How Russia Expedited Syria’s Victory

 

On Monday, Vladimir Putin unexpectedly interrupted his journey to Egypt, stopping off at Russia’s Hmeymim airbase in Syria and announcing the windup of Russia’s most successful military campaign abroad. Thousands of combat sorties have been flown, tens of thousands of terrorists and their infrastructure have been destroyed, and hundreds of Syrian cities and towns have been liberated. We have previously published accounts of how Russian pilots, special ops, marines, doctors, and diplomats spent two years helping the lawful president of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, hold his country together and rid it of terrorists.

Russia enters the conflict

By the fall of 2015, the war in Syria had already dragged on for four long years. The mass anti-government demonstrations that began in March 2011 had quickly escalated into skirmishes with the military. And terrorist factions immediately “hijacked” these popular protests. Soon, the leading role in the battle against the ruling regime was being played by extremists from the Islamic State, Jabhat Al Nusra, Al-Qaeda, and many factions within what has been called the “moderate opposition” – mainly in the Free Syrian Army that has been so championed by the West.

US troops in Syria battle anti-Assad rebels once funded by the CIA

 

American troops deployed in Syria have exchanged fire with rebels that were until recently supported by the United States Central Intelligence Agency. In 2013, soon after the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War, the then-US President Barack Obama instructed the Central Intelligence Agency to provide covert support to fighters in Syria. Acting on the president’s directive, the CIA promptly joined forces with spy agencies from Britain, France, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, to assist fighters affiliated with the Free Syrian Army. At that time, Washington saw the Free Syrian Army and forces affiliated with it as ideologically moderate. It also agreed with the group’s main aim, which was to topple the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

United States Deploying Forces at Syrian-Jordanian Border – Reports

FILE IMAGE: Wikipedia

 

Reports are circulating that  yesterday the US army made some very unusual movement at the Syrian-Jordanian border, north of Jordan’s Al-Mafraq Governorate.

Local sources said that about 20 US Army armoured vehicles (including battle tanks and artillery pieces) carried on trucks were spotted in Al-Mafraq. US troops were allegedly accompanied with the Jordanian Army’s 3rd Division.

Missiles for the Jihad

DAMASCUS/BERLIN (Own report) – Berlins demands for a renewed ceasefire are being accompanied by reports of the possible initiation of a program to supply insurgents in Aleppo with man portable anti-aircraft missiles. The Syrian government and Moscow must immediately return to a ceasefire, admonished German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The combat in Aleppo is intolerable. Even though the combat is becoming increasingly gruesome, the ceasefire had been doomed to fail from the beginning, because important insurgent militias – partisans of the West – rejected it and continued their combat. They even refused to accept a key element of the ceasefire, rejecting the demand that they halt their collusion with al Qaeda and its Syrian affiliate, the Jabhat al Nusra / Jabhat Fatah al Sham. That demand was considered particularly important because, as experts have been warning for months, al Qaeda is establishing a jihadi emirate in northern Syria. Confronted with the eventuality that the Syrian army may recapture Aleppo, Washington is now considering supplying man portable air defense systems, or “MANPADS,” to insurgents allied with al Nusra – similar to the ones the US had previously provided the mujahidin fighting the Soviet military in Afghanistan. The German government remains silent because its own preferences will benefit – even though the missiles could wind up in the hands of al Qaeda.

Eyewitnesses say ISIS being treated in Turkish hospitals

As reported here last year in both July and August, Turkey continues supporting ISIS. See the following posts for more information:

Turkey Uses ISIS as Excuse to Attack Kurds

Erdoğan’s game plan as Turkey enters war

 

Islamic State militants are frequently transported across the Syrian border to Turkish hospitals for treatment, according to eyewitness accounts collected by RT on the ground. Their crossing was allegedly ensured by Turkish officials.

Both Islamic State (IS, previously ISIS/ISIL) and Free Syrian Army fighters were able to cross the border from Syria into Turkey en masse and receive medical help – only to then be allowed to go back to resume fighting in Syria, the head of a local doctors’ association told RT’s Lizzie Phelan.

Phelan visited Gaziantep, a city in south-central Turkey some 60 kilometers from the Syrian border. Eyewitnesses and doctors told the RT correspondent that most of the IS fighters were treated in the border city of Kilis south of Gaziantep.

Analysis: Saudi Arabia Cooking Up Strategic Move Against Russia

One can only assume, since there is no backlash from the United States or NATO in reaction to this buildup, it’s being encouraged behind the scenes by the Obama administration.

 

Saudi-Turkish threat to invade Syria points to the gap between the desire for a cease-fire agreement and reality. Judging by Russia’s conduct so far, Riyadh and Ankara might want to reexamine what could be a dangerous gamble.

The news from Munich on Friday that a cease-fire would be declared in Syria within a week was still fresh when Saudi Arabia announced its own initiative: It would send warplanes to Turkey and special ground forces to fight in Syria against the Islamic State organization. The Saudi-Turkish proposal demonstrated just how great the gap is between hopes for an end to the fighting and the situation on the ground.

Military to Military

Seymour M. Hersh on US intelligence sharing in the Syrian war

Barack Obama’s repeated insistence that Bashar al-Assad must leave office – and that there are ‘moderate’ rebel groups in Syria capable of defeating him – has in recent years provoked quiet dissent, and even overt opposition, among some of the most senior officers on the Pentagon’s Joint Staff. Their criticism has focused on what they see as the administration’s fixation on Assad’s primary ally, Vladimir Putin. In their view, Obama is captive to Cold War thinking about Russia and China, and hasn’t adjusted his stance on Syria to the fact both countries share Washington’s anxiety about the spread of terrorism in and beyond Syria; like Washington, they believe that Islamic State must be stopped.

Matt Drudge: ‘America has been arming ISIS’

If you’ve been following Global Geopolitics for the last two years or so, this would be a no-brainer. The good news is that the mainstream picked up on it.

 

 

Rare tweet by media giant alludes to sinister Obama policy

Matt Drudge’s first tweet in months came with a cryptic message: “A shocking truth is unfolding: America has been arming ISIS.”

The Obama administration has been plagued for weeks over news U.S. weapons supplied to Syrian rebels were inadvertently winding up in the hands of terror groups. The media giant’s tweet on Tuesday alludes to something far more sinister.

US Created Free Syrian Army to Fight Proxy War to Topple Assad

“It’s been a battle over who’s going to control Syria afterwards. The whole thing is a proxy war. There’s lots of foreign meddling in Syria,” Middle East expert James Paul, former Global Policy Forum Director and UN human rights expert, said.

“The FSA was patched together in late 2011 and early 2012 as a means to convert the national, non-violent opposition to the Assad government into a violent, game-changing kind of deal,” Paul said.

Putin has sent the feared Spetsnaz special forces into Syria to bail out Assad

The move is a blow to Britain and America’s mission to wipe out Islamic State but maintain an opposition to brutal dictator Assad

Russia has sent its crack special troops into Syria to back up ­ President Bashar al-Assad’s bid to wipe out his opposition.

Vladimir Putin’s feared Spetsnaz unit and a covert para battalion ghosted into the war-torn country and are preparing for an all-out assault on rebels fighting the regime – including moderate units such as the western-backed Free Syrian Army.

Putin’s act of WAR? Russian air strikes in Syria target British-backed rebels

RUSSIAN warplanes launching air strikes in Syria have bombed rebel groups backed by the West rather than Islamic State (ISIS) militants.

Moscow launched a bombing campaign on ISIS-held territory in Syria after the Russian parliament gave the green light to strikes with the aim of supporting President Bashar al-Assad.

The action was said to be focused on degrading ISIS operations in the country.

But the US and rebels on the ground suggested Russian aircraft were bombing fighters backed by Western powers.

Syrian Military And Political Opposition: Russian Forces In Syria Are Occupation Forces, We Will Expel Them From Our Country

Following media reports of an intensification of the Russian military presence in Syria, some elements from both the political and military wings of the Syrian opposition clarified that they would consider Russian forces in Syria as “occupation forces” and threatened that they would fight them and strike at them until they expelled from Syrian soil. They said that they will transform Syria into “a graveyard for the Russian forces” and stressed that Russian forces in Syria would have no sense of and that Russia would sustain a severe defeat.

Russian troops ‘fighting alongside Assad’s army against Syrian rebels’

 

Russian troops are fighting alongside pro-Assad forces in Syria, state television in Damascus and several reports have claimed.

The video footage claimed to show troops and a Russian armoured vehicle fighting Syrian rebels alongside President Bashar al-Assad’s troops in Latakia.

It is reportedly possible to hear Russian being spoken by the troops in the footage.

Russian spy base in Syria used to monitor rebels and Israel seized

In the video footage logos of Syrian intelligence and Russian military intelligence can be seen on posters hung up on the wall. Photo: Youtube

 

Syrian rebels have seized a joint Russian-Syrian spy base which was used to gather intelligence on the movements of rebel groups and Israel.

Located in southern Syria close to the Israel border, the base on the Tel Al Hara mountain known as ‘Centre C’ by Russian intelligence was taken over by the Free Syrian Army – the largely moderate, Western-backed rebel group – on Sunday.

The capture of the base, which was abandoned prior to the rebels’ arrival, came after weeks of fierce fighting involving Syrian government troops as well as Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch.

In video footage of the base released by the Free Syrian Army, a rebel officer is shown pointing out maps, photographs and information in Russian and Arabic, as well as the logos of Syrian intelligence and Russian military intelligence (GRU), which deals with signal intelligence.

Blowback! U.S. trained ISIS at secret Jordan base

JERUSALEM – Members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIS, were trained in 2012 by U.S. instructors working at a secret base in Jordan, according to informed Jordanian officials.

The officials said dozens of ISIS members were trained at the time as part of covert aid to the insurgents targeting the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Syria. The officials said the training was not meant to be used for any future campaign in Iraq.

The Jordanian officials said all ISIS members who received U.S. training to fight in Syria were first vetted for any links to extremist groups like al-Qaida.