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Also, gunmen from the Jeish al-Fath coalition of extremist groups are pulling out their forces from Idlib and other towns in Northwestern Syria. The radical group started moving towards the Turkish border on Saturday after having experienced “the efficiency of the Russian aerospace forces’ strikes,” the As-Safir Arabic-language daily reported. The coalition is led by al-Nusra terrorist group, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, which is sponsored by Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar. The group seized the Idlib province this spring. The report said field commanders fear at any moment the attack of Syrian forces supported by Russian warplanes on the key town of Jisr al-Shugour, on the Lattakia-Aleppo highway.

The excuse of the Geneva collapse is a ruse. There was little optimism the talks would succeed. The real reason for the coming showdown in Syria is the success of Russia’s military intervention in defense of the Syrian government against the Islamic State and other extremist groups. Many of these groups are supported by Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United States in pursuit of overthrowing Assad.These three nations are all apparently poised for a ground invasion of Syria just as, by no coincidence, the Syrian Arab Army with Russian air cover is pushing to liberate perhaps the greatest prize in the Syrian civil war — Aleppo, the country’s commercial capital. The Russians and Syrians have already cut off Turkey’s supply lines to rebels in the city.On Saturday, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates joined the Saudis in saying they would intervene only as part of a U.S.-led ground invasion. The Obama administration has maintained that it would not send U.S. ground forces into Syria, beyond a few hundred special forces. But these U.S. allies, driven by fierce regional ambitions, appear to be putting immense pressure on the Obama administration to decide if it is prepared to lose Syria. Though Carter said he welcomed the Saudi declaration he made no commitment about U.S. ground forces. But Saudi Brigadier General Ahmed Asseri told al-Arabiya TV that a decision could be made to intervene at a NATO summit in Brussels next week. Carter said the matter would be on the agenda.

The U.S. cannot likely stand by and watch Russia win in Syria. At the very least it wants to be on the ground to meet them at a modern-day Elbe and influence the outcome.But things could go wrong in a war in which the U.S. and Russia are not allies, as they were in World War II. Despite this, the U.S. and its allies see Syria as important enough to risk confrontation with Russia, with all that implies. It is not at all clear though what the U.S. interests are in Syria to take such a risk.

As a fertile crossroad between Asia and Africa backed by desert, Syrian territory has been fought over for centuries. Pharaoh Ramses II defeated the Hittites at the Battle of Kadesh near Lake Homs in 1247 BCE. The Persians conquered Syria in 538 BCE. Alexander the Great took it 200 years later and the Romans grabbed Syria in 64 BCE.Islam defeated the Byzantine Empire there at the Battle of Yarmuk in 636. In one of the first Shia-Sunni battles, Ali failed to defeat Muawiyah in 657 at Siffin along the Euphrates near the Iraq-Syria border. Damascus became the seat of the Caliphate until a coup in 750 moved it to Baghdad.Waves of Crusaders next invaded Syria beginning in 1098. Egyptian Mamluks took the country in 1250 and the Ottoman Empire began in 1516 at its victory at Marj Dabik, 44 kilometers north of Aleppo — about where Turkish supplies are now being cut off. France double-crossed the Arabs and gained control of Syria in 1922 after the Ottoman collapse. The Nazis were pushed out in the momentous 1941 Battle of Damascus.We may be now looking at an epic war with similar historical significance. All these previous battles, as momentous as they were, were regional in nature.

What we are potentially facing is a war that goes beyond the Soviet-U.S. proxy wars of the Cold War era, and beyond the proxy war that has so far taken place in the five-year Syrian civil war. Russia is already present in Syria. The entry of the United States and its allies would risk a direct confrontation between the two largest nuclear powers on earth.

“The goal is to totally liberate Aleppo and then to seal the northern border with Turkey,” said Ivan Konovalov, director of the Center for Strategic Trend Studies in Moscow, explaining the Russian government thinking. “The offensive should not be stopped – that would be tantamount to defeat.”

The 2007 report clearly explains why the US cannot “separate” its alleged “moderate rebels” from Al Qaeda and its various affiliates – precisely because there were never any “moderate rebels” to begin with. In fact, it is clear now that the notion of “moderate rebels” was merely cover for the West’s intentional support provided to terrorists since  before the conflict even began. Thus, it’s not that Syria and Russia are suddenly “driving rebels into the extremists’ camp,” it is instead that America’s attempts to cover up the fact that it has armed and supported extremists since as early as 2007 are no longer tenable.

Thus, even as the US feigns urgent concern for what it attempts to portray as an unprecedented humanitarian crisis in Aleppo, it is itself guilty of intentionally engineering the entire conflict in the first place – knowing precisely the nature and degree of barbarity that would unfold and the extent to which it would reach. By attempting to shield its terrorist proxies remaining in Aleppo and throughout the rest of Syria, it is attempting to prolong, not end the humanitarian crisis, and tip Syria further toward what would be a catastrophic collapse making Libya’s recent US-induced division and destruction pale in comparison. US spokespeople, before their various podiums and amid their various press conferences, are struggling to explain what the United States is doing in Syria and toward what end besides repeating the devastating destruction that it has unleashed in Libya, Yemen, Iraq, and Afghanistan. They struggle not because the “truth” is difficult to convey to the public, but because the truth is difficult to deny any further.

The Wall Street Journal reported in February that President Barack Obama’s top military and intelligence advisers were pressing the White House to come up with an alternative plan to help the rebels better fend off the Russians and Syrians. The covert CIA program to arm the rebels began in 2013, entailing aid to groups of rebels examined and approved by U.S. officials. The leading advocates within the Obama administration for providing more firepower to the rebels to counter Russia have been CIA Director John Brennan and Defense Secretary Ash Carter. The White House and Mr. Kerry backed negotiations with the Russians instead. The White House has been wary of deepening a proxy fight with Moscow that could suck Washington further into the conflict.

In his call to Mr. Lavrov, Mr. Kerry expressed “grave concern” over continued attacks by Russian and Syrian forces on hospitals and other civilian infrastructure in Aleppo, Mr. Kirby said. “The secretary made clear that the United States and its partners hold Russia responsible for this situation, including the use of incendiary and bunker buster bombs in an urban environment, a drastic escalation that puts civilians at great risk,” Mr. Kirby said.

Mr. Kirby said the U.S. hopes that the incentive of closer military cooperation with the U.S. as well as rising costs to the Russian military as the conflict in Syria drags on could alter Russia’s course. “Russia will continue to send troops home in body bags and they will continue to lose resources, even perhaps more aircraft,” Mr. Kirby said.

This case being similar to an earlier one, with the findings of UN chemical weapons expert Carla Del Ponte  - who had found evidence of their use by the rebels – some think the fallout will be what it was then as well. Journalist and RT contributor, Afshin Rattansi believes that the same fate will befall this story, as far as media coverage goes. All possible doubts will either be hushed or directed elsewhere, as they were toward Del Ponte’s findings. “Carla Del Ponte – one of the greatest experts on this from the United Nations – did do an in-depth investigation only a few weeks ago, and of course, the mainstream media tried their best to ignore it and to character-assassinate Del Ponte… she did masses of work on this, and [found] It was the rebels and not the government.”

A day before the Reyhanlı bombing, Erdogan released a statement claiming he had evidence the Syrian government had had used chemical weapons, crossing the red line set by President Obama.The accusation contradicted a statement made at the time by a leading UN investigator.Carla Del Ponte, who heads The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, said there were “concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of sarin gas” in Syria. "This was use on the part of the opposition, the rebels, not by the government authorities," Del Ponte continued.

Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, said a genuine ceasefire would depend on transition away from the Assad government. “It is a conflict that is being fed and nourished and armed and abetted and protracted and made more hideous by the actions and the inactions of governments in this room,” he said at the Security Council Session. Theresa May said “there can be no military solution to the conflict in Syria” in a speech in New York. Speaking to President Barack Obama’s US refugee summit, the prime minister said: “We must all put our weight behind efforts in New York to agree a ceasefire and reopen space UN-led negotiations, leading to real political transition away from Assad to a new, inclusive government that governs for all Syrians.

Mr Kerry replied that his colleague was living in “a different universe” and accused Russia of deliberately obfuscating about the aid convoy bombing. “This is not a joke,” he said after listing several conflicting accounts of the attack put forward by Russia. Russia’s defence ministry claimed on Wednesday to have spotted a US Predator drone over the UN convoy attacked on Wednesday. It did not directly accuse the US of carrying out the attack, however. In earlier statements, Russian officials variously said the convoy had caught fire spontaneously and that drone footage had spotted a group of militants driving a pick-up truck with a mortar alongside it.

Russia dispatched an aircraft carrier to reinforce its flotilla off the Syrian coast on Wednesday, in a deepening of its military commitment there.    The Admiral Kuznetsov, Russia’s only carrier and the flagship of the Russian navy, will join an existing flotilla of six war ships and  four support vessels, Sergei Shoigu, the Russian defence minister, said.   The Soviet- built vessel carries MiG-29 jets and Ka-52 attack helicopters that are expected to take part in combat operations over Syria. 

As Paul Antonopoulos of Al-Masdar News wrote: […] in the above picture, the White Helmets are handling the corpses of people without sufficient safety gear, most particularly with masks mostly used, as well as no gloves. […] Within seconds of exposure to sarin, the affects [sic] of the gas begin to target the muscle and nervous system. There is an almost immediate release of the bowels and the bladder, and vomiting is induced. When sarin is used in a concentrated area, it has the likelihood of killing thousands of people. Yet, such a dangerous gas, and the White Helmets are treating bodies with little concern to their exposed skin. This has to raise questions.” While Western governments and the corporate media have already assured themselves of Assad’s guilt, this latest discovery – along with other notable evidence – suggests that the basis for this assumption is faulty at best. The warehouse was discovered less than a day prior to a UN Security Council emergency meeting over Tuesday’s gas attack, leading many pro-interventionist governments to suggest that Russia is merely trying to protect its ally from international criticism and retaliation. Though the timing could be construed as suspect, Assad – on the verge of reclaiming nearly all Syrian cities from the opposition – stands little to gain from using internationally banned weapons, while the increasingly desperate NATO-armed and funded rebels are the greatest beneficiaries from the renewed calls for foreign intervention in Syria following Tuesday’s attack. At the very least, this latest discovery of a chemical weapons warehouse demands that world leaders, pro-intervention and otherwise, must wait for a complete investigation of the incident before taking drastic action. As Antonopoulos noted: “Before the war cries begin and the denouncement of the government from high officials in power positions begin, time must be given so that all evidence can emerge.”

Nusra wants to use northern Syria as base for the new group. It launched offensives against Western-backed groups who have been vetted by the U.S. to receive military support.In the northern province of Idlib it seized territory from the Syria Revolutionaries' Front led by Jamal Maarouf, forcing him to flee. Last week it went after another mainstream group, Harakat Hazzm in Aleppo province, forcing it to dissolve itself.The U.S. State Department said the end of Harakat Hazzm would have an impact on the moderate opposition's capabilities in the north.But if Nusra is dissolved and it abandons al Qaeda, the ideology of the new entity is not expected to change. Golani fought with al Qaeda in Iraq. Some other leaders fought in Afghanistan and are close al Qaeda chief Ayman Zawahri. "Nusra had to pledge loyalty to Sheikh Zawahri to avoid being forced to be loyal to Baghdadi but that was not a good idea, it is time that this is abandoned," said a Nusra source in Aleppo. "It did not help Nusra and now it is on the terrorist list," he said.

This is bound to be the next big thing, fully eclipsing the Geneva pantomime. The YPG and its allies are planning a major attack to finally seize the 100-kilometer stretch of the Syria-Turkey border still controlled by ISIS/ISIL/Daesh – thus reuniting their three cantons.Erdogan was blunt; if the YPG pushes west of the Euphrates, it’s war. Well, looks like war then. The YPG is getting ready to attack the crucial towns of Jarabulus and Manbij. Russia most certainly will aid the YPG to reconquer Jarabulus. And that will directly pit – once again - Turkey against Russia on the ground.Geneva? That’s for tourists; the capital of the Syrian horror show is now Jarabulus.