11.07.2016

On Friday, July 8th, militants of the Islamic State terrorist group downed the Mi-35M helicopter of the aerospace forces of the Russian Federation.

The helicopter was on a combat mission near Palmyra. Two pilots - Colonel Ryafagat Habibullin and Lt. Yevgeny Dolgin were killed in the crash.

Al Jazeera was the first media outlet that reported the downing of the helicopter. However, the Russian military rebutted the information after the news was made public.

A day after the incident, though, the Russian Defense Ministry was forced to admit that the helicopter was indeed shot down and the pilots were killed.

The official version says the Russian pilots Ryafagat Habibullin and Yevgeny Dolgin were on a combat duty on the Syrian Mi-25 helicopter. However, it was then specified that the Russian pilots were flying the new Russian helicopter Mi-35M, rather than the old Syrian Mi-25. According to the Kommersant newspaper, a group of at least two Mi-35M was patrolling areas in Homs province, when the crew headed by Colonel Khabibullin noticed a large group of militants attacking the positions of Syrian troops in the east of Palmyra.

Habibullin opened fire on the positions of the terrorists. The helicopter then tried to turn back, but a missile struck the tail boom of the chopper. The crew tried to align the movement, but the damage was considerable, and the helicopter crashed and exploded. There were no chances for the crew to save themselves.

The remains of the bodies of the crew of the downed Mi-35M were found by the Syrian troops and handed over to Hmeymim air base.

The Kremlin has not released any official statements on the matter yet. Nevertheless, it was said that Russia would not leave the attack unanswered.

Pravda.Ru
http://www.pravdareport.com/news/hotspots/terror/11-07-2016/134976-russia_helico...

And so the support for the Syrian Rebels from Europe and the US continues against the evil Assad Regime. Meanwhile, the rebels are fighting for democracy and freedom except when they are doing what Muzlims do best: Check it out,

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-36843990

http://presstv.com/Detail/2016/07/21/476215/US-Kerry-Syria-militants-Nureddin-al...

Jul 23, 2016

More than a dozen civilians are dead or injured after US warplanes launch fresh airstrikes in Syria’s northern province of Aleppo.

Local sources said warplanes hit targets in al-Nawajah village east of of Manbij on Saturday, leaving at least 15 people dead or injured.

Some of the wounded victims are said to be in a critical condition, the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a statement from London.

The fresh attack comes shortly after at least 140 civilians were killed in French and US airstrikes in Manbij on Tuesday and Wednesday.

According to the Syrian Foreign Ministry, French warplanes struck the village of Tukhan al-Kubra north of Manbij, killing 120 civilians. The fatalities came a day after a US airstrike killed 20 civilians in Manbij.

Last month, at least 45 civilians were killed in two separate US-led airstrikes in the Syrian city, which is mostly populated by the Kurdish community.

On Thursday, opposition groups in Syria called on the US and allies to suspend airstrikes following the deaths of some 140 civilians in Aleppo until an investigation is completed into the deaths.

The Syrian government has written to the United Nations, asking the world body to condemn the airstrikes which are carried out without authorization from Damascus or a UN mandate.

The US-led coalition has been backing the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and Arab forces, to capture Manbij since last May.

The coalition has also been conducting airstrikes against purported Daesh targets inside Syria since September 2014.

The Syrian government has criticized the unauthorized aerial campaign, saying it has damaged the country's infrastructure instead of making a dent in the Takfiri group's capabilities.

http://presstv.com/Detail/2016/07/23/476537/US-airstrikes-Syria-Manbij-Daesh-pos...

Jul 22, 2016

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says the situation in Syria has changed significantly, and that preconditions for a victory against terrorism and the establishment of a true intra-Syrian dialogue are emerging.

    “The situation in Syria has seriously changed in the past seven months, and preconditions have emerged for us to defeat terrorists and to organize the truest intra-Syria dialogue, so that only Syrians themselves could decide the future of their country,” Lavrov said on Friday.

Elsewhere in his remarks, the Russian foreign minister blamed the West's “incompetent” policies in the Middle East and North Africa for the ongoing devastating crises in the region, which have claimed thousands of lives and displaced many others .

    “What is happening in the Middle East and North Africa is the direct result of a very incompetent and unprofessional attitude to the status quo,” Lavrov said, adding that Western powers have “acted like a bull in a china shop in order to assert their dominance.”

“Iraq was not broken, Libya was not broken, Syria was not broken. They (Western powers) started to fix the situation, and they got what is happening there now,” Lavrov said.

The top Russian diplomat further argued, “Who will guarantee that Syria won’t repeat the Libya scenario” if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is removed from power?

The Russian foreign minister also described the potential disruption of "the ethno-confessional balance" in Syria as outrageous.

“The Middle East is the place where the three divine religions of Islam, Judaism and Christianity have co-existed for thousands of years. What is happening in Syria now threatens to destroy the ethno-confessional balance, which has endured despite deadly wars," Lavrov said, adding, “If we witness the disruption of this balance in our time, it would be a disgrace for all of us.”

Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. United Nations Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura estimates that over 400,000 people have been killed in the conflict. The UN has stopped its official casualty count in Syria, citing its inability to verify the figures that it receives from various sources.

A ceasefire brokered by the US and Russia went into effect in Syria on February 27, but it does not apply to the Daesh and al-Nusra Front terrorist groups.

http://presstv.com/Detail/2016/07/22/476436/victory-over-terror-Russia-Syria

Andrei.Hicks wrote on Jul 23^rd, 2016 at 10:03pm:


Can you show me some state sponsored, exported terrorism from Assad?

Setanta wrote on Jul 24^th, 2016 at 12:14am:


Yes, that is true, and in theory, that is the case. Unfortunately, that is precisely where the problems begin. The Israeli population is made up of people with different perspectives. The most difficult are the hardline Zionists whose only interest in life is Judaism. They are a powerful group, and any compromise is not going to come from them. Opposed by the Muzlim fundamentalists, both groups are quite happy to fight to the death, while Western leaders pontificate about a peace only they care about. Nobody of any Middle Eastern consequence is really concerned with peace. The art of politics in the West is to appear to have answers when you don't.  Therefore, a dynamic change is not going to happen.

Aren't those who worship the God of Abraham/Ibrahim wonderful? They started out murdering Pagans. Now they are murdering each other.

Aug 1, 2016

A Russian helicopter delivering humanitarian aid to the Syrian city of Aleppo has been shot down in Idlib province, with reports suggesting the five people on board are killed.

Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement on Monday that the Mi-8 helicopter was shot down while returning to Russia’s air base on the Mediterranean coast from a mission for delivering humanitarian goods to the war-wracked city of Aleppo in north.

The statement added that three crew members and two officers were on board the chopper, saying their exact fate is still unknown.

A later statement by the Kremlin said the five are believed to have died.

    “As far as we know from the information we've had from the Defense Ministry, those in the helicopter died, they died heroically, because they were trying to move the aircraft away to minimize victims on the ground,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists, expressing condolences over the deaths of the five Russians.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the downing of the helicopter. Militants from various terrorist groups are present in Idlib.

This is not the first case in which Russian forces have lost aircraft in Syria.

According to a report by The Associated Press, two Russian pilots were killed in the central Homs province in July when their Mi-25 helicopter was shot down by what the Defense Ministry said were Daesh terrorists.

An Mi-28N helicopter gunship also crashed near Homs in April, killing both crew members.

A Russian bomber plane was shot down by a Turkish jet along the Syrian border in November 2015, and one of the two pilots was shot and killed from the ground after ejecting.

The attack on the Russian copter comes as the Syrian army, backed by Russia and other allies on the ground, has managed to tighten its grip on militants in various parts of Aleppo.

Earlier on Monday, Syria said the militants had started massive attacks to repel government forces from their positions around the terrorist-held areas.

The downing of the copter marked the deadliest incident on a single mission for the Russian servicemen since Moscow began its air campaign against terrorists in Syria in September 2015. According to official data, 18 Russians have been killed since the air campaign started at the official request of the Damascus government.

Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. The government blames the militancy on some foreign governments, including its northern neighbor Turkey and Arab governments of the Persian Gulf region.

http://presstv.com/Detail/2016/08/01/477943/Russia-Syria-helicopter-Idlib