{"id":13373,"date":"2018-08-31T10:24:36","date_gmt":"2018-08-31T10:24:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=13373"},"modified":"2018-08-31T10:24:36","modified_gmt":"2018-08-31T10:24:36","slug":"kremlin-highlights-need-to-strike-militants-in-idlib","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=13373","title":{"rendered":"Kremlin highlights need to strike militants in Idlib"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nMOSCOW: Russia will begin a major naval exercise in the Mediterranean on Saturday, the Ministry of Defense announced, a move the Kremlin said was justified by a failure to deal with militants in Syria\u2019s Idlib province.<\/p>\n

\nIdlib and areas surrounding it are the last major enclave held by rebels opposed to Syrian President Bashar Assad, a close Russian ally, and a source has told Reuters he is preparing a phased offensive to regain it.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThis hotbed of terrorists (in Idlib) does really not bode anything good if such inaction continues,\u201d Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe situation in Syria has a significant potential to become more complicated and the situation around Idlib leaves a lot to be desired,\u201d he said after the announcement of the naval drills, which appeared aimed at deterring the West from carrying out strikes on Syrian government forces.<\/p>\n

\nSyrian Foreign Minister Walid Al-Moualem met his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow on Thursday, saying \u201cwe will go all the way\u201d in Idlib and declaring the Nusra Front group, formerly the local branch of Al-Qaeda, as the main target.<\/p>\n

\nThe Russian Defense Ministry said more than 25 warships and support vessels and around 30 planes, including fighter jets and strategic bombers, would take part in the Mediterranean drills which it said would last from Sept. 1 to Sept. 8.<\/p>\n

\nThey would involve anti-aircraft, anti-submarine and anti-mining exercises. Ships from Russia\u2019s Northern, Baltic and Black Sea Fleets would take part as would vessels from its Caspian Flotilla.<\/p>\n

\nThe \u201cMarshal Ustinov\u201d missile cruiser would lead the drills.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIn the interests of ensuring the safety of shipping and air traffic and in line with international law, the areas of the exercise will be declared dangerous for shipping and flights,\u201d the ministry said.<\/p>\n

\nThis followed the announcement on Tuesday of Russia\u2019s biggest war games next month since the fall of the Soviet Union in the country\u2019s central and eastern military districts.<\/p>\n

\nRussia has been expanding its naval forces in the Mediterranean this month, part of what a newspaper has called Moscow\u2019s largest naval build-up since it entered the Syrian conflict in 2015.<\/p>\n

\nAnatoly Antonov, Russia\u2019s ambassador to the US, warned Washington on Thursday against what he called \u201cgroundless and illegal aggression against Syria.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nAntonov said he had told US officials Moscow was concerned by signs that the United States was preparing new strikes on Syria.<\/p>\n

\nThe UN has called on Russia, Iran and Turkey to delay a battle that could affect millions of civilians.<\/p>\n

\nUN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura told reporters that there was a high concentration of foreign fighters in Idlib, including an estimated 10,000 terrorists, but it would be better to set up humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians than rush into a battle which could turn prove to be a \u201cperfect storm.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MOSCOW: Russia will begin a major naval exercise in the Mediterranean on Saturday, the Ministry of Defense announced, a move the Kremlin said was justified by a failure to deal with militants in Syria\u2019s Idlib province. Idlib and areas surrounding it are the last major enclave held by rebels opposed to Syrian President Bashar Assad,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":13374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}