Russian Marine Brigade 810 fought with Syrian army and Hizballah special forces in an attack on ISIS forces at the Kweiris airbase, east of Aleppo.
This operation runs contrary to the assurances of President Vladimir Putin to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Sept. 21 – just three days ago - that Russian forces in Syria were only there to defend Russian interests and would not engaged in combat with the Syrian army, Hizballah or Iranian troops.
The ISIS force defending the air base is dominated by Chechen fighters under the command of Abu Omar al-Shishani, who is considered one of the terrorist organization’s leading commanders in the last two years. The 27-year-old al-Shishani hails from the Chechen enclave of Pankisi in Georgia, like many others who joined ISIS from 2012.
However, targeting Chechen fighters was not the only reason for the order given by Russian command in Syria to attack the air base.
As their first step, the Russians would have to prevent the cutoff of highway 5, running from Aleppo to Damascus, and keep it open for Syrian army reinforcements and military equipment to the city.
The offensive to regain Kweiris airbase that fell to ISIS in mid-June is the first step in the implementation of Russia’s operational plan for the Aleppo area.
Meanwhile, little substance was to be found in the reports appearing, mainly in the United States, suggesting that Putin, disappointed by the Obama administration’s unwillingness to send the US Air Force to collaborate with Russia in the fight against ISIS, would try to talk Obama round if and when they meet on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly on September 28.
While Russia poured troops and advanced hardware into Syria, establishing bases and launching offensive action, the US anti-Islamic State effort suffered a heavy blow with the decision of Obama’s ISIS war czar, Gen. John Allen, to step down in early November.
Sources close to the general were quoted as referring to his frustration “with the White House micromanagement of the war and its failure to provide adequate resources.”'
The fact that the Russian forces launched their attack on ISIS shortly after the announcement of Allen’s upcoming resignation shows that Putin is not waiting for US cooperation in the war on the Islamist terrorists.
Russian marines were combined with Syrian and Hizballah special forces.
For the first time in 41 years, since the 1974 war of attrition against the IDF on the Golan, Russian troops are fighting alongside Syrian forces. It is also the first time that a world power like Russia is willing to go into battle with an acknowledged terrorist group, such as Hizballah.
The Russian leader will construct a huge facility for more than 5,000 troops and heavy weaponry just a few miles from where the fiercest fighting has taken place between Moscow-backed separatists and Ukrainian army forces.
A crack brigade of troops trained specifically in how to deal with nuclear, chemical and biological attacks will be drafted in from a top secret base in central Russia to man the installation.
They will be accompanied by thousands of tanks, armoured vehicles and rockets in the latest evidence that Russia is now on a war footing in eastern Europe.
The revelations will raise fears that the megalomaniac leader is planning to step up his meddling in Ukraine by providing even more troops and armed support to the rebels fighting Kiev.
They come after retired US general David Petraeus issued a dire warning that Putin could "lash out" against the West as his country's coffers begin to run dry.
The new base will be the second huge installation built by Putin on his western frontier with Europe and provides increasing evidence that Russia is looking to re-establish the Cold War-era 'Iron Curtain' of defences, running from the Black Sea in the south to the Baltic in the north.
Government documents show that the defence ministry has bold plans to re-equip an old military depot in the town of Boguchar, just 28 miles from the border.
It will be turned into a major base with dozens of buildings and special facilities for more than 1,300 tanks, armoured vehicles and shells and ammunition.
Alongside plans for two new bases on the border with Ukraine the Kremlin has also moved military hardware to its Baltic enclave in Kaliningrad, approved a new air base in Belarus and beefed up its military presence in Crimea as a sign of its increasing aggression on the world stage.
Earlier today Russia was boasting about a supposed international accord on the situation in Syria, where it has also been building up an increasingly large military presence.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the United States was increasingly receptive towards Moscow's position on the conflict in Syria, where it has been deploying troops and fighter jets to prop up the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
China has made two things absolutely clear this year: 1) if Beijing thinks you may be inclined to sell stocks into a falling market, the consequences for you could be dire, and 2) the PLA navy is quite serious about projecting China’s maritime ambitions to the rest of the world.
Evidence of the latter point is readily observable in the South China Sea, where dredgers have been busy for months building man-made islands atop reefs in the Spratlys much to the chagrin of Washington and its regional allies.
Then there was the PLA’s unexpected arrival in Yemen back in March when a naval frigate showed up in Aden and evacuated 225 foreign nationals.
And who can forget the five ships that cruised by just 12 miles off the coast of Alaska as Obama toured the state.
As if all of that wasn’t enough, at least one commander in Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian Arab Army now claimsChinese personnel are on their way to Latakia.
All of this comes as Beijing rolls out a new maritime initiative as outlined in the government’s 2015 defense strategy white paper. H
Now, even as Xi Jinping makes the rounds in the US and attempts to provide the American public with some clarity on a number of issues not the least of which is cyber security, the Pentagon says China is set to deploy a nuclear submarine armed with JL-2 missiles that have the range to hit the US. Here’s Bloomberg with the story:
A new Chinese nuclear submarine designed to carry missiles that can hit the U.S. will likely deploy before year’s end, the Pentagon said, adding to Obama administration concerns over China’s muscle-flexing in Asia.
China’s navy is expected this year to conduct the first patrol of its Jin-class nuclear-powered submarine armed with JL-2 submarine-launched ballistic missiles, the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency said in a statement. It declined to give its level of confidence on when the new boat will be deployed or the status of the missile.
“The capability to maintain continuous deterrent patrols is a big milestone for a nuclear power,” Larry Wortzel, a member of the congressionally created U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, said in an e-mail. “I think the Chinese would announce this capability as a show of strength and for prestige.”
Ultimately, the deployment was planned and as indicated above, this doesn't exactly come as a surprise to anyone in military circles, but what it does do is underscore the idea that the return to bipolarity is more likely to see China as the counterbalance to US hegemony than it is to see a resurrgent Russia retake its place as US spoiler par excellence. Of course Beijing and Moscow seem generally to be on the same page as evidenced by their security council veto coordination on Syria which means that between the two, the balance of power could move against the US especially if Washington's warnings about the UK's declining military capabilities prove accurate.
Earlier this week, the Islamic State blew up 21 homes belonging to Christians in the once Christian majority Nineveh Plain, northeast of Mosul.
An official of the Kurdistan Democratic Party in Mosul further said that the Islamic State has throughout the months detonated “hundreds” of homes in Nineveh Plain, primarily to strike fear into the hearts of the remaining residents.
Earlier, the Islamic State decreed that all schools in Mosul and the Nineveh Plain which bore Christian names, some since the 1700s, must be changed. The teaching of the Syriac language and all Christian religious education has been abolished. Reports indicate that the Islamic State took these moves “in order to erase all traces of cultural and religious pluralism in the conquered areas and turn schools into propaganda tools of jihadist ideology among the new generations.”
Once home to some the oldest Christian communities in existence, since the Islamic State invaded and occupied the Nineveh Plain, numerous Christians have been slaughtered or enslaved, while the rest have fled.
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