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

FORBIN

FORBIN

Lieutenant General
Registered Member
Mosul battle: 'IS leader Baghdadi' urges no retreat

The Islamic State (IS) group has released an audiotape which it says is from its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

If true, it would be the first public message from him in about a year and would dispel rumours that he is dead.

The voice on the audio calls on Iraqis to defend the city of Mosul against the Iraqi army, which is attempting to re-take it from the militants.

Baghdadi's whereabouts remain unknown. Some officials have said he may be inside Mosul alongside IS fighters.

It has not been independently verified that the voice in the audio belongs to Baghdadi. There have been repeated rumours of his death through the years, including
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.

Mosul, the last IS urban stronghold in Iraq, is where Baghdadi declared a caliphate two years ago.

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Jura The idiot

Jura The idiot

General
anti-Government forces are trying to get into "New Aleppo District" (marked, by somebody in Twitter, more to the north in the map below) and "3000 Apartments" as I write:
CwVKz1LXgAAG2R2.jpg
 
P

PanAsian

Major
Jura said:
this:
Oct 27, 2016
(described inside https://www.sinodefenceforum.com/is...o-oped-no-politics.t6913/page-461#post-421645) at that time was fairly inaccurate in the southern part, but, ironically, is more accurate now ... here's what the most recent "de Syracuse" shows in this area:
YM6i.jpg

(comes from
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you should be able to like zoom in upon clicking on the map in that link)
Click to expand...

Interesting that this indicates US-backed Kurdish/rebel forces are inserting themselves between Turkish/rebel forces and Syrian government/allied forces at the expense of IS. It will be interesting to see if/who tries to take Al-Bab and whether that happens with any relation to Syrian government success/failure in securing the rest of Aleppo.
 
Jura The idiot

Jura The idiot

General
top 1 news at gazeta.ru right now
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links to the Twitter
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which links to an ISIL outlet purporting to show a Russian helicopter taken down
(don't quote this to tell me it's a fake, impossibility, whatever)

of course the Russian Ministry of Defense has a different story:
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SampanViking

SampanViking

The Capitalist
Staff member
Super Moderator
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Jura said:
top 1 news at gazeta.ru right now
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links to the Twitter
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which links to an ISIL outlet purporting to show a Russian helicopter taken down
(don't quote this to tell me it's a fake, impossibility, whatever)

of course the Russian Ministry of Defense has a different story:
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Click to expand...

Not quite sure what you think people make accuse as fake?
This story was all over AMD yesterday with the video that one of your links contains.
The official story is that the helicopter landed safely with a technical issue and that the pilots were rescued, just in time as an ISIS ATGM team hit and destroyed the downed helicopter.

My only comment to that, is that if I was watching the video blind, that I saw nothing that indicated an ATGM and would just have assumed that the Russians decided to burn out the helicopter abandoned in enemy held territory and beyond hope of recovery.
If the Russians say ISIS destroyed it on the ground why should I doubt them (Unless the pilots have to pay for abandoned equipment of course ;) )

Nothing from the video indicated any missile damage before the "ATGM hit" and the helicopter must have been down on the ground for some time to allow another Helicopter and two ground vehicles to reach it.
 
Jura The idiot

Jura The idiot

General
SampanViking said:
Not quite sure what you think people make accuse as fake?
...
Click to expand...
LOL if you had not been a Moderator, I would've ignored ... well, I've heard there's plenty of "explanations" at Russian-fanboish sites (like the blast doesn't fit and it was Russians who were blowing up the helo [with another right beside it hahaha, I add], the sound of a launch doesn't fit, etc. etc.), plus the official story (the РИА link I posted) requires a willing suspension of disbelief ... stuff I'm really not interested in, that's why I included the "disclaimer"
Jura said:
(don't quote this to tell me it's a fake, impossibility, whatever)
Click to expand...
but it seems I should've extended it to "and don't tell me it's not a fake and it is a possibility" :)

I'm not going to post about this story anymore.
 
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