Some links/notes on Syria:

President Assad gave an interview to a group of Russian media: The video (in English) interview and the official English transcript:

"Who are ISIS? And who are these groups? They are simply extremist products of the West."

McClatchy reports that the Islamic State military commander is a former Georgian special force soldier of Chechen ethnics. He was – tata – trained by the U.S. military. Most of the other people in the Islamic State leadership have at some point been in U.S. internment in Iraq.

A U.S. General told Congress that only 4 or 5 of the Pentagon trained Syrians are fighting ISIS. He did not say that the 10,000+ CIA trained Syrians are fighting with ISIS. He was not asked about them.

Yesterday 38 Syrian people in Aleppo, including 14 children, were killed by rockets launched by the U.S. supported insurgents.

The UK polling company ORB International did a (maybe) representative poll (data) in Syria, including in the insurgents/Islamic State occupied regions.

82% think that the Islamic State has been created by the United States.

The positive/negative influence on Syria of persons and entities were polled as:

Assad 47/50
Iran 43/55
GCC 37/55
AQ 35/63
FSA 35/63
Opposition Coalition 26/72
IS 21/76.

Watching this video of young and able men, so called "refugees", fighting against police at an inner-European border leads me back to the question of who sent them.

The new State Department spokesperson Kerby is another hapless windup doll just like his predecessors. BTW – who picked that Rear Admiral as State spox?

The U.S. admits that is has "boots on the ground" in the Kurdish regions in Syria helping targeting the Islamic Sate. Emptywheel asks if those boots on the ground are also helping the Kurds against Erdogan.

Former Indian diplomat MK Bhadrakumar on the Russian deployment in Syria (recommended):

The only option open to the US will be to dump the IS altogether and bury the project to manipulate militant Islamist groups as an instrument of its regional policies and to further its containment strategy against Russia. But then, it is not so easy to kill one’s own progenies.

I am not so sure that dumping IS is the only alternative. Though most experts say that the U.S. should cooperate with Russia against IS I rather expect the White House to escalate the conflict.