



"Syrian government forces recaptured a Mamluk-era citadel in Palmyra from the extremist Islamic State group on Friday, Syrian state media and monitoring groups said, as the fierce battle for control of the historic town entered its third day.

Syrian and Russian warplanes struck at least 56 targets inside IS-held areas of the city and pro-government militias supported the army’s advance, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group.

Palmyra has been controlled by the extremist group since May. The militants have destroyed some of its best known Roman-era archaeological relics.

Government forces Friday cut the road between Palmyra and another IS bastion, the town of Qaryatayn, weakening the group’s hold over its two central Syrian outposts, according to the pro-government Lebanese Al-Mayadeen TV." Washpost

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/fighting-against-is-rages-in-central-syrian-town-of-palmyra/2016/03/25/446a01ec-f26b-11e5-a2a3-d4e9697917d1_story.html

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I searched about in the US media today looking for coverage of the fight now raging in eastern Syria for the towns of Palmyra (Tadmur) and Deir az-Zor and all I could find is this AP article in the Washington Post. In that fight Russian air power and the weapons and advice that Russia provides continues to play a major and probably decisive role.

Earlier today I listened to Colonel (Ret.) Jack Jacobs MOH tell the world on MSNBC that the Russian intervention in Syria had been altogether useless, solely designed to "prop up" the Syrian government, had done nothing against IS and that the provision of Russian support against the rebels and IS had ended with no result. Well, pilgrims, Jacobs is a good soldier. He knows war. His statements must be based on a reliance on government provided information, a reliance that his MSNBC employers must accept and sanction. A couple of days ago the following exchange took place between Mark Toner, a State Department spokesman, and a reporter concerning the US government's preference for an outcome in the present battle for Palmyra.

"No, I mean, look, I mean, broadly speaking, it’s not a great choice, an either/or, but – which is worse, Daesh or the regime – but we think Daesh is probably the greater evil in this case'. (See https://www.rt.com/usa/337119-us-fails-palmyra-isis/ "

It is noticeable that TV network news is studiously averting its eyes from the obvious evidence of the efficacy of Russian assistance in the fight against the Nusra Front (al-Qa'ida) and the Islamic State (Da'esh). The Russians and Syrian government are also receiving the defections of many CIA supported "seculars" in western Syria and putting them back into the fight as village guards after training at Tartous on the coast.

To fill the time, the 24/7 news obsesses over the idiocies of the US presidential primary elections and moment by moment coverage of Europe's jihadi melt-down. And then, last week there was the marvel of Obama's pilgrimage to Cuba, his apologies for past American misdeeds (largely notional) and his ineptitude as a tango dancer. All these are or were grand distractions from the important events of today's world scene.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote that the USSR was a "muffled zone" in which the truth could not be known because the system would not allow it to be known. The Borgist collective's American branch is obviously happy to have achieved the same result. In the American nomenklatura the narrative imposed by Obama and friends in their search for hegemony (they would call it American :leadership") has destroyed the information base that Americans would need to understand the world, but, that was the idea, was it not? pl