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There have been good gains made by the FSA/Nursa alliance recently, and apparently more infighting in the Assad regime. Will find links soon.

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It's been a while since I posted in this thread, so I'll do a brief summary of what has happened so far.

 

First off, Turkey and the PKK have come into conflict with each other. Turkey has bombed PKK areas in Syria and the PKK has launched terrorist attacks within Turkey, largely against police stations, border outposts, and federal buildings. Turkey has also bombed some ISIS positions after a recent terrorist attack was committed by them. There's been talks of Turkey invading Northern Syria and establishing a "buffer zone" against both the PKK and ISIS, but no action so far.

 

Second, US backed FSA units have made some good gains against ISIS and the regime in Northern Syria (can't remember exact locations though).

 

Third, and most importantly, Russian troops and aircraft have begun bombing raids in Syria and are advising/directing/assisting forces of the Assad regime, mostly around Latakia and directed at the FSA. This is an interesting and potentially dangerous development, as the FSA, not ISIS, are the ones being targeted and there is the possibility, however small, that Russian and US/Turkish forces could come into conflict with one another.

 

Will get a source for the Russian intervention sooon (as in a few days).

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Well, not exactly, since Russia is far more isolated this time around and doesn't have the same kind of strength the USSR had, both militarily and economically.

 

Anyway, in a new development the Druze minority in Southern Syria are rioting against the regime. This could be quite advantageous to the FSA close by.

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I have to say the Western position on ISIS and Syria is so frustrating to me. Schizophrenic really.

 

America wants to have the cake and eat it. It wants to keep ISIS under control but doesn't want to kill it - because they want to keep Israel and Saudis happy. They want to kill Assad in order to piss in the Russians' soup but are afraid of both Russia and Iran and, of course, they can't control ISIS without Assad and the help from Iran.

 

In the meantime, the whole pro-Western population of Syria is on the move to Europe, which will have the effect of leaving only the radicals there and also will create havoc in Europe for decades to come. As it so often happens: America (+ the UK) start brewing the crap in the Middle East - then let the Europeans rip the consequences. It is getting old really quickly.

 

Regards

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Soooo, here's some information you guys may find interesting:

 

Since this seems to be the general Syria thread around these parts, here are two interesting illustrations of the American involvement so far:

 

Image:

12122556_1625058214426980_7632892500793237823_n.jpg?oh=238c50d30cf725d570c06482c5b3efe3&oe=56A1C35D

 

[that is a LOT of anti-tank weaponry]

Caption:

Beyond conducting airstrikes, the combined support of our European allies is critical for providing equipment to the Kurds in the fight against‪#‎ISIL‬. Here is a current breakdown of the support provided as of Oct. 5, 2015.

source: Operation Inherent Resolve's Facebook feed, October 5th 2015

 

Image:

Operation-Inherent-Resolve-October8.jpg

 

Caption:

As of 4:59 p.m. EDT Oct. 6, the U.S. and coalition have conducted a total of 7,323 strikes (4,701 Iraq / 2,622 Syria).

U.S. has conducted 5,718 trikes in Iraq and Syria (3,231 Iraq / 2,487 Syria)

Rest of Coalition has conducted 1,605 strikes in Iraq and Syria (1,470 Iraq /135 Syria)

The countries that have participated in the strikes include:

In Iraq: (1) Australia, (2) Canada, (3) Denmark, (4) France, (5) Jordan, (6) The Netherlands, and (7) UK

In Syria: (1) Australia, (2) Bahrain, (3) Canada, (4) France, (5) Jordan, (6) Saudi Arabia, (7) Turkey and (8) UAE

As of Oct. 6, U.S. and partner nation aircraft have flown an estimated 57,843 sorties in support of operations in Iraq and Syria.

source: Special Report: Inherent Resolve

Other info: 12,100+ ISIS militants killed in Iraq according to the Coalition, 3,378+ have been killed in Syria according to the SOHR. Of course, both those estimates are three months old.

 

Some other fun stuff:

 

Assad still kills way more civilians than Daesh:

 

Image:

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On Iranian involvement, in case someone didn't already know:

Iran Spends Billions to Prop Up Assad - Bloomberg View

On Monday, a spokeswoman for the U.N. special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, told me that the envoy estimates Iran spends $6 billion annually on Assad's government. Other experts I spoke to put the number even higher. Nadim Shehadi, the director of the Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies at Tufts University, said his research shows that Iran spent between $14 and $15 billion in military and economic aid to the Damascus regime in 2012 and 2013, even though Iran's banks and businesses were cut off from the international financial system.

Other info: Iran currently has several thousand (no one is sure on the exact number) special forces soldiers in Syria, where they have been acting as "advisors" and shock troops to their incompetent as hell Arab allies. 121+ have died already, including two brigadier generals.

 

Seems that they're quite invested in the Syria-Iran-Russia-Hezbollah coalition. 6-15 billion dollars a year is a LOT of money for Iran.

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It's high stakes for Iran. Assad is their base on the Mediterranean and a force keeping Sunnis in check. That is why the Saudis & co are so happy to bankroll and support ISIS and use it to remove Assad and deal a big blow to Iran. That's why the Iranians take it so close to heart.

 

Russia is mostly afraid. They know what will happen if Assad falls. Without that regime, ISIS will wipe out the Kurds (with the help of the Turks) and will create a Saudi satellite-state which will upset the balance of Muslim power in the region and splash a wave of terrorism across Europe and Russia itself. Then they will drown all the Alawite population in Syria in blood. What numbers Assad kills now will pale into insignificance.

 

The only alternative for ISIS in Syria is Assad. Let's face it - there is no "moderate Syrian resistance" which America so likes to talk about. There are just ISIS-controlled or affiliated local gangs. All the best equipment that goes to such gangs ends up with ISIS pretty much immediately. And the longer the war goes in this current stalemate state - the higher the chances of ISIS succeeding and the higher the death toll will be.

 

So, Russia is trying to force a decision in that war now. Help Assad suppress ISIS in Syria and deny them their vital base. Once that is done, ISIS in Iraq will die.

 

The US is realising there is no other choice but - to publicly admit it means some seriously red faces all round. So, it's convenient for America to let the Russians to the dirty job and take all the political risks while criticising them half-heartedly from afar.

 

Hehe. Politics. It is dirty :D

 

Regards

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It's high stakes for Iran. Assad is their base on the Mediterranean and a force keeping Sunnis in check. That is why the Saudis & co are so happy to bankroll and support ISIS and use it to remove Assad and deal a big blow to Iran. That's why the Iranians take it so close to heart.

This is all bunk. Saudi Arabia is on Daesh's hit list. The Saudis support other rebels in Syria, both Islamist and secular, while bombing Daesh (though, given the frightening incompetence of Arab militaries, this is not much of a help). Not all Islamic extremists are on the same side.

 

Russia is mostly afraid. They know what will happen if Assad falls. Without that regime, ISIS will wipe out the Kurds (with the help of the Turks) and will create a Saudi satellite-state which will upset the balance of Muslim power in the region and splash a wave of terrorism across Europe and Russia itself. Then they will drown all the Alawite population in Syria in blood. What numbers Assad kills now will pale into insignificance.

This is total hogwash. The Kurds aren't going to get wiped out with the U.S. supporting them (especially since they've defeated Daesh at every turn post-US intervention), and the majority of the rebels aren't Daesh.

 

Russia's own terrorist problem is under control (relatively; there were 600 civilian and 1,100 police/paramilitary fatalities in the past six years) as long as they keep the bribes flowing into the North Caucasus. Well, except for 2,500 Russian citizens from that region going to join Islamist groups in Syria, but eh, it's the Caucasus. The reason Russia is getting involved is because of dick-waving. Well, that and arms sales; the Russians lost over ten billion dollars worth of revenue in Libya after NATO intervened and bombed the government forces back into the stone age. And Assad is a much bigger client than Gaddaffi was.

 

The only alternative for ISIS in Syria is Assad.

Neither of those are realistic options at this point. Nobody outside of the Sunni areas will tolerate Daesh, and no one outside of the core government regions will tolerate Assad. This war was raging for three years before Daesh involved itself; Syria as a whole (oh who we are kidding? There will be no real Syria after this) will not accept Assad.

 

In any case. The war would've been long over by now, before Daesh ever entered the war, if Iran, Russia, and (to a surprising degree) Hezbollah hadn't propped up Assad. His government has collected basically no revenue for the couple years, and has been relying almost entirely on Russian imported weapons.

 

Let's face it - there is no "moderate Syrian resistance" which America so likes to talk about. There are just ISIS-controlled or affiliated local gangs. All the best equipment that goes to such gangs ends up with ISIS pretty much immediately. And the longer the war goes in this current stalemate state - the higher the chances of ISIS succeeding and the higher the death toll will be.

Nothing is "ISIS-controlled" except ISIS. There are other Islamist groups that are linked to Al-Qaeda, but neither those nor ISIS make up the majority of the opposition (in fact, for the first two years, the opposition was almost entirely defectors from the army). Anyway, that's been proven to be totally wrong. Daesh's crimes haven't approached Assad's in scale at any point during their existence, despite them having 10 million people under their control at the height of their strength. Assad is the main cause of the instability in Syria; Daesh is just the a vulture coming to peck at Syria's corpse.

 

The most likely result at this point is Balkanization.

 

So, Russia is trying to force a decision in that war now. Help Assad suppress ISIS in Syria and deny them their vital base. Once that is done, ISIS in Iraq will die.

Daesh is primarily an Iraqi organization. Russia isn't doing crap; they've launched a token military effort as a show of solidarity to their allies and a show of force to their rivals. They're even making the Iranians pay for the weapons they give Assad. The actual aid they've given amounts to perhaps a few billion dollars worth of credit, weapons, advisors, and air strikes- proportionally far more than the USA has been spending on their intervention, but not enough to change the balance of the war.

 

Daesh is already dying. Their advance in Iraq was stopped cold and they suffered tens of thousands of casualties due to the Western bombing in addition to losing a large portion of their oil production. They lost 30% of their territory in subsequent Kurd-ISF counteroffensives. They have fighters deserting left and right. They've been reduced to begging the Coalition not to bomb them (three weeks ago, they tried to trade some Kurdish prisoners for the capability to transport fuel and guns down a road without getting bombed; they were rejected).

 

Oh, and why would we help Assad? He isn't fighting Daesh. He's actually one of the main reasons Daesh is as strong as it is. He specifically focused on Daesh's enemies, the more moderate elements of the opposition, to create a false dichotomy: "me or them".

 

The US is realising there is no other choice but - to publicly admit it means some seriously red faces all round. So, it's convenient for America to let the Russians to the dirty job and take all the political risks while criticising them half-heartedly from afar.

There are no red faces around. The U.S., whether it meant to or not, walked into a great position in Syria. Iran and Hezbollah are sinking in an ungodly amount of money trying to prop up an anti-American Russian client state*, which is inevitably going to fail, while also fighting Al-Nusra and Daesh. Meanwhile, the US-led air campaign has inflicted significant damage on Daesh and stopped it from attacking the areas that the USA actually cares about. They're happy just to let Assad, Al-Nusra, ISIS, Hezbollah, and Iran beat the crap out of each other.

 

*Hezbollah has suffered about 1,000 soldiers killed. For such a small organization, that's huge, especially since those troops are likely some of their best. Iran has lost probably 200 special forces soldiers in Syria by now, including two generals. More importantly, they've sunk tens of billions of dollars into the Assad regime. Even assuming the low end estimates are correct, i.e. 6 billion a year... that still means they're paying an amount of money equivalent to 2/3 of their own military budget, every year. If the higher end of 15 billion a year are correct... well, that's the equivalent of the USA spending 680 billion. A year. And they're losing this while mostly fighting Daesh and Al-Qaeda (they fight the other Syrian rebels too, but they're more in common in those other theaters, since Al-Nusra and Daesh are on average more competent than the FSA).

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Oops. I seem to have touched a raw nerve here. And you're saying there are no red faces in America. Hehe :D

 

The picture you are trying to paint is based on wishful thinking. I agree with you on one point - a lot of dick waving is involved on both Russia's and America's side - that's par for the game.

 

But the rest... No, sir. ISIS is a descendant of "Al Qaeda In Iraq" but its main base is now in Syria. They do control everything in the "rebel" areas. ISIS is funded and supplied by Saudi Arabia and Qatar. ISIS is also tacitly supported by Turkey. All the other rebels are basically subservient to ISIS now. They have to be.

 

With the Kurds - just see how quickly the US support will evaporate if ISIS wins over. "Who, Kurds? Never heard of them, nope! Ask the Turks, maybe they'll know. Hehe." :D

 

And, please, there are no "moderate elements" there. In situations like that all "moderates" get killed or run away in the very beginning. Everyone who's left are either diehard cutthroat thugs or dead.

 

Regards

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Oops. I seem to have touched a raw nerve here. And you're saying there are no red faces in America. Hehe :D

Only as much as anyone spewing inaccuracies "touches a raw nerve" for anyone.

 

 

The picture you are trying to paint is based on wishful thinking. I agree with you on one point - a lot of dick waving is involved on both Russia's and America's side - that's par for the game.

 

But the rest... No, sir. ISIS is a descendant of "Al Qaeda In Iraq" but its main base is now in Syria. They do control everything in the "rebel" areas.

No it doesn't, which is why distinctions are drawn between them on maps and Daesh is still actively fighting other factions besides the government.

 

ISIS is funded and supplied by Saudi Arabia and Qatar. All the other rebels are basically subservient to ISIS now. They have to be.

No it they aren't. This is pure fantasy. Saudi Arabia and Qatar back anti-ISIS groups and bomb ISIS. These groups they back aren't "good guys" either, but they're not ISIS. There's a distinction; all Islamist extremists just don't blend together. There is no subservience; the other rebels are still fighting Daesh, because unsurprisingly it's totally unpopular outside of certain areas.

 

With the Kurds - just see how quickly the US support will evaporate if ISIS wins over. "Who, Kurds? Never heard of them, nope! Ask the Turks, maybe they'll know. Hehe."

They've already launched 7,400 air strikes and given the Kurds hundreds of millions of dollars worth of weapons. Them abandoning the Kurds to the current enemy #1, and Daesh just outright overrunning everything when everyone is against them, is pure fantasy when they've already drastically weakened Daesh as an organization, despite Assad's attempt to make sure it remains the most powerful opposition group.

 

Daesh is not the Draka.

 

And, please, there are no "moderate elements" there. In situations like that all "moderates" get killed or run away in the very beginning. Everyone who's left are either diehard cutthroat thugs or dead.

More propaganda. None of the rebels except Daesh have acted half as brutally as Assad has. There is a shortage of moderates, but that's mostly because Assad focused specifically on them just to get this kind of reaction.

 

Your post is something I would expect to find in Russian propaganda.

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Your post is something I would expect to find in Russian propaganda.

 

What's that supposed to mean? Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

 

Also, I don't want this thread turning out like the other one right now so try to keep the "You're wrong" comments to a minimum please...

"Ross, this is nothing. WHAT YOU NEED to be playing is S***flinger 5000." - Ross Scott talking about himself.

-------

PM me if you have any questions or concerns! :D

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Your post is something I would expect to find in Russian propaganda.

 

What's that supposed to mean? Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Well, a post sounding like propaganda of any kind is bad, since propaganda by definition distorts the truth. But that was merely a statement of fact, rather than insult. What he's saying (all rebels are ISIS, GLORIOUS STRONK RUS forces will do with 30 planes what far more powerful countries couldn't with hundreds, Assad is the only viable option, etc.) is, almost word for word, how the Syrian conflict is being portrayed in RT.

Edited by Guest (see edit history)

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Hehe, I notice that a lot - for Americans, everything that doesn't fit within their comfortable worldview must necessarily be someone else's propaganda. It's sad but I don't really care. I say things how I see them - time will tell if I was right or wrong, so, let's just wait and see.

 

And yes, Russian planes alone (nor American ones, for that matter) won't be enough to turn the war. But Russian planes covering Iranian troops on the ground seem to be working much better.

 

@RandomGuy - if for once you stop the patriotic America v Russkies fervour and try to look at things how they are, you will understand a great deal more about the world we live in (you may not like what you see though).

 

Regards

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