| Online: | |
| Visits: | |
| Stories: |
ISIS update 9\6\2015..”Fortress Europe” should take note
Are you Syrious? ‘Putin admits Russia’s aiding Syrian army in war’ – western media claim
WW3 UPDATE: US Secretary of State John Kerry warns Russia over military build up in Syria
Russian soldiers ‘seen fighting with pro-Assad troops’ against Syrian rebels
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/602842/Russian-soldiers-fighting-pro-Assad-troops
A video has emerged claiming to show Russian speakers and a Russian armoured vehicle fighting Syrian rebels alongside Mr Assad’s troops in the Latakia mountains in Syria.
A BTR-82A armoured car – one of Russia’s most advanced army vehicles which was only launched last year – was seen in the clip firing at rebel fighters.
Images of what appears to be Russian planes and drones flying over Idlib in north western Syria were also tweeted out by an account linked to Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria.
And a Russian naval vessel was photographed heading through the Bosphorus straight stacked high with military equipment.
Russian military advisers have long thought to have been helping government forces in Syria, where it has a naval base, but this would be the first evidence of troops fighting on the front line.
Igor Sutyagin, a Russian military specialist at the UK’s Royal United Services Institute, said it was unclear whether the Russians were serving soldiers or contractors.
He said: “You can hear Russian, that is correct.”
Russian Troops Fighting In Syria
Russia Sending Tanks/Supplies to Syria as Pentagon Voices Concerns
Putin Now ‘On the Offensive’ in Syrian Conflict – German Newspaper
Despite Western countries’ failed policies in the Middle East, the Russian President made it clear that Russia is ready to cooperate with Washington to find a political solution to the Syrian crisis.
Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized Western foreign policy in the Middle East but is ready to cooperate with the US to establish peace in the region, German newspaper Deutsche Witschafts Nachrichten said on Sunday.
According to the newspaper, Putin’s rhetoric could mean that he is “going on the offensive” in the Syrian conflict by saying that Moscow is ready to help Western countries in the fight against the Islamic State. However, he also claimed that the West was not without its share of the blame for the Syrian conflict.
“In Russia, we have even several years ago said that if our so-called Western partners conduct erroneous policies in regions of the Muslim world, in the Middle East and North Africa, this will lead to large-scale issues,” Putin said on Friday.
The newspaper also said that it is unclear if Russia would directly interfere in the Middle Eastern crisis and the scale of such an intervention. According to the author, new bombings could worsen the “suffering of the civilian population.”
The newspaper added that Moscow continues seeking a political solution to the crisis. Moscow assures that Assad is ready for new elections. It also noted that Putin has called on the Syrian opposition to take part in the conflict’s peaceful resolution.
Read more: http://sputniknews.com/russia/20150906/1026667621/russia-putin-speech-syria.html#ixzz3kyzpgQYN
Russian Military Presence In Syria Risks “Confrontation” With US-Backed Forces, Kerry Warns Lavrov
On Friday, Vladimir Putin conceded that the scope of Russian military involvement in Syria is “quite serious.”
In a replay of the Kremlin’s official line regarding Russian involvement in Ukraine, Putin did not admit that his soldiers were on the ground to play a direct combat role.
However, the Russian President’s comments did suggest that Moscow’s logistical and technical assistance goes far beyond the purely “political” cover the Kremlin has granted Assad via Moscow’s Security Council veto. It also suggests that Russia isn’t prepared to accept a Syrian state controlled by a puppet government likely to be sympathetic to Washington and Riyadh.
Of course the official reason for Moscow’s presence in Syria is the same as the Washington’s: they’re both there, ostensibly, to fight ISIS.
For those who still do not understand that ISIS has become, as we put it earlier, “a kind of catch-all, go-to excuse for legitimizing whatever one feels like doing,” the situation in Syria can be extraordinarily confusing. For instance, at least one mainstream media outlet was having quite a difficult time on Saturday trying to understand why the US seems so concerned about Russia’s presence in Syria when both sides are supposed to be after the same thing – that is, defeating terrorism. The reason is because both sides are not in fact after the same thing, and neither of which cares too much about what does or doesn’t happen to ISIS unless the group’s fate somehow matters in determining whether a post-civil war Syria is still governed by Assad. In short, ISIS has played its role. The Assad regime is destabilized and Damascus is up for grabs. From here on out, it’s all about whether a coalition comprised of the US, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Qatar ends up in a direct military conflict with Russia and the Assad regime. That would be the geopolitical “main event.”
Underscoring the above is the alarm with which Russia’s stepped up presence in Syria has been greeted by Washington. Far from being elated that, amid the worst relations between the US and Russia since the Cold War, the two powers are still on the same page when it comes to combating terrorism, Washington is instead worried that the Kremlin is willing to resort to overt military support to shore up Assad’s depleted forces. As a reminder, here’s what the US claims to know (via LA Times):
US intelligence has captured evidence of a significant escalation of Russia’s military engagement in Syria’s civil war, including satellite images of an apparent Russian base for staging troops and heavy equipment under construction near a port city that is a stronghold for Syrian President Bashar Assad, U.S. officials say.
The reconnaissance photos of possible military housing being built near the international airport in Latakia province provides strong evidence of deepening involvement by President Vladimir Putin’s government in the four-year-old Syrian war, according to the officials, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
In addition, the Russians have asked at least one country bordering Syria for a window of time to fly a detachment of warplanes over its territory and into Syria, the officials said. The officials would not name the country, but Turkey lies between Russia and Syria.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has been on a diplomatic offensive in recent weeks trying to marshal support for a plan to bring peace to Syria that would include a role for Assad. But those talks with Saudi and other Middle East leaders have failed to win over opponents.
The new military buildup could reflect a recognition by the Russians that with those talks going nowhere, Assad needs more help from them.
“It’s pretty obvious that all the Russian logistics preparation is to do something significant in support of Assad,” said Christopher Harmer, a military analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, a nonpartisan public policy group in Washington. “At this point, it’s too big to be a misdirection.”
“Too big to be a misdirection,” which presumably is why John Kerry jumped on the phone with Lavrov on Saturday. The State Department says “the secretary made clear that if such reports were accurate, these actions could further escalate the conflict, lead to greater loss of innocent life, increase refugee flows and risk confrontation with the anti-ISIL coalition operating in Syria.”
Note that if any of what the State Department says there is true, it’s entirely because John Kerry knows that Russian support will allow the Assad regime to continue to fight for control of the country. That is, if anyone actually believed Russia was there to fight ISIS, then one would think the effect would be to decrease refugee flows and lead to fewer civilian casualties as ISIS’ forces are swiftly defeated. After all, the Soviet experience in Afghanistan notwithstanding, one would certainly think that ISIS isn’t operationally capable of waging an extended ground war against the Russian army (as an aside, it would be ironic – given the Soviet-Afghan war – if the Russians end up mired in a protracted conflict with a CIA-backed group of jihadists). However, what would increase refugee flows, lead to greater civilian casualties, and “further escalate the conflict” is if Russia is simply in Syria to help Assad fight on to the bitter end. In other words, the State Department is tacitly admitting that this has very little (and more likely nothing) to do with ISIS.
Here’s The New York Times with more on what Washington claims to know about Russia’s involvement thus far:
Russia has sent a military advance team to Syria and is taking other steps the United States fears may signal that President Vladimir V. Putin is planning to vastly expand his military support for President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, administration officials said Friday.
The Russian moves, including the recent transport of prefabricated housing units for hundreds of people to a Syrian airfield and the delivery of a portable air traffic control station there, are another complicating factor in Secretary of State John Kerry’s repeated efforts to enlist Mr. Putin’s support for a diplomatic solution to the bloody conflict in Syria.
The Russians have also filed military overflight requests with neighboring countries through September.
American officials acknowledge that they are not certain of Russia’s intentions, but some say the temporary housing suggests that Russia could deploy as many as 1,000 advisers or other military personnel to the airfield near the Assad family’s ancestral home. The airfield serves Latakia, Syria’s principal port city.
American intelligence analysts are also looking at ship loadings in Russia to determine what might be bound for Syria, and one official speculated that the Russian deployment might eventually grow to 2,000 to 3,000 personnel.
“There are some worrisome movements — logistical, preparatory types of things.”
Yes, “preparatory types of things” – the million dollar geopolitical question is this: what exactly are they preparing for?
ISIS shows off American M16 rifles in new video
Zarif: US policies in Middle East further spread violence, extremism
Decoding the Current War in Syria: The Wikileaks Files
The WikiLeaks Files – the only comprehensive analysis of the full archive of diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks – is an essential reference for understanding the contours of American policy. For example, the current war in Syria.
The US strategically schemed to cause unrest in Syria against the Bashar al-Assad government. Faced with the rise of ISIS, which the US was not only aware of but also encouraged, the US slides deeper into a complicated war it helped escalate in the first place, recently involving the once reluctant Turkey and clandestinely including 80 British personnel as well.
Dec 13, 2006
Influencing the SARG [Syrian government] in the End of 2006
William Roebuck, Chargé d’affaires, US embassy, Damascus
We believe Bashar’s [Bashar-al-Assad, Syrian President] weaknesses are in how he chooses to react to looming issues, both perceived and real, such as the conflict between economic reform steps (however limited) and entrenched, corrupt forces, the Kurdish question, and the potential threat to the regime from the increasing presence of transiting Islamist extremists. This cable summarizes our assessment of these vulnerabilities and suggests that there may be actions, statements, and the signals that the USG can send that will improve the likelihood of such opportunities arising.” [Emphasis added]
This cable suggests that the US goal in December 2006 was to undermine the Syrian government by any available means, and that what mattered was whether US action would help destabilize the government, not what other impacts the action might have…In public, the US was opposed to ‘Islamist terrorists’ everywhere; but in private it saw the ‘potential threat to the regime from the increasing presence of transiting Islamist extremists’ as an ‘opportunity’ that the US should take action to try to increase.
Robert Naiman
US ally Turkey joined the supposed war against ISIS in Syria with airstrikes and by allowing US to use its airbase in Icirlik along the Syria-Turkey border. That “Turkey’s intelligence agency helped supply arms to parts of Syria under Islamist rebel control in late 2013 and early 2014” clarifies Turkey’s aims. While appearing to launch attacks on ISIS, Turkey simultaneously targeted PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) in Iraq, the parent-wing of the PYD (Democratic Union Party in Syria) consisting of Syrian Kurds, who have been the main opposition to ISIS on-ground, thereby alienating “America’s most important military ally in the Syrian war.” In fact, Turkey’s airstrikes have disproportionately targeted PKK rather than the ISS. And the US is not innocent here either.
US intelligence is used by Turkish warplanes to bomb Kurdish villages where the PKK has a strong presence, killing many civilians in the process.
Conn Hallinan
Of the 1032 people arrested by Turkey, 847 are accused of links to the PKK and just 137 to ISIS. Turkey has also refused to give air cover to Syrian Kurdish soldiers fighting against the ISIS. Well aware of this, US remains reluctant to condemn Turkey. US has never shied away from using its allies and enemies to suit its own strategic interests, without paying attention to the consequences of such collaborations, however harmful.
By 2014, the sectarian Sunni-Shia character of the civil war in Syria was bemoaned in the United States as an unfortunate development. But in December 2006, the man heading the US embassy in Syria advocated in a cable to the Secretary of State and the White House that the US government collaborate with Saudi Arabia and Egypt to promote sectarian conflict in Syria between Sunni and Shia as a means of destabilizing the Syrian government. At that time, no one in the US government could credibly have claimed innocence of the possible implications of such a policy. This cable was written at the height of the sectarian Sunni-Shia civil war in Iraq, which the US military was unsuccessfully trying to contain. US public disgust with the sectarian civil war in Iraq unleashed by the US invasion had just cost Republicans control of Congress in the November 2006 election. The election result immediately precipitated the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld as secretary of defense. No one working for the US government on foreign policy at the time could have been unaware of the implications of promoting Sunni-Shia sectarianism.
Robert Naiman
And yet the US proceeded to do exactly that in Syria, repeating its horrendous attack on Iraq, which reduced it to a warring, fragmented and unstable country. Verso author Patrick Cockburn writes, “The result is that the US may find it has helped to destabilize Turkey by involving it in the war in both Iraq and Syria, yet without coming much closer to defeating Isis in either country. If so, America will have committed its biggest mistake in the Middle East since it invaded Iraq in 2003.”
US foreign policy in the Middle East has generally rested on four pillars: Turkey, Egypt, the Persian Gulf monarchies, and Israel. That combination of strategic placement, wealth and military power has successfully kept the region divided and powerless for more than a half century.
Conn Hallinan
Interpretations by scholars in The Wikileaks Files on US diplomatic cables related to Syria, read in combination with those on Turkey, Iran and Iraq, are key to understanding US’s strategic involvement in the ongoing war in Syria.
…to randomly pick up isolated diplomatic records that intersect with known entities and disputes, as some daily newspapers have done, is to miss ‘the empire’ for its cables…This book begins to address the need for scholarly analysis of what the millions of documents published by Wikileaks say about international geopolitics. Julian Assange
Putin about the crisis of refugees in Europe
Thousands of asylum seekers arrive in Germany
Would Americans wish to receive refugees from Syria?
Baby from asylum seeker family found dead on Greek island of Agathonisi
Zabadani: SAA/Hezbollah Blow-up Underground Tunnel
47 killed in fighting between Daesh, militant groups in Syrian town of Mare’
Clashes between Syrian rebel groups and Islamic State IS fighters in the city of Marea in Syria
Fierce fighting between Syrian rebels and Islamic State
Two Turkish policemen killed in clashes with PKK
Syrian Army, Hezbollah Unearth Rebels’ Large Supply Tunnel in Zabadani Outskirt
Official: Iran Manufactures Radar System to Monitor, Control Remote Flights
Syria in Last 24 Hours: Army Destroys Terrorists’ Strongholds in Homs Province
The Syrian air force destroyed the hideouts and the concentration camps of the Takfiri terrorists in the city of Palmyra (Tadmur) and the surrounding areas of Jazal oilfield in the province of Homs.
Tens of the ISIL terrorists were killed and dozens more injured in the village of Jazal near Palmyra in the Syrian airstrikes.
The Syrian warplanes also destroyed vehicles equipped with machineguns and killed 14 terrorists in Dar al-Kubra, including notorious militants Mustafa al-Masri and Khaled al-Turki.
Also in the past 24 hours, the Syrian army and the Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement purged further regions of Takfiri terrorists around the city of Zabadani in Damascus province.
The army units and Hezbollah fighters purged terrorists from Al al-Beit mosque and al-Azimeh street and the surrounding buildings.
The Syrian military sources said that the militants who are besieged in Zabadani, specially Ahrar al-Sham terrorists, are in a very bad situation.
Also, four Takfiri terrorists surrendered to the government troops in Zabadani region after dozens of their comrades were killed during the clashes there.
Some 4 Ahrar al-Sham militants laid down arms and surrendered to the Syrian authorities in Zabadani on Saturday, military sources told FNA.
The terrorists’ surrender came after ceasefire negotiations between the militants and the Syrian government in Zabadani failed.
Elsewhere, the popular forces of the Shiite-populated towns of Kafraya and Fuaa in Idlib province made gains against the Takfiri terrorists.
The resistance forces defending the Shiite towns in Idlib managed to capture a tank and armored vehicle of the Jeish al-Fath terrorist group, a coalition of 13 terrorist groups led by Al-Nusra Front militant group.
The popular forces’ attack came in response to Jeish al-Fath’s attacks on their military positions and checkpoints in al-Savaqieh region.
Also, the Syrian army repelled the third attempt of the rebel groups to capture Thalah airbase and pushed them to flee the battlefield.
For the third day in a row, the Free Syrian Army’s (FSA) “Southern Front Brigades” – led by Jeish Al-Yarmouk and the 1st Brigade – targeted the strategic Thalah airbase in Sweida Governorate, military sources said.
They also attacked the civilian-led “National Defense Forces” (NDF) at the hilltop of Tal Sheikh Hussein (West of Tha’lah village), where they engaged in a long and bloody firefight for control of this hill on the border of Dara’a and Al-Sweida.
Following the assault on Tal Sheikh Hussein, the FSA’s Southern Front Brigades took the National Defense Forces’ frontlines and carryout an assault on the Thalah airbase’ Western perimeter; however, once again, the 1st Brigade and Jeish Al-Yarmouk were unable to bypass the fierce resistance of the Syrian soldiers protecting the positions located 15km from Sweida City.
As a result of the failed infiltration into the Thalah Military Airport, the FSA’s Southern Front Brigades withdrew to the other side of the Dara’a-Sweida border; this withdrawal was accelerated due to the relentless airstrikes of the Syrian fighter jets.
Meantime, informed sources said that at least seven ISIL terrorists were killed in clashes with the militants of al-Shamiya Front in the Northern countryside of Aleppo, North of Syria.
The sources said that fierce clashes took place in the vicinity of Marea town North of Aleppo, where rebel fighters of Shamiya Front reportedly killed seven members of the ISIL Takfiri terrorist group and took several others as hostages.
“Al-Shamiya fighters repelled a major attack by the ISIL militants on the strategic town of Marea. They destroyed three ISIL vehicles, killed seven militants and took 11 others as hostages,” the sources said.
The rebels have also attacked ISIL-held villages of Harbal, Sandaf, Kafrah and Harjal in the Northern countryside of Aleppo.
Also, clashes erupted between the ISIL terrorists and other Takfiri militants in Aleppo on Friday, leaving at least 47 militants dead, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Twenty militants were killed in the clashes throughout Friday, along with 27 ISIL terrorists, the Britain-based Observatory said.
The fighting centered on the town of Marea.
The Observatory said fighting was ongoing around the town as well in villages in the surrounding area.
Army: Saudi Cities to Become Legitimate Targets for Yemeni Troops
Syrian Forces Repel ISIL Attacks in Two Districts in Deir Ezzur, Kill 33
Syria: At Least 11 Al-Nusra Terrorists Killed
Europe Shares the Sin: Toddlers Drowning in the Mediterranean
Europe is finally realizing what it has done to Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya. Soon it will wake up to the nightmare of Yemen too. It won’t take long.
Pundits suggest a mixture of reasons why tens of thousands of refugees pour into countries across Europe. These include poor reception and lack of future in host countries in the Middle East, the wars not getting any better, and the knock-on effect of underfunded UN bodies working with millions of refugees in Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon. But there is more to this story:
- In “Fortress Europe” human rights was tossed out of window long time ago. A number of xenophobic governments – like Hungary – say they don’t want “Muslim” refugees. They are now erecting razor-wire fences and walls along their borders to stop the influx of refugees.
- The European response to the refugee crisis has been anything but humanitarian. A few countries are bearing the brunt, while others wring their hands and wonder how they can solve Europe’s biggest refugee movement since the Second World War with new rules and more money.
- “Please don’t come” Europe may be quailing at the numbers trying to get in, but it is as nothing compared to the numbers that some countries in the Middle East have been dealing with. Just for the record, over four million Afghan refugees have been living in Iran for decades and no one sees Tehran “quailing”.
- The conflicts and political instability driving hundreds of thousands of refugees into Europe were triggered by the US-led war on terror and military interventions for regime change. The US, Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Denmark, Norway and Canada toppled Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi only to have him replaced by ISIL, al-Qaeda, proxies and surrogates.
- The regime changers are now doing the same to Syria and Yemen! Their destructive wars have torn the “Muslim” refugees’ homelands apart and resulted in civil war and state collapse. Still, they say: “Why should we provide homes for these refugees when we didn’t invade their countries”!
All this and more helps focus on a crucial part of the picture. Official discourse in Europe frames these wars in terms of fanaticism, corruption, dictatorship, economic failures and other causes for which they have no responsibility. They even call these people “economic migrants”, even though the origins of the refugees make the case clearly…
“Fortress Europe” should take note: Under international humanitarian law, those who are drowning in the Mediterranean, those who are dying in trucks and railway tunnels, as well as tens of thousands of children and families caught on the open seas, facing death, border fences and mobilized security forces ARE refugees and need protection.
Any doubters should ask Abdullah Kurdi, the distraught father of two Syrian toddlers (Aylan and Galip Kurdi), who drowned with their mother and several other refugees as they tried to reach Greece on September 3. After identifying his toddlers in a morgue in the city of Mugla in Turkey, he said:
“I am prepared to take them back to their home town of Kobani in Syria. I just want to sit next to the grave of my children and my wife and rest. The things that happened to us here, in the country where we took refuge to escape war in our homeland, we want the whole world to see this.”
European leaders refuse to see this. They share the sin and should hold their heads in shame. The so-called “human rights” advocates have turned the Mediterranean, the cradle of the world’s oldest civilizations, into a cemetery for refugees.
Source: http://blogdogcicle.blogspot.com/2015/09/isis-update-962015fortress-europe.html
