Russia Plane Crash- ISIS Can't Shot Down Airliner, Says Expert

http://www.newsbharati.com/ Russia Plane Crash- ISIS Can't Shot Down Airliner, Says Expert.



While the investigation into the causes of the Russian passenger jet crash over the Sinai Peninsula continues, civil aviation and security experts agree that theories that the plane was downed by a militant group can be ruled out, despite terrorists making such claims.

All 224 people on board the Kolavia airline’s flight from resort area Sharm El-Sheikh to Russia’s St. Petersburg died after the aircraft crashed in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula on Saturday. Experts are still decoding the flight recorders, and the Russian Air Transport Agency has said that there is no point in hypothesizing about the cause of the crash until there is reliable data on the circumstances.

While Islamic State jihadist group allegedly claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it downed the Airbus A321 as retaliation for Russia’s airstrikes against terrorist targets in Syria, aviation and security experts believe it to be highly unlikely.



“As far as it’s known, Islamic State and its affiliate groups don’t have the capability to bring down aircraft flying at the height that this aircraft reportedly was, which is something around 10,000 meters,” security analyst and former UK counter-terrorism officer Charles Shoebridge told RT.

“That doesn't mean to say though that at least theoretically they couldn't bring the plane down by other means, for example by sabotage at the departing airport or a bomb on board,” he added, but pointed out that “mechanical failure of some sort is the most likely cause, as with most air accidents.”



As to why the terrorists would make such claims, Shoebridge said that it “increases their propaganda, and it also can be seen as punishment – as they would like to call it – for Russian involvement against Islamic State in Syria, so therefore one can expect them to take advantage of [an] opportunity like this regardless whether they are responsible or not.”



Egypt’s former minister of civil aviation, Wail al-Madawi, agrees that militant groups in Sinai do not possess the capabilities to bring down a commercial aircraft flying that high. “Only a state can have such resources,” he told RT.

No, it is out of the question. I am a former air force officer, and I have the expert knowledge that taking down a plane flying so high requires the kind of capacities only a state can have.



It requires some very significant resources: One would need search radars, radars to locate the plane, radars to control the fire. Only a state can have such resources, no militant group like that can.

 Yes. They certainly don’t. Only the state has such capacities. Terrorist groups cannot have such capacities by definition. This kind of mission requires three types of radars. It also requires having missiles capable of gaining such altitude. And only a state can have all these capacities. Therefore, for militants, it’s completely impossible.

 It is very difficult to identify what caused the catastrophe until the flight recorders have been decoded. They would capture everything the pilots talked about including any technical issues. Mostly probably, there was a technical malfunction which led to the crash. All these details will be investigated through the decoding of the black box data. I believe the results will be published soon.

 I think it’s impossible to define how exactly the ground impact occurred. It all depends on the kind of terrain at the impact site. For instance, if an aircraft were to hit some ridge on the ground, this could cause the plane to break into halves. So it all depends on the terrain.



The main thing, however, is to establish why the plane started to lose altitude when it was flying so high. There is a database of air crashes with proven causes of the crash. Some were due to technical malfunction, some to human error, some even to the psychological state of the crew. So that means there are a lot of possibilities to study.



I would like to offer my sincere condolences to the families of the deceased Russian citizens. Russia is a friendly nation to Egypt. Russia has provided support to Egypt over a long period of time. At the same time, I would like to confirm the high level of professional expertise of our civil aviation agencies. They are up to the task of investigating emergencies of this kind, and they also welcome observers from the Russian agencies joining the investigation.

Syria War- Syria Army & ISIS Rebels in Heavy Fight at Aleppo Outskirts

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DAMASCUS- Syria.

Syria MP termed US sending Special Forces to Syria is act of Aggression.

 The United States' decision to send troops into Syria is an act of aggression because it does not have the government's agreement, a Syrian member of parliament said Saturday.



Sharif Shehadeh told The Associated Press that the troops will have no effect on the ground, but that Washington wants to say it is present in Syria.



"What has happened to make America realize, after five years, that it should send between 30 and 50 military advisers?" asked Shehadeh, referring to the start of the country's crisis in March 2011 that has since killed more than 250,000 people.



American officials say up to 50 special operations troops will be sent to assist Kurdish and Arab forces in northern Syria.





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A U.S.-led coalition has been targeting the Islamic State group with airstrikes since September 2014, killing 12,000 extremists without weakening the group.



The decision to send U.S. troops to Syria comes a month after Russia began launching airstrikes against insurgents in the country. Russia's airstrikes were agreed upon with the Syrian government.



"When America sends ground forces into Syrian territories without an agreement with the Syrian government it becomes an intervention and aggression," Shehadeh said by telephone. "Will America allow Russian ground forces to go into America without an agreement? I think the answer is no."





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The U.S. has conducted special operations raids in Syria before and is expected to continue to carry out more unilateral raids.



The U.S. decision came as activists said some rebel groups, as well as the main U.S.-backed Kurdish militia known as the YPG, are preparing for an offensive against IS in its de facto capital of Raqqa. Earlier this month, U.S. cargo planes dropped small arms and ammunition to Arab groups fighting IS in northern Syria in what appeared to be preparation for the attack.



On Saturday, the Democratic Forces of Syria, a coalition of Arab, Christian and Kurdish factions in northern Syria, declared that they have started an operation to "liberate" areas south of the northeastern city of Hassekeh.



IS has several strongholds in the predominantly Kurdish province of Hassakeh that borders Iraq.



The announcement was carried by the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and social media pages of rebel groups.



The Rebels Army group carried the statement from the coalition's spokesman who goes by the name of Abu Ali as vowing to "cleanse Syria's soil from the filth of terrorist groups."



In the northern province of Aleppo, airstrikes believed to have been carried out by Russian warplanes have killed at least 64 people since Friday, the Observatory said. Another activist group, the Local Coordination Committees said airstrikes have killed about 75 people.





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The surge in violence came after more than a dozen countries, including the U.S. and Russia, agreed during talks in Vienna on Friday to pursue a new peace effort involving Syria's government and opposition groups.



Also Saturday, international medical aid organization Doctors Without Borders said an airstrike and shelling in a market in the rebel-held Damascus suburb of Douma the previous day killed at least 70 people and wounded 550.



The group, also known by its French acronym MSF, said its facility nearest to the market had been bombed a day earlier and medical workers struggled to cope with the influx of wounded people. Many needed amputations and blood infusions, and the makeshift hospital could not handle the flood of critically wounded patients with its limited resources, the group said.



MSF has sent emergency supplies of IV fluids and bags of blood to the Douma hospital, where 15 people died and 100 were hurt on Thursday when the entrance was bombed.



"This massive bombing on a crowded market and the repeated destruction of the few available medical facilities breaches everything that the rules of war stand for," says Brice de le Vingne, Director of Syria Operations for MSF.

Russia in Syria- Tanks Shelling ISIS Positions Aleppo

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As Iran Joins Vienna talks on Syria War

after talks on Syria in Vienna on October 30th between allies and foes of President Bashar al-Assad including America, Saudi Arabia, Russia and, for the first time, Iran. No one walked out, even though Iran backs Mr Assad and Saudi Arabia is one of the main backers of anti-Assad rebel groups, as well as Iran’s chief rival in the region.



At first glance the nine-point statement put out at the end looks good, too. It pledges to work for a ceasefire and commits the parties to an UN-led transition in which Syrians, including the diaspora, elect their leaders. The powers will meet again within two weeks’ time to discuss it further.



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Yet no party hid the fact that there was no agreement on the fate of Mr Assad, one of the main points of contention. Speaking at a security conference in Bahrain organised by IISS, a British think-tank, Adel al-Jubair, the Saudi foreign minister, restated the Saudi belief that peace could not be achieved as long as Mr Assad stayed in power: "He should leave this afternoon. The sooner the better." He also insisted that Iranian forces would have to be withdrawn as part of any agreement." If progress is not made, he said Saudi Arabia will step up support for "moderate" rebels, including the delivery of more lethal weapons—though he did not spell out what those might be.



Of late America had appeared to modify its position on Mr Assad by saying he could stay for six months rather than requiring that he step down before any transition begins. It sounded like a compromise had been made when reports circulated that Iran had agreed to a limitation of six months for Mr Assad.



Yet Iran quickly contradicted the news, denying that it had agreed to any time-frame, stressing that only the Syrian people could decide—the line Iran and Russia have long stuck to. Iran and Russia would like to see early polls, despite Mr Assad’s having been “elected” to a seven-year term in 2014. They are convinced that he would win, without any of the rigging or gerrymandering that tends to accompany Syrian ballots. Holding any election in war-torn Syria will be fraught with difficulty, of course. To be accepted as credible, the millions of Syrians who have fled the country would have to be persuaded to vote.



Although all the powers, parties to Syria’s war and otherwise (with the potential exception of Russia) seem more united now in the desire to end the four-and-a-half-year conflict, it is apparent that that is not at any cost. The refugee crisis has worsened, both in the region and for those trekking to Europe, not least since Russia intervened. All are worried about Islamic State (IS).



Yet both Russia and Iran do not like the idea of regime change, fearful of it on their own turf. Russia wants to assert its role as a global power. Iran’s red line is maintaining a route to ship weapons to Hizbullah, its proxy in Lebanon.



Despite its nuclear deal with America, Iran remains suspicious of the Great Satan. Many Iranian officials say America is only pretending to fight IS, pointing to the slow progress of the coalition, and instead prefers keeping them on hand as a tool with which to threaten the Islamic Republic. Having given up its nuclear card for now, Iran may be more rather than less obstinate on Syria.



Meanwhile, on the same day, America revealed it was sending up to 50 special-forces troops into northern Syria to help with a planned offensive against Islamic State (IS) in their stronghold to the east. Russia criticised their deployment, arguing it will turn the Syrian conflict into a proxy war. America has upped its game since Russia waded into Syria in September. Earlier in October America said it had dropped supplies to rebels in the north and has emphasised that it will increase its support to the groups it backs.



In any case, much of what ended up in the statement repeats points made in UN talks back in 2012. Since then the war has got far bloodier, with the death toll at over 250,000 and some 11m people displaced within and without the country’s borders. And as many Syrians have pointed out, neither the Syrian regime nor the fragmented opposition were invited to the talks. It will be a long time before the guns fall silent, but getting so many of the parties in one room might be a start.

Syria War- Forces Fighting in Aleppo under Russia Aircover

http://www.newsbharati.com/ Syria War- Forces Fighting in Aleppo under Russia Aircover.



A newly formed U.S.-backed Syrian rebel alliance on Saturday launched an offensive against Islamic State in the northeast province of Hasaka, a day after the United States said it would send special forces to advise insurgents fighting the jihadists.



It was the first declared operation by the Democratic Forces of Syria, which joins together a U.S.-backed Kurdish militia and several Syrian Arab rebel groups, since it announced its formation earlier this month.



World powers and regional rivals are convening in Vienna to seek a solution to the four-year conflict in Syria that has escalated since Russia intervened a month ago with an intense air campaign.



Fighting in Hasaka had begun after midnight, a spokesman for the alliance said. A group monitoring the war reported fighting and coalition air strikes in the area.



A video posted earlier on Youtube announced the offensive in southern Hasaka, and showed several dozen men in fatigues standing outdoors with yellow flags and banners carrying the name of the Democratic Forces of Syria in Arabic and Kurdish.



The campaign would "continue until all occupied areas in Hasaka are freed from Daesh," a spokesman for the alliance's general command said in the video, using an Arabic name for IS. He urged residents to stay away from IS-controlled areas of Hasaka.



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Another spokesman later said alliance forces had already attacked Islamic State fighters.



"The battle began after midnight," Talal Salu told Reuters via internet messaging service. "They were flanked by our forces... (who) thwarted a counter attack."



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The United States' decision to station ground troops in Syria comes after it dropped ammunition to rebel groups in northern Syria several weeks ago.



Washington's strategy in Syria has shifted from trying to train fighters outside the country to supplying groups headed by U.S.-vetted commanders.



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The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors developments on the ground, said fighting was raging on Saturday near al Hawl, a town close to the Iraqi border, accompanied by coalition air strikes.



Hasaka province borders Iraq and territory there that is a crucial stronghold for Islamic State.



One member of alliance, the Kurdish YPG has to date proved Washington's most effective partner on the ground against IS in Syria. It had pushed towards the border in previous fighting this year.



The Raqqa Revolutionaries Front, one of the Arab groups in the alliance, on Thursday declared an imminent offensive against Islamic State in its Syrian stronghold of Raqqa province, which borders Hasaka.