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THE US-LED coalition admitted it may have hit a Syrian army position yesterday as Russia called an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss the air strikes it said killed at least 62 soldiers.
The strikes came with diplomatic tensions escalating between Moscow and Washington less than a week into a fragile ceasefire aimed at stopping the bloodshed in Syria’s five-year civil war.
American officials said the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State (IS) group may have hit Syrian military positions.
“Coalition forces believed they were striking a Daesh fighting position,” a Pentagon statement said, using an Arabic acronym for the IS group.
The coalition air strike was halted immediately when coalition officials were informed by Russian officials that it was possible the personnel and vehicles targeted were part of the Syrian military.
Washington said it was investigating the incident but dismissed Moscow’s call for an urgent Security Council meeting as a “stunt”.
“If we determine that we did indeed strike Syrian military personnel, that was not our intention. And we of course regret the loss of life,” US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power told journalists as the closed-door meeting got underway last night.
Power described Russia’s request for the meeting as a “stunt, replete with moralism and grandstanding,” saying Moscow should instead demand a meeting with the Syrian regime to press for peace.
Russian ambassador Vitaly Churkin returned by accusing the United States of violating agreements that it would not target Syrian positions.
MFA Russia / Twitter#Churkin: #US might have lost control over the situation in Syria & can't separate between opposition and terrorists https://t.co/wEYKYuZOHd
— MFA Russia 🇷🇺 (@mfa_russia) September 18, 2016
Counterattack
Syrian troops counterattacked against the Islamic State group around a key eastern airbase after the airstrike.
Damascus reacted angrily to the deadly strike, which forced troops to pull back from two strategic hilltops overlooking the besieged airbase on the outskirts of the city of Deir Ezzor.
“The Syrian army has returned to the offensive,” a military source told AFP earlier today.
After the American raids, it withdrew from several positions but now it has gone back on the attack.
A second military source inside Deir Ezzor airbase said that troops had already regained some of the lost ground.
“The army has retaken most of its positions on Jabal Therdeh with Russian and Syrian air support,” the source said, referring to one of the two hills lost yesterday.
“The two countries’ air forces bombed the area around the airbase, neighbourhoods held by the jihadists and the road linking Deir Ezzor to Mayadeen,” an IS-held town 45 kilometres (30 miles) to the southeast, the source added.
Retaking the heights around the airbase is vital for the army as control of them would allow IS to fire on all aircraft trying to take off or land.
The airbase and adjacent government-held neighbourhoods of the Deir Ezzor city have been under siege since 2012 and have been dependent on resupply by air.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 30 jihadists were killed in Sunday’s counterattack by the army.
The Britain-based monitoring group said 90 soldiers were killed in Saturday’s air strike, sharply higher than the death toll of 62 given by Moscow yesterday.
Australia, which said it was one of several coalition countries whose aircraft took part, offered its “condolences to the families of any Syrian personnel killed or wounded.”
“While Syria remains a dynamic and complex operating environment, Australia would never intentionally target a known Syrian military unit or actively support Daesh (IS),” a statement from the military said on Sunday.
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Why does the US want regime change so badly and why are they willing to back head hackers and cause intercontinental chaos to get it. What was so bad about the regime that was in place already, it was no worse than any other brutal Arab regime. And after the mistakes in Iraq and Libya why do it again. Are there agendas afoot that we are not privy to, because nothing at all about this war makes any sense. Nothing at all.
Its a re-alignment of the Shia/Sunni power axis with other interests inc money, power, influence…Turkey, Qatar, Iran, Iraq, the US, Russia, Lebanon….and Saudi Arabia.
An Arabs life appears to be worthless to the Americans unless they are buying weapons off them or supplying cheap oil to them.
@Peter fechter: tell me more. Like what is the US interest in all of this. Money and power doesn’t get to the nub of the question. What is it in the US interests to destabilise the Middle East and Europe. Are they doing the bidding of the Saudis? Are they really getting involved in what is essentially a sectarian affair. But “regime change” just isn’t enough to explain this absolute debacle.
I read that there is a power struggle for the rights to build a gas pipeline across Syria to serve the European gas market, between Iran and Qatar (backed by Saudi Arabia). The latter had their plan rejected by Assad and were enraged by this and started funding and arming the Sunni militias who are fighting to topple Assad. The US support them because they want to weaken Russian gas power and the essential income they gain from it. Iran also want to serve the European market by building a pipeline across Syria and they and the Russians are supporting Assad militarily and financially. It seems like a Sunni versus Shia war based around who will control the massive European gas deal. http://www.news.com.au/world/middle-east/is-the-fight-over-a-gas-pipeline-fuelling-the-worlds-bloodiest-conflict/news-story/74efcba9554c10bd35e280b63a9afb74
Margie….in my view the US needs “relationships” or in current politicalspeak “partnerships” with other nations/states where the US sees its interests being served…..if thats not possible then they will happily destabilise such states. The Syrian regime/power is Shia…as is Iran…destroying Syria clips one of Irans wings. Turkey and Qatar have obvious vested interests also and the Wahabbi Jihadis are simply savage but stupid and expendable cannon fodder.
Gary…i believe you are correct.
Assad’s Death Warrant.
“Secret cables and reports by the U.S., Saudi and Israeli intelligence agencies indicate that the moment Assad rejected the Qatari pipeline, military and intelligence planners quickly arrived at the consensus that fomenting a Sunni uprising in Syria to overthrow the uncooperative Bashar Assad was a feasible path to achieving the shared objective of completing the Qatar/Turkey gas link. In 2009, according to WikiLeaks, soon after Bashar Assad rejected the Qatar pipeline, the CIA began funding opposition groups in Syria. ( First and foremost ISIS”}
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/09/15/assads-death-warrant/
Think back to pre perestroika times when every state on the planet had to be “aligned” to the US or the USSR….and no matter which superpower a state aligned itself with, the other superpower would attempt to punish, destabilise, inhibit etc…remember Vietnam, Somalia, Cuba, Japan, south Korea as the best examples.
The UK and US are not innocent when it comes to Syria. The Syrian Government blocked a deal with Qatar allowing pipelines for the transport of gas through its territory to the Mediterranean and decided on a deal with Iran instead. The US and UK , with support from Saudi Arabia and Quarter decided to topple the Syrian Government.
In an interview with the French TV station LCP, former French minister for Foreign Affairs Roland Dumas said:
‘’ I’m going to tell you something. I was in England two years before the violence in Syria on other business. I met with top British officials, who confessed to me that they were preparing something in Syria.
This was in Britain not in America. Britain was organizing an invasion of rebels into Syria. They even asked me, although I was no longer minister for foreign affairs, if I would like to participate.
Naturally, I refused, I said I’m French, that doesn’t interest me.’’
Dumas went on give the audience a quick lesson on the real reason for the war that has now claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people.
‘’This operation goes way back. It was prepared, preconceived and planned… in the region it is important to know that this Syrian regime has a very anti-Israeli stance.
Consequently, everything that moves in the region- and I have this from the former Israeli prime minister who told me ‘we’ll try to get on with our neighbours but those who don’t agree with us will be destroyed.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/former-french-foreign-minister-the-war-against-syria-was-planned-two-years-before-the-arab-spring/5339112
Gary and Peter, thanks guys. I’m going to ponder that and do some more reading and try to get to grips with this impossible issue. I’ll tell you though. It has shaken my belief in the US as a force for good in the world.
Yes. .the two major power blocks are keeping this war going for their selfish own interests. The poor Syrian people their lives destroyed, being bombed every day. If the Qataris/Saudis/US withdrew the billions of financial support for the Sunni rebels the war would come to a halt pretty quickly. Assad in my opinion should remain.
Russia Convenes Emergency UNSC Meeting After US Joins ISIS in Syria.
At the request of Russia, the United Nations Security Council is set to convene at 7:30PM ET, only a matter of hours after a US-led airstrike killed 80 Syrian Army forces paving the way for a major Daesh offensive. On Saturday evening the United Nations Security Council will meet to discuss airstrikes by the US-led coalition in Syria which Moscow says targeted and killed some 80 Syrian military personnel only days into the Syrian ceasefire brokered by the United States and Russia.
Russian Foreign Ministry: White House ‘Defending the Islamic State’ Terrorists
Russia’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakhavrova said of the attacks, “If earlier we had suspicions that the Nusra Front is protected this way, now after today’s airstrikes on the Syrian army we come to a really terrifying conclusion for the entire world: the White House is defending IS (Islamic State or Daesh).”
The United States, by contrast, has long taken the position that “Assad must go” before peace can be established in Syria and has attempted to prop up the so-called “moderate” opposition to the Assad regime while also combating Daesh terrorists. This position has placed the Obama administration in a conundrum with many of the rebels aligning themselves with former al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front under the umbrella group “The Army of Conquest.”
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2016/09/17/russia-convenes-emergency-unsc-meeting-after-us-joins-isis-in-syria/
Agreed Gary.
@Paul Mc: The Turks have facilitated ISIS more than most, and in return received plenty of stolen oil, so perhaps they also see Arab live as cheap and worthless
It’s because war makes a lot of money for the US through weapons deals. Anywhere there is conflict in the world the US is normally hiding somewhere in the shadows. Good to see Russia expose the US for what it is….
@Margie Murph: It’s the long game. Syria have been a warm water port for Russia for some time. US actions in Syria, Ukraine and other ports used Russia are aimed at crippling the Russian navy. Taking out Syria is also important to the US because it’s on the border with Israel and has in the past promised to cluster bomb Israel if Iran is invaded.
The US don’t want ISIS to win, but they did create them. They only need ISIS to maintain the balance in the war until they can force Assad to step down. This is despite Assad having been able to lead Syria as a secular state with multiple religions in it and it having been an emerging technology-based economy before the war and leadership on the “Free Syrian” side being quite shady, and having supposed ties to ISIS.
Christ on a bike, were you born yesterday!? Hasn’t the penny dropped yet!? The US couldn’t give a monkeys about Freedom, Islamic extremists, Assad. WMDs etc. All they care about is keeping the Muslim Middle East unstable…all to serve the interests of Israel.
@Ewan Euphrenza: thank you.
@Margie Murph:
@Margie Murph: While the middle east is destabilised, the terrorist state of israel remains untouched and can do as it wishes
@Pat and that my friend is what it always boils down to when the US is involved
@only now Margie?!?!?! If you were a school Principal and almost everytime there was a big fight in the school yard at break time, there was one boy who was involved in most of the fights. If his classroom reports were good, would you continue to give him the benefit of the doubt and that he was only in every fight to intervene and try make peace between 2 other boys or groups!? Key: substitute US for schoolboy and World for School yard
All you need to look at is the recent announcement that the US is giving $38Billion to israel to buy US made weapons!!!
Freedom, Democracy, Capitalism and a social floor no one should fall beneath is the answer to war, famine and almost every other ill the world has. I want them all to be free and to have what we have. Lets help them by destroying the tyrants that opress there people. Lets send the immans back to the steps of there mosqes were they can tut at women in skirts. They know this is there future if the loose power and so will keep there people in constant fear. We have the power and ability to do it, what a disgrace that we stand by and watch this happen.
Evil America regeime
America is officially gone rough
@Bobby Phelan: Rogue
John, the US only really got involved in the Middle East in the mid 40s. I know they haven’t helped one bit but it was a basket case well before that and it would still be a basket case with or without them
The US are the bad guys. I wish they would understand that. Day after day of Hillary’s controversies are starting to wake them up to that.
The Russians are upset with the Americans? I wonder if the Ukrainians are upset with the Russians?
They act as if butter would not melt in their mouths and yet attack sovereign nations and get away with it.
@Alan Cooke: Ukraine’s threats to seek compensation from Russia over its 2014 reunification with Crimea are doomed to failure because they lack any legal grounds, according to an official from a UN arbitration court.
Think you will find that says it all and leaves your comment as misunderstanding from MSM propaganda
@Alan Cooke: And meanwhile dozens of Syrian refugees will probably die without international humanitarian aid being denied to them by the Syrian government and Russians in a points scoring exercise. They are the real collateral damage in this war, the military can look after themselves.
@Chris Kirk: Think you will find the Russians set up camps for refugees and on a continual basis have been flying in aid. All verifiable and easy to find, most of the blockades have happened in opposition help areas.
@Pádraig Ó Raghaill: Thats not the way on the ground Ch4 and BBC journalists are reporting it especially in Aleppo where no humanitarian aid is getting through. If the Russians can do it for their own camps then it shows that part of this war is being waged against civilians in a bid to turn them to support the Assad regime. The UN is like a sleeping dog.
@Chris Kirk: Because you expect any better from the BBC? They opened up humanitarian corridors, well documented.
Twenty five metric tons of humanitarian aid were delivered by Russia to Syria’s provinces of Aleppo and Homs as well as the city of Deir Ez-Zor besieged by terrorists, a daily bulletin on the official Russian Defense Ministry website said on July 29.
https://southfront.org/russia-delivers-humanitarian-aid-to-syrian-aleppo-homs-deir-ez-zor/
It is not difficult to find multiple videos, images, articles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RW-fzX_zczQ
It is easy for the West to paint Russia as the bad guy, simply because nearly all of you have a predisposition to it, through years of propaganda
Whistleblower exposes how NATO’s leading ally is arming and funding ISIS
“I am the police chief who was asked to guard ISIS terrorists”
By Nafeez Ahmed
https://goo.gl/aJvomX
America lied about Vietnam; Daniel Ellsberg disclosed the Pentagon Papers proving it was unwinnable and only for political purposes.
America lied about WMD’s in Iraq
Libya
Afghanistan
Koria
And the list continues
America has lied to its people and the world to justify most of the conflicts it has been involved in.
So why would Syria be any different?
@Chris Kirk:
Chris, you lost me at Ch4 and BBC.
There have been Russian journalist crews in the Syrian front lines since the beginning…ANNA and more recently R&U….it was the Russians that brought the Palmyra atrocity to the worlds attention, the coalition did nothing.
@Pádraig Ó Raghaill: I think you are getting confused Padraig with the Russian humanitarian aid that was supplied to east Ukraine, remember the fleet of white container trucks arriving over the Russian borders and then remember what followed. It was a trick to bring in Russian soldiers and equipment.
The Russians are masters when it comes to propaganda and subterfuge, I wouldn’t believe anything they tell us even if i saw it with my own eyes.
@Chris Kirk:
Think you just 100% proved my point
@Peter fechter: Of course there have been Russian journalist crews, Putin is not stupid enough to not show how Russia is winning the war for Assad and who do you think is paying them. Most people in Russia don’t even buy newspapers and watch Russian state television.
-Eva Bartlett
Once again, without fail, as the Syrian army makes advances in fighting al-Qaeda in Syria — aka Jabhat al-Nusra — and the child-beheading ‘moderate’ terrorists of Nour al-din al-Zenki in districts of eastern and southern Aleppo, simultaneously a new bout of the same old tired and repeatedly disproved accusations of chemical weapons attacks by the Syrian Army is making the rounds.
The Russians are just as bad as the yanks and the brits. Don’t look for good guys, you won’t find any.
US backs the rebels who include ISIS they should stop adding and abetting terrorism
Getting involved in a sectarian civil war between Sunni and the other sects of Islam was the biggest mistake Obama had made
Impossible to tell good and bad Jahadis apart
There is no “good jihadis”…..
@John003: Christians became the first casualties of the wars in Iraq and Syria, but I suppose they don’t count when you are talking about jahadis.
The Christian population was protected by Sadamn from Sunni and Shia extremists in Iraq most have been driven out now
Same in Syria most Christian leaders support Assad If he falls the Christian population will be killed by the Sunnis armed by Saudi Arabia Qhatar and the US
@tom: guess its all ok because there US bombs..now if this was russia it would be all over cnn with pictures of dead bodies.
Well said Tom
It really is time to revisit Sykes Picot and cantonise the ME.
accidentally on purpose more like. But their friends in the lapdog media will keep the lid on this, yet again, no doubt.
But for the intervention of the Russians, ISIS would have taken over in Syria long ago.
America dragged its heels every step of the way – Its almost as if they actually want ISIS in power.
They really are a sick country, only 15 years after 9/11 and they are working and supporting the same Jihadis. People think the Russians are a bad bunch, nothing can top the two faced hypocritical monster that is American foreign policy!
The US army have never helped the Syrian army before so how would it be a mistake if they were meant to be taking ISIS attacking Syrian army positions….the cat is out of the bag and it is something some of us have been saying for years….The US, British, French , Saudis, Israel created ISIS as their own proxy army to create chaos in the Middle East and in their own countries…..End of.
Summed up nicely Derek. What a disgusting bunch of countries, I see the usual pro US stooges are missing from this thread. I suppose even they can’t excuse or defend this reprehensible act in defence off ISIS!
@Fake Avast: Apparently 7 Russians amongst the casualties too. https://twitter.com/ValkryV/status/777503168737533953
And then the SAA Mig being shot down by ISIS who happened to be well prepared to launch an attack at the time of the airstrikes, stinks to high heaven of collusion with most likely SF spotters on the ground too!
Australia’s Defense Department have admitted that its jets have participated in an airstrike against Syrian Army positions near Deir Ezzor that left tens dead.
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/australian-jets-participated-massacre-syrian-soldiers-deir-ezzor/
@Pádraig Ó Raghaill: the flying kangaroo strikes again…..
@Chris Kirk: Pretty sure Quantas had nothing to do with it and not sure if sarcasm is entirely appropriate considering the nature.
@Pádraig Ó Raghaill: lighten up lad, Mayo is going to win the Sam today…..
Oopsie…accidentally on purpose !
They regret that they didn’t kill more. They will also regret not getting a direct response from Russia, stop poking the Bear, cos when it eventually bites it won’t do anyone any good.
Regret that Isis didn’t take the airport .Thats all they regret.
Not as bad as intentionally bombing an MSF hospital.
Wars are nasty cruel, inhumane and obscene. Wars are violent, chaotic and merciless. Once you start killing human beings, human life becomes expendable.
Crocodile tears. ‘Smart bombs’ aren’t much use when the people using them are stupid.
Well this war has to stop
All that technology dismantled with just a pinch of regret.. Freedoms Ya’ll
Ah that’s OK. America has apologised for bombing and killing a load of soldiers. Yup,no problem at all.Now,where we’re we,oh yeah,Donald Trump has a new hairstyle and………..!
Who was targeting those weapons? Marty Feldman?
What bothers me about this recent US/Russian ceasefire agreement is that it’s terms are almost entirely secretive and that the Syrian rebel forces never agreed to it in the first place. I could be wrong here but my guess is that UN humanitarian aid corridors to all besieged areas is conditional on acceptance of it’s terms by all sides?
If that’s the case, then the US and it’s coalition forces have broken (either by accident or design) that ceasefire by targeting the Syrian army in IS besieged Deir ez-Zor.
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