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ISIS update 10/18\2015.. US and Israeli plots are being defused in the region rapidly
Report from Latakia’s sprawling refugee camps
Events in Syria on 16-17 October 2015
Syria: SAA/NDF Operations In South-West Aleppo
Syrian army with Russian air support liberate villages, towns across country
Syrian forces retake strategic positions in al-Quneitra from terrorists
Syrian army takes back areas from militants in east, north
Tanks taking over: Syrian Army battling with Al-Nusra forces
Russian drone shot down
Turkey says won’t hesitate to down aircraft that violate its airspace
Syria Russians Mi-24
Who Are the Targets of Russian Airstrikes in Syria?
Russia’s Regional Advance Fills a Void – Russian Bear
RUSSIA FORCES PENTAGON TO REWRITE PLAYBOOK
Syria – The wound on Christ’s body
Protest in Moscow against Russian air strikes in Syria
The Western Media Have Lost The Plot In Syria
Tara McCormack
……..When it comes to the coverage of Russian bombing in Syria, however, the British media have surpassed themselves. The reporting on Russian airstrikes in Syria has ranged from the idiotic to the dishonest to the frankly astonishing. A headline in The Times a few weeks ago read ‘Putin defies the West!’. Clearly, Putin didn’t get the memo that Russian foreign policy is now controlled in Brussels and Washington.
Putin has been presented as a cross between Professor Moriarty, Fu Manchu and Joseph Goebbels – a master strategist and evil genius using smoke and mirrors to befuddle the West as he carries out his inscrutable campaign. ‘What is he up to in Syria?’ is the constant refrain. Recently, I debated journalist and former US diplomat James Rubin at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, and he kept remarking on how inscrutable Putin was. No wonder a kind of grudging admiration for Putin occasionally creeps into the commentary.
The problem is that this is utter nonsense. First of all, consider the claim that we have no idea what Russia is up to. This has been a running theme since the Ukraine crisis, but this is an outright lie. Russia’s motives in Ukraine and in Syria are well known. They are well known not because we’ve got a team of Kremlinologists scrutinising Russia’s obscure statements and mysterious behaviour, but because, as a representative of his government, President Putin has consistently told the West his intentions.
Now, we may not agree with Russia’s motives, but that is an entirely different point. The fact of the matter is that Putin is not hiding his intentions. And yet the media have never reported on it. Noam Chomsky once argued that, in a democracy, things are often hidden in plain sight – this is a very good example.
Similarly, it is simply not true that we do not know what Russia’s aims are in Syria. Russia is a long-term supporter of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, but is by no means averse to a post-Assad Syria; its main aim is to stop Syria from collapsing. This has all been openly stated by Putin – at the UN, for example, that little known secret forum, in an interview with CBS. We may not agree with it, but to present Russian intervention as some kind of fiendish, unfathomable plot is simply laughable.
What’s more, consider the heated debate about the impact of Russia’s intervention on Syria. Who knew the British media were so concerned about the malign effects of bombing a foreign country? You certainly wouldn’t have guessed it from the coverage of the US and its allies’ own year-long bombardment of Syria. Nor do you get this impression from the media discussion of the British government’s desire to join in on the Western bombing.
The British media have completely ignored the disastrous effects of Western intervention in Syria. The West has been attempting to bomb Islamic State positions while, at the same time, supporting jihadi groups such as the al-Nusra Front. Our new ‘allies’ in Syria have links to al-Qaeda. Have we totally taken leave of our senses? More to the point, why isn’t this frontpage news? And let’s not forget the US’s $500million plan to train up fighters – of whom about four or five remain. The Free Syrian Army is more or less a fiction, with little existence outside of the imagination of the State Department and the Foreign Office. At the same time, the West is allowing one of the most disgusting and shameful acts of this crisis to go on unchallenged – that is, Turkey’s bombing of the truly heroic Kurdish forces, the only coherent, pro-West political and military force in Syria and Iraq that is attacking IS.
Where is all the coverage of the utterly useless, dishonest and misguided Western campaign in Syria? If this had a tenth of the coverage given to Russian bombing I think the public and political discussion in Britain would be very different. The British media present Russian political elites as out of control and crazy, but anyone looking at Western foreign policy over the past 20 years would see that the West has been the single most destabilising force in world affairs since the Cold War. We hear an awful lot about the biases of Russian state media, but the Western media have little self-awareness of their own failings.
Zarif: US-led campaign failed to Tackle Daesh (ISIL) in Syria, Iraq
Iraqi army, allied forces retake strategic oil refinery of Baiji
Iraqi forces retake Saddam’s old palace from ISIL in Salahuddin
US-Led Coalition strikes In Iraq
Military Expert: New Victories Underway in Syria
A prominent military expert said battlefield developments in Syria after the Russian airstrikes on ISIL’s positions show that the Syrian army will soon gain new victories in different parts of the country.
“We will witness victories of the resistance front in the near future as a result of increasing assistance of Iran and Russia to Syria over the past two weeks,” Retired Lebanese Army General and Military Expert Amin Hateet told FNA on Sunday.
He said that the campaign against terrorists has entered a new phase in Syria, and added, “The battleground conditions and the Syrian army’s advances in Syria have resulted in the failure of the plots hatched by the US to help the terrorist groups gradually advance in Syria and topple the Damascus government.”
Hateet said that the Syrian army’s seizure of various towns and areas from the terrorists will prevent the US from prolonging the war against the terrorists, cautioning that the US intended to turn the battle in Syria a 10-year-war of attrition.
In relevant remarks earlier this month, Syrian military expert said that the newly-formed Fourth Corps of the Syrian Army will soon earn new gains in the Northern parts of the country.
“The formation of the Syrian Army’s Fourth Corps will result in deep penetration into the Northern areas and collapse of the terrorist groups,” Issa al-Zaher told FNA.
He said the Fourth Corps comprises the Syrian army’s elite forces who are well-experienced in combat under different geographical and climatic conditions, and they are familiar with different kinds of war tactics.
Zaher said that the newly-formed corps of the Syrian army has between 60,000 to 100,000 troops with different expertise.
“The Syrian army’s artillery and missile attacks on the terrorists’ positions in Northern Syria showed that the terrorists have completely lost their power,” he added.
Also this month, senior Political Analyst Ali Maqsoud said the army was preparing for massive and decisive operations in the Northern parts of Syria following the Russians’ recent logistical backups
“Blizzard military operations which will be of decisive importance will soon start in Idlib, Jisr al-Shughour and Aleppo in the North,” Maqsoud told FNA.
He noted that the army plans to destroy the enemy convoys that are on the move from Damascus to Homs and from there to Lattakia, Idlib and Hama in the operations.
Maqsoud, meantime, said the terrorist groups might increase their attacks on the Syrian army in the next few days as well, “but underlined that the US and Israeli plots are being defused in the region rapidly, and efforts to uproot terrorism in Syria have started”.
Syrian Forces Kill Internationally Wanted Senior ISIL Commander in Deir Ezzur
All Members of Nusra Group in Al-Gharbiyeh Village in Dara’a Killed in Army Attack
EXCLUSIVE: Syrian Army, Hezbollah Fighters Win Back over 20 Regions in Aleppo Province in 1 Week
Syrian Army, Popular Forces Seize Back over Four New Areas near Aleppo
Syrian Fighter Jets Destroy ISIL-Held Positions in Palmyra
51 ISIL Targets Destroyed in 24 Hours of Russian Airstrikes in Syria
45 ISIL Terrorists Killed in Army Operation in Syrian Hama Province
Source: http://blogdogcicle.blogspot.com/2015/10/isis-update-10182015-us-and-israeli.html
