Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said Sunday that the United States is "not winning" the battle against the Islamic State and called on Congress to update the use-of-force authorization passed after Sept. 11, 2001, to give President Obama more options to fight the militant group. But she stopped short of calling for a declaration of war.
Hassan Ridha @sayed_ridha now2 minutes ago
Coalition warplane carried out air raid on #SAA storage base south of Ayash #DeirEzzor, 4 martyrs & 13 wounded
Hassan Ridha @sayed_ridha now59 seconds ago
#PT #IS then launched an attack on #SAA in Ayash following the Coalition air raid #DeirEzzor #Syria
Hassan Ridha @sayed_ridha now1 minute ago
#PT #RuAF jets are now in the skies of #DeirEzzor & are carrying out airstrikes on #DeirEzzor countryside
Terrormonitor.org @Terror_Monitor now28 minutes ago
#SYRIA
Coalition Warplanes Accidentally Hit Army Positions In Ayash Of #DeirEzzor - Report.
By Boris Johnson10:00PM GMT 06 Dec 2015
In the last couple of days, young people have been coming up to me in the street and asking in an accusing way: “Oi, Boris, why did you vote for war?” And I try as ever to explain that I was not voting for war. There currently is a war that is taking place in Syria.
That bestial conflict has already claimed a quarter of a million lives. I was voting to stop the war. I was voting for peace. “Yeah,” they say, “but what about the bombing? What about all the innocent people who will die? It will be their blood on your hands.”
To which I respond that innocent lives are being lost now: tens of thousands of people butchered just because they are women, or disabled, or gay, or because they belong to the wrong strand of Islam. I don’t want to have them on my conscience, and I don’t want these sickos from Daesh/Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) to continue to exult in their so‑called caliphate, and to be allowed indefinitely to promote their terrorist campaigns.
When the House of Commons finally gave the go-ahead for air strikes last week, no one cheered; no one even hear-heared. No one is approaching this with the slightest sense of jingo or enthusiasm. We want to get on with whatever is the best and fastest way to bring peace to Syria. And since we all know that cannot be achieved by bombing alone, we need to think much more creatively about the coalition we could build.
That brings us to Vladimir Putin. I was in Paris at the end of last week, and the Russian leader’s face glowered sulkily from every billboard. “Poutin”, said the headline, “Notre nouvel ami”. Many French people think the time has come to do a deal with their new friends the Russians – and I think that they are broadly right.
"Despite looking a bit like Dobby the House Elf, Putin is a ruthless and manipulative tyrant"
Look, I am no particular fan of Vlad. Quite the opposite. Russian-backed forces are illegally occupying parts of Ukraine. Putin’s proxy army was almost certainly guilty of killing the passengers on the Malaysia Airlines jet that came down in eastern Ukraine. He has questions to answer about the death of Alexander Litvinenko, pitilessly poisoned in a London restaurant. As for his reign in Moscow, he is allegedly the linchpin of a vast post-Soviet gangster kleptocracy, and is personally said to be the richest man on the planet. Journalists who oppose him get shot. His rivals find themselves locked up. Despite looking a bit like Dobby the House Elf, he is a ruthless and manipulative tyrant.
Does that mean it is morally impossible to work with him? I am not so sure. We need to focus on what we are trying to achieve. Our aims – at least, our stated aims – are to degrade and ultimately to destroy Isil as a force in Syria and Iraq. That is what it is all about.
Our mission is to remove an evil death cult, to deprive their organisation of the charisma and renown that goes with controlling a territory of some 10 million people. We need to end their hideous administration of Raqqa, with its torchings and beheadings. We need them out of Palmyra, because if Syria is to have a future then we must protect its past.
We cannot do that without terrestrial forces. We need someone to provide the boots on the ground; and given that we are not going to be providing British ground forces – and the French and the Americans are just as reluctant – we cannot afford to be picky about our allies.
We have the estimated 70,000 of the Free Syrian Army (and many other groups and grouplets); but those numbers may be exaggerated, and they may include some jihadists who are not ideologically very different from al-Qaeda.
Who else is there? The answer is obvious. There is Assad, and his army; and the recent signs are that they are making some progress. Thanks at least partly to Russian air strikes, it looks as if the regime is taking back large parts of Homs. Al-Qaeda-affiliated militants are withdrawing from some districts of the city. Is that a bad thing? I don’t think so.
With Russian air support, the Assad regime is only a few miles from Palmyra – the fabled pink-stoned city of monuments, where Isil decapitated the 82-year-old curator, Khaled Al‑Assad, before beginning an orgy of cultural destruction.
Am I backing the Assad regime, and the Russians, in their joint enterprise to recapture that amazing site? You bet I am. That does not mean I trust Putin, and it does not mean that I want to keep Assad in power indefinitely. But we cannot suck and blow at once.
At the moment, we are in danger of treating our engagement as if it were some complicated three-sided chess game, in which we are trying to neutralise the Islamists while simultaneously preventing Putin from getting too big for his boots. If we try to be too clever, we will end up achieving nothing.
“If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons”
Winston Churchill
This is the time to set aside our Cold War mindset. It is just not true that whatever is good for Putin must automatically be bad for the West. We both have a clear and concrete objective – to remove the threat from Isil. Everything else is secondary.
Think of all those planes above Syria – some for the Assad regime, some against the regime, some against Isil, some against the non-Isil rebels. It is absurd. The best hope of getting rid of Isil is an agreement between all the powers – America, Russia, France, Britain, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the rest – to take them out, together with a timetable for Assad to step down and a plan for a new Syrian government.
Everyone in Paris last week seemed familiar with one quotation from Sir Winston Churchill. When Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, Churchill decided to qualify his lifelong hatred of communism. “If Hitler invaded Hell,” said Churchill in 1941, “I would make at least a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.” And as he foresaw, it was the Russians who did the most to help us win the war.
Not clear yet TSJ. US is so hell bent on letting the ISIS oil trade though for ages now that it is well within theirTSJones wrote:Looks like the Rodina hit the wrong guys......oopsie.
the US and Turkey are too scared of the S-300's and the Rodina to do something like that.
when was the last time you heard of the US striking SAA positions directly? Supreme Pigeon? No way, Jose! (or Turkey openly defying S-300's? not a chance)deejay wrote:Not clear yet TSJ. US is so hell bent on letting the ISIS oil trade though for ages now that it is well within theirTSJones wrote:Looks like the Rodina hit the wrong guys......oopsie.
the US and Turkey are too scared of the S-300's and the Rodina to do something like that.meansreason to hit SAA. Prior to this RuAF had very few sorties towards Dier Ez-Zor. Most of the strikes were being launched by the Coalition air assets (mostly US). None of these strikes were able to stop the oil flow from Dier -Ez-Zor but mostly at some 'claimed' HVT of ISIS for the last one year.
This time the arms depot of SAA has been hit followed by an ISIS ground offensive. Too coordinated to be a RuAF mistake on first appearances.
Ha - there is always a first time. When did you last hear US not arming, funding and helping Sunni Jehadis any where in the world? Every Sunni jehadi across the world - Uniformed or not is armed by GOTUS using American tax payers money.TSJones wrote:...
when was the last time you heard of the US striking SAA positions directly?
...and back to regularly scheduled Russian reality inversion....1.....2.....3....
The entire Arab Spring — from start to finish — was planned in the capitals of the Zio-Anglo-American Axis just as each revolution was manufactured in the various Middle Eastern capitals.
Every protest and riot throughout the Arab Spring was staged, just as every revolution and civil war had been fabricated in those nations which the Axis powers had targeted for a government overthrow.
In fact, not a single Arab Spring event has occurred without the fastidious planning and precise coordination of the CIA and MI6, DGSE and MOSSAD. The Western powers not only engineered every government rebellion in the Mideast, as they continue to do so, they have been very careful to execute each coup d’état in such a way that the newly installed leaders are always loyal to them, not to their respective citizenries.
Only one solution for Israel. and past few months indicate they are on this path already.Paul wrote:Russia has no other option but to strengthen Iran and smaller munna Syria. Already per reports Syria has also received S300 AD system. More weapon systems will be transferred to Iran for cash transfers.
Israel must be dumbfounded at this turn of events and wondering how to stop this chain reaction.
Obama shares the barbaric dönmeh view of eastern christianity. Maybe prerequisite for office in USA.Conclusion
First and foremost, that the bogus Arab Spring was coordinated by the Anglo-American Axis, especially the USA, UK, France, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Israel. The Obama Administration, and especially Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, were the key players in this CIA-coordinated black operation. Likewise, UK Prime Minster David Cameron and Foreign Secretary William Hague made sure that Great Britain provided political and material support whenever necessary. Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu as well as his entire government of warhawks have been deeply involved in every aspect of the Syrian Holocaust, although usually in a quite furtive manner.
Secondly, that the Obama Administration has been directly responsible for funding, equipping and arming ISIS via the CIA & Company. While Christian communities have been ruthlessly wiped out, Obama has empowered their persecutors. While Christians have been beheaded, crucified and shot by the hundreds after digging their mass graves, Obama has rejected Syrian Christian refugees. Clearly, the President of the United States has empowered some of the most barbaric terrorist organizations of the 3rd millennium.
5 Signs That Benjamin Netanyahu's Split With Israel Security Chiefs Is a Crisis
J.J. GoldbergDecember 6, 2015Image: Getty Images
As Israel’s current wave of terrorist violence enters its third month, long-simmering tensions between the country’s political leadership and its security branches are escalating and approaching what feels like a crisis level.
True, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies have clashed with Israel’s defenders repeatedly — on Iran, the Palestinians, the Obama administration — since Netanyahu took office in 2009. What’s different now is the sheer number of disputes erupting simultaneously, in broad daylight, across an array of issues, at a moment of dangerous chaos at home and regionally.
Seldom, if ever, have Israel’s decision-makers been so sharply at odds with their professional watchdogs on so many critical issues. The prime minister has staked out a position on the nature of Islamist terrorism that’s fundamentally at odds with his own intelligence community. Other questions in dispute include the causes of the current violence and strategies for containing it, the advisability of goodwill gestures toward the Palestinians, and the feasibility of resuming peace talks.
Netanyahu and his allies generally believe that the Palestinian terror wave, which began in October, is fueled by deep-seated hatred of Israel and Jews, with incitement by Palestinian leaders providing the spark. Most believe that only iron-fist tactics will restore calm. But Israel’s intelligence agencies maintain that while incitement plays a role, the young attackers are driven as much or more by frustration over the circumstances of their lives — personal, economic and national. Taking their cues from social media, they act independently and often spontaneously.
Against that backdrop, the insults have been flying fast and furious for weeks. Consider five recent events:
1. On November 3, the army’s analysis of Palestinian violence was presented to the security Cabinet in a briefing by the chief of Military Intelligence, Maj. Gen. Herzl Halevi. According to leaked accounts of the top-secret session, a junior minister, Ze’ev Elkin of the Likud’s rising settler wing, charged Halevi with acting as a “spokesman for the Palestinians.”
2. On November 17 the government outlawed the militant, fundamentalist Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement, ignoring the assessment of the Shin Bet security service that banning the Galilee-based movement would inflame Arab Israeli citizens, drive the group underground and make its actions harder to monitor.
3. On November 23, Education Minister Naftali Bennett called on the army in a radio interview to launch “a sort of Operation Defensive Shield 2.” He was referring to Israel’s massive 2002 West Bank offensive to crush the leadership of the second intifada. Bennett’s call for more aggressive military action reawakened still-raw resentments among the army brass over his accusations during the 2014 Gaza War that the generals were too timid to crush Hamas. Some officers now accuse Bennett of messianic delusions.
4. On November 25, an unidentified “senior officer” from the army’s Central Command, which covers the West Bank, briefed reporters on a series of measures the Israel Defense Forces was recommending to the government to ease conditions for Palestinians and thus reduce the violence. Proposals included initiating a limited prisoner release; increasing the number of West Bank Palestinians permitted to work in Israel, and issuing construction permits for Palestinians living in Area C, the part of the West Bank under full Israeli control. Also recommended: transferring new stocks of light weapons, ammunition and armored vehicles to the Palestinian Authority security forces, in order to assist the authority’s counterterrorism efforts in coordination with the Israeli military.
The prime minister’s office promptly ruled out the army’s recommendations. Critics said concessions would “reward terror.” But that wasn’t the end of it. The “senior officer” was outed by a far-right Jewish Home lawmaker as Maj. Gen. Roni Numa, chief of the IDF Central Command. A social media campaign promptly began calling for Numa to be fired, and he was forced to meet with settler leaders to disavow the recommendations.
5. The terror wave has also allowed Netanyahu to reopen an old debate with the military over the nature of terrorism. He’s been insisting for nearly two years that Hamas, Hezbollah, the Islamic State group, Al Qaeda and other Islamist terror groups are all “branches of the same poison tree.” Following the November 13 Paris attacks, he offered a variation on the theme, declaring that the current Palestinian terrorism is “the same terror” and “the same radical Islam that struck in Paris and threatens all of Europe.”
His point is that since Israel faces the same enemy, it deserves the same sympathy and should be granted the same latitude to hit back hard. It’s an approach that has found considerable support among mainstream American Jewish organizations. B’nai B’rith International’s executive vice president, Daniel Mariaschin, echoed Netanyahu in a November 17 JTA essay, writing that “terror is terror.” David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee made a similar point even before the Paris terror attacks, lamenting “the world’s silence” on Israel’s suffering in an October 11 Huffington Post blog. Jonathan Greenblatt, rookie national director of the Anti-Defamation League, went even further, arguing in a November 23 Forward essay against the very idea of exploring “root causes” or seeking via “political action” to solve the problem of a seamless worldwide “Islamic terrorism.”
Despite its popularity, though, the Netanyahu approach directly contradicts the view of Israel’s defense and intelligence agencies. They’ve maintained publicly for several years that Sunni Hamas, Shi’ite Hezbollah and “global jihad” groups like Islamic State and Al Qaeda are actually three quite distinct phenomena that require three different responses. The jihadists are beyond negotiating, but Hamas and Hezbollah, with their respective allies, can be deterred or brought into tacit understandings. Fatah, despite its flirtations with Hamas, is in a fourth category, together with Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, pragmatic powers with which agreements are possible.
As for the current terror plaguing Israel, it’s a different creature altogether, since it lacks any organizing structure or ideology. That was the point Halevi made to the Cabinet in his tense appearance November 3. It’s a point the Shin Bet hammered home in a report published November 10. It’s a point the government, particularly its right flank, desperately doesn’t want to accept.
Taken together, the current disputes point to a collapsing Israeli national consensus and the beginnings of an existential battle to choose the future. Israel has been guided for two generations by a notion that the status quo in the West Bank was sustainable, that Israel could indefinitely defer a decision on its relationship with the Palestinians, that the country was safer holding the territory than relinquishing it, that the strong arm of the military could keep it secure.
For most Israelis, it was convenient to believe in this consensus. For the settler movement and its allies on the right, it was an existential necessity. Now the army is warning that the world has changed, the status quo no longer holds and hard decisions must be made. It shouldn’t surprise us that those with the most to lose are resisting the advice.
Contact J.J. Goldberg at [email protected]
Read more: http://forward.com/opinion/israel/32603 ... z3tcXPXF24
From Livemap: Southern #Aleppo - #SAA captured villages Zeitan and Al-Qala’jiyahBreaking: Syrian Army and Hezbollah Capture 2 Villages in Southern Aleppo Amid the Arrival of Reinforcements
TSJ, even pro rebel sites are finally reporting the Dier Ez Zor strike on SAA as Coalition strike:TSJones wrote:well let's see now.....we've gone from the Russians are coming, look out you terrorist supporters! London, Paris, New York is gonna be a nuclear wasteland!........to.......dang! that sneaky US is doing it again!....
May I suggest that Russia is capable of making mistakes just like everyone else is?
At least 4 Syrian soldiers killed,16 injured,after a US-led coalition air-strikes hit a Syrian army compound in Deir al Zor province
Russian Air Force Launched Intensive Sorties Over Deir Ezour After US-Led Coalition Airstrike On Syrian Troops.
PS:UKR threatening an immediate a blockade of the Crimea.Is this part of POTUS' plan,to keep Ru busy with diversions?The Syrian government has confirmed that there are three casualties and 13 personnel injured, as well as a number of military vehicles destroyed. The coalition jets fired nine missiles at an army camp in the Deir ez Zor province, which remains mostly under the control of Islamic State. The incident is the first of its kind since the coalition started to bomb Syrian territory more than a year ago.
READ MORE: ‘Everyone knows what’s going on’: Istanbul residents on Turkey-ISIS oil trade
The Syrian Foreign Ministry has filed an official protest with the UN Security Council regarding the US-led coalition’s airstrikes on Syrian troops, Syria’s SANA official news agency reported Monday.
“Syria strongly condemns the act of aggression by the US-led coalition that contradicts the UN Charter on goals and principles. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has sent letters to the UN Secretary General and the UN Security Council,” SANA quoted the foreign ministry as saying.
The US-led coalition denies its planes carried out the airstrike on the Saeqa military camp, claiming the only airstrikes in the area were delivered some 55km away from the place.
“We’ve seen those Syrian reports but we did not conduct any strikes in that part of Deir Ezzor yesterday. So we see no evidence,” coalition spokesman Colonel Steve Warren said.
The Deir ez Zor province is eastern Syria, and is largely controlled by Islamic State (formerly ISIS/ISIL). The region is of extreme strategic importance to the terrorist group, as it contains a number of oilfields, which are a major source of revenue for ISIS.
On November 24, a Turkish Air Force F-16 jet shot down a Russian Su-24 bomber over Syria. Ankara claims the Russian plane briefly crossed into Turkish airspace. One of the Russian pilots was killed by Syrian rebels as he ejected from the stricken plane, while the other was rescued in a swift operation during which one Russian serviceman was killed.
No man left behind: Dramatic details emerge of downed Su-24 pilot rescue https://t.co/uluS0NOU1ipic.twitter.com/iZaZS50Um3
— RT (@RT_com) November 26, 2015
The downing of the bomber by Turkey came after a successful Russian bombing campaign against ISIS oil infrastructure on the Syria-Turkish border, and was seen as revenge. Putin described the act as "a stab in the back" and accused Erdogan of benefiting from the illegal oil trade with ISIS and financing the terrorists.
READ MORE: Putin: Downing of Russian jet over Syria stab in the back by terrorist accomplices
November 24, 2015
Russia has been conducting airstrikes targeting Islamic State (former ISIS, ISIL) and other terrorist groups in Syria since September 30. The strikes were launched after a formal request from Damascus. Russian jets have been carrying out sorties from Moscow’s Khmeimim Air Base in Latakia.
The US-led coalition’s airstrikes in Syria are in fact illegal, as it has never received permission from Syrian President Bashar Assad to enter the country’s airspace. In response to the UK’s decision to join the bombing campaign in Syria, President Assad reiterated in an interview with the Sunday Times that the presence of Britain in Syria is unlawful as neither Damascus nor the United Nations have given London the green light to bomb Syrian territory.
“It will be harmful and illegal and it will support terrorism, as happened after the coalition started its operation a year or so [ago], because this is like a cancer,” Assad said.
Yep, we need to focus on development, not idiotic ME wars.mohanty wrote: We focus on trading with everyone and be friends with all sides and grow.
Edit: removed inline image. Image available with the twitter handleHassan Ridha @sayed_ridha 5m5 minutes ago
4 villages/towns taken today by #SAA #Hezbollah in south #Aleppo countryside
#SAA took control of a chain of mountain tops in NE #Latakia countryside which overlook Al-Ghab Plain
TSJones wrote:official release from DoD: five oil wells were hit in Syria near Dayr Az Zawr.
http://www.defense.gov/News-Article-Vie ... syria-iraq
apparently, the SAA was operating those well heads and got creamed..
Evidently the Commander-in-Chief War Eagle, is back over the skies in Syria.
S-300's or no S-300's. Looks like Chief Obama has the assets he needs to play hard ball.
