Two US Air Force A-10 warplanes carried out airstrikes on Aleppo Wednesday, destroying nine facilities, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported. The same day, the Pentagon accused Moscow of bombing two hospitals, despite no Russian flights over the city. [...]

Clear evidence that the Syrian conflict has reached a critical stage comes with the Saudi announcement that it is willing to send troops to Syria – along with the UAE and Bahrain – to help try and overthrow Assad under the pretext of fighting ISIS. Just four months ago, the fate of the Assad government appeared all but sealed. [...]

Prominent US linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky has lashed out at Turkish President Recep Erdogan, who has accused him of being “dark” and having “mentality of colonialism” for signing an open letter protesting Ankara’s military op against the Kurds. [...]

Riled by a meeting between a US official and members of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), which controls the Syrian town of Kobane, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has told Washington to choose between Turkey and, as he put it, the “terrorists.” [...]

The Saudi plan to send ground troops into Syria appears to be just a ruse. But this is precisely the kind of reckless saber-rattling that could ignite an all-out war, one that could embroil the United States and Russia. Saudi rulers have reportedly amassed a 150,000-strong army to invade Syria on the alleged pretext “to fight against terrorism” and to defeat the so-called Islamic State (a [...]

Russia’s Defense Ministry has slammed NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg, labeling as ‘nonsense’ his comments that the Russian air operation in Syria is causing tensions and undermining the peace process in the country. The NATO Secretary General made the controversial statement on Friday when he arrived at the EU defense ministers meeting in Amsterdam. [...]

The United Arab Emirates said on Sunday it was ready to commit ground troops to Syria to take on Daesh terrorists as part of a US-led coalition. When asked if the Gulf state was prepared to send troops to Syria, Foreign Minister Anwar Gargash told reporters in Abu Dhabi that this had been his country’s position all along. [...]

After Saudi-backed Syrian rebels balked at peace talks and the Russian-backed Syrian army cut off Turkish supply lines to jihadists and other Syrian rebels, the U.S. and its Mideast Sunni “allies” appear poised to invade Syria and force “regime change” even at the risk of fighting Russia, a gamble with nuclear war, writes Joe Lauria. [...]

Russia’s new-generation Su-35 fighter jets will be on round-the-clock duty at the Latakia base in Syria, ready to take off at a minute's notice to provide cover for aerial operations in the area, a spokesman for the Russian forces in Syria said.   [...]

A long profile on Hillary Clinton in the Washington Post earlier this week highlights the 2011 Libyan intervention as a key indicator of her approach to foreign policy. Clinton claims that the Libyan bombing campaign was an example of “smart power at its best.” If she actually believes that, it raises serious questions about her judgment, as well as about her ability to analyze foreign policy [...]

Buildings are riddled with bullet holes, the sound of explosions can be heard day and night, and many residents have already packed up their belongings and fled. It sounds like war-torn Syria, but the actual location is a surprise: inside the supposedly secure borders of Turkey. [...]

Syrian government forces make major battlefield gains against foreign-backed opposition. Simultaneously negotiators representing the main opposition groups refuse to return to peace talks in Geneva until their demands are met. Among those conditions were that the Syrian Army cease bombardments, in effect cease operations, in and around areas it has just recaptured. [...]

Developments on the Turkish-Syrian border give serious grounds to suspect that Ankara is planning a military invasion in Syria, the Russian Defense Ministry has said. “We have serious grounds to suspect intensive preparations by Turkey for a military invasion on the territory of the sovereign state of Syria,” Major General Igor Konashenkov, Defense Ministry spokesman, told journalists. [...]

Is it just coincidence that shortly after Russia begins a successful bombing campaign against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) positions in Syria, US think-tanks suddenly called for American boots on the ground in the Arab Republic? The US military has some of the world’s most advanced surveillance technology, capable of identifying suspected terrorists and eliminating them with state-o [...]

Western media coverage does not accurately reflect what is happening on the Syrian battlefield, US journalist Mike Whitney wrote for the CounterPunch magazine: Damascus-led forces, assisted by Russian warplanes, have turned the tide of war and are on the way to flush Islamic radicals out of the country. Unlike America's military engagement in Afghanistan and Iraq, this process will not be a pro [...]

Russia is preparing to conduct an official military inspection in Turkey, Sergei Ryzhkov, head of Russia’s National Nuclear Risk Reduction Center, told the media. "From February 2 until February 5, a Russian team of inspectors intends to conduct an inspection of a designated area in Turkey – about 18,000 square kilometers in total – in order to promote mutual trust and security in accorda [...]

Not only is there evidence of Turkey financing and arming ISIS and other terrorist groups, but we now see the Turkish government cracking down on its own citizens, says Middle East analyst Sharmine Narwani. Since the end of the WWII and the beginning of the Cold War Britain and the US have had a very close strategic working relationship with the Turkish government. [...]

Moscow has denied Turkey’s accusation that a Russian Su-34 bomber violated its airspace on Friday. The Russian Ministry of Defense said that Ankara couldn’t have determined which country the jet belonged to under the circumstances they described. He stressed that the airspace controlling radar stations that Turkey has can only determine the altitude, flight line, and speed of an aerial vehi [...]

AP is reporting: “Satellite photos obtained by The Associated Press confirm what church leaders and Middle East preservationists had feared: The oldest Christian monastery in Iraq has been reduced to a field of rubble, yet another victim of the Islamic State group’s relentless destruction of heritage sites it considers heretical.” [...]

Former senator and secretary of state Hillary Clinton is the only candidate for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination who supported the invasion of Iraq. That war not only resulted in 4,500 American soldiers being killed and thousands more permanently disabled, but also hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths, the destabilization of the region with the rise of the Islamic State and other ex [...]

Police said 11,000 people have gathered in the Moldovan capital on Sunday for anti-government protests, disputing organizers' estimates of 100,000 demonstrators. CHISINAU (Sputnik) – Supporters of center-right and left-wing parties took to the streets to voice opposition to the appointment of a new prime minister and to call for snap elections. [...]

Germany shuts its eyes to the mass killings of the Kurds in southeastern Turkey, the illegal oil trade and Turkey's collaboration with Daesh terrorists, hoping that the Turkish President will help Europe to reduce the inflow of migrants, German newspaper Handelsblatt wrote. German Chancellor Angela Merkel ignores the fact that Turkish President Erdogan is waging war against his own people and c [...]