Bharat Rakshak

Singha wrote:Why has the intifada kicked into high gear again?

Even if this is less spectacular so to say, this video is interesting because it shows a Syrian fighter bomber releasing flares to deceive eventual MANPADS while overflying a Syrian rebel position followed by a free fall bomb almost hitting the guy who was filming the scene.The aircraft is difficult to ID (it may be a Su-22 Fitter) so as the bomb.A lesson learned? If you see a warplane make an evasive maneuver over your head, you might better take shelter as soon as you can.

If it wins – and if it holds together and if its manpower, which is admittedly at a low level, can be maintained – then the Syrian military is going to come out of this current war as the most ruthless, battle-trained and battle-hardened Arab army in the entire region. Woe betide any of its neighbours who forget this

Sami ‏@Paradoxy13 6h6 hours ago
Really sad to hear that Russian jets targeted FSA 1st Coastal Div HQ in rural #Latakia, #Syria today killing & wounding several fighters.

The Opinion Pages | Op-Ed Contributor
Putin’s Partition Plan for SyriaBy HUSSEIN IBISHOCT. 19, 2015
WASHINGTON — Taking advantage of the paralysis of American policy in Syria, Russia’s dramatic escalation of military activity in that country seeks to reorder the strategic landscape of the Middle East.

Few appear to grasp the full scope of what Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, is attempting. This is partly because, in theory, this should be beyond Russia’s capabilities. But Mr. Putin cannily senses an opportunity, at the very least, to restore Russia to the role in the Middle East that it lost in the 1970s.

Russia’s intervention anticipates a resolution of the Syrian conflict through de facto partition. The Reuters news agency reports that, months ago, Iran proposed the joint offensive, now underway, to save the dictatorship of President Bashar al-Assad from imminent collapse. Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ elite Quds Force, is depicted poring over maps of Syria with Russian officials in the Kremlin.

Russian firepower is aimed at securing the larger, western part of the rump Syrian state that is still controlled by Mr. Assad — in particular the air and naval bases near Latakia and Tartus. And aside from forays into northern trouble spots like Aleppo, Iranian and Hezbollah forces will mostly concentrate on the lower half of this strip, which runs from the Lebanese border through Qalamoun, up to Damascus, and from there to the port cities and coastal heartland of the Alawites, the Syrian Shiite sect loyal to Mr. Assad.

For all of the talk of combating the Islamic State, Russia’s real aim is to push back rebel groups and secure this ministate. Given what Mr. Assad’s allies are willing to do to salvage this “Little Syria” — compared with the limited intervention being considered by Mr. Putin’s international antagonists — this is probably an achievable goal.

Such a partition of Syria would leave other parts of the country in the hands of nationalist and Islamist rebels, a Kurdish area in the north, perhaps some smaller enclaves and, most ominously, the “caliphate” of the Islamic State in the north and east. Despite Kremlin propaganda, the Islamic State is already among the biggest winners from the Russian intervention.

At the end of last week, for example, the group took advantage of Russian airstrikes, some 90 percent of which have reportedly targeted other rebel groups, and captured several villages near Aleppo. The militants also killed some of Iran’s most senior commanders in Syria, including Brig. Gen. Hossein Hamedani. These advances are realizing Mr. Assad’s goal of making the choice for both Syrians and the world at large appear to be between him and the jihadists.

Russia’s unspoken but unmistakable message is that Moscow is trying one— and perhaps the only— way of ending the conflict by means of a Lebanese-style segregation of Syria into zones controlled by rival militias. To Washington’s perennial concern in any Middle Eastern imbroglio, “Tell me how this ends,” Moscow responds: The Syrian conflict will be “resolved” on Russia’s terms, even if Mr. Assad proves dispensable to the Kremlin in the long run.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration’s desire to see the conflict end without actually doing anything itself means that, as Bloomberg View suggested recently, there is a group of senior American officials prepared to go along with the Russian plan. After all, America’s own policy in Syria has rapidly moved from tragedy to farce. The latest fiasco was the cancellation of the $500 million military training program for anti-Islamic State rebels that produced barely a handful of fighters on the ground.

So if Moscow has a policy, and Washington doesn’t, why not just support that?

Beyond the fact that it’s absurd to hope that Mr. Putin’s approach is likely to benefit American interests, giving way to Russia’s policy would, in effect, entail abandoning the fight against the Islamic State in Syria. And the militants cannot be effectively countered in Iraq alone. So what this final, ignominious capitulation would really mean is that not only would Mr. Assad (or some Russian-appointed successor) menace Syrians for the foreseeable future, but so too would the Islamic State. No wonder Gen. John R. Allen, America’s envoy to the international coalition against the Islamic State, recently announced his resignation. Being in charge of a farce is bad enough; no one can accept being the front for a fraud. Even worse, viewed through a broader regional framework, American acquiescence to this Russian initiative would ultimately mean an accommodation with a major reshaping of the strategic order in the Middle East. Moscow is clearly trying to accomplish the creation of a powerful alliance with Iran, Iraq, Hezbollah, “Little Syria” and others. To secure this new compact, Russia is willing to risk not only confrontation with the West, but also its recently improved relations with other regional powers like Turkey and Saudi Arabia. There’s no good reason Washington should go along with any of this. Russia is manifestly less powerful militarily, economically and diplomatically than the United States. But it’s no longer a matter of capabilities; it’s become a matter of will. On paper, Russia is in no position to barge into the Middle East and throw its weight around. But after the interference in Ukraine, the annexation of Crimea and the Syrian chemical weapons debacle, Mr. Putin correctly judged that nobody would stop him. Mr. Putin is canny enough to know that he is already overstretched, faces potential quagmires and has core differences with putative allies like Iran. So, at any given moment, he’ll be ready to pocket his gains and do a deal with the Americans — from an already advantageous position. The remaining question is: How far will he be allowed to go? At the moment, the astonishing answer appears to be: all the way. Hussein Ibish is a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington and a contributing opinion writer.

“He cannot be part of that transitional government, however it ends,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner said.“He – for his many crimes against his people, for his brutality, cannot be a part of that ultimate transitional government. So – but we’ve not said that he has to leave tomorrow, that he has to be – that he can’t be part of the transitional process.”

The Turkish government has agreed on a Syrian formula which includes Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on the condition that it will end with him stepping down, according to a Turkish source.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the source said the decision was made together with a group of nine countries, including the U.S., during the United Nations General Assembly sessions in late September. {old deal prior to military escalation - why will russia accept it now after so much water under bridge?}

The formula suggested a six-month transition period during which al-Assad would remain a “symbolic president” of the “transition administration” with no authority on the military or intelligence apparatus and that he would leave power at the end of it.

The formula was forwarded to Russia by the Americans but no confirmation has been received from the Russians yet.

This is a clear change in Turkish policy regarding Syria. Turkey has been a staunch opponent of any transition including al-Assad so far, since the beginning of the civil war in 2011.

The source said the Turkish government still considered al-Assad the cause of the civil war and instability in the region, but with this move it demonstrated its will to find a solution in Syria as soon as possible without al-Assad.

Despite no response to the suggestion from Moscow yet, Russia has made a major move to endorse the power of al-Assad by escalating its military presence there. Relations between Russia and Turkey were strained when a Russian jet based in Syria violated Turkish air space earlier this month, which was followed by plane and radar lock-ups. The Turkish government also accused Russia of hitting Free Syrian Army (FSA) forces against al-Assad, instead of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which Moscow gave as the justification for its presence in Syria.

Turkey sees the Syrian-Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) as the Syrian extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been waging an armed campaign against Turkey in which 40,000 people have been killed since 1984. Russia sees the PYD as the only legitimate land force fighting ISIL in the Syrian theater and Turkey considers it as another terrorist organization like ISIL or al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda.

Turkey has a PYD problem with the U.S. as well. The U.S. supports the FSA as the legitimate rebel force against al-Assad, but also cooperates with the PYD against ISIL. The Turkish government, which opened up its strategic İncirlik air base for raids against ISIL, was upset by a recent American air supply drop to the PYD and warned the U.S. that if the PYD or the PKK used any of those weapons against Turkey, that would make the PYD a target.

Russia, having its only military base in the entire Middle East and the Mediterranean in Syria, on the other hand, is cooperating with Iran in the Syrian theater. Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah militia from Lebanon are fighting al-Assad ranks against the FSA under the command of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani.

It is not clear what Russia will say to a transition with al-Assad with symbolic powers and a guarantee that he will not remain in power at the end of it. It is not likely to come to a settlement point soon soon, since Russia believes it should be the Syrian people to decide on that, without admitting that millions of Syrians who have saved their lives from the civil war have already made that decision by fleeing the country under al-Assad.
October/20/2015

A total of 24 of around 50 suspects of Tajik and Uzbek origin, who were detained for having links to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Istanbul on Oct. 18, have been revealed to be children being trained in basement apartments in Istanbul’s Pendik and Başakşehir districts, daily Vatan has reported.

The suspects were reported to have trained children in basement apartments in Pendik and Başakşehir, using the apartments as militant training camps, according to physical and technical surveillance collected by Istanbul Police Department Counterterrorism Unit officers before raiding 18 separate homes in Pendik and Başakşehir’s Kayaşehir neighborhood.

The suspects, mostly Uzbeks, who were detained in the Oct. 18 raids were reported to have lectured children on the basics of ISIL as well as how to live in an Islamic state.

In August, the Uzbekistan Islamic Movement, an al-Qaeda offshoot based near the Afghan border, announced allegiance to ISIL.

Uzbek intelligence sources reported that more than 5,000 paid Uzbek militants were fighting in Syria alongside ISIL.

Turkey has stepped up anti-terror police operations against ISIL militants in the country, as the Oct. 10 twin blasts in the Turkish capital sent shockwaves through the country, with at least 102 civilians dead and hundreds of others injured.

Thirteen ISIL-linked suspects have reportedly been detained so far within the investigation launched into the Ankara bombing.
October/19/2015

Satya_anveshi wrote:‘Assad doesn’t have to leave tomorrow, can be part of transitional process’ – US State Department - Oct 20, 2015

“He cannot be part of that transitional government, however it ends,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner said.“He – for his many crimes against his people, for his brutality, cannot be a part of that ultimate transitional government. So – but we’ve not said that he has to leave tomorrow, that he has to be – that he can’t be part of the transitional process.”

This equivocation smells rotten and everyone knows it. Give it few more days of whooping by Syrians on ground and Russian from air....they will come down further.

They are fooling no body. US's trust quotient is at its nadir.

ERBIL – The Kurdistan Region of Iraq has now an official representative for the Jewish community in the government in Erbil, media sources reported.

“KRG has appointed Sherzad Omar Mamsani as the Jewish representative to the Ministry of Endowment and Religious Affairs in Iraqi Kurdistan,” a Kurdish official told reporters in Erbil.

Mamsani said in statement: “We are Kurds and we are Jews. There are more than 730 Jewish families in the Kurdistan Region.”

He pointed out that his aim of this representation is to preserve the rights of Jews in the Kurdistan Region, “and participate in the peace efforts and reconciliation process to enhance religious coexistence in the region”.

Mamsani’s appointment comes after a new law was passed by the Kurdistan Parliament on the inclusion of all minorities residing the region.

“The Jewish voice in government is a welcomed step,” Ben-Zion Cassouto of the Israel Kurdistan NGO reported.

“Iran may appoint Jewish representatives too in a bit to show they are not anti-Semitic, but Kurdistan’s policy is different in this regard,” the Regional Cooperation Minister Ayoub Kara told reporters in Erbil.

“Iranian authorities see Jews as bolstering what is called ‘covenant of minorities’ in the Middle East,” he argued.

“Kurds consider Israel a partner and they want to strengthen ties with it.”

The Jewish community in Mesopotamia (current Iraq) is one of the oldest in the world, dating back to the Babylonian conquest of the southern tribes of Israel –mostly the tribe of Judah– in 586 BCE.

There were times when Jews flourished in Babylon, producing the Babylonian Talmud there between the years 500 and 700 BCE.

During a vista to Kuwait in May 2006, the President of Iraqi Kurdistan, Massoud Barzani told a press conference on the Kurdish-Israeli relationship: “It is not a crime to have relations with Israel. If Baghdad established diplomatic relations with Israel, we could open an Israeli consulate in Erbil.”

In June 2014, the Israeli Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has expressed support for a Kurdish statehood, claiming the creation of a Kurdish state would help build an alliance of moderate powers in the Middle East.

In 1991, [powerful neocon and Iraq war architect Paul Wolfowitz] was the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy – the number 3 position at the Pentagon. And I had gone to see him when I was a 1-Star General commanding the National Training Center.

***

And I said, “Mr. Secretary, you must be pretty happy with the performance of the troops in Desert Storm.”

And he said: “Yeah, but not really, because the truth is we should have gotten rid of Saddam Hussein, and we didn’t … But one thing we did learn [from the Persian Gulf War] is that we can use our military in the region – in the Middle East – and the Soviets won’t stop us. And we’ve got about 5 or 10 years to clean up those old Soviet client regimes – Syria, Iran, Iraq – before the next great superpower comes on to challenge us.”

Syrian rebels say they receive more weapons for Aleppo battle.

Ex-BBC journalist Jacky Sutton found hanged in airport ‘feared ISIS would kill her’
Published time: 19 Oct, 2015 10:47
Former BBC journalist Jacky Sutton. © Facebook

Jacky Sutton, a British BBC journalist and acting director for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR), has been found dead at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport after missing a connecting flight to Iraq.

Sutton, 50, was found hanged in a toilet cubicle in the early hours of Sunday morning after missing her connecting flight from Istanbul to Erbil, Iraq, which departed at 12:15am.

According to airport staff, Sutton appeared distressed when she was told she had to buy another ticket.

She was found dead a few hours later.

The full circumstances of her death remain unknown, but friends and colleagues insist she must have been murdered.
‘I had PTSD, I was unable to cope’

It has emerged that Sutton had suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after being detained for spying in Africa in 1995.

In a new blog post which includes an autobiography written by Sutton, it said she was “unable to cope” after being detained for five years.

“I was detained as a spy and deported and many people fled the country,” it said.

“I got (a scholarship) to do a PhD at Leeds University, but my mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer, and I think I had PTSD from the detention so I was unable to cope.

“Now there would be counseling, but back then I was given Prozac (anti-depressants) and told to soldier on. I took Prozac for a month, but it had some seriously weird side effects so I stopped.”

In an email sent to her friend Amanda Whitley in June, Sutton said she feared being targeted by Islamic State while working in Erbil.

“I’m in a hotel at the moment – a low key one with hardly any guests. The accommodation that had been prepared was basically one room and a bathroom above the office with only one door in and out, and that off the street.”

“So if someone came in uninvited I was trapped and, as my Kurdish friends said, ‘It just needs one whacko to hear in the Friday prayers that killing foreigners is jihad, and they’ll come knocking at your door in a heartbeat.’”
‘Someone killed Jacky’

Iraqi journalist Mazin Elias, who has previously worked with Sutton, said it is highly unlikely she committed suicide, alleging “someone killed Jacky.”

“She continued in Iraq – everything was difficult, everything was a challenge, but she still continued,” he told the Mail Online.

“But, what I’m sure about, the kind of person that Jacky was, it’s impossible she would have killed herself, impossible.

“She’s really looking for a better life for everyone. So kill herself? That’s crazy.

“I’m really sad and sorry what happened, but if someone tells me ‘she killed herself,’ I tell him: ‘No, that’s wrong, someone killed Jacky.’”

Another of Sutton’s former colleagues, Rebecca Cooke, has called for an investigation into her death.

“Shocking and sad news about the death of Jacky Sutton in Istanbul. An international, not just local, investigation is needed,” she told the Press Association.

Sutton’s friend Christian Bluer also expressed his doubts on Twitter.

“I’m not into conspiracies, but if the Turks say a security camera at Istanbul-Ataturk was malfunctioning then Jacky Sutton was murdered,” he tweeted.
‘Deeply saddened’

Sutton had also been studying for a PhD at the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies at the Australian National University.

Her former professor Amin Saikal said he is “deeply saddened” by the news.

“We are deeply saddened and shocked by the tragic death of one of our brilliant PhD students,” he said.

“She was not only an outstanding research scholar, but a highly valued friend and colleague who made remarkable contributions to the work and activities of the center.”

A Foreign Office spokesman said: “We can confirm the death of a British national in Istanbul. We are providing consular assistance to the family at this difficult time.”

Sutton’s death comes just five months after previous IWPR director Ammar Al Shahbander was killed in a car bomb attack in Baghdad.

Singha wrote:Russia must be having a ample boneyard of serviceable tanks and BMPs, these could be shipped via the black sea to replace and build up numbers. they also desperately need old school massed artillery with ample ammo.