More Russian boots on the ground in Syria----VK photo album.
Russian Soldiers in Syria. Photo Album. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...type=1&theater … pic.twitter.com/7fp7cR6JPQ
Printable View
More Russian boots on the ground in Syria----VK photo album.
Russian Soldiers in Syria. Photo Album. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...type=1&theater … pic.twitter.com/7fp7cR6JPQ
More Russian photos of so called "Russian camel drivers" as advisors in a number of Syrian locations----
More likely GRU Spetsnaz camel drivers.
pics are from three other locations too, some them looks like "more than security" pic.twitter.com/EtdoWy7Jh7
Russian soldiers disembarking in Syria to support Assad's regime. Via @uanews3 pic.twitter.com/qhKyVGr38Y
Russian non linear warfare is alive and well in Syria----
Putin's little green man on holidays/lost in Syria. https://twitter.com/ObichniyChell/st...78242012110848 …
tons of pics here: https://www.facebook.com/NikolayMahno/photos …
Photo of Russian troops in Syria
Read more at: http://defence-blog.com/army/photo-o...-in-syria.html … pic.twitter.com/pmpdjAAGVe
Russian troops actively involved in direct fighting inside Syria already in JULY 2015---
FB page of a #Russia|n soldier in #Syria apparently incl. pics from #Homs, July 2015. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...e=1&permPage=1 … pic.twitter.com/n8VAjiEMTR
BEGS an important question--HAS in fact Obama thrown the Ukraine under the bus for Putin's support in Iran and now in Syria---Obama says nothing about the Ukraine nor now Syria--notice the massive silence???
Appears he has in fact thrown the Ukraine under the bus--there can be no other explanation.
And after they got lost in Ukraine, Russian soldiers mistakenly stumbled into Syria:
https://www.facebook.com/NikolayMahno/photos …
THIS is just how long social media has been tracking Assad and Russian involvement in Syria--two years and counting AND the US intel is surprised--come on get real.
The case in Syria is not terrorism or refugees
The case that we wanted our lives back, but Assad regime refused and killed 300000 of us
Thorough analysis of the (increased) Russian presence in Syria: http://goo.gl/vvtb1R
via @MorbidYoung pic.twitter.com/r3qGBYhyZW
MORE IMAGES of #Russia(n) soldiers in #Syria fully armed with weapons (fighting for Assad) pic.twitter.com/c6WAu7QpPl
Russian volunteers, self-defence, little green men, polite people, tractor drivers and miners now spotted in Syria. https://twitter.com/raging545/status/640118444109754368 …
Who is killing the majority of Syrians? Nope, not ISIS. Wake up. pic.twitter.com/RIdk4SIvju
Remind me again who benefits by radicalizing Europe's far right by dumping thousands, soon millions of destitute Muslim refugees in the EU.
Of course Putin's gonna go all in for Assad...what price will Obama make Russia pay for that? Oh, right ...
Who knew outsourcing US policy in Syria to Moscow would have such consequences? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...civil-war.html …
US detects delivery of new Russian air traffic control system, prefab housing at #Syria mil airfield http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/09/05...html?referrer= … via @gordonnyt
Great post on Russian troops in Syria by Russian activist @RuslanLeviev (in Ru) http://ruslanleviev.livejournal.com/38293.html pic.twitter.com/vncAibkN2F
IS trolls are celebrating the entry of Russia into the fighting has further proof of “their Great war”.
Obama, his NSC and the entire US IC needs to check in with social media about Russian troops on the ground and fighting in Syria.
Syria, Latakia. New Russian APC-82A, Slavic voice
Сирия, Латакия. Новейший российский БТР-82А, славянская речь
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=23&v=n9jPNxHf3BI …
Contact with Jaish al-Islam in Damascus suburbs can further US goals says @FaysalItani http://buff.ly/1hyql57 @acmideast
Quote:
Despite the many external players involved, the Syrian war is ultimately a local conflict. In "Seizing Local Opportunities in Syria," authors Faysal Itani of the Atlantic Council's Rafik Hariri Center and Co-Founder of People Demand Change Bassam Barabandi identify three opportunities on the ground for the United States to develop partnerships with segments of the Syrian population. By taking advantage of these openings, the United States can help further its goals of facilitating a lasting political transition and weakening jihadists in Syria. These opportunities include encouraging a Sunni-Druze coalition in the south and an Arab-Kurdish one in the north, as well as deepening contact with Jaish al-Islam (JAI) in the Damascus suburbs of Eastern Ghouta.
Itani and Barabandi present actionable insights and concrete recommendations that align fully with the US objectives of defeating violent extremists and facilitating an inclusive political transition that preserves as much governance capability as possible.
The authors explain how the United States can facilitate a rebel-Druze alliance in the south by providing the Druze security guarantees and linking the level of US material support to the insurgents to their respecting Druze territorial red lines. This would help Druze and other minorities recognize they need not choose between the Assad regime and jihadists, thereby narrowing the regime's support base and broadening participation in a political transition.
In the north, the authors recommend helping to strengthen the relationship between the Arabs and the Kurds by increasing the US partnership with the Arabs, while also supporting local governance in areas under Arab-Kurdish control. This would enable greater territorial gains on the frontlines with the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS or ISIL) and create a balance of power more palatable to the Arabs and Turkey resulting in a more durable Arab-Kurd partnership.
In Eastern Ghouta, the authors acknowledge JAI as a strong but problematic actor, and encourage engagement to curb its worst excesses and to increase pressure on the regime. They contend that an isolated yet still powerful JAI would pose a greater problem than one with which the United States had substantive relations.
Through each of these local opportunities, Itani and Barabandi demonstrate how the United States can apply pressure on the regime and its patrons by broadening the support base against both the regime and jihadists. Their recommended steps could thereby hasten an end to the civil war while helping to bring about a more inclusive and enduring political settlement.
Julian Rpcke @JulianRoepcke
Just to let you know.
Rebels recaptured all of #Marea from ISIS.
Terrorists remain just outside the town.
Putin with Iran will create panic in the Middle East to prop-up oil prices. (VIDEO)
http://www.foxbusiness.com/business-...e-east-ablaze/ pic.twitter.com/f8N2E9BHZ6
Interactive map shows the Syrian #refugeecrisis by the numbers http://mashable.com/2015/09/05/syria...U2OHNoMHBkcSJ9 via @mashable
Supposedly the Tsezar Kunikov...added 2 September...caption: "Again to Syria" pic.twitter.com/5g8CIpr9w9
http://gcssi.org/wp2/?p=5150
Russian troops began a rapid advance in Syria.
The attached video is visible Russian military equipment, but the soldiers maybe are Russian Muslims. While it may be specially fabricated for the West misinformation./ – GCSSI.
Today, 14:11 – 04/09/2015
Quote:
A successful joint operation of Russian and Syrian troops near the city of Latakia allowed them to move up to 20 kilometers.
After arriving in Syria limited Russian military contingent has supported the government forces of the country, which will significantly increase the Damascus-controlled territory.
As the portal “Military informant” with reference to its sources, the Russian artillery provided assistance to the Syrian army in the offensive on rebel positions in the area of the port city of Latakia. After successful neutralization of pockets of rebel groups in the northern part of the city, the combined troops advanced 20 kilometers. At this point in the region of Latakia are active Russian Air Force. Watch the video
Recall that on August 12 Russian soldiers have been seen in the village Slanfeh (Slanfeh), near Latakia, where they take part in the creation of defensive positions to protect against the advancing Islamists who threaten the nearby Alawite settlements.
Damascus has given permission for the construction of the Russian military base in the second Jableh. This small town is located 25 kilometers to the south of Latakia, which is the largest port of Syria and the administrative center of the Syrian province, mainly populated by Muslims, Alawites. They are in favor of the ruling Syrian Baath Party, headed by President Bashar al-Assad, and therefore are targeted by Islamic militants.
Move troops in Syria earlier confirmed the Pentagon and Turkey. The latter announced a substantial increase in Russian courts in the direction of Syria.
In the Western media claimed that foreign intelligence established the fact of transfer Moscow to Syria multirole fighters and attack helicopters, along with reconnaissance drones.
Assad has killed more Syrians than ISIS. Russia, Iran keeping Assad in power. http://wpo.st/GgWZ0 @RutheniaRus
Humor--pointed---
Sending Russians soldiers to fight for Assad is really going to make the Saudis help with the oil price.
Hybrid war humour:
Russian soldier's mama: 'Son, you be careful in Donetsk'
Son: 'Don't worry, mama. I'm already in Damascus'
@MarkGaleotti
Putin again is lying to the West ----Russian troops fighting in Homs Syria already in April 2015.
Homs geotagged photo was uploaded June 9th. It's not the original, here's same from April. https://vk.com/wall-75950793?offset=...-75950793_5614 … pic.twitter.com/Ob7VRyoqYW
Really good open source analysis on a video which has come out of Syria--was done originally in Russian--now in English.
Руслан Левиев @RuslanLeviev
Are there Russian troops in Syria and are they involved in fighting there? Our investigation: http://ruslanleviev.livejournal.com/38649.html pic.twitter.com/mNyBMoyAQK
Specifically, pro-Assad sites saying Russian Sukhoi's targeted "Army of Conquest" in Idlib.
Mark Galeotti @MarkGaleotti
#Russian marines guarding bases, flying drones + driving APCs in #Syria: 1st rate investig by @RuslanLeviev & co
http://ruslanleviev.livejournal.com/38649.html
http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...source=twitter
NOW YOU SEE THEM
09.05.151:27 PM ET
Exposing Russia’s Secret Army in Syria
Quote:
Some wear uniforms, some don’t, but from highway checkpoints to jet fighters, Russians are being spotted all over the Assad dictatorship’s heartland.
Russian military officers are now in Damascus and meeting regularly with Iranian and Syrian counterparts, according to a source with close contacts in the Bashar al-Assad regime. “They’re out in restaurants and cafes with other high officials in the Syrian Army,” the source told The Daily Beast, “mainly concentrated in Yaafour and Sabboura, areas that are close to each other, and in west Mezze,” referring to a district in the capital where Assad’s praetorian Fourth Armored Division keeps an important airbase. “The Russians aren’t in uniform, but they’re constantly hanging out with officers from the Syrian Army’s central command.”
Other Syrians claim to have seen Russians in uniform.
One family recently traveled from Aleppo to Damascus by taxi before emigrating by plane to Turkey and says it saw a small contingent of Russian troops embedded with Syrians at a military checkpoint in the capital. “We were near the Shaghour district when we noticed two soldiers who were not Syrian,” a family representative said. “They were tall, blonde and blue-eyed and wore different fatigues from the Syrians and carried weapons. I’m telling you, they were Russian.”
The opposition-linked website All4Syria seems to corroborate such eyewitness accounts. Many residents of Damascus, it claimed, have “observed in the first three days of September a noticeable deployment of Iranian and Russian elements in the neighborhoods of Baramkeh, al-Bahsa, and Tanzim Kfarsouseh.” The Venezia Hotel in al-Bahsa “has been turned into a military barracks for the Iranians.”
Such news comes amid a flurry of reports that Russia has made plans for a direct military intervention in Syria’s four-year civil war and may actually have started one already. The New York Times reported Saturday that Russia has sent prefabricated housing units, capable of sheltering as many as 1,000 military personnel, and a portable air traffic control station to another Syrian airbase in Latakia. That coastal province, the Assad family’s ancestral home, has already seen Russian troops caught on video operating BTR-82 infantry fighting vehicles against anti-Assad rebels, atop rumors that Moscow may be deploying an “expeditionary force,” including Russian air pilots who would fly combat missions.
They may already be doing so. A social media account affiliated with the al-Qaeda franchise Jabhat al-Nusra posted images of what appeared to be Russian Air Force jets and drones flying in the skies of Syria’s northwest Idlib province. They were, specifically, the Mig-29 Fulcrum, the Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker, the Su-34 Fullback and the Pchela-1T drone. These images were analyzed as credible by the specialist website The Aviationist, which also noted that “during the past days, Flightradar24.com has exposed several flights of a Russian Air Force… Il-76 airlifter (caught by means of its Mode-S transponder) flying to and from Damascus using radio call sign ‘Manny 6,’ most probably supporting the deployment of a Russian expeditionary force.”
“The Russians are clearly setting themselves on the ground in regime areas. … This, ironically, reinforces the Obama administration’s position.”
ISIS isn't in Idlib; the terror army that calls itself the Islamic State was driven out of the province completely. As one U.S. intelligence official put it to The Daily Beast, "The question is, what are Russia's underlying motivations? Are they really there to fight [ISIS], or just to prop up Assad?"
The concern is that Russia could use military strikes against ISIS as a kind of cover or feint for attacking rebel forces as well, including non-Islamist groups. The U.S. sees these forces as a potential bulwark against ISIS. But they also have as one of their primary goals overthrowing Assad—an effort that Washington has been unwilling to support.
The White House has fallen back on its customary posture of wait-and-see as proof mounts that the Russians are coming. Spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters this week: ”We are aware of reports that Russia may have deployed military personnel and aircraft to Syria, and we are monitoring those reports quite closely. Any military support to the Assad regime for any purpose, whether it's in the form of military personnel, aircraft supplies, weapons, or funding, is both destabilizing and counterproductive.” Another unnamed U.S. official told Britain’s Daily Telegraph, ”Russia has asked for clearances for military flights to Syria, [but] we don't know what their goals are.”
Actually, their goals aren't terribly hard to discern, nor do they necessarily contradict implicit White House policy, whatever Josh Earnest says.
Photographs circulated on social media showing what appeared to be Russian soldiers in Zabadani, a city 45 kilometers north of Damascus, which has changed hands several times during the civil war. For months rebels have been fending off a scorched-earth assault by the Syrian army, Hezbollah and Iranian forces, which the U.N. assesses to have led to “unprecedented levels of destruction.” So the injection of Russian legionnaires into a multinational cocktail of combatants duking it out in Zabadani would make perfect sense. The city is considered the sine qua non of Iran’s “strategic corridor” in Syria, which runs from the capital to Lebanon and up along the Mediterranean coastline. The formidable Islamist rebel brigade Ahrar al-Sham knows who’s in charge here—it has even negotiated an ultimately unsuccessful
ceasefire directly with the Islamic Republic rather than with Assad.
“The Russians are clearly setting themselves on the ground in regime areas, planting the flag in ‘Alawistan,’ as it were,” says Tony Badran, a Syria expert at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, referring to the Alawites, the schismatic Shia sect to which the Assad clan and the more powerful Syrian regime elites belong. “This, ironically, reinforces the Obama administration’s position, which has drawn a clear line around the regime enclave. The opposition is not to enter Damascus and the coastal cities. So the Russian deployment actually fits well with the administration’s approach.”
Right on cue, then, came Russian President Vladimir Putin’s announcement Friday that Syria would soon hold new parliamentary elections and inaugurate a power-sharing government with what he deemed a “healthy” opposition. He did not specify what he considered the diseased opposition, although this would almost certainly include Free Syrian Army fighters the CIA and Pentagon has been recruiting as U.S. proxies.
While Putin dismissed the existence of any Russian combat forces in Syria as “premature,” he did allow that he was “looking at various options” for militarily involving himself in the war. Coming from someone who only admits to Russian invasions after the fact, such a signposting of motive should not be ignored.
Moscow’s close coordination with Tehran, both in Damascus and internationally, is also no coincidence. Iran is now busy shopping a new international “peace plan” for Syria, one that goes beyond the parameters of the previously inked Geneva II protocol.
Intriguingly, just weeks after Iran agreed to a deal to control its nuclear program in exchange for international sanctions relief, Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, the commander of its own expeditionary force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps-Quds Force, flew to Moscow for talks with Russian officials, violating the international travel ban related to his terrorist activity. No doubt solidifying Russian backing for whatever he has planned for Syria was high up on Soleimani’s agenda.
It’s worth noting that this isn’t the first time since the Syrian war broke out that there’s been chatter about Russian troops in Damascus.
In May 2013, sources close to the Kremlin suggested that Putin had dispatched the Zaslon special forces detachment to the Syrian capital. Formed in 1998, and conceived as a clandestine unit combining the purviews of America’s Delta Force and Secret Service, Zaslon consists of a mere 280 highly-trained operatives. It answers to Russia’s foreign intelligence service, the SVR, and is tasked with protecting high-value Russian officials in uncertain conditions and sometimes even conducting assassinations. It was rumored to have killed Iraqi insurgents in 2006 after the latter had captured and executed Russian diplomats.
As Mark Galeotti, a New York University-based specialist on Russia’s military and security forces, observed two years ago: “According to one Russian report, two Zaslon elements were also deployed to Baghdad in the dying days of the [Saddam] Hussein regime. Their mission was to seize or destroy documents which Moscow would have found embarrassing had they ended up in U.S. hands. Given the scale and depth of Russian support for Assad, it could similarly be that they are also in Syria to cover Moscow’s tracks or else ensure that sensitive military technology — including new surface-to-air systems — does not end up in foreign hands.”
Under the present circumstances, it is now likely that any Russian soldiers in Damascus are there to fortify and ring-fence another spent Baathist regime, if not to join in a war that is fought increasingly by “foreign hands.”
The standard US response since Crimea--always talk, talk and more talking--never any formal action.
REMEMBER Obama stated in 2014 "we will judge Putin by his actions not his words"--YET all they do is listen to the words.
Expressions of concern and more discussion... Kerry tells Lavrov of U.S. concern over Russian moves in Syria http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0R50QV20150905 …
Putin's response was --we are not thinking yet about troops in Syria BUT as in the Ukraine--he is lying again.
NOW instead of truck drivers and coal miners we have camel drivers and fishermen.
Maybe a good day to remind about the earlier reports of downed new Russian drones in Syria. https://twitter.com/vpkivimaki/statu...93730278416384 …
Well as least it is a US response--not much of one but still something.....
BUT why did take the social media instead of the US intel community????
Kerry Warns #Russia on 'Enhanced Military Buildup' in #Syria
http://www.haaretz.com/news/world/1.674668 … That`s a first
pic.twitter.com/ud1BB78GOP
This confirms the Russian marine debarcation point and timeline----
Rus 810th Marine section leaves Sevastopol coincides w shipping to Syria http://liveuamap.com/en/2015/5-septe...ves-sevastopol … pic.twitter.com/ZGVXd0ONiH via @finriswolf
Syria #Raqqah : The 'Political Security Branch' block has been erased http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=35...12202&z=19&m=b … pic.twitter.com/Nt7mxFSymP
#Syria #Assad used chlorine BBs in Aleppo Now ISIL's terror campaign includes mustard gas in Marea and Erbin
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opi...110038405.html …
There is no coincidence that both Assad and the IS are using chemical weapons---they have both fed and support each others military goals and the West meaning the US has seemingly not been aware of that simple fact.
Syria #Raqqah : Old Baath party building has unique method of reaching the top floor http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=35...11453&z=19&m=b … pic.twitter.com/3aWgDzZ3jq
Syria : #ISIS capital #Raqqah 1 large comms tower standing the 2nd mast has collapsed http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=35...13197&z=18&m=b … pic.twitter.com/GBM0Wj9UJz
Julian Röpcke @JulianRoepcke
Important:
What did ISIS use in its SVBIED here??
A US fuel tank or a bomb??
Which type?? pic.twitter.com/yGCIFdKqEP
Julian Röpcke @JulianRoepcke
@JulianRoepcke Seems to be Soviet-made bomb. Thanks!!
Report claims Assad gave IS chemical weapons to deliver chemical attacks by proxy
http://go.shr.lc/1POTuEN pic.twitter.com/xkId1XR5vw
Assad delivers CW shipment to ISIS
Posted by: Hamood Almossa in Raqqa news 25/08/2015 0 4,239 Views
Exclusive Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently
Quote:
Assad regime has escalated his attacks against civilians demanding the ”fall of the regime”, using all means to suppress the protests, he went so far beyond the red line Obama drew, and actually used Chemical Weapons in the areas he lost control of.
When Assad used Chemical Weapons in the famous Ghouta attack back in 2013, the ”international community” has formed a fact finding committee, and forced the regime to hand over its arsenal of Chemical Weapons. However the regime decided not to hand everything, and hid some of these weapons with its ally Hizbullah, and kept others to himself inside Syria according to sources.
According to information leaked to our campaign (Raqqa is being slaughtered silently), certain amounts of Mustard gas, were transferred to Al Raqqa via regime containers, which were intended to carry “Chlorine for water purification”.Part of it was then moved to East of Syria and Iraq (ISIS held territories).
German reports published earlier this year, confirmed that ISIS (Islamic State) had used poisonous gases in Iraq. Also, there has been news that the ISIS used chemical weapons against the Kurds in the countryside of Ain Arab northern Syria.
The latest reports came from Aleppo, and they talk about the use of mustard gas and other toxic gases in the east part of Aleppo’s countryside during the past few days.
Moving the Chemical weapons to ISIS has a huge benefit for the regime, this way he can clear his name from the Ghouta and other attacks by claiming the he is not the only one who has these kind of weapons in Syria. Also, he can convince the international community that they should keep him and fight the terrorist organizations instead, which will give him back his legitimacy.
By transferring his CW to ISIS, he can get it back whenever he needs it, as it’s in ”safe hands”, he also get his enemy bombed with CW, by the hands of ISIS, without having to do it himself.
The biggest gain to this transfer remain that he can threaten Turkey, Jordan and Israel, with these weapons, without having them linked to him, since he is busy ”fighting” the terrorist groups.
Red Crescent in Raqqa which was responsible for bringing the chlorine (for water treatment) in the city before, but ISIS has stopped the organization’s work months ago, without giving any reason. But it’s clear now. We can see the extent of indirect cooperation between ISIS and the regime, and how they help each others against their enemies.
Important photo evidence of Russian Marine unit leaving Crimea for Syria---
Russia sends marines from Crimea to fight in Syria. pic.twitter.com/k9hlyn8hdf
Raqqah Massive #ISIS truck convoy yesterday. Batch 1 pic.twitter.com/Hy8DB24oMz
#Raqqah Massive #ISIS truck convoy yesterday. Batch 2 pic.twitter.com/UaUaniaQSK
Anders stlund @andersostlund
When #Russia set Middle East really ablaze oil prices will sky-rocket. Alternative energy plans needed. pic.twitter.com/w469NvBvfa
Feels odd that If there hadn't been the selfie epidemic, we would have never had proof RU's military is involved in Ukraine and Syria.
In case you are lead to believe RU sent its marines to Syria only recently. These pics from Feb/March 2015. pic.twitter.com/PJH2s9otn1
More selfies-----
The point is, RU forces are in Syria to bolster Assad's crumbling regime, and not to fight Daesh like Putin says.
Footage
#FSA forces target regime-held Tell al-Khirbah with DIY mortars.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQSZkhmaUII …
pic.twitter.com/RQuTjQhd5d
Not verified---
103 Russian soldiers KIA in Syria https://twitter.com/sobinewsrussia/s...66732444971008 …
Sergey, where is this?"
RU marine: "The base of the Russian Military Navy in Syria" (April 22) pic.twitter.com/Br60pmR1EV
Very interesting from @ajaltamimi on the assassination of #Druze Sheikh Abu Fahad al-Bal’ous in Sweida, #Syria:
http://www.joshualandis.com/blog/the...-and-analysis/ …
Humor----
Putin rushed to hospital with rib pain from excessive laughter after Kerry warns RUS against further aid to Assad http://fxn.ws/1JJANOL
BreakingNews
Syrian rebels destroyed another #ISIS SVBIED before it could reach #Marea on Sunday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwGKeUAWy20 …
The Israeli's are usually quite in touch within the ME--NOW they are openly stating the US has no intentions in toppling Assad--IS that not the same foreign policy as Putin???
So does this in fact verify all rumors in the Ukraine and the EU that really Obama has thrown the Ukraine under the bus just to get a win for the Obama legacy??????
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomac...medium=twitter
Putin's Military Build-up in Syria Could Be a Game-changer for Israel
Now that the U.S. isn't aiming to topple him, and Russia and Iran are increasing their support, Assad has better chances of stabilizing his defense.
Amos Harel
Sept 06, 2015 5:15 PM
Appears that in fact the current Obama strategy for countering IS is to kill more Syrians in the name of placating Putin and Assad.Quote:
Several media reports over the last week have indicated a significant increase in the military aid that Russia is offering Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria, including even the use of air crews and Russian fighter jets – all as part of efforts by Russia to sustain that regime. Although the latest efforts are drawing some feeble criticism from the United States, it seems more like lip service...
continued.......
NOTE--behind a pay wall--have access but did not want to post entire article due to the pay wall.
Eliot Higgins @EliotHiggins
New VDC report on Marea CW attacks includes new images of the munitions, and details of injuries http://www.vdc-sy.info/pdf/reports/1...75-English.pdf …
It describes blisters that appeared a few hours after victims arrived at hospital, which fits with mustard
BreakingFootage
#Assad terror regime barrel bomb attack on #Arihah in #Idlib province
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ED3OEnZPQO4 …
pic.twitter.com/oL0Mn1appq
The front in the #Ghab plain is more than 30 km away.
This strike had ZERO military value.
Just #terrorism. #warcrimes
Russia is building a military base in #Syria to speed up rearmament of Assad regime army, U.S. officials say.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...medium=twitter …
Carly Fiorina: US cannot take any refugees from Syria because they may be terrorists, the Europeans shld take them https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1PZE67VsgU … !
Syria #Analysis #Map
Syrian rebels pushed back #ISIS from #Marea to the silos in in N-E.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-hLfAW3UMM … pic.twitter.com/L2ezGmg9Zy
Greek government refused US request to prevent passage of Russian IL-76 transports to #Syria? http://military-informant.com/news/s...m-k-sirii.html … pic.twitter.com/knJbGvgp0Q
If Russia sent (hypothetical) 1,500 marines to Tartus, Syria - That still leaves 50,000-60,000 Russian troops near Ukraine's eastern border.
Since Russia's role in Syria is in the news, might interest >> Russian Intelligence and the War In Syria (OCT 2014)
http://goo.gl/7gDMCU
A really good article in order to understand Russian intelligence activities in Syria------------
Syrian military official: There’s been a ‘big shift’ in Russian military support for Assad http://uk.businessinsider.com/syrian...r-assad-2015-9 … via @BI_Europe
Russian weaponization of information concerning the spreading of IS into Europe---this simply appeared via Russian trolls yesterday along with a purported photo in Greece of a well known IS jihadi—later turned out to be a Syria rebel leader who was simply tired of war.
Now a number of other Russian trolls have picked up on the narrative—IF I was IS WHY would I be waring European police and intelligence by stating a given number.
BTW the original statement about jihadi’s and their numbers actually came from IS troll sources.
NOTICE how the IS and Russia share/use the same weaponized information?
Russian news report that more than 4000 ISIS militants have entered the EU pretending to be refugees from Syria http://izvestia.ru/news/591065
Humor---
Putin----
I have urged Assad to continue the barrel bombing until the refugees stop fleeing.
Russian MP's letter to Defense Minister Shoigu on reports of RUS troops presence in Syria https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...3480007&type=1 … pic.twitter.com/fTlySFS4Km
Christian militia in #Syria with the flag of the #Templars pic.twitter.com/VfD6A2lthd
http://uatoday.tv/news/reuters-russi...ti-488980.html …
Russian weaponization of information at work.
In the face of literally tens of Russian military social media entries, photos and videos Russian troops have been fighting in Syria since at least April 2015 or sooner ie Feb/Mar 2015 --Russia releases this press release.
Russia Says Its Arms Deliveries to Syria Aimed at Fighting Terrorism: RIA Novosti
By REUTERS
SEPT. 7, 2015, 5:18 A.M. E.D.T.
NOTICE Russia does not define the word terrorism in the press release--does it mean just IS, does it mean any anti Assad grouping, does it mean any and all other Islamists fighting in Syria against Assad, or does it mean Kurds?Quote:
MOSCOW — Russia has never concealed the fact that it has been supplying military equipment to Syria aimed at fighting terrorism, RIA Novosti news agency cited a foreign ministry spokeswoman as saying on Monday.
The agency, citing the ministry's spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, also reported that Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in a phone conversation it is "premature" to speak about Russia's participation in military operations in Syria.
Does this support with weapons and advisors extend to Hezbollah and Iranian mercenaries fighting along side Assad???
Does it mean also fighting against the Jordanian, Turkish and US trained anti Assad fighters inside Syria???
Does this also mean Russian fighter pilots and Russian drones will be flying over all of Syria as well???
Does it mean Russia acknowledges the massive refugee flows are directly contributed to by Russian weapons, bombs, fighters and Russian advisors in the GRU intel centers which have been directing Assad's military operations along with IRGC????
US asks Greece to close airspace to Russian military flights headed to #Syria amid buildup jitters
http://reut.rs/1EMJKdg
Greece initially denied the US request as the Russians had declared the military flight "aid" flights--the exact same drill used in the Ukraine when they send in "humanitarian aid convoys" which are nothing more than "masked" munitions, fuel and military supplies for her army and her supported mercenaries.
Russian non linear warfare deep at work now in Syria and using massive "weaponization of information to mask her operations and intentions.
In German------
Neuer Schock-Bericht der UN zu Syrien
Warum Assad kein Partner gegen ISIS ist
http://www.bild.de/politik/ausland/s...3042.bild.html …
UN-Bericht beschreibt Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit durch das syrische Regime ++ Russlands Putin schickt bereits Truppen zu dessen Unterstützung
This article is dedicated to the brave men of the Free Syrian Army, defending civilians in #Syria against #ISIS' and #Assad's terrorism.
ISIS dude on Twitter asks car company GMC Arabia why their SUVs back wheels can't handle 1.5 tonnes of car explosives pic.twitter.com/7lJbPfeSHL
Intriguingly, if Putin did not reconquer Crimea from Kyiv junta, Crimean draftees would have no chance to die in Syria for Assad
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...395_story.html
The horrific results of Obama’s failure in Syria
By Michael Gerson
September 3 2015
Quote:
One little boy in a red T-shirt, lying face down, drowned, on a Turkish beach, is a tragedy. More than 200,000 dead in Syria, 4 million fleeing refugees and 7.6 million displaced from their homes are statistics. But they represent a collective failure of massive proportions.
For four years, the Obama administration has engaged in what Frederic Hof, former special adviser for transition in Syria, calls a “pantomime of outrage.” Four years of strongly worded protests, and urgent meetings and calls for negotiation — the whole drama a sickening substitute for useful action. People talking and talking to drown out the voice of their own conscience. And blaming. In 2013, President Obama lectured the U.N. Security Council for having “demonstrated no inclination to act at all.” Psychological projection on a global stage.
Always there is Obama’s weary realism. “It’s not the job of the president of the United States to solve every problem in the Middle East.” We must be “modest in our belief that we can remedy every evil.”
But we are not dealing here with every problem or every evil; rather a discrete and unique set of circumstances: The largest humanitarian failure of the Obama era is also its largest strategic failure.
At some point, being “modest” becomes the same thing as being inured to atrocities. President Bashar al-Assad’s helicopters continue to drop “barrel bombs” filled with shrapnel and chlorine. In recent attacks on the town of Marea, Islamic State forces have used skin-blistering mustard gas and deployed, over a few days, perhaps 50 suicide bombers. We have seen starvation sieges, and kidnappings, and beheadings, and more than 10,000 dead children.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has changed her country’s asylum rules to welcome every Syrian refugee who arrives. Syrians have taken to calling her “Mama Merkel, Mother of the Outcasts.” I wonder what they call the U.S. president.
At many points during the past four years, even relatively small actions might have reduced the pace of civilian casualties in Syria. How hard would it have been to destroy the helicopters dropping barrel bombs on neighborhoods? A number of options well short of major intervention might have reduced the regime’s destructive power and/or strengthened the capabilities of more responsible forces. All were untaken.
This was not some humanitarian problem distant from the center of U.S. interests. It was a crisis at the heart of the Middle East that produced a vacuum of sovereignty that has attracted and empowered some of the worst people in the world. Inaction was a conscious, determined choice on the part of the Obama White House. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and CIA Director David Petraeus advocated arming favorable proxies. Sunni friends and allies in the region asked, then begged, for U.S. leadership. All were overruled or ignored.
In the process, Syria has become the graveyard of U.S. credibility. The chemical weapons “red line.” “The tide of war is receding.” “Don’t do stupid [stuff].” These are global punch lines. “The analogy we use around here sometimes,” said Obama of the Islamic State, “and I think is accurate, is if a JV team puts on Lakers uniforms, that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant.” Now the goal to “degrade and destroy” the Islamic State looks unachievable with the current strategy and resources. “The time has come for President Assad to step aside,” said Obama in 2011. Yet Assad will likely outlast Obama in power.
What explains Obama’s high tolerance for humiliation and mass atrocities in Syria? The Syrian regime is Iran’s proxy, propped up by billions of dollars each year. And Obama wanted nothing to interfere with the prospects for a nuclear deal with Iran. He was, as Hof has said, “reluctant to offend the Iranians at this critical juncture.” So the effective concession of Syria as an Iranian zone of influence is just one more cost of the president’s legacy nuclear agreement.
Never mind that Iran will now have tens of billions of unfrozen assets to strengthen Assad’s struggling military. And never mind that Assad’s atrocities are one of the main recruiting tools for the Islamic State and other Sunni radicals. All of which is likely to extend a war that no one can win, which has incubated regional and global threats — and thrown a small body in a red T-shirt against a distant shore.
Russian military experts in Syria are expanding air bases and runways http://read.bi/1KAaAYt pic.twitter.com/wdcff6qfL9
MFA Russia ✔ @mfa_russia
Russia never concealed deliveries of military equipment to official Syrian authorities in the fight against terrorism http://sputniknews.com/politics/2015...#ixzz3l3dl4DhD …
http://www.bne.eu/content/story/stol...lly-be-syrious
STOLYPIN: Can Putin really be Syrious?
Mark Galeotti of New York University
September 7, 2015
Quote:
While Russian forces remain bogged down in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, prop up unrecognized regimes in Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Trasnistria, and wander (and occasionally shell) the uplands of the North Caucasus, can the Kremlin really be committing itself to a substantive military deployment to Syria? Common sense would seem to say no, but the facts on the ground are beginning to suggest the answer is a – conditional – yes. Is there a rationale to such a move, or is this simply a piece of knee-jerk international posturing? And what might it portend?
Boots on the sand
Russia has long had a limited commitment in Syria – one of its last real allies, after all, alongside such equally threadbare assets as Nicaragua, Venezuela and some grudging Central Asian “’stans.” It has a very small naval installation at Tartus, not the “naval base” some allege but a limited logistical point amounting to a pier and some warehouses. More generally, though, it is clear that Russian advisers and technical personnel have been present, especially in providing intelligence support, through flying drones – probably from Latakia air base – and manning radio-electronic interception stations. Beyond that, as Assad continues to buy Russian kit, technicians have come to train Syrians to use it, and military advisers have helped plan operations.
So far, so (relatively) limited. However, there are not clear and compelling indicators that Russia is upping the stakes. At the very time that Moscow is showing growing real concern about the scope for Islamic State (IS) to penetrate and galvanize the insurgency in the North Caucasus, it is also talking up its own role fighting jihad in the Middle East. Putin recently, while noting that Russia is “already giving Syria quite serious help with equipment and training soldiers, with our weapons” dismissed as “premature” any talk of a deeper military presence. Rather, he talked up the creation of “some kind of an international coalition to fight terrorism and extremism”.
Meanwhile, a variety of news outlets and other sources have shown Russian Naval Infantry in squad and platoon strength in Damascus, Homs and Latakia, and recordings suggest Russians crewing brand-new BTR-82A combat vehicles, a scarce sight so far even in the Motherland’s forces. Other, less open sources have whispered of teams of elite commandos in Damascus, possibly army Spetsnaz, maybe the shadowy Zaslon unit of the Foreign Intelligence Service.
Latakia, with its port and air base, appears to be one of the foci of Russia’s increasingly muscular presence, but talk of “thousands” of troops being deployed appears premature. First of all, assuming Moscow wants to retain a surge capacity in the Donbas, its expeditionary forces – the paratroopers, Naval Infantry marines and Spetsnaz – are operating at close to capacity.
The Black Sea Fleet’s Ropucha-class landing ship Tsezar Kunikov appears to have set sail for Syria, with a complement of at least 300 marines from the 810th Independent Naval Infantry Brigade (based in Crimea). Recently the Alligator-class Nikolai Filchenkov likewise travelled to Latakia, albeit with a load of trucks, materiel and combat vehicles rather than personnel, and the Ropucha-class Azov with materiel. Although it would be possible to airlift in men and vehicles, this is expensive and would tie up a large proportion of Russia’s air fleet. Instead, then, we are talking about a shift from perhaps a few hundred technical personnel and advisers – including officers from GRU military intelligence and the FSB security service – to fewer than a thousand, but including well-trained, frontline combat troops.
A Quixotic Deployment?
Why go in now, arguably at the very time the Syrian regime’s prospects appear gloomiest? Perhaps that is the point, but when it comes down to it, what is Assad to Putin? There is no evidence of a particular personal tie, and while it would embarrass Moscow if an ally fell, it is hard to regard this as more than a 24-hour wonder. There are no strategic assets to be lost – Tartus is hardly worth mentioning – and nor is Damascus’s fate central to the Kremlin’s narrative of Russia’s national interests. Indeed, given that Syria is likely to be a roiling mess for years to come, would common sense not suggest extrication more than escalation?
The answer is, of course, yes.
If Moscow wants to look like a loyal patron, at least it could offer the Assads a nice McDacha mansion in the upscale Barvikha gated community and a chance to get out before the collapse. If Moscow wants to keep a friendly regime in place, it could even try to broker some suitable “everyone-against-IS” coalition to replace Assad. Of course, to do that it needs leverage – and here the logic, such as it is, of any escalation emerges.
The first and most basic point to remember is this: the Middle East doesn’t matter to Moscow. Nor, for that matter, does Africa or Latin America. China just about does. But essentially, all of the Kremlin’s policies are directed towards the West. Even policy towards China is really meant to fill in the gaps in credits and exports left and hopefully make the West jealous enough to reopen relations. It may sound arrogant and be uncomfortable come from a Westerner, but yes: it really is ‘All About Us’.
Putin is coming to the UN General Assembly in September, itself a big deal given that his last attendance was in 2005. With the prospects of an acceptable deal over the conflict in Donbas receding, with the Russian economy expected to continue to decline, he’s looking for his own “reset” and sees it in some civilizational anti-jihadist coalition.
For some time, Moscow has hoped that cooperation against IS and terrorism in general could be the leverage point to get the West to relax its tough line over Ukraine. The appointment in March of former FSB deputy director Oleg Syromolotov to a new deputy foreign minister for counter-terrorism cooperation position was an early indication, one which has borne little fruit.
So the Russians seem to be upping the ante, making Syria a battleground not so much for the preservation of an ally – though they will hardly mind if they also manage to save Assad – but instead the formation of an anti-jihadist coalition. That way Moscow does its best to wipe out IS militants in the Middle East, before they manage also to infiltrate the North Caucasus, and also makes its case to be the West’s ally against a common enemy.
It is unlikely to work. The West will gladly take what intelligence cooperation Russia offers – even while treating the fruits with a certain skepticism – and will hardly mourn any IS fighters killed by Russian bombs or Russian guns. Just as the US and Iran have an arm’s length understanding in Iraq against IS without becoming friends, so too a Russian role in Syria is not going to create any deep or lasting amity.
Nonetheless, that this is the Kremlin’s game plan says two things. First, that it is desperate to break out of its current impasse, for all its bullish claims. Second, that it does not understand the West, that it thinks everything is for sale, and that if only it can find the right offer, the sovereignty of Ukraine, the integrity of the global international order and justice for the dead of MH17 are all on the table.
Mark Galeotti is Professor of Global Affairs at the SPS Center for Global Affairs, New York University and Director of its Initiative for the Study of Emerging Threats. He writes the blog In Moscow’s Shadows (http://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/) and tweets as @MarkGaleotti.
All lip service in comments by Kerry and DoS---
RA-86496 Russian Air Force Ilyushin IL62M allegedly today. Looks Greece is not closing the airspace. Or Bulgaria. https://twitter.com/ProtestSPb/statu...92218304294912 …
https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/NewsRepo...kies-to-israel
Published: 7/09/2015 01:54 PM
Pro-Hezbollah daily: Russia will close Syria’s skies to Israel
Quote:
Al-Akhbar boasted that Tel Aviv will face "the predicament of a resistance region in southern Syria that has Russian cover.”
BEIRUT – A pro-Hezbollah daily has boasted that Russia’s widely expected military intervention in Syria will prevent Israel from conducting further airstrikes in the country.
A report in Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar said Monday that Russia’s “participation in fighting in Syria will have an escalatory effect,” especially on the strategic level, where it will be “considered a show of strength to Israel and Turkey.”
“Israel, having understood the message even before receiving it formally, has realized that Syrian skies will be closed to Israeli planes,” the newspaper claimed.
A flurry of reports have emerged in recent weeks that Russia has been dispatching large numbers of military advisors to Syria and is planning to set up an airbase in the Latakia province to conduct airstrikes on behalf of the Bashar al-Assad regime.
An unnamed US official told Reuters over the weekend that Washington has detected “worrisome preparatory steps” by the Russians that could signal the country “is readying deployment of heavy military assets” in Syria.
Al-Akhbar—which firmly supports Hezbollah—further said that Tel Aviv “will face the predicament of a resistance region in southern Syria that has Russian cover.”
Israel has conducted a number of airstrikes in the Golan in recent months, most recently on August 21 following a rocket attack on Israel. Hezbollah, meanwhile, has repeatedly vowed that it has been developing a “resistance front” in the border region to confront Israel.
Israel’s Haaretz newspaper also tackled the effect of Moscow’s expected intervention on Tel Aviv’s policymaking regarding Syria, where the Jewish State has conducted a number of reported strikes against shipments of advances weapons headed for Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“The entry of Russia into the Syrian arena changes the rules of this game,” Haaretz’s defense and military analyst Amos Harel wrote in an article published Sunday.
The leading Israeli military journalist added that “if Russia is dispatching its jet fighters and establishing a new military base in Syria, Israel will have to deal with new and different kinds of constraints, especially if the aircraft are equipped with Russian air-to-air missiles.”
“Increased Russian military presence in the region may demand that Israel’s military intelligence undertake more forceful efforts to deal with this development.”
Last week, Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported that Russia would begin dispatching thousands of military personnel to Syria, adding that that Moscow’s aerial operations on behalf of the Bashar al-Assad regime would “represent a challenge to the Israeli Air Force's freedom of operation in the skies above the Middle East.”
Israel’s government has yet to make any official comment regarding the growing reports of Russia’s impending military intervention in Syria.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...a3a_story.html
Obama’s Syria achievement
By Fred Hiatt Editorial page editor
September 6 at 7:06 PM
Quote:
This may be the most surprising of President Obama’s foreign-policy legacies: not just that he presided over a humanitarian and cultural disaster of epochal proportions, but that he soothed the American people into feeling no responsibility for the tragedy.
Starvation in Biafra a generation ago sparked a movement. Synagogues and churches a decade ago mobilized to relieve misery in Darfur. When the Taliban in 2001 destroyed ancient statues of Buddha at Bamiyan, the world was appalled at the lost heritage.
Today the Islamic State is blowing up precious cultural monuments in Palmyra, and half of all Syrians have been displaced — as if, on a proportional basis, 160 million Americans had been made homeless. More than a quarter-million have been killed. Yet the “Save Darfur” signs have not given way to “Save Syria.”
One reason is that Obama — who ran for president on the promise of restoring the United States’ moral stature — has constantly reassured Americans that doing nothing is the smart and moral policy. He has argued, at times, that there was nothing the United States could do, belittling the Syrian opposition as “former doctors, farmers, pharmacists and so forth.”
He has argued that we would only make things worse — “I am more mindful probably than most,” he told the New Republic in 2013, “of not only our incredible strengths and capabilities, but also our limitations.”
He has implied that because we can’t solve every problem, maybe we shouldn’t solve any. “How do I weigh tens of thousands who’ve been killed in Syria versus the tens of thousands who are currently being killed in the Congo?” he asked (though at the time thousands were not being killed in Congo).
On those rare occasions when political pressure or the horrors of Syrian suffering threatened to overwhelm any excuse for inaction, he promised action, in statements or White House leaks: training for the opposition, a safe zone on the Turkish border. Once public attention moved on, the plans were abandoned or scaled back to meaningless proportions (training 50 soldiers per year, no action on the Turkish border).
Perversely, the worse Syria became, the more justified the president seemed for staying aloof; steps that might have helped in 2012 seemed ineffectual by 2013, and actions that could have saved lives in 2013 would not have been up to the challenge presented by 2014. The fact that the woman who wrote the book on genocide, Samantha Power, and the woman who campaigned to bomb Sudan to save the people of Darfur, Susan Rice, could apparently in good conscience stay on as U.N. ambassador and national security adviser, respectively, lent further moral credibility to U.S. abdication.
Most critically, inaction was sold not as a necessary evil but as a notable achievement: The United States at last was leading with the head, not the heart, and with modesty, not arrogance. “Realists” pointed out that the United States gets into trouble when it lets ideals or emotions rule — when it sends soldiers to feed the hungry in Somalia, for example, only to lose them, as told in “ Black Hawk Down,” and turn tail.
The realists were right that the United States has to consider interests as well as values, must pace itself and can’t save everyone. But a values-free argument ought at least to be able to show that the ends have justified the means, whereas the strategic results of Obama’s disengagement have been nearly as disastrous as the human consequences.
When Obama pulled all U.S. troops out of Iraq, critics worried there would be instability; none envisioned the emergence of a full-blown terrorist state. When he announced in August 2011 that “the time has come for President Assad to step aside,” critics worried the words might prove empty — but few imagined the extent of the catastrophe: not just the savagery of chemical weapons and “barrel bombs,” but also the Islamic State’s recruitment of thousands of foreign fighters, its spread from Libya to Afghanistan, the danger to the U.S. homeland that has alarmed U.S. intelligence officials, the refugees destabilizing Europe.
Even had Obama’s policy succeeded in purely realist terms, though, something would have been lost in the anesthetization of U.S. opinion. Yes, the nation’s outrage over the decades has been uneven, at times hypocritical, at times self-serving.
But there also has been something to be admired in America’s determination to help — to ask, even if we cannot save everyone in Congo, can we not save some people in Syria? Obama’s successful turning of that question on its head is nothing to be proud of.
If an American journalist can see this developing just why cannot Kerry, the entire 700 person NSC, and Obama see this coming at them???
The Russian Deployment To Syria Is About To Make Things Much Worse
15:06 (GMT)
Quote:
The Interpreter's editor-in-chief Michael Weiss has been following the Russian military deployment to Syria, and has written two articles assessing the evidence for The Daily Beast. On September 1, the size of Russia's growing military presence in Syria was small but alarming:
On August 22, the Bosphorus Naval News website showed the Alligator-class Russian ship Nikolai Filchenkov, part of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, two days earlier passing through Istanbul’s famed waterway en route to an unknown location in the Mediterranean (hint, hint).
But what was remarkable about the Filchenkov was that military equipment was visible on deck—namely, Kamaz trucks and, judging by the tarpaulin outlines, at least four BTR infantry fighting vehicles. (This doesn’t include any matériel that might have been stored in the ship’s below-deck cargo hold.)
On August 24, the Oryx Blog, which tracks military dynamics in the Middle East and North Africa, discovered that at least one BTR-82A had turned up in the coastal province of Latakia, where Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s family hails from and which has lately been contested, impressively, by Jaysh al-Fatah, or the Army of Conquest, a collection of Islamist rebels groups including Jabhat al Nusra, the official al Qaeda franchise in Syria.
So important to Assad is fortifying Latakia against rebel assault that his regime has mounted a significant counteroffensive made up of the Syrian Arab Army, the praetorian Republican Guard, and the National Defense Force, a consortium of sectarian militias constructed, trained, and financed by Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards Corps-Quds Force.
By September 5, however, evidence suggested that Russian troops were positioned at their naval base in Tartus and in their new deployment in Latakia, but also in Damascus. Russian airforce was also reportedly patrolling the skies of Syria's northern Idlib province:
The opposition-linked website All4Syria seems to corroborate such eyewitness accounts. Many residents of Damascus, it claimed, have “observed in the first three days of September a noticeable deployment of Iranian and Russian elements in the neighborhoods of Baramkeh, al-Bahsa, and Tanzim Kfarsouseh.” The Venezia Hotel in al-Bahsa “has been turned into a military barracks for the Iranians.”
Such news comes amid a flurry of reports that Russia has made plans for a direct military intervention in Syria’s four-year civil war and may actually have started one already. The New York Times reported Saturday that Russia has sent prefabricated housing units, capable of sheltering as many as 1,000 military personnel, and a portable air traffic control station to another Syrian airbase in Latakia. That coastal province, the Assad family’s ancestral home, has already seen Russian troops caught on video operating BTR-82 infantry fighting vehicles against anti-Assad rebels, atop rumors that Moscow may be deploying an “expeditionary force,” including Russian pilots who would fly combat missions.
They may already be doing so. A social media account affiliated with the al-Qaeda franchise Jabhat al-Nusra posted images of what appeared to be Russian Air Force jets and drones flying in the skies of Syria’s northwest Idlib province. They were, specifically, the Mig-29 Fulcrum, the Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker, the Su-34 Fullback, and the Pchela-1T drone. These images were analyzed as credible by the specialist website The Aviationist, which also noted that “during the past days, Flightradar24.com has exposed several flights of a Russian Air Force… Il-76 airlifter (caught by means of its Mode-S transponder) flying to and from Damascus using radio call sign ‘Manny 6,’ most probably supporting the deployment of a Russian expeditionary force.”
As Weiss noted, the terrorist group ISIS is not in Idlib province -- preliminary evidence suggests, then, that the Russian intention is not to kill terrorists but to combat all forces opposed to Syrian President Bashar al Assad, including moderate units which are nominally supported by the West: