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

***
if I'm in the mood, I'll redraw "my" Northern Hama positions today

as an armchair general, I use Sectors now :) (previously https://www.sinodefenceforum.com/is...o-oped-no-politics.t6913/page-421#post-413187 numbers):
WGNx3.jpg


"A" (from the top-left corner down in the above map):
- Kurnaz G (as in 'Government held')
- Al Hamamiyat R (as in 'hold by Rebels')
- Jubbayn G
- Halfaya R
- Muhradah G
- Al Majdal G; "A" ends

"B" (the bottom part):
- Khattab G
- Qimhanah G
- (not shown, but important) "Mount Zayn al-Abdeen" (
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) G
- Iskandariyah R
- Kafr Ra G; "B" ends

"C" (where most of the fights have been going on recently):
- Mubattan G
- Kawkab R
- Tayyibat al Ism G
- Qarah R
- Junaynah G
- Zugbah G; "C" ends

"D" (I don't know almost anything here):
- Duma R
"D" ends somewhere where ISIL is to the east (and out of this map) ...

presumably it should be easy to track now, but who knows ...

(it's based on sources starting right from
By
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-
01/10/2016
Video footage of the Syrian Army starting their northern Hama operations
 

delft

Brigadier
seconds ago I noticed in NYT
Audio Reveals What John Kerry
Told Syrians Behind Closed Doors
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EDIT
LOL it's all over in Russian Internet, from Breaking News at gazeta.ru
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up to the most recent blog by "Cassad"
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(both seem to like the fragment which I quote: "Mr. Kerry lamented being outmaneuvered by the Russians")
Why then insisted US for years that Assad be excluded from elections and even didn't use the mantra "free and fair elections"?
Of course Kerry is in favour of international rules, like the Westphalian rules and the Charter of UN. It is part of US exceptionalism that the rules don't apply to US.
 
Why then insisted US for years that Assad be excluded from elections and even didn't use the mantra "free and fair elections"?
Of course Kerry is in favour of international rules, like the Westphalian rules and the Charter of UN. It is part of US exceptionalism that the rules don't apply to US.
and in the meantime Largest hospital in rebel-held Aleppo hit by barrel bombs
Bombardment causing a 'bloodbath' says Medicins Sans Frontieres
The largest hospital in rebel-held Aleppo has been hit by at least two barrel bombs amid a major offensive against the city by Russian warplanes and Syrian government forces.

The onslaught was described as causing a "bloodbath" by leading medical charity, Medicins Sans Frontiers.

Air strikes across the city overnight have killed 30 civilians,
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. Another 18 were killed in air strikes in the countryside near Damascus. The death toll is expected to rise.

It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the attacks on the M10 hospital, but medical facilities have been plagued by bombing by forces loyal to the Syrian government in recent weeks.

The fierce fighting has intensified after diplomatic efforts stalled.

"There were direct hits to the hospital," Adham Sahloul of the Syrian American Medical Society told
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. "There were two barrel bombs, reportedly two cluster bombs and at least one rocket of some sort that hit the hospital directly.

"It created immense damage to the facility, destroyed all the windows. It rattled all the staff and the patients there.

"As of now there's no idea as to when it can be brought back into operation. The facility is extremely damaged."

Mr Sahloul said a group of patients and doctors "were inside the hospital for basic triage, bandaging, and cleaning services for emergency cases" when the bombing started and remained trapped there.

Hospital administrator and radiologist Mohammad Abu Rajab made an emergency call for help on Saturday morning from inside the M10 hospital.

"The hospital is being destroyed! SOS, everyone!" he said in an audio message given to journalists.

Both the M10 and M2 hospitals, which are code named to protect their locations, were also attacked on Wednesday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said air strikes also hit a smaller field hospital in the Sakhur neighbourhood on Saturday.

"One person was killed and the field hospital is out of service," Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

He could not confirm whether the casualty was a patient or a member of medical staff.

Rights groups have said the hospital attacks are part of a deliberate strategy to target civilian infrastructure and therefore constitute war crimes.

The recent surge in attacks in Aleppo by forces loyal to Mr Assad have been among the most deadly in the country's five-year civil war.

At least 220 people have died and many residential buildings have been razed to the ground by the attacks.

A video posted on social media on Friday showed a traumatized toddler holding onto a nurse following an air strike in Aleppo.

The beseiged old quarter of Aleppo was bombed heavily by Russian war planes as part of a major offensive on Saturday.

Air strikes concentrated on supply lines to rebel-held areas: the Castello Road and Malah district,
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reported.

Fighting raged in the Suleiman al-Halabi neighbourhood, the frontline to the north of Aleppo’s old city.

On Wednesday the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, said Washington would no longer negotiate with Moscow – key allies of the Syrian regime – if it did not stop the bombardment.
source:
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according to Military.com Russia Sends More Warplanes into Battle for Aleppo
One year after Russia
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, Moscow reportedly sent more warplanes Friday to a base in northern Syria to back the air forces of President Bashar al-Assad in the
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.

Russia's Izvestia newspaper said a group of Su-24 and Su-34 aircraft had arrived at the Hmeymim base near the coastal city of Latakia and additional Su-25 ground attack fighters would also be deployed "if need be," Reuters reported.

The aircraft deployment came as Assad's ground forces, backed by Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollah fighters, clashed with rebels in the center of Aleppo, once a city of two million and Syria's commercial hub before the civil war began in 2011.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring group, reported heavy bombardment by government forces and "back and forth" fighting in the city.

Stephen O'Brien, the top emergency relief official for the United Nations, told the Security Council Thursday that Aleppo faced a "humanitarian catastrophe unlike any we have witnessed in Syria."

Dr. Richard Brennan, emergency response director for the UN's World Health Organization, said that 338 people, including 100 children, had been killed in Aleppo by Russian and Syrian bombardment in the past week.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov charged that the U.S. was complicit in the carnage in Aleppo by backing rebels holding the eastern sector of the city, where the United Nations estimates that about 250,000 people have been blocked from receiving humanitarian aid convoys.

Lavrov told the BBC that the U.S. had reneged on a pledge to attack the al-Qaida-linked Jabhat Fatah al-Sham group, formerly known as the al-Nusra Front, which has joined more moderate rebel groups in the fight against Assad's forces.

"They (the US) pledged solemnly to take as a priority an obligation to separate the opposition from Nusra," Lavrov said.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner called Lavrov's charges "absurd."

On Thursday, Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, a spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, said "the whole 'opposition' ostensibly fighting a 'civil war' in Syria is a U.S.-controlled terrorist international."

Three weeks ago, Lavrov and Secretary of State John Kerry
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that was to lead to U.S.-Russian coordination in attacks on al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

The cease fire collapsed within a week after U.S. and coalition mistakenly bombed what were reportedly Syrian government forces in eastern Syria and Russian and Syrian aircraft were blamed for bombing a UN aid convoy headed to Aleppo.

Russia began bombing and sending artillery and anti-aircraft batteries into Syria last Sept. 30 to prop up Assad. "Of course, we're not going to plunge into the conflict," Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the time.
source:
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SampanViking

The Capitalist
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I told them that such a thing existed and they all laughed at me!
Well here it is, actual video evidence and not a grainy distance shot but in full HD
Yes it is a US Senator talking sense about Syria and Aleppo
The gentleman in question is Virginia State Senator Richard Black; a former Marine Colonel.
 
Yesterday at 9:58 AM
Aleppo now:
...
... two fresh maps, both should be "clickable":
  1. CtsiBGEW8AA0eIU.jpg:large
    (it's
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    ) and
  2. UsaHUff.jpg
    (it's
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    )
(from what I quickly noticed, the two maps differ in the status of Kindi Hospital
https://www.sinodefenceforum.com/is...o-oped-no-politics.t6913/page-439#post-417821
#1 shows Rebels there, #2 shows it like split ... pro-Government Twitter account said this morning "SAA regain full control of Kindi Hospital and its surroundings" (what else :)
 
Sep 9, 2016
Rumor has it that China might build a naval base in Tartus, Syria...

Watch this space.

...
LOL I did, got FARS News for you:
Sun Oct 02, 2016 3:34
Americans in Beirut Studying Chinese Presence in Syria War
Sources analyzing the Syrian crisis in Beirut said they have come to realize that the US agents are studying China's possible deployment of anti-tank TOW missiles near Lattakia after increased concerns about the activities of Uighur terrorists beside the al-Qaeda and other militant groups in Syria.

The revelation came several weeks after Guan Youfei, the Chinese military official charged with overseeing international cooperation, held a meeting with Syrian Defense Minister General Fahad Jassim al-Freij in Damascus, and signaled Beijing’s willingness to boost military cooperation with the Damascus government.

The daily Global Times cited the Chinese Defense Ministry as saying in August that both sides agreed to expand personnel training and humanitarian aid to the Syrians via the Chinese military.

The Chinese military “is willing to strengthen cooperation with its Syrian counterparts,” it quoted the ministry as saying.

Reports said in June that China is showing increased concerns about the ISIL members' infiltration into the border province of Xinjiang.

According to reports by Chinese newspapers, Beijing tightened security controls in Xinjiang by taking DNA tests from residents who demand receiving immigration and traveling documents.

After Youfei's visit to Damascus in August, the Chinese defense ministry spokesman said Beijing's military would provide training for Syrian armed forces, adding that it would take place on Chinese soil.

Beijing is a longstanding backer of the Syrian government of Bashar Assad, which has engaged in a bloody war against terror groups that has left more than 290,000 people dead and displaced millions since it began in 2011.

Also in the same month, media sources disclosed that a Chinese military delegation in a visit to Damascus explored avenues for the dispatch of a number of warplanes to Syria to intensify war on terrorism in the Middle-Eastern country.

"In a surprising visit, a Chinese military delegation conferred with Syrian Defense Minister Fahad Jassim al-Freij over engagement of Chinese fighter jets in bombardments of terrorist groups' positions in Syria, mainly in Aleppo," Debka file quoted a military analyst as saying.

"Chinese jets may launch bombing of positions of Jeish al-Islami al-Turkistani with over 3,000 Uighur fighter," the analyst quoted senior spy officers of the US intelligence as saying.
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