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Monday, November 9

Islamic State starts whining

Look at the pictures! Just see what those bad Russians are doing to our Caliphate! Bomb craters right in downtown Raqqa! Bridges shelled!  Buildings collapsing on our heads! Civilians killed shopping at our lovely open air market! 

Well, it looked like a weapons depot to the bombers. It can be hard to tell the difference between a pile of mortars and a pile of onions when you're that high up.  

No I'm not going to publish any of the photos they put on their website to accompany their whine fest, but Long War Journal has, while noting it can't verify where the photos were taken and whether the air strikes were from Russian or Syrian bombing raids. But as SANA and RT enumerated, the Russians (and the Syrian Army) are bombing all over Syria these days. From RT's report today:
"Over the last three days, Russian jets made 137 sorties in the Syrian Arab Republic and destroyed 448 facilities of terrorist infrastructure in the provinces of Aleppo, Damascus, Idlib, Latakia, Raqqa, Hama and Homs," Igor Konashenkov, spokesman for the Defense Ministry, was cited as saying by Tass.
The airmen are giving them no peace. Same with Syrian ground forces.

One result, as the Russian defense spokesman dryly noted: "We are registering a significant shift in terrorist tactics across Syria. The terrorist groups are operating less boldly than a month ago."

Less boldly is right. They're transporting their weapons under cover of darkness. Next they'll be climbing into burkas.


Meanwhile on the political front, the Algerian ambassador strongly reiterated his country's ringing support for Syria's government:
November 9: Damascus, SANA - Relations between Syria and Algeria are strong and firm due to the historic ties binding the two countries and their standing together in the face of terrorism, and their emphasis on the need for international cooperation to combat terrorism which is spreading in the region.
Algeria, which commemorated the 61st anniversary of the outbreak of 1 November 1954 Revolution against the French colonial rule, had declared since the beginning of the crisis its support for Syria and rejected all politicized decisions that tried to undermine its sovereignty.
In a statement to SANA, Algerian Ambassador in Damascus Saleh Bosha affirmed that Algeria’s stance towards Syria has been clear and firm since the beginning of the crisis, adding that Algeria had expressed its permanent support for the unity of Syria and its solidarity with the Syrian people in their ordeal.
The ambassador believed that the aim of what is happening in Syria is to weaken and discourage it from its national and pan-Arab stances.
Bosha said that his country had refused all resolutions issued by the Arab League to suspend Syria’s membership and rejected all politicized international resolutions which are aimed at undermining Syria’s sovereignty and independence.
He pointed out that the efforts exerted to combat terrorism are not enough, calling for more international cooperation in all sectors, expressing Algeria’s keenness to cooperate and coordinate with Syria in combating terrorism.
[...]
Boy oh boy, did Washington's Get Russia crowd step in a pile of merde when it set out to use Syria as a staging area for proxy war. 

The only thing I've ever heard Zbigniew Brzezinski say that I agree with was during his appearance on PBS Newshour to debate whether the U.S. should get involved in overthrowing Gaddafi. He said that the British and French are hated in that part of the world, so why would the United States want to be involved with them in Libya?

But of course the one time Brzezinski talked sense was the time nobody in Washington listened to him. And of course it wasn't the British ambassador who was assassinated in Libya. It wasn't the French ambassador. No no. It was the ambassador serving the most lame-brained foreign policy establishment this side of a Monty Python skit.

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