We need long range missiles. The S-200 is probably a bargain although the price probably went up after on bagged an Israeli fighter. They are some pissed about that.
Israel Says It Will Step Up Attacks Against Syria – News From Antiwar.com
Claiming more stray artillery fire landing inside the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, Israeli officials are promising to “step up” their strikes
against Syrian military targets in response, including attacks over the weekend in southern Syria.
Throughout the Syrian War, Israel has repeatedly attacked Syrian military targets. Syria has insisted that cross-border stray shells weren’t fired by them ion the first place,
accusing Israel of “framing” them to justify the attacks. Israel doesn’t appear to really deny that, saying they don’t bother to try to figure out who fired anything that crosses into their occupied territory, and that they consider the Syrian military responsible for everything. This works quite well, as Israeli politicians have been very public about preferring a rebel victory,
even an ISIS victory, in Syria.
Syria’s Foreign Ministry
has urged the UN to rebuke Israel over the attacks, saying they are violations of the UN Charter. They have further warned continued Israeli attacks would have “grave consequences.”
Tillerson Demands Iran "Militias" Leave Iraq As Fighting Against ISIS "Comes To A Close" | Zero Hedge
One week
after we reported that the head of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard (which two weeks ago
was designated by the US as a terrorist organization), Qassem Soleimani, was observed in Erbil last Sunday where he met with Kurdistan regional president Barzani to "discuss" the growing crisis - the latest indication of Iran's surging influence in the region - and just days before Iraq sent in troops assisted by Iranian militia into Iraq's Kurdish region, which promptly regained control over the oil-rich Kirkuk region, on Sunday Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that
Iranian "militias" need to leave Iraq as the fight against Islamic State militants was coming to an end.
“Certainly Iranian militias that are in Iraq, now that the fighting against (the Islamic State group) is coming to a close, those militias need to go home,” Tillerson said during a press conference in Riyadh, where the U.S. diplomat is holding talks with top Gulf officials. "
All foreign fighters need to go home,” he added hopefully,
quoted by NRT.
Tillerson's Gulf visit came as part of concerted efforts to curb Iran's rapidly expanding influence in the region,
including boosting the clout of Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia in Shiite-majority Iraq, where Iran backs Shia militias fighting in the north - part of a wider regional battle for influence that extends from Syria to Yemen - even as there was scant hope of a breakthrough in attempts to reconcile Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
In further attempts to limit Iranian influence, Tillerson called on European governments to join a U.S.-led sanctions regime against Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, saying that countries doing business with the Islamic Republic’s force do so at their own risk. The Revolutionary Guards “foment instability in the region and create destruction in the region,” Tillerson told reporters in Riyadh on Sunday quoted by
Bloomberg, after talks with King Salman of Saudi Arabia and other top officials. European countries and companies that do business with the IRGC “really do so at great risk,” he said.
https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201710231058476907-us-iran-iraqi-kurdistan/
The US has suffered a defeat from Tehran in Iraqi Kurdistan, RIA Novosti contributor Gevorg Mirzayan writes, adding that Iran managed to outmaneuver the US and help Baghdad regain control over the oil-rich province of Kirkuk. According to the academic, the Iraqi operation may also affect the US-backed Kurds' independence plans in Syria.
While threatening Tehran to annul the Iran nuclear deal, Washington has lost to the Islamic Republic in the Middle East, Gevorg Mirzayan, an associate professor at the department of political science at the Finance University of the Russian Government,
wrote for RIA Novosti.
"Washington actually gave its Kurdish allies up to Baghdad" after it had not prevented the Iraqi Armed forces from retaking Kirkuk from Peshmerga, he noted, adding that "the defeat of the United States turned into Tehran's victory: the Iranians emerged as one of the main beneficiaries of this crisis."
The independence referendum that took place on September 25 had become the trigger point for the crisis. More than 90 percent of the voters taking part in the referendum in Iraqi Kurdistan backed the region's independence from Baghdad. Iraqi authorities declared the referendum illegal, while Turkey and Iran criticized the vote.
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201710231058479548-daesh-massacre-syria-civilians-retreat/
A human rights group has claimed that Daesh executed at least 128 Syrian civilians in the town of Al-Qaryatayn, which has been traded between the militant group and the Syrian Arab Army multiple times. The civilians were massacred in reprisal for collaborating with the government of Bashar al-Assad.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that the killings occurred over a 20 day period. The Syrian army retook the city in April 2016 after eight months of Daesh occupation. However, Daesh chased the government forces out on October 1 — but the Syrian army regrouped and returned three weeks later, recapturing the city once more with support from Russian airstrikes.
But in that three-week period, Daesh executed 128 residents of the town, which had a population of about 18,000 before the civil war started. The Palmyra Coordination Committee, a local group that supports protest and resistance against the Syrian government, reported that at least 35 of the slain were found with their bodies dumped in a mine shaft.
TASS: Russian Politics & Diplomacy - Coalition wants Raqqa to be a Syrian center beyond Assad
The immediate allocation of millions of dollars and euros for Raqqa is another example of how the US-led coalition uses double standards in Syria, Frants Klintsevich said
PressTV-'IAEA not authorized to inspect Iran's military sites'
IAEA not authorized to inspect Iran’s military sites: Russia 
