DEBKAfile Syria.

This is coolbert:

As anticipated from DEBKAfile the response to the accelerated movement of Russian military personnel into Syria:

1. "Arab sources: First Russian officers in Syria"

30 August.

"Russian army officers have arrived in Damascus and Jablah in the Latakia district, where they are building a new military base on the Mediterranean coast, Arab sources reported. They also claimed that Moscow had begun to supply Damascus for the first time with satellite imagery."

2. "Russia gearing up to be first world power to insert ground forces into Syria"

1 September.

"All of Russia?s steps to lay the groundwork for its ground forces to intervene in the Syrian civil war are being coordinated with the US and Iran. As their coordination tightens, so are the preparations for the first direct big-power military intervention in the Syrian war picking up speed. They have been accelerated by the ISIS advance this week closer to central Damascus than any anti-Assad group had ever achieved. Moscow is not ready to allow Bashar Assad's rule to be endangered."

Although DEBKA has noted that Russian intervention perhaps has been stimulated by events such as this:

3. "ISIS in surprise raid seizes parts of Damascus, shells TV station"

31 August.

"In a surprise attack Monday, the Islamic State overran the Qadam district of southern Damascus, bringing its forces closer to the center of the Syrian capital than any other anti-Assad group before."

For Assad the chickens are coming home to roost and neither he nor the Russian is glad.

coolbert.