Russia in Syria Airstrikes on ISIS by Long Range Tupolev Bombers

www.youtube.com/murdikar007 Russia in Syria Airstrikes on ISIS by Long Range Tupolev Bombers.

Syria crisis: Russia, Assad forces launch heaviest strikes on Islamic State-held territory since war began, monitor says

At least 36 people were killed in air strikes by Russian and Syrian jets on Islamic State-controlled Deir Ezzor province on Friday, a monitor says, describing them as the heaviest in the region since the start of the Syrian civil war.



Russia pounded the jihadist group in Syria, firing cruise missiles from warships in the Caspian Sea after president Vladimir Putin vowed retaliation for a bombing that brought down a Russian airliner in Egypt last month.



 Russian military updates president on Syria campaign

PHOTO: Image purporting to show president Vladimir Putin reviewing the results of the Syrian operation. (Facebook: Russian Defence Ministry)

Russia's Syria review:



Syria air group: 69

Sorties: 522

Bombs dropped: 1,400 tonnes

Naval group: 10 ships, six in Mediterranean Sea

Air- and sea-based cruise missiles launched: 101

Enemy object destroyed: 826

Oil prevented from entering black market: 60,000 tonnes

Source: Russian Defence Ministry Facebook, November 20, 2015

At the United Nations, member states backed a motion calling for action against the Islamic State group (IS) a week after 130 people were killed in Paris, the worst such attack on French soil also claimed by the jihadist group based in Syria and Iraq.



"At least 36 people were killed and dozens more injured in more than 70 raids carried out by Russian and Syrian planes against several districts in Deir Ezzor," Rami Abdel Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.



He described the raids, which targeted several large cities and smaller towns in the province and three oil fields, as "the worst bombardment of the region since the start of the uprising in 2011".



The province and most of the provincial capital is held by IS militants, with the exception of the military airport and a few areas controlled by the regime.



Russia began bombing in Syria in September at the request of its long-standing ally, president Bashar al-Assad, while a US-led coalition is conducting its own air campaign against IS.



Mr Putin this week pledged to hunt down and "punish" those behind a bombing that brought down a passenger jet in Egypt last month, killing all 224 people on board in an attack claimed by IS.



Moscow claimed to have killed more than 600 fighters after hitting seven targets in the Raqqa, Idlib and Aleppo provinces, its defence minister Sergei Shoigu was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.





YOUTUBE: Russian military video purports to show aerial bombing of eastern Syria. (Russian Defence Ministry)

It was the second time that warships have been used since the start of the bombing campaign on September 30.



Mr Putin praised the Russian operation in Syria — its largest foreign intervention outside the former Soviet Union since it occupied Afghanistan in 1979 — but said it was "still not sufficient" to wipe out the jihadists in the country.



IS capitalising on Syrian horrors





As long as the West fails to act against the Assad government, Islamic State will continue to flourish, writes Middle East correspondent Sophie McNeill.

The UN Security Council has backed a French-drafted measure calling on member states to "take all necessary measures" to fight IS, a week after the Paris attack.



The US-led coalition fighting IS said on Monday it had destroyed 116 fuel trucks used by the jihadists in eastern Syria in one of its largest raids in weeks.



IS reportedly makes millions of dollars in revenue from oil fields under its control, and the coalition has regularly targeted oil infrastructure held by the group.



An investigation by British newspaper The Financial Times last month estimated the jihadists reap some $US1.5 million a day from oil, based on the price of $45 a barrel.

Crimea Power Lines Are Blown Up, Cutting Off Electricity

www.youtube.com/murdikar007 Crimea Power Lines Are Blown Up, Cutting Off Electricity

Power Lines to Crimea Are Blown Up, Cutting Off Electricity



Saboteurs blew up the main power lines leading into Crimea early Sunday, plunging the disputed peninsula into darkness overnight and prompting the Russian government to impose a state of emergency there.



The more than 1.8 million residents of the peninsula lacked electricity, Russian news agencies reported, although backup generators were being used to provide power to hospitals and for other vital purposes.



Unknown assailants, but presumably Ukrainian nationalists, knocked out all four of the main electricity lines running through the Kherson region of Ukraine, the reports said. The first two were heavily damaged on Friday, and the second two were blown up on Sunday shortly after midnight, the reports said.



Reports in Ukraine said that the police had clashed with activists from the right-wing nationalist Right Sector movement in the area on Saturday after the initial damage. Ukraine still claims the peninsula.



When the first two lines were shut down on Friday, Crimea’s ministry of fuel and energy warned residents that disruptions in the power supply were possible and suggested that they stock up on batteries, water and other essentials.



Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014, but some of the main utilities, including electricity, still run from the Ukrainian mainland. Russia plans to replace them with power lines coming from the Russian mainland instead, but those are not yet complete.



The authorities in the Russian naval port of Sebastopol were using diesel generators and gas turbines to supply power to different neighborhoods on a rotating basis, the Tass news agency reported. The destroyed lines to all of Crimea were expected to be at least partially restored later Sunday, the Russian reports said.



Russia’s annexation of Crimea and support for separatists in eastern Ukraine provoked the worst crisis in relations between Russia and the West since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, with the West imposing economic sanctions.

Russia in Syria Airstrikes on US Foreign Policies- ISIS Collateral Damage

www.youtube.com/murdikar007 Russia in Syria Airstrikes on US Foreign Policies- ISIS Collateral Damage.



Why the Vienna Talks on Syria Are Doomed to Fail

The countries involved remain divided on the fate of Assad.



Secretary of State John Kerry, United Nations Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura, center, and Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov address the media after the meeting in Vienna, Austria, on November 14, 2015.

Secretary of State John Kerry, UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura, center, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov address the media after meeting in Vienna on Saturday.



By Teresa Welsh Nov. 19, 2015 | 4:59 p.m. EST + More

The terrorist attacks in Paris and the global refugee crisis have heightened the sense of urgency amongst the global community to address the Syrian civil war. The nearly five-year conflict has allowed the Islamic State group and other terrorist organizations to operate in Syria and neighboring Iraq. They aren't just a threat in the Middle East, but have proven they have the capacity to successfully kill in the West.



But while the leaders of the International Syria Support Group – 20 countries and international organizations participating in talks hosted in Vienna – want the war to end, they can't agree on how to it should happen. Given that the Syrian factions are unlikely to stop the war on their own, the fact that the international community assembled to help them is also divided presents a great challenge.



  U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry delivers remarks at the United States Institute of Peace on Nov. 12, 2015 in Washington, D.C.

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Kerry Outlines 3-Point Plan to End Syrian Civil War



Calls to escalate military attacks against the Islamic State group increased after the Nov. 11 attacks in Beirut and the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris, and French, U.S. and Russian forces are all targeting the militants via airstrikes. No country is eager to send troops into the quagmire, but an increased air campaign against the extremists can be more successfully carried out without the distraction of the warring government and rebel forces.



The muddled mix of government forces, opposition groups and terrorist organizations makes the prospect of a timely, negotiated political solution complicated. Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday during an unannounced trip to France that a ceasefire is "weeks away," a time frame some analysts call ambitious.



There are 20 members of the International Syria Support group, but five countries hold the key to success in the Vienna talks. Here's where they stand:



United States



The Obama administration has long maintained that Syrian President Bashar Assad cannot be involved in a successful political transition; Kerry has called the idea of a Syrian government that somehow includes Assad a "nonstarter." The U.S. hopes to use the International Syria Support Group to kick start a political process to form a national unity government, followed by the writing of a new constitution and elections within 18 months. But Kerry and his team are mindful of history: A major cause of the region's current instability was the U.S. war in Iraq that unseated Saddam Hussein, the vacuum from which allowed terrorist organizations like the Islamic State group to grow and expand.



Kerry, who has been tasked with leading the American negotiating team, said Wednesday the process will be difficult but the world must unite after the Paris attacks to defeat the Islamic State group.



"The departure of Assad is still essential, not because I say so or France says so or another country, but because you literally cannot stop the war if Assad is there," Kerry told French TV on Wednesday.



The U.S. leadsa 65-country coalition targeting the Islamic State group and President Barack Obama would prefer to stabilize Syria without having to commit American ground troops to another war.



Iran



Iran will not support a resolution to the conflict in Syria that does not include Assad; his regime, they say, ensures continued Iranian influence in the region. Syria is a key supply route between Iran and its proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon, so any subsequent Syrian government would need to allow Tehran to maintain this free flow of arms. Because of this, Iran will work hard to broker a political process that allows Assad to remain.



 A rebel fighter looks at smoke billowing in the background during clashes with pro-government forces south of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on Oct. 19, 2015. Syrian regime forces edged forward in the northern province of Aleppo with air cover from Russian warplanes, but faced fierce resistance from rebel forces.

OPINION



Jimmy Carter's 5 Nation Syria Plan Is the Least Bad Option

Strike ISIS, Work with Assad & Russia- Michael Morell, Ex-CIA Dy Directo...

www.youtube.com/murdikar007 Strike ISIS, Work with Assad & Russia- Michael Morell, Ex-CIA Dy Director to Obama.



Former CIA official: Obama's ISIS strategy has failed

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With the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) claiming responsibility for using a bomb to down a Russian airliner over the Sinai desert and the Paris attacks this weekend, the former deputy director of the CIA says it's time for a new strategy to fight the militant group.



"We've had an ISIS affiliate in the Sinai apparently - we don't know for sure yet - bringing down an airliner, only the third airliner brought down by a bomb in the last quarter century. And we've had the second largest terrorist attack in Western Europe since 9/11, the largest since Madrid in 2004," Michael Morell, CBS News' senior national security contributor, said on "Face the Nation" Sunday. "When you put those two things together and you put together this attempt to build an attack capability in the West, I think it's now crystal clear to us that our strategy, our policy vis-à-vis ISIS is not working and it's time to look at something else."





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Paris attacks: Video catches French police assault on Bataclan

The deadly coordinated terrorist attacks on Paris that left at least 129 people dead and 352 injured have raised fresh concerns about the group's capabilities and what it means for security in the United States. Morell said the attacks in Paris are a first success for the group at building an attack capability in the West. Eventually, hey said, they will try to replicate it in the United States.



"It looks like this was planned, organized, directed from Iraq and Syria," Morell said. ISIS had to get a large number of operatives into France as well as explosives and other weapons, and they had to communicate between themselves and back-and-forth with Iraq and Syria.



"That is a level of sophisticated that we have not seen since the London bombings in 2005," he said. "What you're actually seeing now is something akin to state-sponsored terrorism in the West by ISIS."



Now, Morell said, it may be time to reconsider one of President Obama's top priorities in the Middle East: That Syrian President Bashar Assad needs to leave power for a solution to the Syrian civil war. ISIS has also claimed territory amid the other chaos in Syria.





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NYC Police Commissioner: Like 9/11, Paris attacks are “game-changing”

"I do think the question of whether President Assad needs to go or whether he is part of the solution here, we need to look at it again," Morell said. "Clearly he's part of the problem. But he may also be part of the solution."



He suggested an agreement where Assad stays in power for another year and fights ISIS with the Syrian army and support from the U.S.-led coalition and Russia "may give us the best result." Russian President Vladimir Putin has escalated Russia's involvement in the conflict, but has defended Assad as the best option to fight ISIS and does not call for his exit from power.



The former CIA deputy director said that he believes investigators will learn that the perpetrators of the attack used encrypted apps to communicate. He said it "very difficult if not impossible" for the government to break the encryption and that the producers of those apps don't always give law enforcement the keys necessary to read the messages.



"We need to have a public debate about this," Morell said. "We have, in a sense, had a public debate. That debate was defined by Edward Snowden, right, and the concern about privacy. I think we're now going to have another debate about that. It's going to be defined by what happened in Paris."

Belgium Muslim Youths Rapidly Joining Jihad

www.youtube.com/murdikar007 Belgium Muslim Youths Rapidly Joining Jihad.



Muslim mothers in Belgium say stigmatizing community alienates their youth

Molenbeek women say stigma can help drive youth to ISIL, as government is also criticized for police funding cuts

November 21, 2015 10:30AM ET

by Aleksandra Eriksson

Since the Paris attacks, the impoverished neighborhood of Molenbeek in Brussels has become infamous as the home base of some of the attackers.



Belgium Interior Minister Jan Jambon has chimed in, promising to “clean up” Molenbeek.



But several dozen Molenbeek mothers wrote in a recent open letter to the interior minister that sweeping generalizations about their community are unfair and counterproductive.



”We want to remind you we are responsible citizens with rights,” the mothers wrote in the letter published Thursday. They asked Jambon not to make their community “the scapegoat for everything that goes wrong in this country."



Several suspects in the Paris violence and other recent attacks in Europe are linked to Molenbeek. Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the alleged planner of the Paris attacks who was killed this week in a police raid in that city, was raised in Molenbeek.



Jambon said this week that Molenbeek is home to 85 of the 130 people who returned to Belgium after fighting for the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). He told Belgian media that he wants local authorities in Molenbeek to conduct door-to-door checks.



"It is unacceptable that we don't know who is present on the territory", he said in an interview in Het Nieuwsblad. "There are two people registered in some apartments, but 10 who live there."



The interior minister additionally promised a more holistic approach to Molenbeek that would include a focus on better education, city planning and equal opportunities for the area’s residents.



The women who penned the letter to Jambon said in interviews that they had previously asked the minister to join them for a meal, which he refused. They hope he will change his mind. "It would send a very positive sign if he came to Molenbeek", one woman said in an interview.



The mothers are organized around Dar al Amal ("The House of Hope," in Arabic), a women’s center that provides educational and cultural activities. They declined in interviews to give their names, saying that each of them speaks for the group.



Jambon “lays responsibility for the attacks at our door,” one said. ”We would also ask him to choose his words better. He should make sure our children have the same possibilities instead of talking of us like some different breed.”



Dehumanizing language “strip[s] our children of their attachment to the country,” one mother said. ”It’s things like this that makes kids go to Syria.”



A community facing challenges



Jef Van Damme, a Flemish Socialist politician representing Molenbeek, calls the community "a social elevator.”



“Over the last 20 years, 100,000 people came to Molenbeek and about as many left,” Van Damme said. "Molenbeek is the first point of arrival for many poor people coming to Belgium. The [local government] helps them with housing, training and finding a job. They work themselves up and leave for other places in Belgium. Then they are replaced by new, poor people and so the circle starts again.”



He added that the Paris attacks horrified local residents, but also brought them together. ”There have been many signs in the aftermath of Paris that people feel something must be done."



"Jambon's statements were misplaced, but we hope the federal government will eventually work together with us rather than speaking against us,” Van Damme said.



Johan Leman, a priest and professor, heads a multi-ethnic nonprofit organization that has been active for more than 30 years in Molenbeek. “When I heard Jambon say that he wanted to ’clean up’ Molenbeek …, I laughed,” Leman said. “It’s not how things work.”



He said the neighborhood’s young people are coping with a changed economy. Many manual-labor jobs that kept their parents’ generation employed no longer exist, Leman said.



Police funding cuts



Since the Paris attacks, Jambon has also promised to beef up police efforts in Brussels.



But Dave Sinardet, a professor of political science at the Free University of Brussels, said the center-right government’s funding cuts don’t square with this promise. “There is a contradiction between the government’s law-and-order agenda and its efforts to shrink the state,” Sinardet said.



When Jambon gathered police representatives this week to discuss how officers would deal with a greater workload, the conference didn’t end well: Police unions threatened to go on strike.