Thread: Battle For Idlib Imminent, Russia Releases Video Of Massive Military Drills In Syria

With Battle For Idlib Imminent, Russia Releases Video Of Massive "One Of A Kind" Military Drills In Syria



With military action in Idlib imminent, Russia announced today that it has staged massive military exercises in the Mediterranean Sea near Syria, involving both its Navy and Air Force.


by Tyler Durden
Sat, 09/08/2018 - 22:19

With the US military announcing that it is preparing for "options" in Syria ahead of what appears to be an imminent battle for Syria's last rebel stronghold of Idlib - which may or may not include another false flag chemical attack to justify the US presence - and which could involve such proxy foreign powers as Russia, the US, Turkey and Iran, today Russia announced that it has staged large-scale military exercises in the Mediterranean Sea near Syria, involving both its Navy and Air Force.
Footage released by Russia’s Defense Ministry showed marine special forces equipped with the latest Russian gear landing on the shores of the Syrian Latakia province. As part of the staged invasion, the marines used helicopters, fast attack craft and armored vehicles while landing from major amphibious ships under cover of dozens of Russian combat aircraft.



The purposefully dramatic display was part of a week-long exercise, which is said to be the "first of its kind" in this part of the Mediterranean. Apart from the naval infantry training, in which the marines also practiced protecting Russian Navy ships from sabotage activities, the war games also involved maritime live fire drills.
Held between September 1 and September 8, the drills also involved establishing a foothold on the territory controlled by a "simulated" enemy. In total, 26 vessels from all Russian fleets, including two submarines, as well as 34 aircraft took part in the war games.
In the full-blown combat simulation, more than two dozen battleships, including the ‘Marshal Ustinov’ cruiser and three of Russia’s newest frigates, launched anti-ship missiles and fired high-caliber guns. The drills also saw Russian strategic Tu-160 Blackjack bombers and long-range Tu-142 Bear submarine hunters train simulated missile launches.

Video at the link https://www.facebook.com/RTvids/vide...9675528008708/

Spoiling the suspense, on Saturday a Kremlin spokesman explained that the drills were partly linked to the situation in Syria’s Idlib province. Idlib is “a hotbed of terrorism and nothing good may come from it, unless action is taken,” Dmitry Peskov said in late August ahead of the drills, adding that some “additional safety measures” are “justified.”
The drill comes amid heightened tensions in the region (read "Everything you need to know about the looming battle for Idlib") as Moscow warns that the US is deploying additional military assets towards Syria for a potential missile attack against Syrian government forces. As previously reported, the missile destroyer USS Ross was deployed to the Mediterranean, carrying 28 Tomahawk cruise missiles; at roughly the same time the USS The Sullivans was deployed to the Persian Gulf and a B-1B Lancer strategic bomber was relocated to an air base in Qatar.
The Russian ministry said the preparations are “the latest evidence of the US intention” to strike after what it says will be a false flag chemical attack in Syria.
The Pentagon also announced that it has already compiled a list of preliminary targets in Syria, which the US military are planning to hit in case of a “chemical weapons attack.” And, It has also “routinely” briefed the White House on “military options” in case of such incident.
The Russian Defense Ministry has repeatedly warned that the militants in Idlib have been preparing a false flag attack using chemical weapons to justify the US strike against the forces loyal to the Syrian government. On Saturday, the ministry’s spokesman, Major General Igor Konashenkov, said that these preparations entered their “final stage."
Local sources have speculated that a "chemical attack" could take place as soon as the next few hours, after which events will accelerate rapidly, as both US and Russian military forces are likely to engage in what has the potential to be a conflict that quickly spirals out of control.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...y-drills-syria

Russia's already dropped 60 airstrikes with Syria on Idlib and killed 4 civilians. More to come. They will defeat these 35,000 bad dudes huddled in Idlib. I hope they kill them all.

Russia Accuses US Of White Phosphorus Attack In Syria



Two F-15 jets on Saturday bombed the town of Hajin with white phosphorus incendiary munitions, banned under the Geneva Convention, according to the Russian Center for Reconciliation in Syria.

Mon, 09/10/2018 - 08:33

President Trump has continued to threaten Syrian and Russian forces planning to take back the terrorist-controlled stronghold of Idlib in northwestern Syria, potentially bringing the world to the brink of World War III, as we explained yesterday. But Trump's tweets about the potential "humanitarian catastrophe" have exposed a guiding principle of the US's involvement in Syria (and indeed across the Middle East): A chemical weapons attack isn't a "catastrophe" if it's carried out by the US.
In what Russian officials warned could be a preamble to another US-approved false flag attack, US jets on Saturday reportedly dropped white phosphorus on Hajin, a Syrian town in the Deir Ez-Zor province. When it comes in contact with oxygen, white phosphorus can cause massive fires. Because of this, it's banned by the Geneva Convention for use in combat. Russian officials said they're still waiting for information on casualties.
Here's more from RT:

Two F-15 jets on Saturday bombed the town of Hajin with white phosphorus incendiary munitions, banned under the Geneva Convention, according to the Russian Center for Reconciliation in Syria.
"Following the strikes, large fires were observed in the area," Lieutenant-General Vladimir Savchenko said Sunday. There’s still no information on casualties caused by the bombing run, he added.

The US promptly denied responsibility for the attack.

A Pentagon spokesperson denied the allegations of dropping white phosphorus bombs. "At this time, we have not received any reports of any use of white phosphorous," Commander Sean Robertson told the media on Sunday. "None of the military units in the area are even equipped with white phosphorous munitions of any kind."

Photos of the attack have emerged on social media:



Islamic State still controls a pocket of territory in Deir Ezzor between the Euphrates River and the Iraqi border, and also has outposts across the vast Syrian desert. Meanwhile, the use of any incendiary munitions in populated civilian areas was banned by Protocol III of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, which the US signed the protocol back in 2009.


https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...phorous-attack

Let Russia handle it, they know what to do and can do it. FINISH IT, RUSSIA.

GLOBAL

Russia Is Abetting Mass Murder in Syria

By standing by and watching a slow-motion Rwanda unfold, the U.S. risks becoming an accessory to evil.

EVELYN N. FARKASFEB 26, 2018

Members of the United Nations Security Council vote for ceasefire to Syrian bombing in eastern Ghouta, at the United Nations headquarters on February 24, 2018.EDUARDO MUNOZ / REUTERS

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President Ronald Reagan famously dubbed the Soviet Union “the Evil Empire,” and it was apt. The empire is gone now, but we should have kept the word “evil” in reserve for today’s Kremlin. For what other term suffices to describe a government that deliberately and relentlessly bombs innocent civilians, their hospitals, and reportedly a UN aid convoy in a premeditated effort to “cleanse” rebel-held Syrian territory of its inhabitants? What other term encompasses the aiding and abetting of a government that repeatedly uses chemical weapons and drops barrel bombs full of chlorine on women and children? This weekend Russia conspired to delay a UN Security Council resolution aimed at stopping the suffering and loss of innocent lives in Syria. Now it claims, cynically, it wants to enforce a humanitarian "pause" in the fighting in the besieged Damascus suburb of Eastern Ghouta, when it should just stop the fighting altogether.

The Russian government has so far gotten away with its bloody air operations in coordination with the despicable Assad regime and Iran. Those operations have killed hundreds of thousands of Syrians across the country, including thousands in Aleppo alone last year, when the historic city and its people were reduced to pulverized rubble and bone. The assault on Aleppo was designed to chase the Syrian opposition forces to other areas, like the province of Idlib, which the Russians and Syrians also ruthlessly bombarded. They are now trying to finish the job in Eastern Ghouta, the last major rebel-held area near Damascus, and a place infamously hit in 2013 by chemical weapons. Last week over 500 civilians were killed there and another estimated 2,500 wounded.

And Russia has gotten away with this partly because of the artificial line two American administrations have drawn between the civil war in Syria and the anti-isis campaign. But as the battle lines on the ground converge, it is no longer possible to ignore the fact that the fight against isis is also the fight for the future of Syria and the Middle East. Moreover, the war appears to be expanding.

As they seek to consolidate territory for the regime, Syrian, Russian, Iranian, and Hezbollah forces are coming ever closer to U.S. troops assisting Syrian Democratic Forces fighters combatting isis in eastern Syria. On February 7th, Russian mercenaries attacked U.S. special-operations forces near the city of Deir Ezzor. U.S. forces struck back, and body bags numbering in the double digits appear to have been transported back to Russia. This was a test of U.S. resolve by a Kremlin eager to declare victory in Syria on its terms.

The United States is on the ground in Syria with about 2,000 forces. It is part of the now-defunct UN Geneva process that had aimed to bring peace to the country. And as the death toll mounts and U.S. allies—like Israel—get sucked further into the fighting, America’s responsibility in Syria is only growing. The United States cannot sit and watch a slow-motion Rwanda unfold. We can no longer ignore the fact that our insufficient political-military action only serves to drag on a conflict that we may well be able to end.

We’ve been here before. From 1993 to 1995, the United States and its allies faced a humanitarian catastrophe in Bosnia as a result of deliberate ethnic cleansing operations directed by the government of Serbia (later adopted to a far lesser extent by all parties). For about three years, we worked to beef up the failing UN humanitarian operations and hammered away at multilateral diplomacy as body counts and refugee flows mounted.

Ultimately, only the credible threat of force stopped the suffering and the war. In 1995, the U.S. and its allies finally began bombing Serb forces attacking defenseless Muslim civilians. Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and his Bosnian Serb allies would pay a price for attempting to seize more land by killing or forcing inhabitants to leave. Meanwhile, Croat-Bosnian forces armed and trained by the United States were repelling Serb forces from territory they had seized earlier. For Milosevic, it was time to make a deal. The result was the 1995 Dayton Accords, which have held the peace in Bosnia since then.

Military force and deterrence may also be the key to ending the Syrian war.

Russia repeatedly calls various warring parties—but not all of them—to the table and attempts to get the international community to concede that Assad will stay. Meanwhile, it continues its war of attrition in the face of insufficient resolve on the part of the United States and its allies. Without combined economic, military, and diplomatic pressure, Russia, Syria, and Iran won’t compromise. Aggressors—whether in Belgrade or in Moscow, Damascus, or Tehran—have no incentive to make concessions unless they face pressure.

In 1995 that meant the United States had to bomb the Serb forces attacking innocent Muslim civilians. Today, it means guaranteeing immediate implementation of the new UN ceasefire in Ghouta by threatening—and if necessary using—force against those attacking the suburb. Humanitarian aid must be permitted into the area within hours, not days. It means ramping up sanctions, and increasing military and diplomatic pressure until the war can be brought to a negotiated end. And in the meantime, it means speaking the truth about Russian, Syrian, and Iranian atrocities, collecting information for the day when there is a war crimes accounting.

The war in Syria will only end when the aggressors know America is serious—about diplomacy, about sanctioning the aggressors, and about using military force not just to fight isis, but to protect Syrians. Continued failure to take these steps will only make America an accessory to evil.

https://www.theatlantic.com/internat...russia/554246/

Old news, old whining. You don't want a die in a civil war? Don't start one. FINISH IT, RUSSIA. End this craziness and restore stability and safety for the people of Syria, ABSENT these awful hoodlums and thugs who started this mess to begin with.

Exclusive — Sebastian Gorka on Syria: ‘Trump Is Not a Neo-Conservative’; ‘This Is Not George Bush’

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Alex Wong/Getty Images14 Apr 20182,290Sebastian Gorka joined SiriusXM host Rebecca Mansour and special guest host John Carney on Friday’s Breitbart News Tonight to discuss President Donald Trump’s strategy in orderingmissile strikes on Syria.

Gorka described the military operations as a “surgical” and “very quick strike.”
Gorka added that the strikes were “meant to send a message [to] Bashar al-Assad, the mass murderer, and his sponsors, including Iran and Russia, that you cannot use illegal chemical weapons, and you will not be allowed to use them again against women and children. This is not a war, and this isn’t about al-Qaeda or ISIS. This is about the mass murder executed by Assad’s regime.”
Gorka said the strikes served both symbolic and practical ends. He remarked, “These were clearly targets that were parts of the chemical weapons capacity of the Assad regime, a research facility in Damascus, a facility that was storing the precursor materials [and] chemicals used to create these weapons and other facilities used in the production of these weapons. So it isn’t just a signal, but it is very much a signal, as well, but it is also a crippling blow to the chemical weapons capacity of the Damascus government.”

Gorka cast Russia as a declining power. “Russia is a failing nation. It’s a one-horse town, and that horse, that pony, was gas and oil exports. America is now a net energy exporter for the first time, and Russia is a shadow of its former Soviet self. It’s good at rattling its rusty saber, but that’s about it. … We killed hundreds of Russian mercenaries in Syria when they threatened our forces. What was the Russian response? Nothing. They’re still a nuclear power. They’re still a bad actor. Vladimir Putin is still a former KGB colonel, but their capacity to be a serious global actor like the United States? That is not true.”

Gorka rejected characterizations of the strikes as resembling the Bush administration’s neo-conservatism. He claimed, “I’ll tell you one thing: Donald J. Trump is not a neo-conservative, and he never will be a neo-conservative. This is not George Bush, and this man believes the invasion and occupation of other people’s countries is fundamentally un-American, and he will never waver from that.”

Gorka said America should enforce international conventions prohibiting certain chemical weapons. He said, “But [Donald Trump] is also — I know the left doesn’t believe this for a second, but I can guarantee you this — he is a very compassionate human being, whether it’s meeting the survivors and the victims of the Parkland shooting or whether it’s seeing the children, the infants, foaming at the mouth, poisoned by that chlorine gas attack in Syria, and he knows that if we don’t do anything, nobody will. He believes in that saying: ‘Evil wins, very simply, when good men do nothing.’ This isn’t about regime change. This isn’t Iraq in 2003. He isn’t George Bush. But if America stands for truth, if America is that shining light on a hill, then we do not allow mass murderers to use chemical weapons. It is that simple.”

Gorka further rejected concerns of the strikes as elements of open-ended conflicts without clear objectives. He stated, “People need to listen to the president. … Listen to what he said. Listen to what Secretary Mattis said. Listen to what the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said. We are not involved in a civil war. We’re not changing the regime, and we’re not picking sides. Chemical weapons are illegal. You cannot use them. Nobody can use them. We don’t have them. Nobody should have them, and when you use them against women and children, guess what? We will respond. Again, this isn’t 2003. He’s not George Bush, and we’re not going to deploy 160,000 troops into Syria.”

Gorka continued, “If Assad consistently uses illegal weapons of a chemical nature and America does nothing when it can — which is immoral to begin with — but when we do nothing when we can, what message does that send to North Korea? What message does that send to al-Qaeda? What message does that send to Russia, to China? Do we want the next chemical attack to be in Israel [or] Jordan? Are you prepared for the ramifications of that eventuality? You nip this in the bud, now, and that’s what the president is doing, and he is absolutely right in doing that. Have faith in Donald J. Trump. I worked for him. I know the man. Trust him.”
Mansour asked Gorka what lies ahead for the U.S. in Syria.

Gorka replied, “There’s only one person who knows the answer to that question, and he’s called Bashar al-Assad. The Syrian response to our action is the question right now. Will they make an effort to rid themselves of chemical weapons, but not in the way that Obama said they had and Kerry said they had and the Russians said they had? Will they actually do it this time? Will we see a concerted effort from certain sponsor states to exert pressure on that regime? Only time will tell. We have the capacity to do this again, but the ball is firmly located in the court of Damascus, and it’s up to Assad as to how he reacts. Time will tell.”

Breitbart News Tonight broadcasts live Monday through Friday on SiriusXM’s Patriot channel 125 from 9:00 p.m. to midnight Eastern (6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Pacific).

https://www.breitbart.com/radio/2018/04/14/gorka-syria-trump-not-neo-conservative-not-bush/

Originally Posted by Judy

Old news, old whining. You don't want a die in a civil war? Don't start one. FINISH IT, RUSSIA. End this craziness and restore stability and safety for the people of Syria, ABSENT these awful hoodlums and thugs who started this mess to begin with.

The people you're supporting, over your own country and President, are murderers. I know you like to think Bashar al-Assad, Vladimir Putin, and Hassan Rouhani are our friends, well, they're not!

I do not agree with US involvement in Syria and never did. If Trump supports involvement in Syria beyond killing ISIS, then I do not agree with him. I want every American and every American Dollar out of Syria. We have no national interest there, Russia has a huge Naval Base there, they have a national interest there, and they are the ones to help Syria to end this stupid fruitless civil war, stabilize this country and help rebuild it at their and someone else's expense, not ours.

Also, I almost never agree with you on anything and haven't since you arrived here.

Originally Posted by Judy

I do not agree with US involvement in Syria and never did. If Trump supports involvement in Syria beyond killing ISIS, then I do not agree with him. I want every American and every American Dollar out of Syria. We have no national interest there, Russia has a huge Naval Base there, they have a national interest there, and they are the ones to help Syria to end this stupid fruitless civil war, stabilize this country and help rebuild it at their and someone else's expense, not ours.

Also, I almost never agree with you on anything and haven't since you arrived here.

My arrival here is less than a year from your own.

Yep, I still remember when you adamantly supported, and very aggressively I might add, the open border amnesty supporter Ron Paul in the primaries against my closed border anti-amnesty choice Duncan Hunter. Of course neither of us got what we wanted that year.

I never did quite understand why you supported an open border amnesty supporting Libertarian like Ron Paul. Oh well, water under the bridge I suppose.