capitosinora wrote on Mar 27^th, 2016 at 8:36am:


I agree, worth a watch.

Mar 26, 2016

TEHRAN (FNA)- Military sources reported on Saturday that a large number of terrorists and their families are fleeing the ISIL stronghold city of Palmyra (Tadmur) as the Syrian army troops alongside popular forces are only inches away from a major conquest and winning the ancient city.

Battlefield sources said the ISIL Takfiri terrorists are in such a rush that they have "left behind their dead and wounded friends and fled their positions in Palmyra".

The ISIL's mass escape comes as the Syrian army continues its advances towards Palmyra city center from the Western side of the ancient city where they could penetrate the ISIL's defense lines on Wednesday and made a headway in bloody clashes with the terrorists.

In a relevant development on Saturday, the Syrian army and popular forces seized control over the terrorists' vital line of supply to the West and Southwest of Palmyra.

The army units took full control of ISIL's Quaryatayn-Palmyra supply route in a bid to prevent flow of supplies to the ISIL terrorists in the Western and Southwestern parts of Palmyra.

The ISIL's logistic and supply routes from the West and Southwestern parts of Palmyra are disconnected now.

The Syrian army also managed to disconnect Quaryatayn and Palmyra from each other by taking full control over the Quaryatayn-Palmyra highway.

The Syrian army's special troops known as Tiger Forces are engaged in heavy fighting with the ISIL Takfiri terrorists in the streets of the ancient city of Palmyra (Tadmur) in the Eastern part of Homs province.

The ISIL terrorists are trying hard to prevent the Syrian army from making further advances in Palmyra city as the street battle between the two sides is intensifying.

The ISIL militants have sustained heavy casualties and losses in fierce clashes with the Syrian army in recent days.

The Syrian army has made considerable advances in the areas near Palmyra city and taken full control of a strategic ancient castle near the Palmyra city.

On Friday, the Syrian government forces and Desert Falcons fighters gained control over a strategically important height near Palmyra.

The Syrian Army and Desert Falcons on Friday won another battle in Eastern Homs after hours of fierce clashes with the ISIL Takfiri terrorists.

The Syrian soldiers and their allies have pushed back the Takfiri terrorists in the region near the ancient city of Palmyra, and captured the Qalaat Fakhr ad-Din al-Maani Castle, known as the "Palmyra Castle".

The Syrian army soldiers and their allies have kept on marching on militant-held regions in Eastern Homs province in recent days to capture the strategic city of Palmyra which has been under the control of the ISIL since May 2015

http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13950107000502

Correct.

Published on 29 Mar 2016

A disturbing trend: Western governments and their pliant mainstream media often blame Russia for many of the world’s woes. In fact the cottage industry known as “Putin did it” relieves many politicians and journalists of professional responsibility. Needless to say, this does not adequately explain Russia.
CrossTalking with Mary Dejevsky, Matthew Dal Santo, and Anatol Lieven.

2 Apr, 2016

The Syrian army is unearthing a mass grave consisting of at least 40 corpses, many of them women and children, butchered by the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) in the recently liberated ancient city of Palmyra.

The grave was discovered by engineers and “popular defense forces” in the Masakin al-Jahizia neighborhood in the city, which lies only 500 meters away from the ancient ruins, SANA reports.

Initially, the army has managed to pull 25 corpses out from the ground. Among those killed by IS were three children and five females. As the excavation proceeded, 15 more corpses were unearthed – all of them women and children.

Initial examination of the bodies revealed that some of the victims had been beheaded while other had been brutally tortured right before their death.

The army continues to excavate the mass grave, fearing that more bodies may be found.

In the meantime, engineering units continue their search for landmines and explosives as thousands had been hidden by the jihadists before they were driven out from the city with the help of the Russian forces working with the Syrian army.

Russian combat engineers arrived in Palmyra on Thursday with special robotic units to offer their expertise in detecting and dismantling mines in an area comprising over 180 hectares (445 acres) to save the UNESCO world heritage site, and help locals to return to safe existence.

“At least 3,000 explosive devices were installed in the city,” the sapper explained to RT. He said ISIS created an almost invisible interconnected network, partially hidden under hard paved roads, which could blow up the entire city.

A strategically important location, Palmyra had been seized by IS jihadists since May 2015. That month, ISIS reportedly slaughtered 400 people, mostly women and children. At the time, Reuters reported that a video posted by IS’ supporters showed the militants entering governmental buildings in search of Syrian soldiers. They were also seen pulling down pictures of Syrian President Bashar Assad and his father, Hafez Assad.

https://www.rt.com/news/338101-palmyra-isis-mass-grave/

29 Mar, 2016

American soldiers never used to shoot at our CIA agents, and vice-versa, but that’s what’s reportedly happening in the northern part of Syria, former CIA officer Ray McGovern told RT from Washington, DC.

In February, the CIA-armed group ‘Fursan al Haq’, or Knights of Righteousness, were apparently forced out of their positions by the so-called ‘Syrian Democratic Forces’, backed by the Pentagon.

The report - put out by a US Veterans group - comes as President Obama this month authorized a new Pentagon plan to train and arm Syrian anti-government fighters.

RT: How much control do the US military and intelligence have over the groups they are funding on the ground?

Ray McGovern: Well, let’s start with the good news. The good news is that because of Russian intervention and President Obama’s sensible reaction to it, namely, no longer pressing for priority for removing Assad and also allowing Iranians to participate in negotiations, the ceasefire - or what we call the ‘cessation of hostilities’ - is holding. Now, the embarrassing part of all is that when President Putin and President Obama told their respective foreign ministers to de-conflict things, make sure their planes don’t run into each other, that has moved forward to the point with this active military cooperation in Syria.

Now, unfortunately the same is not true of the various factions within the US government: the CIA, on the one hand, and the Department of Defense, on the other. They don’t seem able to de-conflict their strategies. And the bottom line here of course is there’s no one in control. Susan Rice, National Security Adviser, she is going to tell the Special Operation folks and the Air Force and the CIA what to do? It is almost laughable, if it weren’t so serious… We have different objectives. First of all, the moderate rebels were going to remove Assad and then they got instructions: 'No, no, don’t remove Assad. We are going to go after ISIS.' No one knows what to think. And besides that the Pentagon has been thoroughly embarrassed by investing half a billion dollars into fielding four or five people still in the fight. So, the solution is to work with the Russians, to make sure that they de-conflict not only Russian and US objectives and actions, but that the Russians might even help us to de-conflict the obvious shooting that is going on between CIA-supported rebels and Department of Defense-supported rebels. It is really quite an embarrassment…

RT: Could this be part of the rivalry within the enormous US war machine with both departments, the CIA and Pentagon, wanting to defeat each other?

RG: Yes, it could. These things happen. If there is no strong leadership from the top, and I mean the White House here, that’s why I referred to Susan Rice, the National Security Adviser. If she is having the same problems with the Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter as her predecessor Condoleezza Rice had with Donald Rumsfeld then the National Security Adviser is not doing her job. And the President is aloof. And so you get the Department of Defense and the CIA both running their little operations and, quite frankly, I doubt whether the CIA is telling the Pentagon all the things that it is doing in Syria. It is a secret, after all.

RT: How do both the CIA and the Pentagon choose the groups to support?

RG: It has been sort of a helter-skelter choosing process, reminiscent of the people we chose to go into Iraq and set up a government more amenable to our influence. The moderate rebels that we are allegedly supporting – you know it is really bizarre because the President of the US two years ago said: 'There are no moderate rebels. This is a fantasy'. Well, if it is a fantasy and there are no moderate rebels, whom are we supporting there with millions and millions of dollars? These things have a momentum of their own. And once you have a covert action program with 500 million dollars like the Defense had, you’ve got all this money and people say: 'Let’s find some moderate rebels because we have all this money.'

So it is really a totally inept performance with no central control on the part of the White House, and so you would expect this kind of now it has reached ludicrous proportions. Our soldiers never used to shoot at our CIA agents, and vice-versa, and that’s what’s going on apparently in the northern part of Syria.

https://www.rt.com/op-edge/337646-syrian-showdown-pentagon-rebels/

Apr 18, 2016

U.S. State Department spokesperson John Kirby stressed Monday night that the Obama administration does not consider the Golan Heights to be part of Israel, one day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed they "will forever remain under Israeli sovereignty."

"The U.S. position on the issue is unchanged," Kirby told reporters during a daily briefing at the State Department in Washington. "This position was maintained by both Democratic and Republican administrations. Those territories are not part of Israel and the status of those territories should be determined through negotiations. The current situation in Syria does not allow this," Kirby continued.

Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz expressed support for Netanyahu's comments on the Golan, saying that "the government of Israel reiterated the reality that the Golan Heights are part of Israel’s sovereign territory." Cruz added that it's "dangerous for the international community to try to pressure Israel to abandon the Golan to the chaos engulfing Syria."

The U.S. is the second country after Germany to respond to Netanyahu's declaration that the Golan, captured from Syria in the 1967 war and later annexed, "will forever remain under Israeli sovereignty."

"It's a basic principle of international law and the UN charter that no state can claim the right to annex another state's territory just like that," Martin Schaefer, spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry, said Monday.

Israel annexed the Golan in 198, in a move unanimously rejected the same year by the United Nations Security Council.

Netanyahu's declaration came as UN-sponsored international efforts are being made to obtain a political accord to end the civil war in Syria.
Officials in the Prime Minister’s Office say that Syrian President Assad demanded that one principle upon which the international talks will be based is that the Golan Heights be considered occupied territory that must be returned to Syria.

On Thursday, Netanyahu will fly to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Netanyahu’s senior aides say the prime minister plans to bring up this issue at their meeting and to stress the same message to Putin.

http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.715143