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

GreenestGDP

Junior Member
Boris Johnson: allies should join Assad and Russia against Isis


London’s mayor wrote in the Daily Telegraph:

“We have the estimated 70,000 of the Free Syrian Army (and many other groups and grouplets); but those numbers may be exaggerated, and they may include some jihadists who are not ideologically very different from al-Qaida.


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janjak desalin

Junior Member
I'm surprised Russia said it will consider a new Syrian government without Assad. Wonder what changed, too much American pressure?
This is not a new position!

This was stated from the start, when the Russian leadership made its first diplomatic overtures regarding the Syrian state. From the start, their preferred solution was to seek a political transition to a new government and to prevent the widening of this war that the US leadership was encouraging as their preferred method of removing the Assad regime.

Their position, now, is an adamant assertion that Assad will remain through to the transition period and will be a major factor in the negotiations that will inform and develop that transition. This will not be another Iraq or Libya; this transition will be developed responsibly, along a timetable that best suits the Syrian people, and not some foreign interests. This is what will occur, whether the US Axis participates, or not!


I expect this process to take a whole lot longer than is acceptable to the US leadership, whether that be Democratic or Republican, and I expect that the US leadership will, ultimately, have to accept that all events that occur in this world do not serve US interests. "American pressure", in this arena, has proven to be as low as Tom Brady's footballs!
 
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delft

Brigadier
The Russian position can be described as: we support Syria and the Syrian voters will vote for the next president and we won't accept that foreign countries will decide who will or will not be allowed to stand. They say it soto voce, but they have the power to prevent the elections being rigged except that USAF might send in an alpha strike to destroy Assad.
 
through the blog of "Cassad"
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I noticed
Putin Sees a Chance for Assad to Stay in Power in Syria
Bolstered by its military campaign in Syria, Russia is moving closer to securing a chance for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to extend his rule in elections in 2017 as the U.S. steps up efforts to end almost five years of civil war.

Opposition in Washington is weakening to Russia’s insistence that Assad be allowed to compete in a presidential election after an 18-month transition period that starts next month, according to Russian and Western officials. For its part, Russia has agreed that the millions of Syrians who’ve fled their country can take part in the vote and is showing increasing flexibility on which Islamist rebel groups can join peace talks.

President Vladimir Putin told U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry at a meeting in Moscow on Dec. 14 that Assad can’t be barred as a presidential candidate and he would win if he runs, two people familiar with the matter said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss diplomatic matters. While Kerry didn’t agree, the U.S. is already pushing to set the terms of the 2017 ballot in ways that would reduce Assad’s chances of victory -- contradicting the Obama administration’s repeated calls for the Syrian leader to leave office.

The U.S. position remains that “Assad must go” because he’s lost the moral credibility to govern his country, said State Department spokesman Eddie Vasquez, when asked if the Obama administration could envisage the Syrian leader competing in an election. “That said, we’re under no illusions about the obstacles that exist. The decisions for how that takes place must be decided in the context of political negotiations.”

More than 250,000 Syrians have died and millions of others have been forced from their homes in the conflict, sparking the biggest refugee crisis in Europe since World War II and spurring efforts to strike a compromise that would end the fighting. Russia’s intervention three months ago, which blunted the imminent threat of the collapse of Assad’s regime, according to officials in Moscow, turned the tables in his favor and brought major powers to the negotiating table.

“Many Syrians will interpret a decision to allow Assad to run in upcoming elections as de facto international acceptance for him, regardless of U.S. intentions,” Emile Hokayem, senior fellow for Middle East security at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, said by e-mail.

The Syrian president won plebiscites unopposed twice with almost 100 percent of the vote. Last year, in the midst of civil war, he secured another seven-year term with 89 percent in a ballot condemned as illegitimate by Western and most Arab powers.

Assad would probably engineer a “landslide” victory in any vote, said Peter Harling, senior Middle East and North Africa adviser at the International Crisis Group. The embattled leader now controls only a quarter of Syrian territory, though about 60 percent of the population.

Dropping Precondition
Kerry said Dec. 18 that the U.S. has abandoned its demand for Assad, an ally of Iran as well as Russia, to step down as a precondition for a peace deal. “We began to really come to the reality that this demand was in fact prolonging the war, creating greater agony and suffering, and not getting us anywhere in a stalemate,” he told reporters in New York.

Although President Barack Obama said the same day that “Assad is going to have to leave for the country to stop the bloodletting,” he also has shown increasing flexibility about Syria’s future. Obama has said the nation’s military and government institutions should remain intact and that Assad’s Alawite minority should be protected from retribution.

On his side, Putin acceded to the U.S. proposal to include the Syrian diaspora among the electorate, a Russian official said. A United Nations Security Council resolution
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Dec. 18 stipulated that the 4.4 million refugees, out of the country’s pre-war population of 22 million, who have fled Syria will be eligible to vote and the ballot will be supervised by the UN.

The Russian president also agreed to allow major Syrian armed opposition groups backed by Persian Gulf states and Turkey, such as the Army of Islam and Ahrar as-Sham, to join the political process if they stop fighting. These Islamist groups, considered by Russia as terrorists alongside the al-Qaeda affiliated Nusra Front and Islamic State, were both part of a Syrian opposition meeting hosted by Saudi Arabia in early December.

January Talks
UN-sponsored peace talks between the Syrian government and its opponents are due to start in Geneva on Jan. 25 to discuss formation of an interim body with full executive powers that would begin to function within six months. A year after that, the elections would be held following changes to the Syrian constitution. In parallel, the UN is to seek a cease-fire that would cover all armed groups except for those considered terrorists.

Kerry said after meeting Putin in Moscow that the U.S. isn’t focused on Assad, but on the political process. “The United States and our partners are not seeking so-called regime change,” he said. “Our challenge remains creating the conditions on which an alternative can emerge.”

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov dismissed any U.S. say in Assad’s future. “In the UN Security Council resolution, it’s written clearly that the Syrian people will decide the fate of their country,” he said last week after meeting his Qatari counterpart Khalid al-Attiyah in the Russian capital. “What has this got to do with the Americans?”

Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Gulf states, which along with Turkey have maintained calls for Assad’s ouster, are now willing for the Syrian leader to stay on throughout the 18-month transition period, said Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a political analyst based in the United Arab Emirates.

As far as Assad’s candidacy in 2017 elections, “the Gulf states at this moment would say no for sure, but if there is a concession coming from everybody else, I don’t think there is a way for them to say no,” Abdulla said.
EDIT
adding the Bloomberg link:
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through the blog of "Cassad"
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I noticed
Putin Sees a Chance for Assad to Stay in Power in Syria

EDIT
adding the Bloomberg link:
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from inside this link: "President Vladimir Putin told U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry at a meeting in Moscow on Dec. 14 that Assad can’t be barred as a presidential candidate and he would win if he runs, ..." etc.; this part has been denied by
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РИА most recently announced:
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(according to Mr. Peskov, Mr. Putin did not talk about the participation of Mr. Assad in the elections)
 
Yesterday at 5:10 PM
Dec 19, 2015


now I noticed "... Maheen has been liberated from the ISIL. ..." etc. in
URGENT: Another Major Blow to ISIL; Syrian Army Takes Two Towns in Homs
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can anybody confirm?

it's probably confirmed by this video:
EDIT
now I watched it all, saw no dead bodies inside, just kinda cautious approach through the desert ...

and a moment ago I saw on Twitter the picture by
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of Maheen today:
CXdYukQW8AEj5mv.jpg
 
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DigoSSA

New Member
Registered Member
Caught On Tape: Russia Unleashes Massive Bombing Raid On Militant Convoy

Submitted by
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on 12/28/2015

There’s been some debate over the last two months about whether the concerted effort on Moscow’s part to release hundreds upon hundreds of MoD clips depicting airstrikes in Syria on the way to embarrassing Washington paints an accurate picture of what’s really going on.

That is, if one simply compares the Russian footage to what we know or have seen with regard to America’s 15-month air campaign against Islamic State, it would be easy to conclude that the US simply hasn’t been trying very hard - or at least not compared to The Kremlin.

While that’s probably an accurate assessment, it’s not always easy to tell what exactly the Russians are hitting when it comes to the targets being vaporized in the videos (although it’s pretty clear in the clips depicting strikes on oil tankers) and the US contends that one reason The Pentagon has been cautious is that Washington is concerned with civilian casualties, especially as it relates to the drivers in the crude truck convoys. For those who follow the US’s exploits in the Mid-East that’s a hard pill to swallow given what we know about
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and given what
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, but the point is, taking Moscow at its word when Russia’s intent is quite clearly to make a mockery of the West’s efforts is just as dangerous as taking Washington at its word when The White House swears the US is doing everything in its power to fight terror.

All of that said, there’s also been what certainly feels like a marked increase in the number of independently released videos since Russia began bombing rebel and extremist targets. That is, in addition to what Moscow has released on social media, there have been dozens upon dozens of videos shot from the ground which depict either Russian airstrikes themselves or the aftermath. Although it’s not always easy to discern what precisely is going on in the amateur footage, there almost unquestionably seem to be more videos from on the ground cameramen then there were prior to the Russian intervention which in turn suggests that when it comes to the war on terror, Moscow, not Washington, is clearly taking the lead.

With all of that in mind we present the following clip which purports to show a Russian strike on a “militant convoy.”


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