Six Russian MiG-31 interceptor aircraft land in Damascus to rescue Assad regime

Six Russian MiG-31 Foxhound interceptor aircraft from Moscow landed Tuesday, Aug. 18, at the Mezze Airbase situated in Damascus international airport, debkafile’s military and intelligence sources disclose. They were followed shortly after by giant An-124 Condor transports, which delivered 1,000 Kornet-9M133 third-generation anti-tank guided missiles.

The Russian airlift of advanced weapons for Bashar Assad’s army will last for several days. It betokens Moscow’s intention to keep up its support for the Syrian ruler and counter – by military means if necessary – any secret Iranian diplomatic machinations for terminating the Syria war and with it the Assad regime – such as have been reported in the past week in Western and Arab capitals, especially in the Gulf.

Moscow uses threats to force Saudis into line over Syria

Arab sources reported Sunday that in advance of Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir’s visit to Moscow on Aug. 11, the Russians are trying some arm-twisting to make Riyadh fall into line and join them and the Americans in accepting the Assad regime.

Assad in a position to strength after Vienna deal with Iran. Tehran revitalizes his depleted army

Syrian President Bashar Assad, in his first public speech in a year, could afford Sunday, July 26, to admit that his overstretched army had been forced to give up “critical areas” in a civil war that was dragging into its fifth year at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives, because he was confident that he is on a winning streak.  This confidence he gained from three recent developments:

1. The nuclear accord Iran signed with the six world powers led by the Unite States on July 14 has granted him and extra lease of life. The Syrian dictator, Tehran’s senior ally, can now count himself safe from US efforts to depose him – never mind if he cheated on his chemical weapons stocks and continues to use them in battle – after the Obama administration effectively anointing Iran leading Middle East power and strategic partner.

In his speech, Assad congratulated his best friend in Tehran for pulling off this feat in Vienna and commended the “positive changes in western attitudes to the {Syrian] conflict.” He noted that the “US and its allies now understood they shared an interest” with his regime “in defeating ISIS-style jihad terrorism.”

Iranian Rev Guards ready to intervene in Syria to save Assad. Soleimani: Expect major events in Syria

Please see the article source for the video.

 

Tehran is believed to be preparing to dispatch a substantial Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) special operations unit to Syria to tackle the separate rebel and ISIS advances closing in on the Assad regime, Western and Arab intelligence sources report. They say the Syrian army is already setting aside an area in northern Syria for the Iranian troops to take up position.

If this happens, debkafile’s military sources note that it would be the Revolutionary Guards first direct intervention in the nearly five-year Syrian war. Up until now, Tehran has carefully avoided putting Iranian boots on the ground in both Syria and Iraq. The only place where Iranian forces are directly engaged in battle is at Iraq’s main refinery town of Baiji, where small infantry and artillery units have been trying – without success thus far – to dislodge ISIS forces from the refinery complex.

Obama Administration Unprepared if Assad Falls

U.S. training program for Syrian rebels criticized as slow, ineffective

The Obama administration has yet to outline a strategy for responding to the potential downfall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, even as his hold on power grows tenuous in the fourth year of a civil war.

President Obama has so far avoided intervening in the Syrian war, which he says is a fulfillment of his pledge to not become ensnared in another land conflict in the Middle East. He sided against his top advisers in 2012 when he declined to arm the nationalist rebels battling Assad, and he reversed a decision in 2013 to strike the Syrian regime after it was accused of launching a chemical weapons attack that killed almost 1,500 people. The administration later reached a deal with Russia to remove much of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile.

Tide turns against Assad in Syria

The Assad regime has suffered a series of setbacks in its fight against rebel forces to the point that its ability to retain power appears to be in jeopardy, the Washington Post reports. Walter Russell Mead concurs.

Both the Post and Mead cite Robert Ford, the former U.S. ambassador to Syria. He says “we may be seeing signs of the beginning of the end.”

Report: Syria builds new nuke site near Lebanon with help from Iran, N. Korea

LONDON — Syria was said to have renewed efforts to produce nuclear weapons and maintains a secret facility near Lebanon.

The German weekly Der Spiegel reported that President Bashar Assad has rebuilt Syria’s nuclear weapons infrastructure with help from Iran and North Korea.

Der Spiegel, citing Western intelligence assessments, said the Assad regime has received some 50 tons of uranium stored in a facility near Damascus and guarded by Hizbullah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

IAF strikes nine military targets in Syria

Israel says direct hits confirmed on Assad army positions; attack comes in response to cross border assault Sunday which killed 15-year-old boy in Golan Heights

The Israeli Air Force launched retaliatory air strikes on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights overnight Sunday, confirming direct hits on nine army positions belonging to the Assad regime — including a regional command center – after a 15-year-old boy was killed earlier Sunday in an attack on the Israeli side.

Israel report: Iran directed this month’s rocket attacks on Israel

The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs asserted that Iran was ordering its Palestinian and Lebanese proxies to attack Israel. In a report, the center cited rocket and improvised explosive device strikes along Israel’s borders with Lebanon and Syria in March 2014.

“All of these attacks on Israel come in the wake of the green light given by Iran against the backdrop of changing power equations in the broader Middle East,” the report, titled “Iran’s Fortunes Rising in a Middle East Vacuum,” said.

New documentary evidence of participation of Russian mercenaries in war in Syria (photos)

Know the enemy behind the enemy:

Photos of militants from the “Slavic Corps”, who are fighting in Syria on the side of the Assad regime, have been distributed in social networks.

Some sources claim that only retired officers of airborne and special forces, dismissed members of special task police, riot police and other security gangs of Russia, are allegedly included in the “Slavic Corps”.

Syrian Oil And Gas: Little-Known Facts on Syria’s Energy Resources And Russia’s Help

Syria also holds the key as a future energy cooridor to European energy independence from Russia. This is also why you will likely not see Greece nor Cyprus getting the boot from the Eurozone, as they will have a useful future in supplying natural gas from the Mediterannean Sea to the future United States of Europe. Additionally, Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2006 had very little to do with serious threats against Russia itself. Georgia, too, was working on an energ pipeline from the Caspian Sea towards Europe. It was pre-planned, and even was mentioned by Putin himself  (Additional sources: Here and here) — although you won’t hear the main reasons why. They even have planned to re-invade Georgia should a war with Iran kick off.

As the situation in Syria deteriorates with a threatened U.S. airstrike over President Bashar al-Assad’s chemical weapons, the Damascus regime still controls one of the largest conventional hydrocarbon resources in the eastern Mediterranean.

Syria possessed 2.5 billion barrels of crude oil as of January 2013, which makes it the largest proved reserve of crude oil in the eastern Mediterranean according to the Oil & Gas Journal estimate, besides Iraq.

Iran: ‘Thousands of missiles’ to rain on Israel

Threatens massive strike if military action launched on Syria

Iran is threatening to launch a massive missile strike against Israel if the United States attacks Syria for using chemical weapons against its own people, which could touch off a full-blown war in the region.

“The day of reckoning is near,” according to Hossein Shariatmadari, the chief editor of Keyhan newspaper, an outlet controlled by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Syria crisis: warplanes spotted in Cyprus as tensions rise in Damascus

Signs of advanced readiness at likely hub of air campaign as UN inspection team comes under fire near site of alleged chemical attack

Warplanes and military transporters have begun arriving at Britain’s Akrotiri airbase on Cyprus, less than 100 miles from the Syrian coast, in a sign of increasing preparations for a military strike against the Assad regime in Syria.

Saudis offer Russia secret oil deal if it drops Syria

Saudi Arabia has secretly offered Russia a sweeping deal to control the global oil market and safeguard Russia’s gas contracts, if the Kremlin backs away from the Assad regime in Syria.

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Leaked transcripts of a closed-door meeting between Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan shed an extraordinary light on the hard-nosed Realpolitik of the two sides.

Navy ready to launch first strike on Syria

As has been stated here many times: Expect war, not a peaceful resolution. The Assad regime realizes what happened to the leaders in Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Lebanon and Iraq, to name a few. They all wound up dead or imprisoned. When their last military stronghold gives way, which seems to be the Syrian air force in this case, expect the Assad regime to go “all-out” and for the conflict to likely ignite a powder keg engulfing the entire Middle East.

Furthermore, don’t expect the retaliation to just be “over there” in some far off region called the middle east. Both Syria and Iran have thousands of sleeper cells planted within the United States — and have been for well over a decade.

Lastly, events leading to an all-out regional war in the middle east could mean that Isaiah 17:1 will indeed be fulfilled during this generation.

Britain is planning to join forces with America and launch military action against Syria within days in response to the gas attack believed to have been carried out by President Bashar al-Assad’s forces against his own people.

Royal Navy vessels are being readied to take part in a possible series of cruise missile strikes, alongside the United States, as military commanders finalise a list of potential targets.

Government sources said talks between the Prime Minister and international leaders, including Barack Obama, would continue, but that any military action that was agreed could begin within the next week.