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Anti-ISIS
coalition bombing terrorist positions in Syria LIVE UPDATES
Tuesday, September 23The US-led coalition is conducting airstrike assault on positions of the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) organization on the territory of Syria. The strikes reportedly involve a mix of fighter, bomber and tomahawk land-attack missiles.
22:59 GMT:
The FBI and the Homeland Security Department have issued a security bulletin regarding threats from Syria-based Al-Qaeda operatives, saying that airstrikes in Syria may have temporarily disrupted attack planning against US or Western targets.
“Recent intelligence indicated that senior Syria-based AQ operatives were nearing the execution phase for an attack in Europe or the homeland," said DHS spokeswoman Marsha Catron, cited by Reuters.
An alleged “imminent attack” planned by an Al-Qaeda-linked Khorasan group was cited as one of the reasons the US launched airstrikes in Syria on Tuesday.
22:22 GMT:
A letter from the US Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon uses Article 51 of the UN charter to justify air strikes against ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria.
22:08 GMT:
Protecting the Syrian people requires immediate action, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon said following the US-led strikes in Syria.
“I regret the loss of any civilian lives as a result of strikes against targets in Syria,” Ban said at climate summit press conference in New York. “The parties involved in this campaign must abide by international humanitarian law and take all necessary precautions to avoid and minimize civilian casualties.”
The Secretary General said he is aware that the US-led intrusion was not carried out “at the direct request of the Syrian Government, but I note that the Government was informed beforehand.”
“I also note that the strikes took place in areas no longer under the effective control of that Government. I think it is undeniable – and the subject of broad international consensus – that these extremist groups pose an immediate threat to international peace and security,” Ban said.
21:58 GMT:
The US Central Command has declassified and released a series of videos showing some of the targets hit in the first round of US-led airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Syria.
21:42 GMT:
The leader of al-Nusra Front Abu Yousef al-Turki, also known as "the Turk," was killed early Tuesday following US-led airstrikes in Syria, according to a statement released by the militant group. Confirmation of his death first appeared on a jihadist Twitter account, and the tweet was accompanied by a picture of his alleged dead body.
21:28 GMT:
#Saudi Arabia showing the pilots who participated in the airstrikes in #Syriapic.twitter.com/usthRj7HPJ
20:54 GMT:
Tehran was informed about US plans to strike Islamic State targets in Syria, a senior Iranian official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
“This issue was first discussed in Geneva and then was discussed thoroughly in New York where Iran was assured that Assad and his government will not be targeted in case of any military action against Daesh (Islamic State) in Syria,” the source said.
A senior US State Department official, in the meantime, said that the US “communicated our intentions, but not specific timing or targets, to the Iranians.”
“As we've said, we won't be coordinating military action with Iran. And of course we won't be sharing intelligence with Iran either,” the US official added.
17:20 GMT:
The number of foreign nationals traveling to Syria and Iraq to fight for the Islamic State jihadist movement has surged by 1,000 in just a matter of months, the EU’s counterterrorism chief, Gilles de Kerchove, said Tuesday. There are now around 3,000 foreigners in the two countries, AFP reported him as saying. He believes that the boost in numbers could be attributed to the militant group’s declaration in June of a caliphate straddling the two Middle East nations.
17:04 GMT:
Turkey could give military or logistical support to US-led air strikes against Islamic State insurgents in Syria, President Tayyip Erdogan told reporters in New York.
"We will give the necessary support to the operation. The support could be military or logistics," Turkish broadcaster NTV quotes Ergodan as saying.
15:22 GMT:
US President Barack Obama says joint airstrikes against Islamic State militants in Syria "make it clear to the world that this is not America's fight alone."
Praising "the strength of the coalition," which now includes five Arab states, Obama has said the military campaign is vital to the world's security.
The first US-led airstrikes targeted the militant group in eastern Syria on Monday night.
SYRIA
BECOMES THE 7TH PREDOMINANTLY MUSLIM COUNTRY BOMBED BY 2009 NOBEL
PEACE LAUREATE
Glenn
Greenwald
23
September, 2014
The
U.S. today
began bombing targets
inside Syria, in concert with its lovely and inspiring group of five
allied regimes: Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Qatar,
and Jordan.
That
means that Syria becomes the 7th predominantly Muslim country bombed
by 2009 Nobel Peace Laureate Barack
Obama—after Afghanistan,Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya and Iraq.
The
utter lack of interest in what possible legal authority Obama has to
bomb Syria is telling indeed: Empires bomb who they want, when they
want, for whatever reason (indeed, recall that Obama bombed Libya
evenafter Congress
explicitly voted against authorization
to use force, and very few people seemed to mind that abject act of
lawlessness; constitutional constraints are not for warriors and
emperors).
It
was just over a year ago that Obama
officials were insisting that
bombing and attacking Assad was a moral and strategic imperative.
Instead, Obama is now bombing Assad’s enemies while politely
informing his regime of
its targets in advance. It seems irrelevant on whom the U.S. wages
war; what matters it that it be at war, always
and forever.
Six
weeks of bombing hasn’t
budged ISIS in Iraq,
but it has caused
ISIS recruitment to soar.
That’s all predictable: the U.S. has known
for years that
what fuels and strengthens anti-American sentiment (and thus
anti-American extremism) is exactly what they keep doing: aggression
in that region. If you know that, then they know that. At this point,
it’s more rational to say they do all of this
not despite triggering
those outcomes, butbecause of
it. Continuously creating and strengthening enemies is a feature, not
a bug. It is what justifies the ongoing greasing of the profitable
and power-vesting machine of Endless War.
If
there is anyone who actually believes that the point of all of this
is a moral crusade to vanquish the evil-doers of ISIS (as the U.S.
fights alongside its close Saudi friends), please
read Professor As’ad
AbuKhalil’s explanation today of
how Syria is a multi-tiered proxy war. As the disastrous Libya
“intervention” should conclusively and permanently demonstrate,
the U.S. does not bomb countries for humanitarian objectives.
Humanitarianism is the
pretense, not the purpose.
President
Barack Obama makes a speech during the Nobel Peace Prize Concert at
Oslo Spektrum on December 11, 2009 in Oslo, Norway
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