Sep 30, 2015 Russia appears to have begun carrying out air strikes in Syria against opponents of President Bashar al-Assad, a US defence official says. The official said the strikes reportedly came in the area of the western city of Homs. Washington was informed in advance that they were about to take place. The development came amid reports that President Assad had formally requested Russian military support. Reports from Russia say the upper house of the Russian parliament granted President Vladimir Putin approval to deploy the Russian air force in Syria. Syria's civil war has raged for four years, with armed groups - some of them Islamist, including the Islamic State (IS) group - have been fighting to overthrow the government. Criticism The US defence official said: "A Russian official in Baghdad this morning informed US embassy personnel that Russian military aircraft would begin flying anti-Isil [IS] missions today over Syria. He further requested that US aircraft avoid Syrian airspace during these missions. "We've seen media reporting that has suggested Russian missions have begun." The official declared a US-led coalition would continue to fly anti-IS missions over Iraq and Syria as planned, and expressed criticism of Russia's move. "While we would welcome a constructive role by Russia in this effort, today's demarche hardly seems indicative of that sort of role and will in no way alter our operations. "It also only underscores the need to begin having meaningful deconfliction discussions very soon." Syria's civil war Image copyrightReuters What's the human cost? More than 250,000 Syrians have been killed and a million injured in four-and-a-half years of armed conflict, which began with anti-government protests before escalating into a full-scale civil war. And the survivors? More than 11 million others have been forced from their homes, four million of them abroad, as forces loyal to President Assad and those opposed to his rule battle each other - as well as jihadist militants from IS and other groups. Growing numbers of refugees are going to Europe. How has the world reacted? Regional and world powers have also been drawn into the conflict. Iran and Russia, along with Lebanon's Hezbollah movement, are propping up the Alawite-led government. Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are backing the Sunni-dominated opposition, along with the US, UK and France.
Sep 30, 2015 Why are you hating so much? I like to keep s80 active and i make threads on current s--- that can cause discussion.
Sep 30, 2015 I'm poking fun.. relax I was just wondering what your motives were.. thanks for explainin
Sep 30, 2015 I posted relevant s---. Red used to spam like 20 threads a day at one point just to get plus lol.
Sep 30, 2015 I got plus a long long time ago. I'm a staff member. You not seen my icon? I have no incentive to spam threads or posts.
Sep 30, 2015 I stopped posting news stories because barely anyone responds to them. I had been posting news stories since the rap basement days when people actually payed attention to the news section. Instead this board would rather spend most of its time arguing in the off topic section
Sep 30, 2015 I don't even know the easiest way to get plus with the new system I guess I'm going for the 10k/10k...if that's still a thing.
Sep 30, 2015 Help us nuke the offtopic section and improve the news section. We need to get our intellects up in this bih!
Sep 30, 2015 is this post serious? @Flacko is already staff/plus...so he doesnt need to post just to post...moreover..he is by far the best thread creator in the history of this forum and if you dont think the topic of this thread is thread worthy...then wow
Sep 30, 2015 1. I made a mistake 2. I made a mistake 3. This is certainly news worthy.. but the userbase hasn't shown an aptness nor ability to discuss intellectual things in a serious manner.
Sep 30, 2015 i could show graphs, but SXN80 hits/posts been in a complete uptrend since last year November (3.5x times what we were in november last year)..we are growing slowly and hopefully we will soon reach the point where we can have active political discussion
