ISIS update 2/5/2016..  Saudi offers to send troops to Syria

US welcomes Saudi offer to send troops to Syria

Russia: Saudi troop deployment to Syria declaration of war

Turkey prepares invasion into Syria

Kirby: Any chance Turkey will invade Syria? 04 Feb 2016

Planned Turkish Invasion of Syria?

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2016/02/planned-turkish-invasion-of-syria.html

by Stephen Lendman

All Turkish military actions are approved by or complicit with Washington. Erdogan would never act unilaterally on his own, not even aggressively against his own Kurdish population, slaughtering civilians in cold blood.

Does he intend a Syrian incursion, unprovoked aggression, if launched? Russian evidence suggests it, according to Defense Department spokesman General Igor Konashenkov, saying:

“We have serious grounds to suspect intensive preparations by Turkey for a military invasion on the territory of the sovereign state of Syria. We are recording more and more signs of concealed preparations by the Turkish military.”

Days earlier, Russian video evidence revealed cross-border Turkish shelling on northern Latakia province Syrian populated areas.

US-led NATO officials “and numerous organizations allegedly protecting human rights in Syria, despite our call to respond to these actions, still remain silent,” despite irrefutable evidence of Turkish aggression, along with supporting ISIS and other terrorist groups, Konashenkov explained.

Turkey wants evidence of its illegal military activities along the Syrian border suppressed. It denied a Russian observation flight over its territory, scheduled from February 1 – 5, permitted under the Open Skies Treaty (OST), up to a range of 1,900 km, with Turkish specialists onboard, after earlier expressing no pre-conditions or restrictions.

In 1992, 34 nations signed OST, effective in 2002, including Russia, America, Turkey, EU countries and Canada. Treaty objectives are to foster transparency, monitor fulfillment of arms control agreements, and improve capabilities to prevent crises.

Konashenkov called denying Russia’s legitimate right to conduct a legitimate observation flight over Turkish territory according to OST provisions “a dangerous precedent and an attempt to conceal illegal military activity near the border with Syria.”

Russian satellite and other intelligence can keep close watch on what Erdogan may intend, including possible cross-border belligerence against Syria.

In 2015, 32 foreign observation flights over Russian territory took place, according to OST principles, four by Turkey.

If Erdogan intends aggression against northern Syria, Russian intelligence will prove it. Key is how Putin and Assad respond.

Neither leader wants greater war than already, nor will they tolerate naked aggression, threatening their national security.

ESCALATION: TURKS VIOLATE TREATY DENY RUSSIA

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Turkey hopes Syrian opposition will attend Geneva peace talks.

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International Military Review – Syria, Feb. 5, 2016

Assad forces gain ground in Aleppo

Closing In: Russia, Iran, Assad “Encircle” Syria’s Largest City As Peace Talks Collapse In Geneva

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-02-04/closing-russia-iran-assad-encircle-syrias-largest-city-peace-talks-collapse-geneva

Back in October, we previewed the “promised” battle for Aleppo, Syria’s largest city prior to the war.

By the time Russia began constructing an air base at Latakia, the city – which is immensely important both from a strategic and psychological perspective – was controlled by a hodgepodge of rebels and militants including al-Qaeda, the Free Syrian Army, and ISIS.

As we noted four months ago, if Russia and Hezbollah manage to recapture the city, it would effectively restore the Assad government in Syria even if the east of the country is still controlled by Islamic State.

In many ways, the city is emblematic of the wider conflict. Here are a few visuals which underscore the extent of the desolation and utter sorrow that plague this once thriving urban center.

Despite the fact that the city – like many others across the country – has been reduced to a smoldering pile of rubble, it’s key to Russia and Iran’s plans to consolidate Assad’s power in the west of the country.

As noted above, if the SAA can retake Aleppo, Assad will have control of most of the country’s major urban centers, effectively restoring his grip on power.

So critical is the city, that when the SAA, Hezbollah, and a variety of Shiite militas were gearing up for the push north, Quds commander Qassem Soleimani himself showed up to rally the troops (he was later injured on the frontlines).

Fast forward four months and it appears that after a protracted fight, Russia and Hezbollah are indeed poised to recapture the city where militants are now surrounded. Critically, Russia and Iran have now cut off supply lines from Turkey.

“Backed by Russian firepower and Hezbollah militants, Syrian government troops have cut off rebel supply lines between the northern city of Aleppo and Turkey,” Bloomberg writes. “Taking Aleppo, Syria’s former commercial hub, would give Russia, Iran and Assad more bargaining power at any future settlement talks and more say in how the region will be redefined.”

Speaking of settlement talks, negotiations in Geneva brokered in part by John Kerry were suspended on Wednesday as a Saudi-backed rebel coalition voiced anger over Russia’s airstrikes near Aleppo. On Thursday, Kerry demanded that Moscow halt the offensive so peace talks could resume. Although America’s top diplomat swears his phone call with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov was “robust” Lavrov said on Wednesday The Kremlin doesn’t see why the campaign against “the terrorists” should stop. “I can’t see any reason why we should halt our aerial operations until the terrorists shall be defeated”, Lavrov said, flatly.

“On the ground, nearly 40,000 people have fled an offensive this week by President Bashar al-Assad’s regime north of the city of Aleppo,” AFP said on Thursday, citing the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (or in other words, “citing one guy in London”). “Assad’s forces also entered two Shiite villages that were under siege by rebels, prompting what state news agency SANA called ‘mass celebrations’ in the streets of Nubol and Zahraa.”

Syria: SAA/Hezbollah & Peoples Committee Operations in North Aleppo: Mu’arrasat al-Khan

Damascus: Army in full control of Nubl, Zahra

END OF ISIS: Russia Hits 900 Targets in Last Three Days, Jihadists Fleeing

YPG & YPJ liberate village in Efrin Canton from Al Nusra

Syrian Christian girls defend their town from Western backed moderate beheaders

Syrian Army captures new areas in Itman – Daraa Countryside

Russian Night Airstrike on Talbiseh in Homs Countryside

Aid convoy enters regime-besieged town near Damascus

Syrian army forces recapture Atman town in southern Syria

Iraqi forces prepare to retake strategic town of Bashir in the northern Kirkuk province

Iraqi forces advance to clear Sajariya area of Ramadi

Fighting to the finish in Ramadi

Plunging oil prices may affect Iraq’s war on terror

Lebanese army kills 6, captures 16 ISIL terrorists

US Regime Change Talks on Syria Hit Blind Alley

By Finian Cunningham

February 04, 2016 “Information Clearing House” – “American Herald Tribune “ – And so the wheels of the Geneva talks came off in spectacular fashion, with all parties blaming each other for the breakdown in the so-called Syrian peace process.

The negotiations in the Swiss city were only into their second day –having opened on Monday, and that after a week-long delay –when UN special envoy Staffan de Mistura announced that the talks would be adjourned until February 25. Take it as read: it’s over.

Washington and Paris immediately sought to blame the Syrian government and its Russian and Iranian allies for “torpedoing”the Geneva talks. US Secretary of State John Kerry accused Syria and its allies of seeking a military solution to the five-year-old conflict. With this background of ongoing air and ground assaults, the Geneva negotiations foundered, according to the US and its partners.

Kerry and his French counterpart, Laurent Fabius, are engaging in reality-inversion, ably assisted by the Western mainstream news media.

The fact is the Geneva talks failed because Washington and its terrorist surrogates fighting for regime change in Syria could not affect a semblance of diplomacy.

Yes, Syrian Arab Army military advances are proceeding apace with the support of Russian air power and ground forces from Iran and Hezbollah. The game-changer was Russian intervention nearly four months ago, which has enabled the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad to recover huge swathes of territory occupied by foreign-backed mercenaries.

The latest military gains this week in northwest Syria have put the Syrian Arab Army within reach of taking back the city of Aleppo, the country’s largest urban centre, second to the capital Damascus.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said this week that Russian operations in Syria will continue until all “terror groups”are destroyed. Lavrov mentioned Al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front and Daesh (also known as ISIL), but Russia’s scope also extends to a myriad of other militants groups who are integrated with the more well-known terrorist organizations.

These militants are falsely and risibly divided into “moderates”and “extremists”by Western governments and their dutiful corporate-controlled news media. What is moderate about chopping heads of civilians considered to be “infidels”? And this barbarity has been routinely practiced by the so-called moderate rebels of the “Free Syrian Army”. Notably, we don’t hear much about the much-lionized FSA these days. That’s because in reality they don’t exist.

Syrian state forces have every right to extirpate all illegally armed groups on the sovereign territory of Syria. While the Geneva negotiations were in process, the main foreign conduits of military supply to the mercenaries –Turkey and Saudi Arabia –had not desisted from their illegal interference in Syria. That was in flagrant violation of the United Nations Security Council resolutions in November and December calling for a global clampdown on terrorist organizations.

Not only were Turkey and Saudi Arabia continuing to supply illegally armed groups inside Syria, these two Western allies had included terrorist organizations into the so-called “opposition”at the Geneva talks. The grandly named High Negotiating Committee demanded it would only continue participating on the condition that the Assad government eventually stands down. That’s the real, proximate reason for breakdown, no matter what John Kerry might say.

Can you believe it? A bunch of foreign-backed and exiled-based terrorists dictating terms to the elected government of Syria. Their foot-soldiers are getting wiped out on the ground –after five years of inflicting destruction on Syria –and yet these impostors are attempting to write the “peace terms”.

Syria and Russia are having none of it. Both are determined to crush an existential threat to Syria from foreign-backed terror groups. And Assad and Vladimir Putin are not going to hand over a victory of regime change at the negotiating table either.

That’s why Kerry is in a fluster. The peace process charade has been upended. Washington and its partners expected Syria and Russia to call off the military pressure in order to give their mercenary proxies some breathing space so that they could relaunch their terror war at a more opportune time, while also issuing ultimatums in Geneva for de facto regime change.

Washington and its allies were never serious about finding a genuine peaceful settlement. Now that the wheels have come off this snake-oil bandwagon, the US and its partners are obliged to find some “explanation”to sell to world opinion.

Hence, blame the Syrian government and its Russian ally for blasting the Geneva talks. But the world is not fooled by such reality-inversion. The Western powers’plans for regime change in Syria just rolled into another blind alley.

The real danger, however, is that Washington and its allies might now attempt a direct military intervention in Syria out of desperation.

Finian Cunningham

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