For those that really do believe IS and AQ are on the same sheet of music in Syria........
Dogs of Hell-Fire, IS khawarij execute a JN leader in Yarmouk camps
NOW watch Jan beat up on IS and again who stated they are allies.....???
BREAKING: US officials say agreement reached with Russia on extending Syria truce to Aleppo, although clashes persist.Originally Posted by OUTLAW 09
BUT WAIT...how can this be when since the Feb 2016 agreements the CoH applied to all parts of Syria thus a ceasefire was actually supposedly in effect also for Aleppo...BUT then when Russia stated certain areas had an "extra regime of silence" from 24-72 hours suddenly Aleppo was "forgotten" then now we have Russia stating the 24 hour silence regime for Aleppo is off...BUT then today we have also a US statement stating it is on for the very first time.
Exactly what altered states of reality are the US and Russia in right now....??
Assad & #Putin game in #Aleppo : Launch sudden crushing attacks on rebels then propose cease fire when rebels begin counter attack
Already hearing calls from the recently revived Jaish al-Fath to ignore any ceasefire deals and continue fighting
Putin/#Assad killed around 300 civilians in #Aleppo in 2 weeks and #UN and western nations crying: "We need another non existing ceasefire"
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 05-04-2016 at 06:27 PM.
For those that really do believe IS and AQ are on the same sheet of music in Syria........
Dogs of Hell-Fire, IS khawarij execute a JN leader in Yarmouk camps
NOW watch Jan beat up on IS and again who stated they are allies.....???
This is exactly the same fear former DoS Clinton had when she learned about Kerry going behind her back and talking back channels with Iran when he was a Senator......
I'm afraid if Kerry and Lavrov stay in the room too long Kerry will give Alaska back to Russia,"
UN says that #Assad's bombing of Aleppo is some of the worst of the entire #Syria-n war. Watch live:
http://webtv.un.org/live-now/watch/s.../4823172045001 …
Syria From battle in al-Zahra Association in western #Aleppo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2Iu6G6DzdU …
Anybody see any actual evidence yet that Russia withdrew 30 aircraft & all their Su-25s?
http://bbc.in/1SZ13vg
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 05-04-2016 at 06:24 PM.
PERFECT EXAMPLE of the Kerry failures in fully understanding the Russian negotiation tactics.....he urgently and badly "wants" to be seen as this great negotiator ego wise but in reality he is played time and time and time....
THIS are was suppose to be under the first ceasefire called a CoH, then excluded then included as the area of "regime of silence for 48 hours...BUT THEN this occurs which Kerry should now finally see is a failure of the Russians to hold to anything they state....
Just as they have utterly failed in implementing a single point of the 11 points of Minsk 2 and we are going into a full year on that agreement...
So when will Kerry finally admit he really is a poor negotiator????
Assad army air and artillery attacks on Khan Tuman and al-Eis villages south #Aleppo spite the 48 hrs ceasefire started this morning.
The drone filming the #Aleppo tunnel bomb also had a close shave with a passing #IRAM
Night clashes with #ISIL outside Mare village north Aleppo -
Regime tried attacking near Handrat, Aleppo but were repelled losing 15 fighters
Many regime army soldiers killed by rebels in a failed attack on Dair al-Asafir #EastGhouta #Damascus
Under the rubric of "to much vodka".....
MFA Russia
✔ @mfa_russia #Lavrov: The actions of Turkey as the main instigator of “security zones” talks betray its expansionist motives not only as regards Syria
BUT WAIT...and the Russian military annexation of Crimea and their invasion of eastern Ukraine is under exactly what rubric????..."expansionist motives"....??
CrowBat...something for you ...confirms your previous comments on the fact that the USAF is actually doing little to nothing in Turkey...definitively not attacking identified IS positions.....
Turkish Army: U.S refused to attack #ISIL positions targeting Turkey inside Syria
BUT WAIT did not the Us state there will be a HIMARS positioned along the Turkish border in May?????
Both a serious and at the same time interesting question..why are both the US and Putin so not wanting to attack IS in Syria???
It is like you must drag them into a fight with IS.....??
IslamicState killed #SAA Brigade General Qusai Ibrahim at Shaer gas/oil fields NW of #Palmyra
Aleppo Kurdish #YPG forces shelling #Azaz with Anti-Aircraft guns last night
30 Alawite militiamen from Alzahra neighborhood in Homs have been killed in Shaer gas field clashes
The Still acts of theft and looting. Sustained by the elements #Assad and his militia in #Palmyra #Syria
FSA launched new assault on #IS-offshoots in south western #Daraa province https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83wxAIl6tdM …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=32...14907&z=14&m=b …
BREAKING: Syrian military confirms 48-hour cease-fire in northern city of Aleppo after U.S.-Russian agreement - AP
BUT WAIT Aleppo was suppose to be as well as the rest of Syria covered under the previous US/Russian cessation of hostilities agreement in Geneva 2??????
So why did not Assad and Putin hold to it?????
CrowBat........any ideas as to this comment....??
Turkey unable/unwilling to stop daily rocket attacks by #IslamicState across #Syria'n boder on #Kilis town
BUT WAIT has not Kerry and the Russian FM announced the 24 hour so called ceasefire for Aleppo......
Seems to not be occurring BUT who would have thought otherwise....certainly not Kerry.....who is in it for the travel at taxpayers expense and the 5 star hotels and that is about it....
Assad regime helicopters have dropped several barrel bombs on outskirts of Tawman & southern al-Rashideen in Aleppo.
From what I see,rebels in #Aleppo have enough of the UN, Geneva 1,2,3, "cessation of hostilities" & "silence regimes"...
Fighting continues.
Assad never stopped his attacks.
They have been the stupids so many times by not launching preemptive offensives & so on.
Not this time.
HOW is it that a bunch of rebels fighting for the rule of law, transparency, and good governance dodging IS/YPG/Iranian ground attacks and Assad and Russian air strikes fully understands Assad and Putin's every move BUT the so call US Sec of State who is living in 5 star hotels and traveling at the US taxpayers expense SEEMS to be hard pressed to understand anything Putin says and or does BUT WAIT just maybe he and Obama actually do support the Russian foreign policy as something to emulate.....
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 05-05-2016 at 01:34 PM.
BUT WAIT....did not Russian verify to both the US and the UNSC that Assad regime was CW free....then just how does Putin explain this.....?????
Report that Assad regime used CWs against ISIS, likely Sarin. Would be first time Sarin was used since '13 massacre
http://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/1.717294 …
APPARENTLY Putin lied to both the US and the UNSC...but what the heck it is just IS....so that is OK....so the Russian lie does not count does it...???
Footage
#Assad choppers over #Houla today
No attacks so far.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvFnwboKU2Q …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDLA8VYj5aY …
Rebels lost Khirbat Tel Sha‘īr, Khalfatli, Baghidin, the gas plant, Qarah Mazr'ah, Qarah Kubri, Dalhah and Al-Mazra'ah as-Suda since yday.
Situation for rebels along the Syr-Tur border is catastrophic.
Map shows #ISIS gains during last 24 hours.
NOT a single effort by both Turkey and the US to assist FSA in pushing back against a strong IS counter offensive.....high number of IS targets are available BUT it appears that Turkey and especially the US is not interested in damaging IS....
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 05-05-2016 at 01:43 PM.
FSA D-30 artillery fire vs. #ISIS in S-W #Syria.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hf3AHk9ViS8 …
Rebel mortars and #Assad air strikes west of #Aleppo (picture).
Unclear if today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NL2wRLark-c …
#News
2 civ got killed by #Assad artillery while traveling in their car west of #Aleppo.
Happened 8 hrs after "regime of silence" started.
The inhabitants of #Kilis protest the #ISIS rocket attacks last night.
http://tv.sozcu.com.tr/2016/haber/vi...paign=tv_haber …
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 05-05-2016 at 01:55 PM.
Kyle W. Orton @KyleWOrton
Re #pt: not exactly clear which Asala (Authenticity and Development Front) unit is operating in western Aleppo. Suggestions welcome.
Kyle W. Orton @KyleWOrton
#Syria: Looks fairly clear now that the Jabhat al-Nusra-led offensive (under the Jaysh al-Fatah banner) is underway in southern #Aleppo.
Rebels piling on the Jaysh al-Fatah offensive: Asala attacking #Assad's forces in Zahra, Western Aleppo city.
Ajnad al-Sham (the Salafi Jaysh al-Fatah-north one, not the Sufi one in East Ghouta) confirms ops begun in S #Aleppo
Note: al-Qaeda built this power-base in southern Aleppo during #Russia's intervention, which bombed hospitals in the north instead.
Insurgents started on Khan Tuman, seems moderates pushing out from city as Nusra-led forces approach from the south.
Syria: Looks fairly clear now that the Jabhat al-Nusra-led offensive (under the Jaysh al-Fatah banner) is underway in southern #Aleppo.
Al-Qaeda appears to be beginning its offensive in southern #Aleppo. Jund al-Aqsa and #TIP (both dependent on AQ) have been seen moving in.
Jund al-Aqsa pops up again today -- in southern Aleppo
How is it possible that Is fully understands exactly where to attack Assad and Putin in order to completely resupply themselves.....there is literally no need for IS for any outside resupply efforts.....they attack and simply rearm themselves via Assad when they need to......
JUST how is that possible....WITHOUT prior planning between the two????
al-Sha'er,IS claims to capture:
20 T55/T62s
9 122/130 howitzers
1 57mm AA
Konkurs/Kornet missiles and launchers
Lots of ammo/weapons
Truly worth reading...by someone who knows AQ and the ME.......
Kyle W. Orton @KyleWOrton
Al-Qaeda prepares to "come out" in #Syria; only the rebellion can stop them.
http://atfp.co/1Tu71lh
via Charles_Lister
Actually a quite accurate assessment......BUT WAIT we know that the Obama WH really does not care as they are heading out the door in Jan 2017.....
A defector offers more details on al-Qaeda's extensive relationship with #Iran |
http://bit.ly/1SPBzy4 v @DavidADaoud + @thomasjoscelyn
We have seen FIVE such Russian shelling and artillery strike false flag attacks in eastern Ukraine SO why not in Syria……AND yet western MSM fell for it again…….
http://eaworldview.com/2016/05/syria...-worlds-media/
Syria Special: How Regime May Have Staged “Rebel Attack” on Aleppo Hospital…and Fooled World’s Media
On Tuesday morning, Syria’s State media added an important story to its claims of rebel attacks on civilians in regime-held areas of Aleppo city.
For the first time, the outlets proclaimed that a medical facility had been hit, declaring that “terrorist rockets” had struck the al-Dhabeet Maternity Hospital in west Aleppo. Three women had been killed and 17 women and children wounded, said State news agency SANA. Photographs showed damage to the front of the hospital, with windows blown out, and destroyed cars in the street.
But the narrative immediately ran into trouble. Analysts quickly noted that the pictures did not point to a rocket attack but to a vehicle bomb, given that one of the cars had been blown into pieces and that the hospital showed the widespread effects of a bombing rather than the more direct impact of a rocket. Witnesses, including the hospital director, spoke of a “blast” rather than a strike from the air.
So State media shifted the story. By afternoon, it was a shell that had hit a military vehicle, causing an explosion that fit better with the photographs.
Even later, some accounts began speaking of a “missile” that had been fired on the hospital, the first time that the rebels would have carried out that type of attack on a civilian target in Aleppo.
None of this, however, dealt with the problems that the witnesses had not heard the whistle associated with a rocket or missile. Nor did it explain why the car which had been blown apart appeared to be that of a civilian, and not the armed forces.
Perhaps unwittingly, the Assad regime’s outlet had raised the propaganda stakes. Initially, their hope was to take attention away from the surge in Russian and regime airstrikes and missiles that had not only killed more than 250 civilians in and near Aleppo since April, but had destroyed a major hospital, a clinic, a medical warehouse, and a civil defense center.
Those attacks had prompted a UN Security Council session on Tuesday which unanimously called for an end to the attacks and protection of all medical personnel. The regime’s hope may have been to divert attention from itself and onto the “terrorist” rebels, often framed — inaccurately — as the jihadists of Jabhat al-Nusra.
The exposure of a car bomb would not only undermine that effort but raise a bigger PR problem for regime officials. Given the high level of security in the area of the hospital — and given that rebels have never penetrated that security, even if they had sought to do so — the most plausible explanation is that the car was planted in the area. Put bluntly, the Assad regime had staged a “false flag” operation, killing some of the civilians that it claims to protect.
How to escape that possibility? Well, there is always the glimmer that the world’s media will run your original story, even with all its flaws.
And so far the Assad regime has that security, with international outlets — from The New York Times to Reuters — sheltering it with lead paragraphs about rebel “rockets” and “missiles”.
THE LOCATION
The al-Dhabeet Hospital is well to the south of the area where all the claimed “terrorist rockets” had previously landed in west Aleppo. It is not close to any of the sites that have been named by Syrian State media. It is distant from the current fighting between rebels and regime forces in the northwest of the city.
AL-DHABEET MAP
(Map: Julian Roecpke)
The distance — put at 1.6 km from the closest rebel line — is significant because it places the hospital out of reach of the rebels’ firing positions for “hell cannons” and mortars, blamed for most of the attacks on west Aleppo. The longer-range Grad rocket can travel up to 20 km, but its lack of precision would mean — if it was used — that the hospital was not deliberately targeted.
Moreover, the location of the hospital hinders the possibility of a howitzer, artillery, or tank shell. With all the tall buildings surrounding al-Dhabeet, it would be close to a miracle trajectory for a shell to have caused the supposed impact on the street in front of the hospital.
That leaves the idea of a pinpoint missile strike — the belated explanation by some pro-Assad outlets — but no one has established the likely path of such an attack, especially given that rebel forces have not previously attempted such a launch in the Aleppo battle.
THE DAMAGE
The photographs of the attack clearly showed the destruction of cars in front of the hospital.
AL-DHABEET HOSPITAL ALEPPO 03-05-16
A closer look identifies one vehicle which appears to have been blown apart from the inside, not from an external strike:
AL-DHABEET CAR
Assad’s ally Russia unwittingly added questions with raw video of the destruction from State broadcaster RT:
And another Russian outlet, ANNA News, features an outpatient who speaks (2:48 mark) of a “big bomb”, matching the account of the hospital’s director and other witnesses:
Both photographs and video also show the damage across the hospital, including shattered windows and pockmarked faced, pointing to the widespread impact associated with a car bomb.
So far there has been no evidence of any canister associated with a rocket.
THE CHANGING EXPLANATION
Witnesses at the site claimed that Syrian intelligence officers quickly moved into the area after the blast, not only securing the area but setting up the “rockets” explanation. State media immediately put out the story of 3 dead and injured, and some accomplices — such as Murad Gazdiev of Russia’s RT — went farther with inflated casualty figures:
State news agency SANA did not go as far as to put out the “two dozen” number, and it soon faced pressure over the photographs challenging the rocket narrative. So the line changed to the “missile on a military vehicle”.
However, when even that proved difficult, SANA reverted to the vague “terrorist organizations’ attacks”, although the Foreign Ministry wrote letters to the UN which continued to declared that “terrorists fired large rocket shells”, and SANA’s brief update on Wednesday referred to “rocket shells”.
THE INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Given all the questions around the attack and the inconsistencies in State media, one might have expected some caution in international coverage of the incident.
But, fortunately for the Assad regime, there has been no scrutiny. Reuters is blunt: “Rebel fighters…fired rockets on a hospital.” Al Jazeera follows with “a rebel rocket attack”.
Anne Barnard of The New York Times, one of the best correspondents on Syria, is more cautious; however, she fails to pick up on the significance of the images challenging the official narrative: “Insurgent shelling hit a maternity hospital in the government-held section of the Syrian city of Aleppo on Tuesday, according to state media and footage from the scene.”
And The Washington Post, rather than pausing for a careful settlement, runs a banner headline: “Rebel Shelling Hits Aleppo Hospital Amid Cease-Fire Efforts”. It asserts in the lead paragraph:
A Syrian rebel assault on government-held parts of Aleppo killed as many as 19 people, activists and Syrian state media said Tuesday, in attacks that included a deadly rocket strike on a hospital.
Part of the challenge is that journalists are unable to get into regime district of Aleppo to verify stories. Declan Walsh of The New York Times finally was able last week to enter the area to carry out some interviews, but he departed for Damascus before Tuesday’s events.
But part of the media’s difficulty is self-imposed, with reliance on limited and far-from-reliable channels. Reuters, for example, draws almost all their information — not just on Aleppo but on developments across Syria — from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the organization founded by a Syrian shopkeeper in Britain which often recycles chatter as confirmed facts. In turn, Al Jazeera relies on Reuters for much of their output, and The Huffington Post reprints the Reuters article under the headline, “Aleppo Hospital Hit By Rebel Rockets“. Other outlets, as in Tuesday’s case, are dependent on transmitting whatever claim is circulated by Syrian State media.
ASKING QUESTIONS
But perhaps the biggest challenge is just asking questions, rather than printing without critique. Given the demand to publish quickly, combined with the difficulty of a complex situation, the easiest option is to put out the narrative as confirmed.
And, of course, that is what the Assad regime will have known going into Tuesday. It does not want questions asked. It wants questions deflected — notably over the Russian-regime attacks in and near Aleppo on civilian targets, including on medical facilities. It wants to change the narrative, as it tries to hold out against meaningful political transition, especially one that puts President Assad at risk of a future trial.
The media is still citing last week’s Russian-regime assaults that killed doctors, rescuers, patients, and other civilians, but today it is almost always coupling this with the supposed tragic “balance” of the al-Dhabeet incident.
Soon — at least until the next Russian-regime attack that leaves scores dead at a medical facility which is supposed about the saving of lives — all the incidents will disappear.
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articl...-is-a-misnomer
Moderation Is a Misnomer in Iran
Why is American media labeling hardliners in Iran as moderates?
By Emaneule Ottolenghi | Contributor
May 3, 2016, at 3:10 p.m.
Proponents of a nuclear deal with Iran have expressed hope that it would put Tehran on a more moderate course. President Obama, on the eve of the deal, suggested that it could "strengthen the hand of those more moderate forces inside of Iran." Yet no matter how moderate these forces may be compared to their more radical opponents, their policies are not significantly different from those of the so-called hard-liners. A representative example is Seyed Hassan Khomeini, the 44-year-old grandson of the founder of the Iranian revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
The young Khomeini briefly stirred excitement in the West last December when he ran for a seat in the Assembly of Experts, a clerical council tasked with selecting Iran's next supreme leader. (He was later disqualified.) A Financial Times journalist noted that "by Iranian standards, Mr. Khomeini is a moderate senior cleric." The New York Times' Iran-based reporter dubbed the younger Khomeini "a moderate Iranian cleric." Once disqualified for running, the Associated Press concluded, "The barring of moderates and reformists is seen as a hardline tactic to limit Rouhani's moderate allies after the nuclear deal."
But moderate by Iranian standards bears little resemblance to moderation as understood in the West.
Months before Khomeini announced his candidacy, Tehran dispatched him to Latin America as part of its ongoing efforts to export its Islamic revolution in the Western Hemisphere. In a highly publicized trip to Brazil, Khomeini visited Shia mosques, schools and cultural centers in the cities of Sao Paulo and Curitiba, and in Foz do Iguacu, the town at the confluence of the Argentine, Brazilian and Paraguayan frontiers. That tri-border area has for more than a decade been the Latin American center of money laundering and terror finance for Iran's Lebanon-based proxy Hezbollah.
Khomeini toured Brazil accompanied by Iran's ambassador, underscoring the official, Tehran-approved character of his visit. His host in Sao Paulo was Sheikh Taleb Hussein al-Khazraji, whom the slain Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman named in his 2013 report on Iran's Latin American networks as "an employee of the Iranian government" who recruited "highly politicized believers to get them close to Tehran."
Khomeini's visit also included stops in Curitiba and Foz do Iguacu, both hubs of Shia radicalism and Hezbollah terror finance where local Shia families keep close ties to their ancestral homes in South Lebanon. Brazilian police arrested a suspected Hezbollah financier in Curitiba in May 2013 – an indication that illicit finance activities on the group's behalf are still ongoing. In June 2014, Curitiba Muslims attended a memorial service for a young Hezbollah fighter killed in Syria, which was led by family members clad in a Hezbollah scarf. Foz, the city on the Brazilian side of the tri-border, is home to many Shias of Lebanese origin who work in Paraguay's Ciudad Del Este, including some whom the U.S. Treasury has sanctioned since 2006 for illicit finance on Hezbollah's behalf.
While in Foz, Khomeini described Israel as "a cancerous growth" in the region – an echo of his grandfather's own rhetoric – and called for its immediate destruction. In Sao Paulo, he met with Seyed Mohsen Bilal Wehbe, a local Hezbollah cleric and financier according to Treasury's 2010 designation.
These are not the associations a genuine moderate seeks. Here, then, is the crux of Western confusion over labeling the young Khomeini and his fellow travelers "moderates." As the chief American nuclear negotiator Wendy Sherman recently noted, "There are hardliners in Iran, and then there are hard-hardliners in Iran." After all, with "moderates" like Khomeini and his ilk, who needs hardliners?
Allegedly the commander of Liwa Tawhid al-Janoub (Southern Unity Brigade) of the #FSA's Southern Front has been killed in Deraa,
Russia 2 TOS-1A, 3 TZM-T resupply vehicle and Mil Mi-28 #Latakia airbase #Syria
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