ISIS/ISIL conflict in Syria/Iraq (No OpEd, No Politics)

Russian forces in Syria have fired at least twice on Israeli military aircraft, prompting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to seek improved operational coordination with Moscow, Israel's top-selling newspaper said on Friday.

Asked about the alleged incidents, however, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: "In this case, Israeli press reports are far from reality."

But Netanyahu, in remarks published by Israeli reporters whom he briefed by phone on his talks on Thursday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, said "there have been problems" regarding Israeli military freedom of operation in Syria.

He gave no details, but said: "If you don't deal with the friction, it could develop into something more serious."

The unsourced report in Yedioth Ahronoth made no mention of dates or locations for the two reported incidents, nor did it give any indication of whether the Israeli planes were hit.

Russia mounted its military intervention in Syria in September to shore Damascus up amid a now 5-year-old rebellion
Separately, Israel's Channel 10 TV said a Russian warplane approached an Israeli warplane off the Mediterranean coast of Syria last week but that there was no contact between them.

An Israeli military spokesman declined comment. Netanyahu's office and the Russian embassy in Israel did not immediately respond.

Israel, which says it has carried out dozens of bombings in Syria to foil suspected arms handovers to Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas, was quick to set up an operational hotline with Moscow designed to avoid accidentally trading fire with Russian interventionary forces.

In Moscow on Thursday, Netanyahu told Putin in televised remarks: "I came here with one main goal - to strengthen the security coordination between us so as to avoid mishaps, misunderstandings and unnecessary confrontations."

In an apparent allusion to Syria, Putin said: "I think there are understandable reasons for these intensive contacts (with Israel), given the complicated situation in the region."

According to Yedioth, the reported Russian fire on Israeli planes was first raised with Putin by Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, who visited Moscow on March 15. At the time, Putin responded that he was unaware of the incidents, Yedioth said.

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delft said:

I was wondering too.

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delft said:

I was wondering too.

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President Barack Obama will send an additional 250 military personnel to Syria to help local forces fighting the Islamic State group, increasing to 300 the number of U.S. forces battling extremists in the war-torn country, administration officials confirmed Sunday.

The move will significantly increase the U.S. presence in Syria and comes a week after Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced the deployment of a similar number of troops to Iraq, where Islamic State militants also control territory.Obama was expected to announce his decision Monday during a speech in Hannover, Germany, at the close of a weeklong trip, where IS was a focus of his meetings with world leaders in Saudi Arabia, Great Britain and Germany.

About 50 U.S. special operations forces are already operating in Syria. Most of the additional 250 personnel will also be special operations forces, largely Army Green Berets. The group will also include an unknown number of medical and logistical troops to provide them with support.

Senior U.S. officials have been touting the success of the forces in Syria, including their ability to generate critical intelligence that gives the U.S.-led coalition a better view of what is happening on the ground, including efforts to target insurgents.

In a sign of Obama's reluctance to use of force, Monday's announcement will cap a trip during which the president advocated diplomacy over military intervention.

Asked last week whether he planned to increase special operations forces in Syria, Obama did not answer directly. But he said he'd had discussions with an adviser about options should a fragile cease-fire break down.

"None of the options are good," he said in the Saudi capital of Riyadh. "It has been my view consistently that we have to get a political solution inside of Syria and that all the external actors involved have to be committed to that as well as the actors inside of Syria. ... The sooner we can end fighting and resolve this in a political fashion, the better."

Obama has said he remains opposed to large-scale U.S. military intervention in either Iraq or Syria. But he has incrementally deepened U.S. involvement in both countries.

The increase of U.S. troops in Syria has been discussed for weeks, including rumblings last week when Carter announced sending an additional 217 U.S. troops to Iraq, the first major increase in U.S. forces in Iraq in nearly a year. Eight Apache helicopters were also being sent to Iraq for the first time to help fight against the Islamic State group there.

Both moves were carried out to help Iraqi forces as they prepare to retake the key northern city of Mosul.

The deployment brought the total authorized troop total to just over 4,000.

Obama re-entered Iraq in June 2014 with an initial contingent of 170 soldiers serving Iraqi forces as advisers in June 2014, in response to the Islamic State group's seizure of much of the northern and western part of the country.

Obama's decision on Syria was first reported Sunday by The Wall Street Journal.

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Jura said:

this popped up at MilitaryTimes very recently:
250 U.S. troops are deploying to Syria as ISIS fight intensifies

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The new force of 250 American troops who've been ordered to Syria will operate near Islamic State territory, helping U.S. leaders decide which local rebel groups should receive military support.

Pentagon officials say these personnel will manage “transactional” relationship between Washington and the little-known militias. Rebel commanders who demonstrate progress against ISIS will be rewarded with U.S. airstrikes, weapons, ammunition and money.

"Those forces that perform well will get additional U.S. support," said Peter Cook, a Defense Department spokesman, "and these particular U.S. forces will be in the business of trying to identify who those people are."

President Obama announced the deployment Monday during a visit to Germany, saying the additional troops would help to keep up "momentum" in the coalition campaign against ISIS.

The U.S forces will include special operations teams as well as logistics and medical personnel, Cook said.

“They'll be engaging with forces on the ground, getting a better picture of the battle space, improving our intelligence assessment and our targeting assessment as well,” Cook said.

The deployment marks a significant addition to the first cadre of 50 special operations troops who arrived in Syria in November. It will bring the total number of American personnel there at about 300.

“The original 50 are providing very, very helpful information,” Cook told reporters Monday. “Those [initial] forces have improved our picture of the battlefield, made connections with local, capable forces and enhanced our targeting efforts in Syria. These new forces will expand those efforts and build on what has been working.”

Since the first 50 American troops deployed to Syria last year, the American-backed rebel alliance has grown significantly and pushed the Islamic State out of several key towns. The long-term U.S. strategy is to limit militants' access to the group's self-proclaimed capital, Raqqah.

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, a key town along a primary transit route linking ISIS’s two major cities, Raqqah and Mosul.

U.S. forces have reportedly set up a base camp at Rmeilan Air Base in the Syrian Kurdish region, providing a key supply line for U.S. operations in Syria, according to local reports.

The U.S. government considers many of the rebel groups in Syria to be extremists and not reliable partners for fighting the Islamic State. In some cases, American weapons ended up in the hands of groups linked to al Qaida or ISIS. Last year a train-and-equip effort was halted because very few Syrians could pass the strict vetting process.

Cook acknowledged the risks that American troops in Syria will face, but insisted this is not demonstrative of a combat mission, a term that Obama and many Pentagon officials deliberately avoid.

“They’re in harm's way — we should be crystal clear about that. And they will be able to defend themselves if they come under fire. But that is not the intent of this deployment,” Cook said.

“The idea is that they will not be engaged in direct combat, they will not be on the front lines. They will be providing support to those local forces that are taking the fight to ISIL,” Cook said, referencing another acronym for the group.

Already, the president's critics in Congress have signaled their dissatisfaction with the plan, namely the small U.S. footprint in Syria compared to Iraq, where the American military presence has swelled to more than 4,000 troops.

Among the risks facing American troops are the daily airstrikes that the Russian military continues to mount from its air base in western Syria. To help protect the initial force of 50, the U.S. used back channel communications to tell the Russians roughly where those American forces were located, an effort to avoid an incident could inflame tensions between Washington and Moscow.

On Monday Cook declined to say whether the U.S. will notify the Russians about the location of these additional forces.

“In the past we have identified, and we did identify a particular geographic area where we asked the Russians not to strike, and I am not going to discuss those conversations going forward, but we're going to take additional steps,” Cook said.

“You can be sure to take every step we can to preserve the safety of our personnel and limit the risk they face. But I'm not going to speak to particular conversations, you know, we will have in the future or have had with the Russians at this point.”

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Intense fighting erupts in Aleppo City overnight
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26/04/2016

The extremist rebels of Jabhat Al-Nusra (Syrian Al-Qaeda group), Free Syrian Army (FSA), Harakat Ahrar Al-Sham, and Jaysh Al-Mujahiddeen found themselves under heavy attack tonight as the Syrian Armed Forces launched a powerful assault along the Khalidiyah-Bani Zayd axis.

Clashes between the opposing parties erupted after the extremist rebels mercilessly pounded the government controlled districts of Aleppo City, resulting in a powerful response from the Syrian Armed Forces.

Currently, the Syrian Armed Forces are attempting to advance from the Shaheen Roundabout that borders Al-Khalidiyah, Tishreen, and Bani Zayd to the row of restaurants that are located inside the aforementioned district.

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delft said:

On the other side:

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