Moscow Warns against Incendiary, Provocative Action

Asked if Russia had warned the US administration against any unilateral action in Syria, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Gennady Gatilov, replied that Russian officials have “always spoken about that, including in relation to their [US] latest strikes on Syrian armed forces.”
He said: “We believe that it’s unacceptable and breaches Syria’s sovereignty, isn’t caused by any military need, and there is no threat to the US specialists from the Syrian Army. So it’s incendiary, provocative action.” 
Earlier, the White House claimed that Syrian President Bashar Assad was preparing a chemical attack and warned that the Syrian government would “pay a heavy price” if the attack was carried out.
Hours later, the Pentagon said it had detected activity by the Syrian authorities in preparation for the attack. Pentagon spokesman Navy Captain Jeff Davis said that the US had seen “activity” at Shayrat airfield that showed “active preparations for chemical weapons use.”
However, the US failed to provide any further details or proof of such claims and the State Department’s spokesperson, Heather Nauert said it was “an intelligence matter.”
Two days later, the US suggested that the Syrian leadership had swiftly changed its mind about planning an alleged attack. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said: “it appears that they [Syria’s authorities] took the warning seriously. They didn’t do it.”
What a climb-down!?
The Syrian government and Russian authorities have denied any allegations against them, with Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying that "such threats to Syria's legitimate leaders are unacceptable."
In the latest statement, Deputy Foreign Minister Gatilov said that Russia doesn’t rule out that “there may be provocations” following the announcement from Washington.
The statements by the US administration complicate the [peace] negotiations in Astana and Geneva. Moscow believes such attempts to boost the tensions around Syria are unacceptable.
"The statements on Syrian armed forces getting ready to use chemical weapons are complete nonsense… These assumptions aren’t based on anything, no one provides any facts," the Russian diplomat said.
"If the aim is to ramp up the spiral of tension, we think it’s unacceptable. It complicates the process of negotiations undertaken in Astana and Geneva," Gatilov underlined.
“We’ve seen this in the past. Of course there are many ill-wishers, who want to undermine the process [of negotiations]. So any provocations are possible,” the deputy foreign minister added.
Earlier, Russia’s Foreign Ministry issued another official statement, saying: “We consider all these insinuations about chemical weapons which are being carried out in the worst traditions of the 2003 NATO intervention in Iraq as an ‘invitation’ for terrorists, extremists, and the armed opposition in Syria to carry out another large-scale provocation, which will result in the ‘unavoidable punishment’ of President Assad, according to Washington’s plans.”
Meanwhile, aformer CIA officer, Philip Giraldi said that the US statement on Syrian plans to use chemical weapons is to see how far they could push before Iran reacts. Then we will have a war against Iran that the administration in Washington seems to want..
He said that the US should be compelled to provide evidence because the only basis for this is allegations about a plan based on earlier allegations on a claim that the government in Damascus was allegedly responsible for earlier unproved attacks using chemical weapons. 
“I think the problem is that the State Department is not really in the loop and the reporting proved that both the State and Defense Departments knew nothing about this latest commentary from the White House.”
“The Syrian government has no motive to use chemical weapons as it is winning the war without it, whereas the ‘rebels’ now have a considerable motive to use it to provoke a US response,” he added.
The First Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Defense and Security Frants Klintsevich said: "The US is preparing a new attack on the positions of the Syrian troops, this is clear. A new cynical and unprecedented provocation is being prepared."
He added that the new US attack "would be passed off as a chemical attack" and could be followed by a US strike "on a grouping that is on the verge of a constructive solution of the situation."
Meanwhile, the Israeli military carried out several attacks on positions of the Syrian Army at the Golan Heights over the past weekend.
The Israeli ‘Defense’ Forces (IDF) attacked Syrian Army positions and an ammunition truck "in response to several Syrian projectiles" launched from Syrian territory. 
This attack followed Syrian forces repelling a massive Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) attack in the Golan Heights when they were struck by the Israeli Air Force in the area. (HTS is al-Nusra Front rebranded and was recently removed from US and Canadian terror lists) 
A Syrian military and strategic expert, Maj. Gen. Yahia Suleiman suggested that by launching attacks on Syrian forces, Israel plays into the hands of terrorists and also mentioned that many injured militants travel to Israel for treatment, a fact admitted by the militants and Israelis.
Moreover, “by attacking Syrian forces, Israel indicated that it would not give up supporting militants and would further protect them," he claimed.
"Their plan is to establish a buffer zone in the Golan Heights, similar to the one they tried to establish in southern Lebanon. But this plan will not work out, just like they failed to do that in Lebanon," he said.
According to Suleiman, Israel’s "aggression" against Syria is "part of a plan" on destabilizing Syria and weakening Damascus’s allies. He concluded: "Damascus is not interested in war with Israel but it doesn’t mean that the Syrian military will not respond to this aggression." 
Meanwhile, Turkey has begun a massive shelling action against the Kurdish-held northwest of Syria around the town of Afrin. Their tanks are massing around the SDF-held Afrin enclave for days and weeks now. 
However, they claim "retaliatory" bombardment is all they are interested in but the Kurds (YPG, as 80% of the SDF) fear this is a prelude to an all-out ground offensive and some clashes between Kurdish fighters and Turkish-backed rebels have reportedly already taken place. 
The Kurds suspect that the Turkish armed forces and their proxy ‘rebels’ will try to take the town of Tal Rifat that the Kurds liberated from ‘rebels’ in February 2016 at around the same time as the Syrian army itself making gains in this part of Aleppo province.
However, the Turkish attack could not have come at a worse time for the Kurds as their SDF militia is focused on the battle for Raqqa city against Daesh. This is at an entirely different part of the country.
Reports now claim that the Kurds would discontinue the Raqqa operations if the Turkish moves against Afrin do not stop as they care a lot more about their ethnic kin in Afrin than they do about Arab Raqqa. 
However, the US cares a whole lot about having US-backed forces dislodge Daesh from what the American media has dubbed its "unofficial capital".
(I wrote here before that only Turkey can stop the creation of an autonomous West Kurdistan if he attacked the SDF forcing them to abandon Raqqa. I also argued that the primary aim of the US-led regime change plans for Syria was another step towards an independent Greater Kurdistan, a decades old Anglo-Zionist project to destabilize Turkey, Iran, Syria and Iraq. Ed.)
The Kurds are leveraging their participation in the US-directed operation in Raqqa to exert pressure on the US to get Turkey to lay-off of Afrin. They are not in a weak position vis-a-vis the US either, as it is the only power willing to help them militarily. Conversely, the Kurds are also the only useable proxy the US has in Syria.
Complicating the matter is the fact that the US has no presence in Afrin and also has no links to the Afrin-based SDF that it never trained or supplied. The US purposefully ignored them as there was no point in further antagonizing Turkey over an enclave which did not border Daesh and could therefore contribute little to the fight against it.
Erdogan took that to mean that the Afrin SDF is fair game and US neglect of it could drive a wedge between the US and the SDF instead. 
Ideally, the US would prefer functional relations with Nato member Turkey and their own proxy Syrian Kurds, however both are testing the relationship that the US has with the other in attempts to force the US to pick one side or the other.
The last time a Turkish-Kurdish conflagration threatened US relations with the two opposing sides, Russian actions helped calm things down and mitigated the fallout for the US immensely. What will happen this time?