Barack Obama Warns Russian Federation of ‘Quagmire’ in Syria

Tensions between the United States and Russia are escalating over Russian airstrikes that apparently are serving to strengthen Syrian President Bashar Assad by targeting rebels – perhaps including a few aligned with the US – rather than hitting Islamic State fighters it promised to attack.

The province is mostly under Islamic State control. “Strikes on these positions are only natural and logical, the reason is that strikes are also targeted against other terrorist groups supporting ISIL”, Haddad said.

With Russian warplanes bombing Syria for a third day, French President Francois Hollande told President Vladimir Putin on Friday that Moscow’s airstrikes must be confined to attacking Islamic State militants, not other rebels opposing the Damascus government.

Somehow Team Obama made it to Wednesday morning thinking all those Russian planes were parked in Syria for show, Putin was not serious about keeping the genocidal gas-bombing dictator Assad in power, and there was a few way to end the bloody civil war by inviting the many monsters haunting Syria to a conflict-resolution seminar, or maybe a drum circle.

Two Lebanese sources told Reuters hundreds of Iranian troops had reached Syria in the past 10 days with weapons to mount a major ground offensive. “We think it is an enormous mistake to refuse to cooperate with the Syrian government and its armed forces, who are valiantly fighting terrorism face-to-face”, Putin declared.

Activists say the Islamic State group did not hold Friday prayers in several mosques in its de facto capital of Raqqa in northern Syria, fearing Russian airstrikes.

Another group of Russian-speaking jihadists left the Army of the Emigrants last month and adopted the name Imrat Kavkaz, or Caucasus Emirate, a reference to the original Chechen fighting groups that battled the Russians throughout the 1990s.

“These military actions constitute a further escalation and will only fuel more extremism and radicalization”, the statement said.

“The effect of these kinds of indiscriminate airstrikes essentially drives what would otherwise be moderate elements of the Sunni opposition to Assad into the arms of extremists”, Earnest said.

Russian Federation gave the USA a one-hour warning before it launched airstrikes in the western Syrian city of Homs on Wednesday.

The expanding Russian involvement in Syria threatened to further complicate efforts to secure a negotiated settlement to the 4-year-old war at a time when the influx of refugees into Europe and the endurance of the Islamic State is focusing world attention on the unrelenting bloodshed in Syria.

The U.S. and Russian militaries held talks via video link on Thursday to seek ways to keep their militaries apart as they wage parallel campaigns of air strikes in Syria, a United States defence official said.

The alliance is made up of a number of jihadi groups – including al Qaeda affiliate the Nusra Front – but NOT ISIS.

The US-led coalition that is waging its own air war against Islamic State called on the Russians to halt strikes on targets other than Islamic State.

Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said October 1 that Russian Federation has no plans to extend air strikes to Iraq, but would do so if Iraq invited it.

“We can not allow these criminals who have already felt the smell of blood, to return back home and continue their evil doings”.

According to the report, President Barack Obama’s administration assessment is that Russian Federation is seeking to take over the airspace in the region and be the agenda-setting force on the ground.

Fallon said: “We’re analyzing where the strikes are going every morning”.

Cook said both sides in Thursday’s talks presented proposals and ideas for avoiding conflict between US and Russian aircraft.

“All air strikes are delivered only on ISIL positions”, Syrian Ambassador to Moscow Riyad Haddad said at a press conference on Thursday.