ROVING EYE - The killer on the (Saudi) king's highway By Pepe Escobar

ROVING EYE
The killer on the (Saudi) king's highway
By Pepe Escobar

There's danger on the edge of town
Ride the king's highway, baby
Weird scenes inside the gold mine
Ride the highway west, babyThe Doors, The End

The killer awoke before dawn. He put his American desert boots on. He took a knife from the ancient gallery. And he walked on down the hall - bathed in desert sunlight. 

The killer spoke with a British accent (London's East End?) Father (Saud), I want to kill you. Mother (Langley?) I want to... 

yeeeaaahh, c'mon! 

Then the sartorially composed Man in Black beheaded American photojournalist James Foley. 

This is not the end, beautiful friend. It's just a new beginning in the never-ending Global War on Terror. Now starring Papa Saud's brand new bag - The Caliph and his goons. This is the way Shock and Awe morphs into "Assad must go" morphs into Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, morphs into The Caliph's Black Britannia goon responding to "humanitarian" bombing. I'm my own baby now. Watch me work. Bring it on.

Choice scenery. Good sound and vision production values. Careful editing. No unnecessary gore. No blood splattering. No Allahu Akbar shrieks. "A Message to America", indeed - but most of all a message to the Ummah. As in we're the Men in Black badasses. We run The Caliphate. We're no mere death cult; we're winners. And we take no prisoners. 

And why did Islamic State, formerly ISIS, become winners? Because the "West" regimented, schooled, trained, logistically helped and weaponized most of IS's Takfiri goons with a mission at hand: to destroy Syria. The "West" lauded them as "Syrian rebels". Freedom fighters. 

Washington even promoted Jabhat al-Nusra (the official al-Qaeda franchise in Syria, and a "terrorist organization", according to the State Department) as "good" jihadis, as well as the preferred Saudi combo, the Islamic Front. 

No wonder after photojournalist James Foley was kidnapped in November 2012 the Washington-sanctioned version was that he was being kept by "Assad must go" forces in a prison near Damascus. 

Slouching towards Mecca 
The House of Saud, directly and indirectly, and the proverbial wealthy Gulf Cooperation Council donors are the Mom and Dad of ISIS. All duly vetted/approved by the industrial-military-Orwellian-Panopticon complex. 

And yet "Assad must go" had other ideas for Syria. He didn't go. He and his army resisted and counter-attacked. So the original mission in Syria morphed across the (non-existent) desert border towards Iraq. ISIS kept expanding - via extortion, kidnapping, captured oil fields, tribal smuggling networks.

The killer spoke with a British accent. Yet he may not be just a well-paid mercenary (500 from Britain, 700 from France, 500 from Belgium ). He's most certainly a true believer in the wider IS medievalist ideology as well as its no-holds-barred sectarian methods. 

How convenient that IS strategy is totally divide and rule. Totally balkanization of Iraq. Totally mum on Israel's slow-motion ethnic cleansing of Gaza. Totally useful in wagging the (beheading) dog to make the world forget about Gaza. 

Moroever, IS/ISIS strategy, stripped to the bone, is Pentagon manual; clear, hold and build - then expand (to an area larger than Great Britain). It's even Pentagon manual redux - as in building "coalitions of the willing" (see the alliance with "remnants" - Rummy talk - of the Saddam regime propelling their northern Iraq summer offensive.) 

How convenient that the mighty Orwellian/Panopticon complex satellite maze could not identify a long convoy of gleaming white Toyotas crossing the desert towards their summer conquests. And how convenient that a Briton beheading an American - what a "special relationship" plot twist! - fully sanctions the Return of Iraq Bombing ("for months", in Obama's words); more strikes; more drones; perhaps more boots on the ground; perhaps, in the near future, a Syria extension. 

IS also took over Tikrit, the birthplace of Saddam, in their summer adventure. Now Baghdad's military are trying to take it back. IS welcomed them with minefields, booby-trapped buildings, an array of snipers and hardcore mortar fire. How convenient that Obama's "humanitarian" bombs are not involved in R2P ("responsibility to protect") Saddam's birthplace. What really matters is the US consulate in Erbil, scores of CIA operatives and vast Big Oil interests in Iraqi Kurdistan. 

And then there's this ultimate plot twist; a pearl by a dissident Saudi researcher (in Arabic). He argues, in detail, that IS is essentially a revival of "pure" Wahhabism; not only that IS comes from outside the House of Saud's dominions - in Iraq and the Levant - but tries hard to shatter the monarchy's legitimacy. 

The House of Saud's counterpunch to the Arab Spring was (and remains) all about destroying or at least isolating the Muslim Brotherhood as an alternative Islamic rule/role model. Yet now comes IS - brimming with religious justification (however warped); military know-how; and an army of true - and well paid - believers.

Ride the king's highway, baby. No staged/not staged beheading could possibly top the ultimate blowback: the "West" nurturing the Beast who would slouch towards Mecca to finally behead the House of Saud. And those killers shall also speak with a British accent. 

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com. 

Intelligence chatter abuzz with plans for Saudi chemical weapons attack on Sochi Olympics

Intelligence chatter abuzz with plans for chemical weapons attack on Sochi Olympics

WMR is receiving dire warnings from multiple intelligence sources that all have a common theme: that Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan is following through on his threat to have Saudi-backed Salafists inside Russia launch a terrorist attack on the Winter Olympiad in Sochi because Russian President Vladimit Putin failed to withdraw his support for Syrian President Bashar al Assad. The Winter Games are scheduled to open on February 7.

Two men, identified only as "Suleiman" and "Abdulrakhman" and claiming to be with a Dagestani-based terrorist group called "Vilayat Dagestan" appeared on a 49-minute long video distributed on the Internet issuing a stark warning to Russia and all the athletes and visitors who will be arriving for the Olympics in Sochi. The two men, who Vilayat Dagestan claimed were the suicide bombers who launched two deadly attacks on public transportation targets in Volgograd last month, were said to be the suicide bombers who died in that attack. One of the two men in the video pushes a button attached to what is believed to be a mock explosive device.

Sitting in front of a black and white flag with Arabic writing often associated with Al Qaeda and Saudi-backed terrorist groups in Syria, the two men issue the following statement: "We have prepared a present for you -- for you -- [Putin] and all those tourists who will come over."

The two men add, "If you hold these Olympics, we will give you a present for the innocent Muslim blood being spilled all around the world: in Afghanistan, in Somalia, in Syria . . ."

The "present," according to WMR's sources, is one or more chemical weapons bombs, possibly containing sarin nerve gas stolen by Al Qaeda affiliates from Libyan stockpiles after the overthrow of Colonel Muammar Qaddafi's government. Those stockpiles of sarin were transferred by Saudi intelligence to Syrian rebels who used them in an attack in Al Ghouta, outside of Damascus, last year and to Chechen and Dagestani terrorists who now plan to use them during one or more Winter Olympics venues in Sochi, including the opening ceremonies.

On July 31, 2013, Bandar told Putin at a meeting in Moscow that if Putin pulled support for Assad, Saudi Arabia would agree to rein in Islamist terrorists from attacking Sochi. Bandar reportedly said, "I can give you a guarantee to protect the Winter Olympics in the city of Sochi on the Black Sea next year. The Chechen groups that threaten

the security of the games are controlled by us.” Putin became enraged with Bandar, told him Russia has known for years of Saudi support for terrorist attacks around the world, including in Russia, and abruptly ended the meeting with the man whose links with the Bush political family are so close, he is known as "Bandar Bush."

The Libyan chemical weapons believed to have been smuggled into Russia are also said to have been handed over to Vilayat Dagestan by a Saudi-backed Iraqi Salafist terrorist group called Ansar al-Sunna. The self-declared leader of an Islamic state in the Caucasus region, Doku Umarov, threatened to attack the Sochi Olympics last July. However, last week, Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov, claimed that Russian security forces had killed Umarov, although no corpse of the terrorist leader was produced by Russian or Chechen authorities.

Because of the nature of the threat, Russia has reversed course and agreed to accept U.S. military assistance during the Olympic Games. The deal worked out between U.S. chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey and Russian armed forces chief General Valery Gerasimov will provide counter-improvised explosive device (IED) and associated radio frequency jamming technology to Russian security forces. Russia has also reportedly agreed to allow a U.S. Navy destroyer and amphibious vessel to patrol closer to Sochi waters in the Black Sea to assist in security and/or evacuation operations. The U.S. Navy says the ships will be available "for all manner of contingencies."

Russian authorities in Sochi are reportedly on the lookout for a 22-year old Dagestani widow named Ruzanna Ibragrimova. Her husband was a Salafist terrorist killed by Russian security forces last year. Russian authorities have been distributing "wanted" posters of Ibragimova throughout Sochi. It is believed that the woman, one of a number of  militant widows dubbed "black widows" by counter-terrorism officials in Russia and abroad, sneaked past several cordons of Russian security perimeters and may now be in Sochi hiding. WMR's sources believe the widow may be carrying one or more chemical weapon devices to be detonated during the Olympics. The realization that chemical weapons may have been smuggled into Sochi, courtesy of Saudi intelligence, is what caused Dempsey and Gerasimov to make hasty preparations for U.S. military assistance at their previously-scheduled meeting in Brussels.

On a down note, WMR has also learned that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and its Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) have arranged for a supply of body bags to transport U.S. victims from Sochi to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware in the event of a terrorist chemical attack. In addition, the U.S. European Command also has plans to evacuate Americans and other visitors from Sochi in the event of a successful terrorist operation. C-17 transport aircraft will be on stand-by at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany.

The potential for a chemical weapons terror attack in Sochi has been known by worldwide intelligence agencies for quite some time. However, rather than warn of this threat, a number of world leaders cynically used their opposition to Russia's policy on homosexual advocacy to decide to boycott the opening ceremonies. Among those leaders who hid behind the lavender curtain rather than reveal the actual reason for their absence -- the threat posed by the Saudis to the Sochi games -- are U.S. President Barack Obama, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, German President Joachim Gauck and Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister David Cameron, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, French President Francois Hollande, Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski, and European Justice and Fundamental Rights Commissioner Viviane Reding.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte and King Willem-Alexander, Norwegian King Harald and Prime Minister Erna Solberg, and Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev are scheduled attend the ceremonies.

Some leaders are only planning on attending the closing ceremonies only. These include Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Bulgarian PresidentRossen Plevneliev. Bulgarian Prime Minister Plamen Oresharski will attend the opening ceremonies.
The decision by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to reject an invitation from Putin to attend the Sochi opening ceremonies is noteworthy. Putin and Netanyahu are on better speaking terms with one another than is the case with Putin and Obama. Although Putin and Netanyahu are worlds apart on issues like Syria and Iran, they mutually recognize the importance of business ties between Russian Jews living in Israel and their compatriots in Russia. Netanyahu's rejection of Putin's invitation may have arisen from advance knowledge of Saudi plans for an attack on the Winter Games. Israel and Saudi Arabia have forged close intelligence and military links owing to their common cause against Iran and Assad's government in Syria.

The national teams of two countries whose leaders are boycotting Sochi, the United States and Germany, received emails in Russian warning that their teams would be attacked in Sochi. Other teams receiving the emails were those of Italy, Hungary, Slovakia, and Slovenia. The emails were deemed a hoax by International Olympic Committee officials.

According to WMR's sources inside the DHS and FEMA, contingency plans for Sochi are now dealing with the worst possible scenario -- a terrorist chemical attack with massive casualties.