Source: nsnbc
The Russian Defense Ministry announced that Russia had struck 112 targets in Syria since the launch of Russian operations in Syria. Moscow to discuss coordination with Turkey and the United States.

On Wednesday the Russian Defense Ministry announced that it had informed the Russian Presidency that Russian forces thus far had struck 112 targets in Syria. Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu informed President Vladimir Putin about the operations, reportedly saying:

“As of today, 112 targets were hit since September 30. .. The intensity of strikes is growing. Many targets were discovered in the past two days, command posts, ammunition and military hardware depots, militant training camps. All the targets were destroyed, no civilian facilities were damaged.”

Shoigu noted that the Russian Air Force had destroyed 19 command posts, 12 ammunition caches, 71 pieces of military hardware and six explosives manufacturing facilities. On Wednesday, he added, 23 aircraft continued striking militants’ positions. Russian naval forces in the Caspian Sea also deployed cruise missiles.

Following the recent episodes with Russian aircraft entering Turkish airspace, Moscow announced that Russia would coordinate its actions in Syria with Turkey and the United States. Meeting with President Putin, Shogiu noted that mutual help was necessary for making progress in the fight against Islamic State. The Russian Defense Minister informed the press that his Ministry established contacts with the Turkish Defense Ministry, saying:

“Today, direct contacts were established at the level of the Turkish Army’s Central Command and our National Defense Control Center, to ensure our work along Turkish borders in order to prevent incidents with crossing airspace borders.”

Shohiu also commented on contacts with the United States, saying: “We started discussing issues of joint work on ensuring security on this territory.”

CH/L – nsnbc 07.10.2015

Source: The Greanville Post
Since 2011, Syria has been facing a campaign of international terrorism. This terrorism has nothing to do with the peaceful protests that took place during the Arab Spring. This terrorism isn’t led by human rights activists, “democratic socialists,” Trotskyists, anarchists, or “idealistic youth.” The terrorism that has plagued Syria since 2011 is primarily directed by takfiris. Takfiris are Sunni Muslim extremists who justify the slaughter of other Muslims over religious disagreements.

Many of the groups currently attacking Syria have open links to the networks once led by Osama Bin Laden, commonly called Al-Qaeda. The Al-Nusra Front, the Free Syrian Army (sic), and the wide variety of extremist takfiri factions currently attacking Syria conducted joint training and military operations with the Islamic State (ISIS) organization. In 2014, it is estimated that 50% of the fighters in the Free Syrian Army defected to join ISIS.

These takfiri extremist organizations have been torturing, killing, and slaughtering. Children are abducted by the Syrian “opposition” and forced to fight as child soldiers. The majority of the extremists who have poured into Syria are not Syrian. Fighters from as far away as Malaysia have been arrested by the Syrian government.

The anti-government insurgency in Syria routinely bombs schools, randomly attacks civilians, kidnaps for ransom and engages in other war crimes.

Since 2011, the wave of terrorism that has afflicted Syria has had a disastrous humanitarian toll. It is estimated that over 250,000 people are already dead, with 3 million refugees.

The reason that the anti-government forces in Syria are able to continue their campaign of violence is because of foreign funding. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, Jordan, and other US-aligned regimes throughout the region have openly facilitated and championed the terrorists of Syria.

Training camps in Jordan, directed by the CIA, train anti-government fighters. The Central Intelligence Agency has already spent $1 billion on training anti-government fighters.

The now infamous ISIS organization is just one faction of a broad variety of religious anti-government extremists in Syria. The Al-Nusra Front, which has been supported by the United States, is almost a clone of ISIS, sharing its goals of creating a sunni caliphate, and slaughtering Christians and Alawites.

The Western Apparatus of Destruction

The horrific humanitarian crisis in Syria, the direct result of the US and its allies funding and supporting the insurgency, has been going on since 2011. The US media has not highlighted this crime against humanity. Instead, US media reports focus on describing Bashar Assad as a “dictator” and playing up the idea that the takfiris are “freedom fighters” against a “brutal regime.”

Syrians are fleeing their country in huge numbers to get away from the campaign of terrorism, directed by the United States and its allies. A refugee crisis has swept Europe. The refugee crisis has escalated in recent weeks, with arsons in Germany and horrific scenes in Hungary.

Suddenly, US media is voicing alarm and concern for Syrian refugees. A photograph of a Syrian toddler on a beach has circulated social media. As the US media now bemoans the Syrian crisis, it does not call for the obvious solution. At no point do major US commentators call for an end to the funding of the anti-government forces in Syria.

The war could end immediately if the United States, France, Britain, Jordan, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia were to halt their financial support and facilitation of the anti-government fighters.

Now, US media calls not for a scaling back, but for an escalation of US intervention — the source of the crisis to begin with. The direct meddling of the United States and its allies and their funding of anti-government extremists with the intent of destabilizing and overthrowing the Syrian government caused the crisis.

The crisis created by foreign intervention is being used to justify more intervention.

If one looks at Iraq, Afghanistan, or Libya, one can see the direct result of past “humanitarian” “rescue missions” led by the United States and its NATO allies. In none of these countries has the result been stability, peace, or an increase in the living standard.

Western intervention results in chaos, destruction, and continued poverty and violence. This chaos, destruction and continued poverty and violence is then used to somehow justify further intervention. It is a twisted, downward spiral.

The world needs to realize that the Pentagon is not a humanitarian organization, and does not “rescue” anyone. The US military, the NATO military alliance, the International Monetary Fund, the European Union; all of these entities constitute an international apparatus created for the purpose of destruction.

They don’t build. They don’t rescue. They don’t “reconstruct.” They simply destroy.

Caleb Maupin is a political analyst and activist based in New York. He studied political science at Baldwin-Wallace College and was inspired and involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Source: Kurdistan National Congress
Hundreds of Kurdish civilians in Western Turkey injured and several killed. Police have participated in the attacks against Kurdish civilians.

Turkish president Erdogan and the AKP have provoked fascist, nationalist and racist groups into protesting and forming lynching groups who have engaged in terrorizing Kurdish civilians by attacking homes in different districts in Istanbul, Ankara, Kirsehir, Kocaeli, İzmir, Balikesir, Malatya, Mulga, Mersin, Keçiören, Tuzluçayır, Beypazarı, Balgat, Isparta, Konya, Antalya and many other cities.

Following ongoing provocations by the R.T. Erdogans government, pro AKP racists and fascist groups have engaged in coordinated attacks against Kurdish civilians, including attacking Kurdish shops, houses, businesses, and HDP offices. These attacks have been ongoing for the past 48 hours.

Hundreds of Kurdish civilians in Western Turkey have been injured during the attacks by these fascists, and an unknown number of people killed. Hundreds of Kurds in different Turkish cities are currently blockaded in HDP offices, where they have sought safety from the lynching mobs. The mobs have broken windows, chanted anti-Kurdish and HDP slogans, with local police not intervening to stop the terrorism of the mobs.

Since the start of the Turkish war on the Kurds 32 years ago, this is the first time that such casualties have occurred to such a large scale. Erdogan and AKP are directly, explicitly, and deliberately provoking racial and nationalist clashes. Two days ago Erdogan gave the official order to the police forces to shoot civilians on sight if they are deemed a “threat”. He also called on the public to inform on fellow civilians who are considered to act “suspiciously”. This is an attempt to divide society and promote internal conflict between ethnic groups, and stimulate anti-Kurdish racism.

The mobs are organising themselves across social media, forming groups and attacking homes known to belong to Kurdish families. Attacks on 128 HDP offices have occurred with HDP signs and slogans ripped off and replaced with the Turkish flag. Other offices have been set on fire. Mobs are stopping local buses travelling between cities and checking civilian identity cards to determine who is Kurdish or not. When the bus drivers have attempted to drive off to escape the angry mobs, the police intervened and stopped the buses leading to further attacks against the buses, drivers and civilians. In some cases, the police have participated in the attacks with the fascist mobs against the Kurdish civilians.

The attacks on Kurdish homes, civilians and neighbourhoods are still ongoing and hundreds of thousands of Kurds in these major cities are currently in direct danger.

We call on the international community to stand with the Kurds in light of these disturbing and clearly coordinated attacks, and to act immediately to call on the Erdogan government to end its violent, racist and divisive policies.

Kurdistan National Congress – KNK

By Tony Cartalucci
Source: Global Research
Increasingly difficult to cover-up or spin, it is becoming apparent even in Western media coverage that the so-called “Islamic State” (ISIS) is not sustaining its fighting capacity from within Iraq or Syria, but rather through supply lines that lead to and from adjacent nations. These nations include Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, and most obviously, NATO-member Turkey.

It was in Germany’s international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW)’s report, “‘IS’ supply channels through Turkey,” that hundreds of trucks destined for ISIS held territory were videotaped waiting at Oncupinar, Turkey to cross over into Syria with apparently no oversight by the Turkish government. Later, TIME magazine would admit ISIS’ dependence on the Syrian town of Tal Abyad, just across the border from Turkey, for supplies and the significance of its loss to Kurdish fighters in sustaining their fighting capacity both at the border and beyond.

AP’s June 2015 report, “Kurds move to cut off ISIS supply lines in Syria,” would state:

Syrian Kurdish fighters closed in on the outskirts of a strategic Islamic State of Iraq and Syria-held town on the Turkish border Sunday, Kurdish officials and an activist group said, potentially cutting off a key supply line for the extremists’ nearby de facto capital.

Taking Tal Abyad, some 50 miles from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) stronghold of Raqqa, would mean the group wouldn’t have a direct route to bring in new foreign militants or supplies. The Kurdish advance, coming under the cover of intense U.S.-led coalition airstrikes in the area, also would link their two fronts and put even more pressure on Raqqa as Iraqi forces struggle to contain the group in their country.

And while US airstrikes are credited for Kurdish advances against ISIS, one wonders why the US, whose military including a US airbase at Incirlik, Turkey and US special forces as well as the CIA are operating along and across the Syrian border in Turkey – hasn’t done more to interdict ISIS supply lines before they reach Syria and awaiting terrorists.

The Kurds and Syria’s military both realize the importance of stemming terrorist armies within Syria by cutting them off from their supplies at Syria’s borders. However, both the Kurds and Syrian forces are increasingly limited from securing these borders due to an ever-expanding “safe haven” the US and its regional allies are carving out of Syrian territory. Turkey and Israel have both attacked Syrian forces in these “safe havens” creating a virtual sanctuary for Al Qaeda affiliates including Al Nusra and ISIS.

Efforts to “assist” the Kurds appear only to have been a pretext to violate Syrian airspace first, then Syrian territory on the ground second. America’s meager “Division 30″ of less than 60 fighters trained in Turkey then sent to fight the thousands upon thousands of terrorists the US and its allies have been arming, training, and sending over Syria’s borders for years was yet another attempt to make ISIS and Al Nusra’s gains appear a result of Western folly rather than of Western design.

How the West Can Stop ISIS Without Setting Foot in Syria

An old military maxim states: “an army marches on its stomach.” Logic dictates that an army with empty stomachs is unable to march. Napoleon Bonaparte who is credited with this quote, found out first hand just how true these words were when his army found itself deep within Russia without supplies, leading to its ultimate and catastrophic defeat.

Likewise, ISIS’ fighting capacity depends entirely on its supply lines. Cutting these supply lines will lead to its inevitable defeat. For the United States, who is either allied with or has troops operating in all nations bordering Syria, cutting ISIS’ supply lines would be a simple matter – that is – if the United States was truly interested in defeating ISIS and other Al Qaeda affiliates.

While the United States has assisted Turkey in erecting missile defenses along its border with Syria in order to create a defacto no-fly-zone providing Al Nusra and ISIS with an invaluable sanctuary, little to no effort has been spent in increasing border security – specifically the searching for and interdiction of terrorist fighters, weapons, and other supplies. As German DW’s report illustrated, it appears Turkey’s borders are not only dangerously wide open, but intentionally so, with little or no effort at all by Turkey to stem the torrent of obvious ISIS supply convoys from passing through.

DW would likely videotape a similar situation unfolding in Jordan near its border with Syria, close to Syrian cities like Daraa which have become battle-torn as Syrian forces desperately try to stem the torrent of fighters and weapons flowing over the borders there, aimed ultimately at Damascus.

The US Can Stop ISIS in One Month… If it Wanted

By cutting off ISIS from its money, supplies, additional fighters, weapons, and essential equipment, it would quickly be overwhelmed by Syrian and Iraqi forces. Without cash to pay fighters, and without new fighters to replace those lost in fighting, morale would quickly falter. Without a constant torrent of weapons, ammunition, and fuel, ISIS and other Al Qaeda affiliates would quickly lose their tactical capabilities. Fighters unable to flee would be encircled and destroyed as has happened deep within Syria’s interior where Syrian forces have been able to cut supply lines to key cities and starve out terrorist armies.

Syria is intentionally prevented from securing its borders through an increasingly overt “buffer zone” or “safe haven” the US and its regional allies are creating for the purpose of sheltering clearly non-existent “moderate rebels.” What these “safe havens” are in actuality doing, is ensuring ISIS’ supply lines remain intact. With the Kurds – the only effective force near the Turkish-Syrian border able to threaten ISIS’ supply lines – now being attacked by Turkish forces directly, what little obstacles supplies had in reaching ISIS through Turkey is being swiftly negated.

The US and its allies could easily increase security along Syria’s borders and permanently cut ISIS and other Al Qaeda affiliates supply lines without having to enter Syrian airspace or cross onto Syrian soil. Just as easily as the US built a line of missile defenses facing Syria, it could create border checkpoints and patrols within Turkey to interdict and effectively stem all weapons and fighters flowing to ISIS. It could, but it intentionally doesn’t.

The implications are obvious. ISIS is both a creation and intentional perpetuation of US foreign policy. Just as the US so many years ago colluded with Saudi Arabia in the creation of Al Qaeda in the mountains of Afghanistan in the first place, it to this day colludes with its regional allies to use Al Qaeda and its various rebrandings – including ISIS – to fight wars Western troops cannot fight. This includes dividing and destroying Syria – the overtly stated, true objective of US policymakers.

Could Syria and its allies create their own “buffer zone” in northern Syria? Could international troops be brought in, with the inclusion of UN observers to secure the Syrian border and put in check attempts by both Turkey and the US to engage Syrian and Kurdish fighters attempting to restore order there?

The incremental strategy of carving out northern Syria, claiming to shelter “moderate rebels” while in reality securing further ISIS’ supply lines and providing them an increasingly unassailable safe haven from which to launch operations deeper into Syria, is inching along and will inevitably pay off at the expense of Syrian territorial integrity, stability, and perhaps even its existence as a functioning state if no measures are taken to counter this conspiracy.

The basics of logistics and the simple fact that the US can both fight and defeat ISIS by simply securing Turkey and Jordan’s borders must be repeatedly brought up by non-Western media and diplomatic circles – highlighting the fact that Syria’s conflict is one of foreign invasion, not civil war. The conflict can be brought to an end, along with all the horrors associated with it, by simply checking ISIS’ bags at the Turkish border. If the US and Turkey refuse to do this, someone must check them on the other side, someone the US and Turks may hesitate to attack as they have the Syrians and Kurds.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine“New Eastern Outlook”.

Source: BGN News
Scandal erupts as CCTV stills taken in broad daylight from Turkey’s Akçakale border gate documents large materials, including explosives and construction pipes and plates, all passing into ISIL controlled area in Syria, while Turkish customs officials stand and watch.

Images captured from CCTV footage from the Turkey’s Akçakale border gate with Syria, located in Şanlıurfa province, shows material enough to fill up numerous trucks being pushed by people dolly after dolly through the border gate, heading for Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) controlled regions in Syria, where they are weaponized by the militants. All the more scandalous, Turkish border security teams and customs officials are seen standing and watching.

The material includes metal plates weighing 400 to 500 kilograms which ISIL’s mounts on vehicles as armor, construction pipes used as barrels for firing mortars, and electric cables used in explosives.

The quantities being transported on a day to day basis are massive. Two trucks worth of fertilizer used in explosives, in addition to materials, such as electric cables and fuses, enough to fill a truck each, are passing through Turkey’s Akçakale border, heading for ISIL controlled parts of Syria on a day to day basis over two months.

CCTV footage from Akçakale border vs stock photos of ISIL militants

CCTV footage from the Akçakale border gate viewed together with stock photos featuring ISIL militants in combat illustrates how the materials are later weaponized by the militants.

Source:India TV
New Delhi: The Islamic State, like Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda has been consciously created by the U.S. This has now been confirmed by the release of classified documents of the US Defense Intelligence Agency by Judicial Watch that obtained these through a federal lawsuit in the US.

It was doubly confirmed in an interview to Al Jazeera more recently by Lt General Michael T.Flynn , the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, commander of the Joint Functional Component Command for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance, and chair of the Military Intelligence Board from July 24, 2012, to August 2, 2014.

The first reports of this filtered out from the Syrian government over three years ago under the US-Turkey sponsored siege by rebel groups. Senior advisor to President Bashar al Assad, Bouthaina Shaaban told this writer in Damascus in 2012 that the al Qaeda had joined the rebels being pumped with arms and money by the governments opposing the Syrian government. Shortly after she said that new forces had joined the Opposition and could be more dangerous than even the al Qaeda.

These claims from the Syrian government were stoutly denied by the U.S, Turkey and other countries involved in pushing the rebels through the conflict. A denial that has continued till recent days, despite the emergence of the more lethal Islamic State that is controlling large tracts of land now in both Syria and Iraq.

The DIA report, formerly classified “SECRET//NOFORN” and dated August 12, 2012, was circulated widely among various government agencies, including CENTCOM, the CIA, FBI, DHS, NGA, State Department and others.

The DIA report states that

The West, Gulf countries, and Turkey [which] support the [Syrian] opposition…There is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in Eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime…

The cynicism and the manipulations that have laced US strategy for West Asia are again visible in the following:

C. If the situation unravels there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in Eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran).

D. The deterioration of the situation has dire consequences on the Iraqi situation and are as follows:
1. This creates the ideal atmosphere for AQI to return to its old pockets in Mosul and Ramadi, and will provide a renewed momentum under the presumption of unifying the Jihad among Sunni Iraq and Syria, and the rest of the Sunnis in the Arab world against what it considers one enemy, the dissenters. ISI could also declare an Islamic state through its union with other terrorist organizations in Iraq and Syria, which will create gave danger in regards to unifying Iraq and the protection of its territory.

In an intense interview with Al Jazeera where he was questioned thoroughly US military’s top intelligence man admitted that extremist insurgency that turned into the Islamic State has been stoked by US policy in West Asia. General Flynn said that clearly there was something wrong with American policy and strategy for the region as the number of designated terrorist groups had doubled. He said that the war had given rise to the Islamic State, and the US should have focused not on conflict but perhaps on solutions. He said that history was not going to be kind when it looked on the US involvement in Iraq. He agreed that the ‘system’ was guilty of war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the prisons in Iraq had contributed directly to the rise of the Islamic State.

General Flynn confirmed in the interview that the US had information about the Islamic State in 2012 saying, “I don’t know that they turned a blind eye, I think it was a decision. I think it was willful decision… It was a willful decision to do what they’re doing”.

Bouthaina, a dynamic and bold advisor to President Assad, had full details right from the very beginning of the composition of the so called rebels who were set up by the US, Turkey and the Gulf countries to fight the Syrian regime. It started with the funding of border smuggling and arms mafias, who were joined by various small insurgent groups in the region. The Syrian Army that despite being largely Sunni in composition stayed united behind President Assad right from the beginning till date was able to tackle these groups at the onset. However, these were then added to by what the Syrian government had identified as the Salafists, the al Qaeda and other more hardline groups operating in the region. Arms and money was poured into the region to fund these groups as the powers behind them were determined to get Assad out.

The dual policy remains with the Islamic State being supported by Turkey that has been working closely with the US against Syria. The recent announcement by the Turkish government to crack down on the IS surprised many, but as was exposed by the Kurds this was again a cover to bomb and kill them. The Kurds who for long have been seen by Ankara as the real threat have been mercilessly attacked by Erdogan’s government for, as their spokespersons have said, “fighting the Islamic State.”

India does not seem to have factored any of this into its policy for the region.In fact there are doubts now whether it is even watching the region as closely as it should, given its proximity to West Asia and the millions of Indian nationals employed there. Some notice of the developments have been taken by retired officials. Former Additional Secretary in the Cabinet secretariat and a well informed intelligence officer Vappala Balanchandran took note of this in an article for The Citizen where he had asked ,”Was the core of this group trained by NATO countries and supported by leading Arab nations in their effort to destabilize the Syrian Assad regime? Is the Jihadi war against Iraq an unanticipated by product of those efforts?” More recently retired Ambassador Mk Bhadrakumar has pointed to these developments in his regular column for Rediff.com where he has pointed towards a sequel to this in Afghanistan. He wrote, The specious plea being advanced by Washington currently is that the US wants to turn Afghanistan into a regional hub to wage a war against the IS — a war by the US and its partners, which, in the opinion of Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, could last not less than a generation.

This Dempsey guy is a smart general, isn’t it? It was under his watch that the IS was finessed and deployed as the instrument of US regional policy to overthrow the established government in Syria and to force Baghdad to allow the return of American troops to Iraq – and now he pops up in Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s office in Kabul one fine day two weeks ago to make the proposition that Washington might need an open-ended military presence in Afghanistan for another 15-20 years to wage the global war against the IS.”

Disclaimer: The article was first published in ‘TheCitizen’. India TV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.