Source: 21st Century Wire
The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) restarted their operation in the eastern countryside of the Homs Governorate after a fierce battle with the Islamic State (ISIS) the week prior.

Led by their Republican Guard forces, the Syrian Arab Army restarted their operation this week by targeting a number of areas belonging to the Islamic State terrorists in the Badiya Al-Sham region of east Homs.

According to Anna News, the Syrian Arab Army has been clearing several Islamic State hideouts and trenches that have been used to launch attacks against the government forces in the past.

The Syrian Arab Army has been engaged in a fierce battle with the last remaining Islamic State terrorists that are still active at this front in the eastern countryside of the Homs Governorate.

Source: Strategic Culture
Syrian UN Ambassador Bashar Ja’afari declared on Sept. 7 that his government was determined to wipe out the rebels from the Idlib province. The next day, the Idlib Dawn Operation began, encircling a town 59 km. southwest of the Syrian city of Aleppo. As of Sept. 9, Russian aircraft have attacked the rebel positions in western Idlib, the mountains of the Latakia province, and the Sahl al-Ghab plain, with the goal of softening up peripheral targets and preventing a breakthrough or counterattack. Syria’s forces are ready to move.

The Russian military warned that a false-flag chemical attack staged by the rebels could occur at any time and be used as a pretext for Western missile strikes. A massive Turkish military convoy, consisting of more than 300 vehicles, including tanks, armored vehicles, and MLRS launchers, has entered Idlib from the province of Hatay.

Syria needs Idlib — the last stronghold of the jihadists and the shortest route from Latakia to Aleppo. The M5 international highway crosses Idlib, linking Turkey and Jordan through Aleppo and Damascus. Control of the province would greatly facilitate the negotiations with the Kurds and strengthen Syria’s position at the UN-brokered Geneva talks. If the negotiation process succeeds, the only territories left to liberate would be the zone controlled by the US, such as the al-Tanf military base and the surrounding area, the northern parts of the country under Turkish control, and small chunks of land still held by ISIS.

Turkey opposes the idea of an Idlib offensive. It wants assurances for the groups in Idlib under its control and it doesn’t want an influx of refugees. These controversial issues can be tackled with Russia as a mediator. Turkey, Iran, and Russia did not agree on everything at the recent summit in Tehran, but the West’s hopes that they would go their separate ways, or even clash in Idlib, have been dashed.

President Erdogan has just said that he wants to meet the Russian president again after his Sept 28-29 visit to Germany. This means that the Turkish leader has ideas and proposals to discuss and Moscow can play a role in reaching a compromise, such as a more narrowly tailored counter-terrorism operation in Idlib. There is a divide, but it can be bridged. The parties have the will to get it done.

Ankara plans to organize a Turkey-Russia-Germany-France summit. The Russian presidential aide, Yury Ushakov, has confirmed that such a meeting is in the works. Moscow has just invited the Turkish military to take part in its largest-ever military exercise, Vostok 2018, which will be held in the Far East. China and Mongolia have also been invited. Obviously, Russia and Turkey are prepared to solve their differences over Idlib peacefully through negotiations.

In any event, the province cannot remain under the terrorists’ control forever. They must be either surrender or be routed. Now that the operation to free Idlib has begun, many of them will lay down their arms. They know their resistance is futile.

Actually, victories over terrorists that pave the way to a negotiated solution of the conflict should be welcomed, but the US sees these things in a different light. Washington seems to be shifting gears on Syria again, despite the statements President Trump made earlier about the plans to pull out. Now the president has reportedly agreed to new objectives that will keep US troops on the ground in Syria indefinitely in order to ensure that the Iranian forces are driven out. The US military has just sent reinforcements to al-Tanf to demonstrate its resolve to stay in that country. The Marines are holding a multi-day exercise there, using live ammunition.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, said on Sept. 7 that the administration viewed any government assault on Idlib as an escalation of Syria’s warning that Washington would respond to any chemical attack by Damascus. Ambassador James Jeffrey, who served as a deputy national security adviser to President George W. Bush, has recently been appointed US Special Representative for Syria Engagement, and Joel Rayburn, the former senior director for Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, is now Special Envoy for Syria. The two appointments confirm the fact that the US has changed its mind and decided to remain in Syria, as both these officials had supported this policy before.

America’s top military brass are studying the options for military involvement in Syria. But the real reason may not be Idlib or any other events in that country, but rather the situation creep in Iraq, where anti-Iranian and anti-government Shia protests in the south have turned violent and the prime minister may be compelled to step down. The protesters are armed and violent. They have attacked the Iranian consulate and the headquarters of Iranian-backed militias in the city.

Fighting has also been reported between Iranian forces and Kurds in Iraq’s Kurdish region. Details have been provided of mortar fire in Baghdad, where protests took place in July. Something’s cooking in Iraq. There is too little information available to obtain any deep insights into what’s going on, but the situation is unpredictable and volatile. Iraq could soon implode. The US will not leave the region, and it needs every outpost it has there. A lot depends on how events develop in Iraq.

Idlib will ultimately be liberated. The status of the US-led coalition forces in Syria will become a hot-button topic and be seen as the main stumbling block on the path to peace and reconstruction.

By Caitlin Johnston
Source: Medium
UN Ambassador and Clairvoyant Prognosticator of the Transmundane Nikki Haley has foreseen that, if there are any future chemical weapons attacks in the Syrian province of Idlib, it will most definitely be the Syrian government that is responsible and not the multiple terrorist factions in the area.

“If they want to continue to go the route of taking over Syria, they can do that,” said Nikki Haley at a UN press conference today, without explaining how a nation’s only recognized government can ‘take over’ the country it governs. “But they cannot do it with chemical weapons. They can’t do it assaulting their people. And we’re not gonna fall for it. If there are chemical weapons that are used, we know exactly who’s gonna use them.”

Haley was referring to the Syrian government’s impending push to complete its military campaign of recapturing its land from the terrorist factions and militias who, with extensive help from the US and its allies, have been holding communities hostage in a failed attempt to take over Syria. Her supernatural prophecy is just the latest in an increasingly bizarre string of claims being advanced by political figures and establishment media that the Assad government is planning to use chemical weapons to complete that campaign in Idlib.

Their narrative is that the Russian government’s warnings of a plot by the Al Qaeda-linked terrorist factions occupying the region to stage a chemical weapons attack and frame the Syrian government for it are actually just a preemptive “smoke screen” to allow them to get away with committing war crimes. When Haley said “we’re not gonna fall for it,” this is the ‘it’ she was referring to.

So let’s unpack that a bit. I’m going to propose two different possibilities to you, and you decide for yourself which one is the more likely event to occur in the future:

Possibility 1: The actual, literal terrorist factions occupying Idlib are on the cusp of defeat with nowhere to escape to. They know for a fact that the US and its allies have launched repeated attacks on the Syrian government following chemical weapons allegations without first waiting for an investigation into those allegations. They also know for a fact that multiple high level officials in the western alliance have stated they will carry out aggressive attacks against the Syrian government in retaliation for any perceived chemical weapons attacks, and, thanks to the public prognostications from Madame Haley’s crystal ball, they also know that the Syrian government has already been assigned blame for any such attack in advance. Knowing all of these things, with their backs against the wall with the absolute certainty that getting the western military alliance on their side is their last and only chance, they get their hands on some chemical weapons and kill some of the civilians they’ve captured.

Possibility 2: On the cusp of victory, the Assad government decides to do the one thing that risks a US-led regime change military intervention in order to accomplish the crucial strategic masterstroke of killing a few kids with chlorine or sarin in front of a bunch of White Helmets cameras.

While you are weighing those two options, consider for a moment the fact that the US and its allies have an extensive history of attempting to control who governs Syria, and indeed plotted to create a violent uprising exactly as it occurred in 2011. Not after the violence had already started, but years in advance.

This is not my opinion, and it is not a conspiracy theory. It is a known fact that you can verify for yourself:

Here is a 2006 WikiLeaks cable in which the US government is seen exploring possible factions which could be incentivized to rise up against Assad, and ways in which psyops could be used to ensure widespread violence.

Here is a declassified CIA memo from 1986 in which the Central Intelligence Agency is seen exploring ways in which sectarian tensions can be inflamed to provoke a violent uprising in Syria. Here is a useful article featuring excerpts from the memo showing some jarring parallels between what was being planned and what happened a quarter century later.

Here is a video clip of General Wesley Clark naming Syria among the countries scheduled by the Pentagon for regime change in the wake of 9/11.

Here is a video clip of the former Foreign Minister of France stating in plain language that he was informed by British government insiders in 2009 that a violent Syrian uprising was being planned, two years before the violence erupted.

Here is an article featuring a video of the former Qatari Prime Minister stating that the US and its allies were involved in the violence from the very beginning.

Here is an article from May of 2011 reporting on some of the extremely suspicious provocations that led to the outbreak of widespread violence. Here’s another from March 2011. Here’s another from December 2011.

You get the picture. If a man had documented his plans to murder his wife with an axe, and those plans were found after his wife turned up dead of axe wounds exactly as he’d planned them, and multiple people in the area said they’d heard him murdering her with an axe, the primary suspect in that case would not be the neighbor’s cat.

The violence in Syria was planned and orchestrated years in advance, and now hundreds of thousands of human beings are dead as a direct result. And these monsters are now pretending to be concerned about human rights?

No. Get out of Syria, you absolute ghouls. Everyone responsible for perpetrating and sustaining these horrors should spend the rest of their lives in a Hague cell. If there is a chemical weapons attack as the Syrian government moves to recapture Idlib, the last people anyone should believe is the psychopathic governments who are responsible for this catastrophe in the first place.

Source: Syria News
Syria’s air defense intercepted several Israeli missiles Tuesday 4 September, forcing the Israeli war jets to go back through some of the missiles got through.

These are more war crimes from Israel; bombing Syria is a war crime as is Israel’s violation of Lebanese airspace.

Syrian air defense intercepted several Israeli missiles Tuesday, September 4th. And forced the Israeli war jets to go back. However, the Israeli war jets which violated The Lebanese airspace in its way to target military source in both coastlines of Tartous, Baniyas and Hama Mesyaf countryside called Wadi Al-Oyoun claimed the life of Syrian civilian in Mesyaf Hama according to Alwatani (National) Hospital’s director and left many wounded in both Hama and Banyas.

Israel always claims that it is targeting the Iranian ally of Syria, however, Iran and Syria are in a war on the terrorists, which proves that Israel is using terrorists to destabilize Syria. moreover, Israel is always violating the international law under blind world eyes this world like the U.N. which claims to care about Syrian civilians and always shared crocodile tears!

At least one civilian was killed in this latest aggression, there were wounded civilians received in Baniyas Hospital as well.

Syria might already have the S300 stationed in place anticipating the Three Musketeers promised aggression as a surprise, Israel is desperately testing the systems to confirm. Even though this missiles system is 4 decades old, at least.
~Arabi Souri

Israel, just like ISIS, feels further empowered with a reckless clumsy unpredictable head of state leading the mighty US military and its minions in NATO and regional stooges. They’re trying to engage the Syrian and Iranian armies in side battles to distract the powers of the Syrian Arab Army from confronting the terrorists in Idlib. The SAA is not easily distracted and is more than ever determined to clean this last bastion of terror threatening the international peace and stability and to allow the Syrian people restore their normal lives.

Source: Sputnik
DAMASCUS – The province of Idlib in the northwest of Syria is the last remaining stronghold of armed groups in the country, including the Nusra Front* terrorist organization.

The liberation of the Syrian province of Idlib from militants via a military operation is more likely than through a ceasefire due to the region specifics, Minister of State for National Reconciliation Affairs Ali Haidar said Tuesday.

“Idlib differs from other areas in that there are many militants, this is their last resort, and Turkey is trying to keep Idlib to itself… In other areas, the work moved along in two main directions, ceasefires and a military solution, this is the basis that there was, but at the moment, the military operation seems more likely than a ceasefire due to the aforementioned reasons,” the minister said.

Haidar added that the attempts to conclude ceasefire agreements continue, however, it is more difficult in Idlib than it was in other provinces, where Damascus was negotiating with the civil population. In Idlib, militants have detained about 500 people supporting a dialogue with the central authorities, according to the Russian center for reconciliation.

Haidar stressed that the center for the reconciliation had a central role in the negotiations, trying to contact militants through Turkey.

The situation in Idlib has recently escalated amid reports on terrorists preparing a false-flag chemical attack against civilians, set to provoke western nations into launching a military action against the Syrian government, which they have already accused of chemical attacks against civilians.

*Jabhat Nusra, also known as Al-Nusra Front is a terrorist group banned in Russia

Source: 21st Century Wire
Statement on impending US, UK and French military intervention in Syria

We, members of the Global Network for Syria, are deeply alarmed by recent statements by Western governments and officials threatening the government of Syria with military intervention, and by media reports of actions taken by parties in Syria and by Western agencies in advance of such intervention.

In a joint statement issued on 21 August the governments of the US, the UK and France said that ‘we reaffirm our shared resolve to preventing [sic] the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime and for [sic] holding them accountable for any such use… As we have demonstrated, we will respond appropriately to any further use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime’.

The three governments justify this threat with reference to ‘reports of a military offensive by the Syrian regime against civilians and civilian infrastructure in Idlib’.

In the cases of three of the previous incidents cited in the 21 August statement (Ltamenah, Khan Sheykhoun, Saraqib) OPCW inspectors were not able to secure from the militants who controlled these areas security guarantees to enable them to visit the sites, yet still based their findings on evidence provided by militants.

In the case of Douma, also cited, the interim report of OPCW inspectors dated 6 July based on a visit to the site concluded that no evidence was found of the use of chemical weapons and that evidence for the use of chlorine as a weapon was inconclusive.

Western governments themselves acknowledge that Idlib is controlled by radical Islamist extremists. The British government in its statement on 20 August justified its curtailment of aid programmes in Idlib on the grounds that conditions had become too difficult. Any action by the Syrian government would not be directed at harming civilians, but at removing these radical elements.

Any military intervention without a mandate from the United Nations would be illegal.

Any military intervention would risk confrontation with a nuclear armed co-member of the Security Council, as well as with the Islamic Republic of Iran, with consequent ramifications for regional as well as global security.

There is no plan in place to contain chaos in the event of sudden government collapse in Syria, such as might occur in the contingency of command and control centres being targeted. Heavy military intervention could result in the recrudescence of terrorist groups, genocide against the Alawite, Christian, Druze, Ismaili, Shiite and Armenian communities, and a tsunami of refugees into neighbouring countries and Europe.

In the event of an incident involving the use of prohibited weapons – prior to taking any decision on military intervention – we urge the US, UK and French governments:

On 22 August, Mr John Bolton, US National Security Adviser, was reported by Bloomberg to have said that the US was prepared to respond with greater force than it has used in Syria before.

These threats need to be seen in the context of the following reports and considerations.

Reports have appeared of activity by the White Helmets group, or militants posing as White Helmets, consistent with an intention to stage a ‘false flag’ chemical incident in order to provoke Western intervention. These activities have reportedly included the transfer of eight canisters of chlorine to a village near Jisr Al Shughur, an area under the control of Hayat Tahrir Ash Sham, an affiliate of the terrorist group Al Nusra. Some reports refer to the involvement of British individuals and the Olive security company. Other reports indicate a build-up of US naval forces in the Gulf and of land forces in areas of Iraq adjoining the Syrian border.

We therefore urge the US, UK and French governments to consider the following points before embarking on any military intervention:

To provide detailed and substantive evidence to prove that any apparent incident could not have been staged by a party wishing to bring Western powers into the conflict on their side.

To conduct emergency consultations with their respective legislative institutions to request an urgent mission by the OPCW to the site of any apparent incident and give time for this mission to be carried out.

To call on the government of Turkey, which has military observation posts in Idlib, to facilitate, in the event of an incident, an urgent mission by the OPCW to the jihadi-controlled area, along with observers from Russia to ensure impartiality.

We further call on the tripartite powers to join Turkish and Russian efforts to head off confrontation between the Syrian government forces and the militants opposing them by separating the most radical organisations such as Hayat Tahrir Ash Sham and Hurras Ad Deen from the rest, eliminating them, and facilitating negotiations between the Syrian government and elements willing to negotiate.

Dr Tim Anderson, University of Sydney

Lord Carey of Clifton, Crossbench Member of the House of Lords and former Archbishop of Canterbury

The Baroness Cox, Crossbench Member of the House of Lords Peter Ford, British Ambassador to Syria 2003-06 Dr Michael Langrish, former Bishop of Exeter

Lord Stoddart of Swindon, Independent Labour Member of the House of Lords

30 August 2018

For enquiries contact Peter Ford