Obama Sends More Troops To Iraq..Syrian opposition suspends formal talks
U.N.: Syrian opposition suspends formal talks
De Mistura downplays opposition’s delayed participation in peace talks
Syria open to talks on “broader unity government”
Russia denies secret meeting with US on Syria
Lavrov rejects ceasefire violation claims in Syria
Drone buzzes Syrian Army advance on ISIS positions near Damascus
Rockets fired from Syria hit Turkish town of Kilis
Syria in Last 24 Hours: Army Fends Off Terrorists’ Attack in Hama
The Syrian army troops repelled the terrorist groups’ attacks on their positions in Hama province, inflicting heavy losses on the militants.
Meantime, the Syrian army and popular forces continued their military advances in other parts of Syria, including Damascus and Aleppo, over past 24 hours.
Tens of terrorists were killed and dozens more were injured during the Syrian army’s operations in Syria’s key provinces.
Hama
Terrorist groups failed in their attack on government forces’ strongholds in al-Ghaab plains after a powerful counterattack by the Syrian Army that enjoyed massive Russian and Syrian air support.
The terrorist groups of al-Nusra Front, Jund al-Aqsa and non-Syrian Turkistani and Chechen fighters stormed the government forces’ positions near Kherbet al-Naqous and al-Hakoureh regions in al-Ghaab plains in the Northern part of Hama province, but their attacks were repelled by the Syrian soldiers.
The terrorist groups, as usual, launched their attacks by running suicide-cars towards the army positions, but the Syrian army targeted them with anti-armor missiles before reaching to its positions.
Simultaneous with the failure of terrorists’ suicide-attacks, hundreds of the militants stormed the army men’s positions.
The Syrian and Russian fighter jets played very crucial role in defeating the terrorist groups’ offensives in al-Mansoureh, Tal Waset and Eastern part of Kherbet al-Naqous.
The terrorist groups left behind tens of the dead or inured members and fled the battlefront.
Reports said earlier that the Russian and Syrian fighter jets, in separate but coordinated combat flights, targeted the ISIL concentration centers in the Eastern part of Hama province and its border with Raqqa province.
The Syrian Army’s aircraft carried out several combat sorties over the ISIL strongholds near the small town of Aqayrabat in the Eastern part of Hama province and targeted their headquarter there, which claimed the lives of several terrorists and destroyed their sites’ infrastructures.
The Russian jets, for their part, struck the ISIL position in the region between Aqayrabat and the Western borders of Raqqa province with Hama, which inflicted major damage on the terrorist group’s military hardware.
Sweida
The National Defense Forces (NDF) seized a car loaded with a number of rockets and missiles bound for the terrorist groups in the Eastern parts of Syria’s Badiyeh (desert) in Sweida province on Monday.
The NDF seized a number of RPG rockets, detonators and different types of missiles in a Lada 109 car on a road near the village of al-Afineh to the Western part of Sweida.
Reports said on Sunday that ISIL sustained heavy losses and casualties in the Syrian army attacks on the Takfiri terrorists’ positions in the Northeastern part of Sweida province.
At least 20 ISIL terrorists were killed in the village of al-Qaser in Northeastern Sweida.
The Syrian army also destroyed ISIL’s artillery unit in Tal Ashayheb (Ashayheb hilltop) in Northeastern Sweida province.
Four military vehicles of the ISIL equipped with heavy machineguns were also razed down by the Syrian army in Northeastern Sweida.
Aleppo
A convoy of terrorists’ military and logistic vehicles, carrying weapons and ammunition, was hit hard by the Syrian Army troops in Northern Aleppo province.
The Syrian army, tipped off by the intelligence agents, traced and targeted the terrorists’ military column in the Eastern part of the town of Bayanoun, which ended in the explosion of the convoy’s ammunition.
Several terrorists guarding the convoy were also killed or wounded in the army attack.
Reports said earlier on Monday that the Syrian Army and the National Defense Forces (NDF), for the second day in a row, stormed ISIL strongholds in the Southern and Eastern parts of Aleppo province, pinning the terrorists down behind their positions.
The ISIL centers and supplying routes in the Southern part Khanasser and near the village of Atshaneh and Jeb al-Ali came under the heavy attacks of the Syrian government forces, which left tens of the terrorists dead or wounded.
The Syrian pro-government forces also targeted the ISIL positions near the villages of Hamima al-Kabira, Rasm al-Kama, Serbes and Shweilekh in the Eastern battlefield of Aleppo province, inflicting major damage on the militants’ machinegun-equipped vehicles.
Damascus
The Syrian Army and the National Defense Forces, in a fresh round of assaults, forced terrorists of Jeish al-Islam group to retreat from more positions in Eastern Ghouta.
The Syrian government forces’ heavy attacks pushed the terrorists back from over 75 percent of the hilltop village of Tal Sawwan in the Eastern part of Damascus province.
The terrorist groups left behind at least 17 of its members dead and many more wounded and fled the battlefront.
Fierce clashes in now underway near Tal Sawwan and if the pro-government forces capture the village one of the main supplying lines of the terrorist groups in Eastern Ghouta will be cut off.
Idlib
A large number of reinforcements have been sent to the Northeastern battlefields of the coastal province of Lattakia to join the Syrian Armed Forces’ impending operation in Idlib province, military sources said.
“At least 1,000 well-trained soldiers have arrived in Kabani front to join the Syrian government forces’ imminent operation against the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front and its allies to retake the strategic city of Jisr al-Shughour in the Southern part of Idlib province near border with Lattakia province,” the sources said.
Deir Ezzur
The Syrian Army troops fended off the ISIL terrorist group’s attempts to prevail over the government forces’ strongholds around the vital military airport of Deir Ezzur and forced them to retreat from the battlefront, a source in the airbase said.
“The Syrian soldiers thwarted the ISIL offensive to break through its positions near Deir Ezzur airbase and al-Sina’ah district, which left scores of the terrorists killed or wounded,” the source said.
“The ISIL left behind its military equipment and dead members and fled the battlefields in order to evade more casualties,” he further added.
The source went on to day that at least 70 members of the ISIL were killed and many more were wounded in the recent days’ clashes with the army men in Deir Ezzur.
U.S. to send more troops to Iraq, escalating war on Islamic State
Back in 2014 Obama promised that as part of the US war against ISIS, there would be “no ground troops in Iraq.” Moments ago U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter gave the latest confirmation that Obama was not being exactly “honest”, when during a visit to Baghdad in which he met U.S. commanders, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, and Iraqi Defence Minister Khaled al-Obeidi, he announced that the US would send another 200 additional troops, raising the number of U.S. troops in Iraq to about 4,100.
This follows a report two weeks ago according to which the US would “greatly increase” the number of special forces deployed to Syria under the same pretext: to fight the same Islamic State, which only exists due to a CIA operation to destabilize and overthrow Assad’s regime in Syria.
To be sure, the incremental deployment to Iraq is not exactly surprising: at the end of March, the Daily Beast reported that as many as 21 generals have been deployed (to a war the US denies fighting). More:
There are at least 12 U.S. generals in Iraq, a stunningly high number for a war that, if you believe the White House talking points, doesn’t involve American troops in combat. And that number is, if anything, a conservative estimate, not taking into account the flag officers running the U.S. air war, the admirals helping wage the war from the sea, or their superiors back at the Pentagon.
At U.S. headquarters inside Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone, even majors and colonels frequently find themselves saluting superiors at a pace that outranks the Pentagon and certainly any normal military installation. With about 5,000 troops deployed to Iraq and Syria ISIS war, that means there’s a general for every 416 troops, give or take. To compare, there are some captains in the U.S. Army in charge of that many people.
But if the U.S. footprint is so small, why does the war demand so many generals?
This was our response on April 3: “Why so many generals to so few troops? Perhaps because, just like the Syrian “special forces” reinforcements, the U.S. troops are about to be deployed in Iraq as well where they will have more than enough generals to guide them.”
Sure enough, this is precisely what happened.
However, it’s not just troops: as Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook says in tweet, the DOD also announced the authority to employ AH-64 Apache helicopters in support
of operations to retake the city of Mosul in Iraq. DOD also will provide additional advisers, more financial aid and firepower.
And then there is the money: “To accelerate momentum” in fight against Islamic State, Defense Sec
Ashton Carter “says we will provide up to $415MM in financial assistance
to Peshmerga fighters,” Cook says in a tweet.
And, once again, as we asked rhetorically in April 3, all this begs the question: “as the ongoing proxy war in the Middle East has been gradually pushed back from the front pages, are all these stealthy reinforcements indicative that something far bigger is about to be unleashed in the region.”
This indeed appears to be the case: on Friday Reuters reported that Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani had flown to Moscow for talks with Russia’s military and political leadership on Syria and deliveries of Russian missiles, sources said on Friday. Soleimani met Russian President Vladimir Putin and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu on Friday, one source said.
The main purpose of his visit was to discuss new delivery routes for shipments of Russian S-300 surface-to-air missile systems, sources said. Several sources also said Soleimani wanted to talk about how Russia and Iran could help the Syrian government take back full control of the city of Aleppo.
“General Soleimani traveled to Moscow last night to discuss issues including the delivery of S-300s and further military cooperation,” a senior Iranian security official told Reuters.
That is hardly all he is doing in Moscow: as a reminder, Soleimani, the commander of foreign operations for Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, flew to Moscow in July last year to help Russia plan its military intervention in Syria and forge an Iranian-Russian alliance to support Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad.
We are confident he is doing the same now, and with the US deploying ever more troops to the region, it is only a matter of time before Russia once again reciprocates.
Obama Defends Iraq Troop Deployment
Obama predicts Mosul will fall by end of year
ISIS releases video of alleged destruction of Turkish tank with guided missile near Mosul
Bad Day in Iraq: Yet More US Ground Troops
It began last year and it was covert. Now the mission creep that the international community has been so concerned about, since the former occupier went back into Iraq on the pretext of fighting ISIL, is overt and official.
In yet another suspicious move to occupy Iraq forever, the War Party in Washington is sending even more ground troops, more Apache helicopters, and certainly more drones and fighter jets to the war-torn nation.
The escalation is the formal point at which Washington is violating its formal deal with Baghdad, wherein US ground troops were to be capped at 3,870. The Pentagon has admitted having almost 5,000 troops in Iraq for months, listing them as “temporary” even though they have no end date for their deployment. With what is going on now, the move will put the unofficial figure, who knows, perhaps over 10,000 – taking into account those who come and go from other American military and naval bases in the region, mainly in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain.
The fact remains that the Iraqi government doesn’t want to see US attack helicopters and drones hovering over its crowded cities and towns – specially now that the country is in the middle of a major political dispute centering around the nominated cabinet and the firing of the parliamentary speaker. This will only exacerbate the current situation.
Moreover, this is deliberate timing on the part of the War Party in Washington. After all, when no one is looking and no one is there to resist further increases in US occupying troops, why not send more, even to Syria?
Despite the claims, the new escalation is not to just provide the Iraqi forces with advice and airstrikes. The American “advisers” will start accompanying the Iraqi forces on yet more combat missions, and pretty much everyone expects that to be the case.
There is a simple explanation why the Americans want to have a piece of the action too. The Iraqi Army and volunteer forces, in collaboration with Iranian military advisors, are winning the Real War on ISIL with some major results. Here, once the final victory against the foreign-backed terrorists is declared, the War Party wants to be standing there too, proud, emboldened and demanding, right beside the victors, perhaps to get some credit and more. And with more we mean this:
The current escalation is unsurprising. If anything, it is American intervention not its absence that fuels terrorism in both Syria and Iraq. America wants to prove the opposite. Yet given the realities of the past, it is what it is. With more boots on the ground, Iraq will become a slippery slope and a permanent base for America’s Permanent War on Terror. To make matters worse, the new mission creep as a “humanitarian intervention” will escalate into a wider air war spanning Syria and beyond.
Still, the conundrum for Washington remains. Failing to learn the lessons of the previous wars, the Pentagon officials are thoughtlessly convinced they can still win the mistaken war on ISIL if they stand beside the victors i.e., to have the lion’s share, be allowed to build new bases and occupy Iraq forever, on the pretext that they helped the Iraqi Army and volunteer forces rid the country of foreign-backed terrorists, and Iraq needs them.
This is wishful thinking. Iraq doesn’t need America. Moreover, in the absence of a true coalition of the willing, the war the US is fighting, including the war to win the hearts and minds of the long-suffering people of Iraq, is a hopeless battle they cannot win. To many Iraqis the new escalation feels like déjà vu.
Syria: ISIL Suffers Heavy Casualties in Army Offensives East of Aleppo
Syrian Army Thwarts Terrorists’ Infiltration Attempts in Lattakia Province
Syria: Terrorists’ Suicide-Cars Destroyed by Army’s Heavy Fire Northwest of Hama Province
Syrian Army Hits Terrorists’ Gatherings Hard in Aleppo Neighborhoods
Al-Nusra Attack Repulsed by the Syrian Soldiers in Dara’a
Syrian Army Dispatches More Troops to Hama Battlefields
Syria: ISIL Fails to Break Through Army’s Positions Northeast of Damascus
Syria: Terrorists Acquire Anti-Aircraft Missiles
Source: http://blogdogcicle.blogspot.com/2016/04/obama-sends-more-troops-to-iraqsyrian.html
