Representatives from Iran, Russia, and Turkey met at the Kazakh capital of Astana for peace talks relative to the Syrian conflict and have released a joint statement.
The three parties are also the guarantors of the ceasefire agreement in Syria, arguing that only a political, non military, solution can resolve the conflict and result in a stable outcome.
Tasnim News Agency reports:
Syrian forces have thwarted an attempted attack on the Shayrat air base in the Homs province that started early Tuesday morning. The Pentagon has denied responsibility for the attack but says that there are many players in the game. The attack came from Lebanese airspace leading many to believe that Israel could be the culprit. Israel, however, has refused to comment.
As reported by the Guardian
Over the last few days the word has been the witness of one of the most grotesque and shameful episodes in the history of international relations.
After a week of tension the US missile strike on Syria finally came and went today.
Reports from Syria say that the operation is over, having lasted for around one hour.
Moreover this is consistent with what was said by Generals Mattis and Dunford during their Pentagon briefing.
The Pentagon briefing disclosed that “twice as many” cruise missiles were launched at Syria over the course of this strike than were launched against Al-Shayrat air base in April of last year.
https://southfront.org/syrian-war-report-april-12-2018-russia-starts-ex… The Russian Navy has launched live-fire exercises off the Syrian coast as the US is still preparing for a possible military action against the country’s government. The Russian exercises
Last week, US President Donald Trump proposed pulling out of Syria on the basis that the US has invested a lot of political capital and resources into operations in the Middle Eastern country without any recognizable benefit to America or Syrian citizens, but only massive death and destruction.
The US and its coalition, numbering the in dozens, have been involved in numerous military operations, including thousands of military personnel, in Syria on the premise of eradicating ISIS from the Middle Eastern country, albeit without the consent of the Syrian government of Bashar Assad or the UN Security Council.
ISIS has been militarily defeated in Syria largely through the combined efforts of Russian and Syrian forces, Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced. No concerted military ISIS forces remain on the ground in the Middle Eastern country. Although a few dislocated bands of ISIS militants continue to exist and roam certain areas continues to remain a reality, they don’t constitute an orchestrated military or particular threat.
Exactly as I predicted last month on 26th February 2018, events in the Jihadi enclave of East Ghouta are following precisely the same script as they did in the Jihadi enclave of eastern Aleppo in 2016, with the important difference that this time the script is being played out in record time, as if the same film was being played in fast motion.
Just as they did during the ‘Great Battle of Aleppo’ of 2016, so in East Ghouta the Jihadis swore to resist the Syrian army fanatically, to the last man.
The fight for East Ghouta took a dramatic but inevitable turn earlier today when the Syrian army, continuing its advance, capturing the town of Mesraba inside the enclave, and splitting the enclave into three separate pockets.
The latest advances mean that the Syrian army now controls more than 70% of the territory of the former Jihadi enclave of East Ghouta.
Here is a map provided by the Al-Masdar news agency which shows the present situation in the enclave
