The US-led coalition’s strikes against the positions of the Syrian government were an attempt to prevent Damascus from taking control over the country’s border with Iraq, a member of the Hmeimim group of internal Syrian opposition Tarek Ahmad said.
'US Strikes Attempt to Prevent Damascus Link with Iraq Border Control'
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13950628001303
The attacks by the coalition planes near the Deir Ezzur airport were first reported by the Syrian army on Saturday night, and the Russian Defense Ministry later confirmed the attacks saying they killed dozens of servicemen and injured more, Russiya Segodnya reported.
Hours later, the attack confirmed by the US Central Command that said the Syrian army troops were mistaken for the ISIL terrorist group.
"Coalition strike on the governmental Syrian forces is an attempt to prevent the Syrian Army from advancing and taking control over Iraqi-Syrian border," Tarek Ahmad said.
According to the official, the coalition first aimed to "help ISIL to acquire control over cities on the border and Deir Ezzur is a capital of this province."
"Later, they would replace ISIL fighters with militants under their control or troops that belong to the states within the US-led coalition such as Turkey or Jordan.
The idea is to cut off Syria from Iraq and to create a buffer zone," Ahmad said.
In the first three days after the vaunted littoral combat ship (LCS) USS Montgomery was commissioned the warship suffered two engine casualties threatening to delay a pinnacle component to America’s naval superiority strategy.
US Navy’s Half Billion Dollar Warship Suffers Two Engine Failures in First Days
https://sputniknews.com/military/20160918/1045442578/navy-littoral-combat-ship-montgomery.html
The Navy’s newest littoral combat ship suffered consecutive engine casualties in the first three days following its commissioning ceremony forcing the ship to abandon its transit to San Diego and return to Florida for emergency repairs.
The USS Montgomery (LCS-8) became the third littoral combat ship in three weeks to suffer major engine failures calling into question the viability of the expensive program of half-billion dollar battleships that has been a pinnacle of the US Navy’s offensive military strategy in recent years.
The first casualty happened when the crew detected a seawater leak in the hydraulic cooling system. Later that day, Montgomery experienced a casualty to one of its gas turbine engines," read a US Navy statement to USNI (US Naval Institute) news.
"The built-in redundancy of the ship’s propulsion plant allows these ships to operate with multiple engine configurations. However, with the two casualties resulting in the loss of both port shafts, it was determined that the best course of action would be to send the ship to Mayport (Florida) to conduct both repairs," the statement continued. The Montgomery’s engine damage follows a string of breakdowns in earlier littoral combat ships including the Independence-class USS Coronado (LCS-4) and the USS Freedom (LCS-5) in recent weeks.
The United States has grounded dozens of its controversial F-35 fighter jets less than two months after declaring the warplanes ready for combat.
US grounds 15 F-35 aircraft after declaring them combat ready
http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2016/09/17/485149/US-F35-fighter-jet-Lockheed-Martin-malfunction
Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said in a statement on Friday that
15 jets were grounded "due to the discovery of peeling and crumbling insulation in avionics cooling lines inside the fuel tanks."
Of the grounded jets, 10 had already been declared “combat ready,” she said, describing the action as a “temporary pause in flight operations.”
Stefanek said that two of the grounded jets belong to Norway.
The faulty cooling lines affected a total of 57 aircraft, 42 of which are still in production, she added. The Air Force has so far received 108 of the jets and is planning to buy 1,763 of the warplanes.
Despite declaring the jet combat ready in July, the Air Force officials warned that they could continue to find more problems.
The new bug is the latest with the $400 billion Joint Strike Fighter program, which is described as the most expensive in the history of the Pentagon.
Earlier this year, a software problem caused the radar system of an F-35 to fail and forced the pilot to shut the radars off and turn them back on again in order to reset the system.
A fuel system deficiency, faulty diagnostic systems, cracks in wing spars, lack of high-fidelity simulators for combat missions, and a pilot escape system that could kill ejecting pilots are among the problems that has so far been cited for the system, according to Michael Gilmore, the Defense Department’s top weapons tester.
Rebels from the US-backed Free Syrian Army appear to have kicked a group of US special operations forces out of a Syrian border town, calling the fleeing Americans "infidels" and "crusaders." This incident, experts say, shows that groups Washington persists on calling "moderate" are in fact "mercenaries" and "fanatics."
US-Backed 'Moderate' Rebels 'Take US Weapons and Money But Hate America'
https://sputniknews.com/politics/20160918/1045432851/us-syrian-rebels-fanatics.html
The subgroup that did this supposedly is Ahrar al-Sham, which is a really nasty piece of work. It is as Wahhabist, as radical, as violent as [al-Nusra Front] or [Daesh]," former US diplomat Jim Jatras told RT.
Interestingly, Washington blocked Moscow's initiative to add Ahrar al-Sham, who often conducts joint operations with al-Nusra Front, to the UN Security Council's terrorist list, claiming that they are in fact moderate rebels and should be treated as a legitimate opposition to the government in Damascus.
The video showing US special operations personnel abruptly leaving the Syrian town of al-Rai surfaced on Friday. US troops were deployed to the region at the request of the government of Turkey to accompany the Turkish military and what the Pentagon described as "vetted Syrian opposition forces" in their operation aimed at freeing the area from Daesh.
American soldiers apparently received a chilly welcome from the rebels. "These are the kind of people we have been supporting here and
every once in a while we see their true colors, just as we saw in Benghazi, just as we saw in other countries where we support jihad terror groups and then we are shocked to find out that they have this really hostile and violent ideology," he added.
Sara Flounders, head of the International Action Center, also recalled the 2012 Benghazi attack that saw Islamists killing US Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans at the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya.
"Looking at this video certainly reminds us of what happened to US Ambassador Christopher Stevens in Libya and his whole unit in 2012, when they were executed by the very fanatical forces that the US had brought to life in order to pull down the government of Libya," she told RT.
Flounders referred to groups that the US "has helped to create, bring to life, arm and fund, recruited and trained through Saudi Arabia, Israel, Kuwait and Turkey" as "mercenary and fanatical forces" that hate the US "even if they're taking US arms and money." They are "fanatics who have no program for Syria and at the same time completely hate the US."
The Syrian government forces transferred a large number of the Syrian families to a safe place in the city of Aleppo, media reports said.
Syrian Families Transferred to Safe Zone in Aleppo City
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13950628001349
Tens of families were transferred from the Eastern districts of Aleppo city to safer residential places equipped with all the needed accommodations and facilities in the city's Salahuddin district, the Arabic-language media reported on Sunday.
The measure has been adopted by the Syrian government in a bid to prevent the terrorists' use and strikes on the civilian population.
The transfer of the Aleppo citizens to safe places came as the terrorist groups targeted Hamdania neighborhoods of Aleppo with rockets fire on Sunday, causing damage to civilians' houses and wounding a number of people.
Earlier on Sunday, a UN humanitarian group said it was frustrated by its inability to deliver badly needed aid to the divided Syrian city of Aleppo, as aid convoys were once again stuck at the border, due to failure by the Free Syrian Army's (FSA) to leave Castillo Highway in Northern Aleppo.
"There has been no progress, which is immensely frustrating for the humanitarian community on the ground," said David Swanson, an official at the UN's regional humanitarian affairs office for the Syria crisis.
"The UN stands ready to move with 20 trucks of food assistance as soon as we get the go-ahead, with another 20 trucks the following day," he said.
Dozens of trucks with UN relief supplies remain stuck on the Turkish border even as the truce, which started on Monday.
For the second day in a row, humanitarian aid was not delivered to the besieged neighborhoods of east Aleppo.
The statement came as the humanitarian aid convoys were once again stuck at the border, following the militants of Free Syrian Army's refusal to leave their section of the Castillo Highway in Northern Aleppo.
Due to the militant group obstinacy and their sporadic attacks, the Syrian Army Forces were required to return to the Castillo Highway in order to protect the Syria Red Crescent Society workers that were coming under fire.
The humanitarian groups will further attempt to deliver the aid again, however, there is no guarantee that the militants will leave the highway.
On the other side, The Syrian Foreign Ministry said the government authorities have done everything in their power to allow the passage of humanitarian aid into Aleppo's rebel-held east
A Somali general and at least seven of his bodyguards were killed on Sunday when their military convoy was hit by a suspected car bomb in the capital city of Mogadishu, a police officer said on Sunday.
Somali General, 7 Bodyguards Killed in Suspected Car Bomb Attack in Mogadishu
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13950628001346
“Military General Mohamed Roble Jimale and at least seven of his bodyguards died,” said police colonel Abdikadir Farah, Citizen TV reported.
Farah said the suspected car bomb hit the vehicle in which the general, also known by the name Goobaanle, was travelling. Many Somalis have a nickname often as commonly used as their proper name.
Another police officer blamed Shabab militant group for the attack.
