STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIALS CALL FOR MILITARY INTERVENTION TO TOPPLE SYRIA’S ASSAD

“We are aware of a dissent channel cable written by a group of State Department employees regarding the situation in Syria. We are reviewing the cable now, which came up very recently,” said State Department spokesman John Kirby. “This is an important vehicle that the secretary, as well as the department institutionally, values and respects.”

The memo sent by more than 50 rank and file officials calls for a ”judicious use of stand-off and air weapons, which would undergird and drive a more focused and hard-nosed U.S.-led diplomatic process.” It was sent through the “dissent channel” at the State Department.

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday the memo repeatedly calls for “targeted air strikes” against the Syrian government following the collapse of a ceasefire agreed upon earlier this year. Saudi proxies refused to honor the ceasefire and the Syrian Army responded by launching a number of offensives.

http://www.infowars.com/state-department-officials-call-for-military-intervention-to-topple-syrias-assad/

 

 

Successful Syria operation boosts Russians’ interest in politics, researchers claim

Sociologists have registered record growth in the Russian citizens’ interest to politics and researchers tie this fact to Russia’s recent successes on the international arena, especially its anti-ISIS operation in Syria.

 

According to the latest research conducted by the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM), 48 percent of Russians say they are interested in politics, which is the highest figure since 2001. Forty-nine percent of responders said that politics was not at the top of their interests’ list, and 3 percent said it was difficult to give a direct and simple answer to this question. For comparison, in 2010 the share of Russians who said that they considered politics to be an important subject was 30 percent and 64 percent said that they had no interest in politics whatsoever.

https://www.rt.com/politics/342076-interest-to-politics-on-rise/

 

SUCCESSFUL SYRIA OPERATION BOOSTS RUSSIANS’ INTEREST IN POLITICS, RESEARCHERS CLAIM

According to the latest research conducted by the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM), 48 percent of Russians say they are interested in politics, which is the highest figure since 2001. Forty-nine percent of responders said that politics was not at the top of their interests’ list, and 3 percent said it was difficult to give a direct and simple answer to this question. For comparison, in 2010 the share of Russians who said that they considered politics to be an important subject was 30 percent and 64 percent said that they had no interest in politics whatsoever.

The 2016 research also shows that the current events in Syria and Russia’s counter-terrorist operation in this country were the most popular discussion topics among Russians. The situation in Ukraine ranked second, the ongoing price hikes in Russia were in third place and the last Q&A session with President Vladimir Putin was in fourth place.

http://www.infowars.com/successful-syria-operation-boosts-russians-interest-in-politics-researchers-claim/

Syria – Russia Rejects Kerry’s New Attempts To Shield The Terrorists

The U.S. admits that the upcoming Aleppo offensive by the Syrian government and its allies is designed to hit al-Qaeda and associated terrorist forces and not primarily the “moderate” unicorns the U.S. propaganda blushes about. But the openly U.S. supported forces will also be hit as they are very much integrated with al-Qaeda. The U.S. has for long considered al-Qaeda a secret ally in its attempt to destroy the Syrian state. The French magazine L’Orient Le Jour sees the U.S. relation with al-Qaeda in Syria as part of the attrition strategy the U.S. is waging against Syria (and Russia).

Secretary of State Kerry tried to convince the Russian that al-Qaeda should not be attacked during the cessation of hostilities. But the Russian’s did not agree. Al Qaeda is a UN recognized international terrorist organization which, under UNSC resolutions, must be fought. The U.S. only succeeded in downgrading the permanent ceasefire the Russians had preferred to into a temporary cessation hostilities. It thought to use the time to rearm and to regroup its proxy forces.

But then thing went wrong. An offensive along the Turkish border to push away the Islamic State and to seal the border between the Islamic State and Turkey failed. Al-Qaeda convinced other groups, including directly U.S. supported CIA assets, to prematurely attack Syrian government forces south of Aleppo on Tal el-Eis. The attack mad only little progress before it was stopped.

http://www.moonofalabama.org/

SYRIA – RUSSIA REJECTS KERRY’S NEW ATTEMPTS TO SHIELD THE TERRORISTS

Secretary of State Kerry tried to convince the Russian that al-Qaeda should not be attacked during the cessation of hostilities. But the Russian’s did not agree. Al Qaeda is a UN recognized international terrorist organization which, under UNSC resolutions, must be fought. The U.S. only succeeded in downgrading the permanent ceasefire the Russians had preferred to into a temporary cessation hostilities. It thought to use the time to rearm and to regroup its proxy forces.

But then thing went wrong. An offensive along the Turkish border to push away the Islamic State and to seal the border between the Islamic State and Turkey failed. Al-Qaeda convinced other groups, including directly U.S. supported CIA assets, to prematurely attack Syrian government forces south of Aleppo on Tal el-Eis. The attack mad only little progress before it was stopped.

http://www.infowars.com/syria-russia-rejects-kerrys-new-attempts-to-shield-the-terrorists/

 

US Could Be Stuck Fighting Daesh ‘for a Decade, Maybe Even a Generation’

In a joint piece for The Atlantic magazine, Biddle, an adjunct senior fellow for defense policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Shapiro, professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton, lay out why the war against the jihadist group isn’t likely to end in the neat and clean way that American officials might have hoped it would.
The reason for this, they suggest, stems from the nature of the war: “Civil wars of the kind in which the US conflict with the Islamic State is embedded are notoriously hard to terminate and typically drag on for years. Datasets vary slightly, but most put the median duration of such conflicts at seven to 10 years; and an important minority drag on for a generation or more.”

“When they do end, it’s rarely because an empowered, victorious army marches into the enemy capital, pulls down the flag, and governs a newly stable society.”

Like neighboring Syria, Iraq, the authors suggest, is likely to remain embroiled in civil conflict because, as is typical in civil wars, there are outside interests which prefer instability and chaos to a decisive victory for their opponent.

“Civil wars like today’s conflict in Syria and Iraq are often complex, multi-sided proxy conflicts in which a variety of local combatants have ties to outside backers who fund, equip, train, and advise allies’ forces. This outside support enables fighters to weather setbacks and hang on in the face of military adversity. Outside backers usually have geopolitical reasons of their own to support local proxies.”

http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20160424/1038535434/war-against-daesh-generational.html

War zone via smartphone: the Syria mobile film festival

Since 2011, conflict has raged in Syria. And since then, thousands of locals have recorded it on their smartphones. Such firsthand footage has become a powerful expression of freedom against the regime.

Tonight marks the opening of the Syria mobile film festival in Berlin, showcasing 11 documentary shorts shot by 12 Syrian film-makers.

Its founder is Amer Matar, a 29-year-old author, journalist and documentary film-maker now exiled in Germany, arrested twice in 2011 for his work organising peace demonstrations.

“It’s important to show what life is like inside Syria right now. It’s important to document the daily life, the daily shootings,” Matar says. That the conflict dominates the cinema produced is inevitable. “Most of the films revolve in the world of war, whether it’s death, injury or exile, and the effect of war in Syria.”

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/apr/08/syrian-mobile-film-festival-berlin-films-shot-on-smartphones?CMP=twt_gu

Assad Ready For Snap Elections As Kremlin Denies Report Of Russia-US Plan To Help Him Flee Syria

Last week, Bashar al-Assad celebrated one of the most significant (at least from a symbolic perspective)military victories in the history of his government’s campaign against opposition groups battling for control of Syria.

With the help of Russia and Hezbollah, Assad’s army liberated the ancient city of Palmyra from Islamic State. Palmyra is a UNESCO world heritage site and over the course of the last nine or so months, ISIS has obliterated a number of priceless artifacts on the grounds that they are monuments to paganism.

Needless to say, it’s better that Assad control the city than ISIS. Even the US State Dept. was forced to (begrudgingly) admit as much.

But Washington’s reluctance to celebrate the liberation of Palmyra reflects growing concerns that Assad, Hezbollah, and other Iran-backed Shiite militias are now poised to march on Deir ez-Zor – and then on Raqqa.

With the “moderate” opposition in the west subdued, a victory in the east would mean Assad has conquered the entire country. Clearly, that raises the question of what happens next. That is, it’s rather difficult to depose someone who has just vanquished the last vestiges of the opposition. Still, you shouldn’t expect Washington, Riyadh, Doha, and Ankara to give up on the effort to oust the Alawite government just yet, which is why we weren’t surprised when London-based al-Hayat reported that the US and Russia had agreed on a plan that would see Assad take refuge in an as-yet unnamed country once a political transformation has had time to take hold.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-03-31/assad-ready-snap-elections-kremlin-denies-report-russia-us-plan-help-him-flee-syria

In Syria, militias armed by the Pentagon fight those armed by the CIA

Syrian militias armed by different parts of the U.S. war machine have begun to fight each other on the plains between the besieged city of Aleppo and the Turkish border, highlighting how little control U.S. intelligence officers and military planners have over the groups they have financed and trained in the bitter five-year-old civil war.

The fighting has intensified over the last two months, as CIA-armed units and Pentagon-armed ones have repeatedly shot at each other while maneuvering through contested territory on the northern outskirts of Aleppo, U.S. officials and rebel leaders have confirmed.

In mid-February, a CIA-armed militia called Fursan al Haq, or Knights of Righteousness, was run out of the town of Marea, about 20 miles north of Aleppo, by Pentagon-backed Syrian Democratic Forces moving in from Kurdish-controlled areas to the east.

http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-cia-pentagon-isis-20160327-story.html

 

IN SYRIA, MILITIAS ARMED BY THE PENTAGON FIGHT THOSE ARMED BY THE CIA

The fighting has intensified over the last two months, as CIA-armed units and Pentagon-armed ones have repeatedly shot at each other while maneuvering through contested territory on the northern outskirts of Aleppo, U.S. officials and rebel leaders have confirmed.

In mid-February, a CIA-armed militia called Fursan al Haq, or Knights of Righteousness, was run out of the town of Marea, about 20 miles north of Aleppo, by Pentagon-backed Syrian Democratic Forces moving in from Kurdish-controlled areas to the east.

http://www.infowars.com/in-syria-militias-armed-by-the-pentagon-fight-those-armed-by-the-cia/