These Syrian soldiers are mixed in with local fighters who know the ground
Russia is providing aid to the Syrian army because it believes this is the only force capable of confronting the Islamic State, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday.
… from Sputnik, Moscow
Putin is playing a cool hand in all this, while under fire
[ Editor’s Note: The media dance and shadow boxing continues on Russia’s military assistance to the Syrians, which has been nonstop during the entire war. It appears that someone now wants to cast this as an “intervention”, and it gets better, “risks destabilizing the situation further”. You just can’t make this stuff up.
So there you have it. The West does not want the IS defeated, but to continue to play the long slow game and wait for the regime change fruit in Syria to fall from the tree. The Syrian army has certainly been worn down, but they have enough of a population to replace their losses. Losing is not a feasible alternative.
Lavrov weighed in today, also, obviously a prepared media counter, saying that “Syria would not go the way of Libya”. That was a very pregnant statement. The void of having no outside forces to beef up the struggling Libyan government with the country awash with arms allowed the IS to gain a foothold there and expand it to include Gaddafi’s hometown of Sirte.
With this news above, we hear that an airbase is in preliminary construction in Latakia, where the main Russian naval facility is. If this is true, it shows that in the current situation shows that the Russians might want to be able to fly in supplies directly to their main base as needed, like when someone else might intervene that was not a guest of the government. Unsaid is whether this “expansion of the base” would be viewed as a counter to Turkey’s cross border support of IS, long known by the whole world.
Putin already gave a carefully worded statement that said the time had not come yet for the Russians to engage IS directly, another pregnant statement. To engage you need facilities, the ability to defend them from ground and air attack, combat helicopters, artillery support, and lots and lots of ammo. Latakia is further away from Israel and more time to react to a IDF air attack.
British press is reporting that Brit pilots have been flying IS strikes inside the coalition forces without the approval of Parliament, and even disclosing that their Special Ops people were on the ground in Northern Syria in IS disguise, quite a trick there.
Germany’s Die Zeit is editorializing that without Russian and Iranian support IS cannot be defeated. So we have a political discussion going on now that removing Assad, weakening the Syrian military or impeding their ability to fight, is putting the EU at risk to more IS expansion. Finally we are seeing some push back from a Western press that we find too often is compromised to its knees.
The VT A-team will be learning a lot more about this on our trip to Damascus next week. We will report what we can, as it is a very fluid situation there… Jim W. Dean ]
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You need guns and ammo, and the people to fight them
– First published … September 10, 2015 –
There are no other organized forces capable of fighting against ISIL except for the Syrian government army, Peskov said.
“The Russian side has repeatedly noted the obvious threat of ISIL and its constant attempts to expand the territory of its influence, the territory controlled by the Islamic State. And, of course, the only force that can oppose this advancement is the Syrian army. There are simply no other organized, capable forces there. Therefore, Russia, of course, sees a task of supporting Syrian authorities in fighting this dangerous phenomenon,” Peskov told reporters.
Earlier on Thursday, it was reported by Russian newspaper Kommersant that Moscow supplies Syrian government forces with firearms, grenade launchers and armored personnel carriers as the country is struggling with radical ISIL militants.
The newspaper added that the weaponry and military hardware are needed to help the Syrian army counter the advances of ISIL radicals, who have ceased vast areas in the country.
According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russia provides “considerable” support to Syria in terms of equipment, training and weaponry.
On Wednesday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stressed that Russian military specialists deployed in Syria were not participating in military operations in the conflict-torn country and were limited to an “advisory role.”
Syria has been mired in civil war since 2011. Government forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad are fighting against several opposition and radical Islamist militant groups, including the al-Nusra Front (Jabhat al-Nusra) and ISIL radicals.
Jim Davis is the son of USMC MGySgt. Lesley Davis (Ret.) who passed away on April 24, 2006, from ALS caused by Agent Orange. His dad’s mission before he passed on was to ensure all veterans, spouses, children, and widows all received the benefits, medical care and attention, and proper facilities from the VA.
Because of the promise made to his dad to carry on the mission, in May 2006 Davis began as a one-man show sending out 535 letters every single week to all members of Congress requesting and politely demanding the fulfill their promises made over the past decades to care for life those who wore the uniform and their families.
Veterans-For-Change was born in August 2006 with a very small membership of 25 people composed of veterans, spouses, widows, family members, and friends and to date continues to grow.
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