More on Russian airstrikes in Syria

This Is How Russia Handles Terrorists: Moscow Releases Video Of Syria Strikes

Zero Hedge,

30 September, 2015

Now that Russia has officially begun conducting airstrikes on anti-regime forces operating in Syria, commentators, pundits, and analysts around the world will be keen to compare and contrast the results of Moscow’s efforts with the year-old US-led air campaign against ISIS targets in Syria and Iraq. 

Clearly, Russia has a very real incentive to ensure that its airstrikes are effective.

Preserving the global balance of power means preserving the Assad regime and, by extension, ensuring that Iran maintains its regional influence.

On the other hand, the US and its regional allies actually have an incentive to ensure that their airstrikes are minimally effective. That is, for the US, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, the idea is not to kill Frankenstein, but rather to ensure that he doesn’t escape the lab. 

As we documented earlier today, Russia wasted no time launching strikes against anti-regime targets once the country's lawmakers gave the official go-ahead and the West wasted no time accusing Russia of breaking protocol by targeting "modetrate" Syrian rebels (like al-Qeada) that aren't aligned with ISIS.

It's against that backdrop that we present the following footage released by the Russain Ministry of Defense which depicts the opening salvo in The Kremlin's battle against terrorism in the Middle East (note the vehicle traveling towards the compound at a particularly inopportune time towards the end).

And predictably, Western media reports regarding civilian casualties and Russia's alleged targeting of "moderate" rebels (as opposed to ISIS) were countered by Moscow's sharp-tongued spokeswoman and US foreign policy critic extraordinaire Maria Zakharova.

Via RT:

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 added.

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.

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.

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.

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.

For those who missed it, see here for our assessment of the Western media's take on the first round of Russian airstrikes (and by the way we, like Maria, were surprised at how quickly the propaganda machine kicked into high gear). Here is the bottom line:

The bottom line going forward is that the US and its regional and European allies are going to have to decide whether they want to be on the right side of history here or not, and as we've been careful to explain, no one is arguing that Bashar al-Assad is the most benevolent leader in the history of statecraft but it has now gotten to the point where Western media outlets are describing al-Qaeda as "moderate" in a last ditch effort to explain away Washington's unwillingness to join Russia in stabilizing Syria. This is a foreign policy mistake of epic proportions on the part of the US and the sooner the West concedes that and moves to correct it by admitting that none of the groups the CIA, the Pentagon, and Washington's Mid-East allies have trained and supported represent a viable alternative to the Assad regime, the sooner Syria will cease to be the chessboard du jour for a global proxy war that's left hundreds of thousands of innocent people dead.

Excellent coverage from Lebanese TV with an interview with Joaquin Flores

Professor Stephen Cohen: U.S. and Russia in Proxy War on Two Fronts

Thom Hartmann talks with Professor Stephen Cohen, Contributing Editor-The Nation / Professor Emeritus of Russian Studies & Politics at NYU and Princeton - His book, Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives, which examines the “New Cold War,” is available in paperback, Website: www.thenation.com, about the relations between the United States and Russia over Ukraine and Syria.

Russia will succeed where West probably didn’t want to – Assad’s aide to RT

A Syrian presidential aide has praised Russian air support in the fight against terrorists, slamming the West’s “ineffective” airstrikes. Media adviser Bouthaina Shaaban told RT she believes Russian intervention will help stabilize the situation in Syria.

Speaking on behalf of her country, President Assad’s political and media adviser has said that Syria “hopes” that Russia’s assistance will help Damascus “undermine terrorism” and “restore peace and security”

Lavrov refutes accusations that Russian airstrikes did not target ISIS

Saudi Arabia calls on Assad to leave or be removed by force

http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2015/09/30/431310/Saudi-Arabia-Syria-Assad-Jubeir

Saudi Arabia says Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must leave office or face being removed via military intervention.

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir made the remarks at the UN general assembly in New York on Tuesday following a meeting with his country’s allies.

"There is no future for Assad in Syria,” Jubeir said. “There are two options for a settlement in Syria. One option is a political process where there would be a transitional council. The other option is a military option, which also would end with the removal of Bashar al-Assad from power.”

He noted that a military option would be a lengthier and more destructive process, but the “choice is entirely that of Bashar al-Assad.”

The Saudi foreign minister also admitted that the kingdom and other countries are already backing “moderate rebels” fighting the Damascus government but refrained from commenting on the specifics of a military option.

"Whatever we may or may not do we're not talking about," he said.

Saudi Arabia is currently engaged in a military aggression in Yemen, which it launched on March 26 – without a United Nations mandate. According to a report released on September 19 by the Yemen’s Civil Coalition, over 6,000 Yemenis have so far lost their lives in the airstrikes, and a total of nearly 14,000 people have been injured.

Syria has been gripped by deadly violence since 2011. According to the UN, some 250,000 people have been killed in the conflict and millions of others have been displaced.

Islamic State to Putin: We Are on Our Way to Russia

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/506366.html

Members of the Islamic State, a violent group of extremists presently terrorizing Iraq and Syria, have released a video threatening President Vladimir Putin and vowing to wage war in Russia's restive North Caucasus.

Message to Putin

A video released by Al Arabiya and reportedly filmed in a seized airport in the Syrian province of Raqqa features an Islamic State fighter seated in a military jet, saying: "This message is for you, Vladimir Putin! These are the aircraft you sent to Bashar [Assad], and we're going to send them to you. Remember that!"

The voice of a Russian speaker can also be heard in the video, describing the jets seized by Islamic State fighters. "This is Russian technology," he says.

The Islamic State has openly declared war on the U.S., driving its point home by having beheaded two U.S. journalists in as many weeks. This is the first time members of the group have personally taunted the Russian president.

"We will with the consent of Allah free Chechnya and all of the Caucasus! The Islamic State is here and will stay here, and it will spread with the grace of Allah!" a fighter is shown saying in the video, which is available on YouTube with Russian subtitles.

Addressing Putin personally, the fighter added: "Your throne has already been shaken, it is under threat and will fall with our arrival [in Russia]. … We're already on our way with the  will of Allah!"

Syria and Rise of IS

Russia has provoked condemnation from the Islamic State for seemingly having shielded the Syrian regime through the course of the country's civil war. In the new video, radical fighters vow to destroy Assad, whom they refer to as a "pig."

The Syrian conflict has thrust the Islamic State into the spotlight, with an estimated 50,000 fighters in the country, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. In June, members of the group seized control of several cities in Iraq, where there are now an estimated 30,000 Islamic State fighters.

Although no link has been proven between militants in Russia's turbulent North Caucasus and the Islamic State, Russia's Federal Security Service has estimated that hundreds of residents of the North Caucasus have gone to fight in Syria.

In the newly released video, members of the Islamic State declare the same goal as Russia's domestic militant group the Caucasus Emirate — a development that is sure to alarm experts in Russia who have warned of radicalized fighters returning from Syria to Russian soil.

Grozny Reacts

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov took to Instagram on Wednesday to provide the first reaction by a Russian official to the Islamic State's warning, referring to it as a "childish threat."

In a statement posted alongside a heavily-filtered photo of himself wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with Putin's face, Kadyrov said the Islamic State fighters were "saying only what their masters in the West's security services were telling them to say."

"These jerks have nothing to do with Islam. They are the blatant enemies of Muslims all over the world. Naive people decided to threaten Chechnya and all of Russia with two aircraft. They can sit in 2,000 aircraft and still not make it to Russia," Kadyrov wrote.

"I declare, with all responsibility, that whoever gets it into their heads to threaten Russia and speak the name of President Vladimir Putin will be destroyed as soon as he says it," he wrote, adding: "We won't even wait for him to sit at the helm of a plane."

On Tuesday, prior to the video's release, Russia's Foreign Ministry condemned the group's "horrific crimes" in an official statement, calling for China and Western countries to join forces in helping bring an end to the group's reign of terror.

Russia's Defense Ministry sent several attack helicopters to Baghdad on Monday to help Iraq's military fight the Islamic State. In early July, it provided five Su-24 fighter aircraft to the country.