Syria

Submitted by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,

"We are in a serious situation and there is a high risk that there could be an attack. But the security agencies, the intelligence services and the police authorities are very alert and our goal is to minimize the risk as best we can.”

That’s from Hans-Georg Maassen head of Germany's domestic intelligence agency and it certainly doesn’t inspire much in the way of confidence.

A spokesperson for the Saudi Arabian military has announced that the Kingdom is ready to send ground forces to Syria to fight ISIS under a US-led coalition, if requested. Sputnik reports: “The kingdom is ready to participate in any ground operations that the coalition (against Islamic State) may agree to carry out in Syria,” Brigadier General Ahmed Asseri told al-Arabiya TV. Asseri is also the spokesman for the Saudi-led Arab coalition in Yemen.

The Russian Defense Ministry said that developments on the Turkish-Syrian border have given them serious grounds to suspect that Turkey is planning a military invasion in Syria. Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov told journalists: “We have good reasons to believe that Turkey is actively preparing for a military invasion of a sovereign state – the Syrian Arab Republic.

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.