...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group, calling it a "holy battle."
"The fight with terrorism is a holy battle and today our country is perhaps the most active force in the world fighting it," said the head of the Church's public affairs department, Vsevolod Chaplin, quoted by Interfax news agency.
Russia on Wednesday launched its first air strikes in Syria after President Vladimir Putin
...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...won parliamentary approval to use force abroad.
"The only correct way to fight international terrorism.... is to act preemptively, to battle and destroy fighters and bully boyz on the territories they have already seized, not to wait for them to come to us," Putin said in televised comments.
In an official statement, the Church's Patriarch Kirill said "Russia took a responsible decision to use military forces to protect the Syrian people from the woes brought on by the tyranny of terrorists."
The Patriarch, who often weighs in on political matters in support of the Kremlin, said armed intervention was necessary since "the political process has not led to any noticeable improvement in the lives of innocent people, and they need military protection."
He cited the suffering of Christians in the region, the kidnapping of holy mans and the destruction of churches, adding that Moslems "are suffering no less."
Church front man Chaplin said that the decision on military action "corresponds with international law, the mentality of our people and the special role that our country has always played in the Middle East."
A senior Moslem holy man also backed the military intervention, saying Syrians are "practically our neighbors."
"We fully back the use of a contingent of Russian armed forces in the battle against international terrorism," said Talgat Tadzhuddin, head of the Central Spiritual Administration of Moslems of Russia, in comments to RIA Novosti state news agency.
"Gov. Romney, I'm glad that you recognize that al-Qaida is a threat, because a few months ago when you were asked what's the biggest geopolitical threat facing America, you said Russia, not al-Qaida. You said Russia ... the 1980s, they're now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because, you know, the Cold War's been over for 20 years,"