"The Syrian army looked poised on Saturday to advance into the Islamic State-held province of Raqqa for the first time since 2014, apparently to pre-empt any move by Saudi Arabia to send ground forces into Syria to fight the jihadist insurgents.' Reuters
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"If its forces retake Aleppo and seal the Turkish border, Damascus would deal a crushing blow to the insurgents who were on the march until Russia intervened, shoring up Assad's rule and paving the way to the current reversal of rebel fortunes.
Russia has said it will keep bombing Islamic State and the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, which in many areas of western Syria fights government forces in close proximity to insurgents deemed moderates by Western states. " Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-idUSKCN0VM09G
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"... advances continued Friday with Russian warplanes striking multiple locations across Syria, including in the northern countryside of Aleppo in support of a 10-day-old offensive aimed at laying siege to the rebel-held portion of the city of Aleppo.
Residents of the areas of northern Aleppo that have borne the brunt of the bombing campaign expressed dismay that the cease-fire would not come into effect for a week.
“Within a week everything will have been destroyed,” said Mohammed Najjar, a resident of the town of Marae. On Friday, he joined an accelerating exodus of tens of thousands of civilians toward the Turkish border, where they have been blocked by Turkish authorities from entering the country." Washpost
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“We will turn Iraq into a “graveyard” for Saudi forces if they dare attack the country,” Ahmad al-Assadi said. South Front
http://southfront.org/iraq-will-be-a-graveyard-for-saudi-forces-ipmu/
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I seem to recall that IPMU is the largest grouping of Iraqi Shia militia. So, pilgrims, al-asadi believes the Saudi led juggernaut of Egyptians/Pakistanis/UAE folks (South American and African mercenaries mostly) and other assorted cats and dogs, would motor march up the long roads from NE SA (KKMC?) through altogether Shia inhabited Iraq to assembly areas west and north of Baghdad whence they would sally forth to to eliminate the "murtadoon" (apostates- according to Hojjat al-Islam Kerry). Well, sayyid al-asadi, don't do anything to discourage the attempt. I want to see how this would go down.
CNN aired another Frederick Pleitgen segment from Aleppo today. He was visiting the front line with Syrian Army people. It was quiet. They said they thought the war would be over in a few months. The anchor blondie who introduced the Pleitgen piece said he was reporting from rebel held Aleppo. {{!!!!}} The orthographic device {{----}} is hereby adopted to indicate irony.
Finally, the Great Diplomatic Dream Machine is clearly trying to persuade the Syrians/Iranians/Russians/Hizbullah to give up a winning hand through media BS. Good luck on that! pl
