How They See Us: Escalating The Violence In Syria

Is the US trying to provoke a war with Russia? asked Anastasia Vlasova in Moskovsky Komsomolets (Russia).

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An American F-18 fighter jet shot down a Syrian government Su-22 warplane this week; the Pentagon claimed the aircraft had bombed US-backed Kurdish and Arab fighters battling Daesh in northern Syria. This attack was an outrageous violation of Syria’s sovereignty and a clear escalation of US involvement in the civil war. But it didn’t come out of nowhere: Several times in recent months, US warplanes have bombed the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad – a key Russian ally – supposedly because they were getting too close to US commando bases. “It is clear that there is no justification here about any kind of defense,” said Russian lawmaker Franz Klintsevich. “It was open aggression, meant, above all, to provoke Russia.”