The Chinese plane is the aircraft carrier version of the Sukhoi 27 the Chinese copied. Its called the J15 Flying Shark.
Two Chinese warships went through Suez over a week ago and the Liaoning arrived Syria on Sept. 26. The other may have been its escort a missile cruiser. You never send a carrier out by itself-they need a lot of fire support especially anti aircraft and anti submarine. Not a lot of threat of that in this instance. The Chinese will now get a bit of a chance to play with their first aircraft carrier now.
Chinas intention to participate with Russia was announced to the UN by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi some days ago. They intend to put quite a lot of troops on the ground as well as the air attacks.
Iraq has now granted Russia permission to use their airbase at Habbaniyah 74k west if Baghdad as a staging post for Syria from Russia, , and to attack ISIL in northern Iraq. The US also use this airbase. Might get a bit of a closeup at the Russian kit here.
The Iraqis are obviously impressed at the damage the Russians are doing. I would not be over optimistic though, ISIL are far more capable than the Iraqi army on the whole. Aircraft can only do so much. In Afghanistan they just hide behind rocks when they hear them coming. Not so easy when there aren't any big rocks in the desert.
No mention in our media. Will somebody wake them up sometime?
