Free Republic

The pilots of Russia’s aerospace forces’ group in Syria have carried out 46 sorties and hit 83 targets of the terrorists’ infrastructure over the past 24 hours, an official spokesman for Russia’s Defense Ministry, Igor Konashenkov, said on Wednesday. "The planes of Russia’s aviation group in Syria made 46 sorties against 83 infrastructure facilities of the IS terrorist organization over the past 24 hours," Konashenkov said. The planes hit targets in the provinces of Idlib, Aleppo, Deir ez-Zor, Damascus, Hama, he said. A facility of the Jabhat al-Nusra group housing a plant manufacturing radio-controlled demolition bombs and also a warehouse...

A Russian state broadcaster has released chilling drone footage which it claims to show Syrian forces advancing through the rubble in Damascus and attacking rebels. The footage was shot by a VGTRK team over the rebel-held suburb of Syria's capital. President Assad's forces aim to retake Jobar, as part of a wider operation to defeat the rebels.

President Bashar al-Assad of Syria has confounded many observers by holding on to power for more than four years in the face of a rebellion by a large part of the population. Unlike his former counterparts in Tunisia and Egypt, when protests against his government began in March 2011 he gave orders to crush the dissent, rather than tolerate it, and he refused to meet protesters' demands. The brutal crackdown by the security forces did not, however, stop the protests and eventually triggered an armed conflict that the UN says has so far left more than 250,000 people dead. More...

Huge clashes at #Kuweires air-base.. #ISIS reportedly launching a big offensive now.. #Aleppo #Syria #IS #ISIS

Qatar, a major supporter of rebels in Syria’s civil war, suggested it could intervene militarily following Russia’s intervention in support of President Bashar al-Assad but said it still preferred a political solution to the crisis. The comments by Qatar’s foreign minister, made in a CNN interview on Wednesday, drew a swift reply from Assad’s government with a senior official warning that Damascus would respond harshly to such “direct aggression”. Gulf Arab backers of Syrian rebels such as Qatar have been unsettled by Russia’s three-week-old air strike campaign that has allowed Assad’s forces to wrest back some territory to help secure...

Canada’s prime minister-elect Justin Trudeau has told US President Barack Obama that Canadian fighter jets would withdraw from fighting the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, but gave no timeline. “About an hour ago I spoke with President Obama,” Trudeau told a press conference. While Canada remains “a strong member of the coalition against ISIL,” Trudeau said he made clear to the US leader “the commitments I have made around ending the combat mission.”

Former President Jimmy Carter said recently that he provided maps of Islamic State positions in Syria to the Russian embassy in Washington, a move apparently at odds with the Obama administration’s official policy of not cooperating with Russia in the Syrian war. Carter said on Sunday in Georgia that he knows Russian President Vladimir Putin “fairly well” because they “have a common interest in fly fishing.” When he met with Putin in April along with other global leaders to discuss the crises in Syria and Ukraine, the Russian president gave him an email address so the two could discuss his...

At least three Russians fighting alongside Syrian government forces were killed and several more wounded when a shell hit their position in the coastal province of Latakia, a senior pro-government military source said on Tuesday. If confirmed, the deaths which occurred on Monday night would be the first known incidence of Russians being killed in Syria since Moscow began air strikes in support of President Bashar al-Assad on September 30. RIA news agency quoted the Russian embassy in Damascus as saying it had no information about the reported deaths. Syrian officials could not be reached for comment. Rami Abdulrahman, head...

The New York Times reports on the hawkish presidential candidates’ enthusiasm for a “no-fly zone” in Syria. This quote from Jeb Bush may be the most irresponsible: “The argument is, ‘Well, we’ll get into conflict with Russia,’” former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida said on CBS last week, referring to what critics say about the no-fly zone idea. “Well, maybe Russia shouldn’t want to be in conflict with us. I mean, this is a place where American leadership is desperately needed.” Bush’s attitude is inexcusable, and it shows once again that he has disqualified himself as much as any of...

A Ukrainian television channel has published a statement by its former producer, claiming officials from President Petro Poroshenko's administration banned the channel from broadcasting footage of a handshake the Ukrainian leader exchanged with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin at a recent meeting. The handshake took place at the start of a meeting in Paris on Oct. 2, but when television channel 112 Ukraina was preparing a report about the gathering, it received a “barrage of calls” from the presidential administration and security services “about the unacceptability of showing the handshake on the air,” former producer Viktor Zubritsky said on his...

Russian aircraft in Syria have carried out 55 sorties and attacked 60 terrorist facilities over the past day, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said Tuesday. "After combat tasks were completed, all Russian aircraft returned to the Khmeimim airbase," Konashenkov told journalists. He said strikes at terrorist facilities in the provinces of Hama, Latakia, Damascus, Idlib, Aleppo and Deir-ez-Zor are made by Su-24M bombers, Su-25SM attack aircraft and state-of-the-art Su-34 aircraft. On Monday, Russian aircraft made 33 sorties against 49 facilities in five Syrian provinces. Konashenkov noted Russian Aerospace Force’s air grouping in Syria have destroyed 19 command...

Posted on Oct 18, 2015 By Juan Cole The Arabic press is reporting that under cover of Russian air support, the Syrian Arab Army of Bashar al-Assad has made some advances against al-Qaeda in Syria and hard line Salafi rebels fighting for imposition of sharia or their conception of Islamic law on the country. On the 11th day of the Russian intervention, the Syrian Arab Army has taken the town of Atshan in the northern hinterland of the city of Hama, after fierce battles with the rebels there, including al-Qaeda (the Nusra Front or Support Front). Atshan fell to the...

Julia Davis ‏@JuliaDavisNews 5h5 hours ago Hungarian journo who kicked, tripped migrants intends to move to #Russia Very fitting.\ http://lifenews.ru/news/165313

US and Russia sign deal to avoid Syria air incidents 59 minutes ago ...Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said the text of the deal would remain secret at Moscow's request, but that it laid out means for both sides to communicate and establish a hotline on the ground. The two countries would not, however, share intelligence on their targets, he said.

TRACterrorism.org ‏@TRACterrorism · 4h4 hours ago #ISIS fanboys share photo: #Russia(n) soldier in #Aleppo, with Orthodox cross to fight holy war.

The Sierra Club should start printing retractions (something they’ve been getting a lot of practice doing), because researchers from Yale University have concluded that hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, doesn’t contaminate drinking water! “[There is] no evidence of association with deeper brines or long-range migration of these compounds to the shallow aquifers” concludes the new study, which was published in the highly prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. The study, the largest of its kind, sampled 64 private water wells near fracking sites to determine if they could be contaminated by fracking fluids. “[The chemicals] are likely not a...

NATO: Russia More Interested in Shocking, Intimidating By The Associated Press BUCHAREST, Romania — Oct 16, 2015, 2:29 PM ET A senior NATO official says Russia would prefer to shock and intimidate rather than have a predictable relationship with the military alliance. NATO Deputy Secretary-General Alexander Vershbow said Friday that the alliance would assess its relationship with Russia to find ways to "restore predictability and transparency," at NATO's summit in Warsaw next year. Vershbow, a U.S. diplomat, said Russia appeared to be "more interested in shocking, surprising and intimidating than in calming and building confidence."

Unveiling the AntiFracking Movement & How Fracking Brings Manufacturing Boom 9/14/15 Who is Really Behind Your “Local” Anti-Fracking Campaign? Jackie Stewart of Energy in Depth Ohio talks about the fringe anti-Constitution group that is creating frac fights far beyond their Pennsylvania state line.

Our Israeli correspondent MC returns with an essay about the current media manipulations that have given us both the “refugee” crisis and the demonization of Israel. I get very bored when people tell me (which is often) that “Israel murders Palestinians”. Whilst it is true that Palestinians get murdered in Israel, what this statement fails to comprehend is that Israelis get gaoled for murdering anybody, including Palestinians, as in any civilized Western country, but unlike most Middle Eastern countries including the Palestinian Authority (PA). The difference here is the relentless propaganda to demonise Israel. Jews have been demonised down through...

'Frustrated' Muslims Can’t Stop Killing Jews… and Everyone Else Muslim “Frustration” caused 9/11 and every other act of terror. October 19, 2015 Daniel Greenfield Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam. As Jews were being butchered in the streets of Jerusalem, Secretary of State John Kerry blamed them. “There's been a massive increase in settlements over the course of the last years, and now you have this violence because there's a frustration that is growing," the nation’s greatest diplomat said. “Settlements” are Jews living in parts of Israel...