War

The Turkish military has been shelling Syrian government forces in Aleppo and Latakia , while also hitting Kurdish fighters near the city of Azaz in northwestern Syria. This is a serious escalation that will likely prompt a Russian response. The air base that had recently been retaken from Islamist rebels was struck a massive attack. According to RT: Anatolia news agency reported that the Turkish military hit Syrian government forces on Saturday, adding that the shelling had been in response to fire inflicted on a Turkish military guard post in Turkey’s southern Hatay region.

Submitted by Claire Bernish via TheAntiMedia.org,

On the same day Syrian President Bashar al-Assad claimed his fighters would retake the entire country “without hesitation,”unnamed American defense officials revealed to the Daily Beast that the same Iraqi militias who were previously fighting ISIL alongside the U.S. are now actively collaborating with Russian and Iranian forces to “crush” American-backed rebels in Aleppo. According to the report:

The US-led coalition is competing with the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) in a race to reach and liberate Raqqa from ISIS. Should the SAA fail to liberate Raqqa from the terrorists then Syria could be permanently broken up, with the help of a U.S. led coalition that includes Kurdish, Turkish, Saudi and western agendas. Sputnik reports: Over the last few days, the 555th Brigade of the Syrian Arab Army’s 4th Mechanized Division, backed by pro-government militias, has continued to gain ground in northeast Syria. It has moved toward the Al-Raqqa Governorate’s strategic Tabaqa Military Airport.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has said that relations between the West and Russia have deteriorated so badly that a new Cold War has been launched in 2016. “On an almost daily basis, we are being described the worst threat – be it to Nato as a whole, or to Europe, America or other countries,” Medvedev said. “Sometimes I wonder if this is 2016 or 1962,” he went on. BBC News reports: The Cold War was a period of ideological confrontation between the former Soviet Union and Western countries.

Russia have deployed a new cruise missile warship towards Syria on Saturday armed with Kalibr anti-ship missiles.  The Russian Defense Ministry’s head of Black Sea Fleet’s information department confirmed that the Zeleny Dol Buyan-M class corvette departed Russia’s permanent naval task force. “Today, the Zeleny Dol missile corvette and the Kovrovets minesweeper of the Black Sea Fleet left [the Crimean port of] Sevastopol to begin carrying out tasks as part of Russia’s permanent naval task force in the Mediterranean,” Vyacheslav Trukhachev said.