WND EXCLUSIVE

RUSSIA PREPARING TO EXPAND AIRSTRIKES TO IRAQ

After series of bombing raids in Syria

Aaron Klein

JERUSALEM – After a series of bombing raids in Syria, Russia is updating battle plans to carry out possible airstrikes in Iraq as soon as next week, Middle Eastern defense sources told WND.

The sources said Moscow is awaiting a more formal request from the Iraqi government before expanding its campaign targeting insurgents in the region, a campaign that U.S. officials believe is primarily about asserting Russian influence.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Wednesday and Thursday made a series of comments supportive of Russian intervention in his country.

This after Iraq announced earlier this week it recently established an intelligence-sharing platform with the Russians, Syrians and Iranians.

The intelligence coordination could potentially jeopardize U.S. security, because the U.S. maintains its own intelligence-sharing channels with Iraq.

“It’s a possibility; if we get the offer we’ll consider it,” Abadi told France 24 television in an interview recorded Wednesday and broadcast Thursday, speaking about future Russian air strikes in Iraq. “In actual fact, I would welcome it.”

Abadi further told the PBS “NewsHour” he already spoke with Russia over the matter.

“Our message to the Russians — I met with Putin — please join this fight against Daesh, he said, referring to the Arabic acronym for ISIS. “Daesh is a dangerous terrorist organization, not only against Iraq, against Syria, against the whole region, against the whole world. It is time that we all join the same forces to fight Daesh.”

On Thursday, Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, said his country has not been invited by Iraq to act against ISIS there.

“We are polite people, we don’t come if not invited,” Lavrov told reporters on the sidelines of a U.N. gathering of world leaders.

Ilya Rogachev, director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s department for new challenges and threats, said Moscow would consider airstrikes in Iraq if invited by the country.

“If we have either a corresponding request from the government of Iraq or a resolution from the U.N. Security Council, the adoption of which to a conclusive degree matches the will of the government of Iraq,” said Rogachev. “If we have these sufficient grounds, then the political and military appropriateness will be evaluated.”

Major Syrian ground operations

Russia’s first air strikes in Syria, carried out Wednesday, were followed immediately by a series of major Syrian army ground operations targeting rebel positions, including in some areas not controlled by ISIS, WND reported Thursday.

The information furthers reports from U.S. officials that the Russian strikes on Wednesday targeted U.S.-backed rebels in Syrian neighborhoods where the rebels have received CIA arms, funding and training.

Russia has insisted it only targeted ISIS positions. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov told reporters on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly that the Russian air forces are working in conjunction with the Syria military to “exclusively” target ISIS.

“Rumors that the targets of these strikes were not [ISIS] positions were groundless,” Lavrov stated.

A Russian Defense Ministry statement said the Russian air force targeted and destroyed eight positions belonging to ISIS on Wednesday. An additional statement on the ministry’s website says “four more ISIS facilities” were targeted late at night.

“Su-24M and Su-25 aircraft performed 8 sorties eliminating the staff of terrorist groupings and an ammunition depot near Idlib as well as a three-level HQ centre near Hamah,” read the statement.

“As a result of pinpoint bomb attack, a plant aimed for preparation of cars for explosion located in the north of Homs is completely destroyed,” the statement read.

French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian disputed the Russian claims of only targeting ISIS, telling lawmakers in Paris: “Curiously, they didn’t hit Islamic State. I will let you draw a certain number of conclusions yourselves.”

The Wall Street Journal cited U.S. officials saying Russian warplanes hit areas controlled by rebels backed by the CIA.

And the anti-Assad Syrian National Council told Sky News that the Russian strikes killed at least 36 people in the western city of Homs, including five children. The council said none of the areas targeted was controlled by ISIS.

Responding to the report, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman claimed to Sky News that the claims of civilians being killed are part of an “information war … which, it appears, someone prepared well.”

The Russian Foreign Ministry website stated “all the airstrikes of the Russian aviation are coordinated with the command of the Syrian army.”

Syria’s state-run SANA news agency described a massive Syrian military ground operation immediately following the Russian airstrikes. Not all of the Syrian operations as cited by SANA targeted ISIS positions.

Two Lebanese sources told Reuters that hundreds of Iranian troops have arrived in Syria to fight alongside Hezbollah and Syrian forces backed by Russian airstrikes.

“The (Russian) airstrikes will in the near future be accompanied by ground advances by the Syrian army and its allies,” one of the sources said, according to Reuters.

“It is possible that the coming land operations will be focused in the Idlib and Hama countryside,” added the source, described as being familiar with the military and political developments.

The Russian airstrikes hit the rebel-held towns of Rastan and Talbisah, north of Homs City, as well as the towns of Al Latamneh and Kafr Zeita in Homs province, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a U.S. think tank based in Washington, D.C.

Following the Russian strikes, a military source told SANA that a “number of terrorists were killed and others were injured, and one of their ammunition stores was destroyed in the continued army operations against dens and positions of Jabhat al-Nusra and other terrorist organizations in the villages of Jibbata al-Khashab and Tranjeh.”

In the northern countryside of the southern Quneitra province, near the Israel-Syria border, Syrian army units destroyed dens and vehicles of Jabhat al-Nusra and other Takfiri organizations, SANA reported.

In Aleppo, Syrian forces targeted what the SANA agency called “terrorists’ hideouts” near the al-Nairab airport and in the villages of al-Ridwaniyeh, Arbid, al-Jabboul, Ain al-Jamajmeh, Tal Istabl, Tal al-Naam and Tal al-Hattabat in the eastern countryside of Aleppo province.

Operations also targeted Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS terrorists near Aleppo’s air force academy and in the neighborhoods of Khan al-Asal and al-Mansoura on the western and southwestern outskirts of Aleppo City, reported SANA.

In Daara, SANA reported rebels were targeted by Syrian ground forces in the Samlin village and the cities of Inkhel and Jassem. And the Syrian agency reported that in Homes, an army unit destroyed an armored vehicle and a cannon belonging to ISIS terrorists.

The Russian military moves in Syria come less than two weeks after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during a visit to Moscow that Israel and Russia had agreed to coordinate military moves in Syria to avoid the possibility of the two countries accidentally trading fire.

While Netanyahu’s visit to Moscow was mostly portrayed as an effort to allay Israeli concerns about Russia’s military build-up in Syria, common threats, such as ISIS, were discussed along with cooperation that could extend beyond just the coordination of military moves is Syria.

Netanyahu’s trip to Moscow generated images of the Israeli leader seated next to Putin in the Russian capital ahead of his visit with Obama in the White House on Nov. 9.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/10/russia-preparing-to-expand-airstrikes-to-iraq/#4jI6wVp8w0w7tt3S.99