Above, a SU-35 Russian warplane for
ground targets deployed this week in Syria.
Russia is determined to bomb Syrian rebels into submission by a massive aerial campaign, comparable to the American 2003 “shock and awe” offensive over Baghdad. Tuesday, Feb. 2, saw a wave of air strikes, for which heavy Tupolev Tu-22M strategic bombers flew in from their base in Russia. President Vladimir is not deterred by the hundreds of civilian casualties caused in these raids, or the cries rising from the Syrian town of Aleppo which was targeted Monday.
The Russian air strikes are of equal intensity in northern and southern Syria. Tuesday, Feb. 3, 300 sorties were conducted against rebel forces holding the small southern town of Nawa, just 10 km from Israel’s Golan border. They were clearly audible to the members of Israel’s security cabinet, led by Prime Minister Netanyahu, when they toured the northern border that day.
Russia is determined to bomb Syrian rebels into submission by a massive aerial campaign, comparable to the American 2003 “shock and awe” offensive over Baghdad. Tuesday, Feb. 2, saw a wave of air strikes, for which heavy Tupolev Tu-22M strategic bombers flew in from their base in Russia. President Vladimir is not deterred by the hundreds of civilian casualties caused in these raids, or the cries rising from the Syrian town of Aleppo which was targeted Monday.
The Russian air strikes are of equal intensity in northern and southern Syria. Tuesday, Feb. 3, 300 sorties were conducted against rebel forces holding the small southern town of Nawa, just 10 km from Israel’s Golan border. They were clearly audible to the members of Israel’s security cabinet, led by Prime Minister Netanyahu, when they toured the northern border that day.
This may have been meant
to demonstrate to all parties concerned that Moscow is determined to smash
the Syrian rebellion and close all its options except for two: 1)
Continue to take brutal punishment from hundreds of bombing raids per day; or
2) Play ball with the political solution Moscow has presented to the Geneva
conference for resolving the Syrian conflict.
The concession to Saudi
Arabia and the UAE offered by Russia for letting the rebel groups they support
come to Geneva was that Putin planned the political process he
projected to culminate in Bashar Assad’s departure.
Lacking a specific
timeline for this event, Moscow added another incentive: the removal not only
of Bashar Assad from power, but also making a clean sweep of his clan members
from their positions of control over the Syrian military and intelligence
services.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, on a visit to Abu Dhabi Tuesday, stressed that the Gulf rulers had every reason to go along with Moscow’s plan for Syria, since Assad’s ouster is built in as its end-product, an elusive goal for which they laid out billions of dollars in support for rebel groups..
The heavy bombing campaign was not Putin’s only tool of leverage. US President Barack Obama is behind the military and political game plan which Moscow is selling to the region.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, on a visit to Abu Dhabi Tuesday, stressed that the Gulf rulers had every reason to go along with Moscow’s plan for Syria, since Assad’s ouster is built in as its end-product, an elusive goal for which they laid out billions of dollars in support for rebel groups..
The heavy bombing campaign was not Putin’s only tool of leverage. US President Barack Obama is behind the military and political game plan which Moscow is selling to the region.
The two powers are
therefore engaged in a joint initiative for bringing the horrendous five-year
Syrian war to an end, their first such partnership for a Middle East conflict.
They have agreed to assign the Russian military the lead role for imposing
a political solution on the various parties. Because their alliance is
powerful enough to crush any resistance in its path, neither Washington nor
Moscow is overly concerned by the threat by rebel delegations in Geneva to walk
out unless Russian air strikes are halted.
For them, Geneva is a
sideshow. The political process for ending the war is rooted in the deal
between the United States and Russia. Even if some delegations do walk out of
the conference, their forces will continue to face savage Russian air strikes,
until they are cowed into downing arms on terms dictated by the Kremlin
with Obama’s support.
Russian Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday that the stopping of smuggling between
Turkey and Syria is the key condition for a cease-fire in Syria, adding that he
does not see a reason for stopping "the operation against terror"
that Russia is carrying out.
A woman, above, behind the scope of
a sniper rifle for Islamic jihadists is like a silver bullet for a werewolf or
other evil creatures. War
correspondent Marat Musin and his crew visit al-Qamishli of al-Hasakah
province in the video below.
Gary Stearman discusses the nuclear destruction of Egypt in
the video below.
Syrian sitrep Feb. 3, 2016
Crisis news Feb. 2, 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipuXcMq8Z_4
The Iranian
media reported Wednesday that Mohsen Ghajarian,a brigadier general in the Revolutionary Guard
Corps (IRGC), was killed in the Syrian city of Aleppo. The circumstances and
date of his death were not given. Ghajarian was a veteran officer who had
served in the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. Seven IRGC fighters were killed in
Aleppo on Tuesday but the Iranian media did not provide any details except for
their names.
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