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World | Tue Nov 17, 2015 11:35am EST Related: World, Russia, Syria U.S. says Russia gave advance notice of strikes on Syria's Raqqa WASHINGTON | By Phil Stewart Russia gave the United States advanced notice before launching a "significant number" of strikes in Syria on Tuesday targeting the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa but a U.S. official said the former Cold War foes were still not coordinating militarily. France has appealed to Washington and Moscow to join in a grand coalition to fight the Islamist group that controls swathes of Syria and Iraq and has claimed responsibility for Friday's attacks...

Full title: EXCLUSIVE: Vladimir Putin's media Svengali who was found dead in DC hotel was 'murdered for being an FBI informant' - or could even still be alive, claim Russians The death from a 'heart attack' of a longtime close ally of Vladimir Putin in a Washington hotel has led to a swirl of speculation that he was murdered on Moscow's orders after offering to help the FBI. The shock death has created an eave of speculation in Moscow that it is related to previous reports that he was helping the FBI - and could be murder. There are even...

During Tuesday's Republican debate, Donald Trump repeated his claim that if he became president he would strive to work with Russia's leader, Vladimir Putin. The American billionaire went so far as to suggest he supported the Russian president's intervention in Syria, adding that he understood Putin as "I got to know him very well because we were both on '60 Minutes,' we were stablemates, and we did very well that night." Trump's friendly message to the Russian leader received a rebuke from another candidate, Carly Fiorina, who explained that she would not work with Putin. "I have met him as...

Confirmation of Attack on Russian Jet May Strengthen Putin’s Resolve in Syria By NEIL MacFARQUHAR NOV. 8, 2015 MOSCOW — The main bell in St. Isaac’s Cathedral in St. Petersburg tolled 224 times on Sunday, once for each victim of the destruction of a Russian charter flight in Egypt a week ago. Although President Vladimir V. Putin and his aides at first indignantly dismissed suspicions of a terrorist act, the Kremlin has since then clearly come to grips with the idea that a bomb was probably involved in the crash: Late Friday it suspended all travel by Russians to Egypt,...

Experts say Syria insurgents used mustard gas on foes near Aleppo November 6, 2015 12:00 AM By Anthony Deutsch / Reuters THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Chemical weapons experts have determined that mustard gas was used in a Syrian town where Islamic State insurgents were battling another rebel group, according to a report by an international watchdog seen by Reuters.

In 1999, a series of apartment bombings in the Russian cities of Moscow, Buinaksk and Volgodonsk killed around 300 people and set off a national panic. Then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin responded swiftly, overseeing the launch of an offensive in the breakaway republic of Chechnya and vowing to eliminate the Islamist fighters the Kremlin blamed for the attacks.That take-no-prisoners response to terrorism propelled Mr. Putin, then a relatively little-known former intelligence officer, to the presidency. And it became a pattern: Under his leadership, Russia has dealt ruthlessly with terror attacks, including the siege of a Moscow theater in 2002 and a...

The Russian Defense Ministry denies US allegations that Russian warplanes in Syria are bombing regions, which are out of President Assad’s control, rather than terrorist infrastructure, Russian Defense Ministry Spokesperson Igor Konashenkov said on Thursday. He explained that US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland told Congress hearings held earlier that the Russian air group in Syria delivered most of its strikes at regions which were no longer under the control of President Assad’s regime rather than at terrorists. "If we analyze what various US officials say, there is an impression that the location of terrorist-held facilities is the most...

Russia and Egypt on Thursday dismissed suggestions by Britain and the United States that a bomb was likely to have brought down a Metrojet flight packed with Russian vacationers coming home from an Egyptian resort, saying the claim was premature. A spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, Dmitry Peskov, insisted that aviation investigators were working on all possible theories as to why the Airbus A320-200 carrying 224 people crashed Saturday in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, killing everyone on board. He said naming just one possibility was mere speculation.

Washington (CNN)Ben Carson laid out his plan for handling war-torn Syria on Sunday, with a heavy focus on Russian President Vladimir Putin. "My much bigger plan involves, you know, Putin and Iran also," Carson said on ABC's "This Week" Sunday. "Those are the forces that are propping up the Assad regime. And even though Putin came in there and said he was going to fight ISIS, he's really fighting the anti-Assad forces. What we need to be thinking about is how do we oppose him?" It's a tricky situation for whoever will take the White House next year: finding a...

Russia's Defense Ministry says the military has conducted a series of ballistic and cruise missile launches from various sites across Russia in the latest demonstration of the nation's resurgent military might. The ministry said Friday's exercise involved launches from ground sites, sea and air in what appeared to be one of the largest such maneuvers this year.

Boko Haram has evolved from a local terrorist group to a regional and global security threat....Since then, Boko Haram has increased its frequency of terror attacks in Nigeria, pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, and expanded geographically to launching attacks in other West and Central African countries, such as Cameroon, Chad, and Niger. ...snip.... The U.S. support is also coming rather late in the game. The U.S. commitment of troops in Cameroon came only after China, Russia, Germany and France had already committed to help Cameroon, through defense cooperation agreements (Russia) and by providing sophisticated military equipment (China, Germany) and...

Moscow — Vladimir Putin fiercely derided the U.S.’ current bombing campaign in Syria during a speech before the Valdai Club, saying, “It is impossible to prevail over terrorism if some of the terrorists are being used as a battering ram to overthrow undesirable regimes.” Deftly weaving a tongue-in-cheek attack on the schizophrenic American involvement in the Middle East, Putin stated that “It’s always hard to play a double game — to declare a fight against terrorists but at the same time try to use some of them to move the pieces on the Middle Eastern chessboard in your favor. There’s...

Ted Cruz, last week, on Russia, Syria, Obama, 'missile defense' and the New START treaty with Putin..."If we want to actually dismantle ISIS, we need to dramatically change course. We need a real, robust campaign that maximizes our overwhelming air advantage. We need to focus our efforts not on trying to create friends, but on supporting our real ones, especially the Kurds in Iraq and Syria who have actually had success against ISIS."-snip- "We can redouble our efforts to develop the defensive weapons that neutralized the offensive Soviet threat -- particularly missile defense, which has seen a 25% budget reduction...

The Obama administration began implementing its landmark nuclear agreement with Iran with an eye toward lifting expansive sanctions imposed on Tehran in the past decade. Concerns from opponents of the deal continued to grow, however, as senior administration officials during the weekend played down the importance of a United Nations probe into whether Tehran has attempted to secretly develop the technologies needed to build atomic weapons.The U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, is committed under the deal to release a report by year-end about the status of Iran’s alleged weaponization work. U.S. officials over the weekend said the...

Russia has launched rocket strikes on Islamic State targets in Syria from its warships in the Caspian Sea, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu says. Mr Shoigu was quoted by Russian media as saying four warships launched 26 sea-based cruise missiles on 11 targets, destroying them.

BEIRUT/MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia bombed Syria for a third day on Friday, mainly hitting areas held by rival insurgent groups rather than the Islamic State fighters it said it was targeting and drawing an increasingly angry response from the West. The U.S.-led coalition that is waging its own air war against Islamic State called on the Russians to halt strikes on targets other than Islamic State. "We call on the Russian Federation to immediately cease its attacks on the Syrian opposition and civilians and to focus its efforts on fighting ISIL," said the coalition, which includes the United States, major...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - International monitors say they have spotted a new kind of Russian weapons system in rebel-held Ukraine this week, possible evidence of Moscow's continued interest in Ukraine even as it focuses on Syria. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which is monitoring a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine, reported that its monitors had seen a mobile TOS-1 'Buratino' weapons system for the first time. The Buratino is equipped with thermobaric warheads which spread a flammable liquid around a target and then ignite it. It can destroy several city blocks in one strike and cause indiscriminate damage. Only...

BOGUCHAR, Russia (Reuters) – Russia is planning a second major military base near the border with Ukraine, where NATO accuses Russian troops of helping pro-Moscow separatists fight Kiev’s forces.The new base will house 5,000 soldiers and heavy weaponry, according to public documents and people working at the site.It is further east than one under construction in Belgorod region reported by Reuters earlier this month but still close to the border with separatist-held parts of Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk region, where there has been heavy fighting.The bases are part of a Russian military buildup along a new line of confrontation with the...

As the Pentagon warily eyes a Russian military build-up in Syria, Western intelligence sources tell Fox News that the escalated Russian presence began just days after a secret Moscow meeting in late July between Iran’s Quds Force commander — their chief exporter of terror — and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Fox News has learned Quds head Qassem Soleimani and Putin discussed such a joint military plan for Syria at that meeting, an encounter first reported by Fox News in early August. ...” The Quds Force is the international arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, involved in exporting terrorism to Iran’s proxies...

Russia and Iran have formally reached a deal for Moscow to deliver Tehran advanced S-300 missile systems, deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov told RIA Novosti on Wednesday afternoon. "As things stand now, this topic is closed," Bogdanov stated. "We have reached full understanding on the matter together with our Iranian partners." "The question has been fundamentally solved," he stressed. "The rest is just technical details."