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The battle for al-Bukamal heated up last weekend as ISIS terrorists conducted a successful counter-attack against the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and Hezbollah in the border city.
According to local sources, ISIS re-established control over a major part of the city on Sunday after two days of intense fighting in its vicinity and inside it. ISIS reportedly used at least 10 anti-tank guided missiles against pro-government combat units and had deployed additional reinforcements from other areas in Syria and Iraq.
Hazem al-Barghash, a member of the ISIS Shura Council – a top body of the terrorist group, and three ISIS military commanders – Hani al-Thalgi, Abu Munzer al-Shishani and Abu Mohamad al-Safi – died in the city.
Experts link the fierce ISIS resistance with the presence of more influential ISIS members in the area. The Hezbollah-linked media even reported that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was allegedly spotted in the area.
Another issue, which led to problems faced by government troops in al-Bukamal, is a lack of the coordination between the assault groups advancing from the T2 pumping station and forces deployed near al-Mayadin city. The Tiger Forces and other pro-government units deployed near al-Mayadin de-facto started their push towards al-Bukamal only on Sunday when the situation became very complicated.
Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry denied reports that ISIS retook al-Bukamal and called these reports propaganda. The ministry said that the SAA has been in full control of the city since Friday and now are securing the area and destroying the remaining centers of resistance.
However, no photos or videos confirming a full control over the city still exist. The city remains besieged but is still not under full control of the allies.
Clashes also continued in northeastern Hama and in an area west of the Ithriyah-Khanasser highway where the SAA captured Hasnwi and Abu al-Ghurr from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and entered the village of Rashadiyah. The situation remains tense.
On Saturday, the Israeli media started disseminating reports that the US and Russia have reached an agreement, which would push Iranian-backed forces from an area close to the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. The reports appeared on the same day when Russia and the US issued a joint statement on Syria after a brief conversation between Trump and Putin on the sideline of the APEC conference in Vietnam. The released statement does not refer directly to Iran, Iranian-backed forces or Hezbollah and indeed includes nothing new about the attitudes of the sides. The Israeli media reports are just another move in the ongoing media campaign against the Syrian-Iranian-Russian alliance after Tel Aviv failed to achieve the Russian support in limiting the Shia influence in Syria. Even if Moscow wants to make some trade-off with Israel, it has own limitations in this effort. The conflict is deeply integrated into the military and diplomatic standoff in the Middle East. The region is on the verge of the war, which may involve Israel, Saudi Arabia, Hezbollah and Iran.
Last weekend, the BBC released a report claiming that Iran is establishing permanent military base inside Syria. It’s located outside El-Kiswah, 14 km south of Damascus. Israel has repeatedly claimed that it “will not let that happen.” However, the only Israeli option to fulfill this promise is a military action.
ISIS was a busted flush some time ago; so FUKZUSA played their Kurdish card for double or quits — and lost. It’s time for NATZO to limp out of the MENA.
And seeing this is Armisitice Week comemorating the Anglo-Zio-Capitalist 1914 invasion of the ME —
popularly known as WW1 — and the century of unremitting war and exploitation of the MENA that followed, I also feel it is time to rewrite Yeats’s poem of 1919; “The Second Coming”. For instance:
“And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches away from Bethlehem to die?”
The zionazi trump regime quislings duplitiously continue to push the israeli agenda in Syria.
Pentagon’s Claims That US Won’t Leave Syria Violate Geneva Agreements – Lavrov
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201711141059082158-us-syria-terrorist-danger/
“The announcement from Pentagon chief James Mattis that the US forces will not leave Syria until the “political process is moving in the right direction,” violate the Geneva agreements, Sergei Lavrov said.
“The United States believes that the right direction for Syria is regime change, as you know. Despite not demanding that Syrian President Bashar Assad resign immediately, their claims contradict the Geneva agreements, ” Lavrov said, adding that Washington’s stated aim in the Syria war is the fight against terrorism.
At the same time, the situation in Syria’s Abu Kamal with the US forces sparing terrorists is not a unique case, the Russian foreign minister has said, adding that the goals of Washington in the war-torn country remain unknown.
Meanwhile, he went on to say, Washington’s wards from various militant groups are the greatest danger in Syria.
“If you look at who is the greatest danger, it’s just the wards of the United States, various foreign terrorists, militants who are attached to those groups of armed opposition that the US supports,” Lavrov said.
Lavrov also said that Russia did not promise to ensure the withdrawal of pro-Iran groups from Syria, commenting on a statement from a State Department official who said otherwise.”
Damascus: US Presence in Syria Without Government’s Consent Aggression
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201711141059089897-syria-us-presence/
“The Syrian Foreign Ministry has commented on the remarks by the Pentagon chief who said that the presence of the United States in Syria had been approved by the United Nations as Washington fought against Daesh terrorist group.
“Syria once again declares that the presence of American forces or any other military presence in Syria without the consent of the Syrian government is aggression and violation of Syria’s sovereignty and a flagrant violation of the UN foundations,” the Syrian ministry said in response to Mattis, who said that US forces won’t leave the Middle East country until their achieve their goals there.
DETAILS TO FOLLOW”
CIA Attempts to Cover al-Qaeda’s Crimes With ‘Iranian Connection’
https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201711141059089592-iran-terrorists-cooperation-scapegoat/
“Documents released by the CIA that allegedly reveal a connection between Tehran and al-Qaeda appear to be merely a part of an anti-Iranian information campaign waged by the United States.
Seyyed Hadi Afghahi, Middle Eastern affairs expert and former official at the Iranian embassy in Lebanon, told Sputnik Iran that there are several important factors that need to be taken into account in this matter.
“Therefore, by raising this issue after so many years and with such a misleading angle, the US pursues just one goal – to tarnish the reputation of Iran and its allies (Hezbollah) by blaming them for the crimes that they (the US, Saudi Arabia and Israel) are guilty of. This is all part of the strategy that Donald Trump implements against us,” he argued.
Dr Ali Reza Rezahah, political observer to Iran’s Spiritual Leader at the Analytical Expert Center, also remarked that by portraying Iran as “terrorist,” the US may justify the seizure of Iranian assets on American territory.
“The US also has a mercantile interest in this matter: it does not intend to return the Iranian assets and property that were seized by the American capitalists even before the Islamic Revolution. In s doing, they use these false accusations as an excuse to avoid returning said assets,” Rezahah said.”
The zionazis are running their cowardly trump puppets essentially in the same manner as they ran their cowardly obama puppets. There really is no daylight between these two war criminal, colonial regimes.
Ex-UN Director-General Calls James Mattis a ‘Laughingstock’ for Remarks on Syria
https://sputniknews.com/us/201711141059090743-syria-us-un-mattis-opinion/
“Former UN Director-General Sergei Ordzhonikidze said that Jim Mattis made himself a “laughingstock” by saying the United Nations allegedly approved the presence of the country’s forces in Syria.
“He just doesn’t understand or know what he is saying, and apparently he has no decent advisers who could tell him how to act… It is, I believe, just a shame to say things like this, for such a large state, a superpower, like the United States,” Ordzhonikidze stressed.
Moreover, he added that the United States presence in Syria was illegal and was “an attempt to justify in an awkward way the illegal stay of US-led coalition forces in Syria”.
I have to repeat my mantra. Perhaps if everyone adopted it, it would catch on: ‘Quarantine the USA.’
The ocean-sized ‘moats’ are in place, to blockade them with. All people need to do is act together.
As Tolstoy said in War and Peace: “If evil men can work together to get what they want, then so can good men, to get what they [my italics] want.”
Do you sometimes wonder if this epidemic of Western demands for ‘regime change’ are just a smoke-screen to hide the fact that London, Washington and Tel Aviv are the ones most in need of it?
Mattis’ Claim US Authorized to Operate in Syria Lacks Any Legal Basis
https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201711151059104906-mattis-us-syria-authorized/
“US Defense Secretary James Mattis’ claim that the United States was authorized to conduct military operations in Syria is a pretext for a long-term presence that defies several international laws, legal analysts told Sputnik.
Ohio State University Professor Emeritus of International Law John Quigley told Sputnik that the UN Security Council has never given Washington permission for military operations in Syria despite Mattis’s claim.
“The United Nations Security Council has not asked outside states to send military into Syria… [and] the United States has not been invited by the Government of Syria,” Quigley noted.
As a result, Quigley explained, there is no basis in international law for military operations by the United States in Syria.
Despite the lack of international legal basis, Quigley added, the United States has carried out military activities including air strikes that have killed many civilians on the territory of Syria.
University of Illinois Professor of Law Francis Boyle told Sputnik that Mattis’ claim on Monday was just the latest in a long list of spurious justifications for continued defiance of international law that successive US administrations had carried out for many decades.
“All the bogus pretexts the United States has used over the years to justify its indirect and direct aggression against Syria… are too numerous to list here,” Boyle said.
“Russia and Iran are in Syria at the valid request of the Syrian government, which makes their presence lawful under international law,” Boyle continued. “By comparison, the United States intervened militarily into Syria without any permission from the Syrian government.”
US air strikes and support for rebel forces had been conducted without any UN Charter Chapter 7 Security Council Resolution, Boyle said.
“Hence the United States in Syria stands in gross violation of the United Nations Charter, the Nuremberg Charter (1950), Judgment (1946) and Principles (1950) as well as US Army Field Manual 27-10 (1956) on the Law of Land Warfare,” he said.
“If you read the 1986 Judgment by the International Court of Justice in the Case of Nicaragua versus United States, all you have to do is substitute Syria for Nicaragua and jihadis for Contras to reach the exact same conclusions of gross illegality across the board,” he said.”
Looks like the israeloamerican strategy changes were anticipated by Syria and her allies, and that the counter strategy is already in motion. The traitor mattis was given no quarter.
More documented collusion between the various zionazi terrorist proxies. The israeloamerican war criminals are using their now very familiar mo.
Russian MoD Checking Civil Employee Mistakenly Attaching Photo to Statement
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201711141059079439-syria-daesh-us/
“The Russian military said it published on Tuesday evening the original photos of Daesh (ISIS) convoy leaving the Syrian town of Abu Kemal hours after the wrong ones had been attached to a ministry’s statement.
On Tuesday morning, the Russian Defense Ministry released photos that they said showed Daesh (ISIS) convoys leaving the Syrian town of Abu Kemal. Hours after they deleted the pictures.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, US forces refused to carry out airstrikes against Daesh (ISIS) terrorists who were retreating from the Syrian town of Abu Kamal.
The operation to liberate the town of Abu-Kamal in the southeast of the country on the Euphrates River near the Iraq border has shown that the US-led coalition had been directly supporting Daesh, according to the Defense Ministry.
The Russian forces command said the US-led coalition had rejected an offer to conduct a joint operation to destroy terrorist convoys heading in the direction of Iraq on the eastern bank of the Euphrates river, according to the statement from the Russian military.
“The US side categorically refused to carry out airstrikes against Daesh terrorists, claiming that the militants were ‘voluntarily surrendering’ and now fell under the provisions of the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War,” the statement read.
Moreover, the document reads that the international alliance’s aircraft tried to impede the Russian Aerospace Forces planes acting in the region, in order “to ensure a safe exit of Daesh militants from Abu Kamal under the strikes of the government troops.”
According to the Defense Ministry, such actions by the coalition prove that the advancing Syrian forces in the Abu-Kamal area have crippled US plans to create a zone to the east of the Euphrates river that would be controlled by pro-American forces rather than by Damascus. The ministry noted that the plan stipulated that Daesh would play the role of pro-American forces disguised as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). To support the claim, the military representatives said that SDF flags were found in Abu Kamal.”
Russia should stop trying to work with the US in Syria,they should have hit that Daesh convoy without even talking to the US.
I figured it out:
All this talk about Israhell attacking Lebanon is to
make Hezbollah bring their troops home to protect the
homefront in case of IDF invasion. But it is a bluff with the
intention to slow down the SAA/Hezbollah advance on al-Bukamal
(giving Israel/USA more time to figure out another plan – idiots never give up).