“Our hand will reach you wherever you are”. In the airstrikes that have hit crowded city areas, “one Daesh member gets killed, and 10 civilians”, he said, using an Arabic acronym for the group.
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A U.S. Defense Department official told The NY Times the Russian government warned the U.S.it would be carrying out “a significant number of strikes in Raqqa”, the Islamic State’s stronghold in Syria, before the first strikes launched.
If the French are indeed thinking in their traditional “way of war”, perhaps they will offer answers; we can all hope such an effort could be successful without the costs entailed in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the costs of such lack of foresight are still being paid.
Former military officers, like Peters, however, said they do not believe the president’s strategy is a winning one.
“The people feel that they are in a large prison and that at any moment there could be a battle for Raqqa or preparatory airstrikes where they will be the biggest losers”, said Tim Ramadan, an activist with Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, a campaign group that opposes Isis and the Syrian regime.
“The Russian bombing in western Raqqa – which they claimed was against IS – was far away from any IS locations”, he adds.
It was not immediately clear if all the blasts were caused by air strikes or other weaponry.
Mustafa fled Raqqa past year, after he and his family were threatened by IS. In many cases, the attacks were ordered after US intelligence learned that Islamic State facilitators there were contacting “lone wolf” volunteers inside the U.S, or others who might be recruited to stage terrorist attacks similar to last Friday’s assaults in Paris.
Britain and Denmark have suggested they could follow Paris in extending their air strikes from Iraq to Syria. It was left, therefore, to France to not launch a new military attack but to ramp one up.
Obama called Russian Federation a “constructive” partner in talks aimed at ending the Syrian civil war, though he said differences remain on Assad’s departure, which the US and its European and Arab allies say is necessary at a few point. Once that is taken, they will head east toward Raqqa through the Abdul-Aziz Mountain, as well as from Ein Issa and Soureen to the north and and northwest of Raqqa.
The majority of strikes were conducted by the French air force, according to official sources. He is also anxious about the coalition’s support for Kurdish forces, who have been accused of human rights violations.
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Olga Oliker, director of the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and worldwide Studies, said the new Russian airstrikes against the Islamic State could lead to closer cooperation between Washington and Moscow.
