Moscow’s responsive measures toward Ankara have dealt a heavy blow to the Turkish economy. What is more, Russia’s military success in Syria risks ruining the entire Turkish energy industry. On November 24, 2015 a Turkish jet downed a Russian Su-24 bomber over Syria. Relations between Turkey and Russia deeply deteriorated [...]

The war on terrorism in Syria is not over yet. However, after the bulk of Russian forces were withdrawn from Syria one can take a closer look at some aspects of how the operation unfolded and the weapons involved. Key Ingredient to Combat Success. In order to be successful, any military operation needs full-fledged combat support. [...]

A field commander of Syria’s Desert Falcons militia forces thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin on behalf of the Syrian people for supporting the country in the fight against terrorism. Earlier on Sunday, the Syrian Army alongside the Desert Falcons forces fully liberated the ancient city of Palmyra from Daesh militants. [...]

Daesh-allied militants attacked a European city this week, setting off three bombs in Brussels that killed 31 and injured 260. In the United States, the response was immediate, first with the outpouring of support from the public, then, unsurprisingly, with a flurry of bellicose pronouncements from most of the remaining major-party presidential candidates. [...]

Much has been said and written about the Russian military operation in Syria, from its sudden start to its abrupt halt; few however have put it quite so 'eloquently' as The Spectator's Taki Theodoracopulos, who compared the Russian mission in Syria to Field Marshal Mikhail Kutuzov's successful campaign against Napoleon during the War of 1812. [...]

Libya's late leader Muammar Gaddafi and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad warned that terrorism would be on the rise in Europe if Western leaders help to destabilize the two countries, but no one listened. As a result, Libya and Syria have been plunged into chaos and now Europe has to grapple with a string of gruesome terrorist attacks. [...]

Why did Vladimir Putin's decision to withdraw the Russian military forces from Syria take US hawks by surprise? Maybe, it's because Washington's party of war believes its own propaganda more than reality on the ground, Stephen F. Cohen notes, commenting on Russia's pullout. The leitmotif of Russian President Putin's foreign policy is the demilitarization of the ongoing new Cold War in the Middl [...]

Sputnik looks at the key results and highlights of Russia's 5.5-month counterterrorist mission in Syria. Russia's Defense Ministry said on Tuesday that the air campaign prevented terrorist plans to expand into Russia and other countries, as well as undermined their administrative system and economic potential. Earlier on March 15, two air groups involved in the Syrian mission left Hmeimim o [...]

Syrians feel immense gratitude towards Russian military and Aerospace Forces with the popularity of Vladimir Putin soaring. The partial withdrawal of Russian troops from the country is a matter of concern for the Syrian community, but the faith in Moscow's help is unwavering, according to the US media. [...]

Unlike the Bush administration's mission in Iraq, Russia has truly accomplished its mission in Syria, Bangkok-based analyst Tony Cartalucci writes. Does it mean the Saudi-Turkish elites now have a chance to balkanize Syria? Not by any means. Regardless of Western media's attempts to downplay the success of Russia's operation in Syria, there is no doubt that Moscow has accomplished the objective [...]

It’s spy thriller stuff; no one is talking. But there are indications Russia would not announce a partial withdrawal from Syria right before the Geneva negotiations ramp up unless a grand bargain with Washington had been struck. Some sort of bargain is in play, of which we still don’t know the details; that's what the CIA itself is basically saying through their multiple US Think Tankland m [...]

Washington and its allies created the Islamist Frankenstein with their own hands: over the decades radical Muslim 'agents of destruction' have formed the belt of instability which stretches across the MENA region to Central Asia and beyond. But how did it all begin? Back in December 1979 the USSR deployed a limited contingent of Soviet troops in Afghanistan in response to repeated requests from [...]

In the context of the current refugee crisis, leaders of the European Union reached an agreement on the deal with Turkey. The package of measures agreed on Friday morning is now awaiting approval by the Turkish government, German newspaper Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten (DWN) reported, referring to Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel. [...]

A declassified email exchange between former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her adviser Sid Blumenthal shows that Clinton was up to her eyeballs in the Western conspiracy against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and his Pan-African "Gold Dinar" currency, F. William Engdahl narrates. [...]

As Russian troops and planes return home following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s surprise announcement, one organization, the Pentagon, remains unsurprisingly unconvinced. "I think that the task that was assigned to the Ministry of Defense and the armed forces as a whole has achieved its goal, [...]

Throttling Turkey’s democracy, President Erdogan seized an opposition newspaper that dared reveal his clandestine arming of jihadists seeking to overthrow neighboring Syria, as Alon Ben-Meir explains. Only a few months after Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan raided the offices of the Koza Ipek Media Group, the Turkish police assaulted early this month the offices of Feza Publications, [...]

American presstitutes, such as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, expressed surprise at Russia’s support for the Syrian ceasefire, which Russia has been seeking, by Putin’s halt to attacks on the Islamic State and a partial withdrawal of Russian forces. The American presstitutes are captives of their own propaganda and are now surprised at the failure of their propagandistic pr [...]

As Russia’s Vladimir Putin announced the start of the withdrawal of Russian forces from Syria, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has reported the anti-terror operation’s achievements to the Commander-in-Chief. "Backed by our aviation, Syrian forces have freed 400 populated areas and over 10,000 square kilometers [3,860 square miles] of territories," Shoigu said during a Kremlin meeting with R [...]

Global political figures have welcomed the Russian military pullout from Syria, and while many have called the Kremlin’s decision “unexpected,” it is seen as clearing the way for dialogue while a truce in the five-year-old war is negotiated in Geneva. Acknowledging that five months of military campaigns have mostly succeeded in their primary objective of eliminating the immediate wider th [...]

An Islamic State fighter from the US was arrested in Iraq after emerging from territory controlled by the militant group in Syria, a local commander told Kurdish media. The man reportedly mistook the area for the Turkish border. A local commander told Kurdish news outlet Rudaw that the arrested man was 27-year-old Muhammad Jamal Amin, a Virginia-born US citizen of a Palestinian father and an Ir [...]

Western media is ignoring what is really going on on the ground in Syria, presenting its own, largely distorted narrative, Canadian freelance journalist and rights activist Eva Bartlett notes. What lies beneath the attempts to hide the truth? For years US policy-makers have been repeating the mantra "Assad must go," turning a deaf ear to warnings that once Bashar al-Assad is toppled, [...]

An explosion that hit the center of Ankara on Sunday killed at least 27 people, 75 injured. An explosion at a bus stop in Ankara caused at least 27 people killed and multiple wounded, according to reports. Some 27 people were killed and 75 injured in an explosion that struck the Turkish capital on Sunday evening, the office of the mayor of Ankara confirmed. [...]