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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Air raids kill 31 jihadists in Syria's Raqa |
| 2014-08-19 |
| At least 31 Islamic State militants were killed in Syrian air force raids on Sunday in the northern province of Raqa, a stronghold of the militant fighters, a monitoring group said. “The regime carried out 13 raids on the city of Raqa and 11 on the town of Tabqa in Raqa province, killing at least 31 militants and wounding dozens of them,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The Britain-based group’s head, Rami Abdel Rahman, said the raids were the regime’s “most intensive” against the Islamic State since the insurgents joined the more than three-year-old conflict in Syria in spring 2003. The IS has held most of Raqa province since February, after having ousted other rebel groups battling President Bashar Al Assad’s regime. The Observatory said the regime has also carried out air strikes on the eastern province of Deir Ezzor as well as Akhtarin and Dabeq in Aleppo province, two northern towns which the IS seized from rebels on Wednesday. The Syrian military has turned its firepower on the IS since the militants in June declared a “caliphate” straddling Syria and neighbouring Iraq, where the group has been targeted by US air strikes over the past week. “The regime wants to show the Americans that it is also capable of striking the IS,” said Abdel Rahman, whose group relies on information from opposition activists and medics on the ground. “The regime strikes the IS where it is strong. In regions where the group is confronted by rebels, it doesn’t intervene so that the two enemies weaken each other,” he said. “But once one party takes the upper hand, it strikes,” said Abdel Rahman. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #4 We'll that explains the olde saying by Abu Bin Franclone, at midnight the age of the goat is inshallah. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2014-08-19 13:02 |
| #3 Saudi are our friends, remember? We're tooling them up with the latest kit Which they can only use so long as those nice kafir mechanics provided with it are willing to keep the stuff working. And even then only during the day -- I've read that after millennia of inbreeding, Saudi night sight is extremely poor. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2014-08-19 07:31 |
| #2 IS is a Saudi creation. Saudi are our friends, remember? We're tooling them up with the latest kit to keep their nice freedom loving king in power (the same guy Obama bows to). |
| Posted by: 72virgins 2014-08-19 06:51 |
| #1 Its about time they attacked IS which to me is a syrian/baathist creation. |
| Posted by: Paul D 2014-08-19 02:48 |