Syrian rebels recapture village in west near Hama

“We don’t deny that the airstrikes are effective, but [troops] will not advance on the ground”, Lt. Col. Fares al-Bayoush, commander of the 1,300-strong rebel Fursan al-Haq Brigade, said in the Turkish border city of Reyhanli. Implausible though it may seem, they are actually both simultaneously, at least on a tactical level. That is to say that eventually Russian Federation could concede to the removal from power of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whereas there is no indication that Iran might do the same.

In October, Syrian government forces had captured Atshan, the Observatory said.

His group, another FSA faction which has received foreign military support including US-made anti-tank, or TOW missiles, lost its commander in the fighting.

Lavrov said that Moscow has already shared with its partners on Syria “our list of terrorist organisations” and expects that a new round of talks will come up with a “unified list, so that there are no issues about who is striking whom and who is supporting whom”. Though the strikes have been seemingly aimed against ISIS, they additionally broken a hospital & two bridges.

A delegation of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) have agreed to meet the envoys of the Russian Defence and Foreign Ministries in Abu Dhabi, next week.

This image is especially valuable to the Iranian regime as it continues to project Iranian military force throughout the broader Middle East, as with its involvement in the Syrian Civil War. This enhanced US-Saudi activity must be co-ordinated with the Russians in a few way, or the two sides, if only by proxy, could find themselves in active combat against each other.

Conversely, at a press conference in Moscow, the adviser to Vice Chairman of the Russian Federal Council Andrey Baklanov emphasized that his country does not intend to take Assad out of power. “Therefore, we have quite a pragmatic task at this meeting”. Pure self-interest on Russia’s part dictates the move.

The Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT), a group of Russian investigative bloggers, used social media to locate serving or ex-soldiers in the country.

France, which joined coalition operations in Syria last month after previously carrying out strikes in Iraq, said on Thursday it would deploy its Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier to better fight the jihadists. It disapproves of Iran’s pro-Assad activities in Syria, but favors its anti-IS activities in Iraq.

Col. Gen. Viktor Bondarev said in an interview with the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper that the anti-aircraft missiles are there to protect Russian fighter jets from a possible attack or hijack while on missions. CIT also published screenshots from the Instagram page of Gorelykh, posted in late October, it showed he had uploaded pictures from Aleppo. As I have argued before, Iran’s objectives are broader than Russia’s.

Nikolay Kozhanov, a fellow with the Russian Federation and Eurasia Programme at the global affairs think tank Chatham House, said Russia’s intervention is “not enough to completely change the situation in the favor of the regime….”

The Russian diplomat noted that the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the Arab League should join the Vienna format talks on the Syria settlement.

It is not only Russia’s long-term interests that are at stake, but also its image. This will make the election pointless since no one will be running against the current president.