Russia Goes Big on ISIS

Russia goes big on ISIS

The old adage "go big or go home" may not have crossed the mind of everyone that wants ISIS destroyed, however Russian President Vladimir Putin has done just that in retaliation for the ISIS bombing of Metrojet 9268. Putin vowed retaliation and “We will find them anywhere on the planet and punish them,”, and he has already begun to do that in a big way. The sheer size of Russia bombing operation is one of the largest in decades. From The Daily Beast:The Russian air force just pulled off one of the biggest and most complex heavy bomber missions in modern history—sending no fewer than 25 Backfire, Bear, and Blackjack bombers on a coordinated, long-range air raid against alleged ISIS forces in Syria.The Tuesday mission, which launched under the cover of darkness from a base in Ossetia in southern Russia, signaled a significant escalation of Moscow’s air war in Syria—and heralded the rebirth of Russian heavy bomber squadrons that once had withered from a lack of funding.Gen. Valery Gerasimov, chief of Russia’s general staff, announced the raid on Tuesday, calling it part of “a new plan [for] the air campaign.” See more from The Daily Beast.In total, 34 air launched missiles were used.https://youtu.be/OXP5AyDNnAcThis video is decent, however the French bombing compilation was done better.News of Russia strikes came with some other interesting information. First, this attack marks the first time Russia has given us warning of an imminent strike:

Russian warplanes battered the Islamic State stronghold of Raqa in Syria on Tuesday, after giving the United States a "professional" warning of an imminent strike, US officials said.

Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said it was the first time Russia had shared information on "some of their operations" since Moscow began its bombing campaign on September 30.

"I don't have the exact amount of time they gave us, but it was professional," Cook said.

"There was advance warning, giving us the opportunity if we had had aircraft in the area that we could have made adjustments. That wasn't necessary in this case." - Yahoo News

This is intriguing as it looks as if the for the time being the U.S. and Russia could be on the same page in dealing with Syria. The reality is that this is temporary, and is more of the U.S. tagging along, while France, Russia, and Germany (just a prediction) lay waste to ISIS.The second notable piece of information came from ISIS. They had already taken claim for the bombing of the Russian plane, and now they are showing the device used:The Islamic State group has released a photo of the bomb it says was used to bring down a Russian passenger plane in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula last month, killing all 224 people on board.The picture was published in the latest issue of the extremist group's English-language magazine, with the caption "EXCLUSIVE - Image of the IED used to bring down the Russian airliner." -CBS News

What we can take from this. ISIS may have picked a much larger fight than they could ever attempt to prepare for. With the United States already conducting operations in the area, it was a terrible idea to pick a fight with France, and an even worse idea to mess with Russia. A country that does not really care what others think about them, and are more than willing to hunt their enemies to the ends of the earth.[mwi-cat-listing cat="94" ppp="4" cols="4" desc="false" type="view" btn_color="black" ]