Russia: "FSA Are Not Terrorists"

[Freeman]

The russian mafia in the Kremlin is changing their position, Lavrov said in his latest speech that "Free Syrian Army are not terrorist"!

Does Russia try to convince opposition to dialogue after last Ass*ad militias disaster in Syria?

Russia's Anti-ISIS Airstrike Campaign Begins With Attack On Western-Backed Rebel Areas

 

[aris2chat]

why are Russians targeting them instead of ISIS?

axis or Russia, iran and Syria

 

[waltky]

Granny says, "Dat's right - dem Russkies always got some kinda ulterior motive...

Analysts: Russia Has Ambitions Beyond Helping Assad
October 01, 2015 — Russia’s move to deepen its involvement in the Syrian conflict may have more to do with a long-term strategy of widening its influence than its stated goal of helping the Assad regime fight militants, say analysts studying the crisis.

“The Russians are interested in several things in Syria,” said Christopher Kozak of the Institute for the Study of War. He said its airstrikes, which entered a second day Thursday, allow Moscow to achieve multiple goals at once. Kozak said Russia’s more aggressive stance in Syria gives it “leverage” against the U.S. and its anti-Islamic State coalition that has been fighting militants in Iraq and Syria. Also, Russia is interested in the survival of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime because it wants to protect its military interests in Syria. “Russia would greatly prefer to keep someone in their axis of power in Syria,” Kozak said.

Talbiseh, in Homs province, Syria

He also said the stepped-up involvement in Syria takes the spotlight off Ukraine, where Russia has faced criticism from the U.S. and other world powers for its support of rebels. “When you put all of this evidence together, this actually allows Russia to apply several different layers of torque,” said Kozak, “in order to assert itself in the region and on the international stage.”

A bigger goal

The White House said Russia is pushing itself into further isolation by carrying out airstrikes over Syria. "The fact is that carrying out indiscriminate military operations against the Syrian opposition is dangerous for Russia," said spokesman Josh Earnest. But Russia may believe its strategy will have the opposite effect, said Blaise Misztal, national security program director at the Bipartisan Policy Center. “There is a bigger goal here, which is really, in some way, overtake the United States as a global actor,” he said. He said Russia also wants to make sure that even if Assad leaves, what remains in Syria is a regime in which Russian interests are represented.

MORE

See also:

Russian Warplanes Target Variety of Rebel Groups in Syria
October 01, 2015 - Russia has said the aim of its military buildup in Syria is to help battle against Islamic State extremists and "terrorist aggression," but two days of Russian airstrikes on Syrian territory this week have told a different story.

Russian aircraft do not appear to be striking Islamic State targets but instead a wide variety of Islamist rebel groups, some backed by the United States, that are operating in northwestern Syria on the front lines against the Syrian regime. Russia's main target has been the Army of Conquest, an alliance of insurgent groups that includes the al-Nusra Front, al-Qaida's affiliate in Syria, and the hard-line Islamist group Ahrar al-Sham, as well as some less extreme Islamist groups, reports VOA correspondent Jamie Dettmer.

A damaged military vehicle is seen along a road in Freikeh village after fighters from an Islamist coalition took control of the village from forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in Idlib, Syria

Relatively moderate groups from what is left of the Free Syrian Army, including some that have received U.S. training and advanced U.S.-made anti-tank missiles, have fought alongside the Army of Conquest. The Free Syrian Army is loose-knit group founded by former Syrian military officers. The Army of Conquest is intent on bringing down Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and it opposes Islamic State.

Protecting Assad

Russian jets have been bombing areas in Idlib province, which is almost totally controlled by the Army of Conquest, VOA's Dettmer said. He said Russia, too, has attacked parts of the provinces of Hama and Homs that also are under the control of the Army of Conquest. The Army of Conquest has advanced on government forces in northwestern Syria in recent months and has support from countries in the region that oppose Assad and Islamic State.

MORE

Related:

White House: Russia Endangering Itself With Syrian Airstrikes
October 01, 2015 - The White House said Thursday that Russia had “further isolated itself” by carrying out airstrikes in Syria and was putting itself in jeopardy.

“The fact is that carrying out indiscriminate military operations against the Syrian opposition is dangerous for Russia,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters. He said Russian interference would prolong the sectarian conflict inside Syria. “It also risks Russia being drawn even more deeply into that conflict,” he said, pointing out that Russia already had acknowledged there could be no military solution in Syria. Earnest also said that what he called Russia’s “indiscriminate” strikes would drive moderate elements of the Syrian opposition toward extremism, and ultimately exacerbate extremism inside Russia. Russia's actions in Syria have not led to a "broad re-evaluation" of the U.S. strategy there, Earnest said.

Shift by U.S.?

But Syrian expert Joshua Landis told VOA's Persian service that the Obama administration might actually be climbing down from its strict rejection of working with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Russia in trying to root out Islamic State. "It’s not very clear how far it can go in this process," said Landis, an associate professor in the School of International and Area Studies at the University of Oklahoma. He said Washington has been trying to balance two separate interests. "On one hand, it insists on the values of human rights, democracy and getting rid of dictators ... but on the other hand there is this interest of rooting out ISIS from Syria," and for that the U.S. may need to work with the Russians and Assad.

A volunteer search and rescue group - shows the aftermath of an airstrike in Talbiseh, Syria.

The Pentagon said the U.S. and Russian militaries would hold another teleconference in the coming days on ways they can avoid firing on each other, as both wage air campaigns in Syria. Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said an hourlong conversation between the two sides Thursday was cordial. He said the Russian side made clear that strikes in Syria would continue, while the American representative "noted U.S. concerns that areas targeted so far are not ISIL [Islamic State] strongholds." The officials' conversation came amid signs that Russia may be preparing to expand its air operations to neighboring Iraq.

MORE

 

[aris2chat]

Sometimes, at any given moment, it is the lesser of two evils that you will cooperate with, for the moment.
when you realize there are more than 150 individual groups that can be generally lumped into a half dozen types involved in Syria, you will realize nothing is simple and often lines will blur in any given situation and location.

ISIS, FSA, Syria and allies, kurds, coalition, foreign groups, etc., it really is a second to second, street by street, day to day conflict. Even the experts have gotten confused about whos who. The groups often don't know who their friends and enemies are working with or fighting against at any given moment. In Homs they might be fighting group A while in Allepo they might be working with member of A in order to fight B.

Sometimes it is just coordinating to avoid each other today but fighting each other tomorrow. Even within a general classification such as the FSA, with that are groups that would give the opportunity be trying to kill each other. Groups within ISIS might be trying to establish some law and order so they can focus on fighting Kurds, while others are massacring minorities down the street making any order within the town impossible.

Some is about communication and others it might be sectarian or clan based or loyality to a particular commander.

 

[waltky]

This is gettin' to be a mess - too much potential for it to escalate over a mistake...

Pentagon Weighs Military Options to Protect US-Trained Rebels in Syria
Oct 02, 2015 | WASHINGTON -- Russia's launch of airstrikes in Syria is prompting discussions within the Pentagon about whether the U.S. should use military force to protect U.S.-trained and equipped Syrian rebels if they come under fire by the Russians. U.S. officials said Thursday that senior military leaders and defense officials are working through the thorny legal and foreign policy issues and are weighing the risks of using force in response to a Russian attack.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter declined to discuss the problem when asked about it this week. But U.S. officials acknowledged that this is one of the questions being asked as they debate the broader dilemma of how the administration should respond to what White House press secretary Josh Earnest described as Russia's "indiscriminate military operations against the Syrian opposition." The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss ongoing deliberations publicly.

Fighters from the al-Qaida linked ISIL marching in Raqqa, Syria.​

Tensions between the U.S. and Russia are escalating over Russian airstrikes that apparently are serving to strengthen Syrian President Bashar Assad by targeting rebels -- perhaps including some aligned with the U.S. -- rather than hitting Islamic State fighters it promised to attack. Turkey's Foreign Ministry says Ankara and its allies in the U.S.-led coalition are calling on Russia to immediately cease attacks on the Syrian opposition and to focus on fighting Islamic State militants.

Meanwhile, a joint statement by the United States, France, Germany, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Britain expressed concern over Russia's military actions, saying they will "only fuel more extremism and radicalization." The text of the statement was released by the Turkish Foreign Ministry on Friday, and confirmed by the French Foreign Ministry.

MORE

 

[waltky]

Obama playin' into Putin's hands...

Bolton: The Administration is Legitimizing Russia’s Military Presence in Mideast
October 4, 2015 | The Obama administration’s response to the Russians’ launching of airstrikes in Syria amounts to “legitimizing their military presence in a region where for 50 years we’ve tried to keep them out,” former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton said on Saturday.

Addressing a Young America’s Foundation conference in Columbus, Ohio, Bolton characterized the administration’s approach to the Russian intervention as one of a series of shows of weakness across the globe, from its response to the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi to the Iran nuclear deal – an agreement over which he suggested Secretary of State John Kerry should resign. “The best thing we can hope for is the world goes to sleep for 16 months, because it’s not going to get any better,” he said. “The ground has already shifted under our feet dramatically. It will shift further until the next president is sworn in.”

President Obama meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York​

From the outset, the response to Russia’s military buildup in Syria had been troubling. “Ten days ago, asked about this military buildup, Secretary of State John Kerry said, ‘Well, our experts believe that it’s just there for force protection.’ Now, this was an inane comment the moment he made it. What did he mean? That they inserted the force so it could protect itself?” “What was it protecting? It was protecting the capacity to do what Russia is now doing, which is bombing targets in Syria of forces that are hostile to the Assad regime, that Russia is supporting,” Bolton said. “I think the Russians are doing nothing less than challenging the United States for dominance in the Middle East – something we’ve had for over half a century.”

Bolton noted that Russia had alerted the U.S. to its imminent launch of airstrikes last week by dispatching a military general to the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad with the message, “We’re going to begin air operations in Syria; you should get out of the air.” The administration responded by entering “deconfliction” talks, he said. (These are discussions aimed at reducing the likelihood of accidental collision or other mishap in airspace that is now being used by Russian warplanes as well as those of the U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition.) “Now that sounds reasonable,” Bolton continued, “but this is a demonstration how the Obama administration, again and again at the tactical level, is sacrificing American strategic interest.” He recalled that as the U.S. was about to launch an attack in 1991 against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq after he occupied Kuwait, Israel had asked the U.S. for deconfliction codes, to enable it to deploy its aircraft as well.

MORE

 

[Bleipriester]

Look at this shit crying about Al-Qaeda being attacked in addition to ISIS. They claim, Russia isn´t fighting against ISIS, but this is apparently a lie. Russia is attacking ISIS at four lactations: Raqqa, Palmyra, Aleppo, Deir-Ezzor. Russia also attacks al-Nusra, which is considered a terrorist organization by the US.

Russia also wants to help the Syrian gov´t to have more former rebels fighting with the army or NDF.

Lavrov:
"If it looks like a terrorist, walks like a terrorist, if it fights like a terrorist, it's a terrorist, right?"