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CIA-backed rebels, civilians reportedly targeted by Russian airstrikes in Syria

http://conservativeread.com/cia-backed- ... -in-syria/

October 1, 2015 chris Leave a Comment

Russia’s first airstrikes in Syria Wednesday targeted areas held by rebels receiving arms, funding, and training from the CIA and killed dozens of civilians, according to U.S. officials and published reports.

The Syrian National Council, a group opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, told Sky News that at least 36 people had been killed by airstrikes in the western city of Homs, including five children. Khaled Khoja, the SNC’s leader, told Sky that none of the four areas targeted by Russian planes Wednesday contained ISIS fighters and called Moscow’s claim that it was helping the U.S.-led coalition defeat the terror group “baseless.”

A senior U.S. defense official said the Russian strikes targeted fighters in the vicinity of Homs, located roughly 60 miles east of a Russian naval facility in Tartus, and were carried out by a “couple” of Russian bombers. In a video released by the U.S.-backed rebel group Tajamu Alezzah, jets are seen hitting a building claimed to be a location of the group in the town of Latamna in the central Hama province.

The group commander Jameel al-Saleh told a local Syrian news website that the group’s location was hit by Russian jets but didn’t specify the damage.

The Wall Street Journal reported that one video released by people affiliated with local rebel groups showed rebels and citizens are seen rushing down a street as thick black smoke and fire engulfed heavily damaged buildings. Then they are shown attempting to rescue those trapped under the rubble. A dazed man covered in blood was lifted up from the ground and taken outside.

“Is there anyone here?” a voice is heard shouting. “I don’t know, I don’t know but lots of people live here!” answers a panicked man.

Russiaciarebels

In another video a naked child covered in blood and shrapnel is shown crying on a bed at a local field hospital.

Moscow rejected claims that it was targeting so-called “moderate” rebels , as well as reports of civilians deaths. A spokeswoman for Russia’s foreign ministry claimed to Sky News that the claims were part of an “information war … which, it appears, someone prepared well.”

Speaking to journalists on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the Russian Air Forces are cooperating with the Syrian pro-government military to target “exclusively” Islamic State (ISIS) targets.

“Rumors that the targets of these strikes were not IS positions were groundless,” Lavrov stressed, adding that the Russian Defense Ministry has clearly stated on its website the targets and objectives of Russian airstrikes in Syria.

The Russian Defense Ministry said its warplanes targeted and destroyed eight positions belonging to ISIS extremists, though it did not give specific locations. But French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told lawmakers in Paris: “Curiously, they didn’t hit Islamic State. I will let you draw a certain number of conclusions yourselves.”

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Washington was prepared to welcome Russian military action in Syria as long as it is directed against ISIS and other Al Qaeda affiliates, but would have “grave concerns” if it conducted strikes against other groups.

“Strikes of that kind would question Russia’s real intentions fighting (ISIS) or protecting the Assad regime,” Kerry said.

Worried by the threat of Russian and U.S. jets clashing inadvertently over Syrian skies, Washington agreed to talk to Moscow on how to “deconflict” their military actions. Last week, Defense Secretary Ash Carter had a 50-minute phone call with his Russian counterpart — the first such military-to-military discussion between the two countries in more than a year.

Earlier Wednesday, Pentagon officials, in a development first reported by Fox News, brushed aside an official request, or “demarche,” from Russia to clear air space over northern Syria.

The request was made in a heated discussion between a Russian three-star general and U.S. officials at the American Embassy in Baghdad, sources said.

“If you have forces in the area we request they leave,” said the general, who used the word “please” in the contentious encounter.

A U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity told the Associated Press said there were no conflicts with the Russian strikes, and they had no impact on coalition missions, which primarily attacked targets in the north and east.

“We still conducted our normal strike operations in Syria today,” a senior Pentagon official told Fox News. “We did not and have not changed our operations.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin insisted Russia will not send ground troops to Syria and that its role in Syrian army operations will be limited.

“We certainly are not going to plunge head-on into this conflict,” he said. “First, we will be supporting the Syrian army purely in its legitimate fight with terrorist groups. Second, this will be air support without any participation in the ground operations.”

Putin also said he expects Assad to talk with the Syrian opposition about a political settlement, but added he was referring to what he described as a “healthy” opposition group.

Putin and other officials have said Russia was providing weapons and training to Assad’s army to help it combat IS. Russian navy transport vessels have been shuttling back and forth for weeks to ferry troops, weapons and supplies to an air base near the coastal city of Latakia. IHS Jane’s, a leading defense research group, said last week that satellite images of the base showed 28 jets, including Su-30 multirole fighters, Su-25 ground attack jets, Su-24 bombers and possibly Ka-52 helicopter gunships.

Putin Muscles in on Syria, Obama Cowers
Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin
The Associated Press

http://www.breitbart.com/national-secur ... ma-cowers/

by Ben Shapiro30 Sep 20150

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin said in his April 2005 state of the nation address that the “collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century.” Putin, an old KGB operative, yearns for the days of the USSR, when the Soviets vied with the Americans for global power. He’s spent well over a decade trying to rebuild that lost legacy in the Middle East.

It turns out all he needed was a sucker.

Barack Obama is that sucker.

On Wednesday, Russia demanded that the United States refrain from military operations in Syria while they pursued attacks against ISIS. Or rather, supposed attacks against ISIS, given that Russia promptly began bombing non-ISIS targets on behalf of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. According to Jennifer Griffin and Lucas Tomlinson of Fox News, “Activists and a rebel commander on the ground said the Russian airstrikes have mostly hit moderate rebel positions and civilians.” Russia’s parliament went further, granting Putin the ability to deploy forces in Syria, without any duration attached. Russia’s action guarantees that Assad will remain at the head of the Syrian government for the foreseeable future, just one day after President Barack Obama announced that Assad needed to go.

Thus far, the Obama administration’s response has been Benny Hill-theme-music-level comical. On Wednesday, NATO’s top commander, General Philip M. Breedlove, explained, “As we see the very capable air defense [systems] beginning to show up in Syria, we’re a little worried about another A2/AD bubble being created in the eastern Mediterranean….High on Mr. Putin’s list in Syria is preserving the regime against those that are putting pressure on the regime and against those that they see who might be supporting those putting pressure on the regime.” How awkward.

Then, Secretary of State John Kerry tried to play Putin’s aggression as an “opportunity,” explaining that the U.S. welcomed “genuine efforts” to fight ISIS. He added, lamely, “We must not be confused in our fight against ISIL with support for Assad.” He concluded that Assad still had to go, but gradually, because otherwise there would be an “implosion” in terms of the Syrian power structure.

Finally, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest warned Putin that “Russia will not succeed in imposing a military solution any more than the United States was successful in imposing a military solution in Iraq a decade ago, and certainly any more than Russia was able to impose a military solution in Afghanistan three decades ago.” This, of course, ignores the somewhat inconvenient fact that the United States did win the war in Iraq, and that somewhat more inconvenient fact that the U.S. removed a dictator while Putin fights to preserve one. But blaming Bush always comes first for the Obama administration.

No matter what the Obama administration says, however, the effect is clear: Putin will do whatever the hell he wants in Syria, as he has in Ukraine. And he’s now achieving wonders in the Middle East about which his Soviet forebears would have dreamt. In 1945 and 1946, Stalin attempted to push into Turkey and Iran; the West fought back, and Stalin withdrew. Truman, recognizing Stalin’s aggression, embraced George Kennan’s policy of containment at the same time, agreeing that diplomacy in the absence of economic and military pressure would be bound to fail. The Iranian/Turkish crises of that period settled American policy on the importance of a joint defense of the two countries from Soviet interference.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the Soviets attempted to extend their imperialism via strategic alliances with and weapons shipments to nationalist Arab movements. Their involvement with these movements contributed to repeated conflicts between those movements and the state of Israel; the United States consistently defended Israel, preventing Soviet influence from having too far-reaching an effect.

In the late 1970s, the Carter administration decided that Truman’s longstanding policies had ignored the true root of chaos in the Middle East: those pesky Jews. Carter thus threw his focus on pressuring Israel into concessions to its enemies, leaving the Soviet Union with a free hand elsewhere. The Soviets invaded Afghanistan and stood behind the ouster of the Shah of Iran, throwing Carter’s foreign policy into turmoil. Reagan’s ascension shifted Middle East policy back toward the Truman Doctrine, which remained the policy of the United States until the collapse of the Soviet Union.

After the Soviet Union fell apart, the new Russian Federation became a guarded ally with the United States – at least briefly. But then Vladimir Putin came to power and began exploring his options in the Middle East. George W. Bush’s involvement in Middle Eastern politics following 9/11 foreclosed heavy Russian infiltration into the region.

Then came President Obama. Obama created a vacuum in Iraq, which was quickly filled by the Russian-allied Iranians. He backed a series of nationalist uprisings in various Muslim countries, virtually all of which ended with terrorists ascendant – and, unsurprisingly, a certain lack of warmth toward the United States. He drew a fake red line on chemical weapons use by Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, then said Assad had to go – and finally thrust Assad directly into Russia’s arms by embracing a Russian “deal” that gave Putin the power to police Assad’s weapons of mass destruction. Meanwhile, like a bewildered lawyer canoeing down an unknown river without a weapon, Obama insists that America’s imminent Deliverance-ization at the hands of the Russians will be just fine.

President Obama has handed Vladimir Putin large swaths of the Middle East on a platter. Even heretofore American allies now look to Putin as the grand political master of the region: just weeks ago, Egyptian president General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, ignored or insulted by Obama, reached out to Putin; Israel has tentatively reached out to Putin, recognizing that the Obama administration provides no hedge against Israel’s enemies; Jordan has agreed to build a nuclear plant with Russian help.

Vladimir Putin must have thought that rebuilding Russian influence in the Middle East would be a long-term project. President Obama has accelerated his timetable.

Assad is an Alawite, Shia, dictator, and the lesser of two evils. He is also a useful Russian puppet. Putin will not abandon his Ally. He will not abandon his naval bases in Syria. He is doing what must be done. What should have been done a long time ago. He will destroy the anti-Syrian government rebels (another name for terrorists), and then he will destroy ISIL. Barry needs to get out of the way and STFU before he finds a nuke at his front door.