements, and protection across two fragile states.

The comparison begins with the oil that reaches ships during a crisis. Pipeline capacity matters only as much as the pumps, terminals, and security along the route allow.

Yanbu’s exposed lifeline

Saudi Arabia’s 1,200-kilometer East–West Pipeline has a nominal capacity of 7 million barrels per day (bpd). Before the September strikes, reported flows through the system were already below that capacity. Three pumping stations were damaged, and the shutdown halted crude loadings at Yanbu. Riyadh blamed Iraqi resistance factions; the Islamic Resistance in Iraq denied responsibility for the strike. Baghdad condemned the strike and opened an investigation.

Restarting the line on 22 September did not immediately restore exports. Crude had to reach Yanbu and replenish stocks before tankers could load. Two vessels scheduled for 23 September left without cargo, according to shipping data cited by Reuters. Loadings resumed days later, after a strike on pumping stations hundreds of kilometers inland had kept the port idle.

Yanbu was moving between 2 million and 2.65 million bpd when tankers returned. Traders expected flows to rise to 3 million to 4 million bpd, but a return to the pre-attack level of roughly 5.5 million bpd could take another month.

The voyage has become more expensive, too. Quoted war-risk premiums for Saudi-linked tankers calling at Yanbu have risen to around 3 percent of vessel value, up from below 1 percent in early July. For a $100 million tanker carrying two million barrels, a 3 percent premium adds roughly $1.50 to the cost of each barrel, before fuel or freight. Yanbu may bypass Hormuz, but insurers are charging heavily for the detour.

Yanbu still leaves Asia-bound cargoes exposed to the southern Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab. Attacks and warnings by Yemen’s Ansarallah-aligned army have made passage through those waters more costly and uncertain. Heidmar Maritime Holdings chief executive Pankaj Khanna has highlighted another problem for shipowners: the Red Sea lacks the US naval protection sometimes available around Hormuz.

Saudi Arabia has escaped one strait only to send its oil toward another. Cargoes bound for Europe can head north through the Red Sea, but Asian customers require the southern passage. That split limits how freely Riyadh can reroute shipments when risks around Bab al-Mandab rise.

Ceyhan’s southern supply problem

Ceyhan is already loading Iraqi crude, though its northern supply remains small compared with the volumes exported through the Gulf. Flows stood at roughly 200,000 bpd in mid-September, down from about 250,000 bpd before the war. Baghdad’s challenge is getting oil from its vast southern fields into that northern export system.

Iraq has begun moving southern oil north by road. A September trial sent 209 tanker trucks carrying about 38,000 barrels to Kirkuk over two days. Basra Oil Company later said around 250,000 bpd was being transported north for onward export through Ceyhan.

Truck convoys are useful during a crisis, but they cannot replace a high-capacity pipeline. The first trial averaged about 182 barrels per truck. Moving 250,000 barrels at that rate would require roughly 1,370 loaded truck trips, with vehicles returning south for the next run. Road conditions and loading points impose additional constraints. Expanding Ceyhan therefore depends less on the Turkish terminal than on a reliable south-to-north connection within Iraq.

Energy analyst Richard Bronze of Energy Aspects has warned against treating bypass infrastructure as a substitute for Hormuz altogether. “The idea that the strait will stop mattering or become worthless is pure rhetoric,” he told Arab News. For Iraq, the road to Ceyhan provides an outlet. It cannot yet carry southern crude at a scale that would loosen Baghdad’s reliance on the Gulf.

Baniyas across the war map

Baniyas is the most ambitious option because it could reshape Iraq’s export map. Iraq has approved preliminary studies comparing routes including Basra–Haditha–Kirkuk–Ceyhan and Basra–Haditha–Baniyas, with a consortium that includes Chevron, TI Capital, and Qatar’s UCC. Chatham House estimates the wider Iraq–Syria network at around $15 billion, with a proposed initial capacity of roughly 2 million bpd and construction potentially taking about four years.

Syrian officials have given a somewhat shorter timeframe. Syrian Petroleum Company chief Youssef Qablawi said in August that the Haditha–Baniyas project could take around 30 months to three years after final agreements and engineering work. Even the shorter timetable places Baniyas beyond the present shipping crisis, assuming agreements and funding are secured.

The route’s security problem is also more complex than a line drawn on a map. A pipeline from Haditha toward Syria would traverse western Iraq, including areas where ISIS cells remain a concern, before entering eastern Syria, where state authority remains uneven and armed groups continue to operate.

Chatham House noted in September that armed actors, including ISIS, have attacked oil wells and tanker trucks in eastern Syria, while Iraq’s fragmented security system leaves multiple actors capable of obstructing or extracting rents from infrastructure.

Israel’s strikes and military presence in Syria would loom over any pipeline to Baniyas. There is no evidence that Israel plans to attack the project, but a route through Syrian territory would depend on security guarantees Damascus cannot yet provide.

Baniyas itself is more functional than the word “reconstruction” sometimes suggests. Iraqi-origin fuel oil has already been trucked through Syria and handled at the terminal, demonstrating that a commercial logistics chain can operate.

The existing trade gives the project a foothold, but handling trucked fuel oil is far removed from loading 1–2 million bpd of pipeline crude. Storage, pumping systems, berths and terminal reliability would have to be scaled accordingly.

The old Kirkuk–Baniyas line was badly damaged, and the planned network may take a different route. Existing truck traffic therefore offers little indication of the cost or the construction work required to handle sustained crude flows.

Sanctions are another constraint, though less severe than under Bashar al-Assad. The EU lifted its broad economic sanctions on Syria in 2025 while retaining security-based and targeted measures, and the US rescinded Syria’s designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism in August 2026. That lowers, but does not eliminate, banking, insurance, due-diligence and counterparty risk for a multi-billion-dollar project.

Iran’s leverage runs through Iraq

The geopolitical logic behind Iraq’s western routes is often framed as a means to reduce Iranian leverage over Hormuz. Iran’s influence in Iraq also extends through energy trade, political networks, and armed factions embedded in Iraq’s fragmented security order.

At the same time, Tehran does not treat Iraq exactly as it treats other Gulf states. Mostafa Khoshcheshm, a political commentator on Iranian television, told Al Jazeera in August that Iran viewed Iraq as a “friendly state” and had allowed some Iraqi oil tankers to pass Hormuz.

He said Baghdad had “always stood up to the United States.” His view is one Iranian reading of Baghdad’s position. An Iraqi move toward Gulf- and US-backed western export corridors would also alter the economic leverage surrounding it.

An expansion through Baniyas or Ceyhan would give Baghdad more room to negotiate export terms without severing its ties to Iran. Gulf investment would bring new transit partners and sources of capital, though it would not automatically shift Iraq’s political alignment.

The security question cuts both ways. Iran-aligned resistance factions could be a source of vulnerability if they viewed a corridor as threatening their strategic interests. ISIS remnants and local power brokers could also obstruct it, while transit-state disputes might halt flows without an attack. Yanbu’s damaged pumps are a warning about the vulnerability of a land corridor.

Iraq’s other proposed exits face obstacles of their own. Reviving the dormant Iraq Pipeline through Saudi Arabia (IPSA) would require Riyadh’s agreement and extensive repairs. The Basra–Aqaba route would have to be built across western Iraq and Jordan.

Egypt’s SUMED pipeline is already operating, but Baghdad has no direct way to feed Iraqi crude into it. For now, the southern Gulf terminals remain Iraq’s only outlet capable of handling exports at scale.

What reaches the tanker?

As of early October, Yanbu can move the largest potential volume because the pipeline and port already exist, but its 7 million bpd nameplate figure overstates the immediately exportable capacity, while Red Sea shipping costs and the Bab al-Mandab remain concerns.

Ceyhan can now load Iraqi crude, but expansion depends on resolving Iraq’s internal north–south logistics. Baniyas offers the largest geopolitical transformation, but it remains years, billions of dollars, and security agreements away from moving crude at scale.

Hormuz remains central to the region’s oil trade even as states invest in alternatives. Yanbu, Ceyhan and Baniyas each shift some exposure from the strait to pumping stations, desert corridors, insurers or transit governments. Their value will be measured by the barrels reaching ships when the Gulf route is under threat, not by the capacity listed in a project plan.

By Robert Inlakesh | Al Mayadeen | October 1, 2026

US President Donald Trump has officially announced a formal withdrawal of American troops from Iraqi territory, yet the economic, social and diplomatic hold on the nation remains. If US troops are going to be permanently booted out, it necessitates an Iraqi national resistance that is capable of operating as a guarantor.

On October 21, 2011, former US President Barack Obama announced that the United States had withdrawn its remaining occupying forces from Iraqi territory. Then, only two and a half years later, the US re-deployed its forces back into the country under the guise of fighting the Daesh insurgency.

Iraq, having experienced a regime change operation followed by a brutal occupation and nationbuilding project, was left incapable of defending itself from the ISIS takeover, let alone pushing back against the United States redeploying its forces. First, the Obama administration deployed forces that it said were there to protect its diplomatic staff, in addition to advisors to the Iraqi armed forces.

Later it would expand this presence, expanding its “Operation Inherent Resolve” into Syrian territory, providing it with supply routes and a platform from which to de facto occupy northeastern Syria. The US operation in Syria and Iraq helped them eventually achieve their longtime goal of regime change in Damascus by depriving the Syrians of their access to the nation’s oil resources and fertile agricultural lands.

In 2020, Donald Trump had agreed to remove his forces from Iraqi territory, re-iterating this pledge during a meeting with then Iraqi PM Mustafa al-Kadhimi. The following year, former President Joe Biden then declared the official end of his nation’s combat mission inside the country. Only now, in 2026, and after extensive attacks on US military facilities by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, has the pledge to withdraw American forces been followed through on.

When the US and Saudi Arabia recently blamed Iraqi forces for carrying out an attack on Riyadh’s East-West Pipeline, launching a large-scale bombing campaign across the country, some Iraqi officials instead issued statements against Iraq’s armed factions that had vehemently denied involvement in the incident.

The Trump administration is openly pushing for the disarmament of all military factions within the country, a project Washington has also sought to impose on all Resistance groups across the region. The United States has not allowed for there to be a reasonable integration of Resistance forces like Hezbollah in Lebanon with the Lebanese Armed Forces, nor allowed time for formal agreements to be struck in Iraq of a similar nature. Their goal is simply to disband these groups and then exert control over the armed forces of Lebanon and Iraq, leaving them all but defenseless and without access to strategic weapons capable of deterring violations of national sovereignty.

In the case of Baghdad, the nation’s government was a construct of US occupation; Washington still holds the economic cards that are capable of pressuring any leadership, no matter how well-intended its goals are, while it maintains an enormous soft-power pull through its extensive NGOisation project inside the country. Iraq was not allowed to rebuild its nation’s military following the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s rule in 2003, leaving it defenseless against ISIS terrorism a decade later.

On the ground, this is why there was a need for the Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation Forces) to emerge. It was the Hashd that was chiefly responsible for defeating the terrorist invasion and purging its militants from Iraqi cities. Many of these groups that fought under the banner of the Hashd then went on to develop considerable military power and an extensive arsenal.

As revealed during the Ramadan War earlier this year, the Israeli Mossad was able to develop bases inside Iraqi territory, while numerous militant groups still exist across the country’s territory, including various armed factions that are backed by the CIA and the Mossad.

If the Islamic Resistance in Iraq is disbanded and disarmed, then Iraq will be in the exact same defenseless position that allowed for ISIS to sweep through the nation so rapidly and seize so much territory, leaving behind a trail of blood in their wake. This poses a threat to not only Iraq, but other neighbouring countries, including Iran. It threatens Syria’s fragile status quo too.

An Iraq without the Islamic Resistance would be like a Lebanon without Hezbollah, completely left at the mercy of the United States and their Israeli allies. Washington and Tel Aviv have a project that aims to totally dismantle regional sovereignty; this is why they have dedicated trillions of dollars and countless resources to destroying the armed forces of both Iraq and Syria over a period of nearly 30 years now. They are not about to simply sit by and allow Iraq and Syria to rebuild capable militaries, allowing them to follow the will of their people and to defend their own national interests.

The United States still maintains its air defence systems inside Iraqi territory, can use the country’s airspace at will and, as we saw only months ago, will launch airstrikes across the nation at the drop of a hat.

In order to deter a return of American occupation forces, under the guise of fighting whatever future threat they choose to use, there must be an Iraqi military force that is capable of acting in defense of the country, both on the ground and through the use of its long-range munitions if need be. A nation without a real military force cannot enjoy sovereignty. And a nation that is not able to go against the will of the United States, will serve as its proxy and will suffer the blowback that is inherent in complicity.

The US withdrawal from Iraq did not happen without a long history of resistance against its forces and public opinion that also opposes American interference. Protecting the achievement of ridding the country of the majority of US forces takes real military deterrence. Otherwise, the Israelis and the US will simply use the country’s territory for whatever projects they wish.

By Buğra Sarı | MEMO | October 1, 2026

Israel’s pursuit of security increasingly rests on a destabilizing proposition: that its neighbours become less threatening when their capacity to exercise sovereignty is diminished. Since the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023, this approach has become particularly visible across several distinct arenas. Military operations, territorial incursions and restrictions on political and economic autonomy suggest a conception of security dependent on keeping others vulnerable. The consequences extend beyond individual confrontations. When states cannot control their territory, rebuild institutions or protect their populations, the regional conditions necessary for durable security begin to erode.

The argument is not that Israel created every conflict in the Middle East. Authoritarian rule, sectarian violence, armed groups and competing regional interventions have all contributed to the region’s instability.

The question is whether the means Israel uses to pursue its own security deepen that instability. Repeatedly weakening neighbouring states and political communities may bring short-term military gains, but it can also erode their ability to contain violence and maintain order, making the region more dangerous—including for Israel itself.

This pattern can be understood as the denial of sovereignty. Sovereignty involves more than diplomatic recognition: it requires institutions capable of governing, providing services and exercising legitimate authority over the use of force. When these capacities are persistently degraded, formal independence becomes increasingly hollow.

The cases differ in their circumstances and severity, but together they reveal a troubling hierarchy: Israeli freedom of military action repeatedly takes precedence over other societies’ ability to govern and secure themselves.

Syria offers a particularly revealing example. Following the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December 2024, Israel launched extensive attacks against Syrian military infrastructure and moved into the separation zone established under the 1974 disengagement agreement. Israel justified the destruction of military assets as necessary to prevent advanced weapons from falling into extremist hands. Yet the targets included airfields, air-defence systems and naval facilities—capabilities relevant to the functioning of a state, whatever government eventually controls them.

The longer-term problem is that preventing a hypothetical future threat can obstruct the reconstruction of an already devastated country. Syria needs accountable security institutions capable of controlling territory, containing armed factions and protecting communities. Destroying military capabilities without a credible framework for rebuilding legitimate state authority risks leaving those functions unfulfilled. In July 2025, Israeli strikes on Damascus, including the defence ministry, further demonstrated Israel’s willingness to impose military limits on the new authorities.

Syria’s transitional authorities must themselves answer for abuses and protect minorities; state consolidation cannot justify repression. Nevertheless, externally imposed military vulnerability is no substitute for accountable governance.

A government expected to prevent threats from emerging within its territory must have the capacity to exercise authority there. Undermining that capacity can preserve the fragmentation through which armed groups survive.

Lebanon exposes a related contradiction. Hezbollah’s independent military power has long constrained the Lebanese state’s authority and its ability to determine questions of war and peace. Reducing that parallel authority could, under appropriate political arrangements, strengthen state sovereignty. But Israeli military action does not automatically transfer power from Hezbollah to the Lebanese government. Bombardment, displacement and violations of Lebanese territory can weaken the institutions expected to assume responsibility for national security.

The distinction is crucial: weakening an armed organization and strengthening a state are separate outcomes. In March 2026, UN Secretary-General António Guterres called both for respect for Lebanon’s sovereignty and for stronger support to its armed forces so that they could become the country’s sole military force. That combination identifies what repeated unilateral intervention overlooks: security requires an institutional successor capable of governing after military operations end.

Where that capacity remains inadequate, another cycle becomes possible. Armed groups invoke external attacks to justify retaining their weapons; the state struggles to establish authority; Israel cites the continuing armed presence to justify further intervention. Hezbollah bears responsibility for its own decisions, but Israeli policies can reinforce the conditions sustaining its claim that the Lebanese state cannot protect the population.

The attack on Doha on September 9, 2025 extended this logic into the diplomatic sphere. Qatar was mediating negotiations involving Israel and Hamas when Israel struck Hamas representatives on its territory. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights condemned the attack as a breach of international law and an assault on mediation. The significance exceeded the violation of Qatari sovereignty: even a state facilitating negotiations could find its territory treated as an extension of the battlefield.

Mediation depends on practical assurances that communication with an adversary will remain possible. Targeting interlocutors in a mediating country makes those assurances harder to provide. It raises the costs of hosting negotiations and can undermine channels needed for ceasefires, hostage releases and humanitarian arrangements. Military reach may expand while opportunities for a political settlement contract.

Israel’s recognition of Somaliland in December 2025 raises a different sovereignty question along the region’s Red Sea periphery. Somaliland has maintained separate institutions for decades, and its claim to recognition has its own history. Nevertheless, Israel’s recognition challenged Somalia’s internationally recognized territorial framework. The African Union rejected the move and warned that such recognition could undermine peace and stability.

Recognition is not equivalent to bombardment, and the cases should not be collapsed into a single legal category. Their connection is political: the territorial arrangements on which other governments rely become subject to unilateral decisions shaped by Israeli interests. In an already contested regional environment, such decisions risk adding another dispute to fragile processes of state consolidation.

The confrontation with Iran illustrates the danger of extending preventive military logic to a powerful regional adversary. On February 28, 2026, Guterres condemned the use of force by the United States and Israel against Iran and Iran’s subsequent retaliation across the region. He warned that these actions undermined international peace and security. The escalation demonstrated how efforts to eliminate threats militarily can expose additional countries to attack.

Iran’s support for armed groups and its own military conduct cannot be excluded from this assessment. Nevertheless, degrading an adversary’s capabilities does not necessarily resolve the political incentives driving confrontation. It may instead encourage dispersal, rearmament or greater reliance on asymmetric methods. Tactical destruction can coexist with a more dangerous strategic environment.

The Palestinian case represents the most profound expression of this problem because it concerns both collective self-government and the conditions of human survival. In the West Bank, withholding revenues owed to the Palestinian Authority weakens the institutions expected to administer daily life.

The World Bank documented how the suspension of transfers in 2025 intensified fiscal distress, reduced salary payments and placed pressure on essential services. These measures undermine the practical foundations of Palestinian self-government.

A political authority cannot provide credible governance indefinitely while lacking reliable access to its own revenues. Weakening public administration also weakens its legitimacy, potentially benefiting actors who argue that institutional politics offers no meaningful route to Palestinian rights. The resulting dysfunction can then be invoked as evidence that Palestinians are incapable of governing themselves. Restrictions on capacity thus risk producing the very incapacity used to justify continued control.

In Gaza, the destruction has reached beyond institutional viability. The devastation of housing, healthcare, water systems and livelihoods, compounded by restrictions on humanitarian access, has endangered the material conditions necessary for life. In August 2025, a joint statement by UN agencies confirmed famine in Gaza Governorate and described a crisis involving starvation and preventable deaths. The issue was no longer merely whether Palestinians could build a state, but whether civilians could survive.

Hence, in Gaza, the denial of sovereignty has escalated into a denial of survival. In September 2025, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry concluded that Israel had committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Earlier, on November 21, 2024, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu, finding reasonable grounds to believe that he bore criminal responsibility for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution and other inhumane acts. These findings expose the devastating human consequences of denying a population access to the essentials of life. The systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure and deprivation of food, water and medical care undermine Palestinians’ ability to survive as a community in their homeland. Viewed through this analysis, the genocide identified by the UN commission represents the most extreme manifestation of denial: a progression from obstructing a people’s capacity to govern themselves to destroying the conditions necessary for their continued existence.

Taken together, these cases suggest a self-reinforcing cycle. Military intervention and institutional weakening can generate insecurity, displacement and political fragmentation. Those conditions create opportunities for armed actors, whose activities then provide further grounds for intervention. This is a causal risk, not an inevitable outcome of every operation. Its importance lies in the contradiction between immediate military advantage and the requirements of lasting security.

Breaking that cycle requires a different measure of success: whether policies leave behind institutions capable of governing, populations able to live securely and diplomatic arrangements that reduce incentives for violence. Protecting Israeli civilians and respecting neighbouring societies’ sovereignty are mutually reinforcing necessities.

A regional order built around one state’s freedom to intervene and everyone else’s enforced vulnerability cannot offer durable peace. By denying others the capacity to govern—and, in Gaza, devastating the conditions necessary to survive—Israel risks perpetuating the insecurity from which it seeks protection.

Al Mayadeen | September 30, 2026

Hezbollah’s Media Relations Office categorically denied any relationship or affiliation between the party and the alleged cell that the Syrian Interior Ministry said it had apprehended in the Yarmouk Basin in Daraa.

In a statement, the Lebanese Resistance reiterated that it has no presence on Syrian territory and is not involved in any security or military activity there, stressing its longstanding commitment to Syria’s security and stability and the safety of its people.

Hezbollah points to Israeli  regional scheme

The party called on the Syrian authorities to “remain vigilant against attempts to implicate its name in order to stoke tensions and sow discord between Lebanon and Syria.”

It urged the Syrian authorities to investigate the circumstances surrounding the allegations, identify those behind them and determine who stands to benefit from escalating tensions between the two countries.

Hezbollah pointed to “Israel”, accusing it of intensifying its attacks on Syria and Lebanon and seeking to undermine the security and stability of the region.

A recurring pattern

The denial follows months of similar accusations against Hezbollah from Syrian officials since the fall of the al-Assad government.

Earlier this month, Hezbollah’s Media Relations Office has categorically denied any connection to a security cell reportedly arrested on suspicion of seeking to destabilize Lebanon and Syria, dismissing the accusations as entirely baseless.

In July, Hezbollah rejected claims tying it to an attempt to smuggle weapons and missiles across the Syrian-Iraqi border, after Syrian authorities said they had intercepted a shipment concealed inside a fuel tanker arriving from Iraq. Also in April and May, the group denied allegations linking it to a cell accused of plotting to assassinate a religious figure.

Hezbollah has affirmed on each occasion that it maintains no activity, connection, or presence inside Syrian territory. The group has said the repetition of such claims raises serious questions and points to parties seeking to inflame tension between the Syrian and Lebanese peoples.

The Lebanese Resistance has also pointed to similar fabricated allegations emerging from Bahrain and Kuwait, warning of a foreign plot aimed at stoking tensions between Arab nations and the Axis of Resistance and destabilizing the wider region.

Israeli forces continued to carry out their usual cross-border raids into southwest Syria today, and while operations were reported in both Daraa and Quneitra Governorates, the most immediate focus seems to be on the northern part of Quneitra, with raids targeting local villages there unusually often. The village of Taranja in northern Quneitra got some […]

Mass protests have swept Syria—from Aleppo to Deir ez-Zor. Two years of empty Western promises, plundered oil fields, Israeli occupation of the south, and rule by a former terrorist whom Washington and London placed on the throne. The Fuel Crisis as a Trigger In mid-September 2026, Syria was gripped by the largest wave of civil […]

Israeli forces continue to raid southwestern Syria on a daily basis, raiding towns and setting up checkpoints. This week, the increasing trend is for them to harass shepherds operating in the countryside of Quneitra Governorate. On Tuesday, a shepherd was captured on the outskirts of al-Rafid, a Quneitra village. Israeli troops came, detained him, and […]