After Trump chat, Putin’s airstrikes pound Syria including a hospital west of Aleppo

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Russian air strikes destroyed the hospital of Awayjil, 13 km west of Aleppo hours after Russian president Vladimir Putin chatted with US president elect Donald Trump
Russian air strikes destroyed the hospital of Awayjil, 13 km west of Aleppo hours after Russian president Vladimir Putin chatted with US president elect Donald Trump

Russia launched a major military offensive in Syria on Tuesday, hours after President-elect Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the need to join forces to combat international terrorism.

“Today we started a large-scale operation to deliver massive fire on the positions of the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra in the provinces of Idlib and Homs,” Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said at a meeting Tuesday with Putin and Russian defense industry representatives.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said airstrikes shook the provinces of Idlib and beleaguered Aleppo, which has been the focal point in a five-year war between U.S.-backed rebels and troops loyal to Russian-backed Syrian President Bashar Assad. The Syrian military said it had hit targets inside Aleppo, ending a month-long pause in strikes in the rebel-held city.

“Our houses are shaking from the pressure. Planes are soaring above us, and the bombardment is around us,” Modar Shekho, a resident of rebel-held eastern Aleppo, told Reuters.

The airstrikes drew a sharp rebuke from Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who said Putin “has rejoined Bashar Assad in his barbaric war against the Syrian people.”

Trump, who expressed respect for Putin during the campaign, spoke with the Russian leader by phone Monday. The two leaders discussed a range of issues including “threats and challenges facing both nations,” the Trump transition team said in a statement.

Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday discussed Aleppo with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, emphasizing the State Department position that the solution must be political, not military. Hours later the airstrikes began.

Shoigu said the airstrikes are focused on ammunition depots, groups of terrorists and their training centers and facilities being used to manufacture weapons of mass destruction. He said Russia had sent radiation, chemical and biological protection troops to determine the toxic substances used by terrorists.

“Within the past week they used them twice – in one case, 27 people were hospitalized and three died, in the other case 30 people were hospitalized,” Shoigu said.

Some of the strikes appeared to target al-Qaeda affiliates fighting alongside the rebels, the observatory said. An airstrike also hit a hospital in the town of Awejel just outside Aleppo, injuring civilians, the British-based advocacy group said. Russian and Syria denied targeting hospitals.

Jabhat al-Nusra is an al-Qaida affiliate loosely aligned with the U.S-backed rebels. Russia has blamed rebel ties to terror groups for the dire humanitarian issues in Aleppo. The State Department has acknowledged that “marbleization” of the anti-Assad forces has been a problem.

After almost a month of relative calm, Aleppo activist Baraa al-Halaby told the Associated Press warplanes were firing missiles and helicopters were dropping barrel bombs in Syria’s largest city.

“People are scared. The bombardment is intense,” al-Halaby told AP.

 

USA TODAY

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13 responses to “After Trump chat, Putin’s airstrikes pound Syria including a hospital west of Aleppo”

  1. Mixa Klimment Avatar
    Mixa Klimment

    Good old Boom-Boom McCain. To steal a line from LBJ, Boom-Boom crashed too many airplanes without wearing a flight helmet. Boom-Boom and Queen Hillary have made their careers out of blowing up other peoples’ countries.
    It was Queen Hillary’s flunky, Victoria Nuland, who went to Kiev with Boom-Boom and launched a neo-Nazi coup in Vladimir Putin’s own back yard. What do you think an American president would have done if some flunky from the Russian foreign ministry had come over here with a rabid nationalist like Vladimir Zhirinovsky and pulled a harebrained stunt like that in Mexico City?
    So Putin was a colonel in the KGB. Bush One was the head honcho of the entire CIA. A day could very well come when we look back with nostalgia on Vladimir Putin, who’s really a very level-headed fellow compared to someone ultra-nationalist like Zhirinovsky or some unreconstructed Communist.
    Throughout the entire Cold War, Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union and presidents like Nixon and Reagan (neither of who were exactly “commie symps”) never found it necessary to “liberate” Ukraine. What’s the big deal now? Isn’t Russia entitled to a bit of a Monroe Doctrine of its own? And doesn’t Russia have a right to object when US/NATO troops are moving closer and closer to Russia’s own border.
    Remember, Russia has never invaded the United States, but the United States has invaded Russia — in 1918-19, when Woodrow Wilson sent an expeditionary force to Siberia to intervene in the Russian Civil War on the side of the Whites. Whatever your opinion of Lenin and Trotsky, the Russian Civil War was absolutely none of our business, so it’s understandable today that Russia would become concerned with the U.S. policy of aggressive regime-change as US/NATO troops encroach on areas of vital security interest to Russia.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ef28b173d13e8759e9a8e8beefe0b59cb5502117953c645d1616466bc6f0912d.jpg

    1. Another walk-in customer from the comments section of Russia Today. Thankfully, they usually have the attention span of a fly and are quickly off to another pile of shit. 🙂

      1. Mixa Klimment Avatar
        Mixa Klimment

        Nice to know I’m a “Kremlin paid Troll”.
        Why do you think there are only two Troll Rooms, Moscow and St. Petersburg? Troll Rooms are everywhere. Have you checked under your bed?
        We “cockroaches” need no payment from the Kremlin: Just hearing you war-lovers whine is reward enough.

        1. ‘Nice to know I’m a “Kremlin paid Troll”.’
          I never called you that, pal. Who would pay you? I certainly wouldn’t. Why should the Putinoids? The amounts of human idiocy freely available for the taking are immense, no doubt about that. I merely diagnosed you as RT material, which you most certainly are. 🙂

          1. Mixa Klimment Avatar
            Mixa Klimment

            Your imagination is the only fakes of the Western media – you live in a dream world.
            Wake up.

        2. Biggest arrogant Zio trolls sub-IQ that squatter on Yalibnan, the standard posters ‘If you’re not with me you’re a Naziantisemite Putinoid’

  2. 5thDrawer Avatar

    Guy isn’t President yet .. but the war is ON.

  3. Russia identified and selected targets, including factories producing toxic chemical agents field hospitals in rural western Aleppo province, putting them out of order.

    “The Observatory and the Civil Defence rescue organisation both reported that three people had been killed and others wounded in the air strikes”

    -Incredible lies;The Syrian Observatory of Human Rights (SOHR) is based in UK and rely on FSA Al Nusra on the Ground. The ‘Civil Defence’ are The White Helmets.

    -YaLibnan article is from Sheldon Adelson American casino magnate Netanyahu’s mentor, who owns Israeli daily news ‘Israel Hayom’ ‘USA Today’ ‘Associated Press’..and others. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/93a3db80f483f303ab27e8c7396f691be7478a036ee6c0043dff015be9ff2028.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8558332daa3142da6922c4b2681d9f9def0295f4a05a56a94e6c75d44b8df599.jpg

    1. 5thDrawer Avatar

      ‘extras’ are paid less there …

      1. I saw the video all young people.
        Al Nusra..whatever not starving say Russia destroyed aid.. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2dcb4b2b7b55218fde3f746c09d4133d781daab0a00510b888f1217919c1fff5.jpg

        1. 5thDrawer Avatar

          Guy taking the ‘selfie’ has a better razor than me … nice trim … ;-))

  4. ‘Jomana Qaddour’
    Syria lost another hospital this morning. Baghdad Hospital in Awejel, Aleppo hit by Russian/Syrian missiles; completely demolished’

    Could this be one of the 5 hospitals mentioned by Kirby?
    Would be interesting, given for whom Jomana co-founder of SRD works 😉
    “The American Relief Coalition for Syria (ARCS)”…American warmongeres
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8b80eda945853863fbc607b520bcca896830ee4b792ae18cf86f1ca6aee216bc.jpg

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