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

Wednesday at 9:06 PM

Jura said:

should I switch to Mosul now? ...

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... in fact I later switched to Palmyra ... anyway Government has been making progress in Aleppo since then, reportedly gotten 95% according to the most recent map I found:

(should be "clickable"; it's )

Today at 8:07 AM

Jura said:

... if I'm not mistaken, ISIL has been attacking for three days now, so it can go on for one more day
...
which would be today ...

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I realized it's (at least) the fifth today, because Thursday at 5:19 PM

Jura said:

some time ago
Jul 1, 2016
and now I read ISIL was attacking (presumably on a large scale), but I didn't figure where exactly ... according to a pro-Government Twitter account the road to Homs ("32" in the left part of the above map) has been closed

EDIT
now I read in Twitter Government had lost "Jabal Hayyal":

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the most recent credible info I found, captioned Battle for Palmyra: The Territorial Control as of December 12, 2016 (2 a.m. - Palmyra Time), is this "edmap":
EDIT
by the way plenty of second-guessing in Russian Internet like how could ISIL gathering be overlooked? how is this:
possible? where is Russian Air Force? etc. etc.

Yesterday at 7:33 PM

Jura said:

looking from my comfortable armchair, ...

• playing Tango now: ISIL should rush it down "32" road to directly threaten the next major point (tonight)
  

  Jura said:

  ... "Tiyas Airbase" below (it's about ten miles from

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  ):
  

  

  
  
  ...

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...

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... and the above point seems to be what's been going on, as I'm now reading ISIL is at the barriers of "Tiyas Airbase" ... spooky, huh?

EDIT
am also reading the base more to the north is gone already:

^^^
I think Government now should leave the whole protrusion, shouldn't send the reinforcements (which reportedly have been scrambled) into it, but spread them to

1. stiffen the defense of
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   (shown in the bottom of the map below), and
2. block the exit from it towards Homs:

just my armchair generalling ...

BBC Radio 4 Today program is panicky: Save Aleppo! The "rebels" have now lost 98% of the area they occupied. Most of the civilians have been rescued. Hundreds of "rebels" have surrendered. Only the most bloodthirsty Wahhabi terrorists will be left in the remaining 2% and they need to be saved. I'm disgusted.

And I've been listening to BBC for half a century.

The disingenuousness of the reporting seems to know no bounds.
Incredible that no matter how small the area under terrorist control becomes, that the number of "trapped civilians seems to barely change"
Latest hyperbole from BBC is -
So lets be clear on this - despite the very well documented helping over 100,000 civilians escape East Aleppo and reach safety, the SAA suddenly run rampage through the very last few remaining streets and start killing indiscriminately? Really?
I say time to add a letter S to the BBC!

Only the other day I heard Mr Kerry calling for Grace from the victorious SAA in Aleppo. Dare I suggest that he and those of his ilk try to practice the same in defeat?

it's the situation in Aleppo in the morning of today, according to a non-Government Twitter account; for scale, I quickly created this:

it's two squared kilometers MAX which would be about one percent of Aleppo area: wiki says
Area
• Total 190 km
but that's not the point in urban warfare, considering now many inside will fight to Death

SampanViking said:

The disingenuousness of the reporting seems to know no bounds.
Incredible that no matter how small the area under terrorist control becomes, that the number of "trapped civilians seems to barely change"
Latest hyperbole from BBC is -

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

So lets be clear on this - despite the very well documented helping over 100,000 civilians escape East Aleppo and reach safety, the SAA suddenly run rampage through the very last few remaining streets and start killing indiscriminately? Really?
I say time to add a letter S to the BBC!

Only the other day I heard Mr Kerry calling for Grace from the victorious SAA in Aleppo. Dare I suggest that he and those of his ilk try to practice the same in defeat?

Click to expand...

Ever notice how all the hyperbowlic claims of terrible atrocities and massive civilian casualties are only coming out of rebel held areas during seize, but never after they have fallen?

Amazingly, after the 'moderate' terrorists had been cleared out and outside observers (many of whom are rabidly anti-Assad/Russia so are hardly likely to sit on stories that paint them in a bad light) are actually able to get on the ground, we hear a deafening silence of corroborating follow-up reports to substantiate those ludicrous claims.

Today we are bombarded with claims that 'pro-Assad militias' massacred up to 80 civilians.

Not only are the numbers inconsequential, but just who are making these reports and how the actual F are they positively IDing who is doing the massaring? Because we all know militias universally adhere to strict and un-copiable uniform codes.

Call me cold blooded but if Assad was seriously wanting some afters, you'd think there will be more than 80 bodies from a single incident to show for it.

What does Assad get from such inconsequential petty killings? Absolutely nothing.

The 'moderate' terrorists who are literally staring down the barrel of a gun, well, who here honestly doubt any of them would hesitate a single second about donning some captured enemy uniforms and machinegunning a bunch of civilians they have been using as human shields, and getting one of their buddies to put on a white helmet and spin some tall tail about it to wilfully gullible western media pundits and politicians if they think that might give their backers and masters from certain unnamed countries the pretext to come in and save their pathetic worthless lives?

This smacks of the same kind of false flag attack like the alleged Assad gas attack from a couple of years ago that British commentators are still sulking over not seizing as a pretext to invade, I mean intervene.

Yesterday at 12:08 PM

Jura said:

...
by the way plenty of second-guessing in Russian Internet like how could ISIL gathering be overlooked? how is this:

possible? where is Russian Air Force? etc. etc.

Click to expand...

now the blog by "Cassad"

shows what Russians left behind in Russian base in Palmyra

Today at 12:19 PM

Jura said:

it's the situation in Aleppo in the morning of today, according to a non-Government Twitter account; for scale, I quickly created this:

it's two squared kilometers MAX which would be about one percent of Aleppo area: wiki says
Area
• Total 190 km
but that's not the point in urban warfare, considering now many inside will fight to Death

Click to expand...

now I've read in several sources the sides have reached a deal most recently