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On Monday, Russia apparently bombed three Syrian hospitals and a school. The Russians are denying it, blaming the strikes on the United States, but American planes aren't flying in the parts of northwest Syria where the bombings took place. ISIS has no real presence there, and the group is the sole target of America's airstrikes. Russia, instead, is striking areas held by Syrian rebels — and recently it's been picking up the pace. The goal has been to help the Syrian government, which was until recently tottering, seize more territory in advance of the planned ceasefire (though it's far from...

Turkey has vowed it will not let the Syrian town of Azaz fall into the hands of Kurdish forces because it lies on a supply route used by Ankara to support Islamic State, Russia's Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday. Turkey accused Russia on Monday of an "obvious war crime" after missile attacks in northern Syria killed scores of people, and warned the YPG Kurdish militia it would face the "harshest reaction" if it tried to capture Azaz near the Turkish border. "Some of our partners have literally implored us 'not to touch' a corridor which is a bit shorter than...

Turkey warned Kurdish militia fighters in northern Syria on Monday they would face the "harshest reaction" if they tried to capture a town near the Turkish border, and accused Russia of a missile attack there that killed at least 14 civilians. A major offensive supported by Russian bombing and Iranian-backed Shi'ite militias has brought the Syrian army to within 25 km (15 miles) of Turkey's border. The Kurdish YPG militia has exploited the situation, seizing ground from Syrian rebels to extend its presence along the frontier. At least 14 civilians were killed in the Syrian town of Azaz, the last...

At least 23 civilians were killed when missiles hit three hospitals and a school in rebel-held Syrian towns on Monday, residents said, as Russian-backed Syrian troops intensified their push toward the rebel stronghold of Aleppo. Fourteen people were killed in the town of Azaz near the Turkish border when missiles slammed into a school sheltering families fleeing the offensive and the children's hospital, two residents and a medic said. Bombs also hit another refugee shelter south of the town and a convoy of trucks, another resident said. "We have been moving scores of screaming children from the hospital," said medic...

Once again, Moscow has shown itself better able to make strategic choices than we are. Russia is not an ideal partner for the United States, but sometimes its interests align with ours. In those cases, we should drop our Cold War hostility and work with Russia. The best place to start is Syria. American policy toward Syria was misbegotten from the start of the current conflict five years ago. By immediately adopting the hardest possible line—“Assad must go”—we removed any incentive for opposition groups to negotiate for peaceful change. That helped propel Syria into its bloody nightmare. Russia, which has...

Across the olive groves and wheat fields of the northern Syrian province of Aleppo, a battle with global dimensions risks erupting into a wider war. Russian warplanes are bombing from the sky. Iraqi and Lebanese militias aided by Iranian advisers are advancing on the ground. An assortment of Syrian rebels backed by the United States, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are fighting to hold them back. Kurdish forces allied both to Washington and Moscow are taking advantage of the chaos to extend Kurdish territories. The Islamic State has snatched a couple of small villages, while all the focus was on...

ISTANBUL (AFP) - After months of tensions, Turkey is taking on Syrian Kurdish fighters inside Syria in a move that risks inflaming tensions with its NATO ally the United States and complicating the search for peace after almost five years of civil war. On consecutive days this weekend, Turkish forces struck positions of Syrian Kurds with fire from Firtina howitzers deployed on the border, saying the army responded to incoming attacks. This was the first time Turkey had confirmed striking positions of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its People's Protection Units (YPG) militia inside Syria, although last year the...

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The proposed major military assault into Syria holds considerable risk for Turkey, not the least of that being a possible accidental escalation of hostilities with Russia, but it now seems unavoidable if Ankara is not to see a major disaster, not only wasting more than five years of intense effort to overthrow the Syrian Gov-ernment of President Bashar al-Assad, but also to avert the unfettered escalation of the Kurdish war to wrench a large part of Turkey away from Ankara to create a new Kurdish state which would link with Iraqi and Syrian Kurds. Already, Turkey has paid an enormous...

Ibrahim Khreisheh, the Palestinian Authority’s envoy to the UN Human Rights Council, recently said that it may "be useful" to ask Arab and European countries "to allow the Jews to return to their former lands and homes." "We never had people from Poland, the Ukraine, Switzerland, France, or England," he added. The comments were made in a February 4, 2016 interview with the official Palestinian Authority TV channel and were translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). Video “But we, as Palestinians say: We are Jews, Christians and Muslims. So (Obama) did not invent anything new,” he added,...

Faced with a cash shortage in its self-declared caliphate, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has slashed salaries, asked Raqqa residents to pay utility bills in black market American dollars, and is now releasing detainees for a price of $500 a person. The extremists who once bragged about minting their own currency are having a hard time meeting expenses, thanks to coalition airstrikes and other measures that have eroded millions from their finances since last fall. Having built up loyalty among militants with good salaries and honeymoon and baby bonuses, the group has stopped providing even the smaller...

Saudis, Russia Agree to Freeze Oil Output; Iran Still Resists by Reuters Feb 16 2016, 9:34 am ET Top oil exporters Russia and Saudi Arabia agreed on Tuesday to freeze output levels but said the deal was contingent on other producers joining in - a major sticking point with Iran absent from the talks and determined to raise production. The Saudi, Russian, Qatari and Venezuelan oil ministers announced the proposal after a previously undisclosed meeting in Doha. It could become the first joint OPEC and non-OPEC deal in 15 years, aimed at tackling a growing oversupply of crude and helping...

Russia claims Turkey supplies ISIL via Syrian town of Azaz February 16, 2016, Tuesday/ 17:06:29/ REUTERS | MOSCOW Turkey has vowed it will not let the Syrian town of Azaz fall into the hands of Kurdish forces because it lies on a supply route used by Ankara to support Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Russia's Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday. Turkey accused Russia on Monday of an "obvious war crime" after missile attacks in northern Syria killed scores of people, and warned the People's Protection Units (YPG) militia it would face the "harshest reaction" if it tried...

Flightradar24 indicates that on the evening of February 15, 2016, the Hmeimim airbase in Syria which is used by the Russian air group has seen the arrival of the Tu-214R remote reconnaissance aircraft belonging to the Russian Aerospace Forces (RF-64514). Judging by the flight path, it arrived from the Kazan Aviation Factory, which is associated with the Tupolev Aircraft Corporation. This is the second series-produced Tu-214R to come out of the Kazan plant in 2014. It was delivered to the VKS in late 2015. The two Tu-214R were manufactured under a 2002 contract with Tupolev. Their onboard equipment was...

Rush Limbaugh stood by Florida Senator Marco Rubio on Monday, defending the senator's thrice-repeated "memorized 25-second speech." During Saturday's GOP debate, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie attacked Rubio for his canned responses, all of which centered around the theme that President Obama "knows what he's doing" in his attempts to transform this country. Let's dispel, once and for all, this fiction that Barack Obama doesn't know what he's doing. He knows exactly what he's doing. Barack Obama is undertaking a systematic effort to change this country -- to make America more like the rest of the world. It was a...

Why are Syrian Kurds pivoting toward Moscow? By Morgan L. Kaplan February 12 On Wednesday, an affiliate of the largest and most powerful Kurdish party in Syria, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), opened its first official mission abroad — in Moscow. Given the amount of military and political support the PYD has received from the United States, this decision is likely to be received with some shock and confusion in the West. But a closer examination of the PYD’s historical experience and core interests suggests that the politics behind a potential realignment with Moscow makes strategic sense. ...snip... As an...

Spitzer accuser was a $5K-a-night hooker who lives life of luxury The Russian vixen who accused Eliot Spitzer of choking her at The Plaza hotel is a divorced, globe-trotting beauty who once bared all the dirty details of her life as a $5,000-a-night hooker, The Post has learned. Cops believe that Svetlana Zakharova Travis, 25 — who dumped her husband, Michael, in 2013 but kept his name — used the byline “Svetlana Z” for an article titled “Sex is Sex, but Money is Money.” The online piece reveals how she came to New York with $300 in her pocket and...

VORONEZH MALSHEVO AIR BASE, RUSSIA Beware the Ides of March, some say. Or “they.” At the tender age of thirty-one, I still have no ****ing idea what that idiom means. Is March an inherently ****ed up month? Did the creators of the Gregorian calendar know that in the year 2014 we would be facing Mardi Gras, St. Patrick’s Day, March Madness, and a small but rapidly spiraling out of control war with Russia all within the same month? The other day, the body of a Crimean Tartar was found tortured to death, with all the hallmarks of it being a...

Last year’s controversial Iran nuclear deal has sparked an atomic arms race, claimed Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon following a meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah. Ya’alon revealed that Israel had indications suggesting that certain Arab countries were now actively pursuing nuclear weapons, reports the Telegraph. The Defense Minister declined to specify which countries or how Israel had ascertained they were working to create their own atomic arsenals. The Sunni Arab world has long feared the specter of a nuclear capable Iran, and now that the Iran deal effectively permits the Islamic Republic to resume its atomic program with no limits...

Ignoring recent US sanctions on Iran's ballistic missile program, Iranian Armed Forces Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Hassan Firouzabadi on Monday announced planned "massive missile drills," to be held by the end of February. Firouzabadi was quoted by the semi-official Fars News Agency saying the "missile wargames" are set for the first half of the Iranian month of Esfand, which spans from February 11 to March 5. A key weapon being developed by Iran is its nuclear-capable medium-range Emad missiles, which Tehran recently vowed to upgrade. Emad is said to have a 1,700 kilometer range, putting Israel and much of...