“I would not envision a relationship where I would share a few of my intelligence with them”. Which the United States found out about when a Russian general knocked on the door of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and delivered a brusque demarche announcing that the attack would begin within an hour and warning the United States to get out of the way.
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A key neocon propaganda theme has been to spin the conspiracy theory that Assad and the Islamic State are somehow in cahoots and thus Al Qaeda represents the lesser evil.
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks as he heads a meeting of the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights at the Alexadrovsky Hall in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Thursday, October 1, 2015. They notified us before carrying out their air strikes, without providing the details. They are hitting all the factions fighting Assad. Followed by bombing attacks on Homs and other opposition strongholds that had nothing to do with the Islamic State. That suggests the rebels were not there to fight the self-proclaimed Islamic State, as the Obama administration called the top priority.
At a news conference on Friday, Obama acknowledged that the USA military’s train and equip programme had not achieved its goals but said he would continue to work with Syria’s moderate opposition. John McCain (R-AZ), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that Russian forces had attacked Syrian rebels who were part of a CIA-vetted group of hundreds of fighters, contradicting Cook. This frenzy was fed by the Times’ article, co-written by neocon national security correspondent Michael R. Gordon, a leading promoter of the Iraq-WMD scam in 2002.
“We have such an invitation and we intend to fight against terrorist organizations and them only”, Putin added, according to RT.
“This could be also a useful format for other things”, Mogherini said. It said 14 fighters, mostly Islamic State militants, had also been killed. Meanwhile, the USA secretary of state beseeches the Russians to negotiate “de-conflict” arrangements – so that we and they can each bomb our own targets safely.
Konashenkov said equipment and weapons storage facilities were destroyed in a strike near Jisr al-Shughour and an ammunition depot was destroyed in Maaret al-Numan. [Quote at 53:20 of clip.]. “At the present moment, they think Assad is the only viable option in terms of holding it together, the threat is that dire, and that if you take Assad out of the equation, it could just collapse”.
Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook, also on Thursday, refused to say whether or not the US would respond to Russian aggression against American-backed Syrian rebels.
The Russian air strikes have hit at least four rebel factions operating under the umbrella of the Free Syrian Army which had received significant military support from states that oppose Assad, rebel fighters said this week.
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Russian Federation has said it is using its most advanced plane, the Sukhoi-34, near Raqqa, the area where it is most likely to encounter US and coalition aircraft targeting Islamic State.
