Posted on 10/14/2015 12:53:32 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Many in the West have criticized Russia's intervention in Syria for not targeting IS. But Russia does not view 'moderate' rebels as any better than their ISIS counterparts.
The videos posted almost daily by the defense ministry show Russian strike fighters in action over Syria, hammering "terrorist infrastructure" with precision-guided munitions. Meanwhile, Russian media reports speak of major gains by Syrian armed forces advancing behind a firestorm of Russian air support.
But there is growing controversy over what the Russians are actually accomplishing with their two-week-old intervention in Syria's bitter and multi-sided civil war, and what their actual war objectives may be.
Western sources argue that most Russian air strikes have been directed not at the generally acknowledged enemy, the self-declared Islamic State, but against "moderate" rebels. Those forces have been fighting to overthrow the minority-led dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad for almost four years, with assistance from the CIA, Turkey, and Persian Gulf states. The US Central Command has even alleged that Russian air strikes are actually enabling ISIS to gain ground by weakening other rebel formations that are opposed to the extremists.
Russian sources insist that they are hitting ISIS hard. But more importantly, they say that they never made any promises to avoid attacking other rebel groups. They argue that while the US and its allies are fighting an ineffectual two-front war against ISIS and Assad, Russia's strategy has always been to bolster Assad's forces from above in a bid to turn the tide of the rebellion.
"Russia isn't playing this game of distinguishing between 'good' terrorists and 'bad' ones," says Yegeny Satanovsky, president of the independent Institute of Middle East Studies in Moscow, and a strong backer of the Kremlin campaign. "For Russia, the only way to do this is to back Syria's existing central government, w
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Because they are the illegal weapons funnel from the USSA.
Cut off their supply! Warfare 101.
An interesting, but half-baked report.
For example:
“’What Russia is doing is basically the same as NATO’s game plan in Libya a few years ago. We are providing close air support to forces on the ground, in this case backing the government against rebels, but the same idea,’ says Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of Russia in Global Affairs, a leading foreign policy journal. “
‘Everything depends now on the ability of the Syrian Army to win victories with our help....’”
OK, except that analysis leaves out Hezbollah fighters and Iranian Revolutionary Guards, who are also supposed to be pouring in to Syria to help Assad. Russia will be providing air support to more than just Assad.
It also ignores a big reason for Russia avoid ISIS targets at this time. As Putin points out, he asked our mush-for-brains administration about sharing intelligence on where to bomb, but we said, NO. Then he asked mush-for-brains to share intelligence about where not to bomb, and we said NO again.
Britain and the US have already said they gave their pilots orders to shoot Russian planes in a conflict. The US also says it is bombing ISIS. What better way to have a conflict with the US and UK than for the Russians to try to bomb ISIS locations with US and British planes in the same airspace over ISIS?
Russia is cleaning out western Syria first, securing bases, cities and loc’s, then will move into central and eastern Syria (Battle of Aleppo is already underway)
The Russians have struck some ISIS targets, just not the majority thus far since they have not yet moved the battle eastward. They have given intelligence to Iraq that has led to some effective Iraqi strikes on ISIS in Iraq,
Thus far the Russians seem to have been targeting command nodes of the various islamist factions including their leaders, supplies and weapons, and command centers.
The Russians clearly stated that Assad is the best answer for now, and anyone against the Assad regime is considered an enemy. And most of them are. Islamists of various stripes such as AL QAEDA aka al Nusra and other names, who will never consent to be part of a secular representative government, and are not fighting for and have no goal of supporting one.
Russia invited the us to join them and fight ISIS, or give them ISIS targets. We declined.
Thus far the Russian coalition consists of Syria, Russia, Iran, Iraq, CSTO states (Central Asia, Cuba, and verbally Egypt and China and tacitly, Israel
1. Getting rid of anti Assad forces.
2. Sending ISIS a message
3. Sticking it in Obama’s face.
4. Showing the world America cannot be trusted.
That about sums it up.
...because after dodging coalition air strikes for 14 months ISIS is a much harder target. Sectarian forces will soon be using similar tactics otherwise they die.
Many dead Syrian Christians can’t tell the moderates from ISIS either.
I hope Russia will try to saturate their targets so there are not many survivors progressing along the learning curve.
Professional courtesy.
They accuse Putin of strengthening ISIS because he’s targeting “moderate” rebels. Don’t they see the irony. The “moderate” rebels are attacking Assad and not ISIS so doesn’t that also strengthen ISIS? What I see US/Obama making excuses.
Duh! Who put the Duh in alciaduh? Isis isus. Same bat time same bat channel, only the names have changed to protect the nonnocent.
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