Everybody knows that ISIS was created by Sterling’s mom, Malory Archer. And that, unfortunately, is not a joke!
Today the Russian press is full of stories like this one, about the destruction of an ISIS “reactive artillery base” in the Syrian town of Idlib, which has been controlled by ISIS since May of this year.
Translator Note: The Russian acronym for ISIS/ISIL/Al Qaeda, whatever you want to call these guys, is ИГИЛ, which stands for Исламское государство Ирака и Леванта (Islamic State of Iraq and Levant). I’ll just call them ISIS, if you don’t mind. Because I am convinced, inside my own head, that whatever jokester inside the CIA came up with this name for their pets, he was a fan of the brilliant American TV show, “Archer”.
But, anyhow, returning to business:
The LifeNews piece quotes Russian Major-General Igor Konashenkov and includes a 40-second video.
Konashenkov: “Last night, as a result of reconaissance, several (of our) SU-24’s bombed a reactive artillery base of the militants, in the the area of the populated town Jisr al-Shughur. Our automated controls confirmed the destruction of the technology [of the militants] and the detonation of ammo supplies on the spot.”
Russian drones also uncovered some artillery positions (of the enemy) near the town of Jabel Koba [spelling?]. According to the Major-General, this time it was Russian SU-25’s which destroyed three artillery placements and also a cache of explosives.
Similarly, in this piece in KP, we see a short video, shot by the ISIS terrorists themselves, of the ruins of their own base, which has just been destroyed by Russian aviation.
The title of the video is: “ISIS tries to find their own base, after the SU-34 strike”.
Finishing off with a more in-depth piece in VZGLIAD. This one is entitled: “The Militant Islamists are starting to flee from Syria”.
As an inside source told the RIA Novosti news agency: “They [the Islamists] are afraid because of the activization of the [Syrian] army across the whole of the front line, they are scared of Russian air strikes.”
In his words: Finally given some breathing room to go on the counter-offensive, the Syrian army was able to strike at Al-Nusra and ISIS positions in the suburbs of Damascus itself, as well as the provinces of Deir ez-Zor and Homs.
In Homs, also according to this source, the Syrian army was able to wipe out 2 columns of ISIS militants near the city of Palmyra. Taking more losses now, the militant factions are starting to fight among themselves, according to another source. The local (Syrian) terrorists are asking the foreign mercenary terrorists to leave the area, fearing more Russian air strikes. There are conflicts between the factions, about who is in charge.
Today the Syrian air force flew helicopters over the towns of Al-Rastan and Talbisi [spelling?]. The helicopters dropped leaflets, asking the terrorists to lay down their arms. The leaflets also asked the civilian population to temporarily leave the area, because Syrian army is planning a massive operation right there.
The piece goes on to list a few other locations where action is taking place to clean out the various nests of jihadists and mercenaries.
In summary: Over the past 24 hours, Russian aviation has completed 20 runs of SU-34, SU-24 and SU-25. In all, ten ISIS objects have been bombed.
Syrian Ambassador to Moscow Riad Haddad
The piece concludes with a note that foreign, as well as dissident Russian (=pro-Ukrainian) press have accused Russia of “bombing the peaceful population” and causing casualties among civilians in Syria. Syria’s ambassador to Moscow, Riad Haddad, denied these rumors. Russian President Vladimir Putin also pointed out that these rumors started up instantaneously, even BEFORE any Russian plane had even left the ground. A Russian air force spokesperson reminded people that the goal of the Russian air strikes is only to destroy the infrastructure of ISIS. So that the Syrian army itself can take care of business on the ground.
Awful Avalanche 
I can say that I sure like the way the Russian Air Force is handling this bombing campaign. Last week, while I was browsing through a couple of news websites, I stumbled across a BBC piece that was pushing the line that Russia is not actually interested in defeating the fundamentalists and the air strikes are all about keeping Assad in office. On top of that, the author was concerned about the possibility that Russia’s air raids are punishing gratuitously some of the rebel opposition groups (aka “moderate opposition” groups), like the one called “Army of Conquest”.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34416978
“According to reports from activists and other sources, Russia’s latest air strikes hit sites in the north-west held by a rebel alliance called the Army of Conquest, as well as areas in Homs and Hama provinces.”
The thing is that, when you start rummaging through the internet for information about this group, you soon find out that it has in its composition various terrorist groups like the Al-Nusra Front, the al-Qaeda branch in Syria and Ahrar al-Sham. It seems that these are the rebel groups that the West and the US are supporting now… al-Qaeda has become an ally of the US and the MSM has no problem with this whatsoever.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-3058816/Army-Conquest-rebel-alliance-pressures-Syria-regime.html
I wonder when will the US learn that using sociopaths with religious delusions as tools for achieving foreign policy objectives is a complete waste of time…
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Dear Spartacus,
That’s a fair point. I guess the Americans believe that this strategy worked for them once (in Afghanistan in the 1980’s); it also worked for them in Ukraine (sort of).
So, they think it’s a winning strategy, and I suppose they will keep trying it over and over again, in ever possible situation.
Well, you know what they say: If you put a dog in a car, he will always stick his head out the window, even if a truck is approaching from the other side.
Either way, it’s easier to be a Russian these days than an American when it comes to Syria. Americans act like they have to slice the baby 100 different ways, and make all these meaningless distinctions between the different terrorist groups. For Russia, life is easier: Just bomb everything with a weapon in its hand, that is not regular (Syrian) army!
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i have trouble understanding some of the interplay. according to israel shamir ( http://www.unz.com/ishamir/if-they-are-bombed-they-are-daesh/ ) put and the bomber talk, showing a few cards tho not to many. according to thierry messian ( http://www.voltairenet.org/article188939.html ) they are working together.
i don’t think a demarche is possible; if agreement were possible big money on both sides would have cut a deal already. i don’t “know” russians or syrians or israelis, etc, but i do know americans and, cynic that i am, the us state is not to be trusted. watcha think? (you come up with new posts afore i’ve had time to ponder a response. your bosses aren’t working you hard enough.)
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How dare you!
My bosses work me plenty hard.
It’s just that I’m such a fast typist that I can knock off a new blog, in the time that it takes you to read the old one! Ha haha hah!
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P.S. – thanks for the Shamir link, especially. I adore Shamir. Reading him is like eating intellectual chocolate.
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Gee – you don’t hear too many “Allahu Akhbar’s” on that clip, do you? They sound kind of…shocked.
As they should be. It’s fair to say Russia has done more damage to ISIS in a week than the western allies did in nine months. I imagine a lot of that is due to the west simply pretending to attack ISIS, but that policy (over which they doubtless smirked as they were hammering it out, like “Can you believe hoe deviously clever we are?”) has left them with no good explanations at all. They cannot admit that they were playing patty-cake with ISIS, and just bombing empty desert. But if they don’t, the world is left with the troubling thought that the Russian Air Force is doing a hell of a lot better job. Better planes, better weapons, better pilots, better tactics? Or all of the above?
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Russians don’t have super-powers or super-weapons.
Success is based on the fact that Russian bombers don’t make fine distinctions between Al-Qaeda and Al-CIA-da.
If it’s Beardsley McTurbanHead, then it is the enemy:
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