If the
common enemy of US and Russia is ISIS, then why both are in tag of war (fighting
to each other, questioning the strategies and political will over attack). Intension
is clear they are not fighting for the safety and welfare of the civilian, but
they are fighting for the Raqqa, to secure
the oil field of Syria. It seems that Russia is not fighting against ISIS but US.
The Russian leader is reportedly mounting an enormous military mission to
take control of the terror group's stronghold of Raqqa.
VLADIMIR Putin to send
150,000 troops to Syria in a bid to wipe out the evil Islamic State once and
for all.
The city is the self-declared
capital of ISIS in Syria
and is patrolled by as many as 5,000 jihadi members.
Putin is set to mobilise 150,000 reservists who
he conscripted into the military earlier this week.
An insider
revealed: "It is very clear that Russia wants to sweep up the west of the
country, taking Raqqa and all the oil and gas resources around Palmyra. As USA
administrator think, which is denied by
Russia.
It seems "This is fast becoming a race to Raqqa – to
secure the oil fields they need to cleanse the region of insurgents, and the IS
capital is vital to do that."
It comes a day after Russian jets obliterated nine ISIS
outposts in just 24 hours using bunker-busting bombs.
Russian jets pounded terrorist targets and blew up a command centre , potentially
killing dozens of fighters. But as Syrian media claiming atlease 200 civilians
have lost their life in this 24 hour operation.
Confirming the successful raids, Andrei Kartapolov from
the Russian army vowed to ramp up the pressure, saying: "We will not only
continue strikes... We will also increase their intensity."
And Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov
said: "Over the past 24 hours, Sukhoi Su-34 and Su-24M fighter jets have
performed 20 sorties and hit nine Islamic State installations.
A
bunker-busting BETAB-500 air bomb dropped from a Sukhoi Su-34 bomber near Raqqa
has eliminated the command post of one of the terror groups, together with an
underground storage facility for explosives and munitions.
"These and other highly exact means of attack in
recent days have been used to target objects of Islamic State terrorists.
"Command posts, stores of weapons and oil products,
workshops where weapons of suicide bombers are made."
Meanwhile a terrorism expert
revealed that ISIS have vastly exaggerated their military strength and called
on Western leaders to launch a co-ordinated fightback which would obliterate
the hate group.
Dr Afzal Ashraf said ISIS has become its own worst
enemy with its campaign of
terror against the West, which has prompted an international backlash.
He said: "This mythical state will disappear in a
matter of hours once the international community decides to act.
"It won't take very long at all to drive them, if
not out of all of Iraq or Syria, then certainly the majority of their
territories.
Obama says Russian strategy in Syria is ‘recipe for disaster’
US president’s comments follow coalition’s expression of deep concerns
over targeting in Russian bombing campaign
Russia’s
failure to distinguish between Islamic State fighters and moderate opposition
forces battling against Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, is a “recipe for
disaster,” Barack Obama has said, as more evidence emerged that Moscow is
targeting anti-regime rebels and not just ISIS.
The US president said his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, “doesn’t distinguish
between Isil [Isis] and a moderate Sunni opposition that wants to see Mr Assad
go. From their perspective, they’re all terrorists. And that’s a recipe for
disaster.”
A statement released earlier on Friday by the US-led
coalition fighting ISIS expressed deep concern about attacks by the Russian air
force on Hama, Homs and Idlib. The attacks did not hit the jihadi group but caused civilian casualties.
“These military actions constitute a further escalation
and will only fuel more extremism and radicalisation,” said the statement by France, Germany, Qatar, Saudi Arabia,
Turkey, the US and Britain. “We call on the Russian federation to immediately
cease its attacks on the Syrian opposition and civilians and to focus its
efforts on fighting Isil.”
Speaking at the White House, Obama said that only Assad
and Iran supported Russia’s intervention in the conflict, but he pledged that
he would not turn the Syrian civil war into a “proxy war” between the US and Russia. “This is not some superpower
chessboard contest,” he said.
Moscow’s strategy, he said, was a self-defeating exercise
which would strengthen Isis, drive the moderate opposition underground and
further complicate any hopes of a political settlement.
“A military solution alone – an attempt by Russia and
Iran to prop up Assad and try to pacify the population – is just going to get
them stuck in a quagmire and it won’t work,” he said.
After
a meeting with Putin in Paris, the French president, François Hollande said:
“Russia’s position hasn’t changed, it has always been about support for Assad
and his regime.”
During
the meeting, the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, said: “We shouldn’t forget
what has happened in Syria over the past year: hundreds of
thousands of people lost their lives before the Islamic State appeared and this
was a result of what Assad did with his people.”
The
US-led coalition announced that its planes had targeted Isis in 28 airstrikes
on Thursday in Iraq and Syria. The UN said it had been unable to deliver
humanitarian aid in support of a ceasefire agreement “due to the recent surge
of military activity” – which diplomats said was a reference to the Russian
bombing.
Amid heightened tensions on the third day of the Russian campaign, an unnamed senior
official in Tehran denied a report that Iran was sending hundreds of troops to
fight with the Syrian army – a move that would constitute a dramatic departure
from Iran’s normally low-profile support for Assad.
It seemed likely the claim, attributed to sources in
Iran’s Lebanese ally, Hezbollah, was intended to reinforce the impression of a
powerful alliance backing Assad in the face of western and Arab demands he step
down. Analysts have said they expect Syrian government forces to launch a new
offensive in the wake of the Russian air campaign.
Syrian state media has been highlighting the “destructive
capabilities” of new aircraft.
Moscow’s strategy appears to be to mainly attack central
and north-western Syria, areas that form the gateway to Damascus and the coast.
But Russian planes also bombed targets west of Raqqa, the capital of Isis’s
self-proclaimed caliphate – apparently the first time likely Isis positions
have been hit.
Alexei Pushkov, a top Russian foreign affairs official,
told French radio he believed the air campaign could last about three to four
months. He also hit out at western criticism, tweeting: “The US is criticising Russia for
‘lack of selectivity in our targets’ in Syria. So what stopped them from
picking the right targets over a whole year, rather than just pointlessly
bombing the desert?!”
Russian
officials have denied claims that some of their airstrikes missed their targets
and dismissed suggestions from the west that planes were mainly bombing rebel
groups opposed to the Assad
regime, rather than Isis. “The main target are the Daesh [Isis] groups situated
closest to Damascus,” Pushkov insisted.
In
fact, Russian targets include fighters who have received limited backing from
the US as well as more hardline Islamist groups. The Russian defence ministry
said its aircraft carried out 18 sorties in Syria in the past 24 hours,
including 10 overnight.
The airstrikes primarily hit non-Isis rebel positions,
including in Darat al-Izza – a town in western Aleppo held by rebel fighters
including the al-Qaida affiliate in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra – and Maarat
al-Nu’man, a town in Idlib province held by Jaysh al-Fateh, a coalition of
rebel fighters that also includes Nusra.
Russia’s
foreign ministry and Putin have spoken of an “informational campaign” against
Moscow by the west, reminiscent of the language they used whenrepeatedly
denying the presence of Russian troops in eastern Ukraine over the past year and a half despite
evidence to the contrary.
Walid
al-Muallem, the Syrian foreign minister, attacked Israel, the west, Gulf states
and Turkey for backing terrorists. Addressing the UN general assembly on
Friday, Muallem said Damascus was committed to a “national dialogue” to resolve
political differences. But only Syrians could decide the president’s future, he
said.
Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies have continued to insist
that Assad must go, but a senior Arab diplomat denied reports that Qatar had
stepped up arms deliveries to Syrian rebels in response to the Russian attacks.
The US, Britain and others have signalled that Assad could remain during a political
transition to end the
four-and-a-half-year-old war. The hope in western capitals is that Moscow will
use its influence to ensure a transition does indeed take place.
An
aide to the French president said Hollande and Putin had an in-depth discussion
in which they “tried to narrow down differences on political transition”. But
both leaders looked stern as they exchanged handshakes in a yard of the Élysée
palace. The talks focused on the goals of the Russian intervention, the safety
of civilians and a future transition,
The
two also held talks with Merkel and the Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko,
that were meant to focus onresolving the situation in eastern Ukraine. There
has been speculation that Putin might attempt to link the two issues, offering
cooperation in Syria for de-escalation in Ukraine and a lifting of western
sanctions imposed over Russia’s actions there.
There has been edgy diplomacy ahead of the meeting, with
Ukraine’s presidential administration claiming Putin had asked for a separate
bilateral meeting with Poroshenko on the sidelines of the meeting, which Kiev
was considering.
According
to the Russian Defense Ministry, warplanes targeted eight ISIS positions,
including arms, transportation, communications and control positions.
"The result of this kind of
action will inevitably , simply be to inflame the civil war in Syria,"
Carter said.
A senior U.S. administration
official told that a Russian airstrike near the Syrian city of Homs "has
no strategic purpose" in terms of combating ISIS, which "shows they
are not there to go after ISIL."
The
U.S. official said the United States had no intention of preventing the
strikes, but that Russian planes didn't seem to be flying in areas where the
United States is operating.
"They are not stupid,"
the official said.
Kerry:
'Grave concerns'
U. S. -led coalition missions were continuing as normal
despite an advance warning and request from Russia to stay out of Syrian
airspace.
During a statement at the U.N.
Security Council meeting on fighting terrorism, U.S. Secretary of State John
Kerry said: "We have conducted a number of strikes against ISIL targets in
Syria over the past 24 hours including just an hour ago. These strikes will
continue."
Kerry said the U. S. -led coalition
had conducted 3,000 airstrikes against ISIS and that efforts would dramatically
increase.
He warned that the fight against
ISIS should not be confused with support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
"Moreover, we have also made
clear that we would have grave concerns should Russia strike areas where ISIL
and al Qaeda affiliated targets are not operating. Strikes of that kind would
question Russia's real intentions -- fighting ISIL or protecting the Assad
regime," he said.
Later, Kerry and his Russian
counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, said that military talks between their two
countries would happen soon.
"The first instruction to us
was to make sure that the military of the United States, the coalition led by
the United States on one hand, and the military of the Russian Federation who
now engage in some operations in Syria at the request of the Syrian government
-- get in touch and establish channels of communications to avoid any
unintended incidents," said Lavrov.
Earlier Wednesday, the upper
house of the Russian Parliament gave President Vladimir Putin approval to use
the air force in Syria, state media reported.
Federation Council Speaker
Valentina Matviyenko said that the Assad regime was the only legitimate force
fighting ISIS, ITAR-Tass reported.
It quoted her as saying that strikes by the U. S-led authorization g itima te authorities."
Lavrov said Russia conducted
airstrikes after a request from al-Assad.
Speaking at the start of the U.N.
Security Council meeting to combat terrorism, Lavrov said: "On the 30th of
September in response to a letter by the President of Syria, the President of
Russia asked and received the consent of the Council of Federation for the use
of the armed forces of the Russian Federation in the Syrian Arab
Republic."
He continued: "We're
referring here exclusively to the operation of the Russian air force to carry
out strikes against ISIL positions in Syria. We have informed the authorities
in the United States and other members of the coalition created by the
Americans of this and are ready to forge standing channels of communication to
ensure maximally effective fight against the terrorist groups."
Israeli officials said Russia had
contacted Israeli defense officials prior to conducting its airstrike operation
in Syria.
French Foreign Minister Laurent
Fabius said France had not received advance warning and he wanted to be sure
Russia did not target opponents of the Assad regime or civilians.
"As far as the strikes
themselves are concerned, we have to check that it really was Daesh and
terrorist groups that really have been targeted and not opponents to the Syrian
regime or the civilian population," Fabius told reporters, after giving a
statement to the Security Council. Daesh is the Arabic acronym for ISIS.
"I'm not accusing anybody of anything but we have to check the
facts," he said.
- 01:39
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