Egypt plane crash: This attack shows that Russia is hurting Isis

[Jefferson23]

World View: Air power may not be enough to stop the jihadis, who are expecting more help from Turkey now

Patrick Cockburn

Saturday 7 November 2015

Once again the world has underestimated the strength and viciousness of Isis. The group has always retaliated against any attack by targeting civilians and killing them in a way that ensures maximum publicity. This happened most recently in Turkey on 10 October when Isis suicide bombers killed 102 people attending a pro-Kurdish peace demonstration. In Kobani in Syria at the end of June, Isis suicide squads avenged recent military defeats by the Syrian Kurds by murdering at least 220 men, women and children. In Iraq, the leader of the Albu Nimr tribe told this newspaper how 864 of his tribesmen had been killed over the previous year for resisting Isis advances.


It was always likely that Isis would retaliate against the Russian air campaign in Syria that is targeting its forces and al-Qaeda clones such as the al-Nusra Front and Ahrar al-Sham. But the carefully planned destruction of a Russian plane with 224 people on board by a bomb on 31 October has presented Western governments and media with a publicity problem. They had been relentlessly pursuing a propaganda line that the Russian air strikes in Syria have avoided hitting Isis and are almost entirely directed against “moderate” or “Western-backed” Syrian

Isis evidently does not have any doubts about the Russian air strikes being aimed at itself and cannot have done so since the raids started on 30 September, because an operation such as getting a bomb on to a plane at Sharm el Sheikh airport would take weeks to set up. There is a further misunderstanding about the Russian attacks on Isis and other salafi-jihadi armed groups in Syria. They are much heavier than anything being carried out by the US-led coalition, with 59 Russian strikes on one day recently compared to the US launching just nine.

There is a limitation on the use of US air power in Syria which may not be immediately evident, even to those who study communiqués issued by the US defence department. Of nine strikes on 6 November, three are described as being near Hawl, an Arab town in north-east Syria where the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) are fighting Isis. Two strikes were near Hasakah, also in north-east Syria and, again apparently, in support of the YPG. The remaining four were near Abu Kamal, near the Iraqi border, said to be an Isis “crude oil collection point”.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/egypt-plane-crash-this-attack-shows-that-russia-is-hurting-isis-a6725566.html

[Demeter]

1. Ergodan will have to go

He's more of a loose cannon than Qaddafi or Saddam Hussein ever were.

[Jefferson23]

2. +1 he is stupid beyond words. n/t

[Demeter]

3. He is power-mad, and evil. Also stupid, but that doesn't seem to bother NATO, either.

[Jefferson23]

6. It doesn't seem they know what to do with him or anywhere in the region for that

matter....does it?

[Blue_Tires]

4. Cockburn?? Meh... He's kind of a nutbar

and an Assad apologist, to boot...

[Jefferson23]

5. Assad apologist? Nope..realistic. I doubt you find ISIS the equivalent to Assad.

A nutbar, that's a new one I never heard applied to Cockburn.

[bemildred]

7. He is very informative and gets into places.

I don't always agree with him but I never miss what he has to say.

This one here is well worth the time for the descriptions of fighting on the ground alone:

http://fabiusmaximus.com/2015/11/09/patrick-cockburn-looks-at-the-new-strange-developments-in-the-syrian-war/

[truth2power]

9. The way that adults usually respond to someone's written remarks

is to evaluate the remarks as to their merit. Otherwise, it's just ad hominem blather. And without substance.

This skill is taught in our much-maligned public high schools. Just sayin'..

[geek tragedy]

8. I dunno about this. ISIS is rarely reactive with these things. nt