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Syria's Foreign Ministry has vowed to continue fighting terrorist groups in Idlib and elsewhere notwithstanding Turkish threats, and has accused Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of supporting, arming and training terrorist organizations operating in the region. Damascus also reiterated that Turkey's military presence on Syrian soil is illegal.Turkey also deployed more military reinforcements to Idlib. Russia voiced its support for Syria saying that it has the right to eliminate the terrorists from its territory.
"At the moment, we consider the most important thing is the implementation of... agreements (between Russia and Turkey)... and of course the suppression of any terrorist activity directed against the Syrian armed forces and Russian military facilities," Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow.On February 12th, one young person was killed in northern Syria, when US troops deviated from their route and clashed with civilians.
"We consider such sorties from Idlib unacceptable," the senior Russian official noted.
The altercation between Syrian and US servicemen drew in a large group of local residents and at one point the American troops opened fire on them, killing a 22-year-old man and injuring another person. Russian military police arrived at the scene and were able to quell the tensions before they could have spiraled into a major confrontation.UPDATE 14/02/2020: The Syrian Army has captured a strategic base in southwestern Aleppo:
"Only thanks to the efforts of the Russian servicemen who arrived at the scene of the incident, it was possible to prevent a further escalation of the conflict with local residents," the Russian military said.
According to a field source in the Aleppo Governorate, the Syrian Arab Army, alongside Liwaa Al-Quds and the Local Defense Forces (LDF), captured the 46th Regiment Base and a nearby town after the jihadist rebels withdrew from the area. The source said the Syrian Army and their allies faced virtually no resistance from the jihadist rebels, who withdrew from the base after losing several points nearby.
He would add that the Syrian Army is now pushing towards the strategic town of Al-Atareb, which is located near the Turkish border.
The collapse of the jihadist forces in southwestern Aleppo and eastern Idlib has been a major surprise for the Syrian Army, as even Turkish military intervention has done little to help the militants maintain their ground.
Right now, the accusation of 'anti-Semitism' is the political and social equivalent of a nuclear weapon. This is part of the problem with using it so freely to shut down any and all criticism of Israel - much like the term 'racist,' overusing it may lead to it losing all its power against actual racists and anti-Semites. It works for now, and will work for a while yet - until some day soon it doesn't anymore. People can only handle so much hyperbole before they become inured to it. Not everything is the second coming of the Holocaust, and arguing otherwise only cheapens its horrors.
Worst of all, invoking it to shut down speech - however hateful one may find it - actually fuels the very tropes promoted by actual anti-Semites about 'Jewish control' of the media and politics. At the end of the day, the argument of force can never truly replace the force of argument, and sunlight is usually the best disinfectant.
Comment: Brexit won't be such a calamity for Britain, but only because there's no foreign or imperial threat to exploit it. And also because it's not really going to happen.