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Airstrikes on ISIS continue as ceasefire brokered by Russia holds

Alexey Timofeychev
Russia Beyond The Headlines
Tue, 01 Mar 2016 13:03 UTC
Syrian women walk on rubble
© Reuters
Women walk on rubble in al-Shadadi town, in Hasaka province, Syria.
The truce in Syria brokered by Russia and the U.S. appears to be holding, despite reports from some parties of violations. However, the ceasefire does not extend to groups that are recognized by the UN as terrorist

Despite accusations of ceasefire violations coming from different sides in Syria, both Moscow and the West declare that the truce that began on Feb. 27 is holding.

As Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov put it, "the process is under way."

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg also said on Feb. 29 that the ceasefire in Syria was "largely" being observed. At the same time, he highlighted reports of ceasefire violations and expressed concerns over the Russian military build-up in Syria.

Air strikes against ISIS continue

As of 00:00 on Feb. 27, the Russian air force has fully stopped carrying out strikes against areas and armed groups that have submitted their ceasefire notifications, said Sergei Rudskoi from the Russian General Staff.

However, pointed out Sergei Kuralenko, head of the Russian ceasefire coordination center in Syria, "this does not mean that militants from ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra can breathe a sigh of relief." These groups, as well as the other formations listed by the UN as terrorist groups, are not covered by the ceasefire.

At the same time, over the weekend, airstrikes against ISIS (Islamic State) targets were delivered by the U.S.-led coalition: 12 in Syria and 12 against ISIS targets in Iraq.

Accusations of ceasefire violations

Russia has recorded "nine instances of violations of the cessation of hostilities," according to the Defense Ministry, which claimed the attacks were launched by the so-called moderate opposition.
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Jet4

More than 800 militants lay down arms in Syria's Daraa Province


Russia Beyond The Headlines
Tue, 01 Mar 2016 12:50 UTC
Khmeimim airbase
© mil.ru
The Russian Defense Ministry has announced the creation of a coordination center at the Khmeimim airbase that will monitor the ceasefire between the government forces and the opposition in Syria on Feb. 23.
More than 800 members of armed groups in Syria's Daraa Province have laid down their arms and have returned to a peaceful life, the Russian Defense Ministry has reported.

A meeting between the heads of Daraa Province and residents from the localities of Etbaa, al-Samein, Mesmia, Nava, Saida and Nahta was held with Russian representatives' mediation, the ministry said, adding that more than 1,000 people took part in it.

"As a result of this event, 842 members of the groups Jaysh al-Islam, the Free Syrian Army and the al-Yarmouk Brigade signed statements on abandoning the armed fight and returning to a peaceful life," the ministry said in its daily bulletin published on its website.
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Folder

Sergei Lavrov meets with UN Secretary General in Geneva, Switzerland


Russia Beyond The Headlines
Tue, 01 Mar 2016 12:44 UTC
Lavrov and Ban Ki-moon
© Flick.com/MFA Russia
Lavrov and Ban Ki-moon unveiled 'the Russian room'.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is in a separate meeting with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

The interlocutors shook hands in front of the media and began their negotiations behind closed doors.

Presumably, they may speak about the fulfillment of the agreement on the cessation of hostilities in Syria and the resumption of intra-Syrian negotiations on March 7.

Earlier on March 1, Lavrov and Ban Ki-moon unveiled 'the Russian room' in the UN Geneva office, the Palace of Nations.

The 'Russian room' was first opened in the Palace of Nations in 1995, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the United Nations. Designer Juan Pablo Molino was invited to do the refurbishments. The project was supported by Norilsk Nickel.
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Newspaper

International journalists thank Russian officers for saving their lives in Latakia, Syria shelling


Sputnik
Wed, 02 Mar 2016 09:57 UTC
Press in Syria
© YouTube/Ruptly TV
The journalists who came under artillery fire in Latakia on Tuesday survived thanks to the professionalism of Russian officers, Italian news agency reporter Askanews Cristina Guiliano said.

On Tuesday, a group of 33 international journalists came under artillery fire in northern Latakia, Syria.

No one was killed in the incident, and four journalists were injured. One of them works for Bulgaria's Media-Most holding, another is from Canada's CBC channel, while the two others are a cameraman and a correspondent for Hong Kong - based Phoenix television network. They received medical assistance right after the shelling.
"It is obvious that the incident was a surprise for me and the other journalists. But actually I was surprised by how fast the officers reacted. Some people were injured, but it could be much worse," said Guiliano who witnessed the shelling.
She added that the injuries were mostly caused by panic when the journalists came under fire. "We were injured only because we were under clad. It was hot, and our arms and legs were not protected. I was not injured. But some people fell on the ground, others were crawling, and they were injured," she explained.

According to the journalist, the incident was aimed at hampering the peace process in Syria which has become possible mainly because of Russian efforts.
"When we arrived in Latakia last night it was clear that situation had changed. It was quiet at the airfield. Russia has made progress and reached a ceasefire. But some are not happy with this, especially terrorists," Guiliano said.
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Jet5

Russian-provided advanced military technology gives President Assad's army the edge

Robert Fisk
The Independent
Sat, 27 Feb 2016 21:09 UTC
russian technology syria
© Agence France-Presse
A Russian T-90 tank fires during the 'Army-2015' international military forum in Kubinka, outside Moscow.
The regime has lost over 60,000 men since the war began, but new Russian equipment is helping turn the tide

You can see the Syrian army's spanking new Russian T-90 tanks lined up in their new desert livery scarcely 100 miles from Isis's Syrian "capital" of Raqqa.

There are new Russian-made trucks alongside them, and a lot of artillery and - surely Isis's spies are supposed to see this - plenty of Syrian soldiers walking beside the perimeter wire beside Russian soldiers wearing floppy military hats against the sun, the kind they used in the old days in the summer heat of Afghanistan in the 1980s. There's even a Russian general based at the Isriyah military base, making sure that Syrian tank crews receive the most efficient training on the T-90s.

No, Russian ground troops are not going to fight Isis. That was never the intention. The Russian air force attacks Isis from the air; the Syrians, the Iranians, the Afghan Shia Muslims from north-eastern Afghanistan, the Iraqi Shias and several hundred Pakistani Shias must attack Isis and Jabhat al-Nusra on the ground.

But the Russians have to be up in the desert to the east of the Aleppo-Hama-Homs-Damascus axis, both to train the Syrian tank crews and maintain an eastern base of forward air controllers to guide the Sukhoi bombers on to their night-time targets.
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Eye 1

Erdoğan's reward: Pentagon OK's $700 million 'smart bomb' deal to augment Turkey's terror state


Sputnik
Wed, 02 Mar 2016 05:23 UTC
Turkey shelling Syria
© Stringer / Reuters
As the Turkish government escalates tensions across the Middle East, the Pentagon has authorized a multimillion dollar deal to sell smart bombs to Ankara.

Last December, the Turkish government deployed a battalion of 25 tanks and roughly 1560 troops into northern Iraq. Acting without Baghdad's permission, the move was roundly condemned as a breach of sovereignty. Ankara has also been engaged its own internal war against Kurdish communities in the country's southeast, with the death toll reaching some 5,000 people.

Now, with all parties honoring the Syrian ceasefire, Turkey is threatening to plunge its neighbor back into the five-year civil war.

Comment: Further reading: Turkish-Saudi countermoves in Lebanon could open a new front in Syrian war

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Chess

Turkish-Saudi countermoves in Lebanon could open a new front in Syrian war


Moon of Alabama
Wed, 02 Mar 2016 05:11 UTC
Syria ceasefire violations
© Bassam Khabieh / Reuters
Fabrice Balanche is a French professor and a specialist on Syria's political geography. He is currently a visiting fellow at the Washington Institute (formerly WINEP) which is part by the U.S. Zionist lobby. So far the writings of Balanche for WINEP have been rather sane, neutral analyses.

In a piece published on February 5 he looked at the situation after the Syrian campaign cut the northern insurgency supply line to Turkey. At the end Balanche muses about possible countermoves by the Turkish and Saudi supporters of the insurgency:
Yet Turkey and Saudi Arabia may not remain passive in the face of major Russian-Iranian progress in Syria. For example, they could set up a new rebel umbrella group similar to Jaish al-Fatah, and/or send antiaircraft missiles to certain brigades. Another option is to open a new front in northern Lebanon, where local Salafist groups and thousands of desperate Syrian refugees could be engaged in the fight. Such a move would directly threaten Assad's Alawite heartland in Tartus and Homs, as well as the main road to Damascus. Regime forces would be outflanked, and Hezbollah's lines of communication, reinforcement, and supply between Lebanon and Syria could be cut off. The question is, do Riyadh and Ankara have the means and willingness to conduct such a bold, dangerous action?

Comment: Further reading:

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Black Cat

The rise of American authoritarianism

Amanda Taub
Vox
Tue, 01 Mar 2016 03:01 UTC
Trump & Authoritarianism
© Gage Skidmore, Photo illustration: Javier Zarracina/Vox
Trump & Authoritarianism
The American media, over the past year, has been trying to work out something of a mystery: Why is the Republican electorate supporting a far-right, orange-toned populist with no real political experience, who espouses extreme and often bizarre views? How has Donald Trump, seemingly out of nowhere, suddenly become so popular?

What's made Trump's rise even more puzzling is that his support seems to cross demographic lines — education, income, age, even religiosity — that usually demarcate candidates. And whereas most Republican candidates might draw strong support from just one segment of the party base, such as Southern evangelicals or coastal moderates, Trump currently does surprisingly well from the Gulf Coast of Florida to the towns of upstate New York, and he won a resounding victory in the Nevada caucuses.

Perhaps strangest of all, it wasn't just Trump but his supporters who seemed to have come out of nowhere, suddenly expressing, in large numbers, ideas far more extreme than anything that has risen to such popularity in recent memory. In South Carolina, a CBS News exit poll found that 75 percent of Republican voters supported banning Muslims from the United States. A PPP poll found that a third of Trump voters support banning gays and lesbians from the country. Twenty percent said Lincoln shouldn't have freed the slaves.

Last September, a PhD student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst named Matthew MacWilliams realized that his dissertation research might hold the answer to not just one but all three of these mysteries.
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Black Magic

Globalization of Palestine: Israel is a world-wide testing ground for repression

Dennis J. Bernstein
Consortium News
Sat, 27 Feb 2016 00:00 UTC
Israeli trained police in Baltimore 2015

Israeli trained police in Baltimore 2015

Jeff Halper, co-founder of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, sees the brutal practice of destroying Palestinian homes and similar tactics as part of an experiment in social repression that can have broader implications as income inequality spreads across the globe, as he told Dennis J Bernstein.

Israeli author and human rights activist Jeff Halper who has challenged the Israeli practice of destroying Palestinian homes (usually for simply building after being denied a permit) attempts to answer the question why the world continues to accept such repeated brutalities perpetrated by the Israelis against a million-plus locked-down, very poor Palestinians.

Halper detects a quid pro quo, a violent marriage of convenience in which "Israel offers its expertise in helping governments pursue their various wars against the people and, in return, they permit it to expand its settlements and control throughout the Palestinian territory."

Halper's latest book, War Against the People: Israel, the Palestinians and Global Pacification, focuses on a "global Palestine," and "how Israel exports its Occupation - its weaponry, its models and tactics of control and its security and surveillance systems, all developed and perfected on the Palestinians - to countries around the world engaged in asymmetrical warfare, or domestic securitization, both forms of 'war against the people.'"
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Pistol

Saudi Arabia is assassinating defecting mercenaries in Yemen


FARS News
Tue, 01 Mar 2016 04:06 UTC
mercenaries
© el-akhbar.com
Mercenaries for hire, under fire for defection.
The Saudi regime has resorted to the targeted killing of its mercenaries who have changed their stances and defected to the opposition camp in Southern Yemen. Those assassinated in Lahij province have been killed for changing sides from the US and Saudi Arabia; most of the slain militants have formerly been allies of former fugitive President Mansour Hadi or his former Prime Minister Khaled Bahah.

Most of those assassinated had changed their stance on Saudi Arabia and defected coalition-backed Hadi and Bahah groups after they found out about the realities of the war.

In a relevant development on Sunday, pro-Hadi commander Ali al-Yafe'yee was gunned down by unknown assailants in Shalal military base in Ma'ala region in Aden province. Hadi stepped down in January 2015 and refused to reconsider the decision despite calls by Ansarullah revolutionaries of the Houthi movement. Saudi Arabia has been striking Yemen for more than 11 months now to restore power to fugitive president Mansour Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh.

The Saudi-led aggression has so far killed at least 8,550 Yemenis, including hundreds of women and children. Despite Riyadh's claims that it is bombing the positions of the Ansarullah fighters, Saudi warplanes are flattening residential areas and civilian infrastructures. Over 3,750 schools have been closed and at least 1.2 million Yemeni people have been displaced so far.

Comment: A ridiculous war over two former presidents, former president Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi and former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, neither of which want to be in power.

See also: Who is to blame for the tragedy in Yemen?

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