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

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
World | Mon Jan 11, 2016 10:10pm EST
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Syria needs new constitution, says Russia's Putin
MOSCOW | BY DENIS PINCHUK AND
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r

Russian President Vladimir Putin gives an interview to Germany's Bild newspaper at the Bocharov Ruchei state residence in Sochi, Russia, January 5, 2016.
REUTERS/ALEXEY NIKOLSKY/SPUTNIK/KREMLIN

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Syria needs to start working on a new constitution as a first step to finding a political solution to its civil war, though he acknowledged the process was likely to be difficult.

Putin, who has thrown Russia's support behind Syrian President Bashar al-Assad with air strikes, also said in an interview with the German newspaper Bild that the crisis in relations between regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran would complicate the search for peace in Syria.

"I believe it's necessary to move toward constitutional reform (in Syria). It's a complicated process, of course. And after that, on the basis of the new constitution, (Syria should) hold early presidential and parliamentary elections", Putin said in the interview which was conducted on Jan. 5.

Putin, obliquely referring to diplomatic pressure from the United States and France to concentrate Moscow's firepower on Islamic State militants, said Russian military aid was going to help parts of the Syrian opposition in the fight against IS as well as to help Assad.

"You are talking about Assad as our ally. Do you know that we are backing the actions of the armed opposition combating Islamic State? ... We are coordinating our joint actions with them and support their offensive operations on different parts of the front with strikes by our air force."

"I am talking about hundreds, thousands of armed people, who combat Islamic State ... Some of them have already spoken about it in public, others prefer keeping silent but the work is going on."

Putin made similar comments last year, but Russian officials subsequently denied that Moscow provided military aid to the Syrian opposition groups that Putin had mentioned.

In the interview with Bild, Putin said the row between Saudi Arabia and Iran over Riyadh's execution of a Shi'ite Muslim cleric on Jan. 2 would complicate attempts to reach a solution to the Syrian conflict.

"If our participation were needed, we would be ready to do everything for the conflict to be resolved, and as soon as possible," he said, according to a transcript of the interview, sent to media by the Kremlin press office.



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ISIS burns fighters alive for letting Ramadi fall
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Published January 11, 2016
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ISIS fighters who fled to the terror group’s Iraqi stronghold of Mosul after being defeated in Ramadi were burned alive in the town square, sources told FoxNews.com, in an unmistakable message to fighters who may soon be defending the northern city from government forces.

Several residents of Mosul recounted the grisly story for stateside relatives, describing the deadly reception black clad jihadists got when they made it to Mosul, some 250 miles north of the city retaken by Iraqi forces operating with cover from U.S. air power.

“ISIS is fracturing, paranoid from within.”

- Michael Pregent, former to Gen. David Petraeus

“They were grouped together and made to stand in a circle,” a former resident of northern Iraq now living in the U.S. but in touch with family back home told FoxNews.com. “And set on fire to die.”

Several Iraqi-Americans and recent refugees with close relatives in Mosul told of ISIS fighters fresh off defeat in Ramadi being shunned – and executed – for not fighting to the death in Ramadi.

Michael Pregent, a terrorism expert and former intelligence adviser to Gen. David Petraeus in Iraq, said such an act isn’t new for the callous terror group. A similar fate was meted out to fighters who lost Saddam’s hometown to Kurdish forces last year.

“There is no surprise on executing ISIS fighters from Ramadi,” he said. “They did the same to fighters after Tikrit.”

The retaking of Ramadi, the capital of the mainly Sunni-populated Anbar Province which ISIS took over last May, was a major setback for ISIS. Just 80 miles west of Baghdad, the city was overrun by ISIS in June, 2014. Iraqi forces, fighting with Sunni tribes and supported by coalition forces, recently took it back but the city remains in ruins. Booby-traps, landmines and a broken infrastructure have rendered it mostly uninhabitable for the time being.

With government, Kurdish and coalition forces now mustering to recapture Mosul, which fell to ISIS approximately 18 months ago, an increasingly paranoid ISIS has stepped up its murders of women and children, according to people trapped in the city.

“They come to the house and take the children and accuse them of being spies,” said a stateside Iraqi with knowledge of the situation. “If the mom cries and gets upset at them, they accuse of her being a spy too and take her to the jail and later kill her.”

The terrorist group is feeling the heat of a coming onslaught, said Pregent.

“ISIS is fracturing, paranoid from within,” Pregent continued, noting that ISIS has two intelligence directorates – one for internal threats the other for external ones – and both are focused on unearthing “threats” to their existence within areas under their thumb. “They are using women and children executions to intimidate – the harsher the tactic the more desperate the leadership is.”

Clint Watts, Fox fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, agreed.

“They continue to lose territory, we’ve seen a growing number of defections and a rise in the number of alleged internal spies – many of whom they have killed mercilessly without demonstrating significant evidence of internal espionage,” he explained. “ISIS pattern of internal killings looks remarkably similar to al Shabaab’s decline in Somalia. As Shabaab lost ground and defectors increased, internal killings and harsher punishments were meted out across the terror group further accelerating the loss of local popular support.”

Earlier this year, activist group Mosul Eye reported that ISIS committed mass executions of men and children at Alhud Village just south of Mosul, accusing the entire township of apostasy and affiliation to the local Iraqi police forces. In late December, several teenagers aged between 12 and 16 were reportedly caught trying to flee across the Tigris River toward the Kurdish region, and subsequently accused of being “spies” by ISIS and within minutes publicly executed in front of their families.

As it stands, communications within the besieged city remain spotty, but many are able to get messages out via telephone or Internet – although at great risk.

“The residents have little electricity or water, there is no salary for people working, there are no medicines to cure illnesses,” another insider based in Iraq observed. “Civilians are in a state of despair.

“Everyone just lives their lives in complete fear,” he said. “They don’t know who will be next – man, woman or child.”
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Nov 5, 2015
...

So, I'll try to occasionally follow five direction:
  1. Aleppo (including access routes: "M5" and through Khanasir);
  2. Talbiseh pocket;
  3. Salma;
  4. suburbs of Damascus;
  5. Tall Sayyad salient (above)
...
... and it appears the biggest success of the Government Forces came today, in the direction #3:
CYgSK4HWcAAxWkL.jpg

entering Salma ... video:
etc. etc. maybe I'll update this ... (in simple words, from what I've read, Salma is a gate to the area around Turkish border)
 

Brumby

Major
Air war against Islamic State group cost $5.5 billion

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The air war against the Islamic State group has cost the American taxpayer $5.5 billion, roughly $11.2 million per day, a $2 million
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since June, according to the latest
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.

The Air Force accounts for $3.75 billion — nearly 70 percent — of that cost, about $7.7 million a day since the U.S. began launching airstrikes in August 2014.

More than 50 percent of the cost accounts for daily flight operating tempo: The Air Force in 2015, for example, conducted 21,000 sorties over Iraq and Syria, 9,000 of which included at least one weapons release, Air Forces
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say.

The last two months have also seen an increase in airstrikes: In November and December, the Air Force for the first time during Operation Inherent Resolve surpassed over 3,100 dropped bombs.

“By the time we get to the end of 2016, I hope to be pretty well done with Daesh [the Islamic State group],” Lt. Gen. Charles Brown Jr, commander of U.S. Air Forces Central Command, recently told Air Force Times. “That’s probably aspirational, but I think we are putting pressure on Daesh.”

I can sum up the US air campaign from this article in one sentence. Costly, ineffective and delusional.
 

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
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Well,,, hehehe (and it is really no laughing matter), this will certainly get the troops committed to their cause with their whole heart.

Historically, any regime that has to make it soldiers more afraid of it than the enemy, is doomed to fall...and usually precipitously.

We shall see.
 

B.I.B.

Captain
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suggest the Russian blogger does not know what a quagmire is.


Really?

...after what, two months since Putin announced it and first sent units down there?

Hogwash.

He needs to go back in his history book and look at the ten year effort in Afghanistan and give this one at least 2-3 years before he even mentions such a term. Mentioning after two months IMHO displays a complete ignorance on what a modern campaign like this takes to even really get going. And two months ain't even close.

Same is true for Obama.

I am fine with Russia using her air power, and supporting ground troops in really putting the hurt on ISIS.

OT Ten years from now Putin will have retired, drawing a pension and relaxing at his country Dacha without a care in the world.

@Jura

II have often wondered whether you chose your user name after the Whiskey or the place you came from.
 
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