Syria in 2015

[OUTLAW 09]

More young children wounded in the bombing by alleged Russian jets in Talbiseh
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKQCqIt4a6k …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNZkylN9Vic …

Epic damage ...
Buildings collapse like card houses under today's bombardment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVE7U9yw1PU …
pic.twitter.com/IC32SEjatC

Another child injured in today's alleged air strikes by the Russian military in Syria
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY4M7idrNvo …

Video interview with FSA Major claiming Russian jets bombed them in Hama, includes footage of Russian SU-25shttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTDfCslx8-s …

Aaah. Assad invited the Russian army, so it's legal now to kill civilians on a daily basis. https://twitter.com/Presidency_Sy/status/649180785661095936 …

[OUTLAW 09]

If u doubt Nusra has presence in the area: JN bombed Halfaya in retaliation for Ltamena

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wREe93CnveE … pic.twitter.com/AtjVOSZVAP

And now we have the RuAF Su-25s ground-attack aircraft in the air.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yA9PDiI8RoE …

PT (Unverified) Alleged picture of the 2 Su-24M2 who carried the air strikes in Ltamenah this morning.
Syria Reportedly 2 Russian jets (Su-24M2s) over Ltamenah, Hama. Air strikes also reported.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXsH50NrF1E …

[OUTLAW 09]

It appears among weapons captured on the Iranian boat headed to Yemen are Iranian copies of the TOW @Arkenstoneblog

[OUTLAW 09]

Awaiting other confirming sources------


BREAKING: Senior #US official tells @JenGriffinFNC #Russia|n officials demand US warplanes exit #Syria immediately

Russians tell US to remove warplanes from Syria, senior official says http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/09/30/boots-on-ground-russian-lawmakers-back-putin-sending-troops-to-syria/?intcmp=hpbt1 … ."Marks a major escalation in ongoing tensions"


Putin: "We fight #ISIS in #Syria"
First #Russia airstrikes 240km away from ISIS... & on civilian homes. pic.twitter.com/dgHol30BJd

VIDEO Talbish #Syria after #Russia(n) airstrikes,several dead wounded https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YadU34wOinI … pic.twitter.com/7MTSCgSzt7

VIDEO #Russia(n) airstrikes on Talbish #Syria where there are NO #ISIS forces https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQNhP6G0u7s&feature=youtu.be … pic.twitter.com/KA7DbcRDNY


Mossad News
‏@MossadNews First US-Russian air clash builds up as Moscow orders US planes to exit Syrian air space
http://ift.tt/1L3LWOy ... http://fb.me/6PU5Gy5eD

[OUTLAW 09]

Another video of the mysterious four-engine turboprop aircraft flying over Syria (northern Homs in this case):https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qwNY9GFXp8 …


Baghdad war room to handle flight coordination with US, Russia says http://ift.tt/1OFPpFq via @debkafile... http://fb.me/7pRxQ3tGj

[OUTLAW 09]

Russia’s Air Forces: from Setting Up Provocations in #Ukraine to Cargo Delivering to #Syria

https://en.informnapalm.org/russia-air-forces-syria/ … pic.twitter.com/aXyNXVsg3t

[OUTLAW 09]

More cities in #Homs province come under intense bombardment.
Absolute calm in #ISIS land.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVE7U9yw1PU … pic.twitter.com/5cY7sqyTGZ

[OUTLAW 09]

Russian parliament grants Vladimir Putin right to deploy military in Syria http://gu.com/p/4cpyk/stw

[OUTLAW 09]

Has Putin now taken the entire world into a "Holy War" between Christians and Muslims?????????

Russia's Orthodox Church says Putin is fighting a "holy war" against terrorism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQPmwzMopJw …

[OUTLAW 09]

BREAKING Iran leader threatens 'fierce' reaction if Saudi does not return hajj dead

[OUTLAW 09]

Appears that Russian air strikes are against anti Assad forces that use the TOW as it has been the great equalizer.

NOT ISIS--------

VIDEO: Alleged Russian air-strikes hit #US backed “Tajamu Ala’azza’” HQ. TOW vetted operators -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqJPVlDdLek …

[OUTLAW 09]

VIDEO #Russia(n) pilots talk while bombing Talbish/Talbisha #Syria

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LDnZAOJgSc&feature=youtu.be … pic.twitter.com/jqqMzTDOjT

Russia today attacks in #Syria targeted one of the few moderated rebel groups https://twitter.com/green_lemonnn/status/649185925281529857 …

[OUTLAW 09]

Further massive intel leak on the Obama watch----first OPM and now Baghdad.

Let's save some trouble here: All of it.

Everything USG told Baghdad they've told Moscow. Or will soon.

Got it?

http://www.defenseone.com/threats/2015/09/pentagon-scrambling-know-what-us-secrets-iraq-tells-russia/122372/ …

[OUTLAW 09]

Has Obama and his entire NSC and especially Kerry realized that they have signed up for a "Holy War"--- a "Crusade" of Christians against Muslims when they decided that by talking to Putin they would get somehow to a resolution--has not worked in the Ukraine and it will never work now in Syria--by killing civilians Putin has in fact sided now with Assad.

What the flying heck were they thinking in DC---????

Has Obama sold out his own values of "humanity" in the name of a legacy and the thoughts he can simply talk to resolve core issues with an individual named Putin??

Has Putin now taken the entire world into a "Holy War" between Christians and Muslims?????????

Russia's Orthodox Church says Putin is fighting a "holy war" against terrorism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQPmwzMopJw …

From today on #Russia will be held responsible for every civilian death in #Syria no matter what caused it. Pandoras box is wide open.

As if murdering children in broad daylight wasn't enough crusaders declared a war on Islam.

Looks like we can expect lots of attempts by Russian propagandists and Putin fanboys to debunk the Talbiseh videos of kids killed by Russia

Russian propagandists now trying to use dodgy claims to make out the Talbiseh videos are from 2011 https://twitter.com/korobkov/status/649232919865782272 …

BREAKING: Syrian state TV names at least 7 areas targeted by Russian war jets, including in Homs, Hama province
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2015/Sep-30/317111-syrian-state-tv-names-at-least-7-areas-targeted-by-russian-war-jets-including-in-homs-hama-provinces.ashx …

[OUTLAW 09]

More young children wounded in the bombing by alleged Russian jets in Talbiseh
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKQCqIt4a6k …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNZkylN9Vic …

Epic damage ...
Buildings collapse like card houses under today's bombardment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVE7U9yw1PU …
pic.twitter.com/IC32SEjatC

Another child injured in today's alleged air strikes by the Russian military in Syria
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY4M7idrNvo …

Video interview with FSA Major claiming Russian jets bombed them in Hama, includes footage of Russian SU-25shttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTDfCslx8-s …

Aaah. Assad invited the Russian army, so it's legal now to kill civilians on a daily basis. https://twitter.com/Presidency_Sy/status/649180785661095936 …

SOHR: 27 people dead, incl 5 women, 6 children in N.Homs countryside,toll likely to rise,many still buried under the rubble.

SYRIA: Volunteer group 'White Helmets' confirm death toll from alleged Russian air strike in #Homs today.
https://twitter.com/SyriaCivilDef/status/649226960753836033 …

IF THIS WAS PRECISION--hate to see the opposite----Russian propaganda is stumbling all over itself--first they shot down civilians in MH17 and then they deliberately bomb civilians--WHERE is the difference now to Assad???
Russian MoD media detail use of #RFaf Su-25 & Su-24 jets in "precision" airstrikes in #Syria
http://tvzvezda.ru/news/vstrane_i_mire/content/201509301703-9xdm.htm … pic.twitter.com/gN8QvawkrK

The blatant lies of the eastern Ukraine are massively being supplanted by the lies of Syria----
meanwhile the Syrian Ambassador to Russia was just on LifeNews thanking the Russian people and claiming no civilian casualties!

This kind of refutes what the Syrian Ambassador on Russian LifeNews stated today-----LifeNews is called LieNews in the Ukraine

Bodies of victims of reported Russian bombing in Talbiseh, Syria
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uN2WWMoZ1-4 …

[OUTLAW 09]

Has Obama and his entire NSC and especially Kerry realized that they have signed up for a "Holy War"--- a "Crusade" of Christians against Muslims when they decided that by talking to Putin they would get somehow to a resolution--has not worked in the Ukraine and it will never work now in Syria--by killing civilians Putin has in fact sided now with Assad.

What the flying heck were they thinking in DC---????

Has Obama sold out his own values of "humanity" in the name of a legacy and the thoughts he can simply talk to resolve core issues with an individual named Putin??

Has Putin now taken the entire world into a "Holy War" between Christians and Muslims?????????

Russia's Orthodox Church says Putin is fighting a "holy war" against terrorism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQPmwzMopJw …

From today on #Russia will be held responsible for every civilian death in #Syria no matter what caused it. Pandoras box is wide open.

As if murdering children in broad daylight wasn't enough crusaders declared a war on Islam.

Looks like we can expect lots of attempts by Russian propagandists and Putin fanboys to debunk the Talbiseh videos of kids killed by Russia

Russian propagandists now trying to use dodgy claims to make out the Talbiseh videos are from 2011 https://twitter.com/korobkov/status/649232919865782272 …

BREAKING: We must establish safe zones to protect #Syria|n #civilians, #French FM says - @AlArabiya_Eng

[OUTLAW 09]

There is no #ISIS in the areas were #Russsian planes arre bombing, there is natural gas pipeline. pic.twitter.com/GpCEYOaV2g

So much for the vaulted Russian intelligence--FSB, SVR, GRU services----who have been in Syria for years----

The targeted areas in today's Russian air raid in #Homs were those areas which fought #ISIL and defeated it a year ago .

[OUTLAW 09]

And here is Tajammu al-Aaza, the group Russia allegedly just bombed, firing a TOW at a Syrian regime tank. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gH8-aR5RTUQ …

Kremlin's Ivanov Compares Syrian Operation to Russia's Role in 1990s Civil War in Tajikistan
http://www.interpretermag.com/russia-update-september-30-2015/#10184 … pic.twitter.com/qBmxJZ3ual

Assad is actually the winner. Now he has 2 superpowers fighting 'alongside' his gov. #Russia vs rebels & the U.S.-led coalition against #IS.

US starts deploying HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopters & HC-130 aircrafts at military base in Diyarbakır #Turkey
pic.twitter.com/Xr3OWmqryg

"War in Syria" now international headline, as #Russia moves media attention away from the war in #Ukraine. #Syria pic.twitter.com/zJscadjz6W

Areas that @AFP is told were hit by #Russia strikes in #Syria's Hama, Homs and Latakia provinces are not known to be Islamic State positions

Russia|n airstrikes targeted #FSA HQs in #Hama suburb, FSA tells Al Arabiya News Channel http://ara.tv/nytmh

[OUTLAW 09]

Has Putin now taken the entire world into a "Holy War" between Christians and Muslims?????????

Russia's Orthodox Church says Putin is fighting a "holy war" against terrorism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQPmwzMopJw …

Looks like Homeland Security, the FBI, NSA, and CIA had better be prepared to hunt down "Orthodox jihadi's" now next to IS and AQ--how strange is that?

[OUTLAW 09]

Ah.............now we fully understand the true target of the Russian strike---

Russian air strikes kill US-backed Free Syrian Army commander in Syria https://twitter.com/sayed_ridha/status/649245100392886272 …

Looks like a bunker buster bomb was used in Ltamenah .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeRvzWwOfuc …

Evidently not killed---wounded----

Opp source claims #RuAF has hit #FSA 24Div HQ in Aqarba #Daraa countryside wounding Rateb Al-Hameed commander of Osama bin Zayd Brigade

[OUTLAW 09]

Infographic Casualties of #Russia|n air strikes on civilians in #Homs #Hama as of this moment.. pic.twitter.com/QpVCBeThhF

Saudi Foreign Minister: #Russia|n air strikes in #Syria is a 'dangerous escalation'..

Syria #Hama Residents of Al-Lataminah digging for missile after airstrikes by #Russia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeRvzWwOfuc …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.315545&lon=36.627216&z=14&m=b …

Syria #Homs Airstrike on #Rastan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NrLLkdu0mg …

US confirm #Russia'n airstrike in #Homs province in #Syria
here are the results:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uN2WWMoZ1-4 …

Syria #Aleppo Rebels shot down #IS drone above #Mare' town


Syria: PHOTO: Presumed #Russia'n Military personnel along with IVECO LMV in the Al-Ghab Plain b/w #Latakia & #Idlib.
https://twitter.com/green_lemonnn

Another Russian propaganda lie----

Ivanov: Goal of ops is exclusively air support for #Syria Gov forces in fight against #IS, no ground forces http://sputniknews.com/russia/20150930/1027761651/russian-armed-forces-abroad.html#ixzz3nD0TpF3o …

Russian LMV geo tagged-----
Position of the Russian Army LMV/Lynx in #Syria http://wikimapia.org/26690915/al-Ghab-Plain … via @2Rook14 pic.twitter.com/4jJZwkZQbj

[OUTLAW 09]

Syrian anti Assad social media getting the act together now that Russia has basically declared war on them----

For press contacts to #Talbiseh in #Homs, #Syria which was attacked by #Russia today go to @adoptrevolution

Will be interesting to see it grown as did the Ukrainian social media.

[OUTLAW 09]

Journalism", Russian style 2.
(Top left: #Syria, uploaded 1 hour ago)
https://instagram.com/p/8QkEpONjnW/?taken-by=mgritsenko … pic.twitter.com/kRaAA7Gctn

[OUTLAW 09]

SOHR: 27 people dead, incl 5 women, 6 children in N.Homs countryside,toll likely to rise,many still buried under the rubble.

SYRIA: Volunteer group 'White Helmets' confirm death toll from alleged Russian air strike in #Homs today.
https://twitter.com/SyriaCivilDef/status/649226960753836033 …

IF THIS WAS PRECISION--hate to see the opposite----Russian propaganda is stumbling all over itself--first they shot down civilians in MH17 and then they deliberately bomb civilians--WHERE is the difference now to Assad???
Russian MoD media detail use of #RFaf Su-25 & Su-24 jets in "precision" airstrikes in #Syria
http://tvzvezda.ru/news/vstrane_i_mire/content/201509301703-9xdm.htm … pic.twitter.com/gN8QvawkrK

The blatant lies of the eastern Ukraine are massively being supplanted by the lies of Syria----
meanwhile the Syrian Ambassador to Russia was just on LifeNews thanking the Russian people and claiming no civilian casualties!

This kind of refutes what the Syrian Ambassador on Russian LifeNews stated today-----LifeNews is called LieNews in the Ukraine

Bodies of victims of reported Russian bombing in Talbiseh, Syria
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uN2WWMoZ1-4 …

A really, really, really bad case of the Russian altered state of reality---

Russian Foreign Ministry says that news of casualties in Russian air strikes in #Syria are “information war.”

http://bit.ly/1QL930n

Appears they got caught by the immediate and massive social media barrage that hit them in the middle of the so called precision air strikes which killed over 33 civilians and many are still buried.

Appears bunker busters were used thus the massive collapsing of building and thus burying civilians under them.

BUT hey it was in the official Russian MoD report---" a precision air strike".


Since Chechnya--and the eastern Ukraine Russia is not noted for their accuracy of shelling among civilians and or using civilians as shields.

[OUTLAW 09]

Sad if true------German FM

BreakingNews
#Steinmeier on Russian attacks in #Syria with dozens of deaths:

>>I haven't got a clue.<< pic.twitter.com/YlVaVcOiGh

[OUTLAW 09]

Russia next move. Lease airbases in #Iran 4 logistic support 4 #Syria . Move in air defenses & aircraft .

[OUTLAW 09]

Russia trying to counter the killing of civilians by their AF precision air strikes today--

Kremlin news Vesti says there were #ISIS positions in Homs and "what they call themselves doesn't change" much: http://www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=2670131# …

SO now we know every Syrian Islamist is in fact a member of IS--AQ must love this new definition.

[OUTLAW 09]

From a social media type who has been following Syria for going on four years now----

I feel like I've had a year's worth of badly informed opinions on Syria tweeted at me in the last 10 hours

What you expect, decisive, clear information was lacking in the last 12 months and the tabloids filled the space.

[OUTLAW 09]

IF true?--first indication----

Reports: #Russia'n SU-24 shot down in #DeirEzZor in eastern #Syria

[OUTLAW 09]

EXECELLENT RUSSIAN HIGH PRECISION AIR STRIKE--AS THEY CLAIMED TODAY


Video
Russian 'precision' strikes vs. Syrian rebels in #Hama today.
Yellow: Target
Red: Hit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsNUxpVrluk … pic.twitter.com/ElaTF7qqNk

VIDEO #Russia MOD video of Airstrike show Ltamenah north of #Homs where NO #ISIS forces are https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiA0JUdWR6M … pic.twitter.com/IkqI4Qwuqj

Robert Ford on CNN: Liwa Al Tawhid (one of those targeted by Russia in Talbisa, #Syria today) actually was fighting ISIS just last week.

[OUTLAW 09]

EXECELLENT RUSSIAN HIGH PRECISION AIR STRIKE--AS THEY CLAIMED TODAY


Video
Russian 'precision' strikes vs. Syrian rebels in #Hama today.
Yellow: Target
Red: Hit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsNUxpVrluk … pic.twitter.com/ElaTF7qqNk

VIDEO #Russia MOD video of Airstrike show Ltamenah north of #Homs where NO #ISIS forces are https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiA0JUdWR6M … pic.twitter.com/IkqI4Qwuqj

Robert Ford on CNN: Liwa Al Tawhid (one of those targeted by Russia in Talbisa, #Syria today) actually was fighting ISIS just last week.

Syria: Jaysh al-Tawhid strikes regime targets with grad missiles in response to today's Russian air strikes on Homs.

Leader of Western-backed Syrian opposition says all 36 casualties in Russian airstrikes were civilians - @Reuters http://www.breakingnews.com/t/z

Defense Sec. Ash Carter says Russian military's behavior "unprofessional" http://cnn.it/1WxtjpT

Secretary of Defense Carter calls #Russia's airstrikes in #Syria "gasoline on a fire" http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/09/30/carter-calls-russia-syria-airstrikes/73090262/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter … pic.twitter.com/oevWw4mvb8

Russian intervention in Syria getting full treatment on state TV. Fancy graphics, reporter in Syria, etc... pic.twitter.com/UP061nnbM5

[OUTLAW 09]

Sad if true------German FM

BreakingNews
#Steinmeier on Russian attacks in #Syria with dozens of deaths:

>>I haven't got a clue.<< pic.twitter.com/YlVaVcOiGh

Steinmeier right now seriously.
Same statement he will use, standing in the ruins of Berlin after #WW3 ... pic.twitter.com/9C1mnbxSqY

[OUTLAW 09]

I updated @arabthomness 's map of Syria since the Russian Air Force intelligence are all obviously colour-blind.

pic.twitter.com/Zdb5DEQ58q

Russian strikes on "an area of northern Homs that has been besieged by pro-regime forces for more than a year" http://syriainstitute.org/2015/09/30/russia-begins-airstrikes-against-non-isis-targets-in-syria/ …

[OUTLAW 09]

EXECELLENT RUSSIAN HIGH PRECISION AIR STRIKE--AS THEY CLAIMED TODAY


Video
Russian 'precision' strikes vs. Syrian rebels in #Hama today.
Yellow: Target
Red: Hit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsNUxpVrluk … pic.twitter.com/ElaTF7qqNk

VIDEO #Russia MOD video of Airstrike show Ltamenah north of #Homs where NO #ISIS forces are https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiA0JUdWR6M … pic.twitter.com/IkqI4Qwuqj

Robert Ford on CNN: Liwa Al Tawhid (one of those targeted by Russia in Talbisa, #Syria today) actually was fighting ISIS just last week.

Really feel sorry for the Russian MoD--they issued a fake MH17 report and got called out by social media and now social media is tearing apart their so called strike videos-----

Video by #Russian MoD seems to prove that Russia's combat planes missed their target in #Syria http://theaviationist.com/2015/09/30/did-russians-miss-their-targets/ … pic.twitter.com/pqGfkPMNtm

Footage released by Russian MOD of Fencer run on Tajamu Ala'azza base appears to prove Russia either can't film or can't hit targets.

Now take a look at the following video, that shows some of the targets being attacked by the Russian warplanes.

Although we are unable to ID the weapons used against these targets it looks like that either the targeting pod was aiming somewhere else or the attack missed its target: the first part of the footage (most probably filmed from a targeting pod or maybe a drone) shows shrapnels from a bomb possibly exploded south of the target; the second part shows the same target and other shrapnels, but you can also clearly see the blast of a bomb at the bottom of the scene; the third one shows bombs (2 or 3) seemigly missing their target by several meters.

Russian Defense Ministry Posts Video of Syrian Air Strikes; Position Geolocated by Russian Blogger http://bit.ly/1YP6hNl

http://www.interpretermag.com/russian-su34s-tracked-from-russia-to-syria/#10195

The Interpreter has a translation:

Today the Russian aviation group deployed at the Syrian Hmeimim air field has delivered the first surgical strikes on targets of the international terrorist organization ISIS.

Assault planes outfited with modern battle systems struck eight targets.

These are depots with weapons and ammunition, fuel and lubricants, combat vehicles, control centers, communication hubs, and means of transport for ISIS fighters.

All of the targets were degraded.

Such targets as the militants command center and headquarters for directing terrorist formations in the mountains have been completely destroyed.

At the present time the planes are undergoing technical maintenance and preparation for flights in accordance with the military assignment.

The Russian Defense Ministry notice didn't identify the locations of the targets.

Russian blogger Ruslan Leviev, who has been active in covering both the war in Ukraine and Russia's presence in Syria, posted a notice that he had geolocated the scenes from the Defense Ministry's video in Al Lataminah here on Google maps.

[OUTLAW 09]

Main point to takeaway from today:

The ENTIRE Syrian opposition now sees itself in full-scale war with #Russia. A hugely significant shift.

[OUTLAW 09]

IF true?--first indication----

Reports: #Russia'n SU-24 shot down in #DeirEzZor in eastern #Syria

BREAKING: Reports: #Russia'n SU-24 shot down in #DeirEzZor in eastern #Syria pic.twitter.com/4Oqs8ZMIWH

[OUTLAW 09]

Assad's (Russian) tanks, trucks, APCs & IFVs are being chewed up by TOW missiles.

Supposedly SAMs & MANPADs will soon be more in evidence.

[OUTLAW 09]

Humor---------

Russia's MoD releases video of airstrikes against #ISIS proving their pinpoint accuracy, hitting exactly off target pic.twitter.com/mTxCQHe6b3

[OUTLAW 09]

Really feel sorry for the Russian MoD--they issued a fake MH17 report and got called out by social media and now social media is tearing apart their so called strike videos-----

Video by #Russian MoD seems to prove that Russia's combat planes missed their target in #Syria http://theaviationist.com/2015/09/30/did-russians-miss-their-targets/ … pic.twitter.com/pqGfkPMNtm

Footage released by Russian MOD of Fencer run on Tajamu Ala'azza base appears to prove Russia either can't film or can't hit targets.

Now take a look at the following video, that shows some of the targets being attacked by the Russian warplanes.

Although we are unable to ID the weapons used against these targets it looks like that either the targeting pod was aiming somewhere else or the attack missed its target: the first part of the footage (most probably filmed from a targeting pod or maybe a drone) shows shrapnels from a bomb possibly exploded south of the target; the second part shows the same target and other shrapnels, but you can also clearly see the blast of a bomb at the bottom of the scene; the third one shows bombs (2 or 3) seemigly missing their target by several meters.

Russian Defense Ministry Posts Video of Syrian Air Strikes; Position Geolocated by Russian Blogger http://bit.ly/1YP6hNl

http://www.interpretermag.com/russian-su34s-tracked-from-russia-to-syria/#10195

The Interpreter has a translation:

Today the Russian aviation group deployed at the Syrian Hmeimim air field has delivered the first surgical strikes on targets of the international terrorist organization ISIS.

Assault planes outfited with modern battle systems struck eight targets.

These are depots with weapons and ammunition, fuel and lubricants, combat vehicles, control centers, communication hubs, and means of transport for ISIS fighters.

All of the targets were degraded.

Such targets as the militants command center and headquarters for directing terrorist formations in the mountains have been completely destroyed.

At the present time the planes are undergoing technical maintenance and preparation for flights in accordance with the military assignment.

The Russian Defense Ministry notice didn't identify the locations of the targets.

Russian blogger Ruslan Leviev, who has been active in covering both the war in Ukraine and Russia's presence in Syria, posted a notice that he had geolocated the scenes from the Defense Ministry's video in Al Lataminah here on Google maps.

Russia MoD air strike video geolocated to a town miles away from ISIS

[OUTLAW 09]

For Putin all Islamists are IS----

Russian govt spokesman says most of Free Syrian Army has joined #IslamicState & airstrikes will continue for as long as army offensive lasts

Russia #Kremlin: Most #FSA fighters have defected to #ISIS..
FSA has 2 options:
a) Defect to ISIS
b) Die pretending you are an ISIS

[OUTLAW 09]

Really feel sorry for the Russian MoD--they issued a fake MH17 report and got called out by social media and now social media is tearing apart their so called strike videos-----

Video by #Russian MoD seems to prove that Russia's combat planes missed their target in #Syria http://theaviationist.com/2015/09/30/did-russians-miss-their-targets/ … pic.twitter.com/pqGfkPMNtm

Footage released by Russian MOD of Fencer run on Tajamu Ala'azza base appears to prove Russia either can't film or can't hit targets.

Now take a look at the following video, that shows some of the targets being attacked by the Russian warplanes.

Although we are unable to ID the weapons used against these targets it looks like that either the targeting pod was aiming somewhere else or the attack missed its target: the first part of the footage (most probably filmed from a targeting pod or maybe a drone) shows shrapnels from a bomb possibly exploded south of the target; the second part shows the same target and other shrapnels, but you can also clearly see the blast of a bomb at the bottom of the scene; the third one shows bombs (2 or 3) seemigly missing their target by several meters.

Russian Defense Ministry Posts Video of Syrian Air Strikes; Position Geolocated by Russian Blogger http://bit.ly/1YP6hNl

http://www.interpretermag.com/russian-su34s-tracked-from-russia-to-syria/#10195

The Interpreter has a translation:

Today the Russian aviation group deployed at the Syrian Hmeimim air field has delivered the first surgical strikes on targets of the international terrorist organization ISIS.

Assault planes outfited with modern battle systems struck eight targets.

These are depots with weapons and ammunition, fuel and lubricants, combat vehicles, control centers, communication hubs, and means of transport for ISIS fighters.

All of the targets were degraded.

Such targets as the militants command center and headquarters for directing terrorist formations in the mountains have been completely destroyed.

At the present time the planes are undergoing technical maintenance and preparation for flights in accordance with the military assignment.

The Russian Defense Ministry notice didn't identify the locations of the targets.

Russian blogger Ruslan Leviev, who has been active in covering both the war in Ukraine and Russia's presence in Syria, posted a notice that he had geolocated the scenes from the Defense Ministry's video in Al Lataminah here on Google maps.

Reports: Russian strikes around Homs interspersed w/ attacks from Syrian air force helicopters dropping barrel bombs https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2015/09/30/anatomy-of-a-russian-airstrike-in-syria/ …

First mention of combatants killed in Homs. Note that the "Free Homs Movement Brigade" is not ISIS

[OUTLAW 09]

Round two of the Russian misguided misdirected bombs campaign----


Israel News Feed @IsraelHatzolah

RIGHT NOW: Reports of Russian air force bombing targets once again in Homs area in Syria, casualties reported.

HAPPENING NOW: At least 3 more air strikes by Russian air force in northern Homs in Syria, civilian casualties reported.

Syria Second wave of #Russia'n airstrike on northern #Homs now! Hashemiyah & Al Mukarramiyah east of #Talbeesa
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=34.858116&lon=36.789694&z=15 …

Russia'n airstrikes hit a opposition held area in #Syria that split #Homs from #Hama & block strategic highway

[OUTLAW 09]

John Kerry Verified account 
‏@JohnKerry Coalition will continue air ops as we have from very beginning. We have conducted strikes against ISIL targets in #Syria over last 24 hours.

[OUTLAW 09]

Syria NOTE: 1 of #Russia's targets today was Harakat Tahrir #Homs (#FSA) group which fights for democracy in Syria

pic.twitter.com/kK2pmCB9Qd

[OUTLAW 09]

Humor------

After targeting areas uninhabited by civilians in #Syria, #Russia's MoD releases a reference pic of a deserted city

pic.twitter.com/6vyZrmKdnx

[OUTLAW 09]

Video Posted By Russian Deputy Prime Minister Shows Helicopter And Jet Attack In Syria http://bit.ly/1O2SBJz pic.twitter.com/eiujchC9dm

[OUTLAW 09]

Russian military has truly entered the realm of an altered state of reality---you really sense the Russian ego needs for a "victory of some kind".

If the social media responses from the anti Assad forces are any indicator--they are alive, well and angry--far from being "destroyed".

Russia creating a dangerous fantasy...

"Russian Defense Ministry: IS command control centers completely destroyed" https://twitter.com/riabreakingnews/status/649275659399897088 …

[OUTLAW 09]

Foreign Policy ✔ @ForeignPolicy

Meet the anti-ISIS, US-armed Syrian rebels that Putin just bombed. @DavidKenner reports. http://atfp.co/1FIRwoZ pic.twitter.com/6p72KOQgjp

Putin: "we naturally have no intention of getting deeply entangled in this [Syria] conflict" 30 Sep http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/50401 …

[OUTLAW 09]

What the heck--it appears that the entire Russian leadership is lusting for blood and thinks the glorious Russian Army has been racing victory to victory?????

TASS:: "Lavrov advises US reporters not to listen to Pentagon". Reminds me of Nazi leaflets dropped on US soldiers. pic.twitter.com/h00LmyIeXE

[OUTLAW 09]

Syria: Russian newspaper published this map today, claiming #Homs, Tall Abyad, Ghouta, #Hasakah all under #Daesh 😧 pic.twitter.com/6yqQmU5Jme

So is this just a very bad #Syria map or are we looking at the extent of the upcoming #Russia target area?

Of course to go with this new "all rebels are ISIS" narrative by #Russia, maps are popping up in their media #Syria https://twitter.com/arabthomness/status/649336180111187968 …

1000000 Syrian Pounds (approx $5,300) for a #Russia|n soldier
https://twitter.com/AboHassan1123/status/649312724711706624 …

USAF must stop flying over Syria in case we mistake an F-22 for one of ISIS' flying carpets & try to shoot it down.

[OUTLAW 09]

Turkey and Russia now both pretend to fight Daesh as cover to attack the Kurds and Syrian opposition respectively.

[OUTLAW 09]

Sometimes when one sees the German daily news media--you think you are watching Russian Today--amazing how they take the complete almost verbatim RT news release into the German news without even questioning it--worse than the US media.

ZDF now broadcasts Kremlin's propaganda verbatim. https://twitter.com/ZDFmoskau/status/649444956583690240 …

Russian new non linear warfare concept--"weaponization of refugees".

Unless air-bombing residential areas has a previously unknown calming effect on Syrians, each new refugee from now on is on RU's account.

[OUTLAW 09]

Russia should pay hellish attention to this statement from the KSA after their killing of 36 plus civilians yesterday.

In the eyes of the KSA NOW is a "Shia participant" in the fighting killing Sunni's.

I see MANPADS on the way if Russia does not take this threat seriously--


Al Arabiya English ✔ @AlArabiya_Eng

Saudi calls on Russia to stop strikes on Syria: http://ara.tv/4ft6n pic.twitter.com/hKIc5tpBxw

[OUTLAW 09]

FSA 1st Coastal base not near front line - they commute - Russian SF monitor routes then lay ambushes. Then let SAA take credit Chechnya 101


Who is actually surprised Russia bombed non-IS targets? It was obvious from start. This is classic major power defense of failing proxy.

Russian airstrikes targeting Kafr Zita in North Hama countryside now.. #Syria #Hama

Syria (#Russia/n?) night-airstrikes also in #Hama town of Al Habit
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.436897&lon=36.541386&z=13&m=b …

[OUTLAW 09]

Really sad-----

Kerry standing next to Lavrov, at UN today, nodding, while Russian jets just bombed US-backed rebels in Syria, looks pretty bad

[OUTLAW 09]

To give it some context, Russian MoD official airstrike video shot miles away from ISIS pic.twitter.com/Ey4WThcwk9

Russian bombardment on the outskirts of rebel-held Kafr Nabl (كفرنبل), #Idlib http://syria.liveuamap.com/en/2015/1-october-russian-bombardment-on-the-outskirts-of-rebelheld … pic.twitter.com/hxctjuFfUi

First video of today's alleged Russian bombing near Kafr Nabl, Idlib
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsglDsFrETs … …

Opposition source: Russian aircraft struck Jisr al Shughour 2 hr ago after recon flights, no casualties. Town held by Jaysh al Fateh.

UPDATE from the Russian ROC called for “Orthodox jihad” yesterday---

Update from Russian Orthodox Church: Patriarch Kirill says Russian military campaign should bring peace (via Interfax)

IS proclaims their atrocities on social networks;the Syrian state hides its misdeeds in the silence of its dungeons"http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/01/they-were-torturing-to-kill-inside-syrias-death-machine-caesar …

Russia has carried out 30 strikes in Syria on the Army of Conquest, whose leader vowed to "slaughter pigs from infidel Russia," per Reuters.

More: Reports coming in that #Russia|n fighter jets bombarded Al-Ziyarat town in Sahl al Ghab, #Hama|s western countryside.

[OUTLAW 09]

Russia'n airstrike with cluster-bombs at Kfar Zita in #Hama #Syria
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hID7nmmxO0 …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.365256&lon=36.610222&z=13&m=b …

Syria #Idlib #Russia'n airstrike hit Omar ibn al-Khattab mosque in Jisr al-Shughour town -5 dead & 20+ injured people


Syria #Daraa Clashes at #SAA brigade12 base
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUfsEXdu7AM …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ycr3AVycws …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=32.854715&lon=36.264496&z=14&m=b …

Russians did not learn from their killing of civilians yesterday--back at it in the same town today---AND the got the US threat about not bombing US supported anti Assad forces--seemed to not have gotten the memo?????

Breaking
Russian air strikes resumed in Al-Lataminah,#Hama prov
Targets are anti-ISIS rebels
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T2-mD6Yc5M …

TWO sisters under the age of 7 killed there yesterday--MUST have been IS bomb makers based on Russian intel right?????

Syria Regime bombed #Damascus suburb #Dariya yesterday with 53 explosive barrels

[OUTLAW 09]

MAYBE these anti Assad anti IS forces can assist the Russians in finding the locations of IS?????

Syria #Aleppo Rebels shelling #IslamicState-positions in Harbul town https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6Pe0QjOy_k&feature=youtu.be …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=36.427498&lon=37.165546&z=14&m=b …

Syria #Hama #JaF shelling #Assad-forces in Hakoura /Ghab plain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DvTjdAkQmk …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.610243&lon=36.327968&z=15&m=b …

Russia started air-war against #Syria
Report from northern #Homs province
#Россия #Путин
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QioZAqCzz4 …

Russian directly causing more Syrian humanitarian crisis-----
The Russian strike in Talbiseh hit the bread distribution depot - also home to the Local civilian council.

[OUTLAW 09]

REPORT : 8,000 Iraqi Militia Fighters fled Iraq's battlefields and are currently posing as #EU Refugees !

pic.twitter.com/QeTnbtUPHr

So the big panic about IS fighters seems to have been all about Shia militia fighters ditching Khomeini "mothership"

[OUTLAW 09]

Doctor in Hama treating casualties from Russian strikes says especially "violent" raids "targeted civilians" there; no ISIS anywhere nearby

Different perspectives of #Russia airstrike at Al-Lataminah #Syria https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zA4oypAWEeo … & https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiA0JUdWR6M … pic.twitter.com/jJJlm2AbFL

New video released showing last night's #Russia|n airstrikes in #Syria https://twitter.com/mod_russia/status/649539638718255104 …

Novorossiya flag in Syria. Well-known Russian war journalists @kp_steshin & @sashakots are in Damascus pic.twitter.com/F500vWR8EH

Syrian Express sea lift just keeps on moving-----
Southbound BF Korolev passes next to northbound BSF Novocherkassk in the mid-Bosphorus. CoastGuard’s TCSG88 to left pic.twitter.com/QfopOWA7PM

[OUTLAW 09]

Full #Putin Interview w/ @charlierose http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/50380 …

It's fascinating to see what was cut.
http://www.sott.net/article/302911-Sott-Exclusive-Full-unedited-text-of-Vladimir-Putins-interview-with-Charlie-Rose-What-CBS-left-out …

[OUTLAW 09]

Please tell me Russia is not bombing our beloved #Kafranbel, one of the few places free from Assad and ISIS

TRUTH can literally stare Putin in the face and YEy he twists it to his own altered state of reality--how can one even negotiate with him when one does not even know what is a lie and what is the truth that comes out of his mouth??

OR as he stated in the interview--he is not a gangster because he as in the KGB????

Putin on reports #Syria civilians were killed in #Russia strikes: "We are ready for these information attacks"

Appears that the Russian info war itself is all over the place--first it was IS they targeted, then they killed no civilians and then well maybe then today now they admit after the global press destroyed their lies --yes it was not IS. "We have a list of groups"????

Russia admits its airstrikes targeted non-#ISIS groups in #Syria - @AP



Saudi response----

Saudi Arabia, a leading foe of President Bashar al-Assad, demanded his ally Russia to end its raids on Syria, saying the strikes had caused civilian casualties while failing to target the Islamic State militants, Reuters reported.

Saudi Ambassador Abdallah Al-Mouallimi expressed "profound concern regarding the military operations which Russian forces have carried out in Homs and Hama today, places where ISIS forces are not present. These attacks led to a number of innocent victims. We demand it stop immediately and not recur," the report reads.

"As for those countries that have claimed recently to join in the fight against ISIS terrorism, they can’t do that at the same time as they support the terrorism of the Syrian regime and its terrorist foreign allies like Hezbollah and the Quds Force and other terrorist sectarian groups," he added in comments broadcast by Saudi-owned al-Arabiya television.

[OUTLAW 09]

New video released of Russian air strikes in Syria
http://www.unian.info/world/1139821-new-video-released-of-russian-air-strikes-in-syria.html … pic.twitter.com/shxkcodKYI

Force has proved ineffective and pointless." Putin on Syria two years ago. https://twitter.com/disgraceofgod/status/649556194747633665

Only in Syria will you ever see state-TV proudly announce that a foreign country bombed Syrians "at the request of the president of Syria".

[OUTLAW 09]

Jaish al-Islam declares war on Russians fighting in Syria - See more at:

http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/jaish-al-islam-declares-war-against-russians-fighting-syria-1042505891#sthash.BemvDs0A.dpuf …

Under the rubric of ....really........?

The Daily Star said last week that Hezbollah "suspended all assaults" in #Syria. Just a FYI https://twitter.com/DailyStarLeb/status/649552201443082240 …

[OUTLAW 09]

http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.de/2015/10/putin-cant-win-in-syria-with-airstrikes.html

Thursday, October 1, 2015

Putin Can’t Win in Syria with Airstrikes Alone But If He Sends Ground Troops, His Support at Home will Collapse, Experts Say

Paul Goble


Staunton, October 1 – Vladimir Putin has adopted a very risk approach in Syria: One misstep there and he will alienate most of the Muslim world, and the possibility he may dispatch ground troops once it becomes obvious that airstrikes alone won’t be enough could cost him most of his support at home, according to Russian experts.

Indeed, in the opinion of one of those surveyed by the URA.ru news agency , sending Russian ground troops to Syria not only would raise the specter of a new Afghan war but would cut Putin’s rating in the polls from its current 86 percent to 14 percent almost overnight (ura.ru/articles/1036265981).

That places a serious constraint on the Kremlin leader’s freedom of action there, the experts say, and means that the West is quite prepared to allow Russia to act in ways that will increase the number of Moscow’s enemies in the world while reducing public support for Putin and his policies among Russians.

The experts the three URA.ru journalists surveyed were unanimous on three points: Moscow could easily make enemies for itself by this campaign, airstrikes won’t be enough and there will be pressure for ground troops first as guards of airbases and later for other uses, and the Syrian war will cause problems for Putin at home if he sends Russian ground troops in.

A serving officer in Russia’s Central Military District speaking on conditions of anonymity said that airstrikes will not be enough and that ground troops will soon become involved in order to guard the airbases Russia will need to carry out even a limited air campaign. That in turn will result in losses in much the same way that the Afghan war did at the beginning.

Veronika Marchenko, head of the Mother’s Law Foundation, says that she hopes that Moscow’s experience in Afghanistan has taught the Russian government something but that she fears that draftees may be used in Syria, despite their lack of training and chances for success and despite the impact of their service on Russians at home.

After all, the Russian government has shown itself quite prepared to ignore its own laws and directives, she continues. It used draftees not only in Afghanistan but also in both Chechen wars.

Konstantin Kalachev, head of Moscow’s Political Experts Group, says that “’a second Afghanistan’ is possible if Russian forces are used in ground operations,” something no officials are yet talking about but that will be necessary because airpower alone will not break ISIS whatever anyone thinks.

Moreover, he continues, “it is obvious that the Islamic State is not struggling so much with the Assad regime as with various Sunni groups.” A Russian military presence can serve as “a restraining factor” but a real military presence would be something else: it would convert “the pluses” of the situation into “minuses” almost instantly.

Gleb Kuznetsov, deputy director of the Moscow National Institute for the Development of Contemporary Ideology, agrees, He says that a land operation will ultimately be necessary “since the Armies of Syria and Iraq are not capable of conducting successful military operations against ISIS.”

The American bases in Iraq and those of Russia in Syria “in fact fulfill the role of so call ‘interventionists;’ that is, they demonstrate a presence and provide military-technical help, but ISIS will not be defeated by these groupings. NATO understands this and has no desire to conduct such operations,” Kuznetsov says.

“If then such a [ground] operation will not take place then the only thing we can count on is the stabilization of the Alawite portion of Syria and in the end the cutting out of a Sunni state on the territories of Iraq and Syria.” To achieve more would take enormous numbers of ground forces and involve enormous losses, he continues.

“The West understands this, but does Russia? And how far are we prepared to go in our support of Assad?” he asks.

Leonid Radzikhovsky, a member of the Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society, says that Russia’s actions in Syria risk costing it enormous support in the region and costing Putin the enormous support he currently enjoys at home.

Saudi Arabia has already spoken out against Russia’s involvement because it does not want to see Shiite Iran gain stature as a result, Radzikhovsky continues. If Russia becomes more involved, it will find itself on one side of “an alien religious war,” something which will have far-reaching consequences.

Moscow’s policy must be “equidistant from both sides of the conflict,” he argues. “If Russia supports one of the sides, it will gain a mortal enemy in Saudi Arabia and undermine relations with Turkey and other Muslim countries. And it could easily face terrorist acts at home.

In Radzikhovsky’s view, it would be “pure insanity” to send ground troops to Syria. Such a step would result in a situation in which Putin’s 86 percent support would decline to 14 percent overnight.

Konstantin Baksheyev, a political consultant, says the only way forward is for Russia and the United States to resume a dialogue something that will inevitably be difficult given the tensions of the last two years. In Syria, he says, “Russia and the US are now formally allies.” But they could become “enemies depending on the actions of the sides.”

Radzikhovsky says however that Moscow’s demand that the US end flights over Syria is hardly likely to promote cooperation. “It would be difficult to demand an analogous step from Russia” and thus it is “unwise to speak to Obama in such terms if the goal is an improvement in relations.”

But according to the anonymous military expert, the current situation is “dangerous not only for Russia but also for the US. ‘they think that these guys from ISIS are playing on their side,” but they forget how quickly such people can turn. They should remember what happened in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001.

[OUTLAW 09]

Hundreds of #Iranian troops arrive in #Syria - http://ara.tv/8uq6d pic.twitter.com/AqP2EGPvWK @AlArabiya_Eng

[OUTLAW 09]

Footage
Also 2nd day of heavy air strikes on Al-Ghantu in #Homs province.
42 km from #ISIS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4A23YIbyGgY … pic.twitter.com/n84dcjYTm8

Footage
@HadiAlabdallah reports from Russian air strikes in #KafrNabl.
80 km from #ISIS!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15POr6uff24 … pic.twitter.com/okExrOhFzF

Exclusive: Assad allies, including Iranians, prepare ground attack in Syria - sources : http://reut.rs/1MJlXLn

Syria #Russia'n airstrikes blown up ancient ruins /#Idlib
IS style https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NW6hdwA9T8M …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.639912&lon=36.569538&z=17&m=bs …

Syria #Idlib Mosque in Jisr al-Shughour hit by #Russia'n airstrike
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnCaTJITERI … …

Syria #Russia'n airstrikes hit ancient ruins - home of displaced
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/other/displaced-syrians-forced-seek-refuge-caves-ruins-ancient-times-f8C11307271 … http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.639241&lon=36.569924&z=16&m=bs …

Syria From battlefield in #Quneitra province
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwBvpKtCovE …

Syria #FSA confirm #Russia'n airstrikes target their training camps in #Idlib mountains
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZ21iHtD5jE …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZ21iHtD5jE …

Russia'n aircrafts dropping old OFAB-250 free fall bombs on rebel towns in #Syria

So far- not a single #Russia'n airstrike hit #IslamicState-positions in #Syria the past 2 days
#Putin only target opposition-forces!

Syria #Homs Next #Russia'n airstrike on rebel hold Al Ghantoo town
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8L_J0j4QChk …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=34.821766&lon=36.694036&z=15&m=b …

[OUTLAW 09]

REPORT: #Russia deployed air contingent 'under cover of large scale exercises' b/w Sep 11 and 20. - @Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/11900853/Putin-request-for-use-of-Russian-troops-in-Syria-approved-live.html …

Orge Retweeted Abdurahman Harkoush
Reports from Jisr al Shugour, #Idlib indicate regime, #Russia started bombing the town. Civilians start fleeing.

Syria #Russia Arrival of some Russian Troops (Reports say Moscow is sending troops to guard Military Installations

Friend in #Homs says windows are shaking as new air strikes hit Makrmeya area now. Warplanes: unclear Assad or Russia, no difference really

[OUTLAW 09]

NOW we know why the Russians are sending a fleet of 22 warships to a "so called naval exercise"..

Damascus ops room confirmed that the #Russian Navy will take part of the attack against Syrian rebels, #AQ and #ISIS .

[OUTLAW 09]

THIS is the Russian info war being "sold" to the Russian population--after admitting to AP they did not strike IS--check this Sputnik press release about the air strikes from yesterday. No mentioning of the killing of women and children.

Russian Airstrikes Destroy ISIL HQ in Syria

© Sputnik/ Vitaly Ankov

Middle East
13:49 01.10.2015(updated 16:15 01.10.2015) Get short URL


The Russian Air Force overnight destroyed a terrorist headquarters and arms depot in Syria’s northwestern Idlib region during airstrikes aimed at Islamic State militants, the press service of the Russian Defense Ministry said Thursday.

“A headquarters of terrorist groups and an arms depot were destroyed in the region of Ildib, as well as a militant three-level fortified command point in the region of Hama [in west-central Syria],” the press service said.

Russian aircraft carried out airstrikes on four Islamic State targets in Syria overnight. During the airstrikes factory where terrorists loaded cars with explosives was destroyed.

"During the night, Russian aviation bombed four Islamic State targets on Syrian territory. Eight sorties on Su-24M and Su-25 were conducted," the press service said in a statement.

More than 50 Russian Air Force airplanes and helicopters are involved in airstrikes against Islamic State positions in Syria, the press service of the Russian Defense Ministry said.

“The aviation group was deployed very quickly. We were able to do this since the main supplies of material and arms were stored in the material-technical support point in Tartus [Syria]. All that was left to do was to deploy aviation and bring some equipment in,” the press service said.

Russia is only carrying out airstrikes outside of populated areas in Syria, and bases its moves on confirmed intelligence data.

"To avoid civilian damage, Russian airstrikes are set to hit sites located strictly outside of settlements, based on confirmed intelligence data from various sources," the press service said.

All airstrikes being conducted by the Russian Air Force are being agreed with the leaders of the Syrian Army, which has set up a Syrian Defense operative group at the Hmaimim Airbase, the press service of the Russian Defense Ministry said.

“All airstrikes by Russian aviation are agreed with the leaders of the Syrian Army, which has established a Syrian Defense Ministry operative group at the Hmaimim Airbase,” the press service said.

“More than 20 flights over eight Islamic State terrorist positions during the day. Su-24s [Fencer supersonic attack aircraft] and Su-25s [Frogfoot air support jet] that have been upgraded and have modernized targeting systems took part in the airstrikes,” the Defense Ministry's spokesperson Igor Konashenkov said.

According to Konashenkov, over the first 24 hours, the Russian Air Force has carried out targeted airstrikes against 12 Islamic State positions both day and night.

Russia actively uses space reconnaissance and drones in Syria to gain information on the whereabouts of Islamic State fighters.

"In order to obtain reliable information about the location of terrorists and the results of airstrikes, means of space reconnaissance and unmanned aerial vehicles are being actively used," the ministry's press service said in a statement.

[OUTLAW 09]

THIS is the Russian info war being "sold" to the Russian population--after admitting to AP they did not strike IS--check this Sputnik press release about the air strikes from yesterday. No mentioning of the killing of women and children.

Russian Airstrikes Destroy ISIL HQ in Syria

© Sputnik/ Vitaly Ankov

Middle East
13:49 01.10.2015(updated 16:15 01.10.2015) Get short URL

Last count of Russian fighter aircraft seen was 33--now even the Russians are admitting to a total of 50 to include their attack helicopters.

So 17 slid into Syria from somewhere--maybe on Syrian airfields camouflaged as Syrian????

[OUTLAW 09]

New video.
#Russia targets the #FSA's "Mountain Brigade" headquarters in #Idlib province.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlzIOj7diWI … pic.twitter.com/hGl5kljkSV

Mosques, ancient ruins, refugee camps.
Only some of #Russia's targets so far today.
pic.twitter.com/0zIb570RxK

[OUTLAW 09]

Agence France-Presse ✔ @AFP

#BREAKING Russia ready to consider air strikes in Iraq if Baghdad asks: senior diplomat

[OUTLAW 09]

Agence France-Presse ✔ @AFP

#BREAKING Russia ready to consider air strikes in Iraq if Baghdad asks: senior diplomat



Russia's deputy chief of staff Gen. Nikolai Bogdanov will lead next week a military delegation to Tel Aviv to discuss de confliction

Lavrov, about US criticisms: US put gasoline on many fires in the region. Our actions are in line with int'l laws.

Russia may take part in the war in Iraq if asked - MFA Russia
http://ria.ru/world/20151001/1294658803.html …

Lavrov at UN says Russia will respond to Kurds' request for arms, keeping Baghdad govt informed. Turkey's response will be interesting...

Lavrov also skips answering question about Iranian ground forces. #Syria

Lavrov: "We provide arms to the Kurds through the Iraqi government. The info centre in Baghdad embraces Iraq, Syria, Kurds."

[OUTLAW 09]

Russia is what......whining????? Seems their info war efforts have not been working well the last few days-----

Lavrov complains that "Russia fighting the same people" as U.S. in Syria is "presented like defending the regime. It's absolutely unfair."

'We are nice people, we won't come if not invited' - Lavrov

Lavrov asked on Iran ground offensive, if Russia will back?
"I am not a military planner. I told you military plan endorsed by president"

[OUTLAW 09]

Massive Russian doublespeak or actually just plain lies---they bomb the heck of the FSA and then state this.........?

FM Lavrov says Russia does not consider FSA to be a terrorist group, should be part of a political solution in Syria - @Reuters v @Breaking

By bombing those that want to get rid of Assad is again what........???

Russian FM Lavrov on #Syria: "The goal is terrorism, and we are not supporting anyone against their own people." pic.twitter.com/mQcNY8z0mT

[OUTLAW 09]

One Russian ground fighter down and how many more are they going to lose??

Russian fighter jet SU-25 shot down by Syrian rebels in Hama, Sep 30 - VIDEO
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=1&v=jzOf9p08HK0 …

[OUTLAW 09]

Interesting leak from DC today-----

As early as 2012 Obama aides had drafted plan for exile of Assad in Moscow in exchange for secular national unity government. Putin refused.

[OUTLAW 09]

Massive Russian doublespeak or actually just plain lies---they bomb the heck of the FSA and then state this.........?

FM Lavrov says Russia does not consider FSA to be a terrorist group, should be part of a political solution in Syria - @Reuters v @Breaking

By bombing those that want to get rid of Assad is again what........???

Russian FM Lavrov on #Syria: "The goal is terrorism, and we are not supporting anyone against their own people." pic.twitter.com/mQcNY8z0mT

Lavrov sidesteps q on whether #Russia targeting #Syrian fighters supported by US. He says if US targets terrorists, Russia is doing same.

Syria: More aftermath photos of today's #Russia|n bombardments on Jisr al-Shughour, #Idlib|s western countryside. pic.twitter.com/LRIr1fUYll

[OUTLAW 09]

Agence France-Presse ✔ @AFP

#BREAKING Russia ready to consider air strikes in Iraq if Baghdad asks: senior diplomat

PM al-Abadi 'Would Welcome' Russian Air Strikes On Iraqi Territory http://www.interpretermag.com/putin-in-syria-reports-of-dozens-of-russian-airstrikes-targeting-opposition-held-settlements/#10220 …

[OUTLAW 09]

Massive Russian doublespeak or actually just plain lies---they bomb the heck of the FSA and then state this.........?

FM Lavrov says Russia does not consider FSA to be a terrorist group, should be part of a political solution in Syria - @Reuters v @Breaking

By bombing those that want to get rid of Assad is again what........???

Russian FM Lavrov on #Syria: "The goal is terrorism, and we are not supporting anyone against their own people." pic.twitter.com/mQcNY8z0mT

Putin Denies Attacks on Syrian Civilians; Calls on US to Form Information Exchange
http://www.interpretermag.com/putin-in-syria-reports-of-dozens-of-russian-airstrikes-targeting-opposition-held-settlements/#10219 … pic.twitter.com/toCFlIxuEl

Ahmad_Yamen_Malak_Rayan 4 #Syrian angels killed by Russian occupation as they consider them terrorists pic.twitter.com/7K2rNmEe88

[OUTLAW 09]

Russian KIA in Syria

pic.twitter.com/l1IxlWa81K

Confirmed KIA----

More troops and equipment heading to Syria----

Military convoy in Sevastopol in direction of port pic.twitter.com/PHMQiNjpDp http://liveuamap.com/en/2015/1-october-military-convoy-in-sevastopol-in-direction-of-port …

[OUTLAW 09]

First footage of Su-34 bombers landing at Bassel al-Assad after flying combat sorties over Syria:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-qtROWEwdY …

Again, no RuAF insignia on the tail fins, as has been the case with the Su-24s.

Il-20M deployment aids Russian strikes in Syria http://bit.ly/1GkGXn5 via @FG_Defence

[OUTLAW 09]

Russia is sending the entire package: C3I, combat forces, log, senior officers. This is a big deal getting bigger. https://twitter.com/Military_Edge/status/649590380258848768 …

Syria: targeted by #Putin or not, Tajammu al-Izzah (#FSA) just destroyed a regime vehicle https://youtu.be/1_lB31hMUEo

Airport near Jableh is the one now run by Russians. Russian planes?

The leader of Haraka Tahrir Homs FSA; Eyad al-Dyk became a martyr, killed by Russian airstrike in #Homs
#Syria Sep 30

Seems #US-airforce stopped bombing #IslamicState after #Russia started bombing #Syria'n opposition forces

Syria #Russia'n drone above #Aleppo?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inUEd-AO7Qw …

SU-34 Carried Out Its First Airstrike On #ISIS in #Syria
Source: Interfax

New on The Hoplite: Russian PMN-4 anti-personnel landmines documented in Syria http://armamentresearch.com/russian-pmn-4-anti-personnel-landmines-in-syria/ …

[OUTLAW 09]

Ghosts of Afghanistan -- Pakistan Ulema Council condemns Russian attacks & says Moscow didn't learn from Afghanistan re "Islamic solidarity"

[OUTLAW 09]

U.S.-backed rebel leader on being targeted by Russian strikes: "they are fighting the U.S. through us." http://www.buzzfeed.com/mikegiglio/syrian-rebels-and-activists-fear-us-ties-put-a-target-on-the#.raZJrJXez …

.@PressSec: location of Russian airstrikes "calls into question" Lavrov's declaration of Russia seeing eye-to-eye w US on #Syria

We realized that they are fighting the US through us," says a Syrian rebel commander. Must-read on Russian strikes https://twitter.com/MiriamElder/status/649638471791968256 …

[OUTLAW 09]

Really worth reading-----

http://www.buzzfeed.com/maxseddon/russia-creates-its-own-reality-for-syrian-campaign#.qevAJYk0y

Russia Creates Its Own Reality For Syrian Campaign

Moscow is calling all anti-Assad forces “terrorists” much as it called Ukraine’s government “fascists” — and is taking a leaf from the U.S. playbook, too.

Oct. 1, 2015, at 7:49 p.m.

Max Seddon


As Russian warplanes bomb Syria for a second day, the Kremlin is welding the propaganda and obfuscation it deployed to great effect in Ukraine to the narrative of the U.S. war on terror: Moscow is in charge, and anyone not with it is with the terrorists.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has lashed out at reports, widely covered in U.S. media, that Moscow’s airstrike campaign was claiming civilian casualties. At a government meeting Thursday, he called the reports “information attacks” and went so far as to say that “the first information about casualties among the civilian population appeared before our planes took to the air,” state newswire TASS reported.

Though Russia says the aim of its bombing campaign is to target militants from ISIS, the airstrikes have mostly landed in areas miles away from ISIS-held territory, including those controlled by the Western-backed opposition to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government forces. Moscow has countered this by simply calling every group it attacks ISIS, and replacing contradictory information with Moscow’s own. Sergey Lavrov, the foreign minister, offered this definition of Moscow’s targets at the United Nations: “If it looks like a terrorist, if it walks like a terrorist, if it acts like a terrorist, if it fights like a terrorist, it’s a terrorist.”

Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, flat out denied that a speech on Wednesday by Abdallah Al-Mouallimi, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the UN, criticizing the strikes had so much as taken place, despite the fact that it was broadcast live on television. “There is a lot of distorted, repurposed, and false information” in foreign media, Peskov said.

Glaring discrepancies between official accounts and the reality on the ground are hardly rare in wartime, or unique to Russia. In the U.S., military intelligence analysts are in near-open revolt over assessments of Washington’s campaign against ISIS they say are too rosy. Independent reports strongly suggest the airstrikes have killed thousands more civilians than U.S. Central Command admits. Russia’s millenarian language of a global “holy war” against the “hydra” of terrorism — defined in the broadest terms as anyone fighting Moscow and its proxies — owes much to George W. Bush’s war on terror, crucial in shaping Putin’s worldview in the early years of his presidency. So, too, does Putin’s legal authorization for the war, which does not name the target country or set a deadline for an end. His ultimate goal, after all, is not to win battles, but end Russia’s geopolitical isolation and show up the U.S. — a point that resonated with, of all people, Donald Trump, who said: “in terms of leadership he is getting an ‘A,’ and our president is not doing so well.”

The framing of Russia’s Syrian gambit has clear roots in Moscow’s shaping of the Ukrainian conflict, which Putin still denies Russia had anything to do with despite an abundance of evidence to the contrary, and where events on the ground often play second fiddle to the Kremlin’s domestic narrative. War correspondents from state-owned media have deserted the conflict in eastern Ukraine in droves to resurface in Syria. Vladimir Soloviev, a popular host on the Rossiya channel, told a reporter beamed in by video link from Damascus that he was “the little green man [Ukrainian President Petro] Poroshenko and all of America are so scared of,” referring to the Russian special forces without insignia who seized Crimea last year.

Some of those reports appear to marshal Russian public opinion, which broadly opposes military intervention, behind the strikes by convincing them of the threat ISIS poses to Russia – much as they warned of the “fascist” menace in Ukraine. On Thursday, Russian jets carried out air strikes in northwestern Syria against the Army of Conquest, a coalition that includes several Russian-speaking militant groups and has ties to the Nusra Front, al-Qaeda’s local franchise — but none to ISIS. Weeks earlier, LifeNews, a TV channel with strong ties to Russia’s security services, broadcasted a report from Latakia, the base from which Russia is conducting operations, claiming that ISIS had sent veterans of the Chechen separatist wars to Syria.

Experts say Russia’s intent to target groups beyond ISIS is likely to unite the myriad Islamist militias there against Moscow. Two Russian-speaking insurgent groups, one mostly comprised of ethnic Uzbeks and one with a sizeable Caucasian and Tajik contingent, pledged allegiance to Nusra as Russia built up its presence in Latakia over the last week. Earlier in September, Abu Abdullah Taftanaz, a commander of the Army of Conquest, tweeted a message of defiance to the “infidel Russians,” vowing to “slaughter your pigs.”

Charles Lister, a fellow at the Brookings Institution in Doha, claimed the militants in the area were “keen to retaliate” in a tweet on Thursday. “Expect a possible Latakia offensive,” he wrote.

Should the campaign spark a blowback against Russia, it would play to the apocalyptic notion of the greater geopolitical conflict in which Russia believes it is embroiled. Putin has repeatedly said the U.S. funded pro-Western “color revolutions” in Ukraine and the chaos of the Arab Spring, which he thinks were dress rehearsals for a plot to oust him. In a speech previewing the airstrike campaign at the UN on Monday, Putin said the “export of revolutions, so-called democratic ones” by “an aggressive foreign interference” had “resulted in a brazen destruction of national institutions and the lifestyle itself.”

On Rossiya, the neo-Stalinist writer Alexander Prokhanov, whose appearances on state TV are a reliable barometer of the Kremlin’s desire to fan ultranationalism, told Russians to stop listening to music or watching game shows and start “personal mobilization” for a greater civilizational battle. The Syrian campaign, Prokhanov said, would teach Russia how to deal with “color revolutions” waged online in the same way ISIS recruits militants. “It’s symptomatic that the Ministry of Defense is procuring supplies to combat [color] revolutions,” he said. “We need to study ISIS as a structure,” he added, “because it’s a wave of ideology, a wave of emotions, it’s a movement of young people going insane.”

[OUTLAW 09]

http://euromaidanpress.com/2015/10/01/putin-and-obama-agreed-on-far-more-about-ukraine-and-syria-than-theyve-acknowledged-illarionov-says/

Putin and Obama agreed on far more about Ukraine and Syria than they’ve acknowledged, Illarionov says


Neither the Russian nor the American side put out an official statement about the meeting of the two presidents in New York, but the comments by Vladimir Putin and US Secretary of State John Kerry suggest the two agreed on far more about Ukraine and Syria than Moscow or Washington have acknowledged, according to Andrey Illarionov.

The Russian analyst says it one must “distinguish between solemn declaration and hidden agreements” which can lead to war, and thus it is especially important not to be caught up in either the words of Vladimir Putin or the content of Barack Obama’s UN General Assembly speech in assessing where things are headed.

Despite the emotional terms in which they were couched, Illarionov says, both the Putin and Kerry versions of the agreement achieved “differ little from one another.” Moreover, “both sides noted that the negotiations were open, civic and constructive.”

According to Kerry, “a significant amount of time’ was devoted to Ukraine, and Putin and Obama reached four points of accord:

“1. We together want to solve ‘the Ukrainian crisis.’
2. The joint task of Russia and the US is to seek the fulfillment of Minsk-2.
3. For this in particular, on October 2 will take place a meeting of Hollande, Merkel and Putin in Paris (Kerry did not consider it necessary to mention the name Poroshenko).
4. [And] the task is to seek the fulfillment of Minsk-2 in the course of the next three months before the end of 2015.”

“That is all,” Illarionov says. There was no mention by the US of the withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukrainian territory, an end to external support of the separatists, establishment of Ukrainian control over the internationally recognized border, or an end to the annexation of Crimea.

Again, the Russian analyst continues, according to Kerry, Putin and Obama reached the following agreements on Syria:

“1. Syria must be preserved as united and secular.
2. There must be developed (continued) military actions against ISIS.
3. There must be an administered transition process within a definite period of a change in the political regime in Syria…
4. Disagreements remain relative to what this transition process means and what could be its results.
5. In this transition process must participate Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar…
6. A coalition between the US and Russia in the war against ISIS is ‘absolutely possible’ once there is agreement on the transition process.
7. [The US now does not demand Assad’s immediate ouster.]
8. [Concerning Iran,] ‘The Iranians obviously will be a component of this process.”

Kerry made three other comments, Illarionov remarks.
•First, he said that the US had asked Moscow to use its good offices to prevent Assad from using barrel bombs against the population.
•Second, he stressed how pleased he personally was to have “a chance to speak with President Putin.”
•And third, Kerry said that if Russia acted alone in Iraq, it could have serious negative consequences for Russia and for Putin personally.

All this suggests, the Russian analyst continues, that there were real agreements between Putin and Obama on both Ukraine and Syria. (Adding to that impression is the fact that Obama chose not to meet with the Ukrainian president at UNGA but handed off that task to Vice President Joe Biden.)

And he argues that Russian bombing in Syria “is nothing other than the direct result of agreements between Putin and Obama. Without Obama’s approval, the Russian military actions in Syria would have been either impossible or unilateral. Now, however, they have received official cover from the US administration.”

“With all due respect to those who hold dear and who sincerely believe in the correct, wise and remarkable words spoken from time to time by Mr. Obama,” Illarionov says, “all the same one must distinguish between solemn declarations which do not have practical consequences and hidden agreements behind which wars begin” especially when such agreements involve authoritarian regimes.

[OUTLAW 09]

CRITICAL--IMPORTANT

Su-34 Fullback in #Syria getting back with a KAB-500S, forward fins barely visible, but are there, ID by @pfc_joker pic.twitter.com/4jMRKLIt3R

Higher quality, forward fins are just barely visible:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxbpGOaki2U …
It's a KAB-500S! :)

Maybe the Ivans are just shxxxx pilots or drunk? KAB-500S-E is a precision guided ('smart') munition https://twitter.com/AbraxasSpa/status/649651075067342848 …

Does indeed seem to be KAB500S. This chart might get very useful.. pic.twitter.com/GtdjqR5CO8

[OUTLAW 09]

Al Arabiya English ✔ @AlArabiya_Eng

BREAKING: #Bahrain gives #Iranian charge d'affaires 72 hours to leave the country, Al Arabiya reports

[OUTLAW 09]

Russia is using 'dumb bombs' in #Syria airstrikes, says senior U.S. Air Force intel officer https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2015/10/01/air-force-senior-intelligence-officer-russia-is-using-dumb-bombs-in-its-syria-bombing-campaign/ … pic.twitter.com/hs10woXWOJ

Gen. Robert Otto: “I’d be hard pressed to think of what intelligence I’d want to share with the #Russians" #Syria https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2015/10/01/air-force-senior-intelligence-officer-russia-is-using-dumb-bombs-in-its-syria-bombing-campaign/ …

[OUTLAW 09]

Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS are now in a race to recruit foreign fighters that want a piece of Russia. Recruiting bonanza.

Putin says casualties inflicted by Russian strikes are "media attacks". Not surprised if he next says their photos are fabricated in Qatar!

[OUTLAW 09]

Putin denied soldiers took Crimea
Putin denied soldiers are in Ukraine
Putin denied downed the MH17
Putin denies killing civilians in Syria

[OUTLAW 09]

Pro-#Russia map of Russian airstrikes in #Syria.

Oct 1st video ⇢ https://youtu.be/a8rMAplSVXc

pic.twitter.com/KCsgctRyc0

[OUTLAW 09]

The White Helmets talk about the damage done by today's Russian bombing to the mosque in Jisr al-Shughour

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOGwl1Mc0Lo …

[OUTLAW 09]

This is the second major mistake by the DoS concerning Syria-----

http://www.vox.com/2015/9/30/9429039/syria-russia-kerry-lavrov

John Kerry just made a significant and consequential gaffe on Russia and Syria


Max Fisher on September 30, 2015, 7:44 p.m. ET



Early Wednesday evening in New York, a few hours after Russia's intervention force in Syria began bombing targets on the ground, Secretary of State John Kerry did something odd: He gave a joint statement with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

The two men, standing shoulder to shoulder somewhere in the United Nations building, said they were working to, as Lavrov put it, Kerry nodding along at his side, "establish channels of communications to avoid any unintended incidents" between their militaries in Syria, as well as work on the "political process" for resolving Syria's war.

They didn't say much. But the event spoke volumes, and probably not in ways that the United States wants, intended, or will find helpful.

This press conference was a bad idea

The statement was brief, vague, and unnecessary. Kerry, though he is known as spectacularly talented in behind-the-scenes negotiations, can be clumsy when it comes to managing on-camera stagecraft. But this was more than just bad stagecraft — it was a real mistake, one that could be have consequences that, while not world-changing, go beyond mere optics.

The image of Kerry nodding alongside Lavrov, the two of them discussing their efforts to "deconflict" in Syria, lent, however unintentionally, the appearance of an American stamp of legitimacy on Russia's Syria intervention. It will be difficult for the Obama administration to shake the appearance that it's decided to accept Russia's intervention and to deem it as legitimate.

That's more than just a gaffe when the entire world is watching to see how the United States handles Russia's Syria strikes and is waiting to take — or not take — America's cue.

Giving even a slight impression that the US is okay with Russian actions has policy consequences for how other countries will respond, for how it is perceived by the populations in the region, for how people in Syria and Iraq and elsewhere come to view American intentions and behavior in the region.

That would be one thing if America's official position were in fact to acknowledge Russia's strikes as a legitimate intervention and to treat it as a legitimate partner. But the Obama administration has seemed awfully careful to avoid exactly that impression. It's part of why senior administration officials, speaking on and off the record to reporters, have made a point to disparage Russia's role as counterproductive and damaging. It's why President Obama, in his Monday UN speech, said he would consider working with Russia in Syria, but made sure to surround his one-line offer with a dozen or so paragraphs ####ting on Putin and everything he's ever done in Syria (not to mention in Ukraine and in Russia itself).

It was a balance the administration was working carefully to maintain: We'll hear the Russians out, but we're wary and skeptical, we believe they're a big part of the problem, and we think they're a long way from responsible actors in Syria. Kerry has just upset that balance by giving the appearance of treating Lavrov and thus Russia as an acknowledged partner, the two of them working together on a hard problem.

As Foreign Policy's David Kenner quipped, "[The] US has really done a remarkable job convincing Russia/Iran it supports Syria's opposition, and the opposition that it supports Russia/Iran."

What they actually said: not very much

"We all want Syria democratic, united, secular," Lavrov said, Kerry nodding, "but we have some differences as to the details of how to get there. But we agreed on some steps we would undertake very soon."

Kerry followed up with his own statement, beginning, "Sergei has described a meeting that we had which we would both concur was a constructive meeting." He reiterated American "concerns" about "the nature of the targets" (Russia says it is bombing ISIS, but appears to in fact be bombing Syrian opposition groups that fight ISIS).

Kerry added they would seek a "military-to-military deconfliction discussion, meeting, conference, whichever can be done as soon as possible" as well as "options" to "address the conflict itself." It would all be "further discussed," and "we will follow up on that for certain."

It sounded like they were mostly promising more hazy (and almost certainly doomed) talks on finding a political settlement to end Syria's war, as well as coming information on how the US and Russia would avoid accidental conflict as their respective air forces bombed Syria. And fair enough; whatever you think of Russia's intervention in Syria, a midair collision or mistaken exchange of fire between two nuclear powers is always worth avoiding. And as doomed as political talks likely are, it's worthwhile to at least keep the door open.

But none of that information needed to be conveyed in a joint Kerry-Lavrov statement. And it was the image of them standing side by side, nodding along as they discussed their agreements and their shared agenda, that spoke by far the loudest.

This is John Kerry at his worst

Kerry's talents and contributions as secretary of state should not be forgotten. Only he could have secured the Iran nuclear deal, hammered out over countless all-night sessions that went so long many observers considered the deal dead in the water before the negotiators emerged not just with a deal, but with a deal that is remarkably favorable to the US.

That was Kerry at his best. This is Kerry at his worst: clumsy with stagecraft, sending mixed messages, too willing to look chummy with negotiating partners who nonetheless represent hostile adversaries, and, I feel reasonably safe presuming, disconnected from the rest of the administration and its messaging.

We last saw this Kerry, most infamously, also in the context of Russia and Syria. It was almost exactly two years ago when he made an offhand remark saying the US wouldn't launch its threatened airstrikes against Syria, meant to punish Bashar al-Assad for gassing his own people, if Assad gave up his chemical weapons. Russia shrewdly seized on the comment to push for an agreement doing exactly that.

But it hadn't just been that one comment. For weeks, in trying to publicly sell Congress and Americans on the Syria strikes, Kerry had strayed off message, exaggerated the administration's case, made some unconvincing historical analogies, and even entertained strange hypotheticals. He called it a "Munich moment" one day and, the next, promised any US action would be "unbelievably small."

He wasn't just off-message, he was seemingly unlinked from the administration itself. A year later, as the White House came under growing pressure to shake up its foreign policy team, this embarrassing detail appeared in the New York Times:


Mr. Kerry is vocal and forceful in internal debates, officials said, and gets credit for putting together the coalition of Arab states that conducted military strikes in Syria. But he often seems out of sync with the White House in his public statements. White House officials joke that he is like the astronaut played by Sandra Bullock in the movie "Gravity," somersaulting through space, untethered from the White House.

It seems plausible that with Kerry's unnecessary and unhelpful joint statement with Lavrov today, there are going to be some administration officials, perhaps in the White House itself, who once again look at their secretary of state and see a man somersaulting helplessly through the abyss.


Lavrov Don`t listen to US re #Russia(n) airstrikes in #Syria http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2015/oct/01/sergei-lavrov-john-kerry-pentagon-un-russian-strikes-video … #Liar #Putin #Assad #Ukraine pic.twitter.com/1htvR5oYHU

[OUTLAW 09]

#FSA Suqour al-Ghab Training Camp Struck by #RuAF Russian Air Strike today.

https://youtu.be/boeHqGgs6uI

[OUTLAW 09]

Pentagon:

#Assad Hands are Washed in Blood. We Do Not Communicate with Syrian Government. Nothing to Say to them.

pic.twitter.com/3mDcWRA2dq

[OUTLAW 09]

CONFIRMATION OF MANPAD SHOT DOWN OF SU 25-------

Indication that it is the advanced version as it was not distracted by the IR flares fired by the SU 25

BREAKING VIDEO #Russia Su-25 shot down over #Hama #Syria by missile https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzOf9p08HK0 …
pic.twitter.com/f0DoSArVuc

Now the RuAF has to figure out that it has been denied the free roaming concept that they assumed they had.

US A10s are designed for this environment and have TTPs in Iraq and Syria designed for it--the SU24/25s have not been tested in this kind of environment in the last 20 years.

[OUTLAW 09]

Putin #Assad airstrikes target medical & relief facilities in #Syria https://twitter.com/Paradoxy13/status/649681607633276929 …

pic.twitter.com/qevPtwXFf1

RuAF is in fact now acting no definitely than has the Syrian AF in it's target selection--foused on killing civilians and creating refugees.

New Russian non linear warfare concept--"weaponization of refugees"

[OUTLAW 09]

Russian airstrikes align with regime strongholds. Red Square: Airstrikes
Black Star: Regime Troops concentrations

pic.twitter.com/lPz6rTQlYg

Turkey accuses Russia of hitting Syria rebels to bolster regime http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2015/Oct-02/317379-turkey-accuses-russia-of-hitting-syria-rebels-to-bolster-regime.ashx …

[OUTLAW 09]

Putin claims his AF is not bombing civilians--BUT NOW just where is the difference between the Syrian AF bombing civilians and the RuAF bombing civilians.

Putin just keeps on lying to the world.

SyAF bombarded people in #Douma while they're rescuing children from under rubble following an earlier bombardment.

[OUTLAW 09]

CRITICAL--IMPORTANT

Su-34 Fullback in #Syria getting back with a KAB-500S, forward fins barely visible, but are there, ID by @pfc_joker pic.twitter.com/4jMRKLIt3R

Higher quality, forward fins are just barely visible:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxbpGOaki2U …
It's a KAB-500S! :)

Maybe the Ivans are just shxxxx pilots or drunk? KAB-500S-E is a precision guided ('smart') munition https://twitter.com/AbraxasSpa/status/649651075067342848 …

Does indeed seem to be KAB500S. This chart might get very useful.. pic.twitter.com/GtdjqR5CO8

This Russian cruise missile is at the heart of the Russian INF violations----

RuNAVY submarine B-237 "Rostov on the Don" performed live firing cruise missile Kalibr to Chizha training area v RIA pic.twitter.com/21cds6AfPN

[OUTLAW 09]

LIVE: Russia's new round of air strikes in Syria, hits 12 targets. The latest updates: http://reut.rs/1FKSIbO pic.twitter.com/PupScDUeMe

Russian Air Force Tu-160 Blackjack combat training with air-launched cruise missiles, inflight refuelling http://function.mil.ru/news_page/country/more.htm?id=12059444@egNews … For Syria?

[OUTLAW 09]

http://time.com/4054941/putin-russia-syria/

The Real Reason Russia Is ‘Helping’ Syria

Timothy Snyder

Sept. 30, 2015


Eighteen months ago, when Russia seized Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, confusion prevailed in the West. Today, as Russia sends troops, armor, and aircraft to Syria, we are once again perplexed. On Monday President Vladimir Putin provided the explanation: Russia’s intervention is aimed to defeat ISIS and reduce the flow of refugees to Europe. A review of the last major Russian intervention, in Ukraine, might help us to evaluate this claim.

The superficial links between the two conflicts are obvious. For the first time since Russia invaded Ukraine, a ceasefire is holding. This has allowed Moscow to send special forces from Ukraine to Syria. The naval base in Crimea is now used to project Russian power southwards.

The deeper connectionis Russian doctrine. Authoritarian leaders are legitimate, while popular resistance is not. President Putin’s claim to oppose Islamic terrorism is true enough. But he also opposes, with equal fervor and greater determination, secular democrats in his own country and in Europe. Russia invaded Ukraine not to halt a “military coup,” as President Putin rather oddly claimed on Monday, but to hinder a democratic movement by military action. In Syria, Russia has helped and presumably will continue to help Assad repress all resistance, not just the Islamicist variety.

From Moscow’s perspective, there is not much difference between university students protesting in Kyiv for closer ties with the European Union and Islamicist terrorists gaining ground in Syria. In both cases, Russian leaders can, quite understandably, see a coming domestic problem. If people can gather peacefully in Kyiv, why not in Moscow? If Islamic terrorism can work in Syria, why not in southern Russia?

But the more important factor is domestic public opinion. Russia is a television culture, and Russian television news is devoted almost entirely to the world beyond Russia. In the last few days, Russian television has completely changed the subject: from Ukraine to Syria. What must not be mentioned is that Russia has not achieved its goals in Ukraine. The Ukrainian war shows that Russia can fail even when the European Union pays only a very small amount of attention to the conflict. What Russian leaders seem to want in Syria is a war without EU sanctions, which they can win for the viewers at home.

Russian leaders seem to fear the European example more than they fear Islamic terrorism. The post-communist and post-Soviet countries that have joined the European Union are not only freer but richer than Russia. President Putin presented this in his speech Monday as heedless expansionism, setting aside the basic fact that the EU enlarged at the initiative of the new member states. Russia invaded Ukraine to prevent one more post-Soviet country from succeeding in ways that Russia has not.

The war in Ukraine was thus never about Ukraine alone. It was always about the destruction of the European project as such. If the European Union fails, then there is no danger that Russians will see Europe as an alternative. If Europe fragments into nation-states, Russia becomes a much stronger player. Thus Russia seeks to destroy the European Union by supporting radicals and populists who oppose European integration and seek a return to the nation-state. Although President Putin spoke of a revived “anti-Nazi coalition,” his friends in Europe include fascists.

So Ukrainian experience gives reason for skepticism about Putin’s claim that Russia is intervening in Syria to help Europe with its refugee problem. The politics might well be exactly the opposite. Having found a powerful ally in its quest to end European integration, the European far right has followed Moscow’s lead on the Ukrainian conflict. But the natural subject of Putin’s allies in Europe is immigration. By supporting the Assad regime, Russia helps to produce the refugees that drive European politics rightward.

Syrian refugees who arrive in Europe must be treated humanely and according to law. At the same time, European leaders might consider the possibility that Russian policy in Syria is aimed toward the transformation of the country into a refugee factory. In Ukraine, Russian intervention generated two million refugees among precisely the people Moscow claimed it was protecting. In Syria, it has been the Assad regime, which Russia has now supported, that has been responsible for the vast majority of the refugees.

Whether opposing European Union or Islamicist terrorism, the domestic sources of Russian policy are the same. The problems that Russia faces are inside Russia, and insoluble from beyond Russia. There is no principle of political succession in Russia today, and so Kremlin is telling its people stories about the infallibility and immortality of a leader. In a televisual culture, domestic news is all but absent, and Russia’s presence on the world stage becomes the only story. But the power to change the subject from Ukraine to Syria, as President Putin was trying to do in New York, is not the power to make the story go on forever.

But did President Putin even manage to change the subject? He made some good points about American policy in Iraq. But when he sought the words to define just what he opposed, he gave an eerily accurate description of Russia’s intervention in Ukraine. He denounced “zones of anarchy,” which is what Russia created in the Donbas. He decried “belief in one’s exceptionality,” thought it was precisely the idea that Russia as big brother can decide whether Ukraine exists was given as the reason for war. He spoke of the “tragic consequences” of exporting one’s own social model and the dangers of creating “protectorates.” That is indeed the lesson of the Ukrainians killed and displaced by policies known as the “Russian spring” and “New Russia.”

President Putin spoke of the “universality” of international law regarding “sovereignty.” And here he was quite right. If Russia were serious about law and sovereignty, President Putin might have announced at the UN that Russia is withdrawing its support from its separatist clients in Ukraine and withdrawing its troops and armor from sovereign Ukrainian territory. If he had said these things, then the world would have had very good reason to listen.

[OUTLAW 09]

Russian airforce in Syria flew 18 combat sorties in the past 24 hours, says the MoD. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?
v=1667209900188426&set=vb.1492252324350852 …

Nato claim #Russia set up "Anti Access/Area Denial" ("A2/AD") = No flight zone in in the northeastern Mediterranean/#Syria'n coast

[OUTLAW 09]

Russian propaganda show:
"That is our holy land. Without #Syria there is no #Russia"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8c5ATBABQQ&feature=youtu.be …

Syria #Idlib Civil defence pick up corpses from rubble after #Russia'n airstrike on mosque in Jisr al-Shughour
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3PbFcprmIE …

Syria 3 Airstrikes hit #Damascus suburb #Douma
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JulI1PsdnHk …

FIRST Russian strike on IS—finally………..maybe their air maps were off a tad????
Syria Reports that #Russia target now for the first time #IslamicState positions (in Al Qaryatayn)
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=34.224861&lon=37.256012&z=12&m=b …

Syria #Quneitra Rebels seized weapons from captured #SAA base
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJuCPGghy90 …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=33.235529&lon=35.857787&z=16 …

Syria #Hama Report from Al Habit after #Russia'n night-airstrike
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYVM5Z722UA …

[OUTLAW 09]

Syria #Hama Report from Al Habit after #Russia'n night-airstrike on town
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lhR35mmfcs&feature=youtu.be …

Former #FSA leader Colonel Riad al-Asaad about #Russia'n & #Iran'ian invasion of #Syria https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETZYnmkuaxY …

Syria Qassioun media team claim #Russia'n airstrike also in #Damascus suburb Dayr al Asafir
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXdeCBDeXqU …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=33.463955&lon=36.421309&z=14&m=b …

Detailed interactive map of Russian air strikes in #Syria by @Radicalenzyme
https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=z4PF1SFiMPjQ.kFa_qMMdFl48 …

[OUTLAW 09]

Russia is hitting Syrian moderate forces if Jaish al-Fath (formed of #AQ, Ahrar, JMWA and more) is considered as such. #Syria.

#Russia is using in the attacks against Jaish al-Fath, #AQ and #ISIS SU-24, SU-25, SU-30 and SU-34 along with helicopters

Russia is aggressively pushing back on social media and calling it fake as they are extremely afraid of being called civilian killers in public----

BTW he has been reporting for over two years now and his reports are accepted for what they are--brutal and accurate.

Russian media saying @HadiAlabdallah reporting on civilians hit by air-strikes is “faked”

http://www.vesti.ru/videos/show/vid/658211/# …

[OUTLAW 09]

Putin "claimed in an interview broadcast to Russians and the world THAT there are no Russians fighting next to the Syrian Army--he lied again it seems.......

VIDEO: Russian heard in footage of #SAA 147th regiment S. of #Hama, around 3:08 / 3:09 - @ain92ru

http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/-Syria-Russia-Airstrikes-5/b1f2e71adc1736227821b55918dff465 …

[OUTLAW 09]

BREAKING: #Turkey calls Russia in joint statement to cease attacks on Syrian opposition & civilians, focus on fighting #ISIS -
@CNNTURK_ENG

BreakingNews Russia strikes in Syria will escalate conflict: U.S.-led coalition members http://ara.tv/vnkjn

Saudi Foreign Minister reiterated at the U.N. that Assad has ‘no place in Syria’s future’: http://ara.tv/pww92

Syrian Christians react against Russia’s ‘#HolyWar’ comment: http://ara.tv/wms5w

[OUTLAW 09]

Russia press continues the standard lies....first the Ukraine and now Syria. Old habit die hard it seems........

RT's correspondent claims there are #ISIS fighters just 40km away from #Latakia air base. - am i missing something here?

[OUTLAW 09]

Humor------

We deny causing civilian casualties with dumb bombs dropped from aircraft we denied were in Syria.

[OUTLAW 09]

Russia continues to lie to the West--Russian FM--FSA is part of the dialogue process thus not a "terrorist" BUT the RuAF just keeps on bombing them.

AND Russia is not sending a message to Obama??????

Skype call to FSA in Latamneh, Hama, interrupted by a huge explosion. The Russians are striking again for a 3rd day. Four jets in the sky.

AJE News ✔ @AJENews
We have created a map showing the reported locations of the Russian strikes in Syria http://aje.io/tbjx pic.twitter.com/McfWAI2BbO

[OUTLAW 09]

02 October: Alan Mendoza warns Russian unilateral airstrikes could pose a risk to allies: http://youtu.be/hmMlpey4Sgo?a via @YouTube

Russian total info war now kicks into high gear to support Putin in Syria-----

Putin launches #Russia Media war to support his #Syria(n) offensive http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34411653 … like he did in #Ukraine pic.twitter.com/lw695solxP

[OUTLAW 09]

Russia is again killing just civilians as they absolutely do not understand reality on the ground and their GRU has been there for HOW MANY years?????

Airstrikes also reportedly targeted ISIS excavators in AlBab https://twitter.com/jenanmoussa/status/649916445783158784 … operated by civilians forced to build trenches

The Russian defense ministry said that airstrikes in Syria targeted ISIS facilities in Raqqa http://u.afp.com/ZpGh https://twitter.com/mod_russia/status/649891868420009984 …

Russia keeps saying the reporting of their killing civilians is "fake"....who would you believe?????

Activist media outlet @Raqqa_SL, recently awarded an Int'l Press Freedom Award, reported airstrikes on the city https://twitter.com/Raqqa_SL/status/649670689344126976 …

[OUTLAW 09]

More Russian Today lies---if they are not a terrorist group then why were they bombed for the third day now.

Typical Orwellian Russian doublespeak.

RT America ✔ @RT_America
LIVE UPDATES: Lavrov said Moscow doesn’t view the Free Syrian Army (FSA) opposition group as a terrorist organization http://on.rt.com/6sng

[OUTLAW 09]

Putin has pulled a fast one on Obama--claims of fighting IS have turned into non claims of defending only Assad--nothing more nothing less.

Analysis
Russian air strikes are up to15 km away from the front.
This is the start of an enduring & comprehensive campaign for #Assad.


And more ... again near #KhanShaykhun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8kXY8LXXW0 …
pic.twitter.com/W7YRf2yoSb

Possibly the same raid from another perspective.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jL-ZHhensk …
#Syria pic.twitter.com/N7oeDFmSNE

More #footage of Russian air force formation over #Idlib province.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH7NTfDDjLM …
pic.twitter.com/zsAFMSiJA9

Footage
2 Russian air force Sz-24 over the #Hama-#Idlib (provinces) border.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZAnuMIHu_8 …

Footage
Possibly first sighting of Russian air force Su-34 over #Binnish, #Idlib province?!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uG9-7wFoaM … pic.twitter.com/CGxgLj0YWU

Russian info war report----Sputnik
Sputnik ✔ @SputnikInt
VIDEO: exclusive tour of Syrian airbase Russia is using to bomb #ISIL http://sptnkne.ws/QCd pic.twitter.com/zSOPZJpsYA

[OUTLAW 09]

Well so much for Putin's claim Russia adheres to international laws and UN resolutions----

UN Secretary General to Russia:"Terrorist groups targeted by military campaign'd be exclusively those specified in relevant UNSC Resolution"

[OUTLAW 09]

Putin has pulled a fast one on Obama--claims of fighting IS have turned into non claims of defending only Assad--nothing more nothing less.

Analysis
Russian air strikes are up to15 km away from the front.
This is the start of an enduring & comprehensive campaign for #Assad.

And more ... again near #KhanShaykhun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8kXY8LXXW0 …
pic.twitter.com/W7YRf2yoSb

Possibly the same raid from another perspective.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jL-ZHhensk …
#Syria pic.twitter.com/N7oeDFmSNE

More #footage of Russian air force formation over #Idlib province.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH7NTfDDjLM …
pic.twitter.com/zsAFMSiJA9

Footage
2 Russian air force Sz-24 over the #Hama-#Idlib (provinces) border.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZAnuMIHu_8 …

Footage
Possibly first sighting of Russian air force Su-34 over #Binnish, #Idlib province?!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uG9-7wFoaM … pic.twitter.com/CGxgLj0YWU

Russian info war report----Sputnik
Sputnik ✔ @SputnikInt
VIDEO: exclusive tour of Syrian airbase Russia is using to bomb #ISIL http://sptnkne.ws/QCd pic.twitter.com/zSOPZJpsYA

Footage
More Russian air strikes on the town of Al-Lataminah in #Hama province.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3_FstfBIMs …
pic.twitter.com/eJb1GsvfGn

The world was silent on the Syrian AF killing of civilians and YET again it is extremely silent on the Russian killing of civilians----

Russian air strike near Khan Shaykhun in #Idlib province today.
The world remains silent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-5_Z3cjpiI … pic.twitter.com/ofwZ7PkO2R

[OUTLAW 09]

A lot of good words do--Putin does not even hear them--but hey keep trying??

US, #France , #Germany , UK , Turkey , SaudiArabia , Qatar jointly demand end to #Russia strikes against opposition, civilians in #Syria

[OUTLAW 09]

Find difference in clothes ...
Above - Russian military in Syria
Below - "drivers" of humanitarian convoy to Donbass pic.twitter.com/cJkDRT5txn

[OUTLAW 09]

Syria #Daraa Twin airstrike on Tel Harra
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VK2NgNC3xWA …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=33.064302&lon=35.990181&z=15&m=b …

Syria #Russia'n airstrikes on Kaffar Ruma in #Idlib province
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.634279&lon=36.632452&z=14&m=b …

HadiAlabdallah
The suburbs of Hama and Idlib are the most targeted areas by Russian strikes, despite the fact that there is no ISIL presence since Jan 2014

[OUTLAW 09]

Another great example of the war lust of the Russian altered state of reality??

SYRIA: Russian MP accuses US of bombing 'desert' for a year and not hitting #ISIS targets.

At roughly 10K killed IS---not exactly sure what planet this Russian MP is living on??

The Russian MoD is not any better at the altered state of reality thing???/

Минобороны России Verified account 
‏@mod_russia Twice a day we provide comprehensive information concerning Russian air operation in #SYRIA supported by facts
BUT hey we are not killing civilians---

Минобороны России Verified account 
‏@mod_russia Some foreign media publish rumors concening Russian #AerospaceForces actions in #SYRIA. This is absolute nonsense without any factual basis

Am not so sure the Russian MoD can tell the difference between reality and lying anymore??

BTW--the Russia AF claimed to have destroyed a IS command center--turned out it was the local bakery and civilians were killed that were waiting for fresh bread--so much for the Russian version of the "truth".

[OUTLAW 09]

Because all we need are even more foreign militias: Kadyrov asks Putin to allow Chechen infantry to fight in #Syria

http://www.rt.com/politics/31739

[OUTLAW 09]

Another great example of the war lust of the Russian altered state of reality??

SYRIA: Russian MP accuses US of bombing 'desert' for a year and not hitting #ISIS targets.

At roughly 10K killed IS---not exactly sure what planet this Russian MP is living on??

The Russian MoD is not any better at the altered state of reality thing???/

Минобороны России Verified account 
‏@mod_russia Twice a day we provide comprehensive information concerning Russian air operation in #SYRIA supported by facts
BUT hey we are not killing civilians---

Минобороны России Verified account 
‏@mod_russia Some foreign media publish rumors concening Russian #AerospaceForces actions in #SYRIA. This is absolute nonsense without any factual basis

Am not so sure the Russian MoD can tell the difference between reality and lying anymore??

BTW--the Russia AF claimed to have destroyed a IS command center--turned out it was the local bakery and civilians were killed that were waiting for fresh bread--so much for the Russian version of the "truth".

This refutes the Russian MoD that they do not target civilians and the reports have been fakes---

Video 1: Documenting testimonies from the ground in response to Russian denial on targeting civilian .
https://youtu.be/9lhR35mmfcs

Video 2: Moving footage of the injured and martyred children targeted by Russian strikes in Habeet in Idlib suburbs
https://youtu.be/kYVM5Z722UA

[OUTLAW 09]

Peshmerga are running low on ammo we have asked international community to supply us. So far no one has come forward

pic.twitter.com/SxOQqSKn4D

[OUTLAW 09]

http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20151002/1027928157/obama-weakness-middle-east-russia.html

Obama's Weakness Forces Middle East to Turn to Russia


While the US is getting cold feet on their future actions in the region Russia is taking decisive steps despite sanctions and a downturn in its economy. The US policy in the Middle East failed, the author wrote.

"The Syrian opposition trained by Washington gave up to the al-Nusra Front. The Iraqi army failed to defeat ISIL despite the support from the US," the article read.

The US spent $90 billion for the war on terrorism but it was all in vain. After Washington withdrew its troops from Iraq in 2011 President Barack Obama refused to start another war in the Middle East.

"Putin is realizing the weakness of the US, and he is taking on America's worldwide hegemony. This is why Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia have turned to Moscow for help," Eytan Gilboa, Director of the Center for International Communication at Bar-Ilan University, was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

"This resulted in Putin taking the lead," he said.

The weakness of Washington also provoked violence and instability in other regions. For example, recently the Taliban seized Kunduz province. Despite the fact that the Taliban has not been active recently, the group is still undefeated and would try to regain the areas they had to leave before.

In Iraq, the army supported by the US is taking losses and cannot defeat ISIL. It pushed Iraq to cooperate with Syria, Iran and Russia to create a coordination information center to collect data on terrorists.

What is more, despite the fact that the US supported Kurdish fighters — the most effective against ISIL — now Washington is helping Turkey to fight against Kurds, the author wrote.

The US hoped that after the Iranian nuclear deal Tehran would stabilize the situation in the region.

"However, after the sanctions had been lifted Iran turned to cooperation with Russia. Other countries in region are also asking Putin for help," Gilboa said.


An the Russian info war just keeps on steaming along--far far different from the Ukraine--it now is taking on an anti US anti western tone--this tone is at the heart of the Putin geo political warfare.


Last Wednesday (28 Sept 2015) the world saw the difference between Russia and Washington. Putin’s approach is truth-based; Obama’s is vain boasts and lies, and Obama is running out of lies.

“We can no longer tolerate the state of affairs in the world.” President Vladimir Putin

In Brief: Putin's Address to the United Nations in 10 Quotes
By telling the truth at a time of universal deceit, Putin committed a revolutionary act. Referring to the slaughter, destruction, and chaos that Washington has brought to the Middle East, North Africa, and Ukraine, and the extreme jihadist forces that have been unleashed, Putin asked Washington: “Do you realize what you have done?”

Putin’s question reminds me of the question Joseph Welch asked witch-hunting Senator Joseph McCarthy: “Have you no sense of decency?” Welch’s question is attributed with initiating the decline of McCarthy’s career.

Perhaps Putin’s question will have the same impact and bring the reign of “American Exceptionalism” to an end.

If so, Putin has launched a revolution that will overthrow the world’s subservience to Washington.

He Stole Obama’s Thunder and Showed Who’s in Charge – West Reacts to Putin’s Speech
Putin stresses the legality of Russia’s intervention in Syria, which is at the request of the Syrian government. He contrasts Russia’s respect for international law with the intervention in Syria of Washington and France, governments that are violating Syria’s sovereignty with unrequested and illegal military action.

The world sees that it is Washington and its vassals who “violate international norms” and not Russia.

The sanctimonious self-righteousness, behind which hides Washington’s self-serving unilateral actions, is revealed for all to see.

Washington relies on its arsenal of lies. Washington’s media-based disinformation apparatus was too hot to trot.

Just as the BBC’s TV reporter announced the premature destruction of World Trade Center Building 7 with the building clearly still standing in the background, Washington’s lie service announced the first civilian casualties of Russian air strikes “even before our planes got in the air,” noted President Putin in his comments on Washington’s disinformation warfare.

As a consequence of their subservience to Washington, the puppet states of Europe are being overrun by refugees from Washington’s wars that Europe so mindlessly enabled.

As the cost of being Washington’s vassals comes home to Europeans, the standings of European political parties will be affected. New parties and ruling coalitions are likely to follow more independent paths in order to protect themselves from the costs of the enormous mistakes that flow from Washington’s arrogance and hubris.

The breakup of the Empire is on the horizon.

[OUTLAW 09]

Even more Russian Syrian info war ---from the Russian main lie media Sputnik. Sputnik is 100% owned by the Russian government---

http://sputniknews.com/politics/20151002/1027922112/russia-bombing-isil-syria-us-nervous.html#ixzz3nQdM7TWd

By Bombing Terrorists in Syria Russia Hits Washington's Raw Nerve

19:01 02.10.2015(updated 19:05 02.10.2015)


Russia is undoubtedly bombing insurgents supported by the US, but that is only because Washington has intentionally supported Al Qaeda and ISIL in Syria, geopolitical researcher Tony Cartalucci remarks.

West Demonizes Russian Airstrikes in Syria to Justify Its Own Failure
Along with some other Western reporters Australian journalist Lauren Williams notes in her recent piece that Russia has launched its airstrikes on Homs and Hama regions which are "not ISIS [ISIL] hotspots."

"The areas around Homs and Hama are not ISIS [ISIL] hotspots. In fact they are known as a bastion for the US-backed moderate rebel forces and an important strategic gateway to Assad's Alawite coastal heartland," the journalist wrote, citing US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, in her article for The Interpreter.

But who are these "moderate rebel forces" and where do they come from?

"In reality, from the beginning, there were never any moderates. Starting as early as 2007, years before the war in Syria began, the US as a matter of policy had long since decided to intentionally fund and support the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood — for all intents and purposes the political wing of al-Qaeda — and begin arming militants affiliated with al-Qaeda itself," Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher Tony Cartalucci elaborates in his article for New Eastern Outlook.

Stop Deluding Yourself, 'Assad Must Go' Will Remain Unchanged US Policy
Citing Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh's 2007 article "The Redirection Is the Administration's New Policy Benefitting our Enemies in the War on Terrorism?," the researcher pointed out that back in the early 2000s the Bush administration decided to "reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East."

Since that time Washington has sided with the Sunnis, cooperating with Saudi Arabia's leadership, against Shiites, backed by Iran. To undermine Iran-Syrian positions in the region the US took part in a series of clandestine operations aimed against Tehran and Damascus.

According to Hersh, "a by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to al-Qaeda."

Cartalucci stressed that Hersh's prophetic report exposed that even in that period of time "the extremist Syrian Muslim Brotherhood was already receiving funding and support from the United States via Saudi Arabia."

In the 2000s, the Syrian National Salvation Front — the coalition of Syrian opposition groups and the Brotherhood — and one of its leaders Abdul Halim Khaddam, a former Syrian Vice-President who defected in 2005, were receiving financial and political aid from the United States, Hersh wrote citing former high-ranking CIA and White House officials.

"By 2011, al-Qaeda's affiliates in Syria, most notably the al-Nusra Front, began operating nation-wide, taking the lead in the US-backed fight against Damascus. By 2012, when the US State Department listed al-Nusra as a foreign terrorist organization, it was clear even then, that the largest contingent of anti-government forces on the battlefield was al-Qaeda," Cartalucci pointed out.

In much the same vein US author and syndicated columnist Stephen Lendman writes, referring to retired US Army General Wesley Clark's book "Winning Modern Wars." In 1991, Clark, then brigadier general, met with then Under Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz.

"[Clark] was told America planned multiple premeditated wars — intending to destabilize and redraw the Middle East, changing its configuration under US-controlled puppet regimes," Lendman stressed in his article for Global Research.

Wolfowitz's goal was to "clean out those old Soviet client regimes," he noted, adding that the list of the US' targets included Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran.

Cartalucci underscored that while Washington has repeatedly tried to convince the public that the anti-Assad revolt has been kicked off by the "moderate" opposition, facts on the ground have proven otherwise. Since 2011 the civil war has been largely led by al-Qaeda and its affiliates, namely al-Nusra Front.

"Since November 2011, al-Nusra Front has claimed nearly 600 attacks — ranging from more than 40 suicide attacks to small arms and improvised explosive device operations — in major city centers including Damascus, Aleppo, Hamah, Dara, Homs, Idlib, and Dayr al-Zawr. During these attacks numerous innocent Syrians have been killed," a US State Department official statement said, cited by the researcher.

Furthermore, many of those so-called "opposition" fighters were not even Syrians.

"At the start of the war against Syria [2011], Qatar printed and distributed false Syrian passports to jihadists from al-Qaeda so that they could convince Atlantist journalists that they were "rebels," and not foreign mercenaries," French intellectual and journalist Thierry Meyssan noted in his September article for Voltairenet.org, adding that "false Syrian passports are today distributed by certain smugglers to non-Syrian migrants."

US Using 'Controlled Chaos' Strategy for Social Engineering in Europe
Embarrassingly enough, in order to explain how "America's fictional 'moderate' army" has been displaced by the Islamic State and al-Qaeda Western media have repeatedly reported about "massive defections." Alas, so-called Syrian "moderate rebels" trained by US military instructors defected to Islamists with US sophisticated weapons.

However, documented evidence clearly indicates that Washington had no intention to create a genuine moderate opposition in the first place, Cartalucci emphasized:

"News of 'defections' are simply cover for the direct funding and arming of al-Qaeda and ISIS [ISIL] in Syria," he stressed.

Therefore "Russia is not arbitrarily bombing 'moderates' backed by the US in Syria to stave off allegedly 'legitimate' opposition to the government in Damascus — Russia is bombing terrorists who are either operating under the banner of al-Qaeda but are portrayed as otherwise by the US, or will inevitably end up turning their fighters and weapons over to al-Qaeda. Russia is bombing al-Qaeda," Cartalucci pointed out.

Yes, Russia is bombing militants backed by Washington, but that is only because the US is supporting Islamists in Syria.

While US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter claims that the Russian policy in Syria is "doomed," it is more likely that it is Washington who has become seriously entangled in Middle Eastern wars.

"Claiming to fight ISIS [ISIL], while so transparently supporting them, is indeed a doomed position, one doomed to fail today, and one doomed to eternal condemnation in the future," Cartalucci concluded.

[OUTLAW 09]

Did #Russia/#Iran trick USG into believing they would dump #Asad in exchange for our ok to deploy force in #Syria?
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-10-02/putin-has-his-own-no-fly-zone-in-syria …

Syria...No explanation needed (photo via @RuPhotoMilitary) pic.twitter.com/QUFvIP0DLD

Quite interesting -- with a less robust C4ISR backbone than the US, the Russians may want to do this old-school https://twitter.com/CombatAir/status/649980461813473280 …

[OUTLAW 09]

Hawaii-based F-22 Raptors deployed to Middle East

POSTED: 9:10 a.m. HST, Oct 1, 2015
LAST UPDATED: 9:11 a.m. HST, Oct 1, 2015

[OUTLAW 09]

NorthCaucasus Caucus @NCaucasusCaucus
Syrian media activist describes excitement over prospect of fighting Russians. Thanks @AbuJamajem for translation. pic.twitter.com/VKVUujg1g1

Did these #Russia servicemen @#Latakia, id'd by RF propaganda, bomb & kill #Syrian civilians?
https://twitter.com/SputnikInt/status/649987333618597888 … pic.twitter.com/K0GaR2jZhw

Putin: 1st Kremlin leader to bomb area outside former Soviet Union since 1979 http://econ.st/1QN75fY @TheEconomist pic.twitter.com/7puK74dcCT

VIDEO #Russia aircraft n #Syria use OFAB 250-270 unguided high explosive fragmentation bombs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxbpGOaki2U&feature=youtu.be … pic.twitter.com/rRUmSMufUZ

[OUTLAW 09]

https://twitter.com/Interpreter_Mag/status/649988274241540096

2015-10-02 15:22:15


Not only is most of Russia's bombing is not hitting ISIS, civilians are paying the heaviest price. The Local Coordination Committees of Syria, an opponent of both ISIS and the Syrian regime, has released this statement today:

For the second consecutive day, Russian aircraft have conducted attacks on Syrian soil. These air strikes, in cities and towns devoid of Islamic State (ISIS) combatants, have resulted in more than 40 civilian casualties, including women and children. These attacks expose Russian allegations that they are targeting ISIS, and confirm that Russia’s goal in directly intervening in the conflict is to assure the survival of the Assad regime.

Russian troops are now openly fighting alongside the army of the dictator. Despite international consensus that the attacks have not targeted ISIS positions, we have yet to see any forceful condemnations regarding the killing of civilians, and this leads us to believe that the international community is tacitly approving of these attacks. We believe that any partnership with Russia, which claims to target ISIS and which has the blessing of the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, will serve only to accelerate the pace of killing and widen the circle of devastation. These conditions will inevitably lead to even more extremism.

The Local Coordination Committees in Syria joins Syrians across the country in categorically condemning the Russian intervention in Syria. In our mourning and sadness, we share the pain of all those who have lost loved ones due to this barbaric aggression.

The LCC calls upon all revolutionary forces and factions to unite by any means and respond to the Russian aggression. We further call upon the international community to uphold its moral and legal responsibilities regarding the strategic direction of current events in Syria.

Mercy upon our martyrs. Long live our Revolution for a free and democratic Syria.

Since this statements release, the LCC has these two messages -- it's unclear if the planes involved are Syrian or Russian, but it's worth remembering that Russia has supplied Syria with all of its planes, and continues to help the Assad regime fuel, arm, and maintain them.


Russian Major General Lists "ISIS" Targets Hit By Russian Airstrikes, But Has ISIS Actually Been Hit? http://bit.ly/1RkxnXz

[OUTLAW 09]

Syrian civilians--duck-------

Most coalition a/c end #Syria patrols without finding proper ISIS targets yet Russia has found an extremely 'target rich' environment. Hmm..

[OUTLAW 09]

Syria #Russia'n warplanes above #Idlib province
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGGjNTnOYUs …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOQxY9siQ98 …

First reports of this----
Syria Ahrar al-Sham claim shelling #Russia'n airbase in #Latakia with Grad-rockets

Here's an interactive map of all the Russian airstrikes in Syria http://wp.me/p2TYIs-8Nq

[OUTLAW 09]

From the mouth of #JN: Russia didn't increase #JN wealth of men and loyalties. #JN growing before the airstrikes:

Those moderate rebeles joining #JN:
Chechens in Idlib, Ramadan Al Qarni's Crimean group/reef Hama; Tawheed & Jihad group of Uzbeks, Tajiks +

More moderate joining #AQ: Jaish Al Muhajireen Wal Ansar; Saraya Al Meaad/Aleppo; Katibat Al Quds in reef western Aleppo; Katibat Abu Qatada

[OUTLAW 09]

More Russian Today lies---if they are not a terrorist group then why were they bombed for the third day now.

Typical Orwellian Russian doublespeak.

RT America ✔ @RT_America
LIVE UPDATES: Lavrov said Moscow doesn’t view the Free Syrian Army (FSA) opposition group as a terrorist organization http://on.rt.com/6sng

Appears that Russia is still bombing the FSA for the third day---and out of the US--silence, silence, silence------

Very interesting. #RuAF Su-30M covered airstrikes in eastern Aleppo. FSA regiment 13 positions bombed today.

As expected, Russian Su-30M are giving air cover to Su-24/25/34 over Idlib. At least 2 R-77 AA missiles.

[OUTLAW 09]

RuAF Mi-24P over Jableh.

Fixed 30-mm twin barrel canon,S-5 57-mm rockets, SPIRAL ATGMs provide direct air support

Russian chow hall at Latakia Air Base can feed up to 3,000 (Russian reporter on-site says in interview) http://www.msk.kp.ru/daily/26440/3311460/ …

Russia's map of where ISIS is is completely different to the @ISW's. Kurds should be careful. So should Aleppo. pic.twitter.com/fKcMgv2FAa

VIDEO: Su-34 in #Latakia with a KA B-500S-E GLONASS guided bomb #Syria -
http://tvzvezda.ru/news/vstrane_i_mire/content/201510011940-tmc8.htm …
pic.twitter.com/sV1bTXP2Ua

[OUTLAW 09]

https://news.vice.com/article/iranian-ground-troops-are-joining-russians-in-syrian-offensive-reports

Iranian Ground Troops Are Joining Russians in Syrian Offensive: Reports

By VICE News

October 1, 2015 | 8:25 pm


Hundreds of Iranian ground troops have reportedly arrived in Syria over the past 10 days to join an offensive supporting embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, two anonymous Lebanese sources told Reuters Thursday.

"The vanguard of Iranian ground forces began arriving in Syria: soldiers and officers specifically to participate in this battle," one of the unnamed sources told Reuters. "They are not advisors… we mean hundreds with equipment and weapons. They will be followed by more."

The sources added the offensive, in which Russia and other allied groups are also participating, is meant to reclaim territory that was captured from Assad by rebels in the Idlib and Hama provinces.

This claim of Iranian ground troops comes a day after Russian warplanes began striking anti-Assad rebel locations in the west of Syria near Homs and Hama. The involvement of Russia, a longtime ally of the Assad regime, has further escalated Syria's four-year civil war into a proxy battle with an ever-increasing number of players.

Iranian military advisors have been in Syria for a long time, points out Aron Lund, editor of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's Syria in Crisis. But they have been acting mostly as military advisors embedded with various militias.

"Putting Iranian soldiers on the ground in an independent frontline role would represent a pretty significant escalation, if that were to happen," Lund said. "Assad is short on manpower and long on enemies, and he needs all the help he can get."

Patrick Skinner, an analyst with the security consulting firm Soufan Group, agreed that the arrival of Iranian fighters, if true, is significant because it could signal the start of a much longer battle to retake rebel-controlled areas on the western coast of Syria. But he cautioned against taking the claims at face value in a conflict where everyone is battling for control of the narrative.

"This is an information war," Skinner said. "All the regional proxies — like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia — are going to start smearing everyone else. Everyone is trying to win the information war, plus win the actual war."

Hezbollah, a Lebanese militant group backed by Iran and loyal to Assad, has been involved in the fighting in Syria almost as long as the fighting has been taking place. Rebel Islamist groups are battling with pro-government forces in northwest Syria, and the Islamic State (IS) has taken wide swaths of the northeast of the country.

Meanwhile, Russia launched fresh strikes on rebel positions today, after denying accusations that their first wave of attacks killed 36 civilians yesterday. The US raised concerns that those being targeted by Russia were merely opponents of Assad, not IS militants.

"One of the horrors of this war is that it's so fluid and dynamic and every actor is seeking an advantage," Skinner said. "The only constant is the suffering of the Syrian people."

[OUTLAW 09]

Believe the Russian military planners did not think this through---

SYRIA: FSA southern front have declared Russian troops legitimate targets, considers Iranian & Russian governments enemies of Syrian people.

MORE: A spokesman for the Southern Front also said that the entry of Russian fighters would only affect the number of coffins returning.

Notice IS has remained unusually quiet----

[OUTLAW 09]

FSA's 13th Division's video on Russia bombing them https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGGjNTnOYUs …

Russian reporters in #Syria predict “historic” offensive 2 open Homs-Hama road. #SAA tells civilians 2flee @yarotrof
http://youtu.be/hS3s25IYEFQ

[OUTLAW 09]

Really bad Russian intel---bombed an IDP camp--killing civilians.

News
Russian jets bombed another #IDP camp near Baluon,"killing 6 & wounding 15 civilians".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfPbgCMt9xw … pic.twitter.com/M9pRqexOZI

Russian UXO dropped in Talbiseh #Homs http://youtu.be/TpFDVaRoFoM #Syria pic.twitter.com/diQ9KGFb69

[OUTLAW 09]

Syria: Russian warplanes are targeting the area around Khan Shaykhun, again no #IS presence https://youtu.be/7jL-ZHhensk

Footage
Possibly first sighting of Russian air force Su-34 over #Binnish, #Idlib province?!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uG9-7wFoaM …

Chechnya all over again------

Putin's warplanes dump leaflets on people in northern Homs rural area written on them:" You have to depart your... http://fb.me/4a2mppfFM

Airstrikes Cause Chaos and Destruction in Syria's Homs: VICE News Quick Hit https://youtu.be/1QioZAqCzz4 via @YouTube

Syria #Homs Unexploded & unguided ODAB free fall bomb -dropped by #Russia on Talbiseh town https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpFDVaRoFoM … pic.twitter.com/XKB6BA2gwn

[OUTLAW 09]

ISIS is the project of #Russian secret services and Iran, other players - representative of Syria diaspora in Ukraine

pic.twitter.com/J37fhNq3Uf

[OUTLAW 09]

http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20151002/1027928157/obama-weakness-middle-east-russia.html

Obama's Weakness Forces Middle East to Turn to Russia



An the Russian info war just keeps on steaming along--far far different from the Ukraine--it now is taking on an anti US anti western tone--this tone is at the heart of the Putin geo political warfare.

Sputnik is in propaganda war porn overdrive https://twitter.com/sputnikint/status/650011910365032448 …

[Firn]

Well as the war goes the Assad regimes needs every help they can get. It is rather amazing how it's hold is crumbling despite all that direct support they got by Hezbollah, Iran and Russian. Clearly allied Shiite boots ground troops were far from enough.

I think hardly anybody is surprised that Russian is following up on Assad's prime target, the opponents other then Daesh. Some bombing against them has of course to be part of the (initial) package...

Some of the media has reported this latest attempt to prop up the regime as Russian 'victory'. There have been plenty of those in recent times, also by Western forces. We will see how it lasts.

[OUTLAW 09]

Anyone who fully understands Russian military doctrine --ground war is coming--using Iranian IRGC, Hezbollah and Syrian army troops led by Russian officers and GRU Spetsnaz----so they can claim they are not involved in actual ground fighting which Putin has told his population will not happen.

Does #Russia's Military Buildup in #Syria Means Possible Ground Operations? http://thesentinel.ca/does-russias-military-buildup-in-syria-means-possible-ground-operations/ … -

[OUTLAW 09]

Humor----

Definition of ISIS: Anyone bombed by the Russian air force

[OUTLAW 09]

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/end-pax-americana_1039617.html?pa...

The End of Pax Americana

Obama’s ‘accomplishment.’

Oct 12, 2015, Vol. 21, No. 05 • By LEE SMITH


The United States, President Obama said at the U.N. General Assembly last week, “worked with many nations in this assembly to prevent a third world war—by forging alliances with old adversaries.” Presumably, the president was not referring to his deeply flawed Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the recent agreement that the White House has marketed as the only alternative to war with a soon-to-be-nuclear Iran. Rather, it seems he was referring to the post-World War II period, when the United States created and presided over an international order that prevented an even larger, potentially nuclear, conflict with the Soviet Union. Now, that Pax Americana may be ending.

Indeed, Russia’s airstrikes against CIA-vetted Syrian rebels last week looked like a punctuation mark. When the secretary of state holds a joint press conference with Moscow’s foreign minister after Russia has decimated American proxies bearing American arms, we are not witnessing anything like a return to the Cold War. Rather, we’re witnessing a new order being born. It is an order that is being designed by others, without any concern for American interests.

Its cradle is not the conference rooms of the U.N., but the killing fields of Syria. After four and a half years, the Syrian civil war and the refugee crisis it has spawned threaten to disrupt two zones of American vital interest, the Persian Gulf and Europe.

America’s Cold War prosperity depended on our ability to trade with the rest of the world across both oceans. The United States built a powerful blue-water navy and far-flung bases as tokens of our willingness to protect our allies and stand up to their, and our, adversaries. What facilitates both trade and the movement of a military as large as America’s is access to affordable sources of energy, which is why the security of the Persian Gulf has been a vital American interest for 70 years.

The nuclear agreement with Iran signals that Obama doesn’t see things this way. From his perspective, no core American interest would be threatened by either the domination of the Gulf by revolutionary Iran or the likelihood that other regional powers will go nuclear. The JCPOA told American partners in the Middle East that the old alliance system was finished. Israel and Saudi Arabia would get stiff-armed, and Iran would get to call plays in the huddle. What Obama sought, as he said in a New Yorker interview, was a “new geopolitical equilibrium.”

Vladimir Putin understood Obama’s rhetoric and actions as confirmation of what he’d already surmised. Putin showed NATO to be a paper tiger when he moved against Georgia, then ordered a Russian crew based in Syria to shoot down a jet flown by NATO member Turkey, then annexed Crimea, to little response. In July, the JCPOA opened the way for Russian and Iranian cooperation in Syria. The Americans, Putin understood, had no stomach for a fight. But the White House may have helped create the conditions for a conflict much larger than the war already underway in Syria, a conflict that could someday force the United States to defend its vital interests.

“There already is a third world war underway,” says Angelo Codevilla, professor emeritus of international relations at Boston University. “It’s the war between Sunnis and Shiites. It’s a world war because it engages people all around the world who happen to be Muslims.”

Codevilla thinks it unlikely that the war will expand past the Middle East but notes that Pakistan, a nuclear Sunni power, could present problems. In any event, the Obama administration has little ability to shape outcomes. “Once you seize a position by force, as the Russians have,” says Codevilla, “you are in the diplomatic driver’s seat. Putin is schooling the U.S. foreign policy establishment in foreign affairs. He has put his armed forces not at the service of Bashar al-Assad, but at the service of Russian interests.”

And Obama? The White House believes in a balance of power without winners and losers, an abstract international system with room for every nation to pursue its rational interests. But this is fantasy: Whatever order exists belongs to the power that imposes it. The Syrian war threatens two of the pillars of the order we formerly led.

“At what point does the Syrian conflict create political instability in places like Saudi Arabia and other oil-producing states in the Persian Gulf?” asks Walter Russell Mead, professor of foreign policy and humanities at Bard College. “As long as nothing is happening to block the oil flow, it’s the refugee flow that makes Syria an international issue.”

But even before the refugees, European security services were overwhelmed trying to keep tabs on potential jihadist recruits traveling from Europe to the Middle East and back. The influx of hundreds of thousands more migrants from the region is likely to generate political instability and could carry the war between Sunnis and Shiites into Europe.

To stem the refugee crisis, the White House is broadly hinting it is willing to go along with Tehran and Moscow and let Assad stay in power, at least for now. But it is Assad and his allies—not, as the administration seems to suggest, the Islamic State—who are responsible for the vast majority of the refugees. If the Obama administration accommodates Russia and Iran on Assad, it will be acquiescing in a plot to extort and destabilize Europe.

In the Gulf, Mead says, “if the Sunnis continue to feel that they’re losing an existential conflict with Iran, they may move toward a closer relationship between governments and radical groups. Keeping oil money out of the hands of truly radical jihadists has been a core U.S. interest since September 11, but if the Gulf states don’t feel we are keeping our part of the bargain by providing security, they could take matters into their own hands.”

Of course, another option for the Gulf states would be to enlist Russia, which, unlike the Obama administration, has shown its willingness to act on behalf of its own interests. Now that Obama has forsaken America’s post-World War II patrimony, life is more dangerous for America and its allies. This won’t be easy to reverse, no matter who succeeds Barack Obama.


Putin has that three distinct geo political goals in Europe and to a large degree virtually the same goals for the ME AND Obama, Kerry and the entire 700 NSC either are refusing to see them thus endangering the US OR they simply do not care as it is the legacy of Obama they are interested in not the long term goals of the US.

1. discredit and damage NATO in Europe to the point of being useless
2. discredit and damage the EU in order to restrict it's political and economic power allowing Russia to become the single hegemon for all of Europe or as he has stated a political and economic union from Portugal to the Russian Far East
3. DISCONNECT the US totally from Europe and the ME.

These three goals are tied into a Putin defined anti Americanism and anti western "world view" tied up in the term "anti neo liberalism" which he blames for all the then Soviet and now Russian problems.

SO the interesting question--has the total lack of actions on the part of Obama actually contributed to Putin having now achieved these three geo political goals????

Definitely explains the "blame game"..............

[OUTLAW 09]

Syria #Homs Night clashes btw Rebels & #Assad-forces+#Hezbollah south of #Talbiseh
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXcy_w8qiXs …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=34.809223&lon=36.729355&z=14&m=b …

Syria Heavy fighting + airstrikes in #DeirEzZor city & its airport bc #IslamicState try to advance to regime hold areas

Syria #Idlib #Russia'n airstrike hit refugee camp in Ma'ar Shourin
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.668454&lon=36.734161&z=14&m=b …

#Syria Reports of massacre by #Russia' airstrike on market in #IS-hold town of al-Bab. More than 100 people killed
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=36.371816&lon=37.519684&z=14&m=b …

Syria #Damascus Rebels use new stealth mode in battle against #IS in southern Alasali suburb
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TefC5_xGOc …

#Syria #Hama Burning remains of #Russia'n bomb in Al-Lataminah
White phosphorus? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dx5qwD4XMjw …

[OUTLAW 09]

Syria Sunset in #Damascus suburb #Dariya
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wif9SH7o76U …

[OUTLAW 09]

TOTAL FACT that Obama and his poorly informed NSC has failed to notice especially referencing the air attacks on FSA----

Key fact: Both Jabhat al-Nusra & ISIS have adjusted to air bombing. That naturally leaves moderate groups more vulnerable to Russian attacks

[OUTLAW 09]

Russian info warriors have moved from the Ukraine to Syria----

Russia's 'media' [GRU/FSB] drove their fake #Novorossiya flag all the way from Donbas to #Syria.

pic.twitter.com/CZsbxEccnm

[OUTLAW 09]

Rn AF deliberately bombing civil defense workers as they try to rescue injured and killed.


The White Helmets @SyriaCivilDef

With sadness, team of @SyriaCivilDef struck in Russian double tap today in Ihlem (Idlib) while rescuing civilians. pic.twitter.com/KoSNSiIVgx

[OUTLAW 09]

SUPER---even more Russian fake MoD news?????

MoD claims it is IS but video is from the first day of bombing of FSA--Russian info warriors getting sloppy OR are there no other air videos to be seen??

Notable: first vid claims to be #Raqqa, though looks more like #FSA base bombed on first day https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiA0JUdWR6M … pic.twitter.com/cG2aNtjYdL

7,000 IRGC troops estimated to be in Syria. http://www.wsj.com/articles/iran-expands-role-in-syria-in-conjunction-with-russias-airstrikes-1443811030 …

Yesterday, Ahrār ash-Shām targeted the Russian Al-Hamim air base with grad missiles in response to the bombardments.

JUST as the Syrian AF bombs civilians in markets and hospitals SO does the Russian AF--there is no difference NOW between Assad and Putin--BOTH are deliberately killing civilians to create even more refugees---

Syria: Aftermath pics of today's Russian airstrike on a market in the Islamic State-held city of Al-Bāb, Aleppo gov.
Man after #Russian strike: 'People cry about us because of Aylan. Oke, doesn't we have children who're being killed?'

[OUTLAW 09]

Syria #RuAF Su-25SM over Ma'arat Al-Numan, Idlib. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6StN5WN2Cc …

Syria for the first time, JN/AQ released pictures of #RuAF airstrikes close to their positions in Hama.

Nailed one Su-25SM in #Syria. No RF, but factory id Су-25СМ-76, tail "Red 25", factory frame no 10365. #politejet

[OUTLAW 09]

EITHER Russian AF has some really bad intel and or really poor navigation maps OR they are telling one super big lie to their population---

ALL of their info warrior media outlets are screaming news they are striking IS and even the Russian MoD is saying the same thing about their highly accurate precision bombing that is absolutely not killing a single civilian.

THEN how could this have happened????????? A Russian claimed IS strike.

Syria #RuAF anti-bunker BETAB-500 airstrike in Raqqa hit actually Tajamu Ala'azza's HQ in Ltamenah. v @pfc_joker https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7fqew26a1A …

Haaretz.com Verified account 
‏@haaretzcom Only 5 percent of Russian airstrikes in Syria hitting ISIS, British defense secretary sayshttp://dlvr.it/CL7TZ5

[OUTLAW 09]

EITHER Russian AF has so really bad intel and or really poor navigation maps OR they are telling one supper big lie to their population---

ALL of their info warrior media outlets are screaming news they are striking IS and even the Russian MoD is saying the same thing about their highly accurate precision bombing that is absolutely not killing a single civilian.

THEN how could this have happened????????? A Russian claimed IS strike.

Syria #RuAF anti-bunker BETAB-500 airstrike in Raqqa hit actually Tajamu Ala'azza's HQ in Ltamenah. v @pfc_joker https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7fqew26a1A …

Turkey-based/backed Syrian Islamic Council issues a stern statement about the Russian intervention / "occupation"

[OUTLAW 09]

Russian info warriors constantly state--"we are striking IS" BUT----

The main targets of the Russian jets in Syria are groups backed by Turkey & Qatar followed by those backed by Saudi Arabia & the US.

Iran-backed Shia militias in #Iraq ramp up recruitment for #Syria as #Russia intervenes militarily http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/irans-iraqi-shiite-proxies-increase-their-deployment-to-syria … by @PhillipSmyth

#Syria's National Coalition and full range of rebels jointly reject new UN peace process http://en.etilaf.org/press/joint-statement-on-the-latest-developments-and-implications-of-the-political-process-in-syria.html … again

RuAF airstrike on #IS position near #Raqqa https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7fqew26a1A …

RuAF targeted #Jaish_Fateh 3km from #Turkey border

RuAF airstrike against #Jaish_Fateh position near #Jisr_Shughour https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3d53AuCscDo …

30 mins ago: 6 RUAF jets were pounding Al Barnas on the Turkish border. Probly to stop reinforcements 4 Jisr.

RUAF Su-34 destroyed Orient Hospital in Nusra stronghold Jabal Zawiyya, which are the hills on the east of Al Ghab

[OUTLAW 09]

Tayyip to Putin: Stop bombing or I'll show you the power of the Turk
http://to.ly/VxfO

Минобороны России ‏@mod_russia
#SYRIA #BRIEF:Within 24hrs #Su34 and #Su24M performed over 20 sorties engaging 9 #ISIS objcts
http://on.fb.me/1L3REvg

Still not many airstrikes on ISIS in Syria by Russia. Also MoD possible lied on airstrike in "Raqqa" pic.twitter.com/6ETjHsbG3R

RFaf SU-30M landing today at the Russian air base in #Latakia after a combat mission.
Note: Unused bombs.
#Syria pic.twitter.com/oeZDxRwEcb

[OUTLAW 09]

NOT confirmed by any other commenter/comments---

Pretty stunning if it checks out: 40 T-90 tanks delivered 2 SAA @ Tartus

Syria activists claim 1 member of @SyriaCivilDef was fatally injured during #RuAF airstrike

The White Helmets @SyriaCivilDef
Helmet cam footage of the rescue. Judge for yourselves what the target was. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vmpOqbhsNgg … graphic.

The White Helmets @SyriaCivilDef
Footage of the second strike. No words. https://www.facebook.com/miladahmdfadel/videos/758753544236859/ …

[OUTLAW 09]

One of the few remaining Syrian journalists on the ground actually reporting from the front line--winner of one international reporting award for 2015.

Russia's security services clearly are hard at work trying to silence @HadiAlabdallah's reporting from #Syria. https://twitter.com/HadiAlabdallah/status/650291101472026628 …

[OUTLAW 09]

SO much for that so called Russian highly precision air strikes--after five days of air strikes AND THIS is the "result"?????

At least 39 civilians, 14 fighters killed since start of Russian air strikes: monitor http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0RX0D620151003 …

Most of the killed fighters are from FSA NOT IS.

Syria: arab tribes of #Raqqa formed Jaysh al-Ashaer (Tribal Army), A new #FSA formation against #Daesh and #Assad

Syria #Hama Rebels ambush #Assad-forces- killed a number & seized 5 technicals on road to Sunaida
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=34.906557&lon=37.004356&z=14&m=b …

Syria #Russia'n airstrike on #Idlib city violate #FuahKafraya-ceasefire

[OUTLAW 09]

MORE Russian propaganda porn---Russia is no longer in an altered state of reality--they have fallen of the cliff with their infor war reporting......

Ifax: CSTO SECRETARY GENERAL BELIEVES ISLAMIC STATE IS BEHIND WESTERN MEDIA'S INFORMATION ATTACK ON RUSSIA FOR SYRIA

Seems now they cannot take being hit by a wave of social media info war which is really nothing more than reporting the truth VS what they are use to in dishing out over the Ukraine.

[OUTLAW 09]

Social media is now on a roll of tearing apart literally every Russian MoD statement and video---AND Russia is starting to whine about an "information war" being directed at them.

Shoe is now on the other foot and Russia whines--how strange is that???

Russia bombs non-ISIS Lataminah, claims it's ISIS, then bombs it again and calls it Raqqa, but SANA calls it Jisr pic.twitter.com/eGJ1r1lnU5

Videos -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSoO0ILb2-4 …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7fqew26a1A …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiA0JUdWR6M …
https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/650301486392569856 …

July: Pentagon find only 54 rebels moderate enough to train
September: Russia bomb "moderate rebels" all over #Syria

[OUTLAW 09]

Social media is now on a roll of tearing apart literally every Russian MoD statement and video---AND Russia is starting to whine about an "information war" being directed at them.

Shoe is now on the other foot and Russia whines--how strange is that???

Russia bombs non-ISIS Lataminah, claims it's ISIS, then bombs it again and calls it Raqqa, but SANA calls it Jisr pic.twitter.com/eGJ1r1lnU5

Videos -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSoO0ILb2-4 …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7fqew26a1A …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiA0JUdWR6M …
https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/650301486392569856 …

July: Pentagon find only 54 rebels moderate enough to train
September: Russia bomb "moderate rebels" all over #Syria

From Interfax------today 10/3/2015

MOSCOW: Russia's Air Force has carried out more than 60 flights in Syria in the past 72 hours and significantly reduced the military potential of terrorists there, a senior official in the Russian army told Russian news agencies on Saturday.

The official, Andrei Kartapolov from the Russian army's General Staff, said Russia's Air Force had targeted more than 50 ISIS objects in its airstrikes.

"The strikes were carried out around the clock from the Hmeymim air base along the whole depth of the territory of Syria," Kartapolov said, according to RIA news agency.

He said Russia had warned the United States ahead of launching its air strikes and recommended that the United States stop its own flights in areas where Russia's air force was operating.

"The Americans told us during discussions, that no one apart from terrorists were in that region," Kartapolov said, referring to the area where Russia's Air Force was active, according to Interfax.

[OUTLAW 09]

Syria End of mystery - RuAF "Red Star" insignia and ВВС России are repainted on #RuAF Su-24M. Serial still missing
pic.twitter.com/kxtOXBZXL7

The Aviationist ‏@TheAviationist
If Red Star insignia are re-appearing it means they were removed to conceal ID of the aircraft during the deployment

US intel detects Russians advisers nr Hama #Syria, arrival of Smerch MLRS system http://nyti.ms/1Vsc6RQ
BM30s have already been reported by social media as being in Syria-----


Russia lost in #Syria? FSA or IS? #Lataminah, #Raqqa or #Maraat_al_Numan? Mission impossible.

Russian authorities blatantly lying is one thing. Analysts spreading this is another thing. MoD counts on you!

Минобороны России Verified account 
‏@mod_russia Twice a day we provide comprehensive information concerning Russian air operation in #SYRIA supported by facts

[OUTLAW 09]

Social media is now on a roll of tearing apart literally every Russian MoD statement and video---AND Russia is starting to whine about an "information war" being directed at them.

Shoe is now on the other foot and Russia whines--how strange is that???

Russia bombs non-ISIS Lataminah, claims it's ISIS, then bombs it again and calls it Raqqa, but SANA calls it Jisr pic.twitter.com/eGJ1r1lnU5

Videos -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSoO0ILb2-4 …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7fqew26a1A …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiA0JUdWR6M …
https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/650301486392569856 …



Russia engages in ridiculous propaganda over #Syria airstrikes and the merciless @EliotHiggins rips them through. https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/650301486392569856 …

[OUTLAW 09]

Russian propaganda porn trying to rise the specter of jihadi's flooding into Europe since their air strikes--seems the jihadi's are preparing for a war with Russia and have not fled at all.

WHO has fled are a large number of Shia militia who have been identified as being in Germany.

600 mercenaries have abandoned their positions & are trying to find their way into Europe": Russian military on impact of #Syria campaign

[OUTLAW 09]

Syria rebels asking Arab states to provide MANPADS to defeat #Russia n airstrikes http://dlvr.it/CL1kVT pic.twitter.com/P88olvLuwv

RuAF Su-24M number 05 & 26 have now the full Russian markings including registration number. pic.twitter.com/2y93oWpvAR

As for RuAF uses combat trainer SU-25SM in Syria: Routine practice for familiarization with planned strike areas pic.twitter.com/nkv8zAPgh2

RuAF used it during Afghanistan and Chechnya airoperations

[OUTLAW 09]

Is this #Russia's secret map for bombing #IS? #ISNT pic.twitter.com/xweymYPWpD

Appalling. Russian Air Force working hand in hand w Assad's forces as they launch barrel bomb attack #Syria https://twitter.com/jeffwhite25/status/650316133808107520 …

ECM pod and AA missiles....Targeting ISIS, hmmm....
https://twitter.com/Tom_Antonov/status/650284391869063168 …

Revolutionaries gained control over Tranja Brigade in Qunaitra's suburbs as part of a battle to break Ghouta siege pic.twitter.com/Bn1cse9aDP

Syrian Revolutionaries liberate TalAhmar area in Qunaitra's northern suburb and inch closer towards Damascus suburbs pic.twitter.com/r0s5d8pSzU

An #AhrarSham artillery/rocket brigade including 25 experienced officers join #JN

RuAF air raid over Aqrab near Houla Plain #Homs countryside
http://youtu.be/MKnR2ey8_sM

[OUTLAW 09]

Were Russian officers killed in TOW--still not confirmed-----

Incredible TOW hit by FSA Suqour al-Ghab on a group of Assad forces and Russian officers reportedly. http://youtu.be/iWzGe5i_WuI

Syria #Hama Rebels claim attacked high rank meeting of #Assad-forces + foreign experts with ATGM

[OUTLAW 09]

So far, #RuAF guided weapons are only delivered by Su-34s (KAB-500S). Su-24/25 doing the "dumb" job.

ShamFront & #AhrarSham withdraw some of their armoured vehicles and equipment from #Aleppo countryside towards #Turkey via .

Минобороны России Verified account 
‏@mod_russia #Kartapolov: While notifying we've recommended our colleagues to withdraw from #SYRIA valuable individuals trained with u.s.taxpayers money

Are we reading this correctly? RU MoD issued notice that US assets are now targetable?

Seems like 1st objective of today started #Homs offensive is #Houla area. Clashes at Aqrab and heavy #RuAF attacks.

Al-Qaeda's Jabhat al Nusra evoke Afghan jihad as they promise to turn Syria into graveyard for Russian invaders: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/11909720/Al-Qaeda-fighters-evoke-Afghan-jihad-as-they-promise-to-turn-Syria-into-graveyard-for-Russian-invaders.html …

PHOTOS: Jabhat al-Nusra releases photos of Russian air strikes in Hama Governorate #Syria.
pic.twitter.com/eioQohsyx0 –

JAI shows several killed Assad forces around Dahiya Assad in #Damascus, #Syria http://youtu.be/66FG2oiAFtc

Following recent advances in #Quneitra, reports rebels have now liberated strategic Tal Ahmar from Assad forces in new offensive.

Russian airstrikes on Ihsem, #Idlib targeted a poultry farm used by IDPs, 11 dead reported inc. 9 from the same family & 2 rescue workers

5th Russian airstrike on Ihsem in Jabal al-Zawyia, #Idlib, #Syria today. http://youtu.be/OjZEa6KjG1A

Syria #Homs #Assad-forces try to progess toward Aqrab town after #Russia'n airstrikes paved the way http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=34.938824&lon=36.458645&z=15&m=b …

Syria #Homs #Russia'n airstrikes on Houla region ~80km away from the #IslamicState https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCQ2-j8aGSA … http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=34.886213&lon=36.515636&z=13&m=b …

[OUTLAW 09]

http://iswresearch.blogspot.de/2015/10/russian-disinformation-on-airstrikes-in.html?utm_source=Russian+Disinformation+on+Airst rikes+in+Syria&utm_campaign=Iraq+Situation+Report+July+28-30,+2015&utm_medium=email&m=1

Saturday, October 3, 2015

Russian Disinformation on Airstrikes in Syria

by Genevieve Casagrande


The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed on October 3 that Russian Su-34s conducted airstrikes targeting an ISIS-held “command center” near Raqqah city, northern Syria. However, local Syrian reporting did not substantiate this claim. In fact, Syrian activists released comparisons of the airstrike footage, revealing that the strike targeted the rebel-held town of Al Latamneh in Hama Province, western Syria. Syrian state-run news agency SANA also released footage of the same airstrike; however, SANA claimed the airstrike targeted the town of Jisr al-Shughour. As the Russian Ministry of Defense continues to claim airstrikes against ISIS, particularly in core ISIS-held terrain, it will remain important to distinguish the true targets and intentions of Russian military action in Syria amidst Russian disinformation.

[OUTLAW 09]

While supply of MANPADS to opposition in #Syria has never been less likely continuing influx of TOWs expected. http://youtu.be/iWzGe5i_WuI

RU media is in overdrive to sell the Syrian invasion to population. That will be a hard sell, though. Too similar to Afghanistan.

Russian AF destroyed Russian-speaking terrorists [in Syria] who threatened RU's security" http://www.ntv.ru/novosti/1542538/ …

Russian AF destroyed Russian-speaking terrorists [in Syria] who threatened RU's security" http://www.ntv.ru/novosti/1542538/ …

looks like the load is two per aircraft, and came back still with one each pic.twitter.com/5yzf6RFF3Q

Russia bombed villages on Turkey border which used to be a safe haven for civilians & rebels as regime aircraft didn't dare to fly there

People in different areas in Northern #Syria tell me: Russian planes are flying in pairs during bombing raids. Never a plane alone.

Extraordinary:
#Russia MoD says struck #ISIS in Jisr al-Shughour today.
That’s 120km+ from nearest #ISIS position! pic.twitter.com/Ij0Ho3NSxQ

[OUTLAW 09]

Hey --have we heard this same sentence in the 70/80s in the US--we must fight Communism overseas otherwise we fight it at home--was this not the "domino theory" against the "wars of liberation"???

Dmitry Medvedev ✔ @MedvedevRussiaE
The operation in Syria is resistance against terrorism. It's better to fight it abroad than domestically pic.twitter.com/V7Vpzql5QG

[OUTLAW 09]

Syria, Brigadier General Motaz Htaytani – SMC Chief in Damascus and rif: “Russia has lost syrian people” https://yallasouriya.wordpress.com/2015/10/03/syria-brigadier-general-motaz-htaytani-smc-chief-in-damascus-and-rif-russia-has-lost-syrian-people …

[OUTLAW 09]

First it was @RT_com's video, now @lifenews_ru show Russia|n military jets carrying out airstrikes have no red star. https://twitter.com/uanatolegion/status/650395584789131265 …

#Russia hybrid war now trying to blow your mind:
Putin: I'm a true liberal.
Medvedev: I've never been a liberal. https://twitter.com/VVP2_0/status/650386575604477952 …

Syria, Latakia rif, White Helmets rescuing a family under the rubbles after russian air… https://yallasouriya.wordpress.com/2015/10/03/syria-latakia-rif-white-helmets-rescuing-a-family-under-the-rubbles-after-russian-air-attack-on-jabal-turkmen … pic.twitter.com/HtXWzV0ICA

Levantine Group @Levantinegroup
In #Syria, Russia fights on Assad's key fronts pic.twitter.com/TIqQsrHeZa

Syria, Homs rif, pictures of cluster bombs dumped on al Hola https://yallasouriya.wordpress.com/2015/10/03/syria-homs-rif-pictures-of-cluster-bombs-dumped-on-al-hola … pic.twitter.com/mw6jnkjqis

[OUTLAW 09]

IT behooves us to remember the exact words Putin and his FM used--we are not fighting along side the Syrian Army--we are "advisors, trainer, technicians". END QUOTE

But in theory he has been lying as the direct use of the RuAF to bomb civilians and to support a Syrian ground attack is "actively" engaged in physical combat just from 15K feet.

Syria : #Aleppo Airport - Recent imagery suggests preparations for expansion. At least 1 new communications array.


JUST like this statement this week from the Russian FM Lavrov--
Lavrov "If it looks like a terrorist, acts like a terrorist..."

THEN in theory using the Russian FMs very own definition of a terrorist--IS are then all the Russian volunteers, contractors, vacationing and paid mercenaries inside eastern Ukraine ACTUALLY terrorists?????????

[OUTLAW 09]

According to this report there's enough ammunition at the Russian base in Syria for 2-3 months of intensive fighting http://www.kp.ru/daily/26437.4/3311076/ …

[OUTLAW 09]

Putin assumed he could with violent force ---force the anti Assad forces to negotiate with Assad if anything he is being viewed now as a “crusader” especially since his own church the ROC has declared Syria a “Holy War”.

Sounds like below if anything his actions have become a unified rally call---

“We are the Sound of the Land, we are the Right, rights never die
we are the curse in ur minds”

Hezbollah,Iraqi militias,Iranians,and now Russia.If Assad uses the help of all of earth's devils we will still not give up on the revolution

If anything Putin's actions have now exploded Syria into a true Sunni Shia global war.

[OUTLAW 09]

Talk about the lack of Putin to "see unintended consequences"--this is one he did not envision.

Gulf states plan military response as Putin raises the stakes in Syria http://gu.com/p/4dxyd/stw a few Gulf analysts weigh in

Putin in 2013 also blames Assad----now supports him---typical Russian altered state of reality.

Recalling this from 2013 - Vladimir Putin admits Bashar al-Assad responsible for Syrian uprising - via @Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10114247/Vladimir-Putin-admits-Bashar-al-Assad-responsible-for-Syrian-uprising.html …

[OUTLAW 09]

Mutasem AbouAlShamat @MutasemAB

RIP Issam Alsaleh; a member of @SyriaCivilDef has been killed by a #Russia'n airstrike that targeted Balioun, #Idleb yesterday.

[OUTLAW 09]

Eliot Higgins @EliotHiggins

Looks like my stupidest Syria trolls are joining forces with my stupidest Russia/Ukraine trolls for some pure strain trolling stupidity

[OUTLAW 09]

If the IS does this THEN there is a massive world wide outcry--BUT when Russia does it--utter silence--ever wonder why that is????

Russian airstrikes on Idleb today destroyed monuments belongs to the Byzantium era in Syria.

pic.twitter.com/DNOIjg1Psg

[OUTLAW 09]

Excellent breakout of who is located where and who controls what in Syria.

Eliot Higgins @EliotHiggins (aka bellingcat)

Seems legit

pic.twitter.com/Id6DU404QZ

[OUTLAW 09]

Nice to see the Long War Blog now posting for Syria---one of the best blog sites for AFG, Iraq and now Syria---


Bill Roggio @billroggio

Ahrar al Sham claims rocket attacks on airbase where Russians are stationed - Hamim in Latakia -

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2015/10/ahrar-al-sham-claims-rocket-attacks-on-airbase-where-russians-stationed.php … - by @thomasjoscelyn

[OUTLAW 09]

Michael McFaul ✔ @McFaul

US & coalition have delivered 7000 air strikes against ISIL. Russia has conducted 20-30 strikes, only some of which were aimed at ISIL.

[OUTLAW 09]

Were Russian officers killed in TOW--still not confirmed-----

Incredible TOW hit by FSA Suqour al-Ghab on a group of Assad forces and Russian officers reportedly. http://youtu.be/iWzGe5i_WuI

Syria #Hama Rebels claim attacked high rank meeting of #Assad-forces + foreign experts with ATGM

Not a spy ‏@finriswolf

I was skeptical about the claims of Russians in that group but after a closer look I think it may be valid

[OUTLAW 09]

So far, #RuAF guided weapons are only delivered by Su-34s (KAB-500S). Su-24/25 doing the "dumb" job.

ShamFront & #AhrarSham withdraw some of their armoured vehicles and equipment from #Aleppo countryside towards #Turkey via .

Минобороны России Verified account 
‏@mod_russia #Kartapolov: While notifying we've recommended our colleagues to withdraw from #SYRIA valuable individuals trained with u.s.taxpayers money

Are we reading this correctly? RU MoD issued notice that US assets are now targetable?

Seems like 1st objective of today started #Homs offensive is #Houla area. Clashes at Aqrab and heavy #RuAF attacks.

Al-Qaeda's Jabhat al Nusra evoke Afghan jihad as they promise to turn Syria into graveyard for Russian invaders: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/11909720/Al-Qaeda-fighters-evoke-Afghan-jihad-as-they-promise-to-turn-Syria-into-graveyard-for-Russian-invaders.html …

PHOTOS: Jabhat al-Nusra releases photos of Russian air strikes in Hama Governorate #Syria.
pic.twitter.com/eioQohsyx0 –

JAI shows several killed Assad forces around Dahiya Assad in #Damascus, #Syria http://youtu.be/66FG2oiAFtc

Following recent advances in #Quneitra, reports rebels have now liberated strategic Tal Ahmar from Assad forces in new offensive.

Russian airstrikes on Ihsem, #Idlib targeted a poultry farm used by IDPs, 11 dead reported inc. 9 from the same family & 2 rescue workers

5th Russian airstrike on Ihsem in Jabal al-Zawyia, #Idlib, #Syria today. http://youtu.be/OjZEa6KjG1A

Syria #Homs #Assad-forces try to progess toward Aqrab town after #Russia'n airstrikes paved the way http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=34.938824&lon=36.458645&z=15&m=b …

Syria #Homs #Russia'n airstrikes on Houla region ~80km away from the #IslamicState https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCQ2-j8aGSA … http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=34.886213&lon=36.515636&z=13&m=b …

Leader of regime forces Col.Samer Haatum killed in the attack at Tal Ahmar (photo: his I.D & phone) & 30 regime soldiers & shabiha

[OUTLAW 09]

Syria #Daraa New #FSA special forces
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ut9TJ36WGjQ …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTibMILlpSY …

The situation in North-West #Syria (#Latakia) on Oct 3, 2015 http://www.agathocledesyracuse.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/NW-Syria-3-Oct-2015.jpg …

Syria #Quneitra Rebels seized 2 tanks in Tall al Ahmar battle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_uurHjVGy8 …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=33.208513&lon=35.864546&z=16&m=b … … …

[OUTLAW 09]

Yesterday "ISIS", today "terrorists", tomorrow "al-Qaeda".
#Russia spreads #Assad's narrative of the Syr opposition.

pic.twitter.com/4louMMq7Jr

BUT notice when the Ukraine uses the term "terrorists" to depict actual Russian mercenaries an their illegally being in the Ukraine--suddenly they are "separatists" by Russian definition.

SO using Russian terms--are not Syria anti Assad forces actually "separatists"????

Russia continues construction #Latakia #Syria with airstrikes ongoing against REBELS & not #ISIS pic.twitter.com/8CNiw8hKOM

[OUTLAW 09]

Info site on Shia militia that are fleeing to the EU as Syrian refugees---NOT a single IS fighter has been identified BUT a lot of Shia--so who is winning the war in Iraq and Syria if all the Shia militia are fleeing????

My newly-formed archive of #shabiha posing as "#refugees" in Europe. Constantly updated. Please share:

https://unfetteredfreedom.wordpress.com/2015/10/03/list-of-shabiha-posing-as-refugees-in-europe/ …

[OUTLAW 09]

Russia is still carrying about air strikes on Syrian civilians--AND there is now apparently no difference in Russians bombing civilians as does the Syrian AF bomb civilians-----THOUGHT Russia was in Syria to assist in protecting the civilians and NOT causing more refugees--BUT wait maybe that is the Russian strategy--overwhelm the EU with Syrian refugees----

Syria #Homs Panic among residents of #Talbisa after #Russia'n airstrikes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_HTDsFTk-w …

Syria #Homs Random #Russia'n airstrikes on #Talbisa residential areas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wk3ELm-rt8E …

Syria #Homs #Russia'n airstrikes on #Talbisa this morning killed & injured a lot of children https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmIrAFa1Ph4 …

[OUTLAW 09]

Main target of #Russia'n airstrikes are #FSA controlled areas btw #Homs & #Hama cities -stronghold of revolution in #Syria from first hour

[OUTLAW 09]

Syria #Damascus The remains of #Zabadani resort after month of airstrikes & artillery shelling https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B54shAWC6MQ …

Another Russian strike in the same area just another day----there is no IS anywhere nearby—

Syria Now #Russia'n airstrikes on Jisr al-Shughour in western #Idlib
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.815029&lon=36.318054&z=13&m=b …

Russia'n Defense Ministry published new videos of airstrikes on fields & forrests in #Syria https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQGqX5Ndpm4snE0NTjyOJnA …

Syria #Hama #Assad-forces (based in southern Mahardeh) shelling Az Zakah with rockets http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.337254&lon=36.576233&z=13&m=b …

Syria #Hama #Assad-forces (based in southern Mahardeh) shelling Az Zakah with rockets http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.337254&lon=36.576233&z=13&m=b …

Syria #Homs Airstrike on Umm Sharshuh- current frontline btw rebels & regime-forces https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bOlZMhtd8k …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=34.876320&lon=36.692533&z=15&m=b …

Syria #Quneitra Rebels target tank during Tall al Ahmar-battle with TOW
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbeOG8y09fs …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=33.207526&lon=35.867229&z=15&m=b …

Syria #Homs #Assad-forces failed last night to storm At Tayyibah al Gharbiyah from the west/#Houla area
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=34.875228&lon=36.466885&z=14&m=b …

[OUTLAW 09]

More Syrian children wounded during a Russian air strike---no difference to the Syrian air strikes which are purely against civilians---actually this is a normal Russia Chechnya tactic--terrorize civilians and destroy infrastructure.

Syria #Homs Effects of #Russia'n airstrike on Ghranattah village
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mqc6vsObwE …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=34.899096&lon=36.686954&z=15&m=b …

AND more civilians are hit today----
RevolutionSyria
Russian planes bombed a sheep market in #Hama countryside killing at least 4 people & injuring many more.

Syria #Hama #Russia'n airstrike on Aqaribat killed 6 people http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.037587&lon=37.466469&z=13&m=b …

[OUTLAW 09]

Syria #Quneitra Rebels killed 4 #Assad-forces during their attempt to regain
Tall al Ahmar http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=33.206449&lon=35.869031&z=15&m=b …

Syria #Homs ~20 airstrikes around #Talbeesa since morning http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=34.840154&lon=36.762486&z=13&m=b …

Reports now Assad forces in #Jorin are targeting Jisr al-Shugour with MRLs. #Idlib #Syria

Assad mortar shells destroyed a shelter used by displaced people in the beisged Wa'ar district in #Homs http://youtu.be/o_WETODLCO4

NONE of the Russian air strikes were apparently targeting IS--only targeting anti Assad forces who are defeating the Assad army in the south.

Targeted towns like Talbiseh, Al-Rastan & Al-Ghanto lie along the strategic M5 highway linking #Homs-#Hama.
Mission: Protect the coast.

VIDEO #Russia using ex Soviet FAB-250 bombs in #Syria so old fail to explode https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTBVZGfclNE … #Putin #Ukraine pic.twitter.com/178iIBh06t

[OUTLAW 09]

THIS was the Russian MoD response to the above postings----


Минобороны России ✔ @mod_russia

#SYRIA:jets performed three strikes against command post and munition depot near Maarrat al-Nu'man

#SYRIA:Rus #AirForce grouping continue intensifying air strikes against #ISIS facilities

#SYRIA: New targets are detected by different reconnaissance means and immediately engaged by #AerospaceForces


NOTICE not a single major western leader--ie Obama, Hollande and or Merkel has said a single condemning word against Putin for the constant killing of civilians AND not calling him out on his apparent lack of attacking IS???????


BUT social media seems to be far better informed than even Obama--with his NSC and IC.

Here we have collected info (video) on victims of #Russia Aviation attacks in #Homs area:
https://www.facebook.com/Talbisah.News/posts/999251020139269 …
TT https://twitter.com/S0L0z/status/650631879553613824 …

Social media rebuttal to the Russian MoD:
Again, no #ISIS in Maarat al-Numan in northern #Syria pic.twitter.com/axFJQnbJco

Russia’s MoD claims strikes vs. “#ISIS” in Jisr al-Shughour, #Idlib.
110km+ from the closest #ISIS position! pic.twitter.com/Suq95DOwGa

[OUTLAW 09]

Russian war ship arriving Tartus port of #Syria.

pic.twitter.com/rrZNLr5xlz

[OUTLAW 09]

Russia using cluster munitions via BM30 attacks---same tactic was used in eastern Ukraine against the UAF.


Private Joker @pfc_joker
@EliotHiggins Probably more BM-30 rocket remnants?
https://yallasouriya.wordpress.com/2015/10/03/syria-homs-rif-pictures-of-cluster-bombs-dumped-on-al-hola/ …

[OUTLAW 09]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/10/04/russia-s-propaganda-blitzkrieg.html?via=mobile&source=twitter

Michael Weiss

DEAFENING

10.04.1512:01 AM ET

Russia's Propaganda Blitzkrieg


The propaganda war propping up Putin and his cronies has reached new heights with the bombing campaign in Syria.

When Vladimir Putin spoke before the U.N. General Assembly last week, he proclaimed the need for an international coalition to destroy ISIS. But when Vladimir Putin went to war in Syria this week, his fighter jets began by rocketing everyone opposed to the regime of Bashar al-Assad except ISIS. At a superficial level, this discrepancy is explained by Moscow as follows: there is no such thing as a moderate opposition in Syria and that includes the U.S.-backed rebels. In fact, as Putin darkly insinuated at the General Assembly, ISIS was “initially forged as a tool against undesirable secular regimes,” and the unnamed smith here was not terribly hard to discern.

The jihadist army rampaging through the Middle East was therefore America’s Frankenstein monster and it was now up to a confident Russia, a year into a failed U.S.-led coalition campaign, to deliver this reanimated corpse unto eternity. Anyone not willing to join with Russia, Assad, Iran and Hezbollah was a “terrorist” or a covert sponsor of terrorism, who’d do well to get out of Putin’s way. He arrogated to himself a very broad martial remit to bomb whenever and whomever he pleased, which is precisely what he did a mere 48 hours later, hitting several Free Syrian Army targets, including those which have received advanced U.S. weaponry courtesy of the Central Intelligence Agency.

We’ve seen this movie before—a mere eighteen months ago. When the Euromaidan protests rocked Kiev in response for the Ukrainian government’s failure to sign an association agreement with the European Union, it was announced on Russia state television that those demanding the resignation of Viktor Yanukovych were neo-Nazis in the pay of the U.S. State Department or the CIA. They, too, were rampaging through Ukraine and perpetrating pogroms against embattled Jewish and ethnic Russian minorities, who demanded Moscow’s fraternal assistance. That these minorities demanded no such thing didn't matter.

Although it would not be acknowledged until much later, or simply not at all, the seizure of Crimea and the “separatist” war in the Donbas were framed as Putin’s sole resistance to America’s other Frankenstein monster — its sinister, covert plot to suborn fascism in the breadbasket of Europe. That actual fascists on the continent celebrated and certified Putin’s annexation of Crimea and his invasion of the Donbas was an ignorable detail.

The reductio ad Hitlerum looms large in Putin’s rhetoric landscape, and in his blitzkrieg on any semblance of objectivity or truth. Not for nothing did he invoke the Allies’ united front against the Third Reich in his General Assembly speech, conveniently eliding the Soviet Union’s initial role in inaugurating the Second World War by carving up Romania, Poland and the Baltics — as an ally of Hitler. Where once Russia faced U.S.-backed “Banderites” in Kiev, Donetsk and Lugansk, now it powders U.S.-backed “ISIS” in Homs, Hama and Idlib — provinces where ISIS does not exist. But so what?

Lenin wrote that “there is no more erroneous or more harmful idea than the separation of foreign from internal policy.” Moscow, famously, has two audiences to which its caters: the domestic and the foreign. The former matters more for keeping Putin in office, alive, and out of the dock. It’s also designed to position Russia as a bulwark against sinister American and NATO designs, through the applicaiton of soft and hard power. SA-22 anti-aircraft missiles and advanced fighter jets equipped with air-to-air missiles are not in Syria to deter Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s flying carpet.

Domestic propaganda is a negative definition of national greatness, with Russia set against an external conspiracy and all the mightier for having fended it off while rising from the state of a demoralized and defeated ex-superpower.

The collapse of the Soviet Union, as Putin notoriously said, was the 20th century’s greatest tragedy, but not because it put an end to world communism but to imperial grandeur and self-respect. He is an derzhavnik, an ideologist of great power, and seeks to restore Russia as a dominant force in geopolitics (always the puncher, never the counterpuncher) but one politically promiscuous enough to allow Alexis Tspiras to Marine Le Pen and Pat Buchanan to all find something to favor.

To feed this manic triumphalism, then, the domestic gaze has to be directed outward, onto the international scene because internally Russia’s present and future are bleak. It is bleeding money and brainpower and ever more resembling Upper Volga with sanctions. Look here but not there.

The historian Timothy Snyder explains it well in a recent, Spinozan essay of logical propositions: “(1) President Putin’s popularity depends upon television. (2) Russian television news is devoted to events beyond Russia. (3) This means the president’s triumphs against American hegemony, etc. (4) In Ukraine, a weak Ukrainian army and limited EU sanctions hindered Russia. (5) Point #4 must not be noticed inside Russia. (6) Russian television just changed the subject from Ukraine to Syria.”

Peter Pomeranzev, author of Nothing is True and Everything is Possible, a remarkable book that explains contemporary Russia as a kind of mass public relations experiment run by lunatics and merry pranksters, Putin’s Syria messaging is so far characteristic. It is also just the beginning.

“Syria is an exercise in narrative escalation dominance,” Pomeranzev says. “It’s setting the agenda, making the U.S. look weak and putting Putin center stage—whether good or bad is irrelevant because for the Kremlin any publicity is good publicity. The exact, on-the-ground aims can be interchangeable. ‘Terrorists’ in Syria are just as vague as the ‘fascists’ in Ukraine, and it doesn't really matter whether it's true, as long as the story keeps moving and the U.S. is kept off-balance, distracted and dismayed.”


Western mainstream media has been totally missing in action in assisting in the push back against Russian propaganda over Syria just as they failed to push back in the Ukraine--why is that????

WHY does it seem to be just the The Daily Beast and social media against millions of dollars being spent by Russian propaganda??

[OUTLAW 09]

JUST how is it possible that Facebook a US owned and operated company is actively supporting Russian aggression in both the Ukraine and Syria--this tactic was used repeatedly by the Russians to block any critique of their actions AND FB went along with it---WHY a Russian oligarch has a 700M USD investment in FB and so is FB US or Russian owned????

WHEN the Ukrainian government complained about it--FB promised to take action--some action--nothing was done on their part. So who is going to complain from Syrian??


Russian jets keep slaughtering Syrian civilians w/Assad
Activists reporting on it get banned by @facebook
https://twitter.com/HadiAlabdallah/status/650622243920322560 …

This Syrian journalist have been actively reporting out of Syria for over two years now especially concerning the bombing of civilians first by Syrian and now by Russia--it was the reporting of the killing of Syrian children by Russian bombs that got him banned by FB????

[OUTLAW 09]

Second identified Pantsir-S1--two to four more to go----

Kudos to @Ibra_Joudeh for finding this Pantsir-S1 in #Latakia #Syria, green instead of the desert one seen previously pic.twitter.com/mMXpKn631h

[OUTLAW 09]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34438993

Syrian crisis: Assad warns of Mid-East destruction


Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has said a coalition between Syria, Russia, Iran and Iraq must succeed "or else the whole region will be destroyed".

Mr Assad also criticised the US-led coalition and its air strikes in Syria and Iraq as counter-productive, saying that terrorism had only spread.

Meanwhile, Russia has carried out more air strikes in Syria it says targeted so-called Islamic State (IS) positions.

Syrian activists say the raids appear to have focused on other rebel groups.

In an interview with Iranian state television, reported by the Syrian presidency Twitter feed, President Assad said Syria, Russia, Iran and Iraq were united in battling terrorism and would achieve "practical results", unlike the US-led coalition.

Mr Assad's international opponents say a negotiated solution to Syria's four-year-old civil war must involve the president stepping down, although some Western nations now say he could remain during a transitional period.

But Mr Assad insisted: "Discussion about the political system or officials in Syria is an internal Syrian affair."

[OUTLAW 09]

Russian Ministry of Defence briefing on #Syria...
Note naval deployments in the map https://vk.com/warsonline_military_observer?z=photo-62474637_382766946%2Falbum-62474637_00%2Frev … pic.twitter.com/KEWnS6jWA2

Eliot Higgins @EliotHiggins
Remains of a BM-30 launched surface to surface rocket incorrectly identified as a Russian jet fired missile https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fw2YEay51PY …

The Return of the Russian Government's Wikipedia Meddling https://globalvoices.org/2015/10/03/the-return-of-the-russian-governments-wikipedia-meddling/ … @RuGovEdits is back! pic.twitter.com/GmF0fobSlH

Footage
Remains of Russian missiles that were fired at #Houla yday, killing 2 civilians.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fw2YEay51PY … pic.twitter.com/yl9LUc3Fki

Footage
#Assad artillery shells civilians in #EastGhouta from the mountains N of #Damascus.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPj_dY3xXYk&feature=youtu.be … pic.twitter.com/CM9IkLIOmq

[OUTLAW 09]

First the KSA anti Assad and Russian statement today and now the Turkish statement----

DAILY SABAH @DailySabah
LIVE — President Erdoğan: Russia's Syria operation not acceptable in any way for Turkey, Russia making grave mistake pic.twitter.com/DWhj0XacFO

Looks like the US has forced the Sunni Front States to become more aggressive--that cannot be what the Obama NSC thought would happen??

SYRIA: Main Groups in Rastan (JaN, Ahrar & FSA) declare joint operation room to deal with situation. - pic.twitter.com/WC3EnHvvPO

Footage
Panic in #Talbisah today as #Assad/#Putin terror force conduct new attacks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_HTDsFTk-w …
#Syria pic.twitter.com/MfbnmB0JMy

[OUTLAW 09]

Under the rubric--interesting----maybe Israel made it clear to Putin they would not tolerate the RuAF flying it's borders.

Any1 seen reports of Russian jets anywhere near Queneitra or the Israeli border? It seems like that area is off limits so far.

[OUTLAW 09]

From the what the heck statements of the Russian MoD today via Russian Today the standard info war media station----

Russian regime army: Areas hit in #Talibisah by #Russia are "uninhabited by civilians".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ufd1SyEq6Ow … pic.twitter.com/o4ER7GWyW5

So Russia lies again as civilians where hit and documented--one has to start asking what air maps are the Russians actually using --those from 1911 or 2015????

Russia say they arr using Glonass guided"Precision bombs"in #Syria https://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=ru&u=http://ria.ru/defense_safety/20151004/1296524283.html&prev=search … REALLY? https://twitter.com/raging545/status/649679848265392128 …

While this is a true statement for their SU34s --it is totally FALSE for the SU24/25s.

Photo of Russian iron bomb loaded onto a SU----
pic.twitter.com/Gtb915hGR5

Dumb bombs are killing civilians and they know it----

BUT this seems to show they are exactly mixing them--but still throwing iron bombs---
Russian ground crews arm a SU-24 jet with KH-25 laser-guided missiles. One of precision weapons being used in #syria
Kh-25 LGM mounted on Su-24... anyone found which targeting pod are being used? https://twitter.com/MuradoRT/status/650691278502539264 …

[OUTLAW 09]

Footage
The #FSA's #Homs Liberation Movement declares war on #Russia...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Q9AUF8LubM …
pic.twitter.com/iPRQQk5X4R

News
Syrian rebel forces advance north of Khan Arnabeh where they are safe from #Assad / #Putin air strikes so far. pic.twitter.com/klOXgcUwMs

Syria #Idlib #Russia'n rocket craters after airstrike on refugee camp near Maarrat al-Numan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7IRQ9JwGnE … pic.twitter.com/Npqx3ZIhfk

SEEMS the refugee camp WAS based on Russian intel an IS command bunker????????????

Couple of BTR-82 in #Hmeymim Russian airbase in #Syria, and pic of their TOC pic.twitter.com/HuUrOtmaYu

[OUTLAW 09]

More Russian airlift coming into Syria----
RUAF Tu-154 85155 Chkalovsky-Teheran, Iran

RuAF Su-24s are flying with 16° swept wings, while SyAAF Su-24s are -almost- always seen with 35°/45° swept wings

Russian Su-30SM returning from the mission with ECM pods and AA missiles
#Syria #Russia October 3 2015

RuAF Su-34 flying in formation over Al-Latamneh & Kafar Zeita (Hama), yesterday:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH7NTfDDjLM …

Tail # of RF aircraft in Syria suggest they're from Shagol (SU-24), Primorsko-Akhtarsk (SU-25), & Voronezh (SU-34) http://bmpd.livejournal.com/1500602.html

Interesting to see two (armed) Su-25UB combat trainers at #Latakia. Fast FAC(A)?

[OUTLAW 09]

Good stuff by meticulous open source sleuth @RuslanLeviev on Russia's moves in Syria. 1: http://ruslanleviev.livejournal.com/40836.html 2: http://ruslanleviev.livejournal.com/40986.html

Followed by "Russia's path to war in #Syria, part II" @RuslanLeviev and team, http://ruslanleviev.livejournal.com/40986.html

[OUTLAW 09]

HOW did US banned products get to Syria????????

Regime army using US-made Polaris MRZR-4 and GMC SIERRA.
There has been a ban on exporting these cars to Syria.

Assad forces use American ATVs in desert clashes around eastern #Homs oil fields.
via @IvanSidorenko1

Russian cluster munitions?????

Full vid: https://youtu.be/3sKZE7qs0Qk
Anyone can ID this weapon?

RuAF airstrike on Hish village northern #Hama.
https://youtu.be/dCKs8rNPujs

Syria #Quneitra View from Tall al Ahmar to Tell Ain al-Nuriyah with its trench system https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo4HM2oXGWM …

Footage
Russian air force Su-25 over #MaaratAlNumaan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBKTbkkxGjM …
pic.twitter.com/5ZStXMw2r3

Russian Pantsir-S1 short-to-medium range SAM & AA artillery system at Latakia air base, Syria (spotted by @KURYERSAT) pic.twitter.com/BFMGiUYZQ1

Footage
2 Russian air force Su-25 bomb villages in rural #Latakia province.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMrjeSTFdmM …
pic.twitter.com/WSQ57pQ689

Tens of #Saudi Islamic Scholars: Every Muslim is obliged to counter #Russia|n Crusaders in #Syria & fund Jihadists.. pic.twitter.com/G6Yg3b3g90

[OUTLAW 09]

Is the RuAF using internationally banned weapons against civilians????

Footage
Russian air force targets #Nusra position in #Aleppo province with banned weapons.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N90vWpHOZpw … pic.twitter.com/c4DE0hwfUF

[OUTLAW 09]

Footage
The #FSA show two seized regime tanks after the capture of #TelAhmar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE0D5yxEF3w …
pic.twitter.com/0LST12Xdbk

RT started #propaganda re: US vs #ISIS in #Syria in August (pic later retracted).
@JuliaDavisNews pic.twitter.com/pBrrtWCRW2

Russian TV tonight re #Syria: we are saving the world from #ISIS; USA has failed. Airstrikes are v terrorists. All else is wicked lies.
A true example of the Russian altered state of reality----

Russian propaganda porn is just get worse----
Putin’s Increasingly Xenophobic Propaganda Now Attacking Whole Peoples and Not Just Regimes http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2015/10/putins-increasingly-xenophobic.html …

[OUTLAW 09]

Multiple operation rooms and closer coordination have been announced over the past couple of days in Syria, including Homs and Damascus.

People overstate the potential impact of Russia's intervention & underestimate what the rebels could still do, in areas like Homs & Damascus

Rebels' western/regional backers aren't hapless. In fact we all know rebels in the south are often restrained & pressured not to go too far.

So the rebels & their backers still have more leverage than utilised, in contrast to Russian & Hiz+Iran that already did almost their worst.

[Bill Moore]

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/10/04/world/middleeast/ap-ml-syria.html?_r=0

Syria President: Russia Campaign Must Succeed

In an interview with Assad, he said,


"What is for certain is that the Western officials are lost, lack clarity of vision and are feeling the failure of their plots (toward Syria)," he said. "The only goal that was realized ... is the destruction of much infrastructure in Syria, shedding lots of blood."

Now, the Western governments are paying the price of their failed policy in Syria, he said, because terrorism has been exported to them as well as a huge influx of refugees.

He also noted all the Western military aid has accomplished is prolonging the conflict, which in turn results in more suffering. He added, if the Russian campaign fails the entire region is pretty much doomed. I suspect we'll see if that is true or not, because I see little hope for the Russian campaign to succeed.

[OUTLAW 09]

HOW did US banned products get to Syria????????

Regime army using US-made Polaris MRZR-4 and GMC SIERRA.
There has been a ban on exporting these cars to Syria.

Assad forces use American ATVs in desert clashes around eastern #Homs oil fields.
via @IvanSidorenko1

Russian cluster munitions?????

Full vid: https://youtu.be/3sKZE7qs0Qk
Anyone can ID this weapon?

RuAF airstrike on Hish village northern #Hama.
https://youtu.be/dCKs8rNPujs

Syria #Quneitra View from Tall al Ahmar to Tell Ain al-Nuriyah with its trench system https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo4HM2oXGWM …

Footage
Russian air force Su-25 over #MaaratAlNumaan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBKTbkkxGjM …
pic.twitter.com/5ZStXMw2r3

Russian Pantsir-S1 short-to-medium range SAM & AA artillery system at Latakia air base, Syria (spotted by @KURYERSAT) pic.twitter.com/BFMGiUYZQ1

Footage
2 Russian air force Su-25 bomb villages in rural #Latakia province.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMrjeSTFdmM …
pic.twitter.com/WSQ57pQ689

Tens of #Saudi Islamic Scholars: Every Muslim is obliged to counter #Russia|n Crusaders in #Syria & fund Jihadists.. pic.twitter.com/G6Yg3b3g90

After #Russia’s intervention, #Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood has declared jihad obligatory on every able-bodied Muslim: pic.twitter.com/hRaJb4eyiL

[OUTLAW 09]

BREAKING: Air strikes being reported on Kafranbel-Baara Highway in #Idlib
https://twitter.com/HadiAlabdallah/status/650728675177050112 …

BREAKING: Heavy smoke covering entire area after #Russia|n airstrike on Kafranbel-Baara Hwy in #Idlib. Warplanes still flying over the area.

Russian jets dropping cluster munitions over Kafrhalab in #Aleppo, #Syria http://youtu.be/3sKZE7qs0Qk h/t

Regime jets mistakingly target own positions near Dahiya Assad in #Damascus, #Syria http://youtu.be/Na5GlIvqX7Y

No end to Assad’s barrel bombs, over 40 since y’day were dropped by helicopters on #Daraya, including ones like napalm today. #Damascus

That's huge: One of the guys "working" at body facility "Military Hospital 601" now in Germany as refugee reportedly https://zamanalwsl.net/news/64715.html

Syria #Russia expand their airstrikes on #Aleppo province
3 airstrikes hit Kusaybiyah http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=36.025570&lon=36.916122&z=14&m=b …

[OUTLAW 09]

Russian press article suggesting ISIS and Maidan are "related"

Russian propaganda porn is now officially out of control as they attempt to "motivate" their own society to support the Putin "adventure in Syria" that the majority still refuses to support.

"Excellent conditions for air strikes" in Syria, says Russian state TV weather forecaster. http://www.vesti.ru/videos/show/vid/658362 … pic.twitter.com/a98ATK5L7K

[OUTLAW 09]

Caution Hampered Pentagon’s Syria Plans"

http://www.wsj.com/articles/conflicting-agendas-caution-beset-pentagon-plans-in-syria-1443997392 …

[OUTLAW 09]

RUMINT
Hearing really interesting claims that French Rafale jets have targeted an Iranian command centre in #Syria

NOT CONFIRMED by other sources--will watch this comment develop----
Fahad al-Masri: 50 dead Russians & 35 wounded were transported on an Ilyushin cargo plane from Hmaimim Russian airbase in #Latakia, #Syria

[OUTLAW 09]

Very alarming! 5 #hospitals are targeted in different areas in #Syria by the #Russian bombing campaign in its first week. @BBCBreaking

More footage of the cluster munitions dropped by Russian jets on non-ISIS targets in Kafr Halab, #Aleppo, #Syria

JAI executed #ISIS security official Ahmad Haniya in southern #Damascus, #Syria today.

Local activists in #Hama: Russians set-up a new com-center in al-Furousiya stadium. 1000 troops already in the city.

Huge if true: U.S Led MOC in Jordan agree to fund rebels w/o pre conditions that #FSA must not co-op w/ Nusra/Ahrar

We know there is a ceasefire btw #ISIL and rebels in Qadam #Damascus but what about northern #Aleppo? didn't hear anything for while now.

FSA Coastal Brigade position attacked by RuAF in Turkman Mount #Latakia just across the Turkish boarders.
https://youtu.be/wYy6mwt9W5Q

[OUTLAW 09]

BREAKING: Air strikes being reported on Kafranbel-Baara Highway in #Idlib
https://twitter.com/HadiAlabdallah/status/650728675177050112 …

BREAKING: Heavy smoke covering entire area after #Russia|n airstrike on Kafranbel-Baara Hwy in #Idlib. Warplanes still flying over the area.

Russian jets dropping cluster munitions over Kafrhalab in #Aleppo, #Syria http://youtu.be/3sKZE7qs0Qk h/t

Regime jets mistakingly target own positions near Dahiya Assad in #Damascus, #Syria http://youtu.be/Na5GlIvqX7Y

No end to Assad’s barrel bombs, over 40 since y’day were dropped by helicopters on #Daraya, including ones like napalm today. #Damascus

That's huge: One of the guys "working" at body facility "Military Hospital 601" now in Germany as refugee reportedly https://zamanalwsl.net/news/64715.html

Syria #Russia expand their airstrikes on #Aleppo province
3 airstrikes hit Kusaybiyah http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=36.025570&lon=36.916122&z=14&m=b …

Key witness of Assad's torture photos is a refugee in Germany https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/11815.html

Key executioner of Assad's torture photos is a refugee in Germany. #Syria

A MAJORITY of these torture photos come from children that were captured, tortured and then killed.

[OUTLAW 09]

55 #SaudiArabia scholars ask people to join "Jihad in #Syria" w/o saying which group 2join as they r all "moderate".

Russia n Airstrikes in #Syria Sep. 30 - Oct. 3
http://www.understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/Russian%20Airstrikes%2030%20SEP%20-%2003%20OCT%202015.pdf … - by @TheStudyofWar

UNDER THE WHAT THE HECK rubric---
Russia will start using new generation bombs able to recognise and avoid "moderate rebels targets" in #Syria.

[OUTLAW 09]

Not so sure Putin fully understands Turkey will fire on their aircraft in the coming days--a radar lock on is a blatant warning for the next time in the world of militaries---five mile border zone and or crossing of the border will be the reasons.

Also notice the RuAF is not coming anywhere close to the Israeli border.

Turkish defense radar locked on Russian fighter as it bombed Syrian town

Highlights
Turkey treats as threatening any aircraft within 5 miles of border

Officials: Turkey would have attacked had jet crossed border

Incident a reminder that risk is high of a potential unintended confrontation


http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/world/article37739349.html#storylink=cpy

[OUTLAW 09]

While the Human Rights Watch blasted the Ukraine for it's ALLEDGED use of cluster munitions which turned out to be massive Russian propaganda--WHEN now Syrian social media literally posts actual use of cluster munitions by the Russians via video evidence--TOTAL SILENCE......why is that????

Why is @hrw completely silent on #Russia killing civilians using clusterbombs in #Syria?
http://www.hrw.org pic.twitter.com/8DHaFRYvJq

[OUTLAW 09]

Man are the Russian propagandists getting into this "war thing".

IS the Russian fighting in Syria symbolizing the fight with the US with IS representing the US--seems so.

Russia'n TV news presenter: Weather allows dropping bombs on #Syria (video) http://vybary.belsat.eu/en/news/vyadoutsa-rossiya-24-velmi-udaly-chas-dlya-bambardavannya/ … pic.twitter.com/Nrw0XJ8LmO

[OUTLAW 09]

Is Turkey getting ready to pull the trigger on NATO's Article 5??????

Turkey consulting US, France, Italy, UK, Germany & @NATO Sec Gen after #Russia violated its airspace
http://www.mfa.gov.tr/no_-269_-05-october-2015_-press-release-regarding-the-violation-of-turkish-airspace-by-a-russian-federation-aircraft.en.mfa …

Turkey PM warns will activate rules of engagement if air space violated: http://u.afp.com/ZpeS @AFP

Only way for #Russia to win a war with #Turkey is to nuke #NATO-member Turkey... a super-stupid idea, but with the Kremlin you never know...

And Russia has been doing the same thing to Turkey in the Black Sea since last year.
pic.twitter.com/KEot7sX5A6

Russian airspace violations aren't new:
1- tests NATO response times
2- psy-ops by forcing pilots into 24/7 readiness pic.twitter.com/CJUReHrFjD

OH... here we go again with the Russian eastern Ukraine excuse of "we got lost"---RuAF has a very tight command and control regime--he did not get "lost".

NATO will meet today to discuss #Russia's provocation, #Kremlin meanwhile claims it was due to navigation error
https://twitter.com/vtchakarova/status/650995984995065857 …

NOW THIS just in-----
Hurriyet Daily News
‏@HDNER #BREAKING: Two #Turkish fighter jets harassed by MIG-29 for 5 minutes: Army http://bit.ly/6c4x4J

[OUTLAW 09]

Second Syrian/Russian aircraft shot down by MANPADs in one week--the first was a Russian SU24, now a Syrian MIG.

Photo of a Syrian MiG-21 reportedly hit/shot down over Ghouta, Syria 5 Oct pic.twitter.com/TZ8GZai7Fk

1st footage of regime pilot ejected his downed jet over eastern #Ghouta #Damascus.
https://youtu.be/U8udAa9M6yk pic.twitter.com/Og91HsIDhp


Kremlin's @RT_com inadvertently helps ID this #Russia|n SU-24M & crew who conducted air strikes on Syrian rebels
pic.twitter.com/7LvNTQbfSQ

[OUTLAW 09]

Analysis of Russian cluster munitions dropped yesterday---

We think this most likely shows RBK-500U with SPBE-D or improved SPBE-K guided anti-armour submunitions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8cO1FKoN8g …

[OUTLAW 09]

At least 10 civilians have been killed in tday's #Syria|n regime air strike on the Islamic State-held city of Al-Bab.

Syria Reports: #Russia'n airstrikes on rebels in desert of eastern #Qualamoun -last buffer for #Damascus against #IS

Krasuha-4" Russian Mobile Electronic Warfare Systems spotted in Latakia, Syria (suppress radar /spy satellites)
http://defence-blog.com/army/in-syria-spotted-krasuha-4-russian-mobile-electronic-warfare-systems.html …

Must be for the IS JSTARs aircraft they are flying via their flying carpets????

Probably designed to interfere with US GPS guide munitions---if so a definite escalation!!!

Lebanon IED hit bus loaded with #Hezbollah-fighters for #Syria in Bekaa valley in Chtaura. Bus fully destroyed
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=33.812885&lon=35.857573&z=14&m=b …

Russians bombing ISIS yo! An Al Jazeera team in Syria narrowly survived a suspected Russian air strike https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera/videos/10153772685488690/ …

More on rebels vulnerability to Russian attacks ?????-Even non-jihadi groups have been for months keeping bases empty. No gathering/weapon/ammo.

[OUTLAW 09]

Is Turkey getting ready to pull the trigger on NATO's Article 5??????

Turkey consulting US, France, Italy, UK, Germany & @NATO Sec Gen after #Russia violated its airspace
http://www.mfa.gov.tr/no_-269_-05-october-2015_-press-release-regarding-the-violation-of-turkish-airspace-by-a-russian-federation-aircraft.en.mfa …

Turkey PM warns will activate rules of engagement if air space violated: http://u.afp.com/ZpeS @AFP

Only way for #Russia to win a war with #Turkey is to nuke #NATO-member Turkey... a super-stupid idea, but with the Kremlin you never know...

And Russia has been doing the same thing to Turkey in the Black Sea since last year.
pic.twitter.com/KEot7sX5A6

Russian airspace violations aren't new:
1- tests NATO response times
2- psy-ops by forcing pilots into 24/7 readiness pic.twitter.com/CJUReHrFjD

OH... here we go again with the Russian eastern Ukraine excuse of "we got lost"---RuAF has a very tight command and control regime--he did not get "lost".

NATO will meet today to discuss #Russia's provocation, #Kremlin meanwhile claims it was due to navigation error
https://twitter.com/vtchakarova/status/650995984995065857 …

NOW THIS just in-----
Hurriyet Daily News
‏@HDNER #BREAKING: Two #Turkish fighter jets harassed by MIG-29 for 5 minutes: Army http://bit.ly/6c4x4J

PT following report of #TuAF encounter with #RuAF, #RuAF shows Su-30Ms with R-27 & R-73 AA missiles.

[JWing]

Cross posting this because this has to do with Syria as much as Iraq:

In Sep a Shiite armed group calling itself the Death Squads kidnapped 18 Turkish workers in Baghdad. They're demands were all foreign such as ending foreign fighters going through Turkey, ending Kurdish oil exports via Turkey, and ending the siege of two Shiite towns in Syria by rebels. The workers were eventually freed and the papers said it was because their demands were met. At the same time the Idlib U.N. backed ceasefire was announced which ended the siege of the two Shiite towns the Death Squads mentioned. Coincidence or was the kidnapping meant to get Turkey's final ok on the peace deal? Read more here (http://musingsoniraq.blogspot.com/2015/10/did-kidnapping-of-turkish-workers-in.html).

[OUTLAW 09]

Nato demands Russia "immediately cease" attacks on Syria's opposition & civilians
http://bbc.in/1LbEBYP

MORE: NATO condemns #Russia's incursions into Turkish sovereign airspace, "note the extreme danger of such irresponsible behavior"

[OUTLAW 09]

Cross posting this because this has to do with Syria as much as Iraq:

In Sep a Shiite armed group calling itself the Death Squads kidnapped 18 Turkish workers in Baghdad. They're demands were all foreign such as ending foreign fighters going through Turkey, ending Kurdish oil exports via Turkey, and ending the siege of two Shiite towns in Syria by rebels. The workers were eventually freed and the papers said it was because their demands were met. At the same time the Idlib U.N. backed ceasefire was announced which ended the siege of the two Shiite towns the Death Squads mentioned. Coincidence or was the kidnapping meant to get Turkey's final ok on the peace deal? Read more here (http://musingsoniraq.blogspot.com/2015/10/did-kidnapping-of-turkish-workers-in.html).

BTW---the deal was actually reached between Iran and the anti Assad Forces surrounding the two Shiite towns--largely allowed civilians to leave but not fighters, created a NFZ over the two towns that Russia has broken in the last two days and the Assad military could not fly resupply airdrops of munitions and weapons to their fighters--UN was to oversee the civilian withdrawals.

[OUTLAW 09]

SAA sniper in Kweres front, #Syria with Iranian "Sayyad" rifle, va @IvanSidorenko1 pic.twitter.com/9ERqPzBUpB

VIDEO: Busy day at Russian air-base in #Syria. All SU-30SM jets seem unmarked - @MuradoRT

NATO confirms multiple violations SU-24 and SU-30 in Hatay http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_123392.htm

Russian non linear warfare in now Syria---
Russian Admiral, Head of State Duma's Defense Committee Says Russian Volunteers Likely to Fight in Syria: http://www.interpretermag.com/putin-in-syria-russian-fighter-enters-turkish-airspace/#10259 …

Russian Prosecutor General summons open source sleuth @RuslanLeviev, who traced Russian troops' presence in Ukraine & Syria. https://twitter.com/RuslanLeviev/status/651027213786157056 …

[OUTLAW 09]

bellingcat @bellingcat

Another Russian MoD video proven to have false information striking ISIS in an area ISIS isn't active in https://bellingcat.checkdesk.org/en/story/736?fbrefresh=1444035868#update-763 …

bellingcat @bellingcat

If you want to help geolocate videos of Russian airstrikes in Syria with Bellingcat you can help out on Checkdesk https://bellingcat.checkdesk.org/en/story/736

[OUTLAW 09]

Obama approved sending weapons for 1st time + air campaign that could lead to protecting rebels from RU

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/05/world/middleeast/us-aims-to-put-more-pressure-on-isis-in-syria.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0 …

[OUTLAW 09]

Russia removes insignia from the jet fighters bombing #Syria, to demolish any traces of war crimes
pic.twitter.com/JfsAuD3ccs

War in #Syria: Russian Reporters Reveal Information About Pilots.
InformNapalm has conducted an in-depth... http://fb.me/2fC113H92

More than 40 insurgent groups in #Syria vow to attack #Russia forces in retaliation for air strikes"http://bigstory.ap.org/article/12584edcedd6434a88326a0ff948a468/syrian-fm-russian-airstrikes-took-months-preparations …

Freudian slip? #Russia's Ministry of Defense refers to #Syria as "Russian Arab Republic," later corrects the posting. pic.twitter.com/fASRhQUpAo

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Russia has no reason to deploy its most modern Air defence & Elec.Warfare systems to #Syriahttp://zloy-odessit.livejournal.com/1487524.html

Russia mil. deploy Caraspace-C1 air defence & Krasuha-4 EW at #Latakia air base #Syria, yet #ISIS have NO Air Force!

Russia deployed state-of-the-art Krasukha-4 electronic warfare system to Syria. Krasukha is a jamming station.
pic.twitter.com/aLWPL1axBJ

No red star insignia markings on ALL the Russian SU-30SMs at #Russia's airbase at #Latakia.

New Kremlin #vid
#Russia SU-34 (no red star), SU-24M warplanes prepare for air strikes #Syria
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S85K8YwbGS8 …

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https://www.rusi.org/analysis/commentary/ref:C560E9A3D1FCD8/#.VhKsKpXsmM9

Russia's War Plan in Syria
RUSI Analysis, 2 Oct 2015

By Dr Igor Sutyagin,
Senior Research Fellow, Russian Studies


As the pattern of Russian air strikes on Syria becomes clear, we can now discern Putin’s campaign plan

The third day of Russian air strikes in Syria finally offers some clarity about the possible war plan the Kremlin may have for its Syrian campaign. Some pieces of the jigsaw now seem to fit together:
◾President Vladimir Putin of Russia announced that the military operation in Syria will not last for long as it has limited objectives; Russia will withdraw its forces – or a major share of them – as soon as those objectives are achieved.
◾Eighty per cent of Russian targets so far are associated not with Daesh (ISIL), but with other armed opposition groups fighting against the Syrian regime.
◾President Putin publicly stated that Russia would never join the US-led coalition in Syria.
◾Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Russia had promised to fight all terrorist groups in Syria, not only Daesh. All groups fighting against Bashar al-Assad’s regime – such as the Free Syrian Army, Jabhat al-Nusra and Daesh – are terrorists according to Damascus policy.
◾Iranian troops have started arriving to Syria en masse.

Taken together, these produce a clear picture. There are solid reasons to argue that the supposed ‘War Plan Syria’ agreed during the talks between Russian and Iranian commands in Moscow in August, and later with the Syrian regime itself, involves a trilateral offensive of joint Syrian–Iranian land forces along with the air support provided by Russia. The strategic objective is to secure an Alawite ‘safe zone’ on the territory of ‘useful Syria’ – the densely populated Western part of the country where the major share of Syrian industry and agriculture is concentrated – leaving the eastern, desert part of the country to Daesh. As Alawites constitute approximately 12 per cent of Syrian population, and the rest of the country is at the very least moderately critical of the Assad regime, control of the whole country is politically impossible and perhaps not even considered necessary for Damascus any more.

The obvious immediate operational goals of the offensive include defeat and dispersal of the armed opposition groups in the northern and northeastern parts of Syria, as well as extermination of the opposition-controlled enclaves in the central part of regime-controlled zone between Homs and Hama – four in five Russian air strikes are concentrated in precisely those two areas. Re-establishing Damascus’s control over the territory currently controlled by Kurds is not the part of the plan as there is no Russian activity in that zone. Securing the eastern border of regime-controlled territory is also a task: the approximately 20 per cent of air strikes devoted to targets in the narrow sector around Palmyra – the only area where Daesh forces immediately contact with regime troops – indicate this. Taking into account the narrow area of contact between Daesh and regime forces, one can conclude that fighting the jihadist group is only a secondary task of the Syrian–Russian–Iranian coalition. Other nationalist and Islamist armed opposition seem to be the major targets of Russian strikes; Daesh forces serve as a secondary target, and a way to legitimate Russia’s actions.

After re-establishing control over the northern/north-eastern part of Syria currently lost to the armed opposition, Moscow and Tehran will hand over responsibility to Damascus. Moscow will withdraw the majority of its forces (most probably securing the Khmeimim air base near Latakia, where Russian air strikes originate now, for use in the future). The immediate implication of such the plan for the West and Arab countries is this: while the West bears moral responsibility for the fate of the Syrian moderate opposition against Assad, it is doomed to sit idle and watch them be hit by Russian bombs. The Kremlin’s quite correct calculation was that the West would be unwilling to use the only tool – military power – capable of immediately stopping Russian operations targeting groups the West supports; Russia would be able to achieve its goals unopposed. In this sense, the Syria campaign is the next step in development of Russia’s modus operandi after Eastern Ukraine, thus marking the general direction of Russian policy in disputed areas around the globe in the future.

The feeling is rapidly spreading among the Western-backed armed opposition that they have been betrayed by their supporters: to them, it looks like the West has secretly made the deal with Russia and washed its hands, letting Russian and Syrian forces methodically destroy them. This means a general weakening of the Western credibility and soft-power influence, both in Syria and elsewhere – outcomes very much welcomed by the Kremlin too. From Putin’s perspective, this is a quite reasonable war plan; and one very promising for future conflict as the West’s unwillingness to use decisive military tools is likely to remain. It may be time for the West to wake up to the recognition that the task of developing measures which might put limit of the Kremlin’s assertive activism is rapidly becoming the urgent need.

From a US journalist who truly knows the ME----

Michael Weiss 
‏@michaeldweiss Ooooh, that's a bingo. https://www.rusi.org/analysis/commentary/ref:C560E9A3D1FCD8/#.VhKh1rSJlFI …

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BREAKING NOT CONFIRMED-------

Syria Update# Air Duel between the Sukhoi Su - 30 Russian SM and Israeli F-15

https://shar.es/17PJgN <- FYI

if it ends up going hot I imagine the su30 would be needing S&R

AGAIN NOT CONFIRMED

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Russia launches information offensive over role in #Syria—Blasts web with "smart bombs", misleading hashtags & more.

Russia/n military saying "ready to meet any further military help2 rebels in #Syria with the use of strategic and destructive Topolov Tu22

We are observing a hot war betwn #Russia & d #USA on #Syria & no longer neither "Sunni/Shia" or "war on Terrorism". Put your safety belt on.

Russia will consider any Jet in the air as hostile if prior coordination is not carried out. This includes #Israel and #Turkey.

Two #Russia/n SU-34 violated by mistake the Turkish airspace saying to #Turkey:"No non-fly-zone & we shall follow moderate rebels anywhere".

Another incident: #Russia/n intercepted two #Turkish jets after engaging their radars to prepare firing at the two jets who pulled away.

Russia FM Lavrov said "ready to contact Free Syrian Army if this group includes only Syrians. FSA is non-existing neither any moderates".

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Syria|n Rep Guard fighter spotted with a Croatian-made VHS-K1 rifle. (Only used by #Iraq|is, Iraqi Kurds & Croats.)



More Russian propaganda---they know exactly who this group is--Russia has taken heat over their bombing of them vs nothing against IS--now CYA statements

Do no think for a moment the SVR and GRU do not know who is firing the TOWs.

MFA Russia Verifizierter Account 
‏@mfa_russia #Lavrov: The Free Syrian Army is a phantom. I’ve asked Mr Kerry for emergency information about its deployment and commanders @RusEmbUSA

Come on--first CYA Statement--navigation Problems NOW "weather"??????

Russian Ministry of Defence says its Su-30 entered Turkish airspace "for a few seconds" and as "a result of unfavourable weather conditions"
Few seconds WAS actually 5 minutes and 40 seconds-----

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Humor-----

After realizing he flew into #NATO airspace, vacationer from #Russia needed a place to chill

pic.twitter.com/Ja2BGp0Amy

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Syria|n Rep Guard fighter spotted with a Croatian-made VHS-K1 rifle. (Only used by #Iraq|is, Iraqi Kurds & Croats.)

More Russian propaganda---they know exactly who this group is--Russia has taken heat over their bombing of them vs nothing against IS--now CYA statements

Do no think for a moment the SVR and GRU do not know who is firing the TOWs.

MFA Russia Verifizierter Account 
‏@mfa_russia #Lavrov: The Free Syrian Army is a phantom. I’ve asked Mr Kerry for emergency information about its deployment and commanders @RusEmbUSA

Come on--first CYA Statement--navigation Problems NOW "weather"??????

Russian Ministry of Defence says its Su-30 entered Turkish airspace "for a few seconds" and as "a result of unfavourable weather conditions"
Few seconds WAS actually 5 minutes and 40 seconds-----

An unsubtle attempt to get targeting information.. https://twitter.com/mfa_russia/status/651030266866176000 …

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The Iranians told the Russians bluntly: if you don’t intervene, Bashar al-Assad will fall."
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/01/syrian-military-weakness-russian-intervention …

Syria: Jabhat an-Nusra has ambushed regime forces in Khanifis, near Kfarnabuda, on the Hama-Salamiya road (v @YallaSouriya).

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More Russian airstrikes geolocated, the pattern seems to be if they claim they're bombing ISIS or Raqqa it's untrue

https://bellingcat.checkdesk.org/en/story/736

Cough... Cough..
#Russia declares partial victory in bombing campaign in #Syria http://wpo.st/ohre0

Moscow hasn't received official requests fr Iraq for Russian airstrikes on Islamic State targets in Iraq, Lavrov says - Interfax v @Breaking

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Humor---

This morning's reported "perfect weather for bombing" was so bad it caused our Su-30 to enter Turkey accidently. pic.twitter.com/J1WNnhxn8Q