Free Republic

It is Russia’s patience - and not the United States’ - that is waning over the situation in Syria, the chief of Russia’s General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, has told the media. Earlier, US Secretary of State, John Kerry said that while the Syrian President, Bashar Assad and Russia were demanding strict compliance with ceasefire in the whole territory of Syria, the Syrian government troops were pushing ahead with their operation to recapture Aleppo. He remarked that Russia should be aware that patience on Assad’s Syria was wearing thin. "If anyone’s patience on Syria is waning, it is our patience, not...

American and Russian fighter jets had a tense showdown in the skies above Syria as the Russians dropped bombs on U.S.-backed rebels. U.S. and Russian fighter jets bloodlessly tangled in the air over Syria on June 16 as the American pilots tried and failed to stop the Russians from bombing U.S.-backed rebels in southern Syria near the border with Jordan. The aerial close encounter underscores just how chaotic Syria’s skies have become as Russia and the U.S.-led coalition work at cross-purposes, each dropping bombs in support of separate factions in the five-year-old civil war. The near-clash also highlights the escalating...

Quoting unnamed administration officials, CNN host Jake Tapper revealed that the White House is “concerned” that Russia could invade South and East Ukraine “possibly as soon as this weekend.” He said that, in spite of Russia’s assurances that the large numbers of troops and military equipment amassed along the Ukrainian border are there merely for training exercises, the White House believes that Moscow could be planning a broader incursion into Ukraine. “There is now real apprehension that Vladimir Putin could push even further into Ukraine, perhaps as soon as this weekend,” Tapper said. He quoted anonymous administration officials who are...

Obama’s decision to send Special Forces into Syria is being widely viewed as a US military escalation in the country. The troop dispatch also signals that the US trying to forestall Russian successes in wiping out Washington’s regime-change assets in Syria. In short, the US Special Forces are being used as “human shields” to curb Russian air strikes against anti-government mercenaries, many of whom are instrumental in Washington’s regime-change objective in Syria. First of all, we need to view a host of developments, including the hastily convened “peace talks” in Vienna, as a response by the US and its allies...

British officials have made an unseemly leap to speculate on a terrorist plot in the Russian airliner crash over Sinai last weekend. And Russia has understandably reacted furiously to the speculation, saying that it is too early to make such an assessment when crash investigators have not even compiled, let alone evaluated, evidence. American officials, including President Barack Obama, are also now echoing the British claims of a bomb on the plane. The question is: why the haste? ........................... Cameron and Obama are evidently being fed intelligence assessments of a bomb being stowed in the airplane's hold by terrorists. But...

"The US and its allies would like to see Russia’s military operations in Syria go horribly wrong as Russia’s success heralds a crushing defeat for Western regime-change machinations. It would also signal the balance of power shifting away from US hegemony. . . . From the outset of Russia’s aerial bombing campaign against terror groups in Syria, beginning on September 30, Washington and its Western allies have sought all possible ways of discrediting and derailing the intervention. US President Obama poured scorn saying “it was doomed to fail,” while Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron labeled the Russian move as “a...

Sensational reports of Russian government spies hacking into the Democrat party’s computers weren’t the usual anti-Moscow smear job. Republican presidential contender Donald Trump also took a hit in the double whammy. The abrasive business tycoon may have a popular following among grass roots voters, but he has managed to garner powerful enemies within the American establishment. Not least large sections of the corporate news media, the military and foreign policy arms of US government.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte today (13 June) admitted a referendum called by euroskeptic groups on whether to back closer ties between Ukraine and the EU had been “disastrous” after voters soundly rejected the pact. “I’m totally against referenda, and I’m totally, totally, totally against referenda on multilateral agreements, because it makes no sense as we have seen with the Dutch referendum,” Rutte told a conference of European MPs. “The referendum led to disastrous results,” he added. …

https://youtu.be/40U6VKq-2yk

Yeni Akit is a right-wing Turkish paper which has supported Al-Qaeda It is known for its hate speech against LGBT groups, Jews and Christians Also has strong ties with President Erdogan and his party, the AKP Broke news of Orlando attack with headline: 'Death toll rises to 50 in bar where perverted homosexuals go!' A Turkish newspaper with links to the country's President has published a homophobic headline calling those who died in the Orlando mass shooting 'perverts' and 'deviants'. Yeni Akit, a right-wing newspaper which has supported the likes of Al-Qaeda in the past, broke news of the attack...

The Russian air force grounded its entire fleet of Sukhoi-27 fighter jets on Thursday after a fatal crash near Moscow which aviation sources told Russian agencies looked like the result of some kind of technical failure. Viktor Bondarev, the head of the air force, ordered the country's fleet of the twin-engined fighter jet grounded until the reasons for the crash had been determined, Russian agencies reported. Russia is believed to have over 300 of the fighter jets in service. The United States complained in April that one of them had made aggressive manoeuvres near a U.S. reconnaissance plane over the...

An angry war of words has erupted between Greece and Turkey after Turkish authorities permitted a daily Koran reading to be broadcast from Turkey’s famous Hagia Sophia, a former Byzantine cathedral. Turkish national broadcaster TRT Diyanet will broadcast the sahur or Islamic predawn meal along with daily readings from the Koran during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan which began Monday. Greece’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the move in a statement calling it “bigotry” and “not compatible with modern, democratic and secular societies.”

Breaking news reports from many sources (BBC, RT etc) say Coalition [US] planes have bombed a Syrian army base in Ayyash in Deir al-Zour province, killing and wounding a number of Syrian government troops: "A suspected US-led coalition air strike has killed four Syrian military personnel, according to a monitoring group. The strike took place in Deir al-Zour province, which is largely held by the jihadist group Islamic State, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights."

Russia's foreign minister said Washington has asked Moscow not to target the al-Qaida's branch in Syria, the Nusra Front, but the U.S. insisted Friday that it only wants Russia to carefully select it targets to avoid hitting civilians and legitimate opposition groups. Sergey Lavrov said that Russia has long insisted that the moderate, U.S.-backed opposition groups should leave the areas occupied by Nusra. He said in televised remarks that Russia and the U.S. have engaged in close dialogue on how to secure a cease-fire in Syria, but added that fighting the Islamic State group and Nusra should be a top...

Russia's foreign minister said Washington has asked Moscow not to target the al-Qaida's branch in Syria, the Nusra Front, but the U.S. insisted Friday that it only wants Russia to carefully select it targets to avoid hitting civilians and legitimate opposition groups. Sergey Lavrov said that Russia has long insisted that the moderate, U.S.-backed opposition groups should leave the areas occupied by Nusra. He said in televised remarks that Russia and the U.S. have engaged in close dialogue on how to secure a cease-fire in Syria, but added that fighting the Islamic State group and Nusra should be a top...

Raqqa INVASION: Russia, Syrian army and US march on ISIS capital for explosive finale ISIS militants could be flushed out of their de facto capital in an explosive battle with the terror nuts. By Peter Walker / Published 3rd June 2016 The Syrian army and US-backed militias are reportedly marching on Raqqa in what could be a defining landmark moment. Russian air strikes today blasted Daesh-held territory around seven miles from the extremists' stronghold. A military source said: "The field leadership does not give information about the main direction or the secondary direction, but the direction is open to two...

Nearly 50 air strikes hit rebel-held areas in and around the Syrian city of Aleppo on Sunday in some of the heaviest recent raids by Russian and Syrian government aircraft, residents and a monitoring group said. The group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, also said an unidentified war plane had crashed in countryside south of Aleppo, in an area where Islamist rebel fighters are battling the Syrian army and Iranian-backed forces. It had no information on what caused the crash. A civil defense worker said at least 32 people were killed in the rebel-held parts of the city during...

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday signaled his intention to establish a Russian military air base in neighboring Belarus—a move sure to unnerve Poland and the Baltic nations. Belarus has made clear it would not welcome a Russian base, but the former Soviet republic remains dependent on Moscow for credit and energy. […] Belarus is a desirable location for Russia because it borders Ukraine and three members of the European Union and NATO: Lithuania, Latvia and Poland. …

The U.S. military must rebuild in Europe to face a more aggressive Russia, whose advanced submarines, weapons systems and geographic advantage have the U.S. “playing zone defense,” the top U.S. commander in Europe said Thursday. “We have about 20 years of a different paradigm to correct,” Gen. Philip Breedlove, commander of U.S. European Command, said during testimony before the House Armed Services Committee. Breedlove, who has led EUCOM during the command’s biggest transformation in a generation, said he did not foresee a need to return to a Cold War-style military posture. But the era of trying to make a partner...

Twenty-eight people were killed and dozens wounded in Turkey's capital Ankara on Wednesday when a car laden with explosives detonated next to military buses near the armed forces' headquarters, parliament and other government buildings. The Turkish military condemned what it described as a "contemptible and dastardly" attack on the buses as they waited at traffic lights in the administrative heart of the city. Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said 28 people including soldiers and civilians had been killed and 61 wounded in the blast, which took place near a busy intersection less than 500 metres from parliament during the evening...