This is what the United States is actually demanding – and selling billions of dollars worth of weapons to the fundamentalist Sunni Saudi government in order to use not only in Syria but in Yemen to slaughter Shiites in those countries.
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On Tuesday, Russia’s fleet of 25 long-range bombers joined Su-34, Su-25, and Su-24M warplanes conducting operations in Syria to double the number of airstrikes against the militants.
Admitting that his logic is “almost counter-intuitive”, Blinken says that when Russian Federation started bombing targets in Syria, two things happened: First, it increased Russia’s influence over Syria’s President Bashar Assad; second, it placed pressure on Russian Federation to bring about a political solution, because the country’s leaders realize they can’t sustain a Syrian offensive indefinitely.
Air strikes on the northern Syrian city of Raqqa and its outskirts over the past three days have killed at least 33 fighters with the Islamic State group, activists say. This is Raqqa every day, worse than the french capital, for the past 4 years, that is more than 1400 days, not just 5 hours. French jets have repeatedly bombed Islamic State’s de facto capital, Raqqa, this week.
I managed to speak to one member of the group via a secure application that it uses to spread news about events in Raqqa.
The Obama administration has ruled out deploying significant ground forces in Syria, whose war has killed more than 250,000 people and displaced millions.
In this photo released in May 2015 by a militant website, a member of Islamic State’s vice police known as “Hisba”, right, reads a verdict handed down by an Islamic court sentencing many they accused of adultery to lashing in Raqqa, Syria.
Olga Oliker, director of the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and global Studies, said the new Russian airstrikes against the Islamic State could lead to closer cooperation between Washington and Moscow.
Wednesday’s operation came after a source with knowledge of the investigation said a cell phone had been found with a map of the music venue targeted in one of the attacks and a text message on it saying words to the effect of “let’s go”. A few estimates put black-market oil sales at almost half the group’s revenue.
France agrees with Obama that Assad’s continuance in power and the war against his own people have provided fertile territory for the terrorist group to grow.
Peter Cook, a Pentagon spokesman, said Tuesday that the strikes on the oil vehicles did not appear to kill civilians. “You’re also affecting the livelihood of these civilians’ families”, Hassan said. Numerous residents have moved there from Palmyra, recently taken by the Islamic State and newly coming under government airstrikes.
Poverty may be worsening in places such as Raqqa, partly as a result of recent setbacks on the battlefield suffered by the Islamic State, said Columb Strack, a Middle East analyst at Jane’s Information Group. It said they had been killed “after being abandoned by kafir (infidel) nations and organizations”.
For months, the anti-IS forces have been advancing gradually toward Raqqa with backing from American-led airstrikes, capturing IS-held towns to the north and east of the city.
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On Tuesday, 10 French jets of Rafale and Mirage 2000, dropped 16 bombs on ISIS locations in Raqqa, destroying two targets for the terror group, according to the French Ministry of Defense.
