The Russian Defense Ministry has denied media reports its aircraft hit hospitals in Syria, saying the medical facilities mentioned by Western media don’t actually exist. The Defense Ministry has checked the data presented in recent media reports, which blamed Russian aviation for hitting several hospitals in Syria, Major-General Igor Konashenkov, the ministry spokesman said in a press briefin [...]

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Russia’s intervention in Syria amid the EU migrant crisis has possibly prevented a NATO induced crisis similar to the one in Kosovo, where refuges where used as an excuse for bombing, suggests international affairs commentator Marco Gasic. [...]

Russia and Jordan agreed to create a coordination center in Amman, which will be used by the two countries to share information on the counter-terrorism operations, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said. Russia is already in touch with Iran, Iraq and Syria through a Baghdad-based center used for the same purpose. [...]

The whole Global South is now informed about how the Russian campaign in Syria has swiftly smashed all of ‘Exceptionalistan’s’ elaborate plans for a “Greater Middle East.” These plans span everything from the Wolfowitz Doctrine to Dr. Zbig “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski’s categorical imperative of preventing the emergence of a strategic competitor across Eurasia. [...]

US-led airstrikes have killed 52 Syrian civilians in one day, a monitoring group reports. There was fighting in the vicinity, but the strike allegedly failed to kill even a single Islamist fighter. The US military, however, denies the report.   [...]

Russia and the US have signed an agreement regulating the operations of the two countries' air forces in Syria. The deal is aimed at preventing incidents and providing for the smooth operation of the two nations' aircraft, and for mutual aid in critical situations. [...]

Russian bombers and assault planes have attacked 49 terrorist targets, making a total of 33 sorties over the last 24 hours. All the planes have successfully returned to the Khmeimim air base in Latakia, Russia’s Defense Ministry reports. The airstrikes hit targets in the provinces of Aleppo, Damascus, Hama, Idlib and Latakia. [...]

Since Moscow joined the struggle against Islamic State in Syria, its military efforts in the region have become a target in themselves with western mainstream media attacking Moscow, publishing unconfirmed reports and scaremongering at every opportunity. A drone over Turkey near the Syrian border is one of the recent "Russian" targets. After the Turkish military released a statement saying that [...]

A senior leader from Al-Nusra Front, Al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria, has been reportedly killed alongside two other members of the terrorist group in the province of Aleppo. Sanafi Al-Nasr, who was allegedly killed in an airstrike near the town of Dana, was Al-Qaeda’s senior strategist and an important power broker, the Iranian Fars news agency reports, citing jihadist sources close to the kill [...]

Growing numbers of Islamic State militants in Syria have become discontent with their command and deserted the ranks of the militant group amid the Russian anti-terror operation, Moscow's Defense Ministry said on Friday. "The majority of armed gangs are demoralized. Discontent with field commanders is growing amid the fighters, and there are instances of disobeying orders," senior Russian Gener [...]

The US and its allies would like to see Russia’s military operations in Syria go horribly wrong as Russia’s success heralds a crushing defeat for Western regime-change machinations. It would also signal the balance of power shifting away from US hegemony. Last week, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter darkly predicted that Russia would suffer blowback from its intervention in Syria with act [...]

Russia’s Defense Ministry said that it will soon sign an agreement on flight safety over Syria with Pentagon after the sides agreed on all the necessary technical issues. "All technical matters have already been agreed upon, with Russian and US lawyers now cross checking the text of the document," Colonel-General Andrey Kartapolov told a media briefing on Friday. [...]

More than half of Americans think that Russian President Vladimir Putin has outdone his US counterpart Barack Obama in Syria. They blame Obama for a lack of a clear strategy, a poll by Fox News has revealed. Fifty-three percent of the respondents said that they consider Putin to have the upper hand in Syria, with only 22 percent suggesting that it’s Obama who is in control. [...]

The failed $500 million program to set up a proxy army in Syria was a test, US President Barack Obama told ’60 Minutes’, adding that he had doubts about the project from the start. He also ruled out sending US troops to Syria. “I've been skeptical from the get-go about the notion that we were going to effectively create this proxy army inside of Syria,” Obama said in the interview. [...]

The US Department of Defense will work on compensating the families of the victims killed in a deadly American airstrike on a Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, MSF) hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan. The strike “mistakenly” killed 22 [...]

Western media reports of Russian missiles hitting Iran are “blatant lies” and part of a campaign of psychological warfare, a top Iranian military commander said. CNN claimed four Russian cruise missiles fell in Iran instead of continuing toward Syria. “We have no reports of any Russian missiles crashing in Iran,” Gen. Musa Kamali told Russian news agency Sputnik. “All those media repo [...]

Russian air forces carried out 67 sorties, striking 60 separate targets in northern Syria in the past 24 hours, the Defense Ministry has reported. Two senior Islamic State field commanders are reportedly among some 300 militants killed in the strikes. “Among the targets are the communication hubs, command posts, fuel stores and terrorist training bases located located in Raqqa, Latakia, Idlip [...]

Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) is calling for an independent investigation into the deadly US airstrike on a hospital in the Afghan city of Kunduz to determine whether the attack can be regarded as a war crime. According to Doctors without Borders, such an investigation should gather evidence from the US, NATO and Afghanistan, as well as testimonies of the Kunduz hospital staff and patients. [...]

The whole point of Islamic State’s tactic of hiding in mosques and using human shields is to try to make Russia look bad hoping the military would make an error, says Doctor Max Abrahms of Northeastern University in Boston. John Wight, a writer and political analyst, shared his opinion on what the Western media hopes to achieve by further speculation on the campaign. [...]

An estimated 3,000 Islamic State fighters as well as militants from other extremist groups have fled Syria for Jordan fearing a renewed offensive by the Syrian army in addition to Russian airstrikes, a military official has told RIA news agency. “At least 3,000 militants from Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), al-Nusra and Jaish al-Yarmouk have fled to Jordan. [...]

As if to underscore Russia’s decision to initiate airstrikes against Islamic State on the territory of Syria as Western forces don’t appear up to the task, NATO jets unleashed a deadly barrage on a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders in Afghanistan. No sooner had Vladimir Putin wrapped up his speech at the United Nations, where he roundly criticized the manner in which US-led forces hav [...]