Russian jets launched a fourth day of air raids in Syria on Saturday, hitting the Islamic State group’s main stronghold after claims Moscow was instead targeting moderate rebel factions
The airstrikes destroyed an Islamic State command post near Raqqa as well as an underground bunker, the Russian Defense Ministry said Saturday, as Moscow pressed along with its bombing campaign in Syria
“Over the past 24 hours SU-34 and SU-24M jets of the Russian airborne formation in Syria made more than 20 sorties over nine Islamic State infrastructure facilities,” the Defense Ministry said. A command post in the area of IS stronghold Raqqa as well as an underground bunker storing explosives had been destroyed, it added.
“Several Russian strikes hit IS positions west of Raqqa overnight and explosions were heard in the city,” Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP.
Raqqa has acted as the extremist group’s de facto Syrian “capital” since 2013.
The war of word between the two coalitions fighting ISIS continues. John Kerry claims that the Russians are killing civilians and U.S. backed rebels, while Russia claims that the U.S. claims were reported before Russian jets had taken off. All the while, the chance of defeating ISIS gets slimmer and slimmer. But the Russians raised an issue that we have heard before; that the U.S. was not being honest about our Syrian Allies.
Breitbart reports
Russian President Vladimir Putin has denounced all reports of civilian casualties as an “information attack,” i.e. propaganda, and claimed that reports of civilian deaths were being filed before the Russian planes even took off.
Meanwhile, Russian parliamentarian Alexei Pushkov, who heads the Duma’s Committee for International Affairs, claimed the moderate Syrian opposition is “largely a myth invented by the United States,” and said those fighters who weren’t in league with ISIS have “gone to al-Qaeda, and fired at the Russian embassy.” The latter is a reference to the mortar shell that struck the Russian embassy in Damascus on September 20, without causing any damage – an incident followed by calls for “action” by the Russians.
There is no question that there are serious issues with the U.S. led war on ISIS. The training and equipping has been a colossal failure. Rebel leaders have been caught giving American equipment to Al Qaeda. And there is the issue that many of the rebels are mere mercenaries. But is it true that this is just a myth; that the CIA has made up the fact that our allies in Syria are in no way moderate?
Putin’s message at the U.N. podium Monday was a simple one: U.S. interventions and unilateralism have backfired in the Middle East, and it is time to try something new.
Putin took particular aim at U.S. involvement in Iraq and Libya, which he said fostered a power vacuum filled with “extremists and terrorists.”
“Do you realize now what you’ve done?” he asked.
This has a strong ring of truth. We were heavily involved in both conflicts and had largely done little more that removed the obstacle from ISIS. We removed a totalitarian regime from both countries. We either personally (Iraq) removed the dictator, or supplied equipment and air cover (Libya). In both cases, large areas of the country now lie in the control of ISIS.
ISIL is in serious trouble, as terrorists are being squeezed from all sides by airstrikes, meanwhile their economy is coming apart at the seams. Islamic radicals need to take over new territories to improve their budget, but with Russian planes hovering over the Syrian sky, things aren’t that easy anymore.
Tough times have come to the self-proclaimed Islamic Caliphate with the start of Russian airstrikes: areas under ISIL control are shrinking day after day under the pressure from Russian missiles that are backing the terrorists into a corner, Svetlana Kholodnova of RIA Novosti said.
Turns out, ordinary ISIL terrorists are getting significantly poorer as a result of pay cuts. Many of them have started to flee the Caliphate despite the risk of getting their heads chopped off if caught by their former comrades-in-arms.
"Hundreds of fighters are running away from ISIL because of low salaries," Kholodnova said, citing those who managed to defect.
A year ago, ISIL's finances were pretty good. Terrorists made millions of dollars from illegal oil trade, taxing folks in conquered territories, selling ancient artefacts, human trafficking, ransoms and funds from their oil-rich Persian Gulf "sponsors," Kholodnova said.
The question is: where did all the money go? Well, first of all, the Iraqi Army pushed ISIL out of the oil wells in Iraq. Second, the United States used its channels to eradicate middlemen who helped ISIL to sell illegal oil on the black market. Furthermore, with the start of airstrikes the terrorist organization stopped receiving "cash convoys" from their sponsors due to a risk of them being destroyed, the RIA Novosti journalist explained.
In addition to all of this, with more people fleeing the Caliphate, there are fewer people for ISIL to tax. Those who still live in terrorist-controlled territories are struggling to pay their taxes and financial penalties imposed by ISIL, as the Caliphate can't provide a working economy for people to live, preferring to spend most of its budget on buying weapons.
To revive its economy, ISIL needs take over naval ports in Tartus and Lattakia, the two richest cities on the Mediterranean coast. But now, it's too little too late. The two port-cities have bases where Russian bombers land. It will be simply unimaginable for ISIL to take over these two cities right now, Kholodnova said.
There isn't much that ISIL terrorists can do at this point. ISIL is being squeezed from all sides and quickly running out of money. The terrorists can either flee or surrender to the mercy of victors. The first choice seems better to them, especially after all the trouble and hardship they have brought to Syria and Iraq over the past few years. The time for payback is nearing.
Listening to the speeches of the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, and the President of the United States, Barack Obama, at the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Monday, one is instantly struck by the polarization of the leader’s interpretation of world events. It is obvious that one leader resides in real world, whilst the other appears to live in a deluded fantasy.
Unsurprisingly, Obama promulgated the usual slogans in relation to Ukraine and Syria. The US President referred to the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad as a tyrant “who drops barrel bombs to massacre innocent children”, then moved on to deceptively describe how the Syrian conflict started in addition to reiterating once again that Assad must go:
Obama’s comments on the crisis in Ukraine were factually inaccurate and frankly absurd, although it is the type of rhetoric incessantly spouted by Western officials.
Putin’s speech was the antithesis of Obama’s – insightful, honest, constructive and statesman-like. The Russian President’s analysis of the major geopolitical issues of our time was outstanding, with many practical, viable solutions to these issues provided. I highly recommend readers listen to the full speech as it is filled with critical and pertinent information, and I can’t include it all in this article. (Please not the quotes from Putin below are based on the Russian to English translation of his speech featured in this RT article)
Putin stressed that some nations “after the end of the cold war” considered themselves “so strong and exceptional” that they thought “they knew better than others”. The Russian President asserted that it is “extremely dangerous” for states to attempt to “undermine the legitimacy of the United Nations”:
Speaking about the turmoil in the Middle East, the Russian leader correctly denounces “aggressive foreign interference” as a destructive force which has only brought chaos, not democracy:
Putin specifically pinpoints Libya as a major recruiting ground for the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) – after NATO destroyed the North African nation in 2011, adding that Western supported rebels in Syria often defect to ISIS:
Reports of US trained “moderate” fighters defecting to ISIS are ubiquitous. One example was when approximately 3,000 rebelsfrom the Free Syrian Army defected to ISIS earlier this year. Interestingly, Putin also points out that ISIS did not just magically appear out of thin air, but the group was “forged as a tool against undesirable regimes”:
This thesis is further confirmed by the 2012 declassified report from the DIA, which reveals that the powers supporting the Syrian opposition – “Western countries, the Gulf states and Turkey” – wanted to create a “Salafist principality in Eastern Syria in order to isolate the Syrian regime”:
Putin then goes on to issue a stark warning to the nefarious forces who have been using radical groups as geopolitical tools:
“It is hypocritical and irresponsible to make loud declarations about the threat of international terrorism, while turning a blind-eye to the channels of financing… It would be equally irresponsible to try to manipulate extremist groups and place them at one’s service in order to achieve one’s own political goals, in the hope of later dealing with them. To those who do so, I would like to say: Dear sirs, no doubt you are dealing with rough and cruel people, but they are [not] primitive or silly, they are just as clever as you are, and you never know who is manipulating whom… We believe that any attempts to play games with terrorists, let alone to arm them, are not just short-sighted but fire hazardous.”
ISIS “desecrates one of the greatest world religions by its bloody crimes”, Russia’s leader said, adding: “The ideology of militants makes a mockery of Islam and perverts it true humanistic values.”
As ISIS continues to expand its influence, it is increasingly becoming a national security threat for numerous countries outside of the Middle East, and “Russia is not an exception”. Putin stated that “we cannot allow these criminals who have already tasted blood to return back home and continue their evil doings… Russia has always been consistently fighting against terrorism in all its forms. Today, we provide military and technical assistance both to Iraq and Syria and many other countries of the region who are fighting terrorist groups. We think it is an enormous mistake to refuse to cooperate with the Syrian government and its armed forces, who are valiantly fighting terrorism face to face. We should finally acknowledge that no one but President Assad’s armed forces and Kurdish militia are truly fighting Islamic State and other terrorist organizations in Syria”
What is blatantly clear from listening to both leaders’ speeches is that the moral leader of the world resides in Russia.
A Soros linked NGO operating in Syria with the al-Qaeda terrorist group al-Nusra is fabricating reports of civilian casualties, according to Twitter posts.
The group, dubbed the “White Helmets,” posted the image on Twitter.
The image was subsequently revealed to be misleading — it shows a girl injured on September 25, 2015, days before the Russian bombing campaign against the CIA’s jihadist “rebels” operating in the country.
According to Sputnik, a Russian news website, the photo was tweeted hours before the Russian Parliament authorized the use of military action in Syria.
Investigative journalist and peace activist Vanesse Beeley told Sputnik and the 21st Century Wire the White Helmets are sponsored by the globalist George Soros and work with the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and other anti-Assad NGOs.
The White Helmets group is linked to Soros through the PR firm Purpose, Inc., which argues in favor of military intervention against Bashar al-Assad.
The co-founder of Purpose is Jeremy Heimans, who created Avaaz, a “pro-democracy” group linked to the Soros’ Open Society Foundation, MoveOn.org and the labor group SEIU, NGO Monitor reports.
“If you look at their creation in 2013, they were set up with funding from the UK, USA and Syrian Opposition Party. We immediately have the suspicion that there will be an element of impartiality within the organization,” Beeley said.
“White Helmets demonizes the Assad government and encourages direct foreign intervention. A White Helmet leader wrote a recent Washington Post editorial. White Helmets are also very active on social media with a presence on Twitter, Facebook etc.,” she added.
“The White Helmets work primarily with the rebel group Jabat al Nusra (Al Queda in Syria). Video of the recent alleged chlorine gas attacks starts with the White Helmet logo and continues with the logo of Nusra. In reality, White Helmets is a small rescue team for Nusra/Al Queda,” he claims.
The White Helmets “ignore atrocities carried out by these groups, which are propped up by Western aid and weapons, while creating media-friendly images of victims of Assad’s bombing of rebel-held areas,” explains Mint Press.
EU Is Abandoning U.S. on Overthrowing Assad
Obama Cannot Defeat Assad without EU’s Help
EU Also Rejects Obama’s TTIP & TISA Demands
Obama’s Presidential ‘Legacy’ Heads to Failure
Europe is being overrun by refugees from American bombing campaigns in Libya and Syria, which created a failed state in Libya, and which threaten to do the same in Syria. Europe is thus being forced to separate itself from endorsing the U.S. bombing campaign that focuses against the Syrian government forces of the secular Shiite Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, instead of against his fundamentalist Sunni Islamic opponents, the jihadist groups (all of which are Sunni), such as ISIS, and Al Qaeda in Syria (al-Nusra).
The European publics oppose America’s bombings, which have poured these refugees from American bombing, into Europe. European leaders are starting to separate from alliance with the United States.
On October 1st, NPR presented McCain saying, “I can absolutely confirm to you that they [Russian air strikes] were strikes against our Free Syrian Army or groups that have been armed and trained by the CIA because we have communications with people there.” (Oh, a few of them still exist, even after they’ve been absorbed into the Holy-War group? And the CIA is still funding them? Really? Wow!)
Russia announced on October 2nd that their bombing campaign against America’s allies in Syria — ISIS and Al Nusra (the latter being Al Qaeda in Syria) — will intensify and will last “three or four months.”U.S. President Barack Obama is insisting upon excluding Russia from any peace talks on Syria; the U.S. will not move forward with peace talks unless Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad first steps down. But Russia is the only serious military power against the jihadists who are trying to defeat Assad, and Russia is now committing itself also to providing Lebanon with weapons against the jihadists, who are America’s allies in Lebanon too.
U.S. pretends that overthrowing Assad would be for ‘democracy.’ But when the Qatari regime, which funds al-Nusra, hired a polling firm in 2012 to survey Syrians, the finding was that 55% of Syrians wanted him to remain as President.
Then, as I reported on 18 September 2015, “Polls Show Syrians Overwhelmingly Blame U.S. for ISIS,” and those recent polls were from a British firm that has ties to Gallup. No question was asked then about whether Assad should stay; but, clearly, support for him had strengthened considerably between 2012 and 2015, as the Syrian people now see with greater clarity than they possibly could have before, that the U.S. regime is an enemy, not a friend, to them. Obama’s, and the Republicans’, pretenses to favor democracy are blatantly fraudulent.
As things now stand regarding these ‘trade’ deals, Obama will either need to eliminate some of his demands, or else the European Commission won’t be able to muster enough of its members to support Obama’s proposed treaty with the EU, the TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership). Also, some key European nations might reject Obama’s proposed treaty on regulations regarding financial and other services: TISA (Trade In Services Agreement). All three of Obama’s proposed ‘trade’ deals, including the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) between the U.S. and Asian countries, are the actual culmination of Obama’s Presidency, and they’re all about far more than just trade and economics. The main proposed deal with Europe might now be dead.
On September 27th, France’s newspaper SouthWest featured an exclusive interview with Matthias Fekl, France’s Secretary of State for Foreign Trade, in which he said that “France is considering all options, including outright termination of negotiations” on the TTIP. He explained that, ever since the negotiations began in 2013, “These negotiations have been and are being conducted in a total lack of transparency,” and that France has, as of yet, received “no serious offer from the Americans.”
The chances, that President Obama will now be able to get the support from any entity but the U.S. Congress for his proposed TTIP treaty with Europe, are reducing by the day. Europe seems to be less corrupt than is the United States, after all.
On Thursday, Russian warplanes stationed in Syria attacked a terrorist training camp and a command center, taking it out with a precision strike launched form an altitude of over 5,000 meters, the Russian Defense Ministry reported.
The airstrike was one of a dozen conducted by Russia in Syria on Thursday during 18 sorties, Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov, the ministry spokesman, told journalists. Advanced Sukhoi Su-25 and Su-34s were used for strikes.
“The targeting systems of those planes allows for hitting ground targets with absolute precision, which was proven yesterday during combat missions targeting ISIS infrastructure," he said. "We can use this type of aircraft to deliver strikes anywhere in Syria."
Overnight, the Russian Air Force conducted 10 sorties and hit seven targets in Syria, Konashenkov said. Over the 24 hours the planes bombed a field camp in Aleppo province, a logistics center in Idlib province and a command point at a fortified facility in Hama province.
The general reiterated calls to take with a grain of salt reports of alleged Russian strikes on residential areas and targets not belonging to terrorist groups coming from some sources in Syria.
“Those sensationalized fakes are complete nonsense and have no factual basis and do not merit any discussions," he said. "They were prepared even before the operation started."
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