ISIS/ISIL conflict in Syria/Iraq (No OpEd, No Politics)

Wednesday at 4:37 PM
...
URGENT: Syrian Army Breaks Several-Year-Long Siege of Nubl and Al-Zahra Towns
...
Government pushing up and down since then:
  • animation
    Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
  • the most recent maps I found
  • CadjYLyXIAE0fb2.jpg
    dNAqGXX.jpg
 
Last edited:

SampanViking

The Capitalist
Staff member
Super Moderator
VIP Professional
Registered Member
The latest edmap of the North Aleppo region

2u6yzrm.jpg


One of the more interesting things I have noticed over the last few days, is the confluence in commentary from numerous sources; with very mixed sympathies, about the possible consequences of what we are seeing.

This has been a conflict remarkably missing detail about the disposition of forces on either side. It seems however that the rebels have concentrated many thousands of its fighters in the Aleppo suburbs and that ISIS has also deployed many thousands of its fighters into the Rayyan bulge.

This would explain why the progress of the Syrian Army on the ground has appeared so slow since September. In effect it has been locked into a war of attrition along largely fixed lines and where any kind of advance is a major development, as it means that the other side has suffered very significant losses to enable it to happen.

The commentary is that both forces are now facing likely government encirclement and that once achieved, both rebel and ISIS fighters will be unable to prevent annihilation, resulting in the Syrian Government securing Aleppo and its environs for good and possibly even marking the deciding battle of the entire war and achieving the final end at staggering speed, which will be all the more surprising, given how slow movement has dragged for so many months.

If this is the case, then it would explain why Damascus and Moscow started a strategy that has seemed so counter intuitive, in so many ways. It would also explain the increasingly shrill narratives coming out of Western Capitals, NATO and Turkey this evening.
 
before I go back to maps :) some talking
Thursday at 5:21 PM
it's everywhere in Russian Internet: Russian Military says Turkey is preparing an intervention into Syria
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

(specific statement(s) will become available in English soon, I suppose)
and yesterday, related to
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Iranian press noticed
Russia: Saudi Troops Deployment in Syria Means War
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

(I checked the translation of the statement from
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
EDIT just the type of reporting :)
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!


plus, now related to
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Ban blames Russia for collapse of Syria talks
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!


(for example he called upon Resolution 2254 (2015)
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

chapter 13)
 
Last edited:
before I go back to maps :) some talking
...
add one more (at first I noticed in Russian Internet
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
):
Kerry: Russian bombs killing women and children 'in large numbers'
Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday accused Russia of bombing women and children "in large numbers" in Syria.

Speaking to reporters in Washington, he said the Russian bombing campaign was not precise and that the Russians were using "dumb bombs."

"This has to stop," Kerry declared.

Kerry also continued to push for a ceasefire in Syria.

"The Russians have made some constructive ideas about how a ceasefire could in fact be implemented, but if it's just talk for the sake of talk in order to continue the bombing, nobody's going to accept that. And we will know that in the course of the next days."
source is CNN:
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!


EDIT
one more:
What happens next in Aleppo will shape Europe’s future
If
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
falls, Syria’s vicious war will take a whole new turn, one with far-reaching consequences not just for the region but for Europe too. The latest government assault on the besieged northern Syrian city, which has caused tens of thousands more people to flee in recent days, is also a defining moment for relations between the west and Russia, whose airforce is playing a key role. The defeat of anti-Assad rebels who have partially controlled the city since 2012 would leave nothing on the ground in Syria but Assad’s regime and Islamic State. And all hope of a negotiated settlement involving the Syrian opposition will vanish. This has been a longstanding Russian objective – it was at the heart of Moscow’s decision to intervene militarily four months ago.

It is hardly a coincidence that the bombardment of Aleppo, a symbol of the 2011 anti-Assad revolution, started just as peace talks were being attempted in Geneva. Predictably, the talks soon faltered. Russian military escalation in support of the Syrian army was meant to sabotage any possibility that a genuine Syrian opposition might have its say on the future of the country. It was meant to thwart any plans the west and the UN had officially laid out. And it entirely contradicted Moscow’s stated commitment to a political process to end the war.

The aftershocks will be felt far and wide. If there is one thing Europeans have learned in 2015, it is that they cannot be shielded from the effects of conflict in the Middle East. And if there is one thing they learned from the Ukraine conflict in 2014, it is that Russia can hardly be considered Europe’s friend. It is a revisionist power capable of military aggression.

In fact, as the fate of Aleppo hangs in the balance, these events have – as no other perhaps since the beginning of the war – highlighted the connections between the Syrian tragedy and the strategic weakening of
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
and the west in general. This spillover effect is something Moscow has not only paid close attention to, but also in effect fuelled. The spread of instability fits perfectly with Russia’s goal of seeking dominance by exploiting the hesitations and contradictions of those it identifies as adversaries.

Aleppo will define much of what happens next. A defeat for Syrian opposition forces would further empower Isis in the myth that it is the sole defender of Sunni Muslims – as it terrorises the population under its control. There are many tragic ironies here, not least that western strategy against Isis has officially depended on building up local Syrian opposition ground forces so that they might one day push the jihadi insurgency out of its stronghold in Raqqa. If the very people that were meant to be counted on to do that job as foot soldiers now end up surrounded and crushed in Aleppo, who will the west turn to?
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
has all along claimed it was fighting Isis – but in Aleppo it is helping to destroy those Syrian groups that have in the past proved to be efficient against Isis.

If there were ever any doubts about Russia’s objectives in
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
, events around Aleppo will surely have cleared them.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
has duplicated in Syria the strategy he applied to Chechnya: full military onslaught on populated areas so rebels are destroyed or forced out. There is a long history of links – going back to the Soviet era – between the Syrian power structure and Russian intelligence. Just as Putin’s regime physically eliminated those in Chechnya who might have been interlocutors for a negotiated peace settlement, Assad has conflated all political opposition with “terrorism”. And as there was never any settlement in Chechnya (only full-on war and destruction until the Kremlin put its own Chechen leader in place), in Putin’s view there can be no settlement in Syria with the opposition.

Russia’s strategic objectives go much further, however. Putin wants to reassert Russian power in the Middle East, but it is Europe that he really has in mind. The defining moment came in 2013, when
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
against Assad’s military bases after chemical weapons were used. This encouraged Putin to test western resolve further away, on the European continent. Putin was certainly caught off guard by the
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
, but he swiftly moved to restore dominance through use of force, including the annexation of territory. He calculated – rightly – that his hybrid war in Ukraine could not be prevented by the west. Russian policies in Ukraine have as a result shaken the pillars of Europe’s post-cold-war security order – which Putin would like to see rewritten to Russia’s advantage.

Likewise, Russian military involvement in Syria has put Nato in a bind, with one of its key members right on the frontline. Turkey’s relations with Russia have been on the brink for months. Now Moscow has openly warned Turkey against sending forces into Syria to defend Aleppo. How the Turkish leader will choose to react is another western headache.

All this is happening at a time when European governments are desperate to win Ankara’s cooperation on the refugee problem. If Turkey now turns into a troublemaker for Nato on its Middle Eastern flank, that serves Russian interests. Similarly, if Europe sees a new exodus of refugees, Russia will stand to benefit.The refugee crisis has sowed deep divisions on the continent and it has helped populist rightwing parties flourish – many of which are Moscow’s political allies against the EU as a project. The refugee crisis has put key EU institutions under strain; it has heightened the danger of Brexit (which Moscow would welcome); and it has severely weakened Angela Merkel, the architect of European sanctions against Russia.

Of course, it would be an exaggeration to say that Putin had all this worked out from the start. He has been led by events as much as he has wanted to control them. Russia is not responsible for the outbreak of the civil war in Syria, nor does it have its hand in everything that happens in Ukraine. But the way Russia has cynically played its pawns should send more alarm bells ringing in the west and in the UN than is the case now.

Putin likes to cast himself as a man of order, but his policies have brought more chaos, and Europe is set to pay an increasing price. Getting the Russian regime to act otherwise will require more than wishful thinking. Aleppo is an unfolding human tragedy. But it is necessary to connect the dots between the plight of this city, Europe’s future, and how Russia hovers over both.
source is The Guardian:
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
 
Last edited:
...
CaSJbPAW0AAjvgG.jpg
...

plus I found a vid reportedly showing a Russian air-support in Ratyan (Rebels' held place in mid-bottom on the maps above):
...​
now several sources say most recently Ratyan was taken by Government Forces, which also pulled MLRS:
MxfwgGWH6I91ip-I.jpg
and what looked liked 6" howitzers to me (I don't know how to post videos playable at Twitter) EDIT but I posted the most recent video of an Su-35 in Syria, in
Russian Flanker and SU-3X Thread: Videos, Pictures, News, Views
Thread:
https://www.sinodefenceforum.com/ru...pictures-news-views.t6909/page-32#post-387650
 
Last edited:
According to WarIsBoring of early December (
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
) these are 152-millimeter MTSA-B guns.

LOL delft at first I was a little bit annoyed by your post (how could you possibly have known which gun I had seen: I didn't post a link), then by the typo in your link (it's Msta), but ... you're probably right LOL!
usT2j.jpg
 

delft

Brigadier
add one more (at first I noticed in Russian Internet
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
):
Kerry: Russian bombs killing women and children 'in large numbers'

source is CNN:
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
When there are so may moderate and less moderate terrorists to hit it seems strange that bombs should be wasted on women and children. I even saw recently a reference to helicopters dropping barrel bombs. At the current stage of play those helicopters are too busy supporting the advance of the army and the local volunteers. But I also saw today in a Dutch newspaper (
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
) a remark that it is now too dangerous for Western journalists to go into Syria from Turkey.
EDIT
one more:
What happens next in Aleppo will shape Europe’s future

source is The Guardian:
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
No word about elections except a few among the comments. Assad is to be eliminated by the negotiations and the threat of the military might of the Saudi, Qatari and Turks sponsored mercenaries. They now suffer from the lack of support among the Syrian population as well as from the bombs of the Russian air force.
 
Top