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

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eleny Dol set off from Sebastopol today to join the party, accompanied by a minesweeper.

DSC_1986.1455357399.jpg

wow you're faster than Russia Today ... or are you?
 

siegecrossbow

General
Staff member
Super Moderator
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An F-16 pilot was nearly forced to eject from his aircraft over ISIS territory due to a fuel emergency last year, an incident that could have led to the airman's capture or death, the U.S. Air Force said.

But the pilot was saved from having to abandon his aircraft due to the quick thinking of a nearby U.S. Air Force re-fueling plane crew.

The KC-135 Stratotanker was linked up with a group of A-10 Thunderbolt IIs in support of the U.S.-led coalition's air campaign against ISIS when it was approached by the F-16, the Air Force said on Thursday.

The first sign of trouble occurred when the F-16 attempted to re-fuel but was forced to disconnect from the KC-135 after taking in only 500 pounds of fuel -- an amount that fell significantly short of the 2,500 pounds that the tanker expected to off-load.

After a second failed re-fueling attempt, the F-16 pilot ran through his checklist and alerted the tanker crew that he was experiencing a fuel system emergency.

"Over 80% of his total fuel capability was trapped and unusable," a malfunction that could have forced the pilot to eject as his aircraft could only use up to 15 minutes of fuel at a time, the Air Force said in a press release.

Instead of leaving the pilot to fend for himself, the tanker crew decided to diverge from its area of responsibility, and safely escorted the F-16 to its base while refueling every 15 minutes on the way to allied airspace.

"Knowing the risks to their own safety, they put the life of the F-16 pilot first and made what could've been an international tragedy a feel-good news story," said Lt. Col. Eric Hallberg, 384th Air Refueling Squadron commander. "I'm sure they think it was not a big deal, however, that's because they never want the glory or fame."

The Air Force did not specify where, exactly, the incident took place and did not specify the country to which the F-16 belonged.
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The brutal killing of Jordanian pilot
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serves as a harsh reminder of the consequences for pilots who eject over ISIS-held territory and are taken prisoner by the terror group.

Footage and images released early last year by the Islamist extremists appeared to show the pilot in a cage, being burned alive.

The video sparked
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and prompted immediate promises of retaliation and protests in Jordan, one of more than 60 nations involved in the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

As of February 10, the U.S. and its coalition partners have conducted a total of 10,242 strikes against ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

And despite escorting the F-16 pilot back to base, the KC-135 tanker crew completed the rest of their daily missions with 100% success, the Air Force said.
 

delft

Brigadier
found the most recent overall view:
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(should be "clickable"; if it didn't show, you could try:
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MilitaryMaps shows an advance in the direction of Tabqa which is also referred to in this Reuters article:
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Russia casts doubt on Syria ceasefire deal as army gains ground
MUNICH/BEIRUT | By
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Russia said on Saturday a Syria ceasefire plan was more likely to fail than succeed, as Syrian government forces backed by Russian air strikes took rebel ground near Aleppo and set their sights on the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa province.

International divisions over Syria surfaced anew at a Munich conference where Russia rejected French charges that it was bombing civilians, just a day after world powers agreed on the "cessation of hostilities" due to begin in a week's time.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry reiterated accusations that Russia was hitting "legitimate opposition groups" and civilians with its bombing campaign in Syria and said Moscow must change its targets to respect the ceasefire deal.

The conflict, reshaped by Russia's intervention last September, has gone into an even higher gear since the United Nations sought to revive peace talks. These were suspended earlier this month in Geneva before they got off the ground.

In another sign of that escalation, Turkey's military shelled Kurdish militia targets near the northern Syrian town of Azaz on Saturday, a Turkish military source said. A Kurdish official said the shelling targeted the Menagh air base in the northern Aleppo countryside, which he said had been captured by the Kurdish-allied Jaysh al-Thuwwar group.

The Syrian army also looked poised to advance into the Islamic State-held province of Raqqa for the first time since 2014, apparently to pre-empt any move by Saudi Arabia to send ground forces into Syria to fight the jihadist insurgents.


A Syrian military source said the army captured positions at the provincial border between Hama and Raqqa in the last two days and intends to advance further.

"It is an indication of the direction of coming operations toward Raqqa. In general, the Raqqa front is open ... starting in the direction of the Tabqa area," the source said.

Tabqa is the location of an air base captured by Islamic State two years ago, and the source said the army had moved to within 35 km (20 miles) of the base.

The cessation of hostilities deal agreed by major powers falls short of a formal ceasefire, since it was not signed by the warring parties - the government and rebels seeking to topple President Bashar al-Assad in a five-year war that has killed at least 250,000 people.

If its forces retake Aleppo and seal the Turkish border north of the city, Damascus would deal a crushing blow to the insurgents who were on the march until Russia intervened, shoring up Assad's rule and paving the way to the current reversal of rebel fortunes.

Russia has said it will keep bombing Islamic State and the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, which in many areas of western Syria fights government forces in close proximity to insurgents deemed moderates by Western states.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, asked at a security conference in Munich on Saturday to assess the chances of the cessation of hostilities deal succeeding, replied: "49 percent."

Asked the same question, his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier put the odds at 51 percent.

The complex, multi-sided civil war in Syria, raging since 2011, has drawn in most regional and global powers, caused the world's worst humanitarian emergency and attracted recruits to Islamist militancy from around the world.

Assad, backed on the ground by Iranian combatants and Lebanon's Hezbollah in addition to big power ally Russia, is showing no appetite for a negotiated ceasefire. He said this week that the government's goal was to recapture all of Syria, though he said this could take time.

The U.S. government said Assad was "deluded" if he thought there was a military solution to the conflict.

Syrian state television announced the army and allied militia had on Saturday captured the village of al-Tamura overlooking rebel terrain northwest of Aleppo.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported advances in the same area, adding that Russian jets had hit three rebel-held towns near the Turkish border.

Government offensives around Aleppo have sent tens of thousands of people fleeing towards the Turkish border.

ISLAMIC STATE TARGETED

Islamic State, driven by the goal of expanding its "caliphate" rather than reforming Syria - the original goal of the opposition when the conflict began as an unarmed street uprising in 2011 - is being targeted in separate campaigns by a U.S.-led alliance and Assad's government with Russian air support. Regional Kurdish forces supported by Washington are also fighting Islamic State in Raqqa province.

Gulf states that want Assad gone from power have said they would be willing to send in troops as part of any U.S.-led ground attack against Islamic State. U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Friday he expected Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to send commandos to help recapture Raqqa.

In what may have been a response to those remarks, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Saturday in Munich there was no need to scare anyone with a ground operation in Syria.


Speaking at the same conference, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls called on Russia to stop bombing civilians in Syria, saying this was crucial to achieving peace there.

"France respects Russia and its interests ... But we know that to find the path to peace again, the Russian bombing of civilians has to stop," Valls said.

Medvedev said that was simply not true.

"There is no evidence of our bombing civilians, even though everyone is accusing us of this," he said. "We are simply trying to protect our national interests," he said, adding that Moscow wanted to prevent Islamist militants getting to Russia.

Russia also has a major air base and large naval installation on Syria's Mediterranean coast.

Kerry, however, accused Russia of dropping so-called "dumb bombs" in Syria that do not have a precise target, saying this has led to the killing of civilians.

"To date, the vast majority of Russia's attacks have been against legitimate opposition groups. To adhere to the (ceasefire) agreement it made, Russia's targeting must change," Kerry told the Munich conference.

Two Syrian rebel commanders told Reuters on Friday insurgents had been sent "excellent quantities" of Grad rockets with a range of 20 km (12 miles) by foreign backers in recent days to help confront the Russian-backed offensive in Aleppo.

Foreign opponents of Assad including Saudi Arabia and Turkey have been supplying vetted rebel groups with weapons via a Turkey-based operations center.

Some of these groups have received military training overseen by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. The vetted groups have been a regular target of the Russian air strikes.

(Additional reporting by Denis Dyomkin in Moscow; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Dominic Evans)
I put part of the text in bold.
 

delft

Brigadier
Turkey directed artillery fire into Syria, also from Reuters:
Turkish military shelled Kurdish militia in Syria: government source
ANKARA/ISTANBUL | By
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and
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Turkey's military shelled Kurdish militia targets in northern Syria on Saturday, a Turkish government source said, hours after Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu warned that Ankara would act if it faced a threat from across the border.

It was not clear why it launched the shelling, which took place after the Kurdish fighters, backed by Russian bombing raids, drove Syrian rebels from a former military air base near the Turkish border.

"The Turkish Armed Forces fired shells at PYD positions in the Azaz area," the source said, referring to the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), regarded by Ankara as a terrorist organization.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors Syria's war, said the shelling had targeted the air base and a village captured from insurgents by the PYD-backed YPG militia.

A Kurdish official confirmed the shelling of the Menagh base, which he said had been captured by the Kurdish-allied Jaysh al-Thuwwar group rather than the YPG. Both are part of the Syria Democratic Forces alliance.

The shelling came amid growing anger in Ankara with U.S. backing for the PYD in its fight against Islamic State militants.

The PYD controls most of the Syrian side of Turkey's border and Ankara views it as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade-old insurgency for autonomy in southeast Turkey and whose bases in Iraq's Qandil mountains have been bombed repeatedly by the Turkish military.

"When there is any threat to Turkey, we will take in Syria the measures that we took in Iraq and in Qandil and will not hesitate to implement the necessary measures," Davutoglu said in a speech in the eastern Turkish city of Erzincan.

Turkey's disquiet has been heightened by the tens of thousands of people fleeing to the Turkish border after attacks by Russian-backed Syrian government forces, swelling refugee numbers in the area to 100,000.

Turkey, which already hosts 2.6 million Syrian refugees, has kept the latest arrivals on the Syrian side of the border, in part to pressure Russia to cease its air support for Syrian government forces near the city of Aleppo.

Davutoglu condemned the attacks in Aleppo as "barbarity, tyranny, a war strategy conducted with a medieval mentality" and said hundreds of thousands of people in the region faced the danger of starvation if a humanitarian corridor is not opened.

"We will help our brothers in Aleppo with all means at our disposal. We will take those in need but we will never allow Aleppo to be emptied through an ethnic massacre," he said.

NATO-member Turkey is one of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's most vehement critics and an ardent supporter of opposition forces.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu was reported as saying on Saturday that Saudi Arabia would send aircraft to Turkey's Incirlik air base for the fight against Islamic State.

(Reporting by Orhan Coskun and Tom Perry in Beirut; Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Alison Williams, Dominic Evans and Helen Popper)
 

delft

Brigadier
RT on the Turkish shelling, part of the article:
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Turkish military shells Kurds fighting Islamist rebels in northern Syria
Published time: 13 Feb, 2016 16:17Edited time: 13 Feb, 2016 19:32

The Turkish army has shelled Kurdish targets near the city of Azaz in northwestern Syria, including an air base recently taken from Islamist rebels, Kurdish sources on the ground tell RT.
The Turkish shelling of Kurdish positions has continued for more than three hours almost uninterruptedly, a Kurdish source told RT, adding that the Turkish forces are using mortars and missiles and firing from the Turkish border not far from the city of Azaz in the Aleppo Governorate.

The shelling targeted the Menagh military air base and the nearby village of Maranaz, where “many civilians were wounded,” local journalist Barzan Iso told RT. He added that Kurdish forces and their allies among “the Syrian democratic forces” had taken control of the air base on Thursday.

According to Iso, the Menagh base had previously been controlled by the Ahrar ash-Sham Islamist rebel group, which seized it in August of 2013. The journalist also added that Ahrar ash-Sham militants at the base had been supported by Al-Nusra terrorists and some extremist groups coming from Turkey.

Ahrar ash-Sham is a militant group that has
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to commit acts of terror in Damascus, Homs, and Latakia provinces, according to data provided to the Russian Defense Ministry by Syrian opposition forces.

The group, which has intensified its attacks on the Syrian government forces since January, was getting “serious reinforcements from Turkey,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova
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during a briefing in Moscow on January 21.

A source in the Turkish government confirmed to Reuters that the Turkish military had shelled Kurdish militia targets near Azaz on Saturday.

The Turkish Armed Forces fired shells at PYD positions in the Azaz area,” the source said, referring to the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), which Ankara views as a terrorist group.

A Kurdish official confirmed to Reuters that the shelling had targeted the Menagh air base located south of Azaz.

According to the official, the base had been captured by the Jaysh al-Thuwwar rebel group, which is an ally of PYD and a member of the Syria Democratic Forces alliance.

Syrian Kurds are actively engaged in the fight against the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) terrorist group and have been recently described as “some of the most successful” forces fighting IS jihadists in Syria by US State Department spokesman John Kirby, AFP reports.

Earlier, the US also called the PYD an “important partner” in the fight against Islamic State, adding that US support of the Kurdish fighters “will continue.”

.......................................
I wonder whether Syria will ask the Security Council to condemn Turkish aggression ....
 

plawolf

Lieutenant General
The Turks are also openly threatening a ground invasion of Syria now.

Absolutely shameless and disgusting behaviour that is only matched by the deafening silence from western capitals. Especially in comparison to their response when the Russians intervened, at the explicit invitation of the only internally recognised legitimate government of Syria.

Speaks volumes about how much the west values their vaunted rules of law when it's their mates who are trampling said laws and rules.
 

delft

Brigadier
From RT:
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Turkish forces shell Kurdish camp in Syria, reportedly hit Assad’s forces
Published time: 13 Feb, 2016 16:17Edited time: 14 Feb, 2016 07:29

The Turkish army has shelled Kurdish targets near the city of Azaz in northwest Syria, including an air base recently retaken from Islamist rebels, with a massive attack. It also hit Syrian forces across the border, according to media reports.

Turkish artillery targeted Syrian forces again late on Saturday, according to a military source quoted by RIA Novosti. The attack targeted the town of Deir Jamal in the Aleppo Governorate.

Meanwhile, the Turkish shelling of Kurdish positions continued for more than three hours almost uninterruptedly, a Kurdish source told RT, adding that the Turkish forces are using mortars and missiles and firing from the Turkish border not far from the city of Azaz in the Aleppo Governorate.

&c.
Turkey has become very dangerous.
 
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