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

Interesting point of note. There have been a lot of drone footage of VBIED attacks put on the net by ISIS and it shows how difficult these attacks are to stop in an urban environment and; more than the casualties and damage they inflict, the amount of disorder they create in the attacked units.

The point though, is that these attacks will have only minimum impact, if they are not immediately followed up by major ground offensives, which can force units into retreat. Without them, they are simply painful pinpricks.
from what I've read in Russian Internet
(for example
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I said for example)
the ISIL defense tactics is simple:
while keeping ISIL losses as low as possible, inflicting as heavy losses as possible to the Iraqis storming Mosul, so VBIEDs are optimal; of course there's a problem of attrition

(not of the drivers though, at least according to kinda black humor but apparently a true story in the related blog by "Cassad"
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: point #5 in Прочее. paragraph ... I would translate only on a special request)

and ISIL assumption is it'll be Iraqi units still willing to fight

(for example entering the now fortified campus of the University of Mosul: in the middle in the map below)

who will get attrited ... recently the Iraqis suffer around 200 KIAs daily this way ... that's what I read, and I put the statement (coming from 09 January 2017 - 14H19
East Mosul recapture 'few days' away: Iraq commander
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) highlighted in the map below, for the SDF record:
Ylcar.jpg
 
it's making Breaking News at gazeta.ru right now (
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):
U.S. Pilots See Close Calls With Russian Jets Over Syria
As planes share crowded airspace fighting parallel wars, militaries struggle to minimize threat of an accident
One night this past fall, a U.S. radar plane flying a routine pattern over Syria picked up a signal from an incoming Russian fighter jet.

The American crew radioed repeated warnings on a frequency universally used for distress signals. The Russian pilot didn’t respond.

Instead, as the U.S. plane began a wide sweep to the south, the Russian fighter, an advanced Su-35 Flanker, turned north and east across the American plane’s nose, churned up a wave of turbulent air in its path and briefly disrupted its sensitive electronics.

“We assessed that guy to be within one-eighth of a mile—a few hundred feet away—and unaware of it,” said U.S. Air Force Col. Paul Birch, commander of the 380th Expeditionary Operations Group, a unit based in the Persian Gulf.

The skies above Syria are an international incident waiting to happen, according to American pilots. It is an unprecedented situation in which for months U.S. and Russian jets have crowded the same airspace fighting parallel wars, with American pilots bombing Islamic State worried about colliding with Russian pilots bombing rebels trying to overthrow Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad. Russian warplanes, which also attack Islamic State targets, are still flying daily over Syria despite the
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in Moscow’s campaign against the anti-Assad forces, according to the U.S. Air Force.

The
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, but American pilots still find themselves having close calls with Russian aviators either unaware of the rules of the road, or unable or unwilling to follow them consistently.

“Rarely, if ever, do they respond verbally,” said Brig. Gen. Charles Corcoran, commander of the 380th Air Expeditionary Wing, who flies combat missions in a stealth fighter. “Rarely, if ever, do they move. We get out of the way. We don’t know what they can see or not see, and we don’t want them running into one of us.”

Complicating the aerial traffic jam, the Russian planes don’t emit identifying signals, flouting international protocols.

The Russian Ministry of Defense didn’t respond to written requests for comment on the actions of Russian pilots over Syria.

The aerial anxiety adds to bilateral tensions between the U.S. and Russia, already rising over Moscow’s increasingly assertive role in propping up Mr. Assad, its
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and its earlier seizure of Crimea. In this environment, American commanders worry that a collision could become a flash-point.

“If an aircraft crashes, it is statistically more likely that it’s some type of mechanical problem that caused that crash, rather than someone shooting down an airplane,” said U.S. Air Force Col. Daniel Manning. “But in the fog and friction of war, people will be predisposed to conclude there’s some type of malign activity that took down that aircraft.”

In 2015, U.S. and Russian commanders signed a four-page memorandum of understanding intended to keep their warplanes from crashing into each other or shooting each other down.

Now senior military officials at the Pentagon are pushing to boost the communications and coordination between the two militaries. Under the proposal, three-star generals at the Pentagon would routinely discuss Mideast operations with their counterparts in Moscow. One impetus for the Pentagon effort is the belief that President-elect Donald Trump may want to increase cooperation with Moscow in the region, senior military officials say.

For the moment, day-to-day efforts to avoid a midair catastrophe go through Col. Manning, a Russian speaker who works out of Al Udeid air base in Qatar. Col. Manning has three scheduled calls a week with his Russian counterpart, a colonel based in Syria, to clear airspace for both militaries’ operations. Most weeks they have impromptu talks daily. When combat operations are especially intense, the two colonels might talk 10 times a day, as they did last month, when U.S. aircraft destroyed 168 tanker trucks delivering oil for Islamic State.

In addition, a senior Pentagon civilian leads a video teleconference on Syria every six to eight weeks with her Russian counterpart.

One of the most serious mishaps so far was caused by the U.S. In September, an American airstrike intended to hit Islamic State militants in Deir Ezzour, Syria, killed dozens of Syrian government troops instead.

The incident highlighted vulnerabilities in the colonel-to-colonel hotline. The day of the strikes, Col. Manning was away from the Qatari base that houses the American air operations center. After the strikes began, a Russian officer called on the hotline and asked to speak to another U.S. colonel he knew. That American wasn’t available. The Russian hung up, and 27 minutes passed before the Russians called back to warn the Americans they were bombing the wrong target, according to U.S. defense officials.

At the time, the Russian military issued a statement saying: “If the airstrike was caused by erroneous coordinates of targets, it is a direct consequence of the stubborn unwillingness of the American side to coordinate with Russia [on] its actions against terrorist groups in Syria.”

Col. Manning said the current coordination efforts are making the war safer.

“We continue to assess that the Russian have no intent to harm coalition forces in the air or on the ground,” he said. “Because we believe there is no malign intent towards the coalition forces, we’re able to de-conflict.”

But things look different from the cockpit, and U.S. pilots say the Russians sometimes seem to be pushing the limits just to see if they can get away with it.

It’s a situation further complicated by the soup of aircraft conducting combat missions, including Americans, Russians, Syrians, Australians, Britons, Danes, Turks, Emiratis, Saudis and Jordanians. On any given day, there are usually 50 to 75 manned and unmanned coalition aircraft over Raqqa, the Islamic State stronghold in Syria, and another 150 or so over heavily contested Mosul, Iraq, according to one U.S. radar officer. The 64-member coalition—Russia is not a member—had conducted more than 51,500 sorties against Islamic State, two-thirds of them by U.S. aircraft, as of mid-December.

The 2015 agreement between the U.S. and Russia led to negotiation of what Americans call the “rule of threes.” Pilots should keep at least three nautical miles of separation horizontally, or 3,000 feet vertically. Should they get closer, they’ll remain for no more than three minutes.

“We’ve agreed to coexist peacefully,” said Gen. Corcoran.

But the Russians are prone to ignoring the conventions of air safety, according to the American pilots. Planes world-wide carry transponders that emit a four-digit code allowing air-traffic controllers to identify them, a practice called squawking. Russian planes over Syria don’t squawk, and they appear as an unidentified bleep to allied radar installations.

Nor do the Russians usually answer “guard calls,” urgent summons on a common emergency radio frequency. In one eight-hour shift on Dec. 11, for instance, the crew of a U.S. radar plane, called an AWACS, made 22 such calls to some 10 Russian planes and received not a single response. A few of the Russians approached within five miles of allied aircraft.

The controller aboard the AWACS scattered U.S. planes to keep them clear of the Russians. “We’ve had several co-altitude incidents,” the officer said, referring to planes flying too close together.

Russian pilots have sometimes broken their silence when contacted by a female air-traffic controller.

In early September, a female U.S. air-surveillance officer spotted an unidentified plane approaching allied aircraft over Syria. “You’re operating in the vicinity of coalition aircraft,” she warned the pilot.

A heavy Russian accent emerged through the static: “You have a nice voice, lady. Good evening.”

“Some of the closest calls I’m convinced they don’t know we’re there,” said Gen. Corcoran.

That’s not always the case. In September, an Su-35 shadowed an American F-15 fighter as it ended a bombing run over Syria and pulled up to a tanker plane to refuel. The U.S. pilot filmed the Russian running alongside the American planes, about a mile-and-a-half away, said Col. Birch.

At times, Russian planes plow through tightly controlled groupings of allied aircraft over Raqqa. Russian bombers, flying to Syria via Iran, have crossed Iraq and disrupted allied flight patterns over the battlefields of Mosul.

Lt. Col. August “Pfoto” Pfluger, a stealth-fighter pilot, witnessed such an incident over Iraq in August. He compared the Russians’ behavior to jumping out of the stands at a professional football game and bolting onto the field.

“You just don’t do that,” he said.
source is The Wall Street Journal
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LOL why not to hear from
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here
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The battle of freedom and democracy versus authoritarianism repeats time and time again: World War II, the Cold War, the Arab Spring. Now,
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where moderate, pro-democracy rebels have been lashing out against the brutal dictatorship of Syrian President Bashar al Assad for over six years.

How did we get to this point? Nature abhors a vacuum, and for the past eight years, we’ve had nothing but tired rhetoric and broken promises from the Obama Administration. It should come as no surprise that authoritarianism and terrorists have moved to fill that vacuum.

Syria’s sad and bloody history is clear. In 2011, pro-democracy protestors began demonstrations in Syria, only to be violently oppressed by Assad’s security forces. The situation devolved into a civil war, with Assad’s government forces brutally murdering those who dare to stand in dissent to his regime. The Obama Administration has failed to provide any meaningful support, training, or assistance to the pro-democracy forces, leading to radical and extremist views permeating some rebel factions.

Then, in October 2015, Assad found a new ally—
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. Vladimir Putin’s regime has provided air support and weapons to the authoritarian dictator. As a result, Aleppo has fallen back into government control. This month, Russia, Turkey, and Iran have planned a summit to discuss the future of Syria. The United States was not invited. Secretary of State Kerry even stated he was not concerned that there would be no U.S. involvement, confirming his weakness.

Russian air strikes in Aleppo have targeted rebel groups and Putin’s forces have even been accused of attacking civilian resources, including schools and hospitals. The prolonged siege (the longest in modern times) has prevented humanitarian assistance from reaching innocent civilians and has reduced one of the oldest cities in the world, populated by millions, to rubble.

While the human rights concerns are substantial—we simply cannot afford to back away from democratic reform and give in to Assad’s authoritarianism. An Assad regime weakens our fight in the Global War on Terrorism because it allows Russia to extend its influence and control across the Middle East, threatening long-standing U.S. interests.

If we allow Russia to exert and extend its influence in the Middle East it will be to the detriment of U.S. interests. Assad knows too well that his power is contingent on support from Russia and Iran. The lack of U.S. action
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to a new and closer relationship with Russia. The Turkish alliance has been Obama’s to lose, and, with its loss, comes a lot more than the loss of a long-time member of NATO—we lose a critical partner in the Global War on Terrorism.

While Putin would have the international community believe that Russia’s military involvement in Syria is limited to killing ISIL fighters, the facts tell a different story. Bombs are repeatedly being dropped in rebel controlled areas. It should also come as no surprise that Russia is one of Syria’s biggest arms suppliers—with contracts estimated to be in the billions.

There are some who would question any U.S. intervention in Syria. They advocate working with Assad as a known quantity instead of supporting moderate rebels that we know less about. There are security concerns about supporting the rebels. We should implement a method to vet those we wish to support, rather than just giving up. Talented and experienced NATO allies have proven capabilities of training and equipping.

Conceding Syria to Assad’s continued human rights abuses and tyranny means allowing Russia and Putin to have a base and to be a disruptive world power in the Middle East for years to come. We must support the moderate, vetted Syrian rebels and give them the opportunity for democracy. It is a three-for-one benefit—promote democracy, check Putin’s power and prevent attacks by extremist terrorists, thus protecting American families at home and abroad.

Doing nothing in Syria degrades our efforts in the Global War on Terrorism. The prolonged conflict provides a safe haven for terrorists and hurts the moderate rebels. The rebels have to not only fight against the tyrannical government, but must battle the extremists who would use the disorder of the civil war to strengthen the influence and territory of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Daesh), al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations.

I appreciate that Americans may hesitate to get involved in what is perceived as another foreign entanglement. As a veteran myself and the father of four sons who have served
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, the call for increased U.S. involvement in Syria is not something I take lightly. Congress has taken action to support the moderate Syrian rebels, but we are still reliant on our Commander in Chief to act—and for eight long years we’ve had one who is content to stand on the sidelines. Fortunately, this year, that will change.

From the days of our own revolution in 1776, our foreign policy has been squarely on the side of enabling citizens of other nations to enact their own democratic change. We can take appropriate action to make a positive, democratic difference without long-term involvement.

By approaching the Syrian conflict from a position of strength, I am confident that the U.S. can restore our tradition of principled global leadership and effectively continue our successful Global War on Terrorism which is crucial to stop safe havens overseas to protect American families at home.
source:
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Thank you.
you're welcome LOLOL I follow sources from Tea Party up to people who regularly check ISIL outlets

by the way there have been around five hundred views of this thread in the last 24 hours (the counter now says
364,143
and was 363600 after I had posted Yesterday at 8:28 PM
I was just curious about the number, is all)

How many moderate terrorists would Rep. Joe Wilson train for how many billions of
dollars? ;)
your funny question might be answered at:
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LOL! delft you're ghost is visible above (in white), it probably got here when I copy-pasted the number from the board
 

delft

Brigadier
LOL the Russians are reportedly sending IN a dozen of Su-25s:
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(for those who do Spanish:
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You cannot substitute aircraft for ground forces. With the liberation of East Aleppo and the end of many sieges around Damascus more forces will become available in places where support by Su-25 makes sense. Besides the Obama administration might have reacted by sending manpads into Syria if these aircraft had been sent earlier.
 
You cannot substitute aircraft for ground forces. With the liberation of East Aleppo and the end of many sieges around Damascus more forces will become available in places where support by Su-25 makes sense. Besides the Obama administration might have reacted by sending manpads into Syria if these aircraft had been sent earlier.
LOL delft while you're attempting some spin for the Kremlin (looks as if you tried to redefine "reduce" from Friday at 11:34 AM
it's Breaking News
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at gazeta.ru right now: Russians will [very soon] reduce their forces in Syria, the first to leave is [what I would call] the Kuznetsov CVBG (officially it's like the aircraft carrier group of the Northern Fleet), says
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) the related blog by "Cassad"
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talks about the expected Government offensive where the CAS by those Su-25 could be important (
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s Arrived, Spring Begins
repeatedly in the discussion there ... not sure if it works in English, probably it doesn't :) I of course didn't know the English name of the bird)
 

delft

Brigadier
LOL delft while you're attempting some spin for the Kremlin (looks as if you tried to redefine "reduce" from Friday at 11:34 AM
) the related blog by "Cassad"
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talks about the expected Government offensive where the CAS by those Su-25 could be important (
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s Arrived, Spring Begins
repeatedly in the discussion there ... not sure if it works in English, probably it doesn't :) I of course didn't know the English name of the bird)
They are reducing forces. They send the naval task force home. But a short while ago Russia ratified the agreement with Syria of a year earlier to extend the air base as well as the naval base which in my view indicates a substantial increase in forces as soon as necessary.
 
They are reducing forces. They send the naval task force home. But a short while ago Russia ratified the agreement with Syria of a year earlier to extend the air base as well as the naval base which in my view indicates a substantial increase in forces as soon as necessary.
delft, "the reduction of the Russian contingent is Syria" is a standing joke in Russian Internet now (I'll give you Like and leave it at that)
 
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