Thursday 1 October 2015

It didn't take long from the Duma rubberstamping the use of force in Syria to the first airstrike against ISIS positions (or on "moderate opposition" if you beleive the garbage from the western press).

8 ISIS targets hit during 20 combat flights in Syria – Russian military

Sukhoi Su-24 Fencer tactical bombers. © Vladimir Vyatkin

RT,
30 September, 2015

Russia has struck eight Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) targets in Syria, the country’s Defense Ministry said, adding that "civilian infrastructure" was avoided during the operations.


Today, Russian aerospace force jets delivered pinpoint strikes on eight ISIS terror group targets in Syria. In total, 20 flights were made,” spokesperson for the Russian Defense Ministry, Igor Konashenkov, said.

As a result, arms and fuel depots and military equipment were hit. ISIS coordination centers in the mountains were totally destroyed,” he dded.

Konashenkov said that all the flights took place after air surveillance and careful verification of the data provided by the Syrian military. He stressed that Russian jets did not target any civilian infrastructure and avoided these territories.

Russian jets did not use weapons on civilian infrastructure or in its vicinity,” he said.

Earlier in the day, the Russian military announced the start of air operations in Syria in order to help the goverment fight terrorist forces. Syrian state television named at least seven areas targeted by the air strikes.

They included areas around the cities of Homs and Hama, which are 44 kilometers apart, according to various media reports.

Moscow blasts ‘infowar’ following civilian deaths accusations


The statement by the Defense Ministry refuted earlier reports about civilian casualties that Russian air strikes allegedly led to.

Reuters reported that Russia targeted opposition rebel groups in Homs province instead of Islamic State forces. The agency cited Syrian opposition chief Khaled Khoja, who put the death toll of the bombardment at 36 civilians.

"Russia is intending not to fight ISIL [Islamic State], but to prolong the life of [Syrian President Bashar] Assad," Khoja said.

Similar claims were made by the BBC, Fox News, Al Jazeera and numerous other news outlets.

However, US Secretary of Defense, Ashton Carter, said that Pentagon can’t confirm these allegations, though NATO declared it was concerned by the reports that targets other than ISIS could have been hit.


Moscow harshly criticized the reports, labeling them an information war.

Russia didn’t even begin its operation against Islamic State… Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov didn’t even utter his first words at the UN Security Council, but numerous reports already emerged in the media that civilians are dying as a result of the Russian operation and that it’s aimed at democratic forces in the country (Syria),” Maria Zakharova, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, told media.

It’s all an information attack, a war, of which we’ve heard so many times,” she added.
#Russia ready to fight in #Syria: Why and how? http://t.co/W0Ufut1qc4pic.twitter.com/wQA1me3EVu
RT (@RT_com) September 30, 2015

Zakharova also said that she was amazed by the scale and speed of what she called “info injections” into social networks such as “photos of alleged victims” that appeared on the web as soon as the Russian operation began.

What can I say? We all know perfectly how such pictures are made,” she said, remembering a Hollywood flick ‘Wag the Dog,’ which described the US media reporting on a fake war in Albania.

The spokesman urged the media, including, Western outlets “to turn to top officials in the [Russian] Defense Ministry press service to obtain all required information" about the country’s operation in Syria.

Russian jets hitting Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria, Sept 30 2015

Jabhat al-Nusra fighters panicing while Russian jets are striking their positions near Talbisah, a town 10km to the north from Homs on Sept 30, 2015



"NATO and the United States should change their policy because the time when they dictate their conditions to the world has passed," Ahmadinejad said in a speech in Dushanbe, capital of the Central Asian republic of Tajikistan

Anti-Putin Propaganda Begins: ‘Moderate’ Terrorists Complain Russia Bombed Them


30 September, 2015


21st Century Wire says…
You really could not make this up.
Today has marked the official start of Russia’s bombing campaign against ISIS, and the Western establishment has taken to mainstream media to launch a propaganda campaign against Putin’s efforts.


That campaign takes the form of reports that have emerged claiming that supposedly ‘non-ISIS’ rebels have been bombed by Russian jets.


The Independent, a British outlet, says that ‘activists in Homs and Hama provinces have posted images and video online claiming to show Russian planes bombing groups of non-Isis rebels who are fighting Bashar al-Assad’s forces‘.

There are numerous glaring problems with this assessment. The first, obviously, being that anonymous ‘activists’ provided the information. The second being that 
the video that news outlet links to shows no jets at all, let alone ‘Russian planes’. 

The third is that those ‘non-ISIS rebels’ are still ‘fighting Bashar al-Assad’s forces’, who are the main anti-ISIS force in the entire country, which makes them part of the problem.homs-province-air-strike
A whole lot of hot air. (Photo Credit: YouTube)

The outlet even admits that jihadists ‘
sometimes co-operate with Free Syrian Army in its battles against Isis and government forces‘. At what point does cooperation become amalgamation? It has been widely understood for some time that there are no ‘moderates in the opposition and the FSA is just as bad as the rest.

Technically, Assad and his government is the internationally recognised, legal entity in sovereign control of Syria, which means anyone fighting, 
violently, against him is a terrorist. For those in disagreement, aside from suggesting study of international relations, we offer this definition of terrorism:


Terrorism:

The unofficial or unauthorized use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims.


This is an obvious response to the humiliation the West’s Syrian policies faced this week from Putin at the UNGA, where he delivered a landmark speech exposing Western crimes and failuresin the region.


We await the arrival of a political opposition force and the Syrian Gandhi, Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King, because the FSA is certainly not it. In the mean time, let us hope that Russia can get the job done and help to establish an environment where a political opposition can be successful.


READ MORE ON THE SYRIAN CRISIS: 21st Century Wire Syria Files




This is the hysterical Daily Mail of Britain. The Guardian says the same in a more "balanced" way.


Russia begins air strikes in Syria after warning US to remove its planes... but kills 36 civilians in first wave of attacks as it targets anti-government rebels instead of ISIS


Airstrikes:Ā Russian jets have begun raids in Syria after apparently only giving the U.S. an hour to remove its planes and officials from the area. Pictured: Footage shows rockets hitting the Homs province of Syria today


  • Moscow has started blitzing three provinces in support of President Assad
  • But all the areas targeted are held by moderate rebels backed by coalition
  • Strikes have infuriated Washington who accused Moscow of destabilising the region even further - U.S. apparently only given hour notice of strikes
  • At least 36 civilians have been killed in the strikes, says monitoring group
  • See latest news from Russia's air strikes in Syria 


    John McCain, who hobnobs with ISIS terrorists, didn't waste much time

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