Publication of the Memorandum setting up the ‘de-escalation areas’ signed by the representatives of Russia, Turkey and Iran at the Astana conference, together with certain comments about them by representatives of the Russian and Syrian governments, have clarified their intended purpose.
Shortly after the alleged chemical weapons attack on Khan Sheikhoun in Syria the Russian Defence Ministry claimed that the release of chemical agents following the air strike happened because the Syrian air force struck a warehouse where the Jihadis were producing and storing stockpiles of chemical weapons.
An offensive launched two weeks ago by Al-Qaeda in the northern areas of Syria’s Hama province appears to be unravelling, with Jihadi forces in the area coming under heavy bombing by the Russian air force and forced onto the retreat by a counter-attack launched by the Syrian army.
Latest reports from the fighting in eastern Damascus say that the Syrian army has successfully recovered all the strong points captured by the Jihadis in their attack of yesterday.
In particular the Syrian troops have recaptured the ‘Fabric Factory’ – captured by the Jihadis yesterday – which is a lynchpin of Syrian defences in the area.
The following video shows the Syrian army’s counter-attack, including its use of tanks and armoured vehicles
The peace conference, which is supposed to agree a settlement of the Syrian conflict, began today Monday in the Kazakh capital of Astana.
The conference began with the usual frosty exchanges between the representatives of the Syrian government and of the Jihadi groups who have been invited to attend the conference, and who have agreed to do so. Each side – equally predictably – has also refused to meet and engage with the other in direct talks.
One of the major complaints I have made concerning the reporting of the fighting in Aleppo is that no Western journalists were there, and that they were reporting uncritically information obtained at second and third hand from Jihadi sources opposed to the Syrian government.
Patrick Cockburn, the Middle East correspondent of the Independent and a vastly better informed journalist about the conflicts in the Middle East than almost anyone else who writes in the West about the conflicts, has made the same point.
A US plot to evacuate Daesh leaders from the strategic city of Ramadi in central Iraq has reportedly been disclosed by a volunteer forces commander.
The disclosure comes as the Iraqi army and popular troops are attempting to secure victory over the jihadist group in Ramadi.
FARS quoted Imam Khamenei Battalion Commander Haidar al-Hosseini al-Ardavi as saying that “the delay in operations to liberate the cities of Ramadi and Fallujah in Anbar province has been the result of US interference.”
Obama might have struck a deal with Erdogan to launch a Turkish invasion of Syria as long as the US provided air cover for Turkish ground forces. Putin’s military intervention sabotaged any prospect of implementing the Plan
by MIKE WHITNEY Counterpunch
Now is the time for the Muslim community to reveal to the world that the terrorist cult has nothing to do with Islam and that they are a band of terrorists begotten by the West and funded by the regional Wahhabi regimes as part of the Islamophobic legacy of the former and the imperialist ambitions of the latter.
