World Events and the BibleWEB Notes: Make no mistake about it, the failure of the rebels is by design to literally bring the world powers into this conflict. We see that happening with each passing day. Now the powers of the world are openly arming the rebels and taking steps to intervene with their own military.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Thursday, June 20, that Moscow will honor its controversial contract to deliver S-300 air defense missile systems to Syria. He spoke the day after the announcement that two warships carrying 600 Russian marines were heading for Syria “to protect the Russian citizens there” along with air force cover as needed. Lavrov told Russian TV: “We respect all our contracts and are honoring all our contractual obligations.”
debkafile: Both Russia and the United States are pumping more arms into Syria for the decisive battle for Aleppo between the HIzballah-backed Syrian army and heavily mobilized rebel forces.
debkafile reported earlier:
Just one day after the G8 Summit ended in the failure of Western leaders to overcome Russian resistance to a resolution mandating President Bashar Assad’s ouster, Moscow announced Wednesday June 19, the dispatch to Syria of two warships carrying 600 Russian marines. They were coming, said the official statement, “to protect the Russian citizens there.” Russian Deputy Air Force Commander Maj.-Gen.
Gradusov added that an air force umbrella would be provided the Russian expeditionary force if needed.
debkafile’s military sources report that the pretext offered by Moscow for sending the force thinly disguised Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intent to flex Russian military muscle in response to the delivery of Western heavy arms to Syrian rebels – which debkafile first revealed Tuesday, June 18.
Putin was giving the West due warning that if they persisted in arming the rebels any further, a Russian troop landing in Syria would take place in the guise of an operation to evacuate endangered Russian nationals.
Some 20,000 Russians live in Syria. In former stages of the conflict, they were given the locations of assembly points should Moscow decide to lift them out of the war-torn country. The evacuation of Russian citizens would in itself dramatically denote the expansion of the Syrian conflict.
The Russian Interfax news agency identified the warships heading for Syrian shores as theNikolai Filchenkov Large Landing Ship and the Vice Admiral Kulakov, a Udaloy 1 class destroyer, each carrying 300 marines. Aboard the former are also 20 tanks and 15 armored troop carriers or military trucks, while the Kulakov is designed mainly for anti-submarine warfare.
debkafile’s military sources also reveal that, although Moscow described the warships are preparing to depart for Syria, they have actually been cruising in the Mediterranean since mid-May. Upon receiving their orders, they could reach Syria in just a few hours.
Maj.-Gen. Gradusov was quoted as saying: “We won’t abandon the Russians and will evacuate them from the conflict zone, if necessary.”
Asked if the Russian aircraft were intended as air cover for the Russian warships coming to Syria, he declined to answer, saying said only “They will act on orders.”
The Moscow communiqué does not say when the Russian forces are scheduled to reach port in Syria or in which part of the country they are to operate. Our military sources say their impending presence in the war zone and the possibility of Western-supplied weapons in Syrian rebel hands causing Russian casualties are enough to contribute three more perilous dimensions to the Syrian conflict:
1. The harming of Russian soldiers would give Moscow an excuse to pile on more military reinforcements in Syria;
2. Russian air power is on its way to Syrian airspace before any decision is taken in the West about imposing a US-led no-fly zone over Syria;
3. The presence of Russian military personnel in Syria would pour more fuel on the already highly incendiary diplomatic and military tensions between Washington and Moscow over this conflict. – Debka: Lavrov: Russia will honor its S-300 missile contract with Damascus. Two Russian warships head for Syria
First European & NATO heavy arms for Syrian rebels. Russian reprisal expected
NATO and a number of European governments, most significantly the UK, have started airlifting heavy weapons to the Syrian rebels poised in Aleppo to fend off a major Syrian army offensive, according todebkafile’s exclusive military sources. They disclose that the first shipments were landed Monday night, June 17, and early Tuesday in Turkey and Jordan. They contained anti-air and tank missiles as well as recoilless 120 mm cannons mounted on jeeps. From there, they were transferred to rebel forces in southern Syria and Aleppo in the northwest. – Debka: First European & NATO heavy arms for Syrian rebels. Russian reprisal expected
http://brandontward.blogspot.com/2013/06/world-war-by-proxy-russias-lavrov-says.html
I was reading up on a story that seems to have gotten under the radar with these weapons and that Croatia apparently sold theirs to Iran but Iran, Croatia and Russia deny this yet Russia has been airlifting components and spares to Iran for some time now which seems to indicate that Iran indeed does have the S300 in some numbers.
On Wikipedia, it is noted that Syria’s ones wouldn’t travel by sea but would be landed by one of the daily airlifts between Russia and Syria, its also noted that the Syrian ones will have Russian personnel with each deployment making any potential strike against a Syrian S300 a dangerous game for Russian retaliation. One can only hope the Rabid Rabbi’s and their hawkish friends in Washington really recognise that Syria to them is now a failed mission and that to be honest Iran is probably unattainable now as a target too.