Posted on 12/22/2015 10:32:14 PM PST by Mariner
The Jobar neighborhood of Damascus is the epicenter of some of the fiercest fighting in Syria with Islamist rebels refusing to give up their only stronghold. Once densely populated, the area has now been completely obliterated, RT’s Murad Gadziev reports.
Most of the pre-conflict population has fled the rebel-held neighborhood of Jobar in the eastern suburb of Ghouta in Damascus, while fighting between the Syrian army and rebel groups has devastated the suburb over the past years.
Before the conflict in Syria erupted in 2011, the neighborhood was home to some 300,000 residents, most of whom were Sunni Muslims. The suburb contained a number of ancient landmarks, most notably the Green Synagogue, the oldest Jewish synagogue in the world. It also contained the Grand Jobar Mosque in addition to the tomb of the Prophet Elijah. Jobar also housed ancient baths that were built during Ottoman times.
Now totally destroyed, as can be seen in RT’s exclusive drone footage, Jobar is just one of the many testaments to the ongoing brutality and civilian suffering which has taken place during the Syrian war. The rebels who are holed up in Jobar and moving via underground tunnels don’t belong to any single group, the Syrian military told RT’s Murad Gadziev.
(Excerpt) Read more at rt.com ...
It seems I have read a lot about oil and gas discoveries in the region under hostilities right now. Also, everyone knows that land area is a very crude measure of how populated we are. It’s more complex than that. Anyway, this is my favorite day of the year so I am not going to argue.
It looks almost as bad as Detroit.
Why do you think our planet is overpopulated?
Why do you think that fossil fuels are running out?
Are you a college student or something?
This has renewed my faith.
Then you have been huffing too many Greenpeace and IPCC and WWF press releases.
This is great! Just thin of the economic boom there will be in Syria after the war. All these homes and buildings that will have to be rebuilt. It is the “broken window” theory on a massive scale.
“It all must be knocked down as our overpopulated planet murders and scrounges for the last fossil fuels.”
Syria doesn’t even have much oil - and this war is not a war over oil.
Russian nukes would fulfill prophecy making Damascus uninhabitable.
putin trumped obama
no one likes or trusts obama
he created this
then plays golf
he wants to obliterate the 2nd amendment
not to be trusted
his agenda is global chaos and destroy America
muslim racist communist
as a WW2 vet told me.... we used to kill our enemies
now we import them
The hired staff seldom knows what goes on in the boardroom.
Odd that something an agnostic posted renews your faith. He works in mysterious ways...
Hired staff? Who?
Give ETL a break.
He's special.
We sponsored the civil war that Assad suppressed with artillery and barrel bombs.
BY: Bill Gertz
February 20, 2015
Russia agreed to provide military training for three leftist regimes in Latin America and increase military visits and exercises following a visit last week to the region by Moscow's Defense Minister Sergei Shoygu, Pentagon officials said.
Shoygu met with defense and military leaders in Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua and signed several agreements on warship visits and military training during the visit, which ran from Feb. 11 to 14. It is not clear whether any new arms deals were completed during the visit.
Defense officials said the Russian leader is seeking bases in the region for strategic bomber flights that Shoygu recently promised would include flights over the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean.
U.S. intelligence agencies closely monitored the visit but a Pentagon spokeswoman played down the Russian military encroachment.
"Just as we have bilateral and multilateral relationships around the world, so do other nations," Pentagon spokeswoman Eileen M. Lainez told the Washington Free Beacon. "All nations are free to choose their associations as they see fit."
The U.S. Southern Command, the command responsible for maintaining security in the region, also played down the visit.
"We respect the sovereign right of nations in the region to seek constructive relationships with the international community," said Col. Lisa Garcia, a command spokeswoman.
Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.), a member of the House Permanent Select Intelligence Committee, said "the Russian bear is out of hibernation from Damascus, to Donetsk, and from Pyongyang to Peru."
"Putin and his coterie of "former" communists smell weakness," Pompeo said. "Their window to expand Russian influence is now and they are acting with great vigor and with nearly zero resistance from America and the West. Russian military expansion into Latin America is simply one more manifestation of their resolve and American inaction."
Defense officials familiar with intelligence reports said Shoygu discussed future arms sales and signed military training and joint exercises accords during his four days of meetings.
All three Latin states are members of the 11-member Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, known as ALBA, a leftist alliance set up by Cuba and Venezuela in 2004 as an anti-U.S. grouping of states.
The Russian news site Pravda reported that the defense minister's visit appeared to set the stage for a future visit to the region by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Russian leader is under growing isolation as the result of diplomatic and financial pressure from U.S. and European states that U.S. officials have said are beginning to cause serious economic problems for Russia.
The Shoygu visit also comes amid heightened tensions between Russia and the West over Moscow's military annexation of Ukraine's Crimea and continuing Russian military destabilization, despite a recent ceasefire accord, in eastern Ukraine.
The Obama administration has remained largely silent on Russian military encroachment in the western hemisphere. Russian Tu-95 Bear H bomber flights have increased sharply near U.S. coasts in recent months, with one recent air defense zone incursion simulating a practice nuclear cruise missile strike on the United States from northeastern Canada.
British jets on Thursday intercepted Russian bombers flying along the coast near Cornwall, in southwest England.
In Nicaragua, Shoygu signed an agreement aimed at simplifying procedures for Russian warships to make port calls. A second accord was reached that will increase military training in Russia for Nicaraguan military personnel.
Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista President Daniel Ortega announced last year that he plans to build up the armed forces with Moscow's assistance.
Russia also agreed previously to supply naval gunboats to Nicaragua beginning in 2016.
Venezuela also is a major recipient of Russian weapons, including an estimated $12 billion in arms, including Su-30 jets, Mi-17, Mi-26 and Mi-35 helicopters, T-72 tanks, Smerch multiple launch rocket launchers, S-300 anti-aircraft missiles, and artillery.
Venezuela also agreed during the Shoygu visit to increase visits by Russian warships, and Caracas will hold joint military exercises with the Russians. Joint Russian-Venezuelan air defense training also was discussed, and Russian warship visits will take place in the future.
"We will most certainly take part in your air defense and artillery drills," Shoygu was quoted by state-run Sputnik news agency as saying in Caracas.
Pravda reported Russian air force aircraft may make use of Venezuelan bases in the future.
In November, Shoygu announced that Russian strategic nuclear bombers would conduct long-range training flights over the Gulf of Mexico. "In the current situation we have to maintain military presence in the western Atlantic and eastern Pacific, as well as the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico."
Marine Corps. Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, confirmed the likelihood of future Russian bomber flights during testimony earlier this month before the House Armed Services Committee.
"Moscow has made significant progress in modernizing its nuclear and conventional forces, improving its training and joint operational proficiency, modernizing its military doctrine to integrate new methods of warfare and developing long range precision strike capabilities," Stewart said.
Stewart said Russian military forces, including Tu-95 bombers, conducted "record numbers" of out of area air and naval deployments.
"We expect this to continue this year to include greater activity in the Caribbean and Mediterranean Seas," he said.
In an article published Tuesday, Pravda quoted Putin as saying Russia would not permit the United States to achieve military superiority, and Moscow will continue to bolster its nuclear forces, space weapons, navy, and long-range aviation.
The newspaper also said Moscow lacks a system of bases to achieve its objectives.
In Cuba, Shoygu met Cuban dictator Raul Castro and noted that military relations continued to "develop constructively." The Russian leader also thanks the Cuban communist regime for hosting port visits by Russian naval vessels, including the intelligence-gathering ship Victor Leonov, which made a port call in Havana in January, coinciding with the Obama administration's diplomatic initiative to seek normalized relations with the regime.
Cuba also agreed to send military personnel to Russia for training.
U.S. defense officials said the Leonov was anchored some 25 miles off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida, last week, where it is suspected of conducting surveillance of U.S. nuclear missile submarines based at nearby Kings Bay, Georgia.
"This long-term strategy imposes obligations on Russia to supply its allies in Latin America with advanced weapons, including air defense systems, aircraft, and warships," Pravda stated.
Former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton said the Russians appear to be filling a power vacuum in the region by the lack of focus from the Obama administration.
"Russia's perception of American weakness under Obama has fueled their new adventurism in this hemisphere," Bolton said. "Since I see no chance of Obama waking up to the potential threat, I am very worried about the situation a new president will face in January 2017."
Dan Goure, a Russia expert with the Lexington Institute, said Russia's current moves into Latin America "are like a page Xeroxed from the Soviet political-military playbook."
"Now, like then, the Kremlin is attempting to counter what it perceives as western encirclement by operating in America's backyard," Goure said.
"The U.S. deploys missile defenses in Eastern Europe and sends warships into the Black Sea so the Russian military is attempting a riposte by orchestrating naval visits to Venezuela and seeking to reopen its intelligence facility in Cuba."
Goure said Moscow is seeking to encourage anti-American sentiment in the region "much the same way as it perceives the U.S. has done to Russia in the so-called color revolutions."
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/russia-boosts-arms-training-for-leftist-latin-militaries/
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RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- Russia's push into Ukraine has put many on edge. But less known is that Russia is also strengthening its military links south of the Rio Grande and re-establishing itself as a power in the region.
Vladimir Putin has been strengthening military links here, and Russia is now the largest arms dealer to governments in Latin America, surpassing the United States.
Russia has even floated the possibility of building new military bases in Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, and putting its warships permanently in the Caribbean.
In the midst of the Ukraine crisis, Russia's top diplomat Sergei Lavrov recently visited Cuba, Peru, Chile, and Nicaragua, where he announced that Russia would also pour money into the new Central American canal project. ..."
I think it’s stretch, really, to say that what warring tribes do to each other is something America “did”.
"Romanian intelligence defector Ion Mihai Pacepa alleged that an operation for the removal of chemical weapons was prepared by the Soviet Union for Libya, and that he was told over thirty years ago by Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu, KGB chairman Yury Andropov, and later, Yevgeny Primakov, about the existence of a similar plan for Iraq.
It is 'perfectly obvious', wrote Pacepa, that the Russian GRU agency helped Saddam Hussein to destroy, hide, or transfer his chemical weapons prior to the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. 'After all, Russia helped Saddam get his hands on them in the first place.'[13]
John Loftus, director of The Intelligence Summit, said in the November 16, 2007 issue of FrontPage Magazine that many documents from Iraq point to WMD being transferred to other countries such as Syria: 'As stated in more detail in my full report, the British, Ukrainian and American secret services all believed that the Russians had organized a last minute evacuation of CW [chemical] and BW [biological] stockpiles from Baghdad to Syria.'
His researchers allegedly found a document ordering the concealment of nuclear weapons equipment in storage facilities under the Euphrates River a few weeks before the invasion.[14]"
And, you need to stop now so as to preserve your standing here.
Who in FR wants to be known as a compulsive liar?
As you are. That's how you are known by all here.
On the other hand, there are the sins of omission.
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