Syria in 2015

[OUTLAW 09]

SaudiArabia invites 65 Syrian opposition figures to Riyadh ahead of peace talks http://tribune.com.pk/story/1001854/saudi-invites-65-syrian-opposition-figures-to-riyadh-ahead-of-peace-talks/ …

FSA forces claim to have taken multiple points from #YPG near #Azaz in the last 2 days.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sm2ISiN2iYo …

Russia'n airstrikes on 4 northern #Aleppo villages & grain silos -regained by rebels from Jaysh al-Thuwar/#SDF yd.
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=36.510878&lon=37.033539&z=13&m=b …

Leaked video from killed afghan Shiite militia members from found in rural #Aleppo #Syria
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymEI-6id6O0 …

Russia is attempting to cut FSA's road supplies w/air raids on Deir Jammal in Aleppo rif &t castillo road very important to #Aleppo #Syria

[OUTLAW 09]

One perception of the situation north of #Aleppo.
Without #Turkey's help, the rebel front would long have collapsed.

YPG and #PYD accused of ‘war crimes’ in #Syria – Amnesty International
http://www.euronews.com/2015/10/13/syrian-kurds-accused-of-war-crimes-amnesty-international/ …

Footage
Multiple #RussianAirstrikes around #Azaz today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-wPvSYmwas …
All, 10 km from #Turkey.

Footage
Turkish-backed #FSA brigade "liberates" Kashti‘ār from #YPG forces.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m99IVXuI5FI …

CIA-backed #FSA brigade seems to be serious about "anti aircraft missile system".

VIDEO: #US-led coalition strikes destroy 283 #ISIS oil tankers
https://www.youtube.com/embed/AN9moYkOyHY …

RuAF Su-34 w/ 2X KAB-500KR E/O guided, 2X OFZAB Frag/HE incendiary unguided bombs,2X R-73 & 2X R-27 AAM.

[OUTLAW 09]

Report about hospitals in the Opposition-held #Aleppo.
By Ahrar al-Sham media office. #Syria
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yM1FwMQeNtQ …

Maj. Yaser Abulrahim (Faylaq Sham) with #FSA confirming full control of Kashtaar, Tanab, Inab & Mrash.
Maj. Yaser also said that clashes in Maryamayn & Shawaghirah still ongoing between Rebels & #SDF (Jaysh Thuwar / #YPG). in North #Aleppo.

Russia Is Killing Civilians, Not ISIS, in Syria
http://time.com/4129222/russia-airstrikes-syria-civilian-casualties-isis/ …
pic.twitter.com/e1LIWBr8AM

Urgent
#Ahrar_alSham storming #Humaimym airbase with grade rockets
#Latakia #Syria Dec 1

SCD trying to extinguish fire on #Khan_al_Asal Oil Refinery, due #Russia airstrikes, earlier
#Aleppo #Syria Dec 1

Rebels in Aleppo also defeated SDF in Kstar & captured it from them despite all the odds. Fighting ISIS/Assad/SDF
http://en.eldorar.com/node/824

[OUTLAW 09]

Russian AF air strikes another Syrian hospital---no difference to the genocidal Assad AF.

MSF International ✔ @MSF
Barrel bombing of MSF-supported hospital in Homs kills seven people.
#Syria http://msf.me/1O01Wyp
pic.twitter.com/nqIfiOqvTw

You knew #Putin bluntly lied abt #Su24?! Here how he was caught by #OSINT & geolocation!
http://ukraineatwar.blogspot.com.ee/2015/11/determining-crash-site-of-russian-su-24.html …
pic.twitter.com/vlSlay7NWk

[OUTLAW 09]

BREAKING: OBAMA WARNS PUTIN TO STAY OUT OF THE SYRIAN WAR
http://www.mediafax.ro/externe/barack-obama-avertizeaza-rusia-sa-nu-se-implice-in-razboiul-civil-din-siria-14905310 …

US warns Russia after its decision to equip jets flying over Syria with missiles
http://www.hotnews.ro/stiri-international-20634965-statele-unite-avertizeaza-rusia-dupa-decizia-dota-rachete-avioane-trimise-siria.htm …

Good article although in Russian......
China, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan & Turkey build their silk road south of Russia. Putin's hostility costly to Russia.
http://lenta.ru/news/2015/11/30/transkasp/ …

[OUTLAW 09]

Finally MSM wakes up to the use of WP on civilian targets--basically a war crime.....

Daily Mail: Is #Russia using deadly white phosphorus in #Syria?
http://uatoday.tv/politics/daily-mail-is-russia-using-deadly-white-phosphorus-in-syria-545556.html …

[OUTLAW 09]

For years, the Russian dinner table has told the story of #Russia’s foreign policy
http://www.eurasianet.org/node/76326
pic.twitter.com/8UqPRtKDWg

Russia is finally freeing itself from the terrible Turkish yoke. Suddenly.
https://meduza.io/en/feature/2015/12/01/down-with-turkey …

[Azor]

I will follow-up on our Turkey conversation shortly, but I wanted to ask you first what your thoughts are on the dreaded S-300-400-500 family of SAMs. How do they stack up against Western, especially US, systems? How much is real and how much is hype? Are they reliant on supporting systems that aren't there?

Cheers

[OUTLAW 09]

5T USDs later from the oil/gas profits the pot holes in some Russian "highways" could be used to hide trucks in.....

http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.de/2015/12/russias-future-not-connected-with.html

Tuesday, December 1, 2015

‘Russia’s Future Not Connected with Ukraine or Syria,’ Inozemtsev Says

Paul Goble


Staunton, December 1 – Russians have been so focused on events in Ukraine and now Syria that they have forgotten the most important thing: their future and that of their country is not connected with what is going on in those countries but what is taking place or not taking place in their own, according to Vladislav Inozemtsev.

In a Snob.ru commentary, the Moscow economist says that eventually Russia will leave Syria and Ukraine “with or without Crimea and the Donbas” will continue its path to Europe. When that happens, he suggests, Russians will ask what they should have been focusing on in 2014 and 2015 (snob.ru/selected/entry/101468).

“The future of Russia is not connected either with Ukraine or even more with Syria,” he argues. “having lost the status of a global power” because of the failure of the communist regime and having gained “a breathing space” because of high prices for oil, Russia could have used that time to figure out how it could develop when oil prices inevitably fell.

Had Russians done so, had they been “oriented toward real and not false goals, the discussion would have had a completely different tone and theme,” Inozemtsev suggests. Instead, the Russian government has focused on foreign affairs and acted as if everything is fine at home.

The Kremlin has even suggested that “everything is normal” despite the collapse of oil prices to 40 US dollars a barrel. But in doing so, the Moscow economist says, it has ignored that the price is likely to fall further, that the current cutbacks harm not only the current generation but future ones, and that its promised modernization program hasn’t happened.

And addressing those problems, Inozemtsev argues, is far more important than “the fates of ‘the Russian world’ or the chances for Bashar Asad’s survival.”

The standard of living in Russia is falling, although many still remember that it rose in the first decade of the 2000s and believe that spending on arms will be a solution. “However, history teaches that the memory of the Russian people is exceptionally short.” Twenty-five years ago, Russians took down the statue of Dzherzhinsky; now, they want to put it back.

Thus, the successes of a decade ago will also be forgotten, especially if incomes continue to contract at the rate of 10 percent a year, and also will be forgotten the so-called “Putin consensus.” At the very least, it will not attract any new supporters from the population however the war on terror goes.

And ever more frequently Russians will have occasion to recall what has often been the case in their past: when economic difficulties during periods of real or imagined foreign dangers lead to catastrophic social cataclysms.” That being the case, he says, Russians should not be so concerned about what is happening in Kyiv and Damascus. They should worry about what is happening at home.

And there are so many problems: Will Russians be able to fly from Vladivostok to Moscw if Transaero is driven into bankruptcy? Will small businesses be able to survive and provide jobs if they are taxed excessively and oppressed by the government? Will pensioners put up with further cuts to their already miserable existences?

In addition, how will Russians move about if the roads aren’t repaired? And “what prospects are opening (or more precisely closing) before the country’s middle class as a result of all the new prohibitions on travel and what threatens the tourism branch and international air carriers?”

There are dozens of such questions, Inozemtsev says, and behind each of them “stand hundreds of enterprises and companies and touches the interests of hundreds of thousands of people.” But today, the Kremlin is ignoring them and hoping that others will ignore them as well because of their focus on Ukraine and Syria.

Indeed, he argues, one can say that “the main goal of the authorities who have sparked foreign policy hysteria consists in distracting the attention of the people from the domestic agenda.” After all, for the authorities, it is “simpler and more effective” to struggle for “’the Russian world’” in Ukraine than to build at home and “more convenient” to bomb Syria than to find the murderers hiding out in Chechnya.

Up to now, however, there is no indication that anything has changed or will change. Instead, the situation is deteriorating. There is less money for medical care, and “people are now dying from heart problems while in line at polyclinics,” an inexcusable situation that appears likely to get worse given that the Kremlin cares not about the people but only about itself.

“The entire population (which it is difficult to call a people) is reflecting not about its own pipelines and roads: it is interested only in how much oil the Islamic State is delivering to Turkey from whom we are refusing to buy fruit,” Inozemtsev says.

Over the next several weeks, Vladimir Putin will be questioned about some of these things, albeit in a very police way, Inozemtsev says. But if he does nothing to change the situation and there seems little reason to expect that, then these questions will be posed in “a much less polite form.”

That will happen, the Moscow analyst says, “when the people (and already not the population) understands what it should have been thinking about five or ten years ago.”

[OUTLAW 09]

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2015/12/01/putin-hiding-under-a-czech-candle/#ixzz3t5lsrAUw

Opinion

Putin Hiding Under A Czech Candle


Turkey’s downing of a Russian fighter plane will test the mettle of NATO leaders: an overreaction by Russia could trigger member nation commitments to Turkey under Article V. But how will NATO members respond? Recent press articles have raised doubts about the leaders of some NATO member states, particularly the Czech Republic, in the face of Russian operations to undermine the alliance.

Anne Applebaum, the Pulitzer Prize winning writer; and Kristofer Harrison, a former DoD and State Department official; wrote about officials from NATO-allied governments who amplify Putin’s voice. They specifically named Andrej Babis, the Czech Finance Minister; Milos Zeman, the Czech President; Robert Fico, the Slovak Prime Minister; and Viktor Orban, the Hungarian Prime Minister. Andrej Babis, alone among the four in responding to Applebaum’s assertions, claimed he has no friends in Russia and is allied strongly with America. His denial is worthy of investigation.

One indicator of friendship with Russia was manifest on November 3. It was reported that the Czech Export Guarantee Agency (EGAP), a subsidiary of Babis’ Ministry of Finance, had underwritten a record loan guarantee to PhosAgro, a Russian company that is co-owned by Putin’s close friend Vladimir Litvinenko. EGAP guaranteed the loan in spite of a track record of significant defaults — over a billion dollars — in Russia. This gesture was important enough to the Russian government that the Russian vice-prime minister came to the Czech Republic for the signing ceremony. Russia must truly appreciate the financial assistance by a Ministry of Finance subsidiary in times of financial sanctions imposed
assistance by a Ministry of Finance subsidiary in times of financial sanctions imposed by the West. Friendly is as friendly does.

In a more bizarre example of friendship, diluting the impact of the sanctions imposed on key Russians after the invasion of Ukraine and occupation of Crimea, it was also disclosed recently that a sanctions target and close friend of Putin, Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, has a team of racing horses stabled in the Czech Republic, in which he maintains a close personal interest. When sanctions required those assets to be frozen, the Ministry of Finance decided not to sell the horses and put the funds in escrow, but are rather continuing to race the horses and keep them active, as if the sanctions were not in place.

The Ministry of Finance, asked to explain, responded by email that, “It was taken to consideration that these assets can be devaluated just by restrictions on their ordinary activities, such as training, participation in competitions or in breeding. Given to the character of secured assets, high securing and managing costs can be assumed. Ministry of Finance has decided that within EU the ordinary activity of racing stable will not be restricted, but all the profits will be used only for managing and securing these assets. In the event that revenues exceed expenses, those would be secured in the Czech Republic.”

In other words, the Ministry has decided to allow the animals to continue to race, and to use any profits to defray security and operating expenses. The result is that any utility derived by Kadyrov by watching his horses race may continue without interruption; if racing revenue exceeds the expenses of upkeep and security, the net income will be held in escrow. The Ministry ignored questions about the extent of any personal involvement by Finance Minister Babis in this politically sensitive decision, but it is safe to assume that Kadyrov appreciates this kindness from the Ministry. It also prompts a writer to wonder who shows up in the owner’s box at the races.

Another aspect of Babis’ response to the Applebaum article was of interest. In response to her statement that his company, Agrofert, buys Russian gas, he made a specific point of asserting that he does not buy gas from Russia, but only from Germany. However, in 2007 Hospodarske Noviny reported that Agrofert was negotiating to change its gas supplier from a German company to VEMEX, the Czech subsidiary of Gazprom, the state-owned Russian firm. Babis is quoted as saying that Agrofert is the largest consumer and Vemex is the largest supplier of gas in the region. A perfect fit, according to Mr. Babis? I contacted both Vemex and Agrofert to ask about their commercial relationship, but received no response from either firm.

The final bit of mystery for the Czechs in this affair is the speculation by Czech media about the involvement of the American Embassy. Commentators have gone to some length to suggest that he has the support of the American ambassador: he has been photographed with the ambassador at the annual party congress for ANO, Babis’ political party; Babis has referred to the ambassador’s visit to his country house, called The Stork’s Nest; and ANO credited the ambassador with arranging a high-profile trip for him to the U.S. earlier this year, with commentators saying it is part of a campaign by America “wooing” him. Repeated requests for comment from ANO went unanswered.

Foreign Service sources in Washington tell me there is no way the Embassy would support a political figure so openly, and that the Czech public are misreading the facts, and are victims of propaganda. The integrity of the U.S. Foreign Service is well known: Embassies carefully avoid any kind of endorsement in domestic political activities.

Perhaps there is a reason that my questions on these matters have gone unanswered by the Ministry of Finance, Agrofert, VEMEX and ANO. Perhaps there is more to the picture than meets the eye. There is an old adage in Czech that “the darkest place is always under the candle’s flame.” Is Putin sitting under the candle, using his friends right under our noses, to undermine our most important alliances? What will be the consequences for NATO capabilities in the face of escalating threats, of our inaction, especially if Russian influence on prosecutors and police in the Czech Republic could undermine the transatlantic defense industrial base? This is particularly alarming and requires further journalistic investigation to bring it to the attention of the public and the U.S. government.

It’s time to move the candle around, and take a closer look at what is happening right in front of us.

[OUTLAW 09]

Shayrat, the new Russian airbase in #Syria
https://informnapalm.org/16312-rossyya-razvorachyvaet-vtoruyu-voennuyu-bazu-v-syryy … by @InformNapalm
pic.twitter.com/jlrLWr7dUn

[OUTLAW 09]

I will follow-up on our Turkey conversation shortly, but I wanted to ask you first what your thoughts are on the dreaded S-300-400-500 family of SAMs. How do they stack up against Western, especially US, systems? How much is real and how much is hype? Are they reliant on supporting systems that aren't there?

Cheers

Sorry in Turkish......

Turkey deployed Koral air defense systems at the border, neutralized S-400.
http://www.sondakika.com/haber/haber-ankara-rusya-nin-s-400-lerine-karsi-ilk-7922933/ …
pic.twitter.com/gY3hxlgDVk

There has been some chatter that the same system massively disrupted SAA comms doing a recent major battle....not much more was mentioned....

[OUTLAW 09]

So it appears Putin was in fact lying..........

Superb @BBCWorld analysis of the illicit trade in #oil produced in areas of #Syria controlled by ISIS
http://tinyurl.com/ze3ba3a

[OUTLAW 09]

What is interesting is how Putin is driving the Ukraine an Orthodox Church nation closer to Turkey a Muslim nation......Ukraine has offered to step in and replace any grain needed by Turkey and will take up the slack on fruits and vegetables........seems a common enemy bridges everything these days...

Well so much for the effects of the Russian sanctions on Turkey.....

Ukraine to see cheaper fruit, vegetables due to Russia-Turkey conflict, experts say
http://uatoday.tv/news/ukraine-to-see-cheaper-fruit-vegetables-due-to-russia-turkey-conflict-experts-545697.html …
pic.twitter.com/BH6DxFs3e9

[OUTLAW 09]

Disinformation review!learn how #russia is adjusting its narrative after downing of SU-24 and whom blames for it
http://us12.campaign-archive1.com/?u=8bc86e9f6ee27330e8902729c&id=0a04f43b65&e=3f54674cc3 … …

Activists reported 9 RuAF airstrikes targeted #FSA positions against #YPG & Jaish al-Thuwar militia NW #Aleppo. https://twitter.com/archicivilians/status/671741957706788864 …

[OUTLAW 09]

http://observer.com/2015/12/whats-next-in-the-terrifying-unraveling-russo-turkish-crisis/

Opinion

What’s Next in the Terrifying, Unraveling Russo-Turkish Crisis

Sometimes political leaders do insanely stupid things, with horrific consequences for millions

By John R. Schindler • 12/01/15 1:14pm


The downing of a Russian Su-24 bomber jet on November 24 by a Turkish F-16 fighter on the Turkish-Syrian border, where the two air forces have been playing high-speed cat-and-mouse games for months, opened a new and dangerous phase in an international crisis that’s long been brewing on low-boil.

Although President Recep Erdoğan’s Turkey and President Vladimir Putin’s Russia are ancestral foes, in recent years the countries had enjoyed a cordial relationship with substantial trade between them and significant alignments on many security issues, notwithstanding the former’s NATO membership going back to the early Cold War. As the Middle East has gone up in flames since the Arab Spring, a Russo-Turkish partnership might have gone a long way in preventing wider conflagration.

Alas, any regional cooperation between Ankara and Moscow has broken up on Syrian rocks, with the two countries pursuing contrary goals in that sad country, which has experienced the torments of hell since its civil war began in spring 2011. While Mr. Putin has backed its proxy—the Assad dictatorship in Damascus—to the hilt, Mr. Erdoğan has quietly supported anti-Assad guerrilla groups with equal determination.

Overt Russian military intervention in the Syrian conflict in late September placed Moscow and Ankara on a collision course, as was obvious to clear-eyed observers. For Turkey, exerting some control over neighboring Syria, particularly its war-torn north, is a vital national security interest, and Ankara made clear it did not appreciate Russian games there. Here, Mr. Putin’s customary bull-in-china-shop methods in international relations were destined to result in a clash.

All that can be said for certain is that a Turkish Air Force F-16 shot down the Russian Air Force Su-24 a little over a week ago, killing the pilot and wounding the second crewman; another Russian serviceman was killed by Syrian rebels during search and rescue efforts. Ankara claims that the Russians briefly entered their airspace, something that Moscow vehemently denies. Similarly, Turkish assertions that they gave the wayward bomber multiple warnings have been dismissed as lies—after-the-fact excuses—by the Russian defense ministry.

The Pentagon has affirmed the Turkish narrative, broadly speaking, yet it’s evident that the Obama administration is displeased with Ankara over the shoot-down. It’s not normal for NATO fighters to open fire out of the blue at intruding Russian military aircraft, something which has been happening with mounting frequency of late. Instead, NATO fighters are supposed to intercept the intruder, making mutual visual sightings, at which point the Russians usually head the other way. None of that seems to have happened on November 24.

It’s not every day you get to see leaders of major countries with large militaries acting like petulant teenagers on the world stage.

In fairness to the Turks, the Russian Air Force had been playing dangerous games in that border region for weeks leading up to the incident, bombing the locals, who are backed by Ankara, and goading the Turks into action. In addition, the Su-24 is frequently used for electronic warfare missions, so it cannot be ruled out that the Russians were jamming or spoofing frequencies in the area, causing confusion on the Turkish side—a deadly confusion, as it turned out.

This is where a dispassionate international investigation would help to defuse tensions, but it’s unlikely either side will support that. As with the shoot-down of Malaysian Airlines 17 over eastern Ukraine in July 2014, almost certainly by Russian-controlled forces, the Kremlin has responded to this incident with barrages of propaganda, some plausible, some downright absurd.

Some of this has come directly from Mr. Putin himself, who publicly accused Mr. Erdoğan of supporting the Islamic State, the notorious ISIS, including personal profiteering off the illegal sale of ISIS oil through Turkey. Adding fuel to the fire, Moscow sources have asserted that the shoot-down, which was “really” done to protect the “secret” of illicit ISIS oil shipments through Turkey, was done with the personal approval of President Obama. This is more of the noxious Kremlin agitprop that this White House bizarrely has chosen to do nothing to counter, as I recently explained.

Inconveniently for Ankara, at least some of Putin’s accusations are true. Although only Kremlin Trolls believe Mr. Obama had anything to do with the shoot-down, clandestine Turkish support for ISIS in the Syrian war isn’t a figment of Moscow’s imagination. Reports of oil profiteering in Ankara, including from ISIS, have circulated widely among Western intelligence agencies in recent years, while Mr. Erdoğan’s personal corruption is well known.

However, Russian accusations against Turkey ultimately fall flat, not least because Western intelligence has also reported about Russian profiteering from illegal ISIS oil sales, while questionable Kremlin spy games with various jihadists over the years, including Al-Qa’ida, are a matter of record. While Mr. Putin’s inflammatory accusations are not wholly fabricated, his own regime has done much the same.

Ankara has reacted to all this in an equally juvenile fashion. Mr. Putin’s allegations of profiteering have resulted in Mr. Erdoğan stating he will resign if the ISIS oil story proves true, while demanding that Mr. Putin resign if not. It’s not every day you get to see the leaders of major countries with large militaries acting like petulant teenagers on the world stage.

Neither country shows any desire to step back from confrontation, which ought to alarm everyone.

Russia and Ankara have shifted more military forces to the Syrian tinderbox—the former has moved in cutting-edge S-400 air defense missiles while the latter has deployed brigade’s worth of tanks to the border—which does nothing to stifle the crisis. Moscow’s aggressive trade sanctions against Turkey over the shoot-down will cause pain to both countries, while demonstrating that this incident will not be allowed to go away by the Kremlin.

Mr. Erdoğan’s suggestion of a meeting between the leaders to resolve the crisis was rudely dismissed by Moscow, leading to the Turkish prime minister stating his country will never apologize for defending their sovereignty. At the moment, neither country shows any desire to step back from confrontation, which ought to alarm everyone.

No small part of this mess has been caused by the essential similarities of both leaders. Mr. Putin and Mr. Erdoğan are charismatic strongmen with deep nationalist credentials. They have successfully employed faith mixed with chauvinism to handsome political effect, including nostalgia for lost imperial glory that rankles and scares their neighbors. They are popular with many citizens, who credit them with big economic advances among average people. Their political foes have fled the country in fear, while dissenting journalists and activists get arrested or killed in “mysterious,” never-solved crimes. Above all, they have used quasi-democratic ends to establish very un-democratic regimes, personally profiting in the process. Neither man has any history of backing down in the hour of crisis.

If all this sounds alarming, it should. It ought to be noted that neither Mr. Putin nor Mr. Erdoğan has crossed the point of no return yet: for the former, that would be cutting off Turkey’s natural gas shipments as winter sets in, while for the latter the shutting of the Bophorus to Russian ships, as it is permitted under the Montreux Convention of 1936, would have a similar effect, i.e. tantamount to a declaration of war. However, the lack of any signs of crisis de-escalation yet ought to raise concerns.

Moscow must understand it cannot bully a NATO member without consequences.

In Mr. Erdoğan, Mr. Putin has encountered a foe whose congenital response to the Kremlin strongman’s usual foreign policy playbook of tantrums and threats will be pushback rather than backing down. This matters because Turkey is a key member of NATO and it possesses a large and competent military—though it lacks the several thousand nuclear weapons Mr. Putin controls. Alarming signs are not difficult to detect. Demands in Moscow that Turkey return Hagia Sophia to the Orthodox Church, which fell to the Ottomans in 1453 when Constantinople—now Istanbul—at last was taken by the Turks after centuries of effort, are sure to inflame passions among history-minded Turks of an Islamist bent like Mr. Erdoğan.

Falling back on militant faith and historical grievance in a crisis is seldom an encouraging sign, and NATO needs to make it abundantly clear to Ankara that Article 5, the Alliance’s collective defense clause, does not apply if Turkey goads Russia into an avoidable war. That said, Moscow must understand that it cannot bully a NATO member without consequences either.

Continued.....

We can hope that Mr. Putin and Mr. Erdoğan, understanding what war—especially possible nuclear war—would mean, are more cautious than the leaders of 1914 were. At this hour, Mr. Obama is attempting to mediate this crisis before it gets out of hand, urging Turkey to step back a bit, and we should all wish him well, although there is reason to doubt Ankara takes Mr. Obama very seriously, given his dismal track record in the region. Whether reason prevails over passion in this hazardous misunderstanding between Russia and Turkey, who have waged numerous wars against each other over the centuries, remains to be seen.

Continued.......

[OUTLAW 09]

FSA retake the silos in northern #Aleppo from #SDF/#YPG
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78ljoKPKbzw …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=36.527105&lon=36.993756&z=17&m=b …

Dead Shiite forces- tried to invade Humaira village in southern rural #Aleppo

MAP: Fighting in NW #Syria between SDF and other rebel groups. -
MORE INFO: http://www.conflict-news.com/syrian-democratic-forces-vs-islamist-rebels/ …

[OUTLAW 09]

http://www.aspeninstitute.cz/en/article/4-2015-four-types-of-russian-propaganda/

Four Types of Russian Propaganda

Andrew Wilson


There are at least four types of Russian propaganda, each with different modus operandi in a strategically diverse environment.

Russia’s propaganda operation is now so vast that it is diversifying. Its institutional channels have spread from RT TV to Sputnik multi-media, to multi-lingual YouTube channels, and through the capillaries of social media. Propaganda is carefully differentiated by national (UK, US) and language (Arabic, Francophone) audiences; the message and the tone seem infinitely variable. This essay, however, argues that there are at least four types of Russian propaganda, each with different modus operandi in a strategically diverse environment.

1. The West’s Attention Deficit Disorder: Propaganda as Confusion

There are many ways of measuring Russia’s propaganda effort. There is no doubt that it is well-funded. RT claimed its 2014 budget was 13.85 billion rubles or 225 million dollars; total official Kremlin spending on mass media was 72.1 billion rubles or 1.1 billion dollars. The true amount spent will likely be in the billions.

There is less agreement on the size of the audience. Publicly-cited data is no doubt inflated by the Soviet tendency to over-claim in order to increase said levels of funding, plus the tendency to cite availability rather than actual audience, and because social media data tends to be only “likes” and “followers.” According to Maria Snegova, “RT’s official Twitter account has 815,000 followers, compared to 8 million followers of BBC World News and the 14.9 million CNN’s followers… RT has around 2.2 million fans on Facebook, compared to the 8.7 million and 16 million fans of BBC World News and CNN.”

TV figures roam widely, from RT’s claim to reach a potential audience of between 600 million and 700 million to the assertion that it only has 0.1% of the European audience.

The picture on YouTube is also mixed. According to Orttung et al., as of early 2015 “the RT flagship channel has a total of 1,471,491 subscribers,” and in one month “garnered 10,492,598 views,” but it was unclear how many “viewers [we]re coming for the helicopter golf,” rather than “staying for the Ukraine message.”

Judging the overall effect of Russian propaganda is even more difficult. The well-known analysis of Peter Pomerantsev and Michael Weiss concentrates on short-term effects. They claim that Russian propaganda is self-consciously post-modern: its purpose is not to convince or convert, but to confuse—to spread enough versions of reality to leave the target audience flailing in moral and even factual relativity, resigned to the unknowability of the world, and unable to find the cognitive basis for policy action.

Maria Snegova places contemporary Russian propaganda within the older Soviet tradition of the ‘4D’ approach: dismiss, distort, distract, and dismay. Moreover, she argues that obfuscation only works in the short-term, and undermines credibility in the long-term. The scatter-gun approach prevents coalescence around an alternative narrative. Snegova even argues that “the most successful period of RT has likely passed. Its audience has drastically shrunk following the Ukrainian crisis and unfavorable view of Russia spreading around the world.”

Both points of view are right, of course. But one might add that the key effect is in the medium term, although the medium term is very short indeed. The West’s first point of vulnerability is indeed its immediate judgment (or lack of judgment) of events. Its second point of vulnerability is Attention Deficit Disorder. In modern news cycles there is little time to actually think before the cycle moves on. For the mass audience at least, Russian propaganda only has to work until then.

2. Nudge Propaganda

Russian propaganda can still have a long- term effect, if it can affect and strengthen opinions which already exist. The second type of Russian propaganda is less about creating confusion and is more about “nudge effects.” It works by finding parties, politicians, and points-of-view that are already sure of their world-view rather than confused, and giving them a nudge—so long as these views are usefully anti-systemic.

For this type of Russian propaganda there is no such thing as strange bedfellows. Left or right, nationalist or separatist, jihadist or Islamophobic— all have featured on RT. The breadth of RT’s claimed audience is partly due to this superficial Catholicism—all are welcome, and all are welcome to talk about themselves and their pet causes. Therefore by definition there is no central narrative. Russian propaganda concentrates on supporting tropes, taking advantage of the world Raphaël Glucksmann describes in his 2015 book Génération gueule de bois [Generation Hangover]: a West that grew used to a world without existential opponents after 1989, where people protest under old slogans without new thinking, and make strange alliances and metamorphoses. Though, anti-Americanism writ large is a guiding theme for many of the other tropes: the decline of Europe, the rise of other powers, the crisis of global capitalism, and the re-definition of liberal interventionism and misguided democracy-promotion as the Empire of Chaos, to quote the 2014 book by the RT favorite Pepe Escobar.

3. Propaganda at Home: Mobilizing the Putin Majority

Russia’s propaganda is Janus-faced; though a metaphor closer to home might be the double-headed Russian eagle. If the point of pluralistic propaganda abroad is to nudge or confuse, domestic propaganda is monopolistic. Its point is to create and maintain the super-majorities of Putin support that are the lodestone of the current Russian political system. A system without real ideology in a country as large as Russia can easily fall victim to bureaucratic and local interests. The famed “administrative vertical” is a myth. Thus Putin’s 89% rating is not just a sign of him heading a popularity contest; it is a tool to ensure that the actions of the otherwise disparate parts of the political system are scripted by that virtual unanimity. And it also means that 89% are signaling their loyalty to the system by formally acquiescing in its narrative (like Václav Havel’s greengrocer placing a Communist slogan in his window).

The Levada Centre has some quite extraordinary data showing the Russian equivalent of Orwell’s Two Minutes’ Hate—the rise and fall of negative attitudes towards Ukraine, Georgia, and the USA. In all cases, with a time-lag, they closely track the efforts of the Russian mass media. Negative attitudes towards “fraternal” Ukraine, for example, barely existed before being inflamed during various crises that predated the EuroMaidan—the Orange Revolution, the gas disputes of 2006 and 2009—before really taking off in 2014. Now they have bottomed out, with the Russian mass media switching its attention to Syria. Negative attitudes towards Russia in Ukraine, on the other hand, seemed to have grown for the long-term.

The way the data changes so predictably suggests that such attitudinal changes are in large part ritualistic and may not go deep. As in 1984, venom can be easily targeted and turned. However, Russia is not a totalitarian state. There are corrective mechanisms. Sergey Aleksashenko describes one as “the opportunity to ‘prove harmony by algebra’” (to borrow a line from Pushkin’s “Mozart and Salieri”). Once Russians “compare the stream of official information to surrounding realities and their own life experience, then it turns out that the effectiveness of state propaganda sharply drops.”

There is a much more radical corrective mechanism—the Emperor’s Clothes moment for the Bolotnaya protestors in 2011, when they mocked the naked Putin, the man behind the message, the man suddenly without a message, as just “a thief.” This sudden éclaircissement could also be called the Mourinho Effect, after one of Europe’s most successful football managers, currently with Chelsea, ironically owned by Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich. José Mourinho has copied an old trick: building a sense of team spirit, of us-against-the-world, by picking fights with everybody—other clubs, other managers, referees, the football authorities. This might work for a year or two; but most of Mourinho’s enemies are imaginary. His natural life-span at any given club is two to three years; once the effect wears off and the trick becomes obvious, even his own players may get embarrassed by higher and higher doses of artificial drama.

The political equivalent for Russia would be the moment when the domestic audience gets tired by, alienated by, or even sees through, the simplicities of this year’s propaganda show. This is where the EU and USA should concentrate their anti-propaganda efforts—correcting the Russian propaganda view of the West is fine in theory, but risks feeding the idea that this is all about hostile external powers. The aim should be to talk to the Russian audience in its own language about its own interests, and tell them their leaders are selling them short.

But the danger of some sudden éclaircissement is also the main reason for fearing that the Kremlin needs not just new stories and repeat doses of propaganda, but higher and higher doses to overcome the potential alienation effect. Particularly because the other obvious danger is that reality will bite back; and nothing could illustrate this better than the venture into Syria. Unless the strategy is to invite reality to bite back, and heighten the sense of Russia- under-siege.

Continued........

[OUTLAW 09]

Turkey’s PM Davutoglu said this today: We can burn dried cow dung (as fuel) if needed instead of Russia gas and defend our borders

BREAKING: Russia suspends Turkish Stream talks with Ankara, - media
http://en.censor.net.ua/n363224

Let's hope #Russia cuts gas supplies to #Turkey. Then finally the Trans-Caspian pipeline from #Turkmenistan to #Azerbaijan will be built!

[OUTLAW 09]

Names of at least 16 Iranian generals killed in Syria
http://ln.is/www.ncr-iran.org/ar/IpWsh …

[OUTLAW 09]

Multiple Russian airstrikes targeted rebel positions in Deir Jamal, Zyara & Menagh airbase in Aleppo, Syria.

YPG, Assad & ISIS must be happy

[OUTLAW 09]

In just 2 months of bombings, Russia killed 2 times more civilians than US bombings on Syria did in 14 months.

[OUTLAW 09]

What the neck......still not much more on this in the way of the WHY????


What's happening in the #Bosphorus, I can count 80 ships halted at both entrances and no cargo boats or tanker transiting through it ??

Dozens of ships seems to be turning in circles on the black sea side, ships that were supposed to pass through the #Bosphorus.

[OUTLAW 09]

Turkey is basically is the only western country that is calling Putin out with his lies and disinformation.......OR have you heard anything from Obama, Hollande and or Merkel......

Turkey's PM says they have alt sources to Russian gas, names Iran & Azerbaijan. Tells Russia to be "more logical". http://www.rosbalt.ru/main/2015/12/02/1467053.html …

Turkish Hurriyet Daily: Russia using crisis to further strengthen military presence in Syria
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/is-russia-fighting-isil-or-occupying-syria.aspx?pageID=449&nID=91947&NewsCatID=429 … pic.twitter.com/v1zqgpFBJv

[OUTLAW 09]

What the neck......still not much more on this in the way of the WHY????


What's happening in the #Bosphorus, I can count 80 ships halted at both entrances and no cargo boats or tanker transiting through it ??

Dozens of ships seems to be turning in circles on the black sea side, ships that were supposed to pass through the #Bosphorus.

Now it could be a temporary closure of some sort but it is rather weird to me. 80 ships anchored and about 20 turning in circles. #Bosphorus

Seems like as soon as they pass the Navigation aid marker they are told to go anchor on the side. All shifting their direction. #Bosphorus

NOTE: evidently the Turks are showing the Russians they control the strait---since 30/11 they have built up delays and or delayed ships then suddenly allowed a single say Russian tanker to pass and hold back the rest.........then a single cargo freighter and then suddenly all is fine

Mind games are being played with the Russians......

[CrowBat]

I will follow-up on our Turkey conversation shortly, but I wanted to ask you first what your thoughts are on the dreaded S-300-400-500 family of SAMs. How do they stack up against Western, especially US, systems? How much is real and how much is hype? Are they reliant on supporting systems that aren't there?

Cheers
I consider myself an 'air warfare analyst', and as such do not have a particularly high opinion of SAMs in general - at least not before they prove as 'effective beyond doubt, in combat'.

Namely, my experience from studying various high-tech air wars in the Middle East is: there are giant differences between 'routine, peace-time ops' and 'combat ops'. And also: the more famed some SAM is, the less effective it turns out in ops.

Let me just observe here: Soviet (at earlier times) and nowadays Russian SAMs have been famed beyond anything acceptable. They were often declared for true 'wonder weapons' even by various Western observers (not only by Russians). A closer study of systems in question - particularly such like SA-6 of the 1973 fame - have revealed only a mass of weak spots.

In comparison, next to nothing is known about SAMs deployed by various types of USN's warships: the little that is known about these is that they proved murderous already during the Vietnam War. Similarly, and generally, very little is known about effectiveness of MIM-23B I-HAWK SAMs in Iranian and Israeli service... Similarly, the SA-3 is often entirely ignored, although in ops it actually proved more effective than SA-6...

Anyway... the S-400 is probably comparable to the US-made PAC-2 (aka MIM-104C) in its overall capability. Even so, and whether Russian or Western, SAMs have extensive limitations. Foremost, they are inflexible: even mobile systems like S-400 are lacking manoeuvreability of combat aircraft. This means that while, sure, they can deny the use of airspace within a limited area, they are also easily 'outmanoeuvred' (usually 'outflanked').

No matter the advertising about 'over-the-horizon-capability' by their manufacturers, they suffer from ground clutter - especially when positioned low at the sea coast, and even more so if having a 'wall' of 2,000-metres high mountains right in front of their face, and then on two sides (like this is the case with that Russian S-400 site in Istamo now). In long-range ops, they are vulnerable from all sorts of negative influence by atmospheric conditions (especially if the sky is humid) etc.

Finally, their ops are much more susceptible to mistakes than those of combat aircraft: if necessary (always depending on ROEs, of course), their operators can't get up into the air and do the VID. They can easily misinterpret IFF-transmissions (see what happened to the crew of USS Vinncennes in 1988) etc.

I would say: if the operators of that Russian S-400 site now deployed at Istamo haven't got some damn good and extremely realistic training (and I doubt they did), under current circumstances the system is more likely to prove a liability than any kind of safety. In worst case, it is very likely to cause a major tragedy, big international incident, and add shame to Russian behaviour: keep in mind that Adana remains a tourist centre, even without Russians, just for example, and that up to 50 airliners are landing there during the summer season...

Bottom line: it's a grandiose (but dumb too) PR-coup to declare in the public this S-400 would now 'guarantee safety' of Russian aircraft underway over northern Syria. But, it's actually a mistake to expect that it could provide anything like at least near-decent coverage of the airspace over northern Syria. Either the VKS aircraft can protect themselves (and their crews can learn to navigate), or they cannot: SAMs are not going to help them.

[OUTLAW 09]

Russian sealift.........Syrian Express.....

First mentioning of livestock being shipped to Syria for the Russian military..

Cambodia flag livestock carrier Rabunion20 transits Bosphorus en route from Romanian port Sulina to Tartus

[OUTLAW 09]

Under #Russia'n airstrikes & #YPG/#SDF ground attack #FSA were not able to hold Kafrah town against #IslamicState

Russia bombed #FSA with 100+ airstrikes in N- #Aleppo the past weeks- but not a single bomb hit the #IslamicState

IslamicState thanks for #Russia'n & kurdish #YPG air & ground-support against #FSA in northern #Aleppo- IS try to take 2 villages at #Azaz

InfoGraphic+Map: Factions involved in North Aleppo's Opposition / SDF Conflict | #Syria.
HD: http://goo.gl/ny3BUC

Rebels killed the commander of #Iraq'i Shiite "Liwa al-Imam al-Hussein" brigade in southern rural #Aleppo
http://jihadintel.meforum.org/group/127/liwa-al-imam-al-hussein …

Reports of major FSA operation N Aleppo w/ TRAF CAS vs ISIL & Assad. Putin made a move to Azaz & al-Salama trying to stop it
in co. w/ YPG

Levant Front downed ISIL recon drone north Aleppo.
http://youtu.be/94803UtmEpA

Jaish al-Fath says killed over 50 IRGC militants around al-Qarasi village south #Aleppo during past week clashes.

1 December 2015
The number of regime tanks destroyed by the FSA in Nov 2015
pic.twitter.com/5Rj8FFnVqK

[OUTLAW 09]

Reference Russian combat loses.....

In November bodies of 14 dead #Russia(n) soldiers arrived in #Crimea (#UKRAINE) from #Syria
pic.twitter.com/xmT69cLs4c

[OUTLAW 09]

DOES this sense to anyone at SWJ.....?

BREAKINGNEWS
#ISIS ADVANCES UNDER #RUSSIANAIRSTRIKES COVER VS. THE #FSA NORTH OF #ALEPPO.
6 km till #Azaz !!!

Unbelievable!
#Russia now in DIRECT frontline support for #ISIS, bombing the rebel front as #ISIS advances on #Azaz.

ISIS fighters trying to advance more and reach the border crossing with #Turkey, as #Russia attacking #Azaz city and Rebels positions.

As expected - Opposition forces lost Kafrah village to #ISIS due to heavy #Russia|n airstrikes, giving #ISIS the ability to gain territory.

But we must be honest: Not only #Russia doesn't hit #ISIS N of #Aleppo.
Also #Turkey, the #EU & the #US don't.
Common plan to defeat rebels?

Without #Turkey intervening, #ISIS will conquer the entire border and cut the supply line to civilians in #Aleppo within weeks.

Going to plan then: pound moderate rebels until irrelevant, left with only IS. West will then join Assad+RU. Assad happy man!

[OUTLAW 09]

Russian sealift.........Syrian Express.....

First mentioning of livestock being shipped to Syria for the Russian military..

Cambodia flag livestock carrier Rabunion20 transits Bosphorus en route from Romanian port Sulina to Tartus

ВМФ #ЧМФ Tapir class landing ship BSF Saratov 150 transits southbound Bosphorus en route to Tartus

This is the 7th #Syria deployment for #ВМФ #ЧМФ Tapir class landing ship BSF Saratov 150

[OUTLAW 09]

Russia'n airstrikes also on #FSA in Kafer Kalbeen
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=36.555085&lon=37.090530&z=14&m=b …
statement "Azaz media" team:
https://www.facebook.com/NorthMediaInstitute/posts/1507391922895188 …

No doubt: #Russia'n airstrikes on #FSA help #IslamicState to take over northern rural #Aleppo- thats cut off all supplies to the city

IslamicState on the verge to lose Deir Hafer city in E-#Aleppo
to #Assad-forces- but able to advance on #Azaz city in N-#Aleppo

Russia still bombing #FSA hold towns & villages in northern #Aleppo- but conduct not a single strike on #IslamicState in this area

[OUTLAW 09]

Putin accuses Turkey of receiving IS oil, Turkey says prove it and who proves it?......Russian info warrior outlet media Russia Today the main info warfare outlet of the Russian government.

Russia's TV claim #IslamicState carry oil via regime area in the west & kurdish controlled area in east to Turkey

Russia's MoD summoned foriegn jounos to explain how Turkey is buying oil from Isil

NOTICE the MoD accusations are really "claims" not a single solid piece of evidence, photo, voice intercepts and or satellite tracking and or photos taken inside Turkey were presented......

THEN this closing statement from the Russian MoD:
At the end of today's briefing, dept defence minister Antonov anticipated "claims that everything you've seen today is a falsification."

Seems that the Russian MoD is social media open source analysis wise "gun shy"....based on their previously poor performances concerning the shot down of MH17 and the geo tagging of their Syrian bombing videos which they claimed were targeting IS but social media has proven 65 to be totally wrong and they were in fact hitting FSA.

Roland Oliphant ‏@RolandOliphant
I suspect he may have been thinking of @bellingcat, @EliotHiggins and friends...
in Paris
Roland Oliphant ‏@RolandOliphant
He may also have been thinking of Erdogan, who just called it "slander"

WAS basically just a dog and pony show without the dogs and ponies used to provide CYA for Putin's public remarks in Paris.....

[OUTLAW 09]

FSA destroy regime army technical south #Aleppo. TOW hit
https://youtu.be/MEes5OhA1uo

Footage
New rebel DIY weapon in #Homs province.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yk9hww_ain4 …

[OUTLAW 09]

Turkey's reverse sanctions on Russia and it will hurt Gazproms bottom line as Turkey is the second largest customer behind Germany...

BREAKING: Turkey may cut Russian imports of liquefied petroleum gas by 25 percent next year due to political spat

Turkey signed a LNG contract today with Qatar.........

[OUTLAW 09]

Putin accuses Turkey of receiving IS oil, Turkey says prove it and who proves it?......Russian info warrior outlet media Russia Today the main info warfare outlet of the Russian government.

Russia's TV claim #IslamicState carry oil via regime area in the west & kurdish controlled area in east to Turkey

Russia's MoD summoned foriegn jounos to explain how Turkey is buying oil from Isil

NOTICE the MoD accusations are really "claims" not a single solid piece of evidence, photo, voice intercepts and or satellite tracking and or photos taken inside Turkey were presented......

THEN this closing statement from the Russian MoD:
At the end of today's briefing, dept defence minister Antonov anticipated "claims that everything you've seen today is a falsification."

Seems that the Russian MoD is social media open source analysis wise "gun shy"....based on their previously poor performances concerning the shot down of MH17 and the geo tagging of their Syrian bombing videos which they claimed were targeting IS but social media has proven 65 to be totally wrong and they were in fact hitting FSA.

Roland Oliphant ‏@RolandOliphant
I suspect he may have been thinking of @bellingcat, @EliotHiggins and friends...
in Paris
Roland Oliphant ‏@RolandOliphant
He may also have been thinking of Erdogan, who just called it "slander"

WAS basically just a dog and pony show without the dogs and ponies used to provide CYA for Putin's public remarks in Paris.....

AND now social media open source analysis begins to tear apart the Russian MoD presentation.....

Eliot Higgins @EliotHiggins
Someone should let the Kurds know that according to the Russian MoD they lost a bunch of territory to ISIS
pic.twitter.com/Q5dZSoMjlK

[OUTLAW 09]

Seems to be that #RuAF struck an important water treatment facility. http://www.unicef.org/media/media_86402.html …
pic.twitter.com/q8lfPf9jzV

From the realm of the "what the heck"......???
UK has lost its mind. Chair of foreign affair committee called for arming Assad today. My response https://twitter.com/Millermena/status/672055740983615488 …

[OUTLAW 09]

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/moscow-must-avoid-shadow-war-with-ankara/551466.html

Moscow Must Avoid Shadow War With Ankara

By Mark Galeotti

Dec. 02 2015 00:00


Moscow is sanctioning Turkish goods and holidays, something that will have a distinct impact on an economy which earns $6.5 billion a year from Russian tourists, but is this enough to assuage President Vladimir Putin's evident fury at the shooting down of one of his bombers? And if it is not, what else can he do short of direct — and hopefully unthinkable — military action against a NATO member with an army not that much smaller that Russia's? The temptation may be, to strike from the shadows.

Turkey and Russia have, after all, a long and bloody history not just of outright war, but of border, indirect, covert and political struggles. From proxy wars in the Caucasus khanates and Ukraine in the 17th century, through to political tussles over Poland in the 18th, and cultural-religious ones in the Balkans which lasted through into the 20th, these are two countries with a long tradition of underhand conflict.

Today, Moscow's capacities to blend political, intelligence, information and even criminal assets into multi-vectored campaigns is greater than ever. For a president eager to extract a pound of flesh, this may seem a tempting option.

For a start, Turkey — ever volatile — is going through a particularly violent and turbulent time. This year has seem presumed Islamic State bomb attacks, others against Kurdish rallies, and a spate of other killings including last week's which saw a prominent Kurdish human rights lawyer killed. Against this backdrop, Russian agents and hirelings might be able to launch attacks of their own (and how many more would it take to ensure other tourists, for example, stay away, further hitting the economy?) without it obviously being a Muscovite maneuver.

Indeed, part of the value of such incidents might also be to provoke further violence between Turkish factions themselves. Stirring up trouble between Kurds, ultra-leftist terrorists like the DHKC/P, criminals, and a government also prone to sanctioned and unsanctioned violence and then sitting back to enjoy the show might suit the Kremlin well.

The presence of an organized and active Kurdish movement is also a potential asset. With the Kurds having in effect established a state for themselves in Iraq, and being one of the more effective militias in Syria (much to Ankara's chagrin), renewed pressures for their independence or autonomy within Turkey is inevitable. In this case, the Russians — who have supported the Kurds in the past when it was expedient — could be useful friends to them. This could just mean political support in international fora, but could also involve funding or even arming the more radical groups.

Given that Turkish President Recep Erdogan is engaged in an ambitious effort to re-establish Turkey as a regional power, one could also see Russia responding by more aggressively countering this. From Azerbaijan to Turkish-controlled Northern Cyprus (whose president is increasingly at odds with Ankara), through to Israel (an important trading partner, despite the obvious personal antagonism between Erdogan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu), there is a wealth of areas in which to introduce problems, from a judicious smear or leak here, to an outright assassination or staged provocation there.

And yet Putin should think thrice before striking once. The chances of his strategy becoming clear in the end are great and this would anger Ankara and worry the West. Besides, Turkey is no soft target, Erdogan doubly so. The irony is that Turkey is in many ways similar to Russia, from its revisionist plans and the aggressiveness of its intelligence agencies, to the character of its ambitious autocrat-presidents. It may lack the excitement of a war in the shadows, but ultimately Putin would be best served sticking to the humdrum world of the boycott and the diplomatic rebuke.

[OUTLAW 09]

Reports Levant Front retaken Jazer village and trying to advance to Kafrah captured today by #ISIL north #Aleppo.
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=36.570459&lon=37.148809&z=15&m=b …

ISIS is trying to storm #Syria|n town of #Marea. Heavy clashes with #FSA in the northern part.
#Aleppo
pic.twitter.com/eyVQB03lod

With Russian airstrikes Daesh take chance to gain more territories in Northern Aleppo
http://syria.liveuamap.com
pic.twitter.com/v7mSKIjrqQ

MORE Russian info warfare.........
TASS 
‏@tassagency_en NATO-Russia Council resumption can help overcome differences — lawmaker
http://tass.ru/en/politics/841017 …
Putin has burnt so many bridges lately...........

[OUTLAW 09]

Russian AF air strikes again on Turkish aid convoy trucks.....

Photo #SCD extinguishing the fire on trucks due #Russia airstrikes, dozens martyrs & wounded
#Aleppo #Syria
Dec 2
pic.twitter.com/0v5iC6ObnY

Russian air strike used thermobaric weapons......
Russia warplanes bombed AID trucks on the road between #Ihris & #Kafr_Nasih w/vacuum missiles, causalities reported..

Urgent
#Russia warplanes carried out airstrikes targeting #Ihras neighborhood
#Aleppo #Syria Dec 2
pic.twitter.com/EiVEc3eqZB

Several RuAF strikes on Anadan village 30k m from #ISIL north Aleppo
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=36.292576&lon=37.046757&z=13&m=b …
https://youtu.be/qU_VjqKjdRA pic.twitter.com/Omc7FccE8h

Urgent
A massacre in #Harayitan village, after #Russia airstrikes, dozens martyrs, mostly children and several wounded
#aleppo #Syria Dec 2

News
#Putin's #Su34 bombed rebels at the #ISIS front E of #Azaz for the whole day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qU_VjqKjdRA …
pic.twitter.com/dovrqWmP5Z

[OUTLAW 09]

Russia´s oil rants about #Turkey are a bit odd given the fact most #IS oil is sold inside regime held #Syria.

So will the Russian MoD explain this tidbit of information they themselves revealed...........??????

According to this map IS oil gets into Turkey through SAA held Qamishli BCP...

The other main route into Turkey is supposedly Afrin which has no border crossings, it's really a "bad" map

How are they getting the oil through Kurdish lines?

They probably aren't, south Hasakah is a volatile frontline at this moment, this is just Russian propaganda

[OUTLAW 09]

Breaking: New #ISIS vid shows #Russian ISIS fighter behead a #Russian "agent";1st #ISIS vid of Russian beheading pic.twitter.com/g63YSLlFDT

New Isis video apparently circulating showing beheading of “FSB agent from Chechnya”.

[OUTLAW 09]

There is an interesting t........t for tat going on.....the anti Assad groups are being supported by Turkey, the KSA and the other Sunni Front States who are demanding that Assad immediately leave.

Assad is being supported by Russia and Iran who want to keep Assad in place for at least 18 months.

Russia is both verbally and physically attacking Turkey......now this from the
German BND (their CIA) BUT released via the UK not from a major German media outlet.....

The BND released a number of proRussian statements early into the invasion of the Ukraine which proved to be really bad disinformation but never retracted them. Social media open source analysis disproved their statements.

Saudi Arabia 'destabilising Arab world', German intelligence warns http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/saudiarabia/12029546/Saudi-Arabia-destabilising-Arab-world-German-intelligence-warns.html … unusual & blunt BND assessment of Western ally

WHAT is interesting is that they never lost a word on Iranian terrorism NOR the fact that a large number of Syrian and Iraqi Shia militia fighters have made their way to Germany as "refugees".

[OUTLAW 09]

There is an interesting t........t for tat going on.....the anti Assad groups are being supported by Turkey, the KSA and the other Sunni Front States who are demanding that Assad immediately leave.

Assad is being supported by Russia and Iran who want to keep Assad in place for at least 18 months.

Russia is both verbally and physically attacking Turkey......now this from the
German BND (their CIA) BUT released via the UK not from a major German media outlet.....

The BND released a number of proRussian statements early into the invasion of the Ukraine which proved to be really bad disinformation but never retracted them. Social media open source analysis disproved their statements.

Saudi Arabia 'destabilising Arab world', German intelligence warns http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/saudiarabia/12029546/Saudi-Arabia-destabilising-Arab-world-German-intelligence-warns.html … unusual & blunt BND assessment of Western ally

WHAT is interesting is that they never lost a word on Iranian terrorism NOR the fact that a large number of Syrian and Iraqi Shia militia fighters have made their way to Germany as "refugees".

And Die Welt joins the Russian MoD chorus to smear Turkey without raising any doubt about Russian credibility https://twitter.com/welt/status/672102589270462464 …

[CrowBat]

Morbidity of Western politicians is reaching levels beyond amazing. Indeed, for me statements of farths like that chairman or German MOD van der Leyen are outright shocking.

These people can reach back upon some of best intel services in history of human kind... are they all so clueless about what is going on in Syria?

If not, they must be so incredibly arrogant, that their indifference towards all the massacres of Syrians instigated by Assad's sadists and killers of the Russian Air Force is sickening.

[OUTLAW 09]

Appears that the Russian MoD oil briefing had some rather large holes in it.....


Russia'n lie propaganda shows a gas plant -not an oil refinerie in #Syria
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=35.342610&lon=40.321112&z=16 …

@mod_russia most likely pics of Kurdish oil trucks transporting oil from Rumeilan refinery.

MORE Russian MoD blatant lies
Минобороны России Verified account 
‏@mod_russia #SYRIA Airstrike against oil refinery near Khafsa Kabir
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKbA_g-4zEE …

When @markito0171 sees that's waste water treatment facility, not an oil refinery why doesn't @mod_russia?

[OUTLAW 09]

MORE Russian infantry fighting in the forward areas will equal more loses like the 14 mentioned yesterday.....
proAssad commenter
SAA Reporter ‏@Syria_Protector
#Syrian and #Russian infantry soldiers at the perimeter of #Palmyra #Tadmor
pic.twitter.com/aAhywe0mXX

The Interpreter @Interpreter_Mag
5 Myths: Russia’s False ISIS Narrative In Syria
http://bit.ly/1NpuT6f
pic.twitter.com/oODlNwUjzf

It's not the first time ISIS is seen with (new) Russian uniforms.
How did they get those? Just think about it...
https://twitter.com/loogunda/status/672158826590838784 …

New #ISIS video shows a #Russia|n ISIS fighter (wearing #GRU Spetsnaz uniform) beheading a Chechen "FSB agent"
pic.twitter.com/EtiXj8kFha

Russia'n airstrikes on grain silos in #Syria - not oil reservoirs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0WhFUJy_no …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkvXO-qSw0s …
pic.twitter.com/gkLR9Icn29

[OUTLAW 09]

Russia seems to bomb many 'oil refinery lookalikes'. But why not checking video material at least? Laziness?
https://twitter.com/markito0171/status/672173890051903489 …

Turkish-backed #FSA unit fights #ISIS in #Jarez(!) after advances under #RussianAirstrikes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cil8p9ryC_s …
pic.twitter.com/xd59ddg5Ts

[Azor]

I consider myself an 'air warfare analyst', and as such do not have a particularly high opinion of SAMs in general - at least not before they prove as 'effective beyond doubt, in combat'.

Namely, my experience from studying various high-tech air wars in the Middle East is: there are giant differences between 'routine, peace-time ops' and 'combat ops'. And also: the more famed some SAM is, the less effective it turns out in ops.

Let me just observe here: Soviet (at earlier times) and nowadays Russian SAMs have been famed beyond anything acceptable. They were often declared for true 'wonder weapons' even by various Western observers (not only by Russians). A closer study of systems in question - particularly such like SA-6 of the 1973 fame - have revealed only a mass of weak spots.

In comparison, next to nothing is known about SAMs deployed by various types of USN's warships: the little that is known about these is that they proved murderous already during the Vietnam War. Similarly, and generally, very little is known about effectiveness of MIM-23B I-HAWK SAMs in Iranian and Israeli service... Similarly, the SA-3 is often entirely ignored, although in ops it actually proved more effective than SA-6...

Anyway... the S-400 is probably comparable to the US-made PAC-2 (aka MIM-104C) in its overall capability. Even so, and whether Russian or Western, SAMs have extensive limitations. Foremost, they are inflexible: even mobile systems like S-400 are lacking manoeuvreability of combat aircraft. This means that while, sure, they can deny the use of airspace within a limited area, they are also easily 'outmanoeuvred' (usually 'outflanked').

No matter the advertising about 'over-the-horizon-capability' by their manufacturers, they suffer from ground clutter - especially when positioned low at the sea coast, and even more so if having a 'wall' of 2,000-metres high mountains right in front of their face, and then on two sides (like this is the case with that Russian S-400 site in Istamo now). In long-range ops, they are vulnerable from all sorts of negative influence by atmospheric conditions (especially if the sky is humid) etc.

Finally, their ops are much more susceptible to mistakes than those of combat aircraft: if necessary (always depending on ROEs, of course), their operators can't get up into the air and do the VID. They can easily misinterpret IFF-transmissions (see what happened to the crew of USS Vinncennes in 1988) etc.

I would say: if the operators of that Russian S-400 site now deployed at Istamo haven't got some damn good and extremely realistic training (and I doubt they did), under current circumstances the system is more likely to prove a liability than any kind of safety. In worst case, it is very likely to cause a major tragedy, big international incident, and add shame to Russian behaviour: keep in mind that Adana remains a tourist centre, even without Russians, just for example, and that up to 50 airliners are landing there during the summer season...

Bottom line: it's a grandiose (but dumb too) PR-coup to declare in the public this S-400 would now 'guarantee safety' of Russian aircraft underway over northern Syria. But, it's actually a mistake to expect that it could provide anything like at least near-decent coverage of the airspace over northern Syria. Either the VKS aircraft can protect themselves (and their crews can learn to navigate), or they cannot: SAMs are not going to help them.

Outstanding. Puts things in context, like Israeli and US jamming capabilities. The only 2 countries who critique every military operation they do and live in terror of surprise attack...

[Azor]

Morbidity of Western politicians is reaching levels beyond amazing. Indeed, for me statements of farths like that chairman or German MOD van der Leyen are outright shocking.

These people can reach back upon some of best intel services in history of human kind... are they all so clueless about what is going on in Syria?

If not, they must be so incredibly arrogant, that their indifference towards all the massacres of Syrians instigated by Assad's sadists and killers of the Russian Air Force is sickening.

You know why that is, right? Why von der Leyen is so forward looking about making things right with Russia?

Even after German depravities in occupied Poland, the government and Der Spiegel still tolerates Volksdeutsche wanting their houses in Western Poland back. German scholars dig up dirty on "strategic bombing", or US or British rapes in postwar Germany. Why? Because the answer is silence or a few angry tweets.

Russia is the abusive ex-husband Germany hasn't come to terms with. Despite the restraining order she still is in business with him, and thinks he's "misunderstood...he's trying to change". If Germany complains about Russian rapes, well, the gas supplies get spotty and Iskanders are deployed to Kaliningrad.

The US is the new evil empire and warmonger, but we'll slide Israel some free SSBNs under the table...

Yes, Germany, the bedrock of NATO...

Rant over

[OUTLAW 09]

Report: #Iran deploy 2 dozen fighter jets on Tiyas Airbase (T4) btw #Homs & desert city of #Palmyra

[OUTLAW 09]

Hama Defection of soldier near Kafr Nabudah
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nx8I0OKkuEo …

IslamicState try to storm #FSA hold Baraghidah village in northern #Aleppo near #Turkey border http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=36.634195&lon=37.213783&z=14&m=b …

Hama Lots of dead #Assad-forces -tried to advance from Hakoura to
Al-Qahira in Ghab plain
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.610069&lon=36.350584&z=14&m=b …

FSA Southern Front announces the start of the offensive to liberate Jadia & tank battalion in #Daraa

Rebels launch battle for control of Judayyah village & nearby artillery base in northern #Daraa province
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=33.064356&lon=36.112919&z=14&m=b …

[OUTLAW 09]

BREAKING: Erdogan allegedly claims to have evidence that Russia is involved with the #ISIS oil trade. - @MiddleEastEye

This will be interesting as the US has already just sanctioned a number of Russians and several Russian companies for dealing in Iraqi/Syria stolen oil.

So just what does he have--Russian media has not replied yet.

[OUTLAW 09]

I know the Russian MoD has an ego problem when they compare themselves to the US military....but really---just what the heck are they doing embarrassing themselves this badly----in the info warfare they assume they are the best BUT lately social media is shredding them to pieces.

They keep releasing bombing videos of attacks on IS oil facilities and yet social media just keeps on geo tagging them as actual attacks on critical civilian food and infrastructure.

If I personally had a voice inside the Russian MoD I would tell them to finally correctly ID the videos and or simply stop releasing them all together but then the home front might ask the core question--Why??---it is now just plain embarrassing.

If this is the best the Russian MoD imagery analysts can do--then they have some serious problems...

Syria | New @mod_russia vid shows #RuAF airstrike on alleged IS oil storage near Tuwayzan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPfPNwhB7Ec …

Russia'n airstrikes on cotton depot near grain storage #Syria

Another proof that #Russia attack the food production in #Syria
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3eDynXdh8Y …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.936316&lon=36.607974&z=17&m=b …

Russia'n airstrikes on grain silos in #Syria - not oil reservoirs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0WhFUJy_no …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkvXO-qSw0s …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mp9-7ncYcK8 …

Russia'n lie propaganda shows a gas plant -not an oil refinerie in #Syria
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=35.342610&lon=40.321112&z=16 …

MORE Russian air strikes on grain storage.......
RuAF airstrike on grain silos geolocated near Surman, Idlib
http://wikimapia.org/#lat=35.597726&lon=36.864377&z=17&m=b …
https://youtu.be/ol4xMGgAbKE

Probably called at the next Russian MoD briefing--serious attack on IS oil production and storage---we are winning a great victory?????

[OUTLAW 09]

Latakia Cruise missile impact reported from Kafrinjah area
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.788298&lon=36.216173&z=14&m=b …

MLRS shelling at Ghab plain
http://syria.liveuamap.com/en/2015/3-december-mlrs-shelling-at-ghab-plain …

Footage
Syrian rebels regain control of #Jarez despite all #ISIS / #Russian efforts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8_S_ShDA1s …

Another ENG #MustWatch on #RussianAirstrikes on #Aleppo city by @RamiJarrah.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2-S4qe8eD0 …

GRAPHIC
BreakingFootage
#RussianAirstrikes hit children / civ in #Anadan, N of #Aleppo, tonight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dybXOH1ZbEs …

[OUTLAW 09]

ANOTHER Russian air strike on a Turkish aid convoy BUT demand that the Ukraine cannot stop their own "aid" convoys into eastern Ukraine which usually carry military supplies not "actual humanitarian aid".

Footage
A truck convoy on fire after heavy #RussianAirstrikes near #Azaz tonight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UT8mcINRyIs …

[OUTLAW 09]

Russia is now officially fueling the Sunni Shia conflict in a far larger way than the Obama WH seems capable of understanding at this time and space in their current lack luster FP.

Iranian backed Houthi forces in Yemen receive weapons from Russia.
Russia is fuelling conflicts.
http://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/News/2015/12/2/Saleh-begs-Russians-for-missiles …
via @AEJKhalil

[OUTLAW 09]

Russian MoD lies through its teeth, but still its accusations vs Erdogan are republished unchallenged by most of the German press!

⊠ Not oil storage, — a grain silo
⊠ Not ISIS, — farmers
⊠ Not al-Sawra, — Surman
Still has trust from @DeutscheWelle
https://twitter.com/JulianRoepcke/status/672406501181530112 …

Dictionary
Russian - Reality
"We bombed an ISIS oil storage"
Equals
"We bombed a civilian grain silo"
#RussiaLies
https://twitter.com/obretix/status/672391479634038784 …

RUSSIA BOMBING #SAA
Probably another navigational error due to Russian consumer graded gps in their aircrafts?
https://twitter.com/AEJKhalil/status/672373902039982080 …

[OUTLAW 09]

DoS Kerry seems to be on another planet........

Also, unicorn farming has promising future. Kerry says Syrian ceasefire could lead to IS' defeat in 'months'
http://ctv.news/QuNDSSj

[OUTLAW 09]

Appears this is all of the evidence Putin had when he accused Erdogan of being involved with IS oil......

As evidence that Erdogan family benefits from ISIS oil trade Kremlin posted picture of octopus w fistful of cash https://twitter.com/russianembassy/status/672122300041437185 …

[OUTLAW 09]

Russian killed by IS was FSB recruit sent to Syria as part of deal over drug-related arrest, @SvobodaRadio says http://www.svoboda.org/content/article/27404124.html …

Evidently poor Russian FSB tradecraft led to his being discovered.....but what can one await from the same nation that claims that they are using "highly precision munitions" AND thinks grain silos are oil storage tanks?????

[OUTLAW 09]

From Putin's Russian State of the Union speech today.........

Reference Turkey.......


"Allah knows why they did it. Allah decided to punish the ruling clique in Turkey by depriving them of their intelligence and reason."

"We are not planning to engage in military sabre-rattling," Putin said, foreshadowing Russia's response to Turkey downing its jet last week. "But if anyone thinks that having committed this awful war crime, the murder of our people, that they are going to get away with some measures concerning their tomatoes or some limits on construction and other sectors, they are sorely mistaken."

Translation: This is personal. Nobody shoots down one of our planes and gets away with it. We're coming for you, Turkey.

Interesting that a Russian Orthodox quotes "Allah".........kind of explains the Putin statement..."we will not get drawn into a religious war"....but wait he supports the Shia against the Sunni and that is not a religious war???

[OUTLAW 09]

Daesh published a report from the area of #Homs "Ribat with ATGM's",militant's carrying an ATGM Launcher with an 9M113 KONKURS Missile, then they show the launch of an 9M133 KORNET Missile, hitting a Tank with it... with a picture of a missile and another with two different launchers in the same place...

Last but not least, they show off a Chinese HJ-8 ATGM to top off the array...

Daesh claims they destroyed a Tank with a Chinese HJ-8 #ATGM in the Al-Qaryatayn area

Interesting that the Chinese HJ-8 is a nice copy of the US TOW.........

[OUTLAW 09]

Syria the Daesh SVBIED attack in the Al-Qaryatayn area targeting an armored SAA column

Daesh Russian language Furat media releases a new video but in German language, "Knights of the Shahada 2":

[OUTLAW 09]

As #IS is advancing against rebels north of Aleppo ,US MQ-9 Reaper seen in the area
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evISWu7bP5Y …

[OUTLAW 09]

Report: #Iran deploy 2 dozen fighter jets on Tiyas Airbase (T4) btw #Homs & desert city of #Palmyra

Russia reports that they have begun delivery of the S-300 to Iran
http://bigstory.ap.org/urn:publicid:ap.org:cac3407f0666446c9a3a3a484e5727 df …

[OUTLAW 09]

Elijah says #Syria will attack any air craft with S-300 if penetrating air space without coordination.

https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/NewsReports/566325-irans-air-force-to-enter-syria-conflict-report …

So down Syrian S300 and Russian S400s together with SAAF, RuAF and now Iranian AF aircraft will shot down US, Turkish, KSA, UK, and French aircraft.

[OUTLAW 09]

THIS is exactly why Obama has a "MESS" in Syria and it is really his "mess" alone---no one else's......

So OK—will Obama fully ever realize his failure with his “Iran Deal”……..???

Iran to get $100B boost in spite of stonewalling IAEA, testing banned missile, and exporting terror.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/iaea-finds-some-iranian-nuclear-weapons-activity-continued-after-2003-1449078659 …

Full text of final assessment on past and present outstanding issues regarding Iran’s nuclear programme
http://theiranproject.com/blog/2015/12/03/final-assessment-on-past-and-present-outstanding-issues-regarding-irans-nuclear-programme/ …

IAEA re #Iran: coordinated #nuclear weapons relevant work until 2003, some after, no evidence of such since 2009; no mat'l diversion for PMD

This is actually a very detailed report. IAEA - using its unique language - rejects most of Iran's explanations.

Nearly unnoticed #IAEA stated #Iran lied about earlier intentions to build "The Bomb".

IAEA: available info "including the results of the sampling analysis and the satellite imagery, does not support" Iran on purpose of Parchin

The Parchin section is particularly damning. Environmental sampling catches Iran in a lie.

[OUTLAW 09]

Multiple #RussianAirstrikes on the rebel-held front town #Morek this evening
Preparing another #Assad ground push?!

RussianAirstrike hits the "#FSA headquarters" along the main highway in #Latakia prov.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ho7yZfGogok …

Footage
Lightly armed #FSA troops, still defending the #Ghab plain vs. #Assad & #Russia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk6Y0Zki_1A …

[OUTLAW 09]

MORE evidence that confirms that Putin is basically lying when he repeatedly states he is fighting IS and global terrorism.......

Eyewitness of #Russian bombing #Aleppo. Rami Jarah,ANA Press,4 #France24 Observers says no IS.
http://f24.my/1MZpBPy

The core problem with Putin is that he has repeated his lies so often he even now believes them......when he threated Turkey again in his speech from today half those present were basically dozing...........seems they were not interested in what he was saying....

[OUTLAW 09]

So again who is exactly being hurt by this Putin tirade against Turkey .....?

Turkey row leaves Russia stuck with abandoned gas pipes worth billions
http://reut.rs/1NrLdTV

Maybe he can sell them on the scrape metal markets-----BTW the Russian troops and her mercenaries have been stealing scrap metal for months in eastern Ukraine so there might in fact be a market for them........

[OUTLAW 09]

The Russian President has presented state decorations to Russian servicemen, participants in the military operation in Syria
http://bit.ly/1MYBd7C

Rostov: 15 Turkish citizens - workers of Turkish 'Merinos' carpet factory to be deported from Russia @aa_russian
http://v.aa.com.tr/485348

[OUTLAW 09]

So again who is exactly being hurt by this Putin tirade against Turkey .....?

Turkey row leaves Russia stuck with abandoned gas pipes worth billions
http://reut.rs/1NrLdTV

Maybe he can sell them on the scrape metal markets-----BTW the Russian troops and her mercenaries have been stealing scrap metal for months in eastern Ukraine so there might in fact be a market for them........

Here it comes: Turkey agrees with Azerbaijan to accelerate gas project http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkey-agrees-with-azerbaijan-to-accelerate-gas-project-.aspx?pageID=238&nID=92046&NewsCatID=348 … pic.twitter.com/zoChIWgLRj

LOOKS like the second largest gas consumer of Gazprom is getting ready to ditch Putin......

[OUTLAW 09]

MORE Russian lies again.......

Quatar, #UAE purchasing arms from #Belarus for #Daesh – #Russia'n expert http://belsat.eu/en/news/quatar-uae-purchasing-arms-from-belarus-for-daesh-russian-expert/ …
pic.twitter.com/Ndu1uUWtdT

Same sort of nonsense that produced when they claimed "the Ukraine had shipped FN6 Chinese MANPADS to IS......" and demanded the US check out their claims.....

[OUTLAW 09]

Syria #Damascus View to regime held Dhahiyat al-Asad suburb
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1cL31iGOKc …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=33.581876&lon=36.366506&z=15&m=b …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgIv5IKPIxg …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gik7jw6APAQ …


Julian Röpcke @JulianRoepcke
@markito0171
Very interesting angle!
pic.twitter.com/4cedvW4lQ2

[OUTLAW 09]

And Die Welt joins the Russian MoD chorus to smear Turkey without raising any doubt about Russian credibility https://twitter.com/welt/status/672102589270462464 …

Looks like the German CIA (BND) overstepped their civilian political controllers again just as they did in eastern Ukraine...........

UPDATE: German government distances itself from BND (German intelligence) report criticizing Saudi Arabia http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/bundesregierung-geht-auf-distanz-zum-bundesnachrichtendienst-a-1065917.html# …

In German........

[OUTLAW 09]

"We have the proof in our hands. We will reveal it to the world." Erdogan claims Putin's involved in ISIS oil trade.

http://news.yahoo.com/erdogan-says-turkey-proof-russia-involved-oil-trade-112804961.html?soc_src=mediacontentstory&soc_trk=tw …

[OUTLAW 09]

SCD founds #Russia Cluster Bombs on #Hayan village
#Aleppo
Dec 3

ANOTHER Russian precision "friendly fire strike"..........
Reports: Mistaken #Russia'n airstrikes hit #Hezbollha convoy on #Homs - #Damascus highway

Russian missiles targeted Najiya village rural Jisr #Idlib killed 3 residents.

Syria: PHOTO: #SAA Soldier in #Latakia with new gear, & uniform.
pic.twitter.com/94SrhWAdHg

[OUTLAW 09]

Syria Reports: #Russia pave airstrip in northern #Hasaka city outskirts for kurdish #YPG
- & provide them fighter jets?
any confirmations?

CrowBat---anything on this from your side?????

[CrowBat]

Report: #Iran deploy 2 dozen fighter jets on Tiyas Airbase (T4) btw #Homs & desert city of #Palmyra
Sorry, but I consider this for nonsense. At best: another of Russian-style lies, which are now something like a 'norm' there.

What kind of aircraft should the IRIAF deploy to Syria - that could be 'serviced by Russians'?

First selection would be Su-24MKs. Presently, the IRIAF has one squadron that couldn't make more than 3-4 Su-24MKs operational at once. Only some 6-7 original (Iranian ordered) Su-24MKs, plus two ex-Iraqi examples; are left in something like 'recently overhauled and could be brought into operational condition'. Everything else is stored.

Even if, say, Elijah Mangier made the mistake done by almost every source that has ever published anything about this topic in the West (and East Europe and most of the Middle East even more so), and mixed the IRIAF with the IRGCASF: the latter is left with two operational Su-25s. Everything else is in Iraq, or so worn out it's non-flyable.

Reason: money. I.e. lack of money. Contrary to the times around 2008-2011, when the IRIAF was really in relatively good condition (see IRIAF 2010: Modern-Day Iranian Air Force (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0982553935?*Version*=1&*entries*=0)), ever since Tehran is spending so much in Syria, and oil prices are so low, it simply has no money for such adventures. It's so bankrupt that even the IRGCASF was grounded already back in late 2013 (for details on this, see Modern War (http://shop.strategyandtacticspress.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=MW19M) magazine, Volume 19).

Without that Daesh advance into northern Iraq, IRIAF would've been grounded the last year too. The US 'amen' to 'new' cooperation between Baghdad and Tehran, and large Iraqi orders for arms of Iranian production (financed by Chinese loans provided with US permission) have eased the situation a little bit, but only enough for the IRIAF to be kept at the minimum of its operational readiness.

...and even if, there are such obscure reasons like: the IRGC wouldn't let the IRIAF earn itself any praise in Syria. They were already so jealous about F-4-strikes on Daesh in Iraq, they didn't let the media report about these at all.

Sure, the IRIAF has three squadrons still operating F-4Es and one equipped with F-4Ds (for details, see Smoketrails (http://www.f4phantom.com/drupal/webpages/f-4-magazine) magazine, volumes 20-2 and 20-3). But, for same reasons as above, most of units in question currently don't have more than 4-5 operational aircraft at any time - and Russians would be of absolutely no help with them.

[OUTLAW 09]

So again who is exactly being hurt by this Putin tirade against Turkey .....?

Turkey row leaves Russia stuck with abandoned gas pipes worth billions
http://reut.rs/1NrLdTV

Maybe he can sell them on the scrape metal markets-----BTW the Russian troops and her mercenaries have been stealing scrap metal for months in eastern Ukraine so there might in fact be a market for them........

Russia faces massive USD 14 billion loss over cancelled South Stream and TurkStream gas projects
http://uatoday.tv/politics/russia-faces-massive-14-billion-loss-over-cancelled-south-stream-and-turkstream-gas-projects-547093.html …

[OUTLAW 09]

SAA soldier posing with a tricked out AK in a configuration very popular among Russian SOF...
https://twitter.com/2Rook14/status/672193019572051970 …

IMPORTANT--now maybe the CIA got their SDF/YPG under control and now they can focus on IS and along the way Assad......

Syria Truce agreement btw kurdish #YPG & #FSA forces in northern #Aleppo
pic.twitter.com/HNO1JR4mU4

IMPORTANT - Negotiations ongoing to put the conflict at margins as #IS terrorist sect is seen as worst thing for now for both sides.

[OUTLAW 09]

Russian aviation expert: "Turkey showed that no one shall violate NATO airspace"
http://en.censor.net.ua/n363523

"Nobody gives any rush to Soviet propaganda mill style lies," Turkish PM on Kremlin’s statements
http://en.censor.net.ua/n363518

[OUTLAW 09]

REVEALED: The oil middleman between the Syrian regime and ISIS

http://read.bi/1HdcWHg
pic.twitter.com/Rll1Vq7vQ5

Russia's partner Assad seems to be far deeper in the IS oil business than say the Turks and yet Russia says nothing.......

[OUTLAW 09]

REVEALED: The oil middleman between the Syrian regime and ISIS

http://read.bi/1HdcWHg
pic.twitter.com/Rll1Vq7vQ5

Russia's partner Assad seems to be far deeper in the IS oil business than say the Turks and yet Russia says nothing.......

BREAKING: #Russia publishes more evidence of #Turkey buying oil from #Daesh
pic.twitter.com/XG1z3jkTV1

After #Erdogan claims that #Russia is buying oil from #Daesh, Russia's MoD presents more evidence against #Turkey
pic.twitter.com/bVOIwFjPha

[OUTLAW 09]

Rebels control regime army last defense lines around Ma'an village NW #Hama.
https://youtu.be/NXZpiA0do80
pic.twitter.com/bsYJqbOkh0

The bad blood between Russia and Turkey is spreading to Armenia and Azerbaijan:
https://news.vice.com/article/the-bad-blood-between-russia-and-turkey-is-spreading-to-armenia-and-azerbaijan …

Oil storage tanks" destroyed by #Russia prove to be grain silos in #Idlib province
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNxwX7r4A554pHDwtt6ATyRRWRgQRYaHZ …
pic.twitter.com/Ln8aGBiv4I

Rebel forces in Baraghitah village retaken from #ISIL north #Aleppo today.

[OUTLAW 09]

Anyone have any thoughts on just this is.....???

The Obama admin is less respectful of Turkey's interests in Syria that is of Russian and Iranian interests.

Actually I would include the KSA in this as well.....

[OUTLAW 09]

Dozens of Hezbollah fighters killed & wounded in Russian airstrike in a case of mistaken identity on Homs/Damascus road

Daraya: 2 Assad soldiers killed by rebel sniper fire

Aleppo: Syrian Rebels kill Hezbollah commander Mohamed Abbas Moqalid

Russia warplanes carried out airstrikes targeting #Kafarhamra town
#Aleppo #Syria Dec 3

RUssia warplanes carried out airstrikes on #Aradah village, 1child died,dozens wounded
#Aleppo #SYria Dec 3

SAA helicopters dropped barrel bombs on #Maarkaba village
#Hama #SYria Dec 3

SAA shelling with heavy artillery targeting #Tal_Shehab town
#Daraa #Syria Dec 3

Car bomb explosion on the Cutural Center of #Idlib, not causalities reported so far
#Syria Dec 3

SAA shelling with grade rockets on #Jobar
#Damascus #Syria Dec 3

[OUTLAW 09]

REVEALED: The oil middleman between the Syrian regime and ISIS

http://read.bi/1HdcWHg
pic.twitter.com/Rll1Vq7vQ5

Russia's partner Assad seems to be far deeper in the IS oil business than say the Turks and yet Russia says nothing.......

Iraqi Kurds refute #Russia’s claims on #Turkey-Daesh oil trade, say tankers belong to KRG
http://www.dailysabah.com/diplomacy/2015/12/03/iraqi-kurds-refute-russias-claims-on-turkey-daesh-oil-trade-say-tankers-belong-to-krg …

[OUTLAW 09]

Activists reporting #Russia aircraft targeted by Rebels on #Kurds_Mount
#Latakia #Syria Dec3
(Unconfirmed)

Reports Rebels targeted the aircraft w/ machine gun 23ca, in the area of #Kurds_Mount at 8PM local time
#Latakia

According to @HuffPostArabi, the aircraft was forcing an emergency landing at a military airbase in "#Hama."

[CrowBat]

Outstanding. Puts things in context, like Israeli and US jamming capabilities.No clue about Israelis, but the last I've heard the US jamming capabilities have been quite neglected the last few years: preoccuppied with COIN, USAF and USN might need some time to catch with 'major threats' again.

Turks, on the contrary, are working on countering S-300-type of threats already since 2004, and their air force is running regular corresponding exercises. I would enter any bet they have a solution for that type; no idea if they've been working on countering the S-400 until now.

That said, a lonesome S-400 SAM-site, not supported by any kind of AWACS... surrounded by 400m high peaks within 22km range in the north, and 2,000m high peaks within 40km range in east and north-east. Considering Earth curvature, this means it can't rack anything above an altitude of, say... 1,600m towards north, and 6,000m beyond 60km towards east and north-east....

(If my calculations are wrong, please feel free to correct me, somebody.)

Let's consider there is a serious trouble there, like Russians firing an S-400 in retaliation for some kind of a problem with Turks again... Given Turks are unlikely to go into the Syrian airspace, this is instantly making that SAM-site liable for a counter-attack.

Now, look at the numbers: why should it be a problem to send in one squad of 18 THK F-16Cs armed with a total of 36 AGM-88 pre-programmed HARMS - and bring them entirely unobserved within a range of 40km? A follow-up squad could bring 36 SOM stand-off PGMs.... (not to talk about, say, a possible third squad of F-4E-2020s, deploying Popeyes etc.).

S-400 might be damn good. The Russian Pantsyr system at Hmemmem at least as much. Nobody can really say: Russians boast a lot, but neither was ever used in anger. But, I would like to see them knocking out 72 ARMs and PGMs within, say... 2-3 minutes, probably less...?


Syria Reports: #Russia pave airstrip in northern #Hasaka city outskirts for kurdish #YPG
- & provide them fighter jets?
any confirmations?

CrowBat---anything on this from your side????? Nothing. And I doubt this. In NW Syria (west of Aleppo)... hm, perhaps. Although; there are not even any serious landing strips there.

But, messing around with what are meanwhile close Western allies in NE Syria - and then for what? To bomb Daesh...and increase already significant supply problems...?

If Russians seriously want to bomb Daesh, they could've done slightly more often but some 6-7 times since early October.

[OUTLAW 09]

Aleppo Ahrar al Sham video when they expelled #IslamicState from Baraghidah
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWVAFmC_jPs&feature=youtu.be …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=36.633197&lon=37.213011&z=15&m=b …

Russia Equips Central #Syria Shaayrat Airport as New Base for Raids
http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/policy-budget/warfare/2015/12/03/russia-equips-central-syria-airport-new-base-raids/76752446/ …

A dozen #Russia'n airstrikes hit rebel hold frontline towns/villages in northern #Aleppo last night & of course not a single on #IS

The serious question is--is this group IS oriented or not.....? In one of the villages they took over they executed 20 civilians for belonging to FSA.....

Jaish al-Thiwar insists on fighting FSA over 4 vlgs recently lost & doesn't recognize YPG/FSA ceasefire agreement.

Massive destruction caused by Assad airstrikes on #Irbin in rural #Damascus today.
http://youtu.be/fgavPtADVpE

Shk. Mhiseny of Jaish al-Fath injured in airstrike in rural #Latakia battlefield.

[OUTLAW 09]

Footage
Heavy airstrikes in #Inkhil today.
Not clear if by #Putin or #Assad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-A3b6AFazo …

Syrian media activists have the tendency to call all jets "Russian" by now.
They are not.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUlNCtbqNE4 …

Footage
The Syrian capital #Damascus is under heavy attack by the #Assad air force.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADxaNfbDIqw …

News
Also Islamist Ahrar al-Sham helped expelling #ISIS from #Baraghedeh north of #Aleppo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWVAFmC_jPs&feature=youtu.be …

[OUTLAW 09]

Despite #Assad, #Russia, #Iran and militias attacking, moderate rebels keep fighting #ISIS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ebdzd2NW6Pc …

And this, while more and more heads of states swallow the propaganda, they are "just like them".
IS being fought by sham footage from #Baraghedeh, N of #Aleppo.

[OUTLAW 09]

Boy did the Russian info warriors foul up---they wanted the Sputnik parody account taken off Twitter AND what did Twitter do.....removed the ACTUAL info war medial outlet Sputnik account....

The REAL #PARODY account @SputnikInt is till online (and verified!) by the way.

I can undertand why Russians wanted Sputnik parody removed: the fake started to get dangerously close to real Sputnik in its craziness

[OUTLAW 09]

Russia|n airstrikes hit #Talbiseh resulting in 12 dead so far, inc 4 kids, dozens wounded
#Homs #Syria Dec 4

Reports: Israelis hit 4 trucks carrying ballistic missiles after they left 155 Brigade Base
http://www.levantinegroup.com/#!israel--palestinian-territories-securit/c1636 … pic.twitter.com/87AD4DGqyh

Multiple #RussianAirStrikes targeted al-Akrad Mount in #Latakia & Kafranbel, Ihsem & Sheikh Mustafa

Multiples #Russia airstrikes targeting #al_Najeyah village, next border with #Turkey
#Idlib #Syria Dec 4
pic.twitter.com/Bs4mpNhRNo

Russia|n airstrikes hit two mini trucks on the #Harithan highway, northern #Aleppo
pic.twitter.com/QBl3TKfq7h

Several #Russia|n airstrikes hit eastern #Ghouta moments ago. Dozens of civilians killed.
pic.twitter.com/WX6BOcvyQi

[OUTLAW 09]

Seems now the Russian SU24 navigator cannot quite remember which side of the border he was on when shot down........Russian lies are now collapsing...

BBC: Doubts cast on Russian TV's navigator interview #Su24 #Syria #Turkey (and remembers "Spainbuca")
http://www.bbc.co.uk/monitoring/doubts-cast-on-russian-tvs-navigator-interview …

Eliot Higgins @EliotHiggins (aka bellingcat)
Doubts cast on Russian TV's navigator interview
http://bbc.in/1QeGmL0

[OUTLAW 09]

Putin and Assad continue massive air strikes on civilian targets....basically war crimes now as the targets have absolutely nothing to do with IS any more.

Urgent
4martyrs includng 2kids due #Russia airstrikes on #Kafr_Nasih highway target family cars
#ALeppo #SYria Dec4
pic.twitter.com/ETRPqKqHIv

RUSSIA IS BOMBING ANYTHING THAT MOVES!
#Russia airstrikes on #Kafr_Nasih highway
#ALeppo #SYria Dec4
pic.twitter.com/HTT2c44s7N

Death toll rises to 15martyrs &many injuries due #SAA airstrikes on popular market of #Gesreen E #Ghouta #Syria Dec4
pic.twitter.com/uH8E1iq4Po

[OUTLAW 09]

Just what did Obama think with this suggestion........

SYRIA: Turkey gives the cold shoulder to US proposal to seal Syria border
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/Default.aspx?PageID=238&NID=92016&NewsCatID=352 …

[OUTLAW 09]

Russia brings its big artillery guns to #Syria
http://warisboring.com/articles/russia-brings-its-big-guns-to-syria/ …

Nothing like using a war to field test your combat abilities...exactly what the Russians are doing these days in eastern Ukraine and Syria......

RuAF Su-34 & Su-30SM over southern Idlib.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIpC9peDUFI …

[OUTLAW 09]

Turkish reality from the actual border crossing.....
Official #Russian propaganda outlets stating "oil tankers" but showing usual trucks passing #Syria-#Turkey border.

Taken from the Russian info warfare media outlet Sputnik Germany....Russian altered state of reality....

Fotostrecke Tanklaster passieren ungehindert syrisch-trkische Grenze
http://sptnkne.ws/akZK

[OUTLAW 09]

Russian deputy PM Rogozin: "Russia has only three allies: the army, the fleet, and the military-industrial complex." https://twitter.com/Rogozin/status/672769551080275968 …

This kind of leaves the Iranians and Assad out in the cold it appears........

[OUTLAW 09]

I’ve lost count of Assad’s cousins tbh, but this one called Jamal Kifah Assad has now mysteriously died apparently.

Russia's "concern" for the region...please: #Russia begins delivering S-300 air defense system to #Iran
http://www.timesofisrael.com/russia-begins-delivering-s-300-air-defense-system-to-iran/ …

Assad army in #Syria equipped /w #Russian army fatigue, helmet, body armor, goggles.
pic.twitter.com/etKIupOShu
no pouches for mags, radio, frags,...?

[OUTLAW 09]

Typical Russian info warrior and his article for the main Russian info war media outlet Russia Today.....

https://www.rt.com/op-edge/324602-turkey-oil-batman-erdogan/

Home/Op-Edge/

Holy smoke Batman! Erdogan has to go


Finian Cunningham (born 1963) has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages. Originally from Belfast, Northern Ireland, he is a Master’s graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in newspaper journalism. For over 20 years he worked as an editor and writer in major news media organizations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent. Now a freelance journalist based in East Africa, his columns appear on RT, Sputnik, Strategic Culture Foundation and Press TV.


Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been shooting from the lip over the past week since the fatal shooting down of a Russian fighter jet. He truculently denied accusations of supporting terrorism, challenging Russia to prove it. Well, holy smoke Batman!

Yes, Batman. Not the caped screen hero. Instead, we’re talking about the city of the same name, located in Turkey’s southeastern region. It is where Turkey’s state-owned oil industry is centered.

Batman is also where the oil smuggling routes run by the Islamic State terror network are centered, according to surveillance images released this week by the Russian Defense Ministry.

Air reconnaissance photos show thousands of trucks running stolen oil from Syrian state-owned fields in the east of the country converging on the Turkish city of Batman, near the Syrian border.

The oil smuggling operation has been going for at least two years since the so-called Islamic State (IS) terror group took over the oilfields in eastern Syria near the city of Deir Ezzor. The illicit trade is reckoned to have been earning the jihadists up to $3 million a day to help fund their war against the Syrian government of President Assad.

But smuggled oil needs a buyer for the enterprise to work. Enter Turkey. This week, before the latest data release from the Russian Ministry of Defense, President Vladimir Putin repeated claims that Turkish authorities were involved in facilitating the terrorist oil trade. Putin told world leaders at the Paris climate change conference that this was a factor in why Turkish warplanes shot down a Russian fighter jet last week, with the loss of the pilot’s life and that of another serviceman during a follow-up rescue mission.
Erdogan reacted angrily to the claim, dismissing it as “slander”. Erdogan testily put the challenge to Russia to present its proof.

“The accusation that Turkey allegedly buys crude oil from Islamic State is unacceptable, and to say it is amoral,” said Erdogan. “You can’t just say things, you need to present evidence. If documents exist — let’s see them. If this fact is proven, I will not stay in my position.”

If Erdogan is a man of his word, which is doubtful, then he should start packing his bags. Right now.

The evidence presented by Russia’s military high command shows beyond any doubt that Turkey is central to Islamic State’s illegal oil trade and thus the terror group’s ability to fund its violence.

Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov didn’t mince words about the revelation. He said: “According to our data, the top political leadership of the country – President Erdogan and his family – is involved in this criminal business.”

What is particularly incriminating from the Russian data is that the east Syrian oil route operated by IS is destined for the Turkish city of Batman. Batman is the heart of the Turk oil industry. It is where the country’s biggest oilfield is located and where major refineries are based.

From Batman there is a 500-kilometre pipeline running westwards to the Mediterranean port cities of Dortyol and Ceyhan, both located in the Gulf of Iskenderun. The pipeline, which has a capacity to supply up to 30 million barrels of crude oil a year, is owned and operated by Turkey’s state-owned BOTAS Petroleum Corporation.

The port of Ceyhan is where the licensed shipping company BMZ owned by President Erdogan’s son Bilal and other family members is based. BMZ is a big Turkish player in the global oil trade.

Significantly, Turkish newspaper Today's Zaman reported in September this year that Erdogan’s BMZ spent $36 million in acquiring two new oil tankers to bring its total fleet to five. The ships are believed to ferry much of their crude oil cargos to Japan and other Asian countries. Business is booming and it’s no wonder.

Putin had earlier responded to Erdogan’s denials of collusion in terrorist oil smuggling by saying that “it is hard to imagine how the Turkish authorities could not be aware of the industrial-scale transport of oil across its border.”

But now Russian aerial images have presented a complete picture of how this massive oil supply is being routed through Turkey with state-owned companies.

The personal complicity of Erdogan through his family shipping business makes his resignation unquestionable. Furthermore, the Turkish president should face prosecution for gross violations of international law amounting to war crimes.

Surely, the Americans must know about the industrial-scale oil smuggling routes? For more than a year, since the US began bombing raids on Syria, allegedly against the Islamic State terror network, the oil smuggling has been untouched.

This week, General Joseph Dunford, the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Congressional committee that it was only in the last two months that the Pentagon got serious with airstrikes on IS oil routes. He admitted that for more than a year, the Pentagon hadn’t bothered because it wasn’t communicating sufficiently with the State Department. Dunford and the US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, who was also giving evidence to the same committee, both claimed that the decision not to strike oil trucks run by terrorists was to taken in order to “avoid civilian casualties.”

December 3, 2015. Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers his annual Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly at the Kremlin's St. George Hall. © Ramil Sitdikov‘Allah took their sanity’: Putin accuses Turkish leadership of ‘aiding terror’
That explanation does not stack up. The fact is, as Russia’s Defense Ministry spokesman Lieutenant-General Sergey Rudskoy said; the US has done little to nothing to halt the terror oil trade out of Syria. Russia, by contrast, has destroyed dozens of oil processing facilities and over 1,000 trucks since it began its military intervention less than two months ago – wholesale damage that has cut terror smuggling revenues by 50 percent, according to the Russian military.

Now that Russia has presented a damning picture of how Islamic State and other jihadist terror groups have been financing their terror campaign in Syria a ball of questions is in the US court.

Turkey is a member of the US-led NATO military alliance, the organization supposedly responsible for maintaining security and defense in Europe. Turkey must surely be kicked out of NATO for its role in sponsoring terrorism.
How can France, in particular, remain in the same military alliance with a country that is financing terror groups that were involved in a mass killing on the streets of Paris only three weeks ago?

But Washington and its allies have much more to answer for. Oil convoys heading north into Turkey is just one half of a giant racket, with the other half involving convoys of weapons and jihadists fighters heading south into Syria. US and British military intelligence are implicated in this terror transmission, according to American journalist Seymour Hersh.

The weapons supply from Turkey to terror groups in Syria, with the collusion of Turkish state intelligence, is coming to light with the arrest last week of Turkish journalists who have dared to uncover the state-sponsored oil-for-weapons racket.

Russia’s latest evidence presents a stark choice. The world can now see who is fueling conflict and terrorism in Syria and beyond. Turkey is a state sponsor of terrorism. And other NATO members are also implicated. If legal sanctions do not follow, then we will know, chillingly, that the world has descended into gangsterism and barbarism.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

[OUTLAW 09]

Another Hezbollah group fighting in Syria..........

Hezbollah/Islamic Resistance militia Saraya sl-Ghalibun in south #Aleppo countryside:

[OUTLAW 09]

Civilian deaths from just today's Russian air strikes.......

The massacres committed by the Russian aviation occupation:
11 martyrs in #Jisreen
15 in #KafrBatna
11 in #Talbiseh
17 in #Daraa's rural

3 #Syria|n children burned alive in Kafr Batna, Rif Dimashq after a #Russia|n bombardment hit the car they were in.

Horrific slaughter by regime warplanes in KafrBatna in Damascus suburbs today. #Syria (GRAPHIC)
http://youtu.be/iF9ggLRlYI8

Killed after posing for pictures, the five-year-old victim of Russia's airstrikes on Syria
http://trib.al/TwBHbPy

[OUTLAW 09]

What is interesting is that just when the Southern Front gets ready and is able to apply military pressure on Assad by taking new territory they get suddenly halted by the US and Jordan.....that was the case when they were this summer on an offensive roll and then suddenly stopped just as the TOWs were becoming effective---then the TOWs stopped coming as well.

Appears the US is trying to influence just how much territory is taken from Assad or better yet are they really interested in keeping Assad in power........

Never mind. Scratch that. Offensive on Jadiyeh has been halted by MOC, the Southern Front's puppet masters.

[OUTLAW 09]

What is interesting is that just when the Southern Front gets ready and is able to apply military pressure on Assad by taking new territory they get suddenly halted by the US and Jordan.....that was the case when they were this summer on an offensive roll and then suddenly stopped just as the TOWs were becoming effective---then the TOWs stopped coming as well.

Appears the US is trying to influence just how much territory is taken from Assad or better yet are they really interested in keeping Assad in power........

Never mind. Scratch that. Offensive on Jadiyeh has been halted by MOC, the Southern Front's puppet masters.

[OUTLAW 09]

Russians and Assad continue to kill civilians AND not a single Western leader says a single word..........

Graphic!
Reported #RussianAirstrike killed, wounded several children in #Talbisah.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCtl--czJvA …

Some activists say, the #KafrBatnaMassacre was caused by a "Russian enemies" jet.
But this is unconfirmed.

Multiple civilians, including children, killed in #KafrBatna.
Not bombing #Assad means acceptance of his crimes.

BREAKING
17 civilians killed in #Assad/#Putin airstrike on #KafrBatna, S-E of #Damascus.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaTjOxhCwkI …

Breaking
An #Assad/#Putin airstrike on a market in #Jisreen caused a massacre among civil.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdi6GumMR-8 …

[OUTLAW 09]

Footage
New 120 mm mortars and launcher for the #FSA in the #Ghab plain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VarYWP-YGPA …

Rebels try to reenter #Kafrah,captured by #ISIS under #RussianAirstrikes on Wednesd.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6T0Owk3oCA …

[OUTLAW 09]

Nope.
#Soleimani is NOT in the best shape ...

Soleimani is definitely seriously injured if not on life support in order to give the Khamenei government a chance to prepare the public for his death.

On 29 Nov a QF website Alwaght released what it called an interview in the office of Soleimani in Tehran which has been picked up by a large number of major and minor Iranian media sites and the picture used of him is over a year old and taken from the internet..

Major loss if he is no longer able to command and a major propaganda victory for the FSA..........

The original source was coming from one IRGC close journalist and then confirmed by MEK.

[OUTLAW 09]

Russia bombs #Turkey-#Syria trade at border crossings north of #Alepo where #IS is not present.

[OUTLAW 09]

Russian sealift...... Syrian Express on the move again.....

This is the 9th Syrian deployment of #ВМФ #ЧМФ BSF 158 Tsezar Kunikov, more than any other Russian ship.

De-escalation of courtesy flag wars: #ВМФ #ЧМФ 158 Tsezar Kunikov hoisted courtesy Turkish flag & Andreevsky

Appears Russia discovered that if Turkey even "feels threatened" they can shut down the Straits under the 1936 treaty.

[OUTLAW 09]

Will in fact Putin's economy totally crash before he achieves anything in eastern Ukraine and in Syria---at an estimated 6M USD per day for his wars, the Crimea in total darkness, and 90 RF regional governments totally bankrupt....the race is on.....

Truckers protest spotlights Russia's economic crisis, tests Putin narrative blaming foreigners, West 4 domestic woes http://www.novayagazeta.ru/politics/71031.html …

Creating ever new wars to distract you own population from a failing economy can for on only for so long....

At 30 USD per barrel the Russian economy is toast.....
Uh ho.. oil down to $43 already body blow to Russia on day pass budget with $50 assumption https://twitter.com/markets/status/672777709953486849 …

[OUTLAW 09]

Russian sealift...... Syrian Express on the move again.....

This is the 9th Syrian deployment of #ВМФ #ЧМФ BSF 158 Tsezar Kunikov, more than any other Russian ship.

De-escalation of courtesy flag wars: #ВМФ #ЧМФ 158 Tsezar Kunikov hoisted courtesy Turkish flag & Andreevsky

Appears Russia discovered that if Turkey even "feels threatened" they can shut down the Straits under the 1936 treaty.

Seems Putin got the Erdogan message with the go slow clearance of shipping through the straights since 30 Nov.....

All quiet on the #Bosphorus front, russian cargos and military ships are passing through normally today

[OUTLAW 09]

Regardless of how many times the social media open source analysts shred the Russian MoD briefings and videos they just keep on trying.....AND not actually improving with the practice......one would think they would finally give up and go home.

Talking about bad #Photoshop skills ... "Air strike on Raqqa"
https://twitter.com/mod_russia/status/672822559432314880 … pic.twitter.com/pTggVn4WSG

[OUTLAW 09]

What the heck is Germany up to these days????

First their BND (CIA) attacks the KSA and then their political leaders bash their own BND THEN.......

Germany 'draws up plans to prevent sharing intelligence' with Nato ally Turkey
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/12033869/Germany-draws-up-plans-to-prevent-sharing-intelligence-with-Nato-ally-Turkey.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter … pic.twitter.com/3kwTxwiIIm

SO is Merkel really now going to determine who she works with inside NATO????

[OUTLAW 09]

The current situation in #Syria summed up in one image, Russian jet watching American drone watching ISIS:
pic.twitter.com/89FJ4FH1hf

BUT still no direct and deliberate Russian air strikes on anything that even resembles IS---wonder why???

[OUTLAW 09]

Under the rubric of actually being sad and wondering why the West has basically abandoned Syrian civilians to a number of different forms of genocide by both Assad and Putin...

Russian Killed by a Russian bomb, a five-year-old visiting relatives in Syria
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/04/killed-after-posing-for-pictures-the-five-year-old-victim-of-russias-airstrikes-on-syria?CMP=share_btn_tw …
pic.twitter.com/JGsqNMpZY1

[OUTLAW 09]

Julia Davis @JuliaDavisNews

#Russia is engaged in some dangerous, dangerous trolling.
#Turkey
https://twitter.com/ensarcaliskan/status/672782751578365952 …
https://twitter.com/alperboler/status/672832016837136387 …
pic.twitter.com/Cjinkq9fRh

These are two of the best Bosphorus ship watchers that I monitor for this thread--worth checking into on occasions....

Yörük Işık @YorukIsik
Sailor on #ЧМФ Tsezar Kunikov poses with his MANPADS-possible 9K38 Igla-on the Bosphorus
pic.twitter.com/nIevYjcUBj

alper boler @alperboler
Russian soldier standing atop Kunikov today with a manpad on his sholder while crossing the bosphorus. Why? Anyone? pic.twitter.com/U16LDY0cZm

alper boler ‏@alperboler İstanbul, Türkiye
Apparently this soldier spent the whole pass like that. I got one shot aimed at me, too.

[OUTLAW 09]

So does Putin have an explanation for Russia selling weapons to Islamic State.....????

ISIS also buys weapons sent by Russia and Iran that are intended for Assad.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/baad34e4-973c-11e5-9228-87e603d47bdc.html#axzz3tI9Ts4QW …
pic.twitter.com/pYVuJ8xFYI

Russia’s ISIS Money Men Exposed
http://thebea.st/1O86Yci

Assad's and Russia's apologists and trolls have really hated this >> "How Assad Funds the Islamic State"
https://goo.gl/Y7vNs3

[OUTLAW 09]

SYRIA: Reports of 7 IRGC members killed in southern #Aleppo.
https://twitter.com/warreports/status/672798795848155136 …

FULL VIDEO: Exact moment pro-Assad troops strike oppos-held Sahl al-Ghab, rural #Hama w/ #Russia|n rocket launchers
https://youtu.be/fESnXeDeruc

[OUTLAW 09]

AEJ خليل ้้้้้็็็็ @AEJKhalil

3 Popular markets was bombed today by #Russia and #SAA warplanes.
almost 100 innocents killed
#Syria Dec 4
pic.twitter.com/sv2zmbkfTf

[OUTLAW 09]

Airstrikes in northern #Syria shows #Russia mainly bomb #FSA & allies around #Aleppo -
1 strike hit #IslamicState

Rebels took over Khirbet village in northern #Aleppo after clashes with #IslamicState

IslamicState launch assault on Mare' town in northern #Aleppo tonight- after blew up vehicle bomb
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=36.481760&lon=37.201080&z=13&m=b …

Rebels expelled #IslamicState from Yarn village in northern #Aleppo
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=36.624914&lon=37.233481&z=16&m=b …

Footage
Ahrar al-Sham lost but regained #TellZajrim in #Qahira in the #Ghab plain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKnFytslXhU …

[OUTLAW 09]

Day turned night ...
Living hell under #Assad's and #Putin's bombs in #EastGhouta.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGPibxcztHg …

NEWS
#Russian MoD publishes another #WarCrime.
Bombing of @IHHen bakery in #Idlib.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmfEUXAUecE …

Analysis on the bombing was done by @bellingcat
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2015/12/01/what-osint-tells-us-about-the-bakery-bombing/ …

Footage
Russian Su-25 over #Latakia province yesterday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRREto-7kSA …

MORE Syrian civilians killed by the "Islamic State AF"
Graphic!
Also #Douma was further bombed to dust by #Assad and #Putin today.
Many victims.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip741FFA8OM&oref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DI p741FFA8OM&has_verified=1 …

[OUTLAW 09]

BETWEEN 25.11 AND 2.12 THE "ISLAMIC STATE AIR FORCE" BOMBED AROUND ALEPPO EVERYTHING OTHER THAN THE "ISLAMIC STATE".

Not a single strike was recorded on the IS.......and what did Putin tell the world why he was in Syria--to destroy the IS---so was he lying or telling the truth.

If lying why does this Administration basically by their silence support war crimes against humanity??????

Putin with his "Islamic State AF" is killing civilians at the same rate as does Assad---no difference between the two.

[OUTLAW 09]

Why is the Western media working as Putin's propaganda by simply repeating whatever he says despite years of him lying over and over?

I have asked this question over and over here at SWJ--it really does appear as if the corp US MSM works for the FSB and Putin as part and parcel of the disinformation warfare being conducted by Putin---not a single challenge by MSM on just about anything he does and or says----why is that??

Holland and Obama really do need to pay attention to the following;

If it's difficult 4 @fhollande 2 understand individual incidents, here's summary of Russian attacks. #NotOnISIS https://twitter.com/Barry_A82/status/672884442642448385 …

Putin's war is all for show nothing else outside of controlling the Me, rising the price of oil and kicking the US out of the ME.....

And WHEN Russia targets ISIS, they make sure they hit nothing. It's for make-believe only.
@fhollande https://twitter.com/SwedeMalinka/status/672890354237087744
…
Russia intends to starve the Syrian population. Another bakery goes down.
Hollande wants to cooperate with Russia.
https://twitter.com/obretix/status/672829709303070721 …

AND another "vacationer" in a Russian uniform in the desert fighting and not at the airport---remember Putin stated his troops would not get into the ground war...well he lied again........
pp.vk.me/c633530/v633530003/26d5/Ot5BO8t62oQ.jpg …
pic.twitter.com/o8kzdAWWXb

[OUTLAW 09]

So first Merkel announces they are going to cap the NATO intel to Turkey after her CIA blasts the KSA, the US halts the planned Southern Front offensive and now this...

Exclusive: U.S. puts request for bigger Turkish air role on hold http://reut.rs/1QlKuc8
pic.twitter.com/UdJXdUvhas

It does appear as if Obama is trying to control the events in Syria and nudge the West to accept the Russian joint ops offer and support Assad by isolating the Sunni Front States in open support of Iranian Syrian goals.

Did Obama basically abandon his voiced goals for Assad for the last four years to get his legacy????

[OUTLAW 09]

So first Merkel announces they are going to cap the NATO intel to Turkey after her CIA blasts the KSA, the US halts the planned Southern Front offensive and now this...

Exclusive: U.S. puts request for bigger Turkish air role on hold http://reut.rs/1QlKuc8
pic.twitter.com/UdJXdUvhas

It does appear as if Obama is trying to control the events in Syria and nudge the West to accept the Russian joint ops offer and support Assad by isolating the Sunni Front States in open support of Iranian Syrian goals.

Did Obama basically abandon his voiced goals for Assad for the last four years to get his legacy????

Officials: Moscow Using Turco-Russian Tensions To Bolster Military Presence
http://defnews.ly/1QiW7AB

[OUTLAW 09]

So the shia military of Iraq cannot throw out IS but they are going to attempt to force the Turks to leave........???

The unauthorized presence of Turkish troops in Mosul province is a serious breach of Iraqi sovereignty
http://goo.gl/AATdjr

Iraq has no sovereignty other than what Iran gives it and for them to believe different is a pipedream.

[OUTLAW 09]

MAJOR---does anyone else have anything on this topic just in concerning actual fighting using the T90.....????

SOHR: Russian T-90 tanks involved in battles south of Aleppo
http://www.syriahr.com/en/2015/12/russia-sends-its-most-advanced-tanks-to-syria-frontline/ …

NOW Russian is in some serious weapons testing.....AND it means that actual Russian combat troops are fully engaged on the ground WHICH Putin lied when he stated he would not be using his ground troops.

[CrowBat]

Why is the Western media working as Putin's propaganda by simply repeating whatever he says despite years of him lying over and over?

I have asked this question over and over here at SWJ--it really does appear as if the corp US MSM works for the FSB and Putin as part and parcel of the disinformation warfare being conducted by Putin---not a single challenge by MSM on just about anything he does and or says----why is that??
Some very good questions...

The last two weeks I was busy collecting all the info about the shoot-down of the Russian Su-24 by Turks, and then trying to place a corresponding article in one of 'authoritative' newspapers or magazines. The latter proved impossible: there was either no response - or if then such like, 'we've got no place for this'.

Particularly 'astonishing' since all the same media to which I've offered my feature is all the time complaining about lack of reliable and independent info on what's going on in Syria, and stressing they are de-facto forced to guess about what's going on there. Let me guess now too: ironically, they all the time guess pro-Putin and anti-Turkey...

Considering what can be read here (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_brigades) (but also here (https://wikileaks.org/saudi-cables/buying-silence)), absolutely no surprise. Question is only: who was meanwhile paid for silence by whom? Guess that even some of producers and editors are starting to lose overview...

(Note: eventually, only the Austrian daily Die Presse (http://diepresse.com/home/politik/aussenpolitik/4881526/Russische-Schlamperei-schuld-an-SuchoiAbschuss?_vl_backlink=/home/index.do) decided to publish the summary, and that after nearly one week of additional cross-checking and plenty of pushing from one of their editors.)

Anyway, a cross-examination of what one gets to hear from 1st-hand-sources in Turkey (including some of NATO-folks based there), Russia, and Syria, is that the shoot-down was clearly a mix of massive Russian failure to follow agreements with USA and Turkey, problems caused by obsolete/inflexible nav/attack- and comm-systems of the Su-24, and - in relation to the latter - the weather.

Namely, Russians failed to announce their flight, then failed to react to Turkish warnings, prompting Turks to conclude the aircraft would be those of the Assadist air force*. Then, because of a strong western wind (30-50 knots), the two Sukhois couldn't but attack from east towards west, which inevitably resulted in violation of Turkish airspace. Indeed, not only one of them did so, but two of them, and then twice each. And: they were releasing their bombs from within Turkish airspace...

Now please somebody let me know what other country would in such circumstances - mind: we're talking here about a situation in a 'war zone' - tollerate this?

BTW, F-16s were on CAP, that's right - but close to Adana when ordered to intervene: one of locally-based Turkish SAM-sites asked them to help calibrate its radar, minutes before engagement...

*************

EDIT: *I call it the 'Assadist Air Force' for a very specific and well-funded reason. Even former SyAAF pilots, highly-decorated veterans that were pampered by the regime for decades, do not call it 'Syrian' nor 'Arab' any more. They really call it 'Assadist'.

[CrowBat]

Syria Reports: #Russia pave airstrip in northern #Hasaka city outskirts for kurdish #YPG
- & provide them fighter jets?
any confirmations?

CrowBat---anything on this from your side?????As said above: nothing.

Here's the reason why: US preparing airbase in northeast Syria: reports (http://www.syriahr.com/en/2015/12/us-preparing-airbase-in-northeast-syria-reports/)

With other words: 'sorry', was too busy with Russians and their terrorist allies in Syria but to follow what are Americans doing in cooperation with Kurds...

[OUTLAW 09]

Areas (light green) taken last night by #FSA from the #IslamicState in northern #Aleppo at border to #Turkey

Russia'n airstrikes on rebel hold frontline towns & villages to the #IslamicState in northern #Aleppo

Airstrikes by #Russia'n warplanes on road to Bab Al-Hawa border crossing to #Turkey in western rural #Aleppo

Along the #Syrian-#Turkish border, moderate (Turkish-supplied) rebels make major gains vs. #ISIS in 24 hours!

Footage
The #FSA uses the TOW vs. #Assad in #Jisreen, #Daraa province.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUiru2gFPVU …

Footage
Turkish-backed moderate rebels w/ #ISIS POWs after the liberation of #Yarn.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0ZNl11fqcs …

News
Despite #RussianAirstrikes on them, Turkish-backed rebels seized #Yarn from #ISIS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qb_1vd9WNMw …

Syr rebels announced that Al-Ghazal, Khirbeh, Kobre, kora-mazraa & Gas Plant are under control of them from #Daesh

[OUTLAW 09]

Latakia today:
The world's largest #IDP creation machinery (#Putin & #Assad) keeps working
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxGLaNFd_Hk …

News
More #Assad/#Putin terrorism in #Douma today
@EU_Commission keeps looking away
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oowmqMKkGM …

[OUTLAW 09]

BREAKING: Turkey enforcing special inspection of four Russian ships

Russian cargo ships in & off the Turkish port of #Samsun: Neva Leader 5, Surgut, Kapitan Voronkov, Kalitva.

[OUTLAW 09]

This will never happen as the anti Assad forces want Assad out not in .....

France says Assad could stay in power for transitional period in united #Syria that fights ISIS.
https://twitter.com/MiddleEastEye/status/673109675290845184 …

Hollande now accepts Putin's foreign policy.....for Syria.

[OUTLAW 09]

Assad's Mufti Hassoun is certainly one of the main regime tools for handling #Syria's Sunnis.
https://twitter.com/hxhassan/status/673159872632999936 …

[OUTLAW 09]

http://www.dw.com/en/russia-ratchets-up-war-rhetoric-and-not-just-in-syria/a-18896274?maca=en-TWITTER-EN-2004-xml-mrss

Russia ratchets up war rhetoric - and not just in Syria


A rock band sings about taking Berlin; politicians and the media threaten a nuclear attack. The war rhetoric in Russia is impossible to ignore. But there's a different mood within Russian society.

The popular Russian rock band Va-Bank released a new music video on Wednesday. It's called "And After Berlin" and is a cover version of the 1980s song "First We Take Manhattan," by Canadian singer Leonard Cohen. The Russian text contains current political messages. International sanctions, Crimea and the Soviet dictator Josef Stalin are mentioned before the chorus comes: "First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin."

Since the annexation of Crimea , war and conquest fantasies have become commonplace in Russia. You hear them from politicians, journalists and pundits. Apocalyptic photomontages depicting a future war between Europe and the United States are making the rounds on social media. One such photo shows a Russian tank in a demolished Paris with the caption "Tank tours in Europe."

The threat of nuclear weapons - something that Russians have previously tried to avoid - now surfaces regularly. March 16, 2014, is the day the taboo was broken. That's the day that a referendum seen internationally as illegitimate was held on Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula, which was occupied by Russian troops. "Russia is the only country in the world that is truly capable of turning the USA into a heap of radioactive ash," star moderator Dmitri Kisseljov said on state television.

Since then, prominent personalities have continued to swing the nuclear club. Right-wing populist Vladimir Shirinovsky, the deputy parliamentary chairman, has threatened to reduce first Kyiv, then Berlin, then Washington to dust. Most recently, he was toying with the idea of throwing a nuclear bomb into the Black Sea near Istanbul. Then the Turkish city would be washed away by a giant wave, Shirinovsky reasoned during an appearance before parliament on Tuesday.

Sociologist Denis Volkov, of the renowned Levada research center, says such comments are a means of testing public opinion. "It would be much more serious, if Putin were to say in a documentary film that Russia was prepared to use atomic weapons in the Crimea dispute," he told DW.

War in the air

The "expectation of war" is hanging in the air these days, the Moscow-based journalist and blogger Alexander Plushev told DW. He said the media were mainly responsible for spreading such sentiment.

Turkey's downing of a Russian military jet on its border with Syria at the end of November appears to have heated up Russia's war rhetoric even more. Moscow's Novaya Gazeta has warned of the growing risk of an actual nuclear standoff. "Those who would call for the deployment of nuclear weapons out of revenge, and not as a deterrent, are the real criminals," the paper, which is known for being critical of the Kremlin, wrote on Thursday. It called on readers to sign an online petition for a law to make publicly threatening the use of nuclear weapons a punishable act. Such a petition first needs to gain 100,000 signatures for the government to consider it.

Even some journalists loyal to the Kremlin have shown concern. At the end of November, Ulyana Skoibeda of the tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda questioned the jingoism in the wake of the Turkey conflict. "We're hearing the word 'war' at every turn," the normally effusive Putin supporter wrote, asking: "Do we really need this war?" Her column disappeared from the paper's website a few hours after it was published.

Most Russians against war

Skoibeda simply said what most Russians think. According to opinion polls, one of the biggest worries plaguing Russian citizens is the threat of war. The Levada Center's latest surveys show that 59 percent expect a war between Russia and the terrorist militia " Islamic State " in the coming decade in Syria . Every fourth Russian (28 percent) believes in an armed conflict with NATO, the Levada Center found in November. "Most people don't want a war," said sociologist Volkov. "But around 20 percent are the so-called hawks, who support radical, aggressive strategies against Ukraine, the West, the United States, and Turkey." He added that their number appears to be stable.

Jens Siegert, head of the Moscow office of the Heinrich Bll Foundation, told DW that war fantasies are not that widespread in Russia. "If you were to ask, do you want a war, most people would say no, we are a peaceful people. What they do say, is that war is forced on them from outside," the political scientist said. Siegert added that state propaganda has been fostering an image of Russia as a "besieged fortress" for more than a decade. In addition, there has been a "desensitization." Violence in international relations is portrayed in Russian media as the norm, not the exception, said Siegert.

"State-controlled television is hyping the already hysterical mood to such a degree that it's eventually going to backfire," the blogger Plushev warned. In such cases, the government barely has a chance to change course quickly without disappointing its "enthusiastic followers." Russia won't be able to end the conflict with Turkey without "deeply humiliating its opponent," he said.

That's the direction Putin took in his speech on the state of the nation on Thursday. Addressing the behavior of the Turkish leadership over the downing of the Russian jet, Putin said: "They'll regret it."

"We know what we have to do," the Russian leader said, without giving specific details.

[OUTLAW 09]

#Israel tries 2 find ways 2 defeat #Russia's air-defence deployed in Middle East
http://dlvr.it/CwjLNH @haaretzcom
pic.twitter.com/gtUKd3mONz

[OUTLAW 09]

Debunking Russian Ministry for Lies pt.2. Attack on Al Dana parking lot- rebel area.
pic.twitter.com/TySbyB3Roo

[OUTLAW 09]

Some very good questions...

The last two weeks I was busy collecting all the info about the shoot-down of the Russian Su-24 by Turks, and then trying to place a corresponding article in one of 'authoritative' newspapers or magazines. The latter proved impossible: there was either no response - or if then such like, 'we've got no place for this'.

Particularly 'astonishing' since all the same media to which I've offered my feature is all the time complaining about lack of reliable and independent info on what's going on in Syria, and stressing they are de-facto forced to guess about what's going on there. Let me guess now too: ironically, they all the time guess pro-Putin and anti-Turkey...

Considering what can be read here (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_brigades) (but also here (https://wikileaks.org/saudi-cables/buying-silence)), absolutely no surprise. Question is only: who was meanwhile paid for silence by whom? Guess that even some of producers and editors are starting to lose overview...

(Note: eventually, only the Austrian daily Die Presse (http://diepresse.com/home/politik/aussenpolitik/4881526/Russische-Schlamperei-schuld-an-SuchoiAbschuss?_vl_backlink=/home/index.do) decided to publish the summary, and that after nearly one week of additional cross-checking and plenty of pushing from one of their editors.)

Anyway, a cross-examination of what one gets to hear from 1st-hand-sources in Turkey (including some of NATO-folks based there), Russia, and Syria, is that the shoot-down was clearly a mix of massive Russian failure to follow agreements with USA and Turkey, problems caused by obsolete/inflexible nav/attack- and comm-systems of the Su-24, and - in relation to the latter - the weather.

Namely, Russians failed to announce their flight, then failed to react to Turkish warnings, prompting Turks to conclude the aircraft would be those of the Assadist air force*. Then, because of a strong western wind (30-50 knots), the two Sukhois couldn't but attack from east towards west, which inevitably resulted in violation of Turkish airspace. Indeed, not only one of them did so, but two of them, and then twice each. And: they were releasing their bombs from within Turkish airspace...

Now please somebody let me know what other country would in such circumstances - mind: we're talking here about a situation in a 'war zone' - tollerate this?

BTW, F-16s were on CAP, that's right - but close to Adana when ordered to intervene: one of locally-based Turkish SAM-sites asked them to help calibrate its radar, minutes before engagement...

*************

EDIT: *I call it the 'Assadist Air Force' for a very specific and well-funded reason. Even former SyAAF pilots, highly-decorated veterans that were pampered by the regime for decades, do not call it 'Syrian' nor 'Arab' any more. They really call it 'Assadist'.

Crow Bat--this is the perfect example of what I say about western MSM--the Russian truckers blockade has been carried massively by social media for now over three weeks and extensively as well.

THIS is the first time a western MSM picked up the story---again the question why so late.

Interesting piece by @NeilMacFarquhar on big trucker protest in Moscow, which is not covered by Russian state media http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/05/world/europe/russian-truckers-protest-tolls.html …

[OUTLAW 09]

This will never happen as the anti Assad forces want Assad out not in .....

France says Assad could stay in power for transitional period in united #Syria that fights ISIS.
https://twitter.com/MiddleEastEye/status/673109675290845184 …

Hollande now accepts Putin's foreign policy.....for Syria.

So is the US joining the French in this move as well......

To Crush ISIS, John Kerry Urges Removal of Assad, but perhaps not too soon. Washington's tortuous diplomacy
http://nyti.ms/1XDSn2o

[OUTLAW 09]

VIDEO: Rebels in #Aleppo city #Syria target Assad forces with Hell Cannon fire.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ikmYxcLYMo …

[OUTLAW 09]

So the shia military of Iraq cannot throw out IS but they are going to attempt to force the Turks to leave........???

The unauthorized presence of Turkish troops in Mosul province is a serious breach of Iraqi sovereignty
http://goo.gl/AATdjr

Iraq has no sovereignty other than what Iran gives it and for them to believe different is a pipedream.

UPDATE: Security sources revise the troop number. 130 Turkish troops enter #Bashiqa region in #Mosul to train Peshmerga. - @CNNTURK_ENG

[OUTLAW 09]

Минобороны России 
‏
@mod_russia #SYRIA Terrorism has no degrees or nationalities. This is absolute evil. Any its appearance must be fought

Putin at the very beginning in his press interview before the UNGA stated that anyone carrying a weapon against Assad is in fact a "terrorist".......

[OUTLAW 09]

It's the first time for Opposition to retake Dudiyan village since they lost it to #ISIS in 2014.

Syria: Opposition forces advancing against #ISIS in North Aleppo, took control of:
- Khirbah
- Qarah Mazra'ah
- Gazzl
- Gas plant
- Dudiyan

[OUTLAW 09]

Second incidence of a #Russia|n jet made a close approach to a #USA-led Coalition drone over Syria.....

[CrowBat]

Crow Bat--this is the perfect example of what I say about western MSM--the Russian truckers blockade has been carried massively by social media for now over three weeks and extensively as well.Somehow, I actually feel sad about some (well, few) of publications in question. Considering some of reactions on appearance of my article in Die Presse, it seems they're outright scared of possible repercussions.

In my case, the least terrible were several 'readers' of Die Presse that accused me of being paid for by 'Americans' and 'NATO' to write that article. (Damn: and I've missed all of their payments... :D)

But the best was a lady that came with following 'reaction' (online):
'Dear Mr Cooper
You are distributing the worst sort of propaganda here!
On behalf of whom, anyway?
You will be held responsible for this in due time! Is that clear?'

...was short of registering there to ask her if she could be so kind to tell me who (i.e. what court) is going to hold me responsible and when is that 'in due time'...?

[OUTLAW 09]

Grand Mufti of #Saudi: #Turkey is Islamic world first & key defense line to be supported & defended.

Do not underestimate this message from #Saudi Grand Mufti re #Turkey. It is preceding extremely huge & important turn over events in #Syria

[OUTLAW 09]

BREAKING: Turkey enforcing special inspection of four Russian ships

Russian cargo ships in & off the Turkish port of #Samsun: Neva Leader 5, Surgut, Kapitan Voronkov, Kalitva.

The Turks pulled them in for a Port Control and found safety issues on three that were then repaired and sailed on---this all occurred After the Russians initially pulled four Turkish ships in for a Port Control......

Turkish flag ships detained for 'Port State Control' failure in Novorossiysk are MEYRA, ADALADY, HALIL SAHIN, MERT DEVAL & MAHMUT SAKA

[OUTLAW 09]

I have often mentioned here that Russia is actually the proxy for Iran in Syria.

Iran thinks #Russia has joined their 'Resistance Axis'? Didn't think they were that delusional.
pic.twitter.com/VwOW9NwZ87

[OUTLAW 09]

Seems #SAA have not taken #IS held Nasr Allah at Kuweires Military Airbase- 15 airstrikes hit village
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=36.210277&lon=37.617788&z=14&m=b …

In Syria, Assad's "journalists" PLANT evidence in locations where "terrorism" happens
http://youtu.be/Drp5sW3t_84

[OUTLAW 09]

#Israel tries 2 find ways 2 defeat #Russia's air-defence deployed in Middle East
http://dlvr.it/CwjLNH @haaretzcom
pic.twitter.com/gtUKd3mONz

ISRAEL: Senior IDF officer claims "In our nightmares, we never saw Russia’s S-400 in Syria"
http://www.timesofisrael.com/top-idf-officer-in-our-nightmares-we-never-saw-russias-s-400-in-syria/ …

[OUTLAW 09]

Islamic State Air Force continues to destroy Turkish humanitarian aid convoys YET demanding the Ukraine accept un controlled Russian "aid convoys" which really are military resupply convoys.....

AEJ خليل ้้้้้็็็็ @AEJKhalil
#Russia airstrikes carried out airstrikes on #Aid Convoys for 4th time
http://ow.ly/VwCF4
pic.twitter.com/6NXl9OEJ99

[OUTLAW 09]

KRG intel chief Masrour Barzani: U.S. still giving Iran a veto over Kurds' supplies in Iraq.
http://on.wsj.com/1HLZKOg

MORE Russian propaganda.......
Julia Davis @JuliaDavisNews

#RussiaLies
Vesti claims that American military planes might be refueling with ISIS kerosene
http://www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=2694886#/video/https%3A%2F%2Fplayer.vgtrk.com%2Fiframe%2Fvideo%2F id%2F1457143%2Fstart_zoom%2Ftrue%2FshowZoomBtn%2Ff alse%2Fsid%2Fvesti%2FisPlay%2Ftrue%2F%3Facc_video_ id%3D664618 … pic.twitter.com/5h6HylL89i

[OUTLAW 09]

Great article that explains in detail the Syria/ISIS picture I’ve described in general terms for a long time.
http://www.the-american-interest.com/2015/11/30/the-middle-east-as-it-will-be/ …

[OUTLAW 09]

For the n-teenth time Putins clique admits it targets ALL opposition to Assad.

Will be ignored by western mass-media

https://www.facebook.com/1492252324350852/photos/a.1492313031011448.1073741828.1492252324350852/1683960105180072/

Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation


Russian Defence Ministry comments on the statement of the U.S. State Department representative that the photos demonstrated by the Russian Defence Ministry showing hundreds of trucks with oil of the ISIS terrorist grouping are the true ones, but at the same time nobody has seen “imagery of the border crossing with trucks crossing the border”

"Finally, colleagues from the US State Department and the Pentagon confirmed the authenticity of the photo evidence, which had been provided by the Russian Ministry of Defence during the briefing on sources and destination of the oil trafficking, which takes place in the terrorist-controlled regions.

However, their statements that they “cannot see oil trucks crossing the border” cause a smile because a photo is a static image.

Therefore, during the briefing the Russian Defence Ministry provided not only photos made by satellites but also video evidence from the objective monitoring means. They demonstrated the tankers which were just crossing checkpoints of the Turkish borderline even not being checked.

If the American colleagues are not satisfied with those ones, they should watch videos gained by their own UAVs. By the way, the number of their unmanned aerial vehicles active in the sky over the Syrian-Turkish border and oil fields has been increased by three times recently.

The Defence Ministry also has information about the constant usage of Incirlik air base by the American aircraft and UAV’s.
It is worth mentioning that the UAV’s are not plywood hand gliders but modern electrooptical intelligence complexes. The complexes are even capable to register a serial number of an assault rifle on the seat next to the driver of a tanker truck moving across the Turkish border instead of just a vehicle.

There is also space intelligence, which was repeatedly declared by the colleagues to observe everything, but appeared to know nothing again.

That is why statements, which were made by the American officials concerning impossibility to register the delivery of terrorists’ illegal oil products, are not just a ruse. It “smells” as a real patronage.

Lately statements of the State Department and the Pentagon representatives have been looking like a theatre of the absurd based on double standards and a play on words.

They simultaneously can see and do not see, divide the opposition into moderate and not moderate. They even can divide terrorists into bad and very bad ones.

The Defence Secretary Ashton Carter stated that in the course of the last month the US aviation has been destroying only profitable terrorists’ facilities.

Can the statement be treated as the Americans have been eliminating only unprofitable terrorist objects for a year and a half?

Now it is clear, where the militants receive such great money for armament, hiring new supporters, bloody terrorist attacks and why the ISIS controlled territory has increased by hundreds of times.

It has been reportedly said by the Russian Defence Ministry that it is dangerous to play with terrorists. Moreover, it was emphasized that it can have consequences in the streets of our cities.

The Russian Defence Ministry expresses the confidence that the terrorism has no degrees or nationalities. The terrorism is an absolute evil, which is to be fought in all its manifestations.
That is the same axiom as the evidence presented on December 2 by the Russian Defence Ministry – the sources and destination of the flows of the stolen oil, controlled by the international terrorism, who patronizes it and where the ISIS receives money for bloody terrorist attacks".

Earlier representative of the U.S. State Department told reporters that photos presented by the Russian Ministry of Defence, which show hundreds of ISIS vehicles, are true, but at the same time the official mentioned: “What I have not seen is imagery of the border crossing with trucks crossing the border, and that’s because I don’t believe that exists.”

United States Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter giving a speech at the hearing in the Senate told that the aviation of the USA and their allies “does not aim to destroy all the oil infrastructure in Iraq and Syria” even in those territories, which are controlled by the ISIS militants. “We make airstrikes only on those objects, which they use for obtaining income”.

[OUTLAW 09]

Is Turkey now expanding it's protection to Iraqi Sunni's after the KSA Grand Mufti's Friday speech.........and setting up a control point on the Kurds??

Hrriyet" newspaper: #Turkey set up army base for 600 soldiers in kurdish controlled northern #Iraq ~20km east of #Mosul

[OUTLAW 09]

Syria'n Fact: Rebels in northern #Aleppo are forced to attack #IslamicState at night time bc fears of #Russia'n airstrikes

Syria Rebels have retaken Kafrah town in northern #Aleppo from #IslamicState tonight
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=36.567977&lon=37.167177&z=14&m=b …

Syria Airstrike on Siyasiyeh Euphrates bridge in #DeirEzZor tonight
-was destroyed by a SAA-commando 1-2 years ago http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=35.340895&lon=40.155491&z=17&m=b …

Syria Reports that kurdish #YPG crossed Euphrates river tonight near #Jarabulus

[OUTLAW 09]

Clashes tonight btw rebels & IS about control of Kafrah in northern #Aleppo

Lots of dead #SAA forces & destroyed tanks by (failed) #US airsrikes in #DeirEzZor

Aleppo Reports that cruise missiles hit defence factories in al Safira
A dozen #Russia'n airstrikes on rebels in northern #Aleppo

ONE of the 14 Iraqi Shia militias fighting in Syria BUT not fighting IS inside Iraq wonder why that is...........

Iraq'i Shiite militia "Harakat Hizbullah Al Nujaba" in #Syria's southern rural #Aleppo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ex6QUIxxQ0 …

[OUTLAW 09]

There is a "moderate" free Syrian Army fighting against Assad, Russia AND IS..WHY is it not being mentioned in the US MSM

Main factions involved in the recent Rebel territory gains against #ISIS | #Syria.
http://goo.gl/dF4W8j

[OUTLAW 09]

Syria #FSA hit tank in southern #Aleppo with TOW
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZatU0wYjfY&feature=youtu.be …

IslamicState mined villages in northern #Aleppo countryside- child & mother killed by explosion -tried to escape to rebel held area

Russia destroys Syria
https://www.youtube.com/ ...
https://www.youtube.com/ ...
https://www.youtube.com/ ...
https://www.youtube.com/ ...

[OUTLAW 09]

In some aspects the West needs to fully understand the not so subtle shift back to Russia not unusual though for the German political party SDP....

Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel is so pro-Russian that it has become a real danger.

http://sputniknews.com/politics/20151206/1031316837/germany-politician-relations-russia.html#ixzz3tcQ3Rz7l …

Seems that the SPD does not have problems in being wrapped into the Russian info war activities........

[OUTLAW 09]

Footage
Heavy close-range combat between the #FSA and pro-#Assad forces in #Latakia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=st-2XAq7wus …

[OUTLAW 09]

NOTHING like "danger close" when firing a mortar........I have done something similar but was under heavy ground attack and danger close did not apply..

Footage
#FSA close-range mortar combat.
Insanely dangerous for all involved.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EO2hW1iZdOo …

[OUTLAW 09]

Throughout #Syria, #Assad/Putin jets kept targeting civilians today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew_sCQlTPNk …
#KhanAlsheh, #Syria

Footage
Russian Su-24, hunting for Syrians in rural #Idlib province.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6CJ7XR3mH0 …

Zamalka today: Large #Assad/#Putin air strike on the town.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1xUtxHlKWk …

BREAKING
Doctors release child of mother, KILLED in #RussianAirstrike in #Douma tonight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfWuppDM-Ig …

Footage
Another air raid massacre was committed in the #Damascus suburb of #Zamalka
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo2o-8TIXhU …

Footage
Moment, #ISIS suicide car bomber detonates near #Turkish border,kills some rebels.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7WyxLFDBak&feature=youtu.be …

[OUTLAW 09]

SO who is exactly provoking whom....AND not a single comment from any Western leader...why is that??

Hurriyet Daily News ‏@HDNER
#Turkish FM slams #Russia’s missile ‘provocation’ in Bosphorus
http://bit.ly/1OHprB7

[OUTLAW 09]

Syria New batch of #Iraq'i Shiite fighters from #Basra arrived at #Damascus Int. airport

TOWs at work again.....
Rebels destroyed 3 tanks when Shiite militias try to advance in southern countryside of #Aleppo this morning

Shiite forces seized Qal`ajiyah in southern #Aleppo
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=36.082644&lon=37.030749&z=15&m=b …

Russia launched first airstrikes from Shayrat - Military Airbase near #Homs #Syria
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=34.491278&lon=36.908054&z=13&m=b …

[OUTLAW 09]

If you every wondered how Russian-targeted "ISIS oil refineries" look before the strikes...
via @IHHen #Syria
pic.twitter.com/zn2JwAUyjM

Heroes of war @SyriaCivilDef saving lives also 2day,this time in Zamalka
#Russia killed 10 ppl,dozens wounded
pic.twitter.com/OUJgxBSdl0

AEJ خليل ้้้้้็็็็ @AEJKhalil
You will never know the pain, until you pass through the same..
This is #Syria. Thanks for watching.

[OUTLAW 09]

BUT Putin "claimed he was attacking IS"..so is he killing children in order to not have them influenced by IS........??????

IMAGE Results of #Russia precision air strikes (on children) #Syria #Assad - Well done #Putin
pic.twitter.com/hxUajoOV8m

Is now the finally delivering a message that Putin can fully and correctly understand.......??

This is the second such attack in two days hitting the SAA as they attack FSA positions......

Four Syrian soldiers die in suspected U.S. coalition strike – Reuters
http://www.unian.info/world/1204573-four-syrian-soldiers-die-in-suspected-us-coalition-strike-reuters.html …
pic.twitter.com/aTTZRvUV4I

[OUTLAW 09]

Is now the finally delivering a message that Putin can fully and correctly understand.......??

This is the second such attack in two days hitting the SAA as they attack FSA positions......

Four Syrian soldiers die in suspected U.S. coalition strike – Reuters
http://www.unian.info/world/1204573-four-syrian-soldiers-die-in-suspected-us-coalition-strike-reuters.html … pic.twitter.com/aTTZRvUV4I

Damascus perceives Coalition airstrike on Syrian forces as aggression, applies to UN
http://www.unian.info/world/1204749-damascus-perceives-coalition-airstrike-on-syrian-forces-as-aggression-applies-to-un.html … pic.twitter.com/nD68drhhvh

NOW let's see just how the Assad regime acts....uses barrel bombs on it's civilians, uses chemical weapons on it's civilians, and NOW Russia is dropping cluster munitions and WP on civilians AND both are striking churches, schools, market places, residential areas and food and water points BUT that is not aggression????


Both Assad and Putin are now committing "war crimes" so do they both really want the UN involved......

[OUTLAW 09]

ONLY after social media has been complaining about their lack of actions especially towards Russian info warriors...........for only two years now and I have repeatedly said this is the true battlespace against IS......

Social media companies step up battle against militant propaganda
http://reut.rs/1NELPWm

[OUTLAW 09]

Possible indications of this type of FSB activities have been floating around social media for the last six months.....nothing from MSM---will be interesting to see if this makes the MSM....

Ex-FSB officer to TSN.Tyzhden: Russia involved in London, Paris attacks, ISIS
http://www.unian.info/politics/1204376-ex-fsb-officer-in-tsntyzhden-russia-involved-in-london-paris-attacks-isis.html …

[OUTLAW 09]

Clashes tonight btw rebels & IS about control of Kafrah in northern #Aleppo

Lots of dead #SAA forces & destroyed tanks by (failed) #US airsrikes in #DeirEzZor

Aleppo Reports that cruise missiles hit defence factories in al Safira
A dozen #Russia'n airstrikes on rebels in northern #Aleppo

ONE of the 14 Iraqi Shia militias fighting in Syria BUT not fighting IS inside Iraq wonder why that is...........

Iraq'i Shiite militia "Harakat Hizbullah Al Nujaba" in #Syria's southern rural #Aleppo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ex6QUIxxQ0 …

APPEARS that the so called alleged US air strike might have be in fact a Russian AF friendly fire incident--the fifth so far in six weeks....

Increasing likelihood that Russian Warcraft hit Syrian regime forces in deir ezzor.
https://twitter.com/brett_mcgurk/status/673800398663229440 …

Russian MOD will now show evidence that 2 US Jets bombed Deir Ezzor, then stopped by Raqqa to buy oil from ISIS & then headed bk 2 Incirlik.

Agence France-Presse ✔ @AFP
#BREAKING US-led coalition denies its strikes hit Syria army base

[OUTLAW 09]

So Russia cannot fight a two front war in both eastern Ukraine and Syria and maintain the rest of their military.....6M USD per day in war costs are hitting their bottom line budget....

Due to #Russian operation in #Syra MOD will cut number of mil exercises in 2016 to keep the level of state budget.

[OUTLAW 09]

Eliot Higgins @EliotHiggins

Verifying Russian airstrikes in Syria with Silk, two months on via @firstdraftnews
http://firstdraftnews.com/verifying-russian-airstrikes-in-syria-with-silk-two-months-on/ …

[OUTLAW 09]

Turkish, Ukraine defense firms in talks for tank upgrades
http://www.unian.info/economics/1204443-turkish-ukraine-defense-firms-in-talks-for-tank-upgrades.html …
pic.twitter.com/R51G60LdP4

The enemy of my enemy is now my friend........

[OUTLAW 09]

In some aspects the West needs to fully understand the not so subtle shift back to Russia not unusual though for the German political party SDP....

Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel is so pro-Russian that it has become a real danger.

http://sputniknews.com/politics/20151206/1031316837/germany-politician-relations-russia.html#ixzz3tcQ3Rz7l …

Seems that the SPD does not have problems in being wrapped into the Russian info war activities........

So resolving Russian problems in Syria which Putin went into voluntarily to defeat IS needs to be resolved inside G8.....this is how far German politics is going to assist Putin in order to get back to "business as usual".....

"You can't ask #Putin to solve problems like #Syria while excluding him from #G8," says #Merkel's vice chancellor. http://www.bild.de/politik/inland/sigmar-gabriel/ja-wir-muessen-isis-vernichten-43679492.bild.html …

NOTICE Sigmar Gabriel does not appear to fully Putin is working together with IS NOT against IS.

[OUTLAW 09]

Notice that even Reuters does not mention that in the 1936 treaty "if Turkey evens feels the slightest threat" they can shutdown the Straits.......

That is the not so subtle threat mentioned by the Turks in the PR by Reuters..

Turkey angered by rocket-brandishing on Russian naval ship passing Istanbul

Reuters

20 hours ago


ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey accused Russia of a "provocation" on Sunday after a serviceman on the deck of a Russian naval ship allegedly held a rocket launcher on his shoulder while the vessel passed through Istanbul.

Relations have deteriorated sharply since Turkey last week became the first NATO member in more than half a century to down a Russian plane, which it said had violated its airspace while flying sorties over Syria. The pilot was killed.

The NTV news channel broadcast photographs that it said showed a serviceman brandishing a rocket launcher on the deck of the landing ship Caesar Kunikov as it passed on Saturday through the Bosphorus Strait, which bisects the city of Istanbul. It said the ship was believed to be en route to Syria.

"For a Russian soldier to display a rocket launcher or something similar while passing on a Russian warship is a provocation," Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told reporters, according to the Hurriyet news site. "If we perceive a threatening situation, we will give the necessary response."

The Bosphorus offers the only passage to the world's oceans for the Russian Black Sea fleet. A World War One-era treaty obliges Turkey to allow all ships to pass during peacetime.

Turkey had considered Russia a strategic partner as its main energy supplier, despite deep differences over Syria. But since Turkey shot the plane down, Moscow has introduced economic sanctions including a ban on Turkish foods and other products worth as much as $1 billion.NTV said three NATO frigates with Canadian, Spanish and Portuguese flags had been moored in Istanbul as the Caesar Kunikov passed through.


TurkishFM summoned RFambassador due to violation of Montreux Convention(status of Bosphorus)
http://flashcrimea.com/news/turciya-obvinila-rf-v-narushenii-konvencii-montryo-o-statuse-bosfora …
pic.twitter.com/tW6Oc6hFhL

[OUTLAW 09]

First Draft @firstdraftnews

How @bellingcat has been verifying Russian airstrikes in Syria, two months on
http://firstdraftnews.com/verifying-russian-airstrikes-in-syria-with-silk-two-months-on/ …
pic.twitter.com/eeZIyhG2b9

[OUTLAW 09]

Possible indications of this type of FSB activities have been floating around social media for the last six months.....nothing from MSM---will be interesting to see if this makes the MSM....

Ex-FSB officer to TSN.Tyzhden: Russia involved in London, Paris attacks, ISIS
http://www.unian.info/politics/1204376-ex-fsb-officer-in-tsntyzhden-russia-involved-in-london-paris-attacks-isis.html …

But one thing is for sure - he is sound & sane when he speaks. He speaks what he knows. He knows quite a deal.

What he doesn't say is directly FSB did it or they did it. Except The London riot was according to FSB long term plans.

What he says is that FSB has far deeper influence on Muslims in Europe, planted sleepers among /w officially faked papers.

Not telling is equated to participating. He also says 2009 / 2010 London riots were warmly welcomed and (partly?) instigated.

He said that per widespread agent network among Muslim network in Europe FSB must have known abt Paris Attacks

[OUTLAW 09]

Russian sealift.......... Syrian Express on the move again.........

#ВМФ #Бф Ropucha class LST Korolev 130 is en route to Sevastopol ; no courtesy Turkish flag was hoisted on the LST

BDK-61 Korolev (130) is bearing the Russian Navy Ensign Andreevsky and "Keep clear of me" flags

Maybe due to the MANPADS incident of last Friday, Korolev 130 was escorted by 2 CoastGuard vessels, TCSG12&TCSG312

FLOT's Landing ship Korolev heading north on the Bosphorus. No TR flag and no MANPADS. We'll wait 4 Kunikov's return

This was #ВМФ BF Korolev 130’s 9th Syria deployment in 2015. LST clearly showing wear&tear of the Syrian campaign

[OUTLAW 09]

Lifenews: "Jihadi Tolik"(new Daesh executioner) interested in Nazism.
Typical for "Novorosiya" volunteer fighters
pic.twitter.com/rsUtETviQz

[OUTLAW 09]

Turkish Intel says ISIS & Assad regime have been in constant contact http://en.eldorar.com/node/875

"How Assad Funds Islamic State": through a Christian businessman with Russian citizenship, now under US sanctions.
http://bit.ly/1IuiXPr

Jabal Nouba: rumours that Syrian Rebels have killed Russian general & Russian soldiers

THIS would not be the first Russian general killed if correct--two were killed in Ukrainian fighting--both from GRU....

[OUTLAW 09]

Iranian revolutionary guard Adil Husseini part of the Basij killed in Aleppo by Syrian Rebels

Russia also mistakenly killed dozens of Assad forces in Deir Ezzor who are under ISIS siege. Just to confirm it wasn't the US-- more than 20 Assad forces were killed, many wounded and 2 tanks & an ammunition warehouse in Ayyash village

MAYBE when the Russian MoD release the strike video they will claim they hit an IS training center in Raqqa....

So: Russia hs accidentally struck Iran more than twice.
And this must be the 6th time it accidentally targets Assad

So much for the vaulted Russian AF precision........

[OUTLAW 09]

Hasan Sari ‏@HasanSari7
💥Websites close 2 IRGC: 1st #Iran|ian pilot killed in #Syria ,Massoud Askari was helicopter pilot.No further details

[OUTLAW 09]

FSA 16th Division tunnel bomb an #SAA building near the Gas Plant in Al-Khalidiyah #Aleppo
pic.twitter.com/xGuO2fZd6L

Turkish Foreign Ministry: Only 10% of Russian operations in Syria target IS
http://www.unian.info/world/1204696-turkish-foreign-ministry-only-10-of-russian-operations-in-syria-target-is.html …
pic.twitter.com/i7q1jnEYEo

[OUTLAW 09]

UN official: Russia has "gone ballistic" with new attacks on civilians + rebels in Syria since Turkey downed its jet
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/world/article48196120.html …

Devastation after a Russian air raid on the #Sukkari district of #Aleppo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2HiZ_CioSs …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=36.170724&lon=37.142115&z=15&m=b …

[OUTLAW 09]

Testing times ahead for the #Syria opposition conference in #Riyadh - rebel groups make up only 15 out of 102 (15%) participants.

Second Russian AB with S400s--moving them closer to Israel.......appear to be placing all of Syria under a Russian AD bubble system .....

S-400 SAM systems at Latakia, Syria
pic.twitter.com/bFjoIlZP4a via @Armiya_Russii

[OUTLAW 09]

Though sanctions were to work against the country being sanctioned.....??

AND this right before Christmas..........

Turkish fruits & vegetables gone, prices went up in one of the South Russia markets
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zU43sYTPtSw … pic.twitter.com/TGLviAUmE7

[CrowBat]

Testing times ahead for the #Syria opposition conference in #Riyadh - rebel groups make up only 15 out of 102 (15%) participants.Is that really surprising?

An oppressive dictatorship rulling with help of extremist theology... hmm... somehow, that really does not sound like compatiable with 'pluralism' and democracy'...

[OUTLAW 09]

Humor.........

Lavrov: #Russia bombs civilians in #Syria because they might be thinking of joining #Daesh, 'Preemptive strikes'
pic.twitter.com/G5xLahmUok

[OUTLAW 09]

Iranian revolutionary guard Adil Husseini part of the Basij killed in Aleppo by Syrian Rebels

Russia also mistakenly killed dozens of Assad forces in Deir Ezzor who are under ISIS siege. Just to confirm it wasn't the US-- more than 20 Assad forces were killed, many wounded and 2 tanks & an ammunition warehouse in Ayyash village

MAYBE when the Russian MoD release the strike video they will claim they hit an IS training center in Raqqa....

So: Russia hs accidentally struck Iran more than twice.
And this must be the 6th time it accidentally targets Assad

So much for the vaulted Russian AF precision........

Based on the sheer amount of Russian and Syrian propaganda storming the net on this air strike that they "claim" was conducted by the US .....

An incident like this gives the RU/SYR coalition a reason to establish a no-fly zone for NATO planes over the whole of SYR

[OUTLAW 09]

Since it has cost Russia 20B USD in a lost NPP contract after throwing out the Turkish engineers studying for that plant and since the Turks are moving their gas purchases to LPG purchases which will cost Gazprom millions and the lost pipeline deal cost another lost 14B USD---not sure exactly what other sanctions Russia can do ...to "hurt" turkey....

Ulyukaev: Russia Is Not Planning More Turkey Sanctions
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/russia-is-not-planning-more-turkey-sanctions---minister/552035.html …

[OUTLAW 09]

Will the 30 odd or so as of Nov 2015 cross-border Shiite militia committing massacres in #Syria be listed as terrorist groups?#Riyadh_Conference

Rebels blow up caterpillar with TOW hit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9WwJ-Zh81g …

News
After some short-lived gains, Syrian rebels again lose soil to #ISIS and #Assad north and south of #Aleppo.

Footage
The #FSA destroys a regime tank south of #Aleppo with the TOW. TOW team is claiming a T90 was hit.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_QuiSNSuFU …

Footage
#FSA TOW hits fuel tank of #Assad tank near #Aleppo ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ium2mjzx7B4 …

Footage
#FSA TOW kills / wounds 10 Iraqi militants south of #Aleppo with the TOW.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmt1-_jc0RM …

[OUTLAW 09]

Same procedure as every day in the northern countryside of #Hama.
Russian & #Assad planes bomb the hell out of it.

Aftermath of these #SU34 strikes
Entire center of #KafrHamra destroyed, very #graphicdesign
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8JZoTlwWfQ …

Footage
Moscow's jets deliver their deadly cargo on Syrian civilians in #Aleppo province.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7x-BeXS5tzo …

[OUTLAW 09]

RuAF airstrike on Mount Abtar 40km SW Palmyra
http://wikimapia.org/#lat=34.290069&lon=37.995953&z=18&m=b …
nowhere near Latakia..
https://youtu.be/955-5Z5bawA

A few weeks old, but an excellent overview of Jaysh al-Thuwar, aligned w/ YPG-led coalition
https://hasanmustafas.wordpress.com/2015/11/16/an-analysis-of-jaish-al-thuwar-the-army-of-revolutionaries-a-component-of-the-syrian-democratic-forces/ …

[OUTLAW 09]

Will the 30 odd or so as of Nov 2015 cross-border Shiite militia committing massacres in #Syria be listed as terrorist groups?#Riyadh_Conference

Rebels blow up caterpillar with TOW hit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9WwJ-Zh81g …

News After some short-lived gains, Syrian rebels again lose soil to #ISIS and #Assad north and south of #Aleppo.

Footage
The #FSA destroys a regime tank south of #Aleppo with the TOW. TOW team is claiming a T90 was hit.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_QuiSNSuFU …

Footage
#FSA TOW hits fuel tank of #Assad tank near #Aleppo ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ium2mjzx7B4 …

Footage
#FSA TOW kills / wounds 10 Iraqi militants south of #Aleppo with the TOW.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmt1-_jc0RM …

Appears the Russian T90 plus it's Russian crew are destroyed by a TOW hit in the fuel tank...totally unarmored.......

And there goes the first (what is claimed to be a) T-90... hit by TOW.
https://twitter.com/F1ea1337/status/673864751903072256 …

[OUTLAW 09]

While Russia delivers weapons to Yemen opposition, Lavrov blablas that conflict cannot be resolved by force.
https://twitter.com/mfa_russia/status/673828295197270017 …

Brent at 40 and sinking.......at this rate Russia will be bankrupt and Assad will be removed if it makes it to 35 per barrel..........

Crude oil crashes to six-year low
http://www.businessinsider.com/crude-oil-price-december-7-2015-12 … pic.twitter.com/OytFIJhjCR

[OUTLAW 09]

MFA Russia ✔ @mfa_russia

Alexander Grushko:Strengthening of Turkey air defense by NATO may hinder establishment of an antiterrorist coalition
http://tass.ru/en/politics/842026 …

NOW how is this exactly suppose to limit the Russian anti terror efforts WHEN in fact they are not even bombing IS......????

SecGen: #NATO will adopt a package of measures before Christmas to help defend #Turkey
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-nato-idUSKBN0TQ0HU20151207#Js2xzk3UTVDHEy8r.99 …
pic.twitter.com/eWKiYF5q6c

[OUTLAW 09]

The 291st Artillery unit was used to shell Ukraine in 2014 fr Russian side. Now actively engaging #Syrian civilians.
pic.twitter.com/1DI8J4kM2J

[OUTLAW 09]

Based on the sheer amount of Russian and Syrian propaganda storming the net on this air strike that they "claim" was conducted by the US .....

An incident like this gives the RU/SYR coalition a reason to establish a no-fly zone for NATO planes over the whole of SYR

US "certain" a Russian airstrike hit a SAA camp, underscoring Moscow's continued failure to accurately hit targets
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2015/12/06/Amid-war-on-ISIS-don-t-overlook-need-to-oust-Assad.html …

Wherein Russia is acting as ISIS' Air Force
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-turkey-battle-idUSKBN0TP0I220151206#aXG68jBid781f6eW.97 …
http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/195568/understanding-syria-whose-side-are-we-on-anyway …

MORE proof that the Russian and Assad Islamic State AFs are actually supporting IS......
Syria: Assad warplane bombarded #FSA rebels who are actively fighting #Daesh in E #Qalamoon
https://youtu.be/ldtqUhcYsL8
pic.twitter.com/ordxV6sKvX

[OUTLAW 09]

Iraqi militant with Iranian weapons fights for Assad w/ Russian air cover.
#HandsOffSyria campaign silent of course.
pic.twitter.com/5VxEWnS3vW

Updates for North #Aleppo: Rebels took control of Kafrah and lost it few hours later, as clashes still ongoing since the morning around it.

Hezbollah leader Mohamed Ali Na'ama killed in Aleppo by Syrian Rebels

Rumour that Rebels killed dozens of Russian soldiers in #Syria
http://www.orient-news.net/en/news_show/96312/0/Tens-of-Russian-soldiers-killed-in-Annoba-mountain …

[OUTLAW 09]

http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/195568/understanding-syria-whose-side-are-we-on-anyway

The Scroll

Understanding Syria: Whose Side Are We on, Anyway?

By Tony Badran


The White House and the Kremlin are currently working in parallel toward a common objective in Syria: cutting off support to Syrian rebels fighting the Assad regime by closing the Turkish-Syrian border. What makes this situation confusing, even to many reporters and commentators, is that it is being promoted as an effort to “fight ISIS.” The irony is that, to achieve his goals, Vladimir Putin is using both ISIS as well as a U.S.-supported, anti-Turkish Kurdish group.

It is no secret that Russia entered Syria to support the country’s dictator, Bashar al-Assad. As a result, Putin has shown very little interest in fighting ISIS, which has allied militarily and economically with Assad against other rebel groups, which it seeks to destroy. As a result, clashes between Assad and ISIS have been very limited. Instead, they have ganged up against these rebels in what often seems like coordinated offensives. Russia’s own military operations have almost entirely targeted Turkish-backed rebel factions in northwestern Syria, which oppose ISIS, and which had achieved success in driving out Assad’s forces from Idlib province earlier in the spring. Russia’s immediate military goal is to roll back those gains.

Weapons and logistical support flow to the anti-Assad rebels from staging points in Turkey. In order to cut off support to the rebels, the Russians baited the Turks by violating their airspace last month, despite repeated warnings to stay out. The stunt resulted in the downing of a Russian Sukhoi fighter jet. However, the Russians immediately used the incident to pursue a multi-pronged attack on Turkish allies and interests in northern Syria and on Turkey itself, in what increasingly seems like a deliberate trap in which the Turks are now caught.

The Russian propaganda effort in support of the military campaign against the rebels aims to portray Turkey as the state sponsor of ISIS, thereby isolating the Turks in the wake of the ISIS terror attacks in Paris. Russian military operations, the Kremlin proclaimed, were targeting oil installations, and arms convoys from Turkey to ISIS. But the area the Russian air force was striking while those pictures were being released by Kremlin-controlled news outlets was an ISIS-free area north of Aleppo, close to the Turkish border.

The current Russian offensive is centered on and around the rebel-controlled town of Azaz, which lies in a narrow stretch between a Kurdish-controlled area to the west, and ISIS-controlled territory to the east. This strip is of great importance, as it constitutes the logistical conduit from Turkey to Syrian rebels in and around Aleppo who are fighting both ISIS, as well as the Iranian-led coalition of Shiite militias and Assad forces.

In addition to attacking these rebel areas on the Turkish border with air strikes, this week the Russian Air Force also reportedly gave support to Kurdish-led units that were attacking rebel positions near Azaz. At the same time, the Russians, working with the Iranians and regime forces, had been launching operations in the south and south east of Aleppo, thereby keeping rebel forces engaged on multiple fronts. By pounding Azaz and adding a Kurdish-led assault from the west, Putin deliberately gave an opening to ISIS to move in from the east and try to gain control over the critical border town. Indeed, ISIS swiftly launched an assault on nearby villages and is now threatening to advance on Azaz, thereby acting in concert with Putin and Iran against the anti-Assad rebels.

With this ploy, Putin is looking to hit several birds with one stone. By drawing in ISIS further west on the border with Turkey, he neutralizes the charge that his operations are not focused on ISIS, but rather on Assad’s opponents. Also, by working with the Kurds, he is laying his own claim to a force that Washington and its European allies regard as their partner of choice on the ground. By creating an opening for ISIS to make a push toward Azaz, Putin will leverage the US and Europe to pressure Turkey to shut down this section of its border. If ISIS actually makes it to Azaz, then Russia can then invite the U.S. and the Europeans to join it in strikes against ISIS, and in support of the Kurds.

But all of that is what professionals like to call “optics,” meaning appearances, which can often be at odds with facts and goals. Putin’s larger immediate goal is to shut down Turkey’s link to Aleppo, thereby preparing the way for Assad (perhaps even in coordination with the PKK-affiliated Kurds) to besiege and eventually recapture the city. In doing so, he will have used both ISIS and the Kurds to advance his plan of undercutting Turkey and buoying Assad. Sure enough, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov explicitly confirmed yesterday that Russsia’s objective was to use the Kurds in order to seal off the Turkish border. “As for specific ways of sealing the border between Turkey and Syria,” Lavrov said, “Kurdish militia forces, which are allies of the US-led coalition, could be used.” U.S. special forces could also take part in the effort, Lavrov added, but they would have to coordinate with the Syrian government.

For its part, the White House has issued public statements that make it hard for casual observers to tell whether America is for or against Assad—who, after all, has murdered a quarter of a million of his own civilian population with barrel bombs, poison gas, and other outlawed methods of warfare—or whether we are opposed to Russia’s military intervention in Syria, or whether we are, in fact, allied with Putin. But a look at American policy statements and at a map of Syria (below), rather than sound bites, makes the picture much clearer. The White House has rejected Turkish proposals to set up a buffer zone in the border strip near Azaz. In fact, the Obama Administration has been working with the PKK-affiliated Kurds of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) precisely to avoid working with the anti-Assad rebels who are supported by the Turks and Saudis, which might upset Iran. The PYD Kurds are a perfect partner for American policy, because they have no interest in fighting Assad, and are content to work with the U.S. against ISIS and to strengthen their own position in northern Syria.

Following the downing of the Russian jet, Obama didn’t defend Turkey, which was once a key American ally, and remains a member of NATO. Instead, he has amplified Putin’s pressure on Turkey. The White House publicly pressured Turkey to cordon off a 60-mile stretch of its border that the administration says is used by ISIS to move foreign fighters to Syria. However, according to reporting by The Wall Street Journal, part of that stretch includes the area south of the Turkish town of Kilis, which sits opposite of Azaz, and extends eastward all the way to where the ISIS-held areas begin. In other words, the U.S. is demanding Turkey close down its border opposite areas held by non-ISIS rebel forces; those are the same areas that Putin is pummeling and wants cut off from Turkey. This policy aligns the U.S. with Russia, and therefore with Iran and Assad, against Turkey and the other regional backers of the Syrian rebels.

[CrowBat]

This is the only thing that makes sense, that is offering a good explanation for all that's going on in northern Syria the last few days.

Amazing piece of research and thinking too. Well done.

[OUTLAW 09]

Aftermath of Russian airstrikes today on oppo held al-Sukkari in #Aleppo. 6 civilians killed inc. a women & a child
http://youtu.be/1XMZjGl5nbs

Devastation caused by the Russian air raid on Kafr Hamra
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8JZoTlwWfQ …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=36.256386&lon=37.089157&z=14&m=b …

Reuters Top News ✔ @Reuters
Iran tested missile, breaching U.N. council resolutions: officials
http://reut.rs/1IRcNcm

[OUTLAW 09]

Reference the Russian and Syrian propaganda claims that the US struck a Syrian base yesterday...

US radar tracked #Russia bombers that killed #Syria troops whole way Mozdok 2 Deir el-Zour
http://syria.liveuamap.com/en/2015/8-december-us-radar-tracked-russia-bombers-that-killed-syria …
pic.twitter.com/P9zZdpOZac
So much for the vaulted GPS systems the Russians are currently using---a compass from 1933, a pencil and a map dated 1945

Long flight path for Russian aircraft, entering Syria from Iraq airspace could explain why Syrian govt thought it was coalition aircraft

[OUTLAW 09]

Iran & #Russia transfered about 40.000 foreign Shiite militia fighters from #Iraq #Afghanistan #Pakistan to #Syria
Divided into 20 different Shia militias...


Aleppo after another day of targeted #RussianAirstrikes on civilians in the city.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qF03Zyja2w …

[OUTLAW 09]

Lol
#Iran still pretending, #Soleimani wasn't hit in #Syria ...
But he cannot show up in public or attend any ceremony since 25 days.

Word on the street from MEK is that he will never return to his IRGC Command and is on the verge of death (basically life support) as he took frag hits to his brain when the TOW hit his armored SUV. He would have been killed out right but the TOW was a HE round not an AT round.

This is a major loss to Iran.

[OUTLAW 09]

Moderate Syrian rebels S of #Aleppo had to further withdraw due to the #Rus/#IRGC strikes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ejmBa4vw0E …


Possible war between Iraq and Turkey???? Interview is in German though......
ARTIKEL @BILD(+)
Interview zum 48h-Ultimatum aus Bagdad an die Türkei mit @Miriam411
http://www.bild.de/bild-plus/politik/ausland/irak/tuerkei-irak-spannungen-43700648,var=a.bild.html …

Notice the Turkish military rejected all demands from Iraq for them to leave----if the ISF and Iraqi Army cannot eject IS from any major parts of Sunni Iraq not so sure they can force Turkey to leave.

[OUTLAW 09]

New @AmnestyOnline report shows how IS got "a bonanza of unprecedented access to firepower"
http://amnesty.org/en/latest/news …
pic.twitter.com/0QSM5x8fiS

Reuters Top News ✔ @Reuters
Turkey will impose sanctions on Russia if needed: PM Davutoglu
http://reut.rs/1Qt0zwS

Analysis #Map
Rebels lose more ground vs. Iraqi militias/Russian airstrikes S-W of #Aleppo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvclU6N4U5k …
pic.twitter.com/7eD8au6asZ

About #Iran accusations against #Turkey, Davutoglu reminds Ankara voted against Iran sanctions at the Un Security Council in 2010

[OUTLAW 09]

The #Iran lead Shiite militias on verge to cut off #Aleppo highway at Az-Zurbah http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=36.067487&lon=36.980238&z=14&m=b …

Russia announces deployment of helicopter gunships in #Turkey's neighbor country #Armenia. Submarine "Improved Kilo" now at #Syria'n coast

FSA blow up Zell truck & 4 cars with TOW in Jabal al-Akrad

Aleppo Rebels expelled Jaysh al-Thuwar from Shawarighat al-Arz
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=36.526329&lon=36.998949&z=15&m=b …

RFS
Shuhada’ al-Islam Brigade
@ShuhadaAlislam
https://rfsmediaoffice.com/en/2015/12/07/24011/#.VmWLp-OGSko …

Video put out by FSA to depict the differences between them and IS was removed by naturally YouTube for violating service terms BUT they were played by Russian Syrian trolls as the video depicts absolutely no violence whatsoever....

Video has been removed, here is a clip where they promote not executing but teaching/imprisoning instead - @ValkryV

Here is the main issue---the three US social ,media companies, FB, Twitter and YouTube :claimed in a joint press release" that they will do more to fight IS online"--BUT really they are part and parcel of a very active Russian and Syrian info war and troll campaign WHICH all three actively support even though they "Claim not to".

Russian oligarch money speaks louder that the concept of freedom of the press and free speech it seems these days in the US.

[OUTLAW 09]

Russian economy will crash badly at 34 USD per barrel......and at 6M USD per day in two wars even faster.......

BREAKING: Brent crude falls below $40 a barrel for first time since 2009 http://bloom.bg/1YWmu2o

Front report from around Al #Zerbah, southern #Aleppo, near M5 highway, as #Iran lead Iraqi militias advance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvclU6N4U5k …

Syria|n rebels lost #Zitan village in southern #Aleppo to #Iran lead #Iraq|i militias
pic.twitter.com/a3r8Ws3xnW

The story how #Russian army spreads the world terrorism first in #Ukraine, now in #Syria.
https://informnapalm.org/en/dec08-russia-terrorism/ …
pic.twitter.com/BZ4q4cnzoF

ISW @TheStudyofWar
Report: In 18 months, number of foreign fighters in Syria, Iraq doubled
http://theweek.com/speedreads/592906/report-18-months-number-foreign-fighters-syria-iraq-doubled …
pic.twitter.com/NX4YXuDQNB

[OUTLAW 09]

Footage
#FSA TOW attack destroys Shiite militia vehicles in #Latakia province.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJsQWvKd2a8 …

BreakingReports
Syrian Al-Qaeda group Jabhat Al-Nusra (Jaish al Fateh) claims, another counteroffensive has started south west of #Aleppo.

Heavy clashes now inside Al #Zerbah between #Syria|n rebels and #Assad militias. #Russia|ns bombing #Aleppo highway
pic.twitter.com/kNyFz2iuIE

Kidnapping, theft, oil sales, taxes. Soldiers, arms, bribes. @JasonAbbruzzese on how ISIS makes—and spends—its money http://mashable.com/2015/12/08/isis-makes-its-money-like/#.pJ3NjLhk05S …
#Turkey deported film crew of #Russia's leading propagandists - TV channel 'Russia 1'
http://www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=2695909# …
pic.twitter.com/3dO7j2tEHB

NOT confirmed
Multiple #RuAF massacres on refugee camps + woman & childrens hospital in #Latakia on #Turkey border.

Confusion in the Levant. US not bombing Assad - but Russia is. All, of course, a mess.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/08/world/middleeast/syria-airstrikes.html?_r=1&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=New%20Campaign&utm_term=%2AMideast%20Brief …

Aftermath of #Russia airstrikes on #Karm_al_Afandi yesterday Dec 7
#Aleppo #Syria
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxyOIPvubXg …
pic.twitter.com/P2187g0sru

[OUTLAW 09]

MORE Islamic State AD strikes on civilians in a marketplace BUT still no strikes on IS......
@SyriaCivilDef searching for victims, #Russia airstrikes targeting markets in #Hamouriyah
#Damascus Dec 8

Want to be as good as the fella /w ПЗРК 9К38 "ИГЛА"?
Here's the army manual for operators!! http://portal.tpu.ru/files/departments/publish/VK_AkylovBaydakovVasiliev.pdfpic.twitter.com/U6Npk3ysa4

Russia denies wrongdoing over MANPAD on ship thro’ Bosphorus: "Guarding a ship is a legitimate right of any crew."
pic.twitter.com/v7yYngtDhV
Guarding from what exactly ...............

First #Russian embassy tweeted on MANPADS scandal "Piss off. It's normal".
Russian Foreign Ministry has officially revoked its risque tweet
https://twitter.com/leonidragozin/status/674249380564725760 …
pic.twitter.com/wI1EcMdJon

[OUTLAW 09]

Increasingly bellicose Erdogan "insists" on safe zones in N Syria, in remarks broadcast on state TV:
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-turkey-erdogan-idUSKBN0TR1DT20151208 …

World | Tue Dec 8, 2015 7:20am EST
Related: World

Turkey 'insists' on safe zones, support for moderate Syrian forces: Erdogan


ISTANBUL
Turkey insists on the creation of "safe zones" in northern Syria and rapid implementation of proposals to train and equip moderate rebels, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday.

Erdogan was speaking to a group of neighborhood officials in the capital, Ankara, and his comments were broadcast live on television.

[OUTLAW 09]

Russia airstrikes on Hospital of #Hamer village, #al_Lajat area
#Daraa #Syria Dec8
Map:
http://goo.gl/JU5ujk
pic.twitter.com/E5nH0HxXlq

Huge part of the #Syrian society is religiously or politically opposed to #Iran in terms of their theocracy. https://twitter.com/ArtWendeley/status/674247926324043776 …

Difficult to see how Shia militias symbolically taking over Sunni Mosques in #Syria (here south #Aleppo) will help. https://twitter.com/omarbalkhi5/status/674218378303832064 …

[OUTLAW 09]

Increasingly bellicose Erdogan "insists" on safe zones in N Syria, in remarks broadcast on state TV:
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-turkey-erdogan-idUSKBN0TR1DT20151208 …

World | Tue Dec 8, 2015 7:20am EST
Related: World

Turkey 'insists' on safe zones, support for moderate Syrian forces: Erdogan


Russia/Iraq vs Turkey is going to get interesting...

[OUTLAW 09]

Why ISIS Isn’t Going Anywhere
http://thebea.st/1Ofdr53

Raqqa an Airstrike targeted Huneda Checkpoint near the Main road between #Raqqa and #Aleppo

Raqqa an Airstrike targeted Grain Mill in the northern side of #Raqqa in the morning

Raqqa several Ballistic missiles fall on #Tabqah city in the morning and Major explosion were heard

Syria #JaF try to storm now Al-Eis town in southern rural #Aleppo
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.993980&lon=37.001438&z=14&m=b …

[OUTLAW 09]

http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.de/2015/12/russian-world-isnt-propaganda-its.html

Tuesday, December 8, 2015

‘Russian World’ Isn’t Propaganda; It’s Psychotherapy for Russians, Analyst Says


Paul Goble


Staunton, December 8 – “Under the conditions of the specific Russian culture of today, the ‘Russian world’ fulfills an important role,” Maksim Goryunov says. “The myth of the ‘Russian world’ helps people to hold out when they find themselves in complicated and unbearable circumstances.”

The Russian analyst says that “if an individual who grows up in the Russian cultural climate is not able to make a career, keep a family or maintain a business … the myth about the ‘Russian world’ helps him to avoid throwing up his hands or turning to vodka” (forbes.ru/mneniya-column/tsennosti/306971-russkii-mir-kak-zashchita-ot-otchayaniya).

And thus it is important to understand that “the ‘Russian world’ is not propaganda” and was not dreamed up in a Kremlin office. It existed long before pro-Kremlin talking heads mentioned it. It “exists now, and it will exist tomorrow when the hysteria [about it finally] settles down.”

Goryunov devotes his article to explaining why this is so and how the myth of the “Russian world” works. First of all, he says, “the ‘Russian world’ by accusing Jews/Caucasians/Asians for all their misfortunes removes the feeling of guilt for their own failures.”

Guilt is a destructive emotion, and people run from it. The “Russian world” is one mechanism that helps them do so. If a Russian loses his job, he isn’t guilty. The Zionists or the Americans or someone else is. That isn’t so important; what matters is that the Russian himself or herself never is. And he or she doesn’t not have to face reality or take responsibility.

But in this respect, “the ‘Russian world’ is like opium for the people about which Marx spoke, “an ideological opium” that may help people get through tough times but that through overuse strips them of the capacity for action, Goryunov suggests.

A second way that the “Russian world” performs a psychotherapeutic function has to do with the victims it identifies. Sometimes, Russians talk about White Russian emigres who were driven into poverty abroad by the Zionists; more often, they talk about the Russian Cossacks who have suffered so much.

“As a rule,” Goryunov writes, “Russian men who have suffered a major failure sooner or later join the Cossacks. A Russian Cossack is such an amoral government actor and holy thief who by his theft serves the fatherland and by his amorality God.” Such people thus become romantic heroes precisely because they are driven to this by oppression.

Not all Russians take refuge in the “Russian world,” of course. “If someone formed in a Russian milieu is in a situation where ‘everything is going well,’ he will not think about the ‘Russian world.’ More likely, he will with satisfaction laugh about it” – because he doesn’t need the kind of therapy it provides.

That in turn means, the analyst says, that “even if tomorrow Russia was suddenly transformed and became normal, the ‘Russian world’ would not go anywhere. It would remain very much alive in the dregs of Russian society.” It would in short return to where it was two years ago, but it will last 200 years after Russia disappears “if of course it does disappear.”

There is a “radical” cure for the “Russian world.” It consists of economic growth and a just distribution of incomes. “The richer Russian society will be, the less of the ‘Russian world’ there will be in it.”

Indeed, the connection between the myth of the “Russian world” and misfortune and a poor quality of life is much like the connection between those factors and tuberculosis. And the cure is thus much the same.

The myth is thus useful – it provides a reduction in “discomfort from failure” – but only temporarily. Like any ideological opium, the ‘Russian world’ destroys if it is used for too long. It is sufficient to look at ‘professional Russians’ in order to understand how fatal it can be in large doses.”

But even small doses can be dangerous under some circumstances. It can lead those who take it to avoid responsibility to meet their ends “in the Ukraine steppe or in the mountains between Syria and Turkey.”

[OUTLAW 09]

Russian Rostov-on-Don kilo class submarine launched Caliber cruise missiles on targets in Syria
http://syria.liveuamap.com/en/2015/8-december-russian-rostovondon-kilo-class-submarine-launched … via @riabreakingnews

Putin & Shoigu w/ black box from Russian jet shot down by Turkey. Findings won't change stance on issue, prez says. https://twitter.com/dimsmirnov175/status/674304372478726145 …

Shoigu 'hands over' Su-24 black box to Putin in weird mini-cermony. Much less weird than the last time they did it.
pic.twitter.com/F4qG9F6gtM

Reuters Top News ✔ @Reuters
U.S. conducting 'serious review' of alleged Iran missile test
http://reut.rs/1NJnVsW

[OUTLAW 09]

Russia has asked Cyprus for military facilities for its forces fighting in #Syria.
http://cyprus-mail.com/2015/12/07/70492/ …
RAF & Russia may soon be sharing Cyprus airspace

Syria #Aleppo Rebels retook Zaytan in southern #Aleppo
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=36.057530&lon=37.013841&z=15&m=b …

Russian contractors & volunteers moving from #Ukraine to #Syria
https://informnapalm.org/en/dec08-russia-terrorism/ …
pic.twitter.com/MwrEmSOtHa

It's back and forth, back and forth between rebels and government troops South of Aleppo.
#Syria
https://twitter.com/markito0171/status/674311613156089856 …

[OUTLAW 09]

Russian MoD compilation of strikes from long range bombers, Su-24, SU-30, etc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V76OqCGbQKk …

After #Russia airstrikes, #ASSad sent his helicopters..
#SAA dropping several barrel bombs on #Inkhil
#SYria Dec8

Russia airstrikes on #a_Tamanah, #Idlib #Syria Dec 8

Kalibr missiles were launched from Kilo-class diesel-electric sub 'Rostov-on-Don'
http://syria.liveuamap.com/en/2015/8-december-kalibr-missiles-were-launched-from-kiloclass-dieselelectric …
pic.twitter.com/o12W2oLTx1

[davidbfpo]

A WINEP article worth reading as the IDF's air strikes in Syria do at times seem at odds with the interests of Assad's friends:http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/israeli-russian-coordination-in-syria-so-far-so-good

[CrowBat]

Don't think that article brought anything really 'new' - except that it bolsters the (meanthile 'ideological') line that 'Turkey is guilty for everything' - presently maintained by everybody, starting from Oblabla.

It starts with usual boasting about 'Israelis making everything better' (stipulating the downing of the Russian Su-24 was a Turkish mistake), while entirely ignoring the fact that exactly the same kind of 'hotline' like maintained between Israel and Russians was maintained between Turkey and Russians. Therefore, it fails to explain why the Russians failed to make use of that hotline (to announce their flight up to the Turkish border, as agreed on 15 October, and to hear Turkish warnings), while they seem very careful while maintaining the hotline to Israel.

That aside, though much more worrying (considering WINEP's influence in specific circles in the DC), is the failure of the author to understand the nature of Assad-Putin relations: one of primary reasons for Russian military intervention in Syria (except for all sorts of psychotherapies for Russian public) is to prevent Assadistan from ending under complete control of the IRGC and Hezbollah - and not any kind of 'bombing Daesh' and even less so 'cooperating with Israel, because Israelis are always right and Israel is ah so important for the USA'. If that now brings some sort of arms deals worth billions with Tehran (which is bankrupt but thanks to Oblabla looking the other way can borrow money from China again), even better so.

And, as so often in works of that kind, it completely ignores realities on the ground.... erm, in the skies over Syria, i.e. operational details: fact is that Russians are not operating anywhere as close to Israel as they go to Turkey. Fact is that Israelis can't care less whom are Russians bombing, as long as Russians are not bombing Israel (nor Israeli-occuppied Golan Heights). And fact is: there is no evidence of any kind of violations of Israeli or Israeli-controlled airspace over the Golan Heights by Russian aircraft - even less so of any Russian aircraft releasing ordnance or deploying ECM while violating that airspace. Namely: any notions in this direction are interpretations of various Israeli statements.

Overall, that far, and sadly, 'typical WINEP'...

A much better exception from the generally poor analysis in that feature is the paragraph where the author concluded something Russians better get aware very soon (last paragraph of chapter 'Other Potential Escalators'): namely, that Russians might want to realize that by supporting Assad they are cooperating with (at least) two terrorist organizations with clear extremist religious agenda.

Even then, the author failed to pay attention at the fact that present Russian policy is to act as if neither the IRGC nor the Hezbollah would be around: all maps of Syria published by the Russian MOD simply do not show anything of the IRGC-run offensive in southern Aleppo (which, at least so far, did not include but a single soldier from any of loyalist militias, including the NDF).

Looking forward to see how Putin thinks he can get away without burning his fingers...

***********


Kalibr missiles were launched from Kilo-class diesel-electric sub 'Rostov-on-Don'
http://syria.liveuamap.com/en/2015/8-december-kalibr-missiles-were-launched-from-kiloclass-dieselelectric …
pic.twitter.com/o12W2oLTx1Another admission that the VKS' campaign in Syria is failing to hit its targets...

That said: so many of these cruise missiles are malfunctioning and crashing or going astry, that I'm just waiting for one that's going to end somewhere in the EU/NATO...

[OUTLAW 09]

Don't think that article brought anything really 'new' - except that it bolsters the (meanthile 'ideological') line that 'Turkey is guilty for everything' - presently maintained by everybody, starting from Oblabla.

It starts with usual boasting about 'Israelis making everything better' (stipulating the downing of the Russian Su-24 was a Turkish mistake), while entirely ignoring the fact that exactly the same kind of 'hotline' like maintained between Israel and Russians was maintained between Turkey and Russians. Therefore, it fails to explain why the Russians failed to make use of that hotline (to announce their flight up to the Turkish border, as agreed on 15 October, and to hear Turkish warnings), while they seem very careful while maintaining the hotline to Israel.

That aside, though much more worrying (considering WINEP's influence in specific circles in the DC), is the failure of the author to understand the nature of Assad-Putin relations: one of primary reasons for Russian military intervention in Syria (except for all sorts of psychotherapies for Russian public) is to prevent Assadistan from ending under complete control of the IRGC and Hezbollah - and not any kind of 'bombing Daesh' and even less so 'cooperating with Israel, because Israelis are always right and Israel is ah so important for the USA'. If that now brings some sort of arms deals worth billions with Tehran (which is bankrupt but thanks to Oblabla looking the other way can borrow money from China again), even better so.

And, as so often in works of that kind, it completely ignores realities on the ground.... erm, in the skies over Syria, i.e. operational details: fact is that Russians are not operating anywhere as close to Israel as they go to Turkey. Fact is that Israelis can't care less whom are Russians bombing, as long as Russians are not bombing Israel (nor Israeli-occuppied Golan Heights). And fact is: there is no evidence of any kind of violations of Israeli or Israeli-controlled airspace over the Golan Heights by Russian aircraft - even less so of any Russian aircraft releasing ordnance or deploying ECM while violating that airspace. Namely: any notions in this direction are interpretations of various Israeli statements.

Overall, that far, and sadly, 'typical WINEP'...

A much better exception from the generally poor analysis in that feature is the paragraph where the author concluded something Russians better get aware very soon (last paragraph of chapter 'Other Potential Escalators'): namely, that Russians might want to realize that by supporting Assad they are cooperating with (at least) two terrorist organizations with clear extremist religious agenda.

Even then, the author failed to pay attention at the fact that present Russian policy is to act as if neither the IRGC nor the Hezbollah would be around: all maps of Syria published by the Russian MOD simply do not show anything of the IRGC-run offensive in southern Aleppo (which, at least so far, did not include but a single soldier from any of loyalist militias, including the NDF).

Looking forward to see how Putin thinks he can get away without burning his fingers...

***********

Another admission that the VKS' campaign in Syria is failing to hit its targets...

That said: so many of these cruise missiles are malfunctioning and crashing or going astry, that I'm just waiting for one that's going to end somewhere in the EU/NATO...

Crow Bat---if I was the Russian MoD I would have stopped firing cruise missiles all together since the West is thoroughly monitoring every firing and tracking their efficiency which has not be the greatest which was evident from yesterday----

They wasted an expensives cruise missile on a checkpoint, one landed in a field and the third one actually did manage to hit a granary which the Russians "declared to be an IS oil facility" near Raqqa.

So the Russian MoD has revealed to the West the inherent weaknesses in their cruise missiles---meaning they must fire at least a barrage of 12 to hit three aimed for targets the rest go astray, crash and or somehow miss the target all together. WHICH for me indicates a serious GPS problem WHICH again confirms the poor quality of their Glosnos GPS stat system which has been privately admitted to over the last five years WHICH is why they use the GARMIN and tie into the US commercial GPS system.

So while they were field testing their own weapon systems the information provided to the West was light years more that what they gained by firing them in angry.

How stupid can a MoD be that has been obsessed by OPSEC over the years??

If you noticed the sub firing yesterday video---that was suppose to be their "vaulted stealth sub" and yet he was firing from the surface which the US Navy has not done in say the last 30 years--the Russian stealth sub was evidently incapable of firing from underwater.

UNLESS the crew just wanted some Med sunshine time????

[OUTLAW 09]

Nusra detonate 2 vehice bombs in Shiite militia hold Al-Eis town in southern #Aleppo

FSA shelling #IslamicState in Asanbel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVsz47D8rY0&feature=youtu.be …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=36.480449&lon=37.248631&z=14&m=b …

12.000 #refugees trapped in #Syria'n desert at the border triangle to #Jordan & #Iraq
Jordan block them to entering the country

Heavy clashes during night about control of Zaytan in southern #Aleppo
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=36.056801&lon=37.013025&z=14&m=b …

Raqqa Clashes in Khirbat Hadlah SW of Ayn Issa btw #IS & #YPG
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=36.297695&lon=38.662090&z=13&m=b …

[OUTLAW 09]

Hundreds of rebels leave #Homs suburb al Waer toward #Idlib under #UN supervision
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxsIwIuyTJg …

[CrowBat]

Oh, the examples you've mentioned are 'nothing'. The 'pearl' was the first of all the Russian ALCM-strikes launched in Syria, on Putin's birthday, back in late October: 6 missiles fired on a school building in a village in western Idlib province (have all the details but I'm too lazy to search for them now)...

Two crashed already inside Iran (these were two out of at least four that crashed there); one went ballistic about 2km short of the target and detonated high in the sky; two passed by the target without detonating, and simply crashed kilometres behind it; and one missed the target by about 300 metres.

Sure, if any was tipped by a nuke, that would be 'perfectly enough'... but, sigh, even Russians are not yet that desperate as to start using nukes in Syria... and why should they be? All the self-declared 'Anti-Imperialists' are so eagerly buying Putin's BS, he could serve them his own excrements and they would gulp that too...

BTW, it's GLONASS (Russian GPS). ;-)


If you noticed the sub firing yesterday video---that was suppose to be their "vaulted stealth sub" and yet he was firing from the surface which the US Navy has not done in say the last 30 years--the Russian stealth sub was evidently incapable of firing from underwater.Yup. But look: you and me are clueless and biased. You're paid by Americans and/or the NATO, I'm not only paid by the same, but also a well-known 'terrorist supporter'.

Therefore, it can't be that after all the incidents during various tests everybody in Russian Navy 'knows' it's 'too dangerous' to fire missiles from a submerged sub... :rolleyes:

...sigh... well, it's my instant candidate for the 'Five-Mullah-Faceplam-Award' in December 2015...

[OUTLAW 09]

From Sputnik International
stnkne.ws/anA6

Developing.....Putin hopes that nuclear warheads "will never be needed" in fight against Daesh

IS this man seriously considering the use of nuclear arms vs. people he doesn't like and can label "ISIS"??

WHY else would he be mentioning this in a Russian info warfare media outlet owned by the Russian government????

Putin loves threatening the use of nuclear weapons just as he has done in eastern Ukraine

Crow Bat notice that after these last cruise missile launches this pops up four hours ago conveniently in the Russian info war media.......??

[OUTLAW 09]

Footage
The #FSA prepared and backed the Islamist push S of #Aleppo with TOW fire.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlXOWuPRFnA …
This was written by this particular commenter seven weeks ago.....
For the first time in #Syria, islamist rebels accept moderates' attitude and moderates give full arms support to islamists.

Footage
#RussianAirstrike hits #Hamoryah, East of #Damascus.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odYtrgSzdP4 …

[OUTLAW 09]

Why ISIS Isn’t Going Anywhere
http://thebea.st/1Ofdr53

Raqqa an Airstrike targeted Huneda Checkpoint near the Main road between #Raqqa and #Aleppo

Raqqa an Airstrike targeted Grain Mill in the northern side of #Raqqa in the morning

Raqqa several Ballistic missiles fall on #Tabqah city in the morning and Major explosion were heard

Syria #JaF try to storm now Al-Eis town in southern rural #Aleppo
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.993980&lon=37.001438&z=14&m=b …

Notice Raqqa reported the cruise missile impacts and now the MoD releases a video--awaiting a geo tag to see "exactly" what the Russians did hit?????

Alleged "ISIS" targets of the submarine strikes ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFdLkaKyUkc …

[OUTLAW 09]

From Sputnik International
stnkne.ws/anA6

Developing.....Putin hopes that nuclear warheads "will never be needed" in fight against Daesh

IS this man seriously considering the use of nuclear arms vs. people he doesn't like and can label "ISIS"??

WHY else would he be mentioning this in a Russian info warfare media outlet owned by the Russian government????

Putin loves threatening the use of nuclear weapons just as he has done in eastern Ukraine

Crow Bat notice that after these last cruise missile launches this pops up four hours ago conveniently in the Russian info war media.......??

After fighter jets ,helicopters, long-range bombers, MLRS, thermobaric weapons & ship-launched/air-launched cruise missiles, cluster munitions, WP and highly precision but not so precision weapons Russia now uses submarine-borne arms vs. Syrians...

AND eight weeks later Putin is nowhere close to his solution of destroying the Islamic State......NOR "victory" over his "real targets the anti Assad opposition" AS the IS was just his "excuse".

[OUTLAW 09]

The ruble is expensive... #RussiaIsBroke @er3 The Russian government is running out of money
http://read.bi/1R7JcTH

That 6M USD per day for two wars is not helping much....great for the personal popularity ratings but bad for the economy it seems......

[OUTLAW 09]

MFA Russia ✔ @mfa_russia

Incident w/Russian journalists detainment in Turkey is indicative in light of a series of media rights infringements http://en.mid.ru/en/web/guest/foreign_policy/news/-/asset_publisher/cKNonkJE02Bw/content/id/1967559?p_p_id=101_INSTANCE_cKNonkJE02Bw&_101_INSTANCE_cKNonkJE02Bw_languageId=en_GB …

Let's see all the Russian info warfare warriors ie Russian Today, Channel 1 and Channel 24, TASS, Interfax, Life News (called by social media "Lie News") ALL tell the "truth"--so when one of these "truth tellers" gets thrown out of Turkey for biased reporting ie propaganda reporting NOW Russia throws a fit???

Typical Russian double standards.....

[OUTLAW 09]

Damascus A dozen people killed by airstrikes on Al-Nashabiyah -al women & children
Heavy clashes in the area
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=33.506190&lon=36.492119&z=14&m=b …

Just another day of the "Islamic State Air Force" killing Syrians in the name of Russia yet never striking IS......

Just another aftermath of an #Assad/#Putin airstrike on civilians East of #Damascus.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSxangsfgXA …

[OUTLAW 09]

Totally interesting---even now Hezbollah is trying to get into the info war business and released a video of them firing the Russian TOW-since TOW videos are now in high demand------FAKE --photo-shopped----they have no experience in just how social media fact checks videos like hawks....

Footage
Hezbollah #Arsal ATGM "killing Nusra-Front official" video doctored.
Nothing hit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzqyRh_NVdY …

[OUTLAW 09]

These people cheered #goals until 2011.
Thanks to #Assad, they cheer #tunnel_bombs now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qqvp4fGR1w …

[OUTLAW 09]

We are in this Obama mess simply because he says absolutely nothing---did the same exact thing in eastern Ukraine.......

A Nobel Peace Prize winner has the moral statue to say something anything about war crimes against humanity and the needless killing of civilians by the Assad and Putin AFs that cannot hit the board side of a barn in the middle of the desert.

Some of the worst pictures, I've ever seen coming out of Hamouriyah oday after an Assad/Putin airstrike massacre.
I can't even look at them...as they explode the reality of what is defined as being "Graphic"...

WILL not release them......but if Hollande and any other Western leader is thinking of joining Putin think twice before being tied to a war criminal......as the air strikes of the "Islamic State Air Force" is in fact openly and aggressively targeting civilians....AND NOT IS......

[OUTLAW 09]

Russian loses in Syria are now starting really climb..........

Ukrainian military intelligence reports,bodies of 6 Ukrainians who fought for #Putin in #Syria, brought to #Luhansk.
http://gur.mil.gov.ua/content/art-obstanovka-dovkola-syrii.html …

[OUTLAW 09]

These people cheered #goals until 2011.
Thanks to #Assad, they cheer #tunnel_bombs now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qqvp4fGR1w …
Blast power needs 7 seconds to get through the tunnel to its entrance.
https://twitter.com/sakirkhader/status/674567617227702276 …


We are in this Obama mess as he and the other western leaders basically tried to ignore the Syrian civil society demands being made towards Assad a dictator in 2011...by ignoring this particular civil society they slowly became radicalized simply in order to protect and defend themselves against a genocidal dictator.

Core question that needs to be asked--DID Obama do this to get his Iran Deal and not rock the Khamenei boat?????

This comment and video goes directly to the retrenchment policy of Obama in the entire ME.......

These people cheered democratic goals until 2011.

Thanks to Assad, they cheer tunnel bombs now, have radicalized to survive a genocidal dictator who has killed over 300,000 Syrians by his use of starvation, chemical weapons, barrel bombs and arresting over 250K and throwing them in torture prisons and now via the Russian use of cluster munitions and WP and air strikes on churches, market places, hospitals and critical infrastructure for food and water.

[OUTLAW 09]

Footage
Residential neighbourhood destroyed after two #RussianAirstrikes on #Anadan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGoiE2XwMns …

German citizen Nikolaj Blagaderov, fighting for #Putin in #Syria, with the #Su24 back box.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwNB5D9uamQ …

ANOTHER Syrian hospital hit by the "Islamic State Air Force"......
The main target of #Russia..
Hospital of #al_Salheen, crowded w/victims of airstrikes
#Aleppo #Syria Dec9

[OUTLAW 09]

Alexander Yakovenko ✔ @Amb_Yakovenko
Putin to @David_Cameron: we invite UK experts to examine “black box” of downed Su-24
http://www.rusemb.org.uk/fnapr/5340 pic.twitter.com/LHaHMzyw5r

NOTICE anything here---four countries investigated the shot down by Russia of MH17 and yet Russia denied the results AND blocked a UNSC investigation BUT NOW......?????

But crash site of #SU24 already shows Russian presentation of reality was wrong.
http://ukraineatwar.blogspot.nl/2015/11/determining-crash-site-of-russian-su-24.html …
pic.twitter.com/q5rHuwXIEJ

BUT
I nominate Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin for the next #NobelPeacePrize !!
pic.twitter.com/DNG99HA6tR

[OUTLAW 09]

We are in this Obama mess simply because he says absolutely nothing---did the same exact thing in eastern Ukraine.......

A Nobel Peace Prize winner has the moral statue to say something anything about war crimes against humanity and the needless killing of civilians by the Assad and Putin AFs that cannot hit the board side of a barn in the middle of the desert.

Some of the worst pictures, I've ever seen coming out of Hamouriyah oday after an Assad/Putin airstrike massacre.
I can't even look at them...as they explode the reality of what is defined as being "Graphic"...

WILL not release them......but if Hollande and any other Western leader is thinking of joining Putin think twice before being tied to a war criminal......as the air strikes of the "Islamic State Air Force" is in fact openly and aggressively targeting civilians....AND NOT IS......

Some #footage from #Hamoryah, which is showable.
Worst sort of #terror attack vs civilians.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQtNViRWq9M …
pic.twitter.com/OHD4Y7AMZf

[OUTLAW 09]

Putin in Syria: Heavy Civilian Casualties As Aleppo Pounded With Bombs And Shells
http://www.interpretermag.com/putin-in-syria-heavy-civilian-casualties-as-aleppo-pounded-with-bombs-and-shells/#11443 …
pic.twitter.com/xQ2IlbbelV

NOTHING fired and or dropped on IS----how strange is that for a Putin who claimed he was fighting IS to "save Europe and the world from terrorism"--when he is in fact the "terrorist" against civilians......

[OUTLAW 09]

NOW UK MSM picks up social media comments on this topic......

#Putin threatens to NUKE Islamic State with warheads from Russian submarine
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/625465/Islamic-State-Russia-Vladimir-Putin-threatens-bomb-ISIS-nuclear-weapons
… pic.twitter.com/Qzxp5foV6r

[OUTLAW 09]

Syria's Assad admits sending weapons to PYD #AA @anadoluagency http://v.aa.com.tr/487871

Aleppo: Commander of the Iraqi Hezbollah Brigades killed by Syrian rebels
http://en.eldorar.com/node/895
pic.twitter.com/5ybVnWJ9GZ

Humor................
BREAKING: #Syria's #Assad admits he doesn't actually have any idea what's going on anymore
pic.twitter.com/PAPBwFFqN6

Sculptural composition "Our Precision Bombing" was unveiled in #Russia pic.twitter.com/Ov7BkQ6x52

Almaz-Antey says it can conduct a test to prove the damage on #Su24's #FlightRecorder is from an Ukrainian #BUK
pic.twitter.com/dOkCZACCeG

Poll says 99% of #Russia's homeless approve #Putin's multi-million dollar campaign of not bombing #Daesh in #Syria
pic.twitter.com/zJW4ecADX6

[OUTLAW 09]

Reference the six Russian KIAs in Syria.....posted earlier.....

SpecGhost @SpecGhost
#Kremlin silent about #cargo200 in Syria:#SBU #Ukraine:#Russia|ns killed in #Syria carried to #Donbas:#KIA 6:
http://www.tvp.info/23027224/ukrainski-wywiad-rosjanie-przewoza-zabitych-w-syrii-do-donbasu … #Putin

[OUTLAW 09]

At least 12 victims including 4 #children died in regime shelling on #Hamouriya in Rif Dimashq, Dec 9
pic.twitter.com/69h3ubNZk4

"Russia is trying to make ethnic cleansing — you can write it." Turkey and Russia spat getting nastier:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/borzoudaragahi/turkey-and-russias-epic-spat-actually-seems-to-be-getting-na?utm_term=.ojdzr6qqM …

RuAF carpet bombing oiltanks of Thayem CPF near Deir Ezzor
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=35.198132&lon=40.080400&z=16&m=b …
https://youtu.be/V76OqCGbQKk?t=3m43s …
pic.twitter.com/NuEkbAUe9o

If you look at where Russia strikes in Syria their objectives become fairly clear. It's primarily regime support.
pic.twitter.com/Ad5BOfYCOP

RuAF airstrike geolocated near Fatsat ath Thayb, #Raqqa
http://wikimapia.org/#lat=35.901757&lon=39.294834&z=17&m=b …
https://youtu.be/V76OqCGbQKk?t=2m36s …
pic.twitter.com/lSvyhtqF3D

A new @mod_russia video shows a Su-25 bombing rebels somewhere near Nahshabba, E. #Latakia.
https://youtu.be/V76OqCGbQKk?t=107 …
pic.twitter.com/5RN0ZQ9nVA