A publication on April 26 in Vzglyad, the Moscow online analytical website, reveals with open sources, including American ones, how this option would work. This is an unofficial translation into English.

The EW Krasukha systems well-tested in real combat in Syria

By Andrei Rezchikov and Nikita Kovalenko

“Because of the actions of our unidentified enemy today, our military in Syria are in the most aggressive electromagnetic environment on the planet," said the American general. It is clear that such an enemy means Russia, actively using the means of electronic warfare in Syria. What are Russian electronic warfare systems capable of and why are Americans so afraid of them?

General Raymond Thomas, the head of the special operations command of the US armed forces complained at the closed Symposium GEOINT 2018 that “opponents” are jamming the system of American aircraft in Syria. He did not specify which “opponents” he means, but called the current situation in electronic warfare “the most aggressive in the world”. However, the publication Drive, quoting the general, expressed confidence that this is about Russia.

Left: General Raymond Thomas speaking at GEOPOINT 2018, which took place between April 22 and 25. Listen to his speech and read the DRIVE report of April 25 at http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/20404/american-general-says-adversaries-are-jamming-ac-130-gunships-in-syria Right: DRIVE’s published photograph of the Russian Krasukha-4 electronic warfare system.

“They test us every day, suppress our communications, disable our (fire support aircraft) AC-130,” added Raymond Thomas.

Earlier, the NBC TV channel, citing unnamed US officials, reported that Russia has blocked the radio signals of US drones in Syria, which has significantly affected US military operations. The Russian military allegedly began to interfere with US drones “after a series of alleged chemical attacks in Eastern Ghouta.”

The editor of the magazine Arsenal of the Fatherland, Alexei Leonov, does not believe that in Syria there was an unprecedented situation in terms of the use of electronic warfare. “In fact, it has not affected the habit of Americans to fight with a weak opponent. After 1991, the United States led all its military conflicts against states whose EW [Electronic Warfare systems] were very weak or not used at all,” he told Vzglyad.

In the assessment of Leonov, the US is now clearly inferior to Russia in the effectiveness of EW systems, primarily for the reason that the Americans stopped paying these technologies due attention. Back in the 1990s, during the first war in the Persian Gulf, the Americans actively used electronic warfare equipment because at the time the Iraqi army was quite developed, and it was necessary not to allow their air defense and intelligence to detect the accumulation of American troops in the main targeting direction, the expert recalled.

But they began to relax, and since then they have developed only one effective electronic warfare system based on the F-18 aircraft to cover aviation units, Leonov said. “Russia did not stand still. And now the Americans, when they have watched our electronic warfare systems, they have recognized that they are among the best in the world”, he added.

“The characteristic of American means of communication is that they work in the K-band. We know this range, so this range was configured in the electronic warfare systems that could be jamming the signal and to catch all the communications,” said Leonov. In addition, Americans in Syria mainly use airborne electronic warfare systems; in Russia they are deployed in ground systems. “Ground systems will always be more powerful and stronger than air ones due to the energy supply,” the source says.

This has long been said by a former head of electronic warfare for the US Army Laurie Buckhout. “Our most serious problem is that we have not fought for several decades in conditions of suppression of communication, so we do not know how to fight. We not only do not have tactics, techniques and procedures for their implementation, but even the preparation for the conduct of hostilities in the absence of communication."

In the Federation Council it was noted after the statements of General Thomas that Moscow has nothing to do with the failure of electronic systems of American aircraft in Syria. “I do not know who they mean by opponents, but Russia has nothing to do with this, these claims are unfounded”, RIA Novosti was told by the first Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Defense and Security, Yevgeny Serebrennikov.

However, the fact that Moscow denies involvement in the impact on US military equipment does not mean that Russia does not use electronic warfare in Syria at all. In particular, to repel the recent raid of drones which tried to attack the Russian airbase at Khmeimim, along with Pantsir-S anti-aircraft missile and gun complexes, EW was extensively operated. According to a source of Izvestia in the Main Operational Directorate (GOU) of the General Staff, after detecting the danger at a distance of about 10 km, the electronic warfare system silenced the GPS signal over a certain area, disabling the navigation and control system of the drones.

A British expert on the Russian armed forces Roger McDermott sees the superior effectiveness of Russian electronic warfare in repelling the drone attack. He is convinced that Russia maximizes the ability of electronic warfare, achieving impressive results. According to him, unlike NATO, Russia has integrated military command, communications, intelligence, space, cyber and electronic warfare.

In early January, 13 drones with homemade bombs attacked the Khmeimim airbase and the naval base at Tartus; seven of them were destroyed by Pantsir-S, and another six were intercepted by EW units. Some experts have also assumed that during the recent US missile strike on Syria radio-electronic means of suppression were used to intercept some of the cruise missiles, as a consequence of which many missiles simply did not reach their targets. At the same time, some military experts have questioned this, given the complexity of the signal suppression systems of these Tomahawks.

What kind of electronic warfare means is Russia using in Syria? Detailed information about this is unavailable in the open press because of the increased secrecy surrounding this topic. However, the press has often received fragmentary information, much of it thanks to the activity of Syrian bloggers who have repeatedly photographed examples of Russian weapons. This is how the transfer to Khmeimim was reported of the ground-based jamming system Krasukha, along with Mi-8 helicopters equipped with active interception system Richag-AB. In late March, the Russian Defence Ministry transferred to Syria the latest model of electronic warfare helicopters, Mi-8 MTPR-1.

Official Defence Ministry video presentation of Russian EW equipment: https://vz.ru/politics/2018/4/26/919811.html

The Mi8 MTPR-1. For a detailed review from 2015, read this.

About the EW [operations in Syria] too little is known. The Krasukha was unveiled in 2011. Several modifications were created. The most powerful option – Krasukha-4 – ‘silences’ airborne aircraft radars, including drones and cruise missiles. A killer electronics system Richag-AB refers to the latest developments and entered service only in 2016. It disables not only the navigation devices of aircraft, but also drones and cruise missiles.

According to some observers, the EW intelligence complex Moskva-1 is designed for a detection and tracking range of 400 kilometers for overhead sources of radiation at different radio frequency ranges.

In addition, as Vzglyad has reported, EW-equipped SU [Sukhoi] aircraft are deployed in Syria in various modifications. In particular, there is the well-known myth about the suppression of [radar and fire-control] systems of the American destroyer USS Donald Cook by the Khibiny system, which has been designed to block radio-electronic signals. As noted by experts, in fact the capacity of this system is quite limited; it is not enough to ‘stun’ American destroyers.

What, then, can EW really do? Military expert Dmitry Drozdenko in an interview with RT noted that such means muffle the channels of communication, and introduce blockages in the frequencies used by the US military to exchange information. “As a result, information is not received between the control centers and combat units; in fact, the armed forces are blinded. If a radar installation searches for a target and tracks the space around it, it sees not only the real targets, but also a large number of false ones,” he explained.

Lenkov said that all the electronic warfare systems work on one principle: perform the tasks of intelligence, that is, determine the frequency and modes of communication and navigation, and their whereabouts. After that, the signal begins to jam. “The power of the signal is more than the transceiver, and therefore it makes for reliable jamming of communications, intelligence and navigation,” the expert said.

As pointed out by US General Thomas, the AC-130 aircraft is particularly vulnerable to our EW attack. The Lockheed AC-130 is a flying gunship for direct support of land force divisions on the battlefield, based on the transport plane C-130 and equipped with several artillery pieces. This aircraft is very dependent on backup from supporting units, and if you block its communication channels, at night it will not be able to identify its objective, or in the afternoon to distinguish other [hostile] forces from its own. This means that if [the AC-130] can attack, there will be a high risk of hitting the allied forces.

Moreover, according to the general, there is a danger of impact by Russian electronic warfare even on the EC-130H Compass Call. One of the tasks of the EC-130H is to detect the EW suppressors of the enemy and transfer data about them to the allies for counter-strikes. However, the electronic warfare equipment of the enemy is able to crack it in order to lure the American forces to attack their own.

Blocking with the help of EW signal transmitters and GPS receivers can not only make it impossible for aircraft and warships to attack targets, but also create problems with their navigation, said the American. In addition, radio-electronic weapons may interrupt the communication of operators with drones, which can lead to their loss.

In addition, General Thomas stressed that for the time being Russia is not operating EW in Syria at full capacity. If Russia starts [to do that], the United States will lose all its communication in the region. The former head of electronic warfare for the US Army Laurie Buckhout adds that the US does not have such extensive capabilities for electronic warfare as Russia has.

“We have very good radio intelligence, and we can listen to everything. But we do not have one- tenth of their capabilities to disable equipment,” she said.

Where and for what reason do American generals produce such self-criticism and such laudatory notes about the Russian systems? This may well be aimed, for example, at trying to extract additional funds for the military budget. Hearings on that in the Senate, by the way, were just held on Thursday.

Source: https://vz.ru/politics/2018/4/26/919811.html

By John Helmer, Moscow

At the start of April President Vladimir Putin believed he could postpone Russia’s strategic and battlefield responses to the state of war which the US is escalating. He was to be disappointed.

On April 6, the US Treasury announced it is putting the state aluminium monopoly United Company Rusal out of business, not only in the US but worldwide. Not since July 26, 1941, when President Franklin Roosevelt froze Japanese assets in the US and prohibited all US trade with Japan, especially metals and oil, as well as all US dollar transactions, has the American state attempted such a thing against a rival Great Power. Roosevelt calculated it was one deterrent step short of US war with Japan. Everybody understands now that miscalculation led to Japan’s decision to make its preemptive strike against the US Navy at Pearl Harbor, five months later.

There is another, earlier precedent for the US Treasury’s act of war against Russia. That was on November 21, 1806, when Napoleon issued his Berlin Decree. That forbade the export of British goods to Europe or other states controlled by the French military, or the imports of goods on which Britain depended from its empire. Too weak to defeat the British Navy or invade the British islands, Napoleon opted for economic sanctions, retaliating for the trade blockade imposed by the British Navy around the French coastline, starting in May of that year. “It being right,” Napoleon had declared as the justification for his blockade, “to oppose to an enemy the same arms she makes use of, to combat as she does, when all ideas of justice and every liberal sentiment (the result of civilization among men) are discarded.” The British had extended war beyond military operations, Napoleon added in his decree: “it cannot be extended to any private property whatever, nor to persons who are not military, and until the right of blockade be restrained to fortified places, actually invested by competent forces.” The Continental Blockade, thus launched, lasted until Napoleon’s first abdication in April 1814.

On the fourteenth of this month the US launched its assault on Syria, agreeing in advance with the Russian General Staff to avoid Russian forces and Russian-defended targets. That attack was a military failure. But with continuing Israeli operations from the air against Syrian, Iranian and Russian targets, Putin has been requested by the General Staff and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu to authorize the deployment of Russian S-300 missile defences to deter and destroy fresh attacks. Putin has been delaying this decision.

Then on April 25 US forces broke into the Russian consulate at Seattle. This was the second such attack by the US on Russian diplomatic territory in the US; the earlier one was on September 2, 2017, when the Russian consulate in San Francisco and simultaneously, Russian trade mission offices in Washington and New York.

The Russian Foreign Ministry called the US actions “illegal invasion”, and violations of the Vienna Convention, but not acts of war.

In the past four weeks Putin has called his Security Council into session just twice. The first was on April 6, to discuss, according to the Kremlin communique, border control plans. The second Council meeting took place on April 19, which the Kremlin reported as discussing “the recent Western airstrikes…[and] measures to prevent floods and wildfires.”

Putin took several important decisions besides, but he did it out of sight at the Novo-Ogaryovo dacha, and for his own reasons kept them secret.

On Rusal it is now clear the President told his current spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, to call the attack on the company “illegal”, but not an act of war. Putin refused to agree to nationalization of Rusal when he met with one of the advocates of this option, the leader of Russia’s trade unions, Mikhail Shmakov.

At Novo-Ogaryovo on April 13, the President met with Mikhail Shmakov, Chairman of the Russian Federation of Independent Trade Unions. Source: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/57251

Instead, without revealing his contacts with Oleg Deripaska, Putin decided to delegate to him the initiative for responding to the April 6 sanctions. This was also confirmed with Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, whom Putin called to the dacha on April 17, along with the Kremlin economic adviser, the minister for economic development, and the chairman of the Central Bank.

At Novo-Ogaryovo on April 17, Putin met with presidential economic adviser Andrei Belousov (2nd left), Finance Minister Anton Siluanov (1stleft) , Economic Development Minister Maxim Oreshkin (2nd from right) and Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina (right). Source: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/57269

Siluanov was told to meet US Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin in Washington and see what shareholding arrangement the US Government will accept for Deripaska and his shareholding associates in the Yeltsin family to keep control of Rusal; and at the same time release Rusal itself from the global trade embargo. For details of their negotiation on April 20, read this. For the shareholdings of the Yeltsin family in Deripaska’s stake, look at this. What has been concealed of the Rusal shareholding arrangements and beneficiaries can be followed in this backfile.

Siluanov returned from Washington and reported back to Deripaska. On April 26 Deripaska filed an application to the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) at the Treasury for extension of the time to reorganize; Mnuchin had already announcedthis three days earlier, on April 23. Mnuchin had told Siluanov the target of the sanction was not Rusal, but its “entanglement with Oleg Deripaska”, as the Treasury press release called it. They have yet to agree on what Mnuchin will accept as disentanglement.

Deripaska then announced through EN+ that he has “agreed in principle [sic]… to reduce his shareholding in the Company to below 50%. In addition, in conjunction with ‎efforts to engage with OFAC as described above, Mr. Deripaska has agreed… that he will resign from the Board and consent to the appointment of certain new Directors such that the Board will comprise a majority of new independent [sic] directors.”

Deripaska persuaded the Financial Times to headline the move: “Deripaska agrees to relinquish control of sanction-hit Rusal”. Noone in Moscow, including the President, believes this.

Silently, Putin has decided to protect Deripaska; not to call the US attack on Rusal an act of war; and to test the Americans with an offer of a limited armistice. International bankers close to Russian business believe it is a Russian illusion that an armistice with the US can be anything but temporary; pursuing it is a miscalculation of US intentions, the sources add. They warn that new attacks will come. “The oligarchs,” the sources say, “will be put out of business by the Americans unless they choose – either return to Russia and face a very different future from the one they have enjoyed until now; or leave Russia, join the American side; lose what they own in Russia to the state. There is no middle position. That’s what the US economic strategy means. There’s no modern precedent for an attack like this. Putin isn’t prepared.”

By deciding against nationalization of Rusal, one of the international sources claims, Putin has retreated from the Napoleon precedent on the economic front. In Syria, military sources in Moscow believe, Putin has opted for one step short of extending Russian missile defence beyond the Russian air and naval bases to cover the territory now controlled by the Bashar al-Assad government.

This was discussed by Putin with General Staff chief Valery Gerasimov and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu on April 20. The Russian military, they told the President, want the go-ahead to deploy S-300 missile batteries to cover Syrian and Iranian forces against US and Israeli attack from the air. They believe Israeli threats to attack the S-300 batteries as soon as they are operational are a bluff which Russia must call if Russia’s positions in Syria, and Iran itself, are not to come under subsequent attack from the American-Israeli combination. Testing the threat in Syria, they argue, is the less threatening, less costly option than encouraging the Americans and Israelis to prepare their offensive against Iran. Putin won’t agree.

At Novo-Ogaryovo on April 20, Putin greets General Valery Gerasimov. Source: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/57311

To respond to Putin’s reluctance, the General Staff and the Defence Ministry have devised a step short of the S-300, but with potentially enough defensive power to intercept or deter American and Israeli air attacks. This is the deployment of more Russian electronic warfare systems with the capacity to jam the surveillance, targeting, fire control and command signals on which the attackers rely. It is the Samson Haircut option – deprive the giant of control of his firepower, blind him.

A publication on April 26 in Vzglyad, the Moscow online analytical website, reveals with open sources, including American ones, how this option would work. This is an unofficial translation into English.

Source: https://vz.ru/politics/2018/4/26/919811.html

by Thierry Meyssan

The more time passes since the allied attack against Syria on 14 April 2018, the more the available information reveals the amplitude of the disaster. While the United States still mange to prevent leaks from their armies, those from France are irrevocable. Washington, Paris and London clearly demonstrated that they still intend to rule the world, but they also showed that they no longer have the means to do so.

One week after the allied attack against Syria, very many questions remain unanswered concerning the objectives of this operation and its implementation. And the few established facts contradict the official Western declarations.

The objectives of the bombing

According to the Western version of the story, these bombing attacks were not aimed at overthrowing the Syrian Arab Republic (which they call « Bachar’s régime »), but to sanction the use of chemical weapons.

However, no proof of the use of such weapons has been published. Instead, the three allies each broadcast evaluations based on the original video published by the White Helmets [1] — a video which was itself later contradicted by many of the people who appear in it, as well as the personnel of the hospital where it was filmed [2].

On the contrary, we are justified in asking whether the real objective of these raids may indeed have been to overthrow the Republic. This seems to be confirmed by the fact that missiles were fired at the Presidential palace in Damascus. This is also the interpretation by Russia, for whom the real Allied objective was to counter the « success of the Syrian armed forces in the fight to liberate their territory from international terrorism ».

The destruction of the pharmaceutical research centre in Barzeh remains a mystery. This installation was in no way secret. It had been created with the help of France. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons inspected it five times and found nothing that could be linked to research on chemical weapons [3]. According to officials, in the context of international sanctions, the laboratory was carrying out research on anti-cancer products. It was not guarded, and there were no victims in the collapse of the buildings. Neither did the collapse cause the dispersion of chemical agents into the atmosphere. This situation can not help but remind us of the destruction by the United States of the Al-Shifa factory in Sudan. In 1998, President Bill Clinton ordered its destruction, implemented by a salvo of four Tomahawk missiles, for a cost of one dead and ten wounded. The US intelligence services had assured that the laboratory was developing nerve gases for Oussama Ben Laden. It turned out later that it was Sudan’s main centre for the production of generic medicines [4]. In particular, it made anti-AIDS medicine without paying the license to Gilead Science, a company directed by Donald Rumsfeld and George Schultz [5].

The implementation of the operation

The Allies claim to have fired 105 missiles, while the Russians counted 103 [6]. The coordination between the different armies was handled by NATO, although it claimed no responsibility [7]. In conformity with its statutes, the Organisation acted with the approval of the North Atlantic Council, although this is not yet certain. Indeed, the Council had not been consulted before the bombing of Tripoli (Libya), in 2011, and no-one protested. The aim of this coordination was to ensure that all the missiles fired, whether from the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, and the air, would all hit their targets at the same moment. However, things did not go as planned – although the Allied operation was to have been finished within half an hour, in fact it took 1 hour and 46 minutes between the first and final shot.

Prior to the attack, Russia had announced that it would riposte if any of its soldiers were killed. The Allied armies were therefore tasked with the mission of being careful to spare them.

However, the Russian army observed the shots and transmitted the coordinates of the Allied missiles to the Syrian Arab Army in real time, in order to allow the Syrians to destroy them. Besides this, when the Syrians became swamped by the number of allied missiles, the Russian army deployed its system for inhibiting the commands and controls of NATO, which paralysed most of their launchers. This was the first time that the French were confronted with this system, which had already caused problems for the United States and the British in the Mediterranean, the Black Sea and Kaliningrad.

Besides this, two Russian ships left the port of Tartus to play cat and mouse with a British nuclear attack submarine. [8].

According to the Russian and Syrian staff, 73 missiles were destroyed in flight, a figure which is haughtily contested by the Allied staff. Yet, on the ground, everyone – including myself – could see the activity of the anti-aircraft defense, and no-one saw the impacts of the 105 allied missiles announced.

The Allies immediately specified that any more precise information was classified. However, the specialised forums proffered all sorts of unverifiable revelations about the massive failure of this operation. The most that we know for certain is that a French plane was unable to fire one of its missiles, and was obliged to jettison it out to sea without triggering it [9], and that two French multi-mission frigates suffered a computer failure and were unable to fire their naval Cruise missiles [10] — these are symptoms that are well known by anyone who has had to face up to the Russian inhibitor weapon.

The Syrian defence was over-run by the number of missiles which were fired from every direction. It therefore chose to defend in priority certain targets, like the Presidential palace, and to sacrifice others like the research centre in Bazeh. Since then, Russia has announced that it will be delivering new anti-missile batteries to Syria.

In any case, this operation is clearly the greatest military fiasco since the Second World War.

Western rhetoric

These bombings are certainly illegal from the point of view of international law – none of the three aggressors has been attacked by the Syrian Arab Republic, and their action was not authorised by the Security Council.

The Allies therefore communicated about the legality of their initiative. This was denied by the legal service of the German Bundestag. [11]. Indeed, apart from the fantastical character of the supposed attack in the Ghouta, this type of bombing in no way guarantees an end to the suffering of the civil population.

As for France, it continually stressed that it was not going to war against « Bachar’s regime » – comments that were immediately contradicted by Syria, which returned President el-Assad’s Grand Cross of the Légion d’Honneur to the Romanian ambassador, who represents French interests in Damascus. « There is no honour for President Assad in wearing a decoration attributed by a slave régime of the United States which supports terrorists », declared the Presidential spokesman.

Some authors close to NATO evoke the « responsibility of protection » (R2P) proclaimed by the UNO. Once again, that’s not the point. In fact, the R2P only applies in order to compensate failed states, which is clearly not the case of the Syrian Arab Republic, whose public services are still functioning after 7 years of war.

Finally, while the United States, France and the United Kingdom showed with this operation that they exist outside of international law, they also showed that their armies are not what they used to be.

Thierry Meyssan

Translation
Pete Kimberley

[1] “United States Assessment of the Assad Regime’s Chemical Weapons Use”, Voltaire Network, 13 April 2018. « Évaluation nationale du ministère français de la Défense sur l’attaque chimique du 7 avril 2018 », Réseau Voltaire, 14 avril 2018. “Syria action – UK government legal position”, Voltaire Network, 14 April 2018.

[2] “Witnesses take the sting out of the charge made by the White Helmets”, Translation Anoosha Boralessa, Voltaire Network, 14 April 2018.

[3] Last inspection : “Progress in the elimination of the Syrian chemical weapons programme”, by Ahmet Üzümcü , Voltaire Network, 23 March 2018.

[4] “Universalism and the West. An Agenda for Understanding”, in «The Future of War», Werner Daum, Harvard International Review, Vol. 23 (2) – Summer 2001.

[5] “War as a World Strategy”, Voltaire Network, 19 March 2003.

[6] “General Staff Colonel General Sergei Rudskoy holds briefing dealing with western attack against Syria”, by Sergei Rudskoy, Voltaire Network, 14 April 2018.

[7] “Fake “made in USA” and lies “made in Italy””, by Manlio Dinucci, Il Manifesto (Italy) , Voltaire Network, 17 April 2018.

[8] “British submarine in duel with Kremlin’s ‘Black Hole’ hunter-killer”, Mark Hookham & Tim Ripley, The Times, 16 avril 2018.

[9] «Frappes en Syrie : un des missiles Scalp « n’est pas parti » du Rafale», Guerric Poncet, Le Point, 18 avril 2018.

[10] «Couacs inexpliqués pour les missiles de MBDA au large des côtes syriennes», La Lettre A, 17 avril 2018. «Frappes en Syrie : un couac dans la marine a empêché le tirs de plusieurs missiles», Pierre Julien, RTL, 19 avril 2018.

[11] “Völkerrechtliche Implikationen des amerikanisch-britischfranzösischen Militärschlags vom 14. April 2018 gegen Chemiewaffeneinrichtungen in Syrien”, Bundestag, 18. April 2018.

But carriers are obsolete, some carrier fans think that a carrier in the neighborhood is a big deal. We’ve long been told that, so it must be true, right? And worth the investment of circa twenty billion for each carrier group, total eleven? Wrong.

Look at it this way. The US has had a carrier parked in the Persian Gulf most of the time, sometimes two (none right now). They were mainly used to fly sorties of destruction over Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. But they were also a part of the stupid US foreign policy toward the Islamic Republic of Iran. It was frequently summed up as “all options on the table.” Did Iran quake at the sight of a carrier continuously off its shore? No, because Tehran knew and Washington knew too that the carrier was a sitting duck if the balloon went up. It was a potential easy target for missiles, torpedoes and mines. Actually the carrier presence was an insurance policy AGAINST a US attack on Iran. Sending five thousand swabbies to Davy Jones’s locker is not an option for the Pentagon, no matter what some smart-ass politicians think.

By the way expensive obsolete carriers are high-maintenance way beyond Stormy Daniels territory. Of the eleven US carriers only two are currently deployed, which is about average.

There’s a bigger point here, and that is that the US military is pretty much useless for anything important, which it has fully demonstrated, and one reason is that corruption in military acquisition has only provided the troops with a bunch of expensive complex useless crap. So you can bet your booties that the arrival of the Truman probably portends some agreement between Russia and the US, in Russia’s favor. The US can claim that it was the carrier’s presence that ensured this or that and the carrier won’t have to do a damned thing, which is in its favor.

In the first 1990 Gulf War, for example, the performance of US Patriot missiles in shooting down Iraqi Scud missiles fired at Israel, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait was lauded by Western powers and the media. A 95% success rate was claimed at the time, with then President George Bush claiming that the Patriot’s record was “near perfect”. Over the following year however, the US Army lowered this estimate to 79% over Saudi Arabian skies and 40% over Israel. A later report by the General Accounting Office concluded that Patriot missiles destroyed only 9% of the Scuds they attempted to engage. The Israeli Defense Force calculated the hit rate at just 2%.

On the night of Jan. 25, 1991 in Tel Aviv, three Patriots that were fired into the air fell back to earth and exploded. Two of them hit residential areas and the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv reported at the time that one Israeli was killed, 44 were wounded, and 4,156 apartments were destroyed. That incident and a few others like it led Ted Postol, an MIT weapons scientist, to testify before a congressional committee that, “it is possible that if we had not attempted to defend against Scuds, the level of resulting damage would be no worse than actually occurred.”

In a documentary aired on Israeli television in 1993, Moshe Arens, who was Israel’s Defense Minister in the Gulf War, Gen. Dan Shomron, who was chief of staff of the Israel Defense Force during the war, and Haim Asa, a member of an Israeli technical team that worked with Patriots during the war, all dismissed the Patriot anti-missile system. General Shomron described accounts of the Patriot’s success as “a myth.” Mr. Asa called them “a joke.” All concurred with a 1991 report by the Israeli Air Force, which concluded that “there is no evidence of even a single successful intercept” although there is “circumstantial evidence for one possible intercept.”

The point being, the US has a track record of lying about the effectiveness of its missiles.

By Elijah J. Magnier – @ejmalrai

Donald Trump has climbed down from the tree he climbed up a few days ago when he gathered a large military force and firepower similar to “Operation Desert Storm” (but without ground forces). “Plan A” consisted of a destructive attack on Syria to destroy its army, presidential palace, command and control bases, elite force, strategic military and ammunition warehouses, radar, defence systems and political leadership institutions.

Prior to the triple attack on Syria by the US – UK – France, intensive contacts were carried out by Russia and President Vladimir Putin himself – at around 04:00 AM – to reduce the attack and negotiate a softer, less significant “Plan B”.

Russia, in its contact with several heads of state, rejected any strike that could cripple the Syrian Army and instructed the leadership in Damascus that the West would now think very carefully before radically changing the balance of power in the Levant.

But what is the real reason behind the US – UK – France’s attack? Is it the claim of the “chemical attack” on Duma? The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons is already in Damascus and its members are visiting Duma this Saturday to inspect the location where the claimed use of a chemical attack was alleged to have taken place. Why not wait for the results?

Sources in Damascus explain that the Syrian Army and its allies, supported by Russia, were carrying out a large attack on rural Idlib and had reached Abu al-Duhur airport when, all of a sudden, the military operation stopped. The entire spearhead force was moved to Ghouta. What happened?

Russia had informed the Syrian leadership of a large gathering of forces at Al-Tanf US-occupied military base on the Syrian-Iraqi borders, where tens of thousands of US proxies have received continuous military training. The Russians identified unusual military movements and understood that the US was preparing to push Syrian proxy forces to reach eastern Ghouta, linking itself with around 30,000 jihadists in Ghouta itself. This attack was planned to take place simultaneously with a diversion from Daraa, southern Syria, attacking south of Damascus so as to deceive the Syrian army and its allies into leaving smaller forces around the capital.

The US plan – said the sources – consisted in supporting its proxies and the Ghouta jihadists to reach Damascus and take full control of it. But the shifting of the military operation from rural Idlib to Ghouta spoiled the US plan to impose on Russia an enforced stay in Latakia and Tartous, confined to a limited place, and to finally change the Syrian regime. This “ingenius plan” would have spoiled all Russia’s efforts expended through almost three years of heavy involvement in the war in Syria, and would have given the US the upper hand, just at the moment when Moscow and the Syrian Army were about to end the war, with only few more pockets left to liberate.

Russia’s strategy and action in Ghouta broke the US plan into pieces, and imposed the withdrawal of tens of thousands of militants from Ghouta along with their families, to the north of Syria. The capital is now much safer, with only pockets remaining south of Damascus occupied by Al-Qaeda and the “Islamic State” group (ISIS) in Yarmouk camp and al-Hajar al-Aswad.

Today Russia rendered the US – UK – France attack meaningless, both in respect of its content and its objectives. Russia was able to force the US – UK – France to carry out only a “limited attack” of little value, and with not much chance of altering the reality on the ground in Syria.

When Russia vowed to shoot down missiles fired at Syria, Trump answered: “Get ready Russia because they will be coming, nice, new and smart”. Russia, after the bombardment, replied: “We have used the old Soviet anti-aiir defence system against these smart, new and very expensive missiles fired by the Americans.” Not only that, the US-UK air strikes hit objectives which Israel bombards almost on a regular basis. By showing the capability to stop two-thirds – as declared by Russia – of the incoming missiles, Syria is taking it as a kind of “training with live ammunition against any future Israeli attack on Syrian territory.” Israel is very disappointed and seems not at all pleased with this end result.

Showing restraint and control, US Secretary of Defence James Mattis – he who said “the Pentagon still has no independent evidence to confirm that there was a chemical weapons attack in Syria last week” – opposed any wide scale attack on Syria that could have triggered a direct Russian involvement and a deadly return of fire against US assets. Mattis accepted “an honorable strike” to save his inexperienced boss’s face. In point of fact, the trio’s strike on Syria seems to have boosted the Syrian Bashar al-Assad’s reputation: the population celebrated in the streets of Damascus and mocked the western attack on their country!

The trio avoided at all times direct provocation of Russia, circumventing Russian bases and operational theatres instead of flying over them. Russia imposed its will and provoked the US and French navy by carrying out a simulated air attack to show its willingness to hit back. The Russian navy was positioned off the Lebanese coast to cover that angle and avoid blind spots.

Moscow managed to avoid a direct confrontation with Washington outside its bases: US military bases surround Syria (Israel, Jordan, al-Tanf, al-Hasaka, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrein, Iraq, Turkey). Russia remembers how Leonid Brezhnev fell into the CIA’s trap in 1979, when he supported the Mujahedeen six months prior to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Zbigniew Brzezinski said the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was deliberately provoked by the US: “It was an excellent idea. It drew the Soviets into the Afghan war and we gave them Vietnam.” Putin has avoided the same US trap almost 40 years later.

What is the next step?

All eyes are directed on the northern city of Idlib, controlled by al-Qaeda, now that the fate of Damascus is secured. But why Idlib?

The situation in Yarmouk camp, south of Damascus, seems directly linked to that of Fua and Kfarya. During the Zabadani negotiation, it was agreed between al-Qaeda and Damascus’s allies to keep away from al-Yarmouk, in exchange for the two besieged cities in the north of Syria. However, Damascus is now pushing to clean the capital completely, focusing on persuading its allies to bypass previous commitments.

As far as Daraa and Quneitra in the south are concerned, it seems no one in Syria seems willing to provoke the US and Israel at this tense moment; this will be left to the end. In al-Badiyah, the Syrian steppes, ISIS is totally surrounded and can only wait to be exterminated in the coming months.

Idlib remains despite the Turkish-Russian-Iranian economic and financial agreement. There is no doubt about the existence of strong differences of an economic nature between partners over Syria.

Turkish President Erdogan expressed his support and later satisfaction with the US strikes on Syria. Russia answered by asking him to deliver the city of Afrin to the Syrian government. Iran’s special envoy for Syrian affairs Ali Akbar Velayati overtly stated that the next objective is Idlib. Therefore, it is now feasible for Turkey to pull out of its dozen observation bases around Idlib, even as Russia pulled out of Afrin prior to the Turkish attack. And Russia expects Erdogan to cancel the previously agreed sale of the S-400 missiles any day.

Thus, the compass points to Idlib, Rastan, Jisr al-Shoughour and the Syrian Army forces gathering in rural Lattakia, ready to divide Idlib after liberating the many villages around it.

This will bring the world to the next “chemical attack” in the next operational theatre of the Syrian army and its allies. Would the US stand by al-Qaeda? Why not? The US has never really questioned the use of chemical weapons, as the US holds the largest stockpile of chemical weapons worldwide: for the US, the real issue is the defeat it faces in the Levant and the dominance of it by Russia.

Proofread by Algora Blog

Ziad Fadel

In the early hours of April 14, 2018, at specifically 3:55 a.m., the United States, Britain and France, launched a misguided campaign of noise and fire against the government and people of Syria. The targets were already known by the Syrian government since the Russians had negotiated them with Secretary of Defense, James “Mad Dog” Mattis. Since everybody knew Trump was going to do something, sometime, some way, all precautions were taken to protect lives and materiel. Syria’s most advanced jets were stored in fortified hangars or flown to bases such as Humaymeem where Russian personnel are stationed.

The attack involved two U.S. cruise missile carrying destroyers in the Red Sea; tactical aircraft flying from one aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean; and several B-1 bombers traced to new runways in American-occupied Al-Tanf near the Jordanian-Iraqi borders. The British fllew a wing of Tornado bombers carrying cruise missiles out of Akritiri Airbase in Cyprus while the French used their Mirages and Rafal bombers based in Jordan.

The combined forces used 110 cruise missiles 71 of which were either intercepted and destroyed by Syria’s Pantsir air defense systems or were electronically toppled by a force which will remain unmentioned. Only 39 cruise missiles reached any target, many of them falling harmlessly in the Syrian Desert.

The only targets hit were a scientific research facility in Barza which contained classrooms and laboratories. All material had been removed so that the Americans could claim falsely that they had destroyed a CW-related institution. Another building which the Americans were allowed to destroy was a military warehouse in Homs, at Misyaaf, which the Americans could not hit because all the missiles aimed at that target were electronically toppled. As the cruise missiles were being deflected, they exploded on the ground injuring 3 civilians. The NATO allies also fired 12 missiles at the Al-Dhumayr AB east of Damascus. Russian news says all 12 were downed by Soviet-era air defense systems.

Of the 110 cruise missiles fired, 14 of them were American Tomahawks. Most of the others were British and Fench. None of the British or French missiles hit any target. Complete failure and a lesson to the allies of the U.S.

An helicopter airbase near the Lebanese border was also struck. However, because the attack took place in the early hours, nobody was at the base and, conveniently, no aircraft were to be found.

One thing is absolutely certain: this was a training exercise to see how well NATO weapons would work. The enemy here, Syria and Russia, was in on the planning and knew ahead of time what the attacking force was going to do. There was high drama, what with Trump calling Dr. Assad an “animal”. There was puffing with Trump tweeting about his “new, smart” missiles in response to a Russian diplomat claiming his country would knock down all attacking missiles. But, of course, Trump fancies himself a great negotiator and managed to negotiate the rules of this engagement.

The first rule was that the Russians have to convince Dr. Assad that his country was going to be hit, but not hard. The second rule was that Dr. Assad could use all air defense assets at his disposal. The third rule of this idiotic game was that Russia would only give minimal assistance such that Trump’s “smart” missiles could reach some targets which were already prepared. The 4th rule was that Trump, May and Macron would be allowed to give orotund speeches with plangent, stentorian appeals to the loftiest platitudes about “joint action” when international norms were being violated. The 5th rule was that nobody would talk about selling lethal weapons to the Saudi chimpanzees so they could use them to violate international law by murdering innocent Yemeni civilians.

So much for the touted Anglo-American-French attack to punish Syria. YAWN. OH, YAWN.

Russian MoD: US alongside UK and France launched 103 cruise missiles and air-surface missiles on Syrian civil and military facilities, 71 missiles were intercepted by Syrian air defense systems.

Killed-0, slightly wounded 3 civilian. To repel the attack, Damascus deployed Soviet-made surface-to-air missile systems, including S-125, S-200, 2K12 Kub, Buk, Osa.

A strong message indeed. 250 million US$ literally wasted over night only to be intercepted by Soviet era anti-air defense systems..

Missiles intercepted / launched:
– Duwali airbase – 4/4
– Dumayr airbase – 12/12
– Baley airbase – 18/18
– Shayrat airbase – 12/12
– Mezzeh airbase (not used) – 5/9
– Homs airbase – 13/16 (slightly damaged)
– Barzeh and Jaramanieh – 7/30
Total interception – 71/103

In order, the effectiveness of these air defense systems were recorded as follows:

Pantsir-S1: 25 missiles fired, 23 hits scored.
Buk-M2: 29 missiles fired, 24 hits scored.
Kub: 21 missiles fired, 11 hits scored.
Strela-10: 5 missiles fired, 3 hits scored.
Osa: 11 missiles fired, 5 hits scored.
S-125: 13 missiles fired, 5 hits scored.
S-200: 8 missiles fired, 0 hits scored.

The complete ineffectiveness of the S-200 to successfully engage any of the attacking cruise missiles has been put down to the SAM system’s biased design towards intercepting high-altitude aircraft, not low-flying missiles.

The statistics likely fail to account for Western cruise missiles that were downed or driven off target due to ‘soft-kill’ electronic warfare systems – something which Russian sources will never confirm the use of.

In any case, going by official numbers, the interception rate of Syrian air defenses during the US-led missile attack stands at about 70 percent.

Two hundred American military troops have reportedly been killed in Syria along with approximately 1,800 American Private Military Contractors (PMC’s) by Russian air strikes, according to reports from two Russian news outlets: iarex.ru and wh24.ru The dead Americans were “revenge” for the Russian guys who died as a result of the American shelling reported in US media at the end of February.

The American troops and contractors were allegedly participating in “Rebel” activities to overthrow the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad, but were killed by fifth generation aircraft SU-57 air strikes on the east Ghouta area outside Damascus.

THAT is allegedly why the “White Helmets” – a group allegedly run by the “Army of Islam” and allegedly funded in part by George Soros – concocted an allegedly phony “Chemical Weapons attack” to give the US a public excuse for bombing Syria, says IAREX.ru.

NEWSWEEK reports that Mike Pompeo, the CIA director nominated to be secretary of state, told lawmakers Thursday (April 12) that the U.S. killed up to 200 Russians in airstrikes conducted against forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in February.

Prior to Pompeo’s statement, U.S. officials had remained silent about the number of casualties inflicted by a coalition assault on pro-Syrian government fighters that the Pentagon claimed opened fire on Syrian Democratic Forces in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor. Both a U.S.-led coalition and the Russia-backed forces supportive of Assad are battling the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) in the region, but recent tensions have produced fears of a conflict erupting between Washington and Moscow.

But American mass-media has remained silent about AMERICAN casualties inflicted by Syria and Russia in revenge for those dead Russians, says news outlet wh24.ru in Russia.

In March, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov strangely commented, “The time for negotiations has passed, the time of retribution has come.” No American media outlet could explain what Lavrov meant by those comments at the time. Now, with information about 200 dead American troops and 1800 dead American PMC’s, we have an idea what he meant.

Russia IAREX.ru reports:

“Russia does not intend to tolerate the antics of the United States either in Syria or elsewhere. And believe me, now in Ghouta [the turn-around] will be more abrupt than in Stalingrad. No live American soldier will leave from there.”

Over the past week, since the alleged “Chemical Attack” in Syria, the US has been publicly saying it would conduct missile strikes upon Syria over the purported use of chemical weapons against innocent civilians. But it is now becoming clear that the real reason for wishing to attack is the deaths of 2,000 Americans.

Perhaps if American troupes were not over there in Syria trying to forcibly overthrow its government, they wouldn’t have been killed.

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02:11

Video showing the Russian air strikes on east Ghouta which allegedly killed the Americans: