The New Worker
The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
Week commencing 16th October 2015
SYRIAN troops and people’s militia units have surged forward on all fronts against ISIS and the Muslim Brotherhood in co-ordination with Russian air power this week. But in Damascus two terrorist mortar shells hit the Russian embassy on Tuesday to disrupt a huge rally outside the building in support of the Russian intervention.
The demonstrators had been waving Russian flags and holding up large photographs of Russian President Vladimir Putin when the shells landed. Two Syrians were injured but none of the embassy staff were hurt.
In recent days, Syrian troops have liberated large areas of the country and inflicted massive losses on the “Islamic State”. ISIS militants have lost most of their ammunition, heavy vehicles and equipment Russian Defence Ministry said on Tuesday. At least 86 ISIS targets were hit during 88 sorties in the last 24 hours. Russian bombers, together with ground support aircraft targeted ISIS positions in the provinces of Raqqah, Hama, Idlib, Latakia and Aleppo, according to the ministry. The jets hit command posts, ammunition and armament depots, military vehicles, plants producing explosives, field camps and bases
Russia’s war on terror went into its second week pounding the terrorists who are financed and armed by imperialism and America’s feudal Arab lackeys. Russian aviation has been more effective in one week of airstrikes than the US and its allies have been in more than year, raising questions about whether or not Washington ever really wanted to eliminate ISIS.
Meanwhile Turkish dreams of becoming US imperialism’s chief henchman in the Middle East have turned to dust as the country plunges into chaos following a deadly bombing of a peaceful demonstration in the capital, Ankara, that left 128 people dead and injured many more last weekend.
Two blasts took place at a rally organised by pro-democracy and peace activists who were calling on the government to stop its operations against Kurdish rebels, which the reactionary Justice and Development Party (AKP) government launched in July. The Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) says it was the target of the attack, as many of its members were attending the rally.
The Turkish government claims ISIS was responsible. Many Kurds think the government did it themselves to create a climate of fear to pave the way for the outlawing of all legal Kurdish parties and the imposition of martial law throughout Turkish Kurdistan.
True or false the Turks were playing with fire with ISIS which has its own sectarian agenda and its own resources now that it controls some of Iraq’s oil fields.
The AKP government, which is little more than a front for the Turkish Muslim Brotherhood, was a staunch supporter of the Brotherhood government in Egypt overthrown by the army in 2013. The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood set up shop in Turkey when they moved, in concert with imperialism and other Islamic movements, for “regime change” in Syria. And Turkey continues to be the major conduit for funds, arms and volunteers that fuel the bloodshed in Syria.
All of this was encouraged by the United States and Turkey’s other Nato allies who thought they could oust the Syrian popular front government in the same way as they got rid of Gaddafi in Libya. The determination of the Syrian people to fight and the support of Syria’s friends and allies has now proved all of them wrong.