As Obama is in California playing golf, the White House says he took time to have a phone call with Putin on Syria and Ukraine. Not even Obama, heh…..seems to be able to convince Putin to stop bombing U.S. allies in Syria.
Russian airstrikes in areas around Aleppo.
Turkey to Extend Strikes on Kurdish Fighters in Syria
VoA: Turkey says it will continue to target U.S.-allied Kurdish fighters on the Syrian frontier near its border, despite mounting international pressure on the Ankara government to stop the artillery bombardments.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, in telephone talks Sunday, told German Chancellor Angela Merkel that Turkish forces will “not permit” the Kurdish People’s Protection Units fighters (YPG), of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) “to carry out aggressive acts.”
Both France and the United States have called for an “immediate halt” to the Turkish bombardments.
According to Turkish official,s Davutoğlu spoke this weekend with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden concerning Turkish anger about YPG military encroachments in northern Syria, adding that Biden had said he would pass the Turkish Prime Minister’s remarks on to the “relevant parties.”
U.S. officials say there is little to be done to counter militarily the Russian-backed Assad offensive and they argue the vicious five-year-long Syrian civil war that has left upwards of 250,000 dead won’t be resolved by the clash of arms but through a negotiated political settlement. Full story here.
****
RIYADH: Troops from around 20 countries were gathering in northern Saudi Arabia Sunday for “the most important” military maneuver ever staged in the region, the official news agency SPA reported.
The “Thunder of the North” exercise involving ground, air, and naval forces sends a “clear message” that Saudi Arabia and its allies “stand united in confronting all challenges and preserving peace and stability in the region,” SPA said.
Saudi Arabia is currently leading a military campaign against Iran-backed rebels in its southern neighbor Yemen. Last December, it also formed a new 35-member coalition to fight “terrorism” in Islamic countries.
Sunday’s announcement also comes as the kingdom, a member of the US-led coalition targeting the jihadist Daesh group, said it has deployed warplanes to a Turkish air base in order to “intensify” its operations against Daesh in Syria.
SPA did not specify when the military exercise will begin or how long it will last.
However, the agency called it the “most important and largest in the region’s history” in terms of the number of nations taking part and the weaponry being used.
Twenty countries will be taking take part, SPA said.
Among them are Saudi Arabia’s five partners in the Gulf Cooperation Council, as well as Chad, Egypt, Jordan, Malaysia, Morocco, Pakistan, Senegal and Tunisia, it added.
A Saudi source said on Thursday that members of the new “anti-terrorism” coalition will gather in Saudi Arabia next month for its first publicly announced meeting.
Riyadh has said the alliance would share intelligence, combat violent ideology and deploy troops if necessary.
****
I24: Amid ongoing tension on Israel’s northern borders, a new threat has emerged for Israeli fighter pilots conducting spying missions in Lebanon, Walla reports.
Using radar technology it has acquired since Russia’s entry into the Syrian civil war, Hezbollah has started using sophisticated radars to “lock on” to Israeli spy jets on reconnaissance flights over its northern neighbor.
The new technology can identify all Israeli fighter jets, according to sources within Israel’s security establishment. By locking on to the jets as targets, Walla says, Hezbollah can then fire missiles at them.
Nonetheless, the sophistication of Israel’s fighter fleet means they are equipped to deal with such threats, which enables them to detect and follow radars that threaten to lock onto them ahead of launching missiles.
In such an event, pilots can change their plane’s route, especially when they are simply on an intelligence-gathering mission.
Israeli security officials believe Hezbollah has acquired the technology through its ties with Russia, forged as a result of their mutual fight against Islamic State in Syria, Walla reported.
“The connection between Hezbollah, Russia and Syria have greatly changed the rules of the game in the region,” a security official was quoted as saying in Walla.
“Hezbollah is indicating to Israel that it is ready for the next stage.”
During the last all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, the Shi’ite militant group hit just one Israeli fighter jet using an anti-tank missile, but while the aircraft was grounded. In the wake of the war, Hezbollah began acquiring advanced anti-aircraft weapons from Iran and Syria, Walla says.
The Israel Air Force has on several occasions attacked weapons convoys making their way from Syria to Lebanon over the last few years, according to foreign media reports.
In January, The Daily Beast reported that the Russians are supplying Hezbollah with sophisticated weaponry, including precision ground-to-ground missiles, long-range tactical missiles, laser guided rockets, and anti-tank weapons.
The Hezbollah militants who told The Daily Beast about the arms transfers said that the group, the Assad regime and Iran have a “relationship of complete coordination” and that Hezbollah is receiving the arms “with no strings attached.”
“We are strategic allies in the Middle East right now—the Russians are our allies and give us weapons,” one of the Hezbollah officers in charge of five units in Syria told The Daily Beast.
