Islamic State

LPR: UAF has deployed ISIS mercenaries; Aidar denied OSCE access for investigation

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From Fort Russ

May 13, 2016 –
Translated by J. Arnoldski
The Ukrainian punitive command has deployed mercenary brigades, including former divisions of the terrorist organization “Islamic State” (ISIS, banned in Russia) to the front line in the LPR. This statement by the official representative of the LPR’s People’s Militia, Major Andrey Marochko, has been reported by Novorossiya Information Agency’s correspondent from today’s briefing in Lugansk. 
The LPR defense ministry’s representative stated: “The Ukrainian side continues to resort to foreign mercenaries. In the village of Olkhovaya of the Stanichno-Lugansky district, mercenary units have arrived, the majority of which consist of Arabs and dark-skinned people numbering 50 persons. These mercenaries presumably arrived as part of a volunteer contingent who formerly were in the ranks of the terrorist grouping known as the Islamic State.”
According to Marochko, mercenaries are traditionally housed in the “liberated” homes of local residents.
“The international observatory mission of the OSCE has attempted to gain access to this district of the village, but representatives of the nationalist Aidar battalion have not allowed international observers in, arguing that they are carrying out a special operation.” 
http://www.fort-russ.com/2016/05/lpr-uaf-has-deployed-isis-mercenaries.html

Information warfare: PBS NewsHour claims Russian airstrike footage against ISIS is U.S. airstrike

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From Information Clearing House
By Moon of Alabama
November 20, 2015

U.S. media can no agree with itself if Russia is giving ISIS an airforce or if Russia pounds ISIS with the biggest bomber raid in decades. Such confusion occurs when propaganda fantasies collide with the observable reality.

To bridge such divide requires some fudging.

So when the U.S. claims to act against the finances of the Islamic State while not doing much, the U.S Public Broadcasting Service has to use footage of Russian airstrikes against the Islamic State while reporting claimed U.S. airstrike successes.

The U.S. military recently claimed to have hit Islamic State oil tankers in Syria. This only after Putin embarrassed Obama at the G-20 meeting in Turkey. Putin showed satellite pictures of ridiculous long tanker lines waiting for days and weeks to load oil from the Islamic State without any U.S. interference.

The U.S. then claimed to have hit 116 oil tankers while the Russian air force claims to have hit 500. But there is an important difference between these claims. The Russians provided videos showing how their airstrikes hit at least two different very large oil tanker assemblies with hundreds of tankers in each. They also provided video of several hits on oil storage sites and refinery infrastructure.

I have found no video of U.S. hits on Islamic State oil tanker assemblies.

The U.S. PBS NewsHour did not find any either.

In their TV report yesterday about Islamic State financing and the claimed U.S. hits on oil trucks they used the videos Russia provided without revealing the source.

<iframe width=”640″ height=”360″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/PMermbclRXs&#8221; frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen><!–iframe>

You can see the Russian videos played within an interview with a U.S. military spokesperson at 2:22 min.

The U.S. military spokesperson speaks on camera about U.S. airforce hits against the Islamic State. The video cuts to footage taken by Russian airplanes hitting oil tanks and then trucks. The voice-over while showing the Russian video with the Russians blowing up trucks says: “For the first time the U.S. is attacking oil delivery trucks.” The video then cuts back to the U.S. military spokesperson.

At no point is the Russian campaign mentioned or the source of the footage revealed.

Any average viewer of the PBS report will assume that the black and white explosions of oil trucks and tanks are from of U.S. airstrikes filmed by U.S. air force planes.

The U.S. military itself admitted that its strikes on IS oil infrastructure over the last year were “minimally effective”. One wonders then how effective the claimed strike against 116 trucks really was. But unless we have U.S. video of such strikes and not copies of Russian strike video fraudulently passed off as U.S. strikes we will not know if those strikes happened at all.

Propaganda and reality also collide in the larger U.S. policy on Syria. President Obama claims that the “overwhelming majority of people in Syria” want the Syrian President Assad to leave. But independent British polling in Syria found (pdf) that a strong plurality of Syrians prefers him as president over any of the available alternatives.

And while new research reveals extensive cooperation between NATO member and U.S. ally Turkey and the Islamic State the U.S. is asking for more cooperation with Turkey to shuffle more weapons into the Syria conflict and thereby, inevitably, also to the Islamic State. Some other U.S. allies are likewise deeply involved in financing and equipping the Islamic State.

But Kuwait just arrested a gang that was smuggling weapons from the new U.S. client state Ukraine to the Islamic State. Iraqi military and Shia militia find huge bundles of cash (vid) which were to be smuggled to the Islamic State. How does it come that the otherwise all-seeing (including your emails) U.S. secret services are unable to uncover Islamic State financing and smuggling when smaller states with much less resources can do so?

Does all this sound like the U.S. is really campaigning against the Islamic State? Or is this whole campaign just as fraudulent as the PBS video and Obama’s proclamations? Why is the U.S. so deeply lost on the ‘Dark Side’ in Syria?

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article43492.htm

By Press TV
Global Research, November 22, 2015
Press TV 22 November 2015

A major US media outlet has been caught passing on footage of Russian air raids in Syria as American airstrikes in a bid to advance Washington’s military agenda, a new report reveals.

The US Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), aired a program on the Daesh (ISIL) terrorist group on November 19, purporting to show how their oil trucks were destroyed by US airstrikes, as part of Washington’s new plan to disrupt the group’s main source of income, according to the Information Clearing House.

Earlier this week, the Pentagon said it would escalate its airstrikes on Daesh and bomb the terrorist organization’s oil infrastructure in Syria.

The new operation is supposed to cripple eight major Syrian oil fields over the next several weeks, about two-thirds of which are said to be in Daesh’s hands.

On November 16, the US military claimed it has destroyed 116 tanker trucks carrying stolen Syrian oil from those fields, but failed to provide video evidence.

Two days later, however, the Russian Air Force destroyed some 500 oil trucks and promptly released footage of the airstrike.

On November 19, a program dubbed PBS NewsHour used the Russian footage and passed them off as US airstrikes, without revealing the true source.

“For the first time the US is attacking oil delivery trucks,” a voice-over said while the exact same video released by the Russian Defense Ministry was being shown.

Daesh is reportedly generating as much as $40 million a month by producing and exporting oil it steals from the areas under its control.

According to US military officials, the group operates a fleet of over 1,000 oil tanker trucks.

US military officials say that they have studied eight major Syrian oil fields, namely Omar, Tanak, El Isbah, Sijan, Jafra, Azraq, Barghooth and Abu Hardan and are gearing up to inflict upon them the kind of damage which takes longer to fix or requires specially-ordered parts.

The original source of this article is Press TV
Copyright © Press TV, Press TV, 2015
http://www.globalresearch.ca/media-manipulation-us-shows-footage-of-russian-airstrike-against-isis-as-its-own/5490716

Russia’s unbelievable transparency in Syria surprises, astonishes, shocks!

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An Su-34

MAMAFRICA.TV
OCTOBER 14, 2015

October 17, 2015
Translated from French by Tom Winter

While the coalition always keeps the lid on what it does, which indicates its insincerity about its so-called struggle against terrorism, Moscow hides nothing. This poses a real difficulty for the coalition, whose second nature is mendacious propaganda.

The customary bellicose rhetoric of NATO continues its old ways, but [without details] it is not possible to rebut. Assisted by the propaganda of the mainstream media, NATO attempts in vain to make believe that there are good terrorists and bad terrorists.

Russian aviation has bombarded 40 “terrorist targets” in Syria in the course of the last 24 hours — a significant decrease compared to preceding days, the Russian defense minister announced Wednesday. 

 General Igor Konachenkov, spokesman for the ministry, specified that tactical fighter bombers of the type Su-34, and ground attack machines, Su-24M and Su-25M, have completed 41 aerial sorties to strike “40 terrorist targets” in the provinces of Aleppo (north), Idleb (northwest), Hama (center), Latakia (northwest), and Deir Ezzor (east). The Russian jets have notably targeted “infrastructures of the group “Islamic State,” he added. 

 

The others, unable to justify their aerial sorties in Syria or in Iraq are shocked. Actually, they are not bombing anything but the desert.

______________________________________________________
Translator note: The original headline is just as emphatic as the above:
“L’incroyable transparence russe étonne, détonne et choque”

  I love it. INCROYABLE!

US airdrops 50 tons of ammo to ‘rebels’ after ISIS loses most supplies in Russian airstrikes

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What will happen when these ‘ISIS’/’rebel’ fighters realize that they are pawns, cannon fodder, playthings, and expendable to John McCain, Joe Biden, the U.S., and the ‘coalition’ partners?
By Stuart Hooper
Global Research, October 15, 2015
21st Century Wire 13 October 2015
us-isis
Who exactly is going to get their hands on those 50 tons of munitions?

The Russian Defence Ministry has reported that “Russian airstrikes resulted in the elimination of the majority of ISIS ammunition, heavy vehicles and equipment.“

This joins numerous other positive reports on the Russian intervention, where we hear 40% of the terrorists’ infrastructure has been eliminated and the launch of cruise missiles caused an exodus among the ranks of ISIS.

Despite cancelling their ‘rebel’ training program, the US has now airdropped 50 tons of ammunition for smalls arms, along with grenades, into the ISIS hotbed of Northern Syria.

Moscow wants explanation: has UK cleared RAF pilots to shoot down Russian jets?

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From Sputnik News
10-11-15

The Russian Embassy in London has requested the UK Foreign Office’s clarifications on media reports of the alleged British leadership’s decision to enable UK pilots participating in anti-ISIL coalition’s airstrikes to shoot down Russian planes over Iraq. 

Earlier, a UK defense source told the Daily Star Sunday tabloid that British and NATO pilots reportedly had been given a clearance to shoot down Russian jets over Iraq.UK defense sources stressed that RAF pilots have been told to avoid contact with Russian jets “at all costs,” but warned the pilots must be prepared to attack Russian jets “if their lives depend on it.”

“We are concerned by media reports as far as they refer to senior members of the Cabinet. We urgently requested UK Foreign Office’s clarifications. At the same time, the hypothesis itself of a potential conflict between British and Russian aircraft in the skies over Iraq is incomprehensible. As it is known, the Russian jets are not involved in attacks on ISIL targets on its [Iraqi] territory”, Russian Ambassador in the UK Alexander Yakovenko told RIA Novosti.

Russia launched precision airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Syria last week at the request of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow had not received any requests from Baghdad to carry out airstrikes against ISIL targets in Iraq.The Royal Air Force’s (RAF) Tornado combat aircraft are said to be equipped with up to four Advanced Short Range Air-to-Air Missiles (ASRAAM) to shoot down a Russian jet they encounter. The 2,300-miles-per-hour missiles with warheads filled with 22 pounds of high explosive lock onto targets using an infrared heat-seeker.

British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon said earlier he was seeking to extend RAF’s anti-ISIL efforts in Iraq to Syria.A US-led coalition of 60 nations has been conducting anti-ISIL airstrikes in Iraq and Syria for over a year, bypassing the UN Security Council’s and Assad’s approval.

Yakovenko also said that British aircraft were not involved in the coalition strikes against ISIL in Syria.

“As for the joint struggle against the Islamic State, we have not received an official response to our request concerning information the British side has on ISIL’s infrastructure targets, which could be used by the Russian Air Force,” the ambassador added.

http://sputniknews.com/politics/20151011/1028348816/uk-explain-permission-shoot-russian-jets-iraq.html

Also, ZeroHedge
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-10-11/moscow-demands-britain-explain-green-light-shoot-down-russian-jets

 

The mystery of ISIS’ Toyota army solved

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By Tony Cartalucci
Global Research, October 09, 2015
45353

The US Treasury has recently opened an inquiry about the so-called “Islamic State’s” (ISIS/ISIL) use of large numbers of brand-new Toyota trucks. The issue has arisen in the wake of Russia’s air operations over Syria and growing global suspicion that the US itself has played a key role in arming, funding, and intentionally perpetuating the terrorist army across Syria and Iraq.

ABC News in their article, “US Officials Ask How ISIS Got So Many Toyota Trucks,” reports:

U.S. counter-terror officials have asked Toyota, the world’s second largest auto maker, to help them determine how ISIS has managed to acquire the large number of Toyota pick-up trucks and SUVs seen prominently in the terror group’s propaganda videos in Iraq, Syria and Libya, ABC News has learned. 

Toyota says it does not know how ISIS obtained the vehicles and is “supporting” the inquiry led by the Terror Financing unit of the Treasury Department — part of a broad U.S. effort to prevent Western-made goods from ending up in the hands of the terror group.

The report went on to cite Iraqi Ambassador to the US, Lukman Faily:

“This is a question we’ve been asking our neighbors,” Faily said. “How could these brand new trucks… these four wheel drives, hundreds of them — where are they coming from?”

Not surprisingly, it appears the US Treasury is asking the wrong party. Instead of Toyota, the US Treasury’s inquiry should have started next door at the US State Department.

Mystery Solved 

Just last year it was reported that the US State Department had been sending in fleets of specifically Toyota-brand trucks into Syria to whom they claimed was the “Free Syrian Army.”

US foundation-funded Public Radio International (PRI) reported in a 2014 article titled, “This one Toyota pickup truck is at the top of the shopping list for the Free Syrian Army — and the Taliban,” that:

Recently, when the US State Department resumed sending non-lethal aid to Syrian rebels, the delivery list included 43 Toyota trucks.

Hiluxes were on the Free Syrian Army’s wish list. Oubai Shahbander, a Washington-based advisor to the Syrian National Coalition, is a fan of the truck.

“Specific equipment like the Toyota Hiluxes are what we refer to as force enablers for the moderate opposition forces on the ground,” he adds. Shahbander says the US-supplied pickups will be delivering troops and supplies into battle. Some of the fleet will even become battlefield weapons..

The British government has also admittedly supplied a number of vehicles to terrorists fighting inside of Syria. The British Independent’s 2013 article titled, “Revealed: What the West has given Syria’s rebels,” reported that (emphasis added):

So far the UK has sent around £8m of “non-lethal” aid, according to official papers seen by The Independent, comprising five 4×4 vehicles with ballistic protection; 20 sets of body armour; four trucks (three 25 tonne, one 20 tonne); six 4×4 SUVs; five non-armoured pick-ups; one recovery vehicle; four fork-lifts; three advanced “resilience kits” for region hubs, designed to rescue people in emergencies; 130 solar powered batteries; around 400 radios; water purification and rubbish collection kits; laptops; VSATs (small satellite systems for data communications) and printers.

It’s fair to say that whatever pipeline the US State Department and the British government used to supply terrorists in Syria with these trucks was likely used to send additional vehicles before and after these reports were made public.

The mystery of how hundreds of identical, brand-new ISIS-owned Toyota trucks have made it into Syria is solved. Not only has the US and British government admitted in the past to supplying them, their military forces and intelligence agencies ply the borders of Turkey, Jordan, and even Iraq where these fleets of trucks must have surely passed on their way to Syria – even if other regional actors supplied them. While previous admissions to supplying the vehicles implicates the West directly, that nothing resembling interdiction operations have been set up along any of these borders implicates the West as complicit with other parties also supplying vehicles to terrorists inside of Syria.

What Mystery?

Of course, much of this is not new information. So the question remains – why is the US Treasury just now carrying on with this transparent charade? Perhaps those in Washington believe that if the US government is the one asking this obvious question of how ISIS has managed to field such an impressive mechanized army in the middle of the Syrian desert, no one will suspect they had a role in it.

Of course, the trucks didn’t materialize in Syria. They originated outside of Syria and were brought in, and in great numbers, with the explicit knowledge and/or direct complicity of the US and its regional allies. Asking Toyota where the US State Department’s own trucks came from is another indication of just how lost US foreign policy, legitimacy, and credibility has become.

Russia’s intervention, and what should become a widely supported anti-terror coalition must keep in mind the criminality of the US and its partners when choosing its own partners in efforts to restore security and order across the Middle East and North Africa.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Russia does not discriminate between the different shades of ‘crap’ (terrorists)

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From Fort Russ

October 3, 2015
VG-News.ru
Translated by K. Rus

Russia tightly shut the sky over Syria for any aircraft, except its own

American military expert, a former Colonel of the U.S. army Jack Jacobs said that the United States can’t interfere with Russians in Syria, as Russia de facto set up a no-fly zone, cutting off access to any aircraft with the help of air defense systems deployed on land and on ships of the Russian navy in the Mediterranean.

In the Saudi paper on Friday, October 2 appeared an interview with former U.S. Colonel Jack Jacobs, who announced that the United States can’t stop the Russians in Syria, as Russia has set up a no-fly zone.. This means that any military aircraft entering the combat zone, may be immediately shot down as a threat to the Russian airspace forces.

American sources claim that the Russian Federation with the assistance of deployed land-based air defense systems have established a no-fly zone over the entire airspace of Syria, in addition the approaches to the Russian airbase in Latakia are also closed from the sea to a distance of 100-250 km from the coast by the Russian navy, now conducting exercises in the Mediterranean sea.

Thus, the U.S. and its allies can’t even carry out the air reconnaissance of the Russian Federation forces.

A source in military circles of the American military in Turkey reported that NATO aircraft, trying to get close to the forces of the Russian Federation,has been identified by radar, and the source of the radar could not even be traced.

“The Russians have indicated that they can see everything, and getting closer is not worth it, otherwise it will be shot down”, – said the American military.

“Frankly we were surprised by the air defense system of Russia, most likely there are the latest systems S-400. I have no other ideas,” – said Colonel Jack Jacobs.

About Russians creating a no-fly zone over Syria also writes Bloombeg, citing a senior American military officer. The commander of the NATO forces in Europe General Philip Breedlove said that the new military infrastructure of Russia in Syria, including air defense systems, de facto creates a no-fly zone.

According to Breedlove, Russia has created over Syria,a “sphere of negation”, which American planes can’t enter.

General Breedlove believes that “very complex air defense system” deployed by Russia in Syria is aimed not against the “Islamic state”, which does not have aviation. “They are against someone else,” said the commander of the NATO forces in Europe.

“After several years of discussion in the U.S.of plans to create no-fly zones in Syria to protect the rebels and civilians, appeared Vladimir Putin and in a few days established his own no-fly zone.

In the US the two parties argued for a long time and could not agree, about a no-fly zone, and Putin just went ahead and did it,” sarcastically said the author of the article on Bloomberg.

The Pentagon has admitted the scale of the Russian no-fly zone in Syria, when it began negotiations with Russia on how to avoid conflicts in the conduct of their air operations.

Discussion between the military of the two countries was conducted on October 1 via a closed video channel, and lasted about an hour. On the American side in the negotiations participated the assistant Secretary of Defense for international security Elyssa Slotkin.

“The discussion was devoted to how the U.S. and Russia can cooperate on the prevention of conflict in Syria. Such discussions will continue,” – said following the talks, the official White house spokesman Josh Ernest.

It is also known that Elissa Slotkin expressed in the negotiations concern that Russia is striking not only the militants of the “Islamic state” but other groups of terrorists, which the US considers “moderate opposition to Assad” and supports them.

The response of the representatives of the Russian Defense Ministry is unclear, but apparently, the general sense was that “We can not discriminate between the different shades of ‘crap’. So we will hammer everyone who shoots at the soldiers of the legitimate government of Syria, at whose request we are here”.

And the Americans had to accept it. Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said that the U.S. government will not use U.S. air power to protect the “moderate rebels”.

Apparently the “goodwill”, shown by the United States compromising with Russia, is not exactly “good”, but is caused by a complete fiasco of the U.S. armed forces, which in the last 20 years bombed only the ‘Papuans’ and forgot what it was like to deal with real high-tech adversary armed with modern sea and air defense systems.

And now the Americans are just lost because they do not know how to behave with those who are able to realistically fight back.

Poroshenko: Russia is destabilizing the Islamic State (video)

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From Fort Russ

September 26, 2015

Anatoly Shariy Youtube Channel
Translated by Kristina Rus
 
Peter Poroshenko today talked to journalists, well how did he talk – there were three bodies nodding their heads, asking questions, to which Poroshenko already had written down the answers. But it didn’t smell of journalism, perhaps of alcohol, because Poroshenko said “Russia is destabilizing the situation in the Islamic state”.
Poroshenko: “Nothing will work out. Everyone knows well the role of Russia as a destabilizing factor in the Islamic State, Syria, Ukraine and other places.”
That person called a journalist, instead of drinking water, should have asked: “Where, where is it destabilizing the situation?”
 Poroshenko:
“In the Islamic state”
“In the Islamic state”
 No more drinks for him.

Kremlin: Putin’s declaration of war on ISIS

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September 30, 2015
Kremlin.ru

President of Russia Vladimir Putin:

Good afternoon, colleagues,

We will start with an issue that will likely be the subject of much discussion today, namely, my request to the Federation Council on using Russia’s Armed Forces beyond our country’s borders. The Federation Council has examined this request and approved it.

Syria is the issue here. The only real way to fight international terrorism (and international terrorist groups are creating chaos in Syria and the territory of neighboring countries right now) is to take the initiative and fight and destroy the terrorists in the territory they have already captured rather than waiting for them to arrive on our soil.

We all know that thousands of people from European countries, Russia, and the post-Soviet region have joined the ranks of the so-called Islamic State, a terrorist organisation that – I want to stress again – has nothing to do with genuine Islam. There is no need to be an expert to realize that if they succeed in Syria, they will inevitably return to their own countries, and this includes Russia.

We all know too that the Islamic State long since declared our country its enemy. Today, a number of countries, including the United States, Australia and France, are using their air forces to carry out air strikes against the Islamic State’s positions in Syria.

We have always consistently supported the fight against international terrorism. At the same time, we believe that it must proceed strictly in accordance with international law, in other words, on the basis of UN Security Council resolutions or at the request of the country in need of military assistance. Our partners’ operations in Syria have neither of these things as their basis, but we nonetheless think it possible and necessary to unite the efforts of all concerned countries in the fight against international terrorism and base this common effort on the UN Charter.

At this stage, I propose that all countries concerned, in particular the countries in the region, start taking part in the work of the international information and eventually coordination center in Bagdad.

We have informed all of our partners about Russia’s plans and actions in Syria. Let me repeat: Russia’s involvement in the anti-terrorist operations in Syria is in accordance with international law and based on the official request from the President of the Syrian Arab Republic.

I want to stress the point though that the conflict in Syria has deep roots and is the result of many factors. This includes interstate and domestic political factors, and religious and interethnic differences, which have been exacerbated by unceremonious foreign intervention in the region’s affairs.

Given these circumstances, we naturally have no intention of getting deeply entangled in this conflict. We will act strictly in accordance with our set mission. First, we will support the Syrian army only in its lawful fight against terrorist groups. Second, our support will be limited to airstrikes and will not involve ground operations. Third, our support will have a limited time frame and will continue only while the Syrian army conducts its anti-terrorist offensive.

Our view is that a final and long-term solution to the situation in Syria is possible only on the basis of political reform and dialogue between all healthy forces in the country. I know that President al-Assad knows this and is ready for this process. We are counting on his active and flexible position and his readiness to make compromises for the sake of his country and people.

To finish with the military theme, let me congratulate our naval personnel, who today, for the first time in the history of the Russian and Soviet submarine fleet, travelled a long way beneath the Arctic ice from Severodvinsk to Kamchatka. The atomic submarine Alexander Nevsky has now begun its battle duty. This is a big event in the navy’s life. I want to congratulate everyone – the sailors and the shipbuilders – on this successful work.

Russia begins bombing ISIS

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Translated by Kristina Rus

MOSCOW, September 30  — RIA News. Russian Air and Space forces began conducting air operations with targeted strikes on the terrorists from the “Islamic state” in Syria, said the official representative of the Defense Ministry, major general, Igor Konashenkov.

“In accordance with the decision of the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, the Russian planes of the Air and Space forces (VKS) today began conducting air operations with point strikes on ground targets of ISIS terrorists on the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic,” – he told reporters.

Konashenkov also said that the Russian defense minister, army general Sergei Shoigu informed his colleagues in the CSTO that during the air operations in Syria, the Russian VKS aircraft strike military equipment, communications, vehicles, weapons, ammunition and fuel warehouses of ISIS terrorists.

On Wednesday the President of Russia Vladimir Putin submitted to the Federation Council a request for the approval to use the armed forces abroad. The Federation Council issued permission. The head of the Kremlin administration Sergei Ivanov told journalists that Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad appealed to the Russian Federation with the request for military assistance. Ivanov stressed the actions of the Russian armed forces abroad only pertain to air operations.

The use of military personnel in ground operations is out of question.