Syria in 2015

[OUTLAW 09]

Russia'n airstrike in Al-Taman'ah town /#Hama
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WKSUG69C6Q …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.454448&lon=36.749353&z=14&m=b …

2 others hit Sukayk village to pave #Assad-forces the way
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyZFlWiAQlA …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzZVEdp5avs …

Idlib #Russia'n airstrike wipped out sheep herd near Saraqib
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtbonkC2rwo …

Assad-forces shelling western #Damascus suburb #Qudsseya with heavy maschine guns
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=33.547118&lon=36.218405&z=15&m=b …

[OUTLAW 09]

Man is the Russian FSB quick to get Facebook a US company to block a video that depicts the RuAF cluster bombing their own forces filmed by Islamic State.

Correction
#ISIS itself films Russian air force cluster bomb attack on its forces.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Na7O40gYxLw …

Seems they remove any video now that depicts the Russian military failures

[OUTLAW 09]

Footage
SOHR is wrong. #Sukayk is still under rebel control, MLRS-shelled by #Assad
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh-_2nogxVQ …

VIDEO: Russian Su-25 firing unguided rockets against targets in #Idlib #Syria.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNEVKaE0PCY …

[OUTLAW 09]

Humor-------

Peskov: #Syria operation doesn't hurt #Russia's budget, '#ISIS compensates us for not targeting them' #RussiaVsISIL pic.twitter.com/zteWMg3QQN

Writer @nstarikov posts FB pic showing the accuracy of Russian missiles, projected landing area if shot at Tbilisi
pic.twitter.com/UIaZZcmklh

Kosachev: #Russia has established contacts with moderate opposition of #Syria, 'We contacted them with missiles'
pic.twitter.com/u9SGby0bue

[OUTLAW 09]

Syrian rebels decry Russian airstrikes: 'we have not had Isis here in over a year'

http://gu.com/p/4d7ha/stw

[OUTLAW 09]

BREAKING: RAF given green light to shoot down hostile Russian jets in Syria

http://ibt.uk/A006OKO

[OUTLAW 09]

Appears Putin is slowly realizing he is over his head in Syria----

Putin may declare limited #Russia ops in #Syria, RF military press sees “protracted war”:

http://nvo.ng.ru/realty/2015-10-09/1_siria.html … (In Rus)

[OUTLAW 09]

Let's virtually no attacks on Islamic State that can be verified in five days--a sheep herd with a direct hit and civilians being hit with cluster bombs BUT the Russia campaign against IS is far, far better than the US campaign.

Putin Says Russia's Campaign in Syria More Effective Than U.S. http://bloom.bg/1LdTPNW prin @business

[OUTLAW 09]

Syria #Hama Rebels blow up ammo-truck tried to enter Tell Sukayk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g68miJgveyE …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.413082&lon=36.789823&z=16&m=b&search=Phosphate …

Another Russian air strike on a hospital----
al-Kaf hospital, one of the most important hospitals in eastern Ghouta, completely destroyed by Assad airstrikes
http://youtu.be/NRZeCAm5nj8

Hama #Russia'n embedded reporter under attack in mosque of Atshan today
https://vid.me/Bv0F
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.406681&lon=36.824198&z=14&m=b …

[OUTLAW 09]

Here are the parts of #Iran’s killed commander’s (probably last) interview about #IRGC’s role in #Syria in 7 tweets: https://storify.com/BahmanKalbasi/conversation-with-bahmankalbasi-561a583c30588aba0ae20b57 …

VIDEO #Syria #FSA rebels using TOW Missile destroy an #Assad tank north #Hama
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tuyR39RQSQ&feature=youtu.be …
pic.twitter.com/XtxBKtjOFE

[OUTLAW 09]

http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/100915-774990-china-joining-russia-to-humiliate-us-weakened-by-obama.htm#ixzz3oHww6Jhx

China Joining Russia In Syria Brings Risks Of World War

10/09/2015 06:51 PM ET


American Decline: Chinese forces head to Syria to join with Russia in filling Obama's power vacuum and purportedly fight the Islamic State. A false move involving NATO member Turkey could mean world war.

Russian and Chinese military sources now confirm that Chinese warships are en route to the Middle East to get in on some of the action of humiliating the U.S.

In just a week and a half, Moscow has upended the dynamics of power in the Mideast by taking on the role that President Obama relinquished: acting like a superpower in a regional conflict that has implications extending far beyond the region.

Russian ruler Vladimir Putin launched airstrikes against rebels opposing the terrorist Assad regime in Syria, first with a modest force to gauge the U.S. response and perhaps pull out if threatened. Seeing no threat, Putin has been intensifying Russian operations, even sending in Spetsnaz special forces troops.

China's entry means two major powers are stepping in to do what the U.S. was unwilling to do against IS.

It's a lesson in how fast the tables can turn when America displays weakness — losing wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and proving to be ineffective against IS despite fighting it for a year and three months now.

Our commander-in-chief even admits that he has no strategy against the monstrous caliphate that his very own policies of weakness brought into being.

What is apparently happening now was inconceivable before Obama sent America spiraling into decline: our two Cold War adversaries uniting militarily in an effort that will ultimately give them dominance, at our expense, in the most strategically important part of the world, the oil-rich and politically fragile Middle East.

You can't carry out your objectives there over the course of years with the most advanced military in the world? Fine. Watch us do it, Moscow and Beijing are telling us with their actions. And in months, or perhaps only weeks.

How the next president will dig us out of this hole is hard to fathom. A new post-Cold War Brezhnev Doctrine could come into effect, in which Moscow and Beijing warn that they will not let the U.S. reassert its influence in countries they've "liberated" in the Mideast.

If that turns out to be the case, America will be risking war with both Russia and China if it even tries to return to its pre-Obama influence in the region.

Moreover, with Russia already more than once "accidentally" violating the airspace of Turkey, a NATO member in spite of its current anti-U.S. government, the dangers — Moscow and Beijing engaging in incursions or other provocative actions on the Syria-Turkish border — are clear.

All NATO nations are obligated by treaty to defend against an attack on any individual NATO nation. If Russia and China see what they can get away with, they could expose NATO as impotent.

Or, worse, they could trigger World War III.

Neither Obama nor the many millions who voted for him twice ever thought his policies of weakness could make things this bad.

[CrowBat]

Important article by @ibrahimhamidi about a Russian plan to dismantle Syria's National Defence Forces http://www.alhayat.com/Articles/11536041 …

The forces will be dismantled "gradually & provisionally" to be incorporated into an army regiment as part of revamping of the Syrian army.

Article recognises the potential impediments to the plan but it'll be implemented provisionally. Says divergent Russia-Iran longterm vision.

Article also says Iran-Jaish al-Fateh Fateh agreement is being violated by Russian jets & UN branch in Damascus rejects certain provisions.
The interesting thing is that the Russian recommended reorg is the exact same Russian reorg of their mercenaries fighting in eastern Ukraine.

The reorg usually ends with the integration of the new defense forces into the Russian military command structure.
Sorry mate but this article is yet more PRBS...roughly in same league with that PRBS about Turkish attack on Aleppo termal powerplant.

Since days I'm asking all over the place (also to thank some of sources for my book Syrian Conflagration (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1910294101?*Version*=1&*entries*=0), which is now finally going to press), searching for any sort of evidence around the internet etc.

Either the entire 'Syrian Arab Army' is on vacation at Vanuatu, or it completely disappeared. Whatever is the case, it's surely not in Syria.

This offensive in northern Hama and eastern Lattakia is run by a body officially designated '4th Assault Corps' (Russians call it '4th Assault Army'). Some of units cited so far - like that unlucky '87th Brigade from the 11th Armoured Division', or the '47th Regiment of the 1st Armoured Division' (cited here (http://www.almasdarnews.com/article/breaking-syrian-army-begins-large-scale-operation-in-the-jisr-al-shughour-countryside/), for example) - do remind of the times there was an 'official Army', but they are none of that since long.

1st Armoured fell apart already back in April-May 2011. Whatever cadre and troops it managed to mobilize were organized into the 76th Armoured Brigade (also known as 'Death Brigade'), which was not only weakened in battles with insurgents already back in 2012, but subsequently one of first units to get reorganized as a part of the NDF. So, if '47th Regiment', then it's a former Special Forces unit of the former Special Forces Command, which was attached to the 76th to 'beef it up' - before this was re-organized as an element of the NDF.

I.e., at best, it's the 47th Battalion/76th Brigade NDF - which seems to be something like 'Alawites only' outfit.

Similarly, the SSNP is no NDF, actually. It's a separate militia which the Iranians described as 'better than the NDF, much better than the Army, but poorer than the Ba'ath Party Militia' already two years ago. No doubt, though, the SSNP militia was 'integrated' into the NDF for this operation.

Even Syrian Hezbollah is not hiding any more: while the media is praising that Ba'ath Party Militia's 'Desert Hawks Special Forces Brigade' as running the relief attempt at Kweres AB (apparently stalled, then there are absolutely no reports about it since two days), IRGC-QF is making no secret out of the fact that this operation is run by 'Imam al-Bakir Brigade NDF'. Nor that this must be as stuffed full of Afghan Hazaras as its 'own' Liwa Fatemioun Brigade (which is presently in NE Aleppo), then otherwise there would be no reason to organize funerals for its KIA in Qom.

Somebody please explain me: since when is 'Syrian Arab Army' naming its units after some Shi'a martyrs...and since when are soldiers of 'Syrian Arab Army' burried in Qom...?

Heh, even ex-SyAAF pilots do not consider that air force 'Syrian' any more, but call it 'Assadist air force' - precisely because they know what's actually going on there.

So, overall: if the 'Russians are reorganizing' anything there, then they're just continuing the process started already by Soleimani and Hamedani back in summer of 2013. They're integrating various gangs and militias as 'regime's new military', and re-naming these from 'NDF' to 'Soleimani's Alawite/Afghan Army' - or whatever else. :cool:

[OUTLAW 09]

Hama #Russia'n airstrikes on Al-Taman'ah town today
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6AVCiFyxVA …

Damascus Rebels blow up building hiding #Assad-forces in #Jobar
-probably killed many
A fortified Assad building was blown up by the rebels on the Taybah front in #Jobar today, lots killed, even regime srcs talking about it

Watch #Russia|n airstrikes on the town of Taman'aa in #Idlib, #Syria http://youtu.be/m6AVCiFyxVA

Woman in Mastouma films Russian air strikes on her town. #Syria #Idlib
http://youtu.be/Z9ezjcMBmtw

FSA shell Assad forces at the Driver battalion east of Busr al-Harir. #Daraa
http://youtu.be/JjNDNkssfHQ

FSA 1st Regiment shell ISIS positions in Harbal with mortars. #Aleppo #Syria

http://youtu.be/s_R3zDszmDo

[OUTLAW 09]

Syria: epic graduation ceremony video of new rebel-recruits of the Free Syrian Army (#FSA)
https://youtu.be/1YronbgKOM4

[OUTLAW 09]

In i/v with Russian State TV, #Putin rules out using Russian ground troops in Syria; describes Russian foreign policy as "peace-loving"

[OUTLAW 09]

The @SyrianCoalition to boycott UN talks: http://news.yahoo.com/syria-opposition-boycott-un-talks-cites-russia-strikes-163536792.html?soc_src=mediacontentstory&soc_trk=tw …

We knew this (https://twitter.com/Charles_Lister/status/650024627394097153 …). All armed groups had rejected UN.

Armed opposition now digging heels in amid #Russia strikes. Gulf likewise. A big Gulf-rebel meeting today discussed future strategy.

More recent UN attempts to convince armed groups to avoid missing the "Working Group train" failed. #Russia’s actions = nail in coffin.

Syria’s armed opposition have been long-time sceptics of UN's proposed Working Group process. Geneva Communique accepted, grudgingly.

[OUTLAW 09]

bellingcat @bellingcat

Another Russian MoD airstrikes video geolocated to a totally different location from what they claim https://bellingcat.checkdesk.org/en/story/736?fbrefresh=1444591415#update-834 …

[OUTLAW 09]

Remains of a Russian smerch cluster rocket used against civilians in Tamana'a, #Idlib, #Syria http://youtu.be/2iBk85pNiSQ

Another Russo-Assad MRLS has reportedly blown up in #Hama resulting in casualties, this one east of Zain al-Abidin mountain

VIDEO Shows Possible #Russia(n) Mi-24 being shot down in #Hama #Syria https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzaLjObB92w&app=desktop … pic.twitter.com/p5Z2bGhAfo

Photos allegedly of parts of the Russian cruise missiles that landed in Iran - @QasiounNewsAR
pic.twitter.com/KIfM4HvfxS

[OUTLAW 09]

Our problem w/ Obama is not that he has refused to help, it is because he has stopped others from helping in any meaningful way.

What the heck does this mean????

Putin: Russian bombs key to Syria political compromise
http://cbsn.ws/1MqbqGL
pic.twitter.com/v8T19O2wDd

[OUTLAW 09]

Does anyone remember what #Putin said before alleging that bombs are a way to peace?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/12/opinion/putin-plea-for-caution-from-russia-on-syria.html …
pic.twitter.com/34RoftEUMx

More than that, #Putin said that it would be "an act of aggression" to bomb Syria without decision of UNSC.
pic.twitter.com/o7G3A2XK2a

So is now Putin's actions in Syria without UNSC approval an "act of aggression"?????

[OUTLAW 09]

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/opinion/article/will-syrias-terror-and-chaos-spread-to-russia/537661.html

Will Syria's Terror and Chaos Spread to Russia?

By Denis Sokolov

Oct. 07 2015 20:38


Ever since the fight against terrorism successfully supplanted political competition in Russia, domestic policy has returned to a focus on defining the image of the enemy. In the North Caucasus, the simulacrum of terrorism is used as a tool to suppress dissent and protect the interests of the post-Soviet bureaucratic elite, just as in Russia, the simulacra of modernization, the fight against corruption and the drive for modernization have served as tools for obtaining budgetary funds.

The only difference is that terrorism has already claimed several thousand lives and now, in combination with the drop in oil prices, the conflict in Ukraine and Moscow's expanding military ambitions in the Middle East, it could bring the conflict onto Russian territory.

When people talk about the causes of armed violence — which all too often are grouped under the general label of terrorism — liberal observers tend to blame it on socio-economic factors such as corruption, a lack of social mobility and the suppression of human rights, while state officials tend to blame it on machinations of foreign intelligence services and ideological factors, claiming that Islam is a religion of social protest and that radical political Islam is a religion of extremism. These are both descriptions of how terrorism comes to exist. But why is it formed in that way, and why here and why now?

It is derived from the loyalty of the siloviki — a loyalty that leaders must foster with money and the threat of repression in the event of dissent. The interests of the siloviki overlap with those of the religious bureaucracy. The former are given unlimited legal immunity and a monopoly on the use of violence under the banner of "the forces of light" while the latter can claim a monopoly on truth and spiritual dominion.

It is difficult for those "forces of light" to justify their abuses of power unless they are constantly battling a form of "managed terrorism." That is why authoritarian regimes with access to easy money such as petrodollars, as in Russia, often form a sort of symbiotic relationship with terrorists.

However, that only holds true when acts of terrorism are localized. What happens when it escalates into all-out war? Everything changes — the nature of the terror, the divisions in society — and the opposition can transform from a manageable simulacrum of an angry serpent into a real fighting force. The result: civil war. How can that happen? As it did in Russia in the early 20th century, when the terrorist revolutionaries — who were initially under the tight control of the secret police — used support from Germany and the opportunity afforded by World War I to plunge the country into chaos.

Or else it can unfold as it did in the southern and eastern regions of Ukraine in 2014-15, where Moscow unleashed a "Russian Spring" — either to cinch the annexation of Crimea or to create a bargaining chip for its federalization demands to Kiev. What began as a "special op" rapidly escalated into a bloody war that claimed the lives of more than 10,000 people and put several million in the middle of a humanitarian disaster.

Field commanders consider war and sabotage as their mission, business and lifestyle. For them, justice is not a goal, but a diversionary slogan. Whether in Syria or the North Caucasus, whether part of the volunteer corps in Ukraine or the militias of Donbass, these "men of war" share an almost familial resemblance. But their stories are very different.

As soon as a field commander, the head of a violent subversive group or the leader of a terrorist organization creates a fighting unit, group or terrorist network, he must immediately find a way to recruit, equip and pay its members. Volunteers and jihadists are cheap mercenaries, but they still need to be paid. Therefore, different types of armed groups take shape under different institutional circumstances.

The volunteer battalions in Ukraine such as the Dnepr 1 battalion are simultaneously fighting the ruling bureaucracy and the "empire" of President Vladimir Putin, and with the structures of state growing weaker, oligarchs such as Ihor Kolomoisky who field private armies are gradually turning into warlords. Russia's annexation of Crimea, the war in southern and eastern Ukraine and the unprecedented activity of volunteer combatants has led to the formation of fighting forces previously unseen in the former Soviet republics. Every volunteer battalion has its own page on social networks and its own support group whose members deliver supplies and provisions directly to the fighting units.

Meanwhile, in the Donbass, the list of warlords who own armies and prisons — and therefore, the right to commit murder — includes not only such commanders as Vostok brigade commander Alexander Khodakovsky, but also quasi-state structures such as the State Security Ministry and the Oplot brigade of Alexander Zakharchenko. That is why hustlers and gangsters run the show, and why those who share the ideology of the militias and who would normally organize the supply of human and material resources for them have been pushed out of the political arena in Donbass as well as in Russia's regions. Russian advisers have so far failed in their attempts to encourage nation building in the Donbass.

The power of the Donbass warlords is limited — first, by each other and, second, by their dependence on Russia for military, organizational and financial support. As a result, no single commander feels all-powerful. For these commanders, war is a business, not a religion.

According to various sources, more than 100 people have left the Tyumen region to join the Islamic State, and approximately the same number fought from the region as volunteers in the Donbass. Hopefully, that will not translate into an equal number of insurgents engaged in a future confrontation against the Moscow regime.

Russia's military operations in Syria against the opponents of Syrian President Bashar Assad — even if intended only as a symbolic action — has the potential to trigger almost unlimited terror at home. What's more, in contrast to the war against the banned "Caucasus Emirate" organization, this battle could spark terrorist acts throughout the country.

[OUTLAW 09]

Remains of a Russian smerch cluster rocket used against civilians in Tamana'a, #Idlib, #Syria http://youtu.be/2iBk85pNiSQ

Another Russo-Assad MRLS has reportedly blown up in #Hama resulting in casualties, this one east of Zain al-Abidin mountain

VIDEO Shows Possible #Russia(n) Mi-24 being shot down in #Hama #Syria https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzaLjObB92w&app=desktop … pic.twitter.com/p5Z2bGhAfo

Photos allegedly of parts of the Russian cruise missiles that landed in Iran - @QasiounNewsAR
pic.twitter.com/KIfM4HvfxS

BM-30 pounding Taman'a village.
https://youtu.be/rqE7fJ_VTVU

Russian BM-30 Smerch artillery rocket found on Taman'a #Idlib.
https://youtu.be/WJpmH4D1Kq8

[CrowBat]

VIDEO Shows Possible #Russia(n) Mi-24 being shot down in #Hama #Syria https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzaLjObB92w&app=desktop … pic.twitter.com/p5Z2bGhAfo
'Old' video.

That was a Syrian Mi-25 shot down over Kfar Naboudah on 7 October 2015 (pilot KIA, rest of crew apparently recovered).

[OUTLAW 09]

Sorry mate but this article is yet more PRBS...roughly in same league with that PRBS about Turkish attack on Aleppo termal powerplant.

Since days I'm asking all over the place (also to thank some of sources for my book Syrian Conflagration (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1910294101?*Version*=1&*entries*=0), which is now finally going to press), searching for any sort of evidence around the internet etc.

Either the entire 'Syrian Arab Army' is on vacation at Vanuatu, or it completely disappeared. Whatever is the case, it's surely not in Syria.

This offensive in northern Hama and eastern Lattakia is run by a body officially designated '4th Assault Corps' (Russians call it '4th Assault Army'). Some of units cited so far - like that unlucky '87th Brigade from the 11th Armoured Division', or the '47th Regiment of the 1st Armoured Division' (cited here (http://www.almasdarnews.com/article/breaking-syrian-army-begins-large-scale-operation-in-the-jisr-al-shughour-countryside/), for example) - do remind of the times there was an 'official Army', but they are none of that since long.

1st Armoured fell apart already back in April-May 2011. Whatever cadre and troops it managed to mobilize were organized into the 76th Armoured Brigade (also known as 'Death Brigade'), which was not only weakened in battles with insurgents already back in 2012, but subsequently one of first units to get reorganized as a part of the NDF. So, if '47th Regiment', then it's a former Special Forces unit of the former Special Forces Command, which was attached to the 76th to 'beef it up' - before this was re-organized as an element of the NDF.

I.e., at best, it's the 47th Battalion/76th Brigade NDF - which seems to be something like 'Alawites only' outfit.

Similarly, the SSNP is no NDF, actually. It's a separate militia which the Iranians described as 'better than the NDF, much better than the Army, but poorer than the Ba'ath Party Militia' already two years ago. No doubt, though, the SSNP militia was 'integrated' into the NDF for this operation.

Even Syrian Hezbollah is not hiding any more: while the media is praising that Ba'ath Party Militia's 'Desert Hawks Special Forces Brigade' as running the relief attempt at Kweres AB (apparently stalled, then there are absolutely no reports about it since two days), IRGC-QF is making no secret out of the fact that this operation is run by 'Imam al-Bakir Brigade NDF'. Nor that this must be as stuffed full of Afghan Hazaras as its 'own' Liwa Fatemioun Brigade (which is presently in NE Aleppo), then otherwise there would be no reason to organize funerals for its KIA in Qom.

Somebody please explain me: since when is 'Syrian Arab Army' naming its units after some Shi'a martyrs...and since when are soldiers of 'Syrian Arab Army' burried in Qom...?

Heh, even ex-SyAAF pilots do not consider that air force 'Syrian' any more, but call it 'Assadist air force' - precisely because they know what's actually going on there.

So, overall: if the 'Russians are reorganizing' anything there, then they're just continuing the process started already by Soleimani and Hamedani back in summer of 2013. They're integrating various gangs and militias as 'regime's new military', and re-naming these from 'NDF' to 'Soleimani's Alawite/Afghan Army' - or whatever else. :cool:

Now you fully understand the Russian reorg of their mercenaries in eastern Ukraine-----once restructured Assad will sign documents with Russia stating that it will fall under the Russian military command and control--thus Russian control over Syria as a "protectorate" similar to say Transnistria.

It is interesting to see Putin conducting the eastern Ukraine experiences in Syria.

You did read the twitter interview with Hamedani before he was killed----so the interesting question---since he definitely did not die from a "car wreck" so who killed him and why? If a valid interview then some of his comments towards Assad is interesting.

So again this reorg concept is not just hot air--watch it slowly unfold---it is the way the Russian military command will then control the entire effort.

So again the interesting question is Iran a proxy of Russia OR is Russia a proxy of Iran???

[OUTLAW 09]

'Old' video.

That was a Syrian Mi-25 shot down over Kfar Naboudah on 7 October 2015 (pilot KIA, rest of crew apparently recovered).

Previous videos only depicted the smoke coming up after the copter has disappeared--but did not fully show the AA fire and trailing smoke--there still has been not fully videoed crash site.

[OUTLAW 09]

Footage
#FSA TOW misses moving #Assad BMP in #Latakia by a few meters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZ8T3ugKGto …
pic.twitter.com/In0ZfmSE7H

[OUTLAW 09]

Now you fully understand the Russian reorg of their mercenaries in eastern Ukraine-----once restructured Assad will sign documents with Russia stating that it will fall under the Russian military command and control--thus Russian control over Syria as a "protectorate" similar to say Transnistria.

It is interesting to see Putin conducting the eastern Ukraine experiences in Syria.

You did read the twitter interview with Hamedani before he was killed----so the interesting question---since he definitely did not die from a "car wreck" so who killed him and why? If a valid interview then some of his comments towards Assad is interesting.

So again this reorg concept is not just hot air--watch it slowly unfold---it is the way the Russian military command will then control the entire effort.

So again the interesting question is Iran a proxy of Russia OR is Russia a proxy of Iran???

Qom, Iran: Funeral for 10s of Afghan & Pakistani fighters recently killed in Syria [Arabic] http://syrian-reporter.net/?p=10885 pic.twitter.com/YlveWb6RQg

[OUTLAW 09]

Footage
#FSA TOW destroys #Assas regime tank in #Latakia province.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqTi7QGO74E …
pic.twitter.com/6Mh40dwEut

Russian Air Force Mil Mi-24P Hind in Syria, Latakia Airbase
http://mi-24.com/2015/10/11/russian-air-force-mil-mi-24p-hind-in-syria-latakia-airbase/ …

SAA #NDF control Khazan & Al-Hrm hills overlooking Salma in #Latakia countryside, intense clashes in outskirts

[CrowBat]

Previous videos only depicted the smoke coming up after the copter has disappeared--but did not fully show the AA fire and trailing smoke--there still has been not fully videoed crash site.
This video is making circles since 8 Oct; you've posted it here at least once already.

And don't expect any videos from the crash site: this is now 4km from insurgent positions, and they're too busy defending Kfar Naboudah but to go infiltrating regime's positions and then searching for the wreck.

[OUTLAW 09]

This video is making circles since 8 Oct; you've posted it here at least once already.

And don't expect any videos from the crash site: this is now 4km from insurgent positions, and they're too busy defending Kfar Naboudah but to go infiltrating regime's positions and then searching for the wreck.

Crow Bat--there was the recent Russian air assault where it was reported that the entire Spetsnaz team of 16 were surrounded and evidently captured after having surprised the FSA forces with the landing behind their lines.

A few short comments on their capture popped up--any further info on it--- is that a confirmed capture and if captured what happen to the 16?

It was also not clear if Russian, Syrian or IRGC personnel.

[OUTLAW 09]

USA now found new militia in northern #Raqqa area called #Syria'n Democratic Forces #SDF mixed with kurds & arabs.


Aleppo #FSA shelling #IslamicState in Tall Qarah tonight
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktzRfNLobBw …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=36.373474&lon=37.178764&z=14&m=b …

More from the joint Russian military Islamic State actions against the FSA in support of Assad---

This is what Russia's "targeting ISIS" looks like.
Confused?
You should be.
http://bit.ly/1LluKUH

[CrowBat]

Crow Bat--there was the recent Russian air assault where it was reported that the entire Spetsnaz team of 16 were surrounded and evidently captured after having surprised the FSA forces with the landing behind their lines.

A few short comments on their capture popped up--any further info on it--- is that a confirmed capture and if captured what happen to the 16?

It was also not clear if Russian, Syrian or IRGC personnel.
On the morning of 10 October, regime sources claimed they have captured Atshan, Sukayk and at-Tamanah, three villages 4-5km E and NE of Moarek and Khan Sheykhoun (both are E of Kfar Zita too).

Insurgents countered with a claim that a heliborne landing at Sukayk has been twarted and 16 'commandos' captured.

Ever since, no further details about such an operation were released by either side.

Now, few things can be concluded on basis of info released ever since, and also some of earlier 'experiences' from this war.

For example, the only party involved in this war so far confirmed to have launched heliborne assaults by 'special forces' (actually: 'light infantry') is the IRGC-QF. But, the IRGC-QF was doing so only while having its own ('Iranian') troops in Syria, back in autumn 2013 and the first half of 2014. Meanwhile, it is not known to have such units there ('only' Afghan Hazaras of the Liwa Fatimioun).

During the afternoon of 10 October, regime reported to have captured Sukayk and destroyed the 60 Division FSyA there. Videos and photos surfaced showing the body of Deputy CO of that insurgent formation too.

Photos surfaced of (Russian) Mi-24s flying low over Sukayk area (see below for one).

Yesterday, a RT journo posted a number of photos and videos from Atshan on his Twitter account, babbling about 'JAN running away', 'booby-trapping everything including the mosque' etc., and then adding something about 'NDF is integrated into Syrian Army and becomes the 4th Assault Army'.

Subsequently, videos appeared of Mi-24s 'still' circling over Sukayk.

Since yesterday evening, reports (even a few photos) of Russian Su-24 air strikes on at-Tamanah are circling the internet. That place is further north from Sukayk.

So, I would say it's certain that some sort of assault on Atshan took place on 10 October, and the place was secured on 11. This sector of the frontlines is held by Christian NDF units, and that Russian journo seems to be travelling with them. It's likely that the 60 Division FSyA suffered heavy losses: this was a small, recently established outfit of barelly 200 inexperienced combatants with light armament only. Reports about JAN's presence in the area and that Russian journo's 'wondering' about booby-trapped mosque are nonsense (FSyA has no problem with booby-trapping a place of worship).

Given Russians are bombing Sukayk and at-Tamanah since yesterday, I would say these two places are still in insurgent hands.

[CrowBat]

Now you fully understand the Russian reorg of their mercenaries in eastern Ukraine-----once restructured Assad will sign documents with Russia stating that it will fall under the Russian military command and control--thus Russian control over Syria as a "protectorate" similar to say Transnistria.Frankly (as always), I've got no clue about Ukraine.

All I can say is that, despite opposition from Soleimani and Hamedani, NDF was always under the control of the MOD in Damascus, and therefore - whether IRGC wants to admit it or not - part of regime's military.

Reports about it's 'official integration' into this 'army' is a pro-forma action aimed at blurring the picture: somebody there is badly in need of explaining how comes there are no 'SyAA' units involved in this offensive, but all we get to see are IRGC-QF Afghan Hazaras, Hezbollah units from Lebanon, IRGC-QF-established units of Syrian Hezbollah (said to be larger than Lebanese 'original', meanwhile), SSNP, Syrian Christian NDF units etc.

This might need some additional explanation.

I'm far from being a sensationalist and don't want to brag about anything at all. I don't care if anybody 'believes' me or not, but I'm actually ashamed already when announcing publication of some of my books or articles: if I do so, then because publishers are encouraging me to do so (after all, we all live from what they sell).

But, from what I can say it's since quite some time (mid-2013 or so), that I'm monitoring IRGC's Syria-related releases that - to me, at least - look very much like 'responses' to some stuff I'm posting on forum of ACIG.info website (that said: I'm monitoring similar IRGC's releases related to some other of my stuff since much longer...).

Now, I know for sure, that the MOI (Ministry of Information in Tehran) and IRGC 'know' me as 'MI6/BND/pick your choice -agent' because of my earlier publications about Iranian air force at war with Iraq (so much so, they have plagiarised a number of my books and articles on this topic). Reason that I know is because they have arrested and inprisoned - or at least 'interrogated' - many of my contacts in the IRI that helped me research and publish about the IRIAF at earlier times. Those that 'came away' told me a lot about 'content' of their interrogations, and MOI's 'special interest' in me. I know also that several of MOI's 'cyber warriors' are hanging on ACIG.info forum nearly 24/7.

Latest reason for their anger was my appearance in privately-made TV documentary about IRIAF's F-14s at war with Iraq:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sya-9XDpfiM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BJ1cdMHzKM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNmgR_zcTNI

From IRGC's POV, it's a sort of 'blasphemy' when I 'stress' losses of Iraqi MiG-25s to Iranian F-14, for example, because the IRGC is stubbornly denying all of these, and can't stress enough only one of these was shot down - and then by the IRGC...

And so it was not really surprising, rather amusing (for me) to see, time and again, how specific of their news outlets (al-Masdar News is one) are 'reacting' to my 'complaints' about regime's and IRGC's reporting about this war. For example, when I complained (on ACIG.info forum) there are absolutely no reports citing specific SyAA units since nearly a year, they suddenly began releasing various unit designations, and that - indeed - after more than a year that they didn't do so.

Right since the start of this offensive (7 October) I began noticing there is no 'SyAA' to be seen on the battlefield, and posted so on the ACIG.info forum - supported by plenty of photos of Hezbollah, IRGC-QF, various NDF units (Christians, Shi'a) and various SSNP units. Anything, just no 'SyAA'. Even T-72s are driven by NDF, meanwhile. It was (and remains) amusing to see regime's media reporting - just for example - SSNP outfit wearing brand-new Russian-made infantry kit (ballistic helmets, kevlar vests etc.) for 'SyAA', but blotting out their SSNP-insignia. Or, and as posted above, seeing a 'SyAA' T-55 with clear insignia of the NDF, and driven by Christians.

And so... again: I'm not bragging here or anything; if you want, 'believe' this, if not, I don't mind... From my POV, it's a matter of fact that whether what I post (or publish in print) is read by 5 or 50 (and certainly seldom more than 500) people, I'm sure there is a long history of MOI/IRGC reacting to me, and wouldn't be surprised if this is another such case.

Means: from my POV, all of this is certainly NOT related to Russians.


You did read the twitter interview with Hamedani before he was killed----so the interesting question---since he definitely did not die from a "car wreck" so who killed him and why? If a valid interview then some of his comments towards Assad is interesting.I have no clue what really happened to him, but doubt he was really 'killed' by anybody. If so, this sombody would've be bragging by such a kill a lot, like this was the case at earlier times. All I can say is that the sole photo of Hamedani's body after return to Iran was showing a kind of injuries usually associated with a car crash.


So again this reorg concept is not just hot air--watch it slowly unfold---it is the way the Russian military command will then control the entire effort.Sorry, but it is pure hogwash. Regime has no other military force but about 20 different task forces of NDF, all corsetted by elements of the former FSyA. It's just so that now they're making this official. They know careful observers are not stupid enough to buy 'SyAA' if all they can see is NDF, SSNP, Hezbollah, IRGC-QF etc.


So again the interesting question is Iran a proxy of Russia OR is Russia a proxy of Iran???This is all an IRGC's game, and it's a game at which the IRGC is a master. IRGC rules whatever is left of Assad's Syria since two years.

The only thing really 'surprising' is extension of Russian stupidity in falling for it (the extension to which the West fails to see - or outright ignores - importance of Iranian involvement is something I stopped wondering about already since long; the West just couldn't care less about Syria).

[OUTLAW 09]

Latest generation of #Russia|n combat helicopter Mil Mi-28 arrived in #Syria

Hama Rebels destroyed 2 more regime tanks at front south of
Kafr Nabudah this morning http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.427526&lon=36.493921&z=14&m=b …

Hama Regime-forces launch new attempt to storm Jabriya & Tall Hwash area west of Kafr Nabudah http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.438645&lon=36.456842&z=14&m=b … …

Syria #Idlib Regime rocket shelling on Sukayk with rain of cluster-bombs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsCbG0t1Ds8&feature=youtu.be …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.430393&lon=36.771498&z=14&m=b …

Idlib #Russia'n airstrike on #Saraqib city
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lhS2JOC96A …

Reports a number of regime forces have been captured by the rebels in Kafarnaboudeh, #Hama

An IED hits a tank on the southern ring road in #Damascus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3N0j6aB-QSU … #Syria

[OUTLAW 09]

Crow Bat--what do you think??

7000 Al-haydareyeen, the Fatimids, the IRGC and Hezbollah ready for the battle…
http://www.alraimedia.com/ar/article/special-reports/2015/10/12/626723/nr/iraq …
https://elijahjm.wordpress.com/2015/10/12/seven-thousand-of-al-haydareyeen-the-fatimids-the-irgc-and-hezbollah-ready-for-the-battle-of-idlib …

So was the NDF just being used as cannon fodder as well as the armor?

[OUTLAW 09]

Military: #Turkish jets harassed by Syria missiles, 'necessary response' given http://www.todayszaman.com/diplomacy_military-turkish-jets-harassed-by-syria-missiles-necessary-response-given_401284.html …

Syria -- Cluster #Smerch rocket pic.twitter.com/AGAptGmga6

Unverified #Syria imagery suggests Switchblade loitering munition US only known user http://www.avinc.com/downloads/Switchblade_Datasheet_032712.pdf … pic.twitter.com/zsr9VSobZi

Drone downed by #SAA over Izraa #Daraa countryside

Russia still claims it does not target civilians--this disproves the Russia myth.
VIDEO #Russia MLRS rocket attack on Skaik #Idlib #Syria https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsCbG0t1Ds8&feature=youtu.be … NOT TARGETING CIVILIANS??????? pic.twitter.com/kEQYmpPIjw

Vid: #SAA #NDF ops in Salma #Latakia countryside http://youtu.be/m7yfAKqjgqc
Latakia Rebels stormed Durin at opposite plateau of #Salma
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.675845&lon=36.140428&z=15&m=b …

Hama Rebels destroyed 3 tanks & 3 BMP's also technicals with mounted guns at Kafr Nabudah frontline

Quneitra Rebels gain ground northern outskirts of Khan Arnabah

Hama Rebels kill leading commander of #Assad-forces operations for town of Kafr Nabudah "Colonel Abbas Fawaz"

[OUTLAW 09]

Russia SHTORA-1 Active Defense System that may be in #Syria & can defeat Anti-tank missiles
https://defense-update.com/products/s/shtora-1.htm …
pic.twitter.com/COyMcIagO4

There are also rumors that #Russia will be deploying the Shtora "Curtain" defense system (would work against TOW)
pic.twitter.com/ZhlwEOnZcT

[OUTLAW 09]

Russian info war mix up by Russia Today reporter---

RT reports from frontline in Syria's Hama province. Reporter says town retaken from Nusra Front, headline says IS https://www.rt.com/news/318338-syria-troops-hama-offensive-exclusive/ …

[OUTLAW 09]

BREAKING: a new coalition has been formed in northern Syria called the 'Syrian Democratic Forces'

the Syrian Democratic Forces (#SDF) includes the #YPG, Burkan al-Furat #FSA forces, the #MFS and al-Sanadid

Syria: creation of #SDF can also be seen as a clear message of #US to #Russia that it will not let Syria fall back into the hands of #Assad

the #SDF has approximately 30.000 fighters and includes arabs, kurds and Christians. A new force for democracy, against #Assad & #IS

[OUTLAW 09]

Reportedly rebels stormed and captured Dorin village near Salma in Akrad Mount after heavy clashes with regime forces.

Rebels holding thr positions against Assad/Russian fierce attack is something but to advance & capture long regime-held Dorin is a surprise!

FSA Fursan al-Haq say they destroyed a tank and BMP with TOW ATGMs in al-Maghayer near Kafranbouda

Assad regime just suffered another major blow in Kafr Noudeh...

Several RuAF airstrikes & heavy artillery shelling on Kafranbouda. Reports regime lost few tanks trying to storm it.
http://youtu.be/MmPRsXx_lws

[OUTLAW 09]

Hama Seems Rebels let #Assad-forces advance into Kafr Nabudah this morning & set up ambush
Now regain full control of town----Eight SAA prisoners taken

Syrian Republican Guard 104th Brigade Video from #Jufrah Village #الجفرة https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_gcrCQJUkM&feature=youtu.be …

U.S. backed #FSA group in #Homs 'close to #AlQaeda' plans suicide attacks on Russians
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/10/12/syria-rebels-plan-suicide-attacks-on-russians.html …

[OUTLAW 09]

Russian AF repainting their fighters with RuAF markings----seems Putin got the "Turkish message"---

yeah, markings started to show up after first "navigation mistake" with Turkish Air Force

Maybe danger of accidental clash w/Nato, or Syria starting one - red stars painted back on RU jets https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CRHcprNWIAARZRY.png …

Su-34 Fullback in #Syria recovering tail markings too, compare with screen grab from yesterday
pic.twitter.com/u6lyrvlVVz

Well, no doubt for someone is important to make it clear that markings are visible now on Russian aircraft in #Syria
pic.twitter.com/T1QloIO9m5

Russian Su-24 recovering their markings in #Syria
pic.twitter.com/BIrI2BdYFI

[OUTLAW 09]

Cold War 2: So Russia is supporting Assad army push in N. Syria & the US doing weapons drops to those opposing them. https://twitter.com/vplus/status/653538013016915968 …

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/10/12/politics/syria-rebel-groups-ammunition-50-tons/

U.S. delivers 50 tons of ammunition to Syria rebel groups

By Barbara Starr, CNN Pentagon Correspondent


1248 GMT (1948 HKT) October 12, 2015


U.S. military cargo planes gave 50 tons of ammunition to rebel groups overnight in northern Syria, using an air drop of 112 pallets as the first step in the Obama Administration's urgent effort to find new ways to support those groups.

Details of the air mission over Syria were confirmed by a U.S. official not authorized to speak publicly because the details have not yet been formally announced.

C-17s, accompanied by fighter escort aircraft, dropped small arms ammunition and other items like hand grenades in Hasakah province in northern Syria to a coalition of rebels groups vetted by the US, known as the Syrian Arab Coalition.

All pallets successfully were recovered by friendly forces, a U.S. official said.

[CrowBat]

So was the NDF just being used as cannon fodder as well as the armor?Nope. IRGC does not consider any kind of infantry for 'cannonfodder': infantry is their primary means of operations.

They're also never hiding behind the NDF: IRGC-QF leads from the front.

One needs to know to read 'in between lines' of such reports. Liwa Fatimioun is already fully involved in fighting in NE Aleppo. Hezbollah/Lebanon is neck-deep involved in fighting in Kfar Naboudah, and Hezbollah/Syria in attempt to lift the siege of Kweres AB (stalled since two days, some 5km short of objective). Haydareyeen combatants are known to be flown into Damascus IAP since several days. Destination unknown, but given latest developments on the battlefield, regime is going to need them as a sort of 'fire-brigade'.

So, the only thing really 'new' in that feature is demand to increase the number of (foremost Russian-flown) CAS-sorties to 200 a day. Makes sense in the light of reports about (nocturnal) overflights by Tu-154s (probably leading in additional Su-24s or Su-34s) via Caspian Sea, Iran and Iraq, from two days (i.e. nights) ago.

[OUTLAW 09]

Frankly (as always), I've got no clue about Ukraine.

All I can say is that, despite opposition from Soleimani and Hamedani, NDF was always under the control of the MOD in Damascus, and therefore - whether IRGC wants to admit it or not - part of regime's military.

Reports about it's 'official integration' into this 'army' is a pro-forma action aimed at blurring the picture: somebody there is badly in need of explaining how comes there are no 'SyAA' units involved in this offensive, but all we get to see are IRGC-QF Afghan Hazaras, Hezbollah units from Lebanon, IRGC-QF-established units of Syrian Hezbollah (said to be larger than Lebanese 'original', meanwhile), SSNP, Syrian Christian NDF units etc.

This might need some additional explanation.

I'm far from being a sensationalist and don't want to brag about anything at all. I don't care if anybody 'believes' me or not, but I'm actually ashamed already when announcing publication of some of my books or articles: if I do so, then because publishers are encouraging me to do so (after all, we all live from what they sell).

But, from what I can say it's since quite some time (mid-2013 or so), that I'm monitoring IRGC's Syria-related releases that - to me, at least - look very much like 'responses' to some stuff I'm posting on forum of ACIG.info website (that said: I'm monitoring similar IRGC's releases related to some other of my stuff since much longer...).

Now, I know for sure, that the MOI (Ministry of Information in Tehran) and IRGC 'know' me as 'MI6/BND/pick your choice -agent' because of my earlier publications about Iranian air force at war with Iraq (so much so, they have plagiarised a number of my books and articles on this topic). Reason that I know is because they have arrested and inprisoned - or at least 'interrogated' - many of my contacts in the IRI that helped me research and publish about the IRIAF at earlier times. Those that 'came away' told me a lot about 'content' of their interrogations, and MOI's 'special interest' in me. I know also that several of MOI's 'cyber warriors' are hanging on ACIG.info forum nearly 24/7.

Latest reason for their anger was my appearance in privately-made TV documentary about IRIAF's F-14s at war with Iraq:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sya-9XDpfiM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BJ1cdMHzKM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNmgR_zcTNI

From IRGC's POV, it's a sort of 'blasphemy' when I 'stress' losses of Iraqi MiG-25s to Iranian F-14, for example, because the IRGC is stubbornly denying all of these, and can't stress enough only one of these was shot down - and then by the IRGC...

And so it was not really surprising, rather amusing (for me) to see, time and again, how specific of their news outlets (al-Masdar News is one) are 'reacting' to my 'complaints' about regime's and IRGC's reporting about this war. For example, when I complained (on ACIG.info forum) there are absolutely no reports citing specific SyAA units since nearly a year, they suddenly began releasing various unit designations, and that - indeed - after more than a year that they didn't do so.

Right since the start of this offensive (7 October) I began noticing there is no 'SyAA' to be seen on the battlefield, and posted so on the ACIG.info forum - supported by plenty of photos of Hezbollah, IRGC-QF, various NDF units (Christians, Shi'a) and various SSNP units. Anything, just no 'SyAA'. Even T-72s are driven by NDF, meanwhile. It was (and remains) amusing to see regime's media reporting - just for example - SSNP outfit wearing brand-new Russian-made infantry kit (ballistic helmets, kevlar vests etc.) for 'SyAA', but blotting out their SSNP-insignia. Or, and as posted above, seeing a 'SyAA' T-55 with clear insignia of the NDF, and driven by Christians.

And so... again: I'm not bragging here or anything; if you want, 'believe' this, if not, I don't mind... From my POV, it's a matter of fact that whether what I post (or publish in print) is read by 5 or 50 (and certainly seldom more than 500) people, I'm sure there is a long history of MOI/IRGC reacting to me, and wouldn't be surprised if this is another such case.

Means: from my POV, all of this is certainly NOT related to Russians.

I have no clue what really happened to him, but doubt he was really 'killed' by anybody. If so, this sombody would've be bragging by such a kill a lot, like this was the case at earlier times. All I can say is that the sole photo of Hamedani's body after return to Iran was showing a kind of injuries usually associated with a car crash.

Sorry, but it is pure hogwash. Regime has no other military force but about 20 different task forces of NDF, all corsetted by elements of the former FSyA. It's just so that now they're making this official. They know careful observers are not stupid enough to buy 'SyAA' if all they can see is NDF, SSNP, Hezbollah, IRGC-QF etc.

This is all an IRGC's game, and it's a game at which the IRGC is a master. IRGC rules whatever is left of Assad's Syria since two years.

The only thing really 'surprising' is extension of Russian stupidity in falling for it (the extension to which the West fails to see - or outright ignores - importance of Iranian involvement is something I stopped wondering about already since long; the West just couldn't care less about Syria).

CB--then an interesting follow on series of questions--THEN what did happen to the actual SyAA units?--to me that means if you are correct in your observations the SyAA took massive loses over the last 4.5 years. A well trained army just does not "disappear" unless it is destroyed in/by fighting.

Right now we are seeing if you are correct the same exact development as seen in the Ukraine--where numerous units were created by various pro Russian local leaders, criminal gang leaders, and those from outside the Ukraine and they are fighting under different names nothing more nothing less.

This rumored Russian military reorg is nothing more than getting all the various units into one hat and one command structure.

What I am still interested in and it is critical WHO is really the true proxy in the Syrian fighting--is Russian using Iran and or vice versa? Really who is setting the military and especially the political tone on the decisions being made inside Syria? The Iranians or the Russians--what was it that drove Soleimani to fly to Moscow and ask for help basically?

If the Twitter interview with Hamedani is correct then his comments on the failures of Assad is interesting to say the least.

So why if some inside the IRGC actually blame Assad for the fighting why do they continue supporting him?

What was the relationship between Soleimani and Hamedani?

I can understand why Iran wants Assad to win because a Sunni takeover would cut the land link between Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

But the way the fighting is currently going in this offensive that link is in serious danger of being cut anyway.

The follow on why question---why is not Iran going full in with their own military and aircraft or are they so tied up in Yemen that they are now militarily over extended?

[OUTLAW 09]

Hama Rebels cleared southern part of Kafr Nabuda
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAsYdeyLtYI …

Hama Rebel TOW destroyed BMP near Kafr Nabuda
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZSd5pfU6Do …

Hama Video from battle in Kafr Nabudah today
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVbQgIHxMOc …
(subtitel wrong)

Rebel TOW destroyed regime tank at Kafranbouda frontline #Hama today
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rSF8d9pf-o …

Rebels capture a tank and BMP near Kafranbouda #Hama.

[OUTLAW 09]

Arriving of 37 #Hezbollah corpses in #Beirut #Lebanon- killed at frontlines in #Idlib & #Hama #Syria

Among them top commander Hassan al-Haj

[OUTLAW 09]

Russian'n airstrikes hit rebel hold #Aleppo suburbs Anadan, Hayyan & Bayanoun & not #IslamicState positions only 15km east

Latakia Rebel-TOW take out regime technical with 14.5mm gun in Jubb al-Ahmar area https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K6c1B0zhtY …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.671870&lon=36.234884&z=14&m=b …

Quneitra Rebels taken control of Mazrat al Amal farms
& besiege "secret base"
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=33.223323&lon=35.885167&z=15&m=b …

Hama Report from street fights in Kafr Nabudah this morning
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYkEr8fCuBE …

HadiAlabdallah
Revolutionaries take over Doureen village in Latakia suburbs after surprise attack on Assad troops and Russian positions

Latakia Reports: Rebels destroyed another tank (after yesterday ->video) on observatory Barudah http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.660173&lon=36.119184&z=16&m=b …

Regime psychological warfare!
Left: we've lots of guns waiting for u!
Right: drop ur gun & run while you still can!

Today´s regime attempt to storm Kafr Naboudah, #Hama turns out to have failed again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rSF8d9pf-o …

Hama Rebels cleared entire town of Kafr Nabuda from #Assad-forces
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciRUCZjBx8c …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFN7TzJI_gI …

[OUTLAW 09]

Russian'n airstrikes hit rebel hold #Aleppo suburbs Anadan, Hayyan & Bayanoun & not #IslamicState positions only 15km east

Latakia Rebel-TOW take out regime technical with 14.5mm gun in Jubb al-Ahmar area https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K6c1B0zhtY …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.671870&lon=36.234884&z=14&m=b …

Quneitra Rebels taken control of Mazrat al Amal farms
& besiege "secret base"
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=33.223323&lon=35.885167&z=15&m=b …

Hama Report from street fights in Kafr Nabudah this morning
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYkEr8fCuBE …

HadiAlabdallah
Revolutionaries take over Doureen village in Latakia suburbs after surprise attack on Assad troops and Russian positions

Latakia Reports: Rebels destroyed another tank (after yesterday ->video) on observatory Barudah http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.660173&lon=36.119184&z=16&m=b …

Regime psychological warfare!
Left: we've lots of guns waiting for u!
Right: drop ur gun & run while you still can!

Today´s regime attempt to storm Kafr Naboudah, #Hama turns out to have failed again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rSF8d9pf-o …

Hama Rebels cleared entire town of Kafr Nabuda from #Assad-forces
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciRUCZjBx8c …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFN7TzJI_gI …

Russia|n warplane circles the sky above rebel-held Jabal al-Zawiya (#Idlib) https://youtu.be/gKIR_txX_XA

[OUTLAW 09]

Meanwhile, Putin Is Also Arming Iran

http://on.wsj.com/1N7x0yl via @WSJ

[OUTLAW 09]

Hama Report from Kafr Nabudah after failed regime assault
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWOcxyVXpmU …

Second video--9 minutes long---
Report from Kafr Nabudah after failed regime assault
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfb_yAFEtaM …

Russia'n? drone with missiles? above Ghab Plain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0S2MBzIFZ4 …

Regime and RuAF pounding al-Mansoura village in Ghab plain.
https://youtu.be/t74rqwiqrCE

[OUTLAW 09]

Free Syrian Army commander in Hama: "we have enough TOW's to use them against each individual soldier"

[OUTLAW 09]

Hama Report from Kafr Nabudah after failed regime assault
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWOcxyVXpmU …

Second video--9 minutes long---
Report from Kafr Nabudah after failed regime assault
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfb_yAFEtaM …

Russia'n? drone with missiles? above Ghab Plain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0S2MBzIFZ4 …

Regime and RuAF pounding al-Mansoura village in Ghab plain.
https://youtu.be/t74rqwiqrCE

Russian or US armed drone????

USAF new MQ-9 ER (received last month) is already over JN/AQ held position in #Idlib.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0S2MBzIFZ4 …

Video shows a MQ-9 ER w/ 2 Helfire missiles. The same(?) MQ-9 ER come back with 0.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TIxiehkpLI …

Is USAF bombing JN w/ Russian cover ? Helfires missiles missing on this MQ-9 ER over Al Ghaab plain. No IS there

US piloted A/C are over rebel/IS frontline in North Aleppo. But what are so many drones doing over Lattakia&Idlib?

[CrowBat]

CB--then an interesting follow on series of questions--THEN what did happen to the actual SyAA units?--to me that means if you are correct in your observations the SyAA took massive loses over the last 4.5 years. A well trained army just does not "disappear" unless it is destroyed in/by fighting.
A 'well-trained army'...

I've explained this some 2-3 times already, but here again: out of 20 divisions (including RGD and the 4th Armoured), only five were mobilized to something like 90% (these were the RGD, 4th Armoured, 14th SF, 17th and 18th Divisions). Most of remaining units fell apart due to defections (even in-fighting, like within the 5th Infantry).

To prevent further defections, regime reacted by splitting the 4th Armoured (considered most loyal) into something like 20 'detachments', each reinforced by one of special forces battalions or regiments, and a detachment from one of 'intelligence/security agencies'.

Then each of these 'reinforced detachments' was put in command of elements from various other divisions, creating about 20 'task forces' distributed around the country.

These 'various other divisions'...: majority of divisions only managed to mobilize a brigade, perhaps two. Some managed to mobilize only a few battalions. Few even less. So, whatever was mobilized from one division, was then broken into battalions, each of which was assigned to another of above-mentioned task forces. 'Corsetted by reinforced detachments of dependable loyalists' such formations were then expected to perform better 'in action'...

Anyway, most of resulting task forces consisted of a company from the 4th Armoured (as HQ) and a battalion or regiment of special forces - used to corset a battalion from one division, battalion from another division, battalion from yet another division etc. That's why then actually ridiculous situations came into being, where the same task force would go into the field driving a mix of T-72s, T-62s, T-55s and whatever else (pure nightmare alone from the standpoint of logistics).

Nearly half of these task forces were either destroyed or suffered further defections during the fighting in second half 2012 and through early 2013. Back then people were laughing (or at least wondering) about SOHR reporting regime's loss of 40K+ soldiers. But, that was not without a reason.

Then came the IRGC-enforced reorganization of 2013, and many things changed. Foremost, Iranians put such emphasis on infantry, that two brigades of the RGD were completely disarmed and re-trained as light infantry, supported only with a bare minimum of armour. Their T-72s were taken over by Hezbollah, BMP-2s distributed to other units etc. In essence, these two brigades (one of these is the 104th, still holding out in Dayr az-Zawr), are all that's left of 'SyAA' - though with remark that the RGD was actually never 'SyAA', because it was never subjected even to the MOD: it was always directly responsible to the president.

Something similar happened to other of 'task forces', though they were reformed into NDF battalions. Along typical IRGC's practice, such battalions are then groupped into brigades - as and when necessary. To cover up the disappearance of the SyAA, such brigades then get the same designations like former SyAA units.

One curious exception seem to have been several former special forces battalions and regiments: these were re-organized as the Ba'ath Party Militia (aka 'Desert Hawks Force' etc.).

And so, the SyAA 'sillently disappeared': it was replaced by the NDF and all sorts of militias.


This rumored Russian military reorg is nothing more than getting all the various units into one hat and one command structure.Well, I don't really think so. This is all a big masquerade.

No doubt, there were plenty of problems with many NDF battalions recently. Some commanders began acting as warlords and their units went rogue, began looting and smuggling, some even began cooperating with insurgents....

...and, perhaps there is some effort to bring some order into that chaos (CO of the 90 Brigade NDF was put to military court and sentenced to execution for 'cowardice and dealing with enemy', just two days ago).

However, more important is to maintain semblance of 'regular army', i.e. 'replace non-existing SyAA'. People in Syria are not stupid: they see what is what when 'these troops' pass by. So, the regime - i.e. the IRGC - can't continue maintaining the legend of Assad as 'legitimate president of Syria' if it becomes obvious (and it did become obvious) that his troops are actually a wild bunch of Hezbollah, Ba'ath Party Militia, SSNP militia, Arab Legion militia, Christian NDF formations, Shi'a NDF formations, Palestinian IRGC/NDF formations (like al-Qods al-Filistini Brigade), Afghan Hazaras (IRGC-QF) etc.

Only way out of this situation is to declare all of them for 'Syrian Army'.


What I am still interested in and it is critical WHO is really the true proxy in the Syrian fighting--is Russian using Iran and or vice versa? Really who is setting the military and especially the political tone on the decisions being made inside Syria? The Iranians or the Russians--what was it that drove Soleimani to fly to Moscow and ask for help basically?A few Russian generals might have a say in Hama and Lattakia, but overall, I have no doubt it's the IRGC-QF that's in charge.


So why if some inside the IRGC actually blame Assad for the fighting why do they continue supporting him?In essence, and quite roughly: Assad made himself an Iranian marionette. He proved unable to keep even his military commanders under control, not to talk about chiefs of various family-clans and gangs (even 'his' Alawites launched several uprisings against him; worst was back in October 2015 and had to be crushed in blood; most of others were settled through negotiations by IRGC). He needs Iranians to remain in power. In turn, Tehran needs him as 'official, legitimate president', so they can always say (like they did now in the case of Russians), 'look, we're here - Russians now too - in response to an official call for help from legitimate Syrian government'.


What was the relationship between Soleimani and Hamedani?Soleimani = effective commander; Hamedani = great organizer. A very good example of a good CO+XO combination.


But the way the fighting is currently going in this offensive that link is in serious danger of being cut anyway.Don't think so. Rather than anything else, Russians are delivering the fire-power the IRGC is lacking.

As long as they limit themselves to that, Iranians know Russians are not in their way.


The follow on why question---why is not Iran going full in with their own military and aircraft or are they so tied up in Yemen that they are now militarily over extended?Multiple reasons, starting with 'no way'. The IRGC already swallowed a bitter pill when having to let one of regular Iranian Army SF brigades deploy to northern Iraq to support Kurds against the Daesh there (Kurds refused to cooperate with the IRGC), or when letting the IRIAF fly air strikes on Daesh. They don't like 'regulars' earning any kind of attention. From IRGC's standpoint, Iranian regular military should be disbanded (and that already decades ago).

Furthermore, Iran was so close to bankrupcy in early 2014, that even the IRGC stopped operating its air arm. Without the Daesh launching its offensive into northern Iraq exactly when it did, Tehran would've run out of money. That's why the IRGC was more than happy to deliver its ex-Iraqi Su-25s to Baghdad (it's own Su-25-pilots didn't fly for months) - and then also get paid for massive shipments of arms and deployment of its units to Tikrit area....

[OUTLAW 09]

I thought the Russians claimed to have excellent intelligence in Syria----????

MFA Russia ✔ @mfa_russia
#Lavrov: We asked those who claim to know the situation on the ground better to tell us where terrorists are based. They have yet to reply

Ex Russian dip, asked what he hears came out of Putin KSA meeting, "Not much. Basically that they continue to disagree about Assad."

[OUTLAW 09]

Russia deployed four BM-30 "Smerch" in Northern Hama plain – Soviet heavy multiple rocket launcher with 12 barrels
pic.twitter.com/i6t7H4gVL1

U.S.-supplied TOW missiles take out Syrian tanks under Russian air support. "Proxy war by happenstance." https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/did-us-weapons-supplied-to-syrian-rebels-draw-russia-into-the-conflict/2015/10/11/268ce566-6dfc-11e5-91eb-27ad15c2b723_story.html …

Syria|n gov soldiers retreated from Kafr Nabudah, n- #Hama after fierce street battles with Syrian rebels today.
The Russian backed Assad offensive on Kafarnaboudeh, #Hama didn’t go so well did it. Dozens of Assad forces killed and captured, for what?

Liwa Thuwar #Raqqa joins the list of #FSA brigades supported by the #US as it has received weapons today

After heavy RuAF and artillery bombing, regime forces advance in #Ghab & capture grain silos SW al-Mansoura village.
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=35.641534&lon=36.351700&z=14&m=b …

Sources: #Turkey tanks & army bulldozers entered few kilometers inside #Syria near #Atme. Locals claim Turkey is drawing new borders

Russia|n attack helicopter Kamov Ka-50 "Black Shark" spotted in #Latakia countryside early today #Syria

Hama
Street battle in Kafr Nabudah today before regime-forces pushed out
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQFxji_Xv7o …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu562TRgCHk …

[OUTLAW 09]

Russia deployed four BM-30 "Smerch" in Northern Hama plain – Soviet heavy multiple rocket launcher with 12 barrels
pic.twitter.com/i6t7H4gVL1

U.S.-supplied TOW missiles take out Syrian tanks under Russian air support. "Proxy war by happenstance." https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/did-us-weapons-supplied-to-syrian-rebels-draw-russia-into-the-conflict/2015/10/11/268ce566-6dfc-11e5-91eb-27ad15c2b723_story.html …

Syria|n gov soldiers retreated from Kafr Nabudah, n- #Hama after fierce street battles with Syrian rebels today.
The Russian backed Assad offensive on Kafarnaboudeh, #Hama didn’t go so well did it. Dozens of Assad forces killed and captured, for what?

Liwa Thuwar #Raqqa joins the list of #FSA brigades supported by the #US as it has received weapons today

After heavy RuAF and artillery bombing, regime forces advance in #Ghab & capture grain silos SW al-Mansoura village.
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=35.641534&lon=36.351700&z=14&m=b …

Sources: #Turkey tanks & army bulldozers entered few kilometers inside #Syria near #Atme. Locals claim Turkey is drawing new borders

Russia|n attack helicopter Kamov Ka-50 "Black Shark" spotted in #Latakia countryside early today #Syria

Hama
Street battle in Kafr Nabudah today before regime-forces pushed out
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQFxji_Xv7o …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu562TRgCHk …

4 drones were reported over Darkoush & Jisr Al Shoughour according to Syrian press center. Another MQ-9 here.

20 Assad regime fighters & pro Assad mercenaries killed today by rebels in Quneitra

Latakia Rebels regain hill(s) in Jubb al-Ahmar area

Putin has allied himself with the Shias in the new sectarian war against the Sunnis http://news.yahoo.com/saudis-tell-russia-syria-action-dangerous-consequences-source-122111784.html …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.676437&lon=36.238275&z=15&m=b …

[OUTLAW 09]

Crow Bat---there are warnings out of the Ukraine that the Hama battle is developing similar to a pocket battle the Russians pulled on the UAF in 2015.

The current situation map of North #Hama South #Idlib #Syria looks very much like #Debaltseve #Ukraine Jan 2015
https://twitter.com/markito0171/status/653632492537257984 …

Remember Russian attack doctrine favors envelopment over the flanks and we have not seen a heavy two flank maneuver yet.

All attacks seem designed to freeze the FSA in fixed positions allowing the Russians to fully understand their defenses.

[OUTLAW 09]

11 types of cluster bombs used by Russia on Syrians. This is fighting "terrorism". Why not just nuke everyone?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kYJ_PQX7GM&ebc=ANyPxKo7eR0QWg9QUX6SSG_c-5TlB_1QgiK8LeqmKLXqPMGeQqCG1z9ckab_8iYr2Y217xKQURu FX3PEMO95iZtT8BpD4z1tJQ …

Despite relentless Russian airstrikes & cluster bombs on Ghab plains Assad regime still can't advance an inch. Trying to get into Sirmaniyah

[OUTLAW 09]

Captain Mustafa, the military spokesman of the FSA’s Tajamul Ala’Azza says to Russians "You don’t know what you’ve got yourself into"

New "Syrian Democratic Forces” formed consisting of YPG, YPJ (women's division) Free Syrian Army brigades, Assyrian units.
=30k fighters

Newsflash Assad Col Abbas Fawaz in charge of overseeing offensive in KAFR NOUDAH was KILLED...

Russian air strike on Kafrnabouda across the street from media activist Mahmoud Hamwi. #Hama
http://youtu.be/gO0M55yCmCI

[CrowBat]

Crow Bat---there are warnings out of the Ukraine that the Hama battle is developing similar to a pocket battle the Russians pulled on the UAF in 2015.Since many of their groups are led by officers trained at Frunze and similar Soviet military institutions, I'm sure insurgents can read maps, run reconnaissance and draw their own conclusions about Russian commanders.

Yes, Atshan and Sukayk are now in regime's hands, but positions further north (previously held by new and inexperienced units, like the 60th and Central Divisions FSyA) are holding out. Plus, Hezbollah was kicked out of Kfar Naboudah with heavy loss. So, at least the western prong of that attack was stopped.

I guess that it's an advantage of being a reasonable human being, led by experienced and dedicated military officers, and defending own home - instead being one of JAN's Jihadi-idiots led by preachings of their Emirs.

[OUTLAW 09]

A better view of the #Syria(n) Rebels made "C7 Rocket Launcher"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUz2VAAShrg&feature=youtu.be&a …
pic.twitter.com/wS490n4Udd

VIDEO #Syria(n) rebels made "C7 rocket launcher" fired at #Assad & #Russia(n) forces #Hama
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85TBMdXHYk4 …
pic.twitter.com/o6MgrBv5dg

[OUTLAW 09]

Since many of their groups are led by officers trained at Frunze and similar Soviet military institutions, I'm sure insurgents can read maps, run reconnaissance and draw their own conclusions about Russian commanders.

Yes, Atshan and Sukayk are now in regime's hands, but positions further north (previously held by new and inexperienced units, like the 60th and Central Divisions FSyA) are holding out. Plus, Hezbollah was kicked out of Kfar Naboudah with heavy loss. So, at least the western prong of that attack was stopped.

I guess that it's an advantage of being a reasonable human being, led by experienced and dedicated military officers, and defending own home - instead being one of JAN's Jihadi-idiots led by preachings of their Emirs.

In the Debaltseve pocket the UAF also stopped one of the prongs--Russians then lulled and drew up more forces and when they reached a 2 to 1 troop ratio of what they thought the UAF had then they pushed again.

IE UAF had 2.5K in the pocket the Russians beefed up to 6K before the final push after the lull in fighting and went again into a two prong attack.

The UAF was able to pull out all 2.5K BUT here is the difference they had plenty of forests and cover to conceal their pullouts---not possible where the FSA is fighting right now as at some point they run out of cover for concealment.

[OUTLAW 09]

Since many of their groups are led by officers trained at Frunze and similar Soviet military institutions, I'm sure insurgents can read maps, run reconnaissance and draw their own conclusions about Russian commanders.

Yes, Atshan and Sukayk are now in regime's hands, but positions further north (previously held by new and inexperienced units, like the 60th and Central Divisions FSyA) are holding out. Plus, Hezbollah was kicked out of Kfar Naboudah with heavy loss. So, at least the western prong of that attack was stopped.

I guess that it's an advantage of being a reasonable human being, led by experienced and dedicated military officers, and defending own home - instead being one of JAN's Jihadi-idiots led by preachings of their Emirs.

CB--can you confirm this or not???

Unconfirmed reports rebels recaptured Sukayk village and hill taken by regime forces early today.

[OUTLAW 09]

BREAKING VIDEO #Russia newest drone "Dozor 600" seen over #Syria with bomb/missile?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0S2MBzIFZ4 …
pic.twitter.com/qFedqzdp1K

Some info on #Russia`s Dozor-600 drone / UAV seen over #Syria http://warfare.be/db/catid/324/linkid/2571/title/uav-dozor-600/ …

[OUTLAW 09]

Groups in Kfarnabuda:
Ahrar
Al Furqa alWusta (FSA)
Suqur al Ghab (FSA)
Div 111 (FSA)
Tajamo al Izza (FSA)
Nusra (AlQaeda)
Jaish ِِِِal Islam

Opposition groups defending Sukayk 2day:
Al Furqa al Wusta (FSA)
Jund al Aqsa (jihadist)
Jabhat al Nusra (AlQaeda)
Ajnaad al Sham (jihadist)

Opposition still manages to hit &destroy SAA tanks with TOWs. "We hit 2 tanks but then 10 new ones appear in front of us," says witness. <

[OUTLAW 09]

Russian Strikes Kill 104 Civilians Since Start of Aerial Campaign: Monitor #Syria
http://sobsrvr.com/WnvNULXg via @observesyria

Fursan al-Haq brigade of the FSA destroys 3 tanks and a BMB belonging to Russian-backed Assad troops in Hama suburbs
Videos shortly...

Hama Rebels claim shot down #Russia'n helicopter in Ghab plain -crashed at Khirbat al-Naqus
Probably another rumour of RuAF helicopter targeted with 37mm cannon & downed in #Ghab SW Khirbat al-Naqus village.

RuAF attacks on Qahira village in Ghab plain.
https://youtu.be/opIMq-V083c

[CrowBat]

CB--can you confirm this or not???

Unconfirmed reports rebels recaptured Sukayk village and hill taken by regime forces early today.
I know they're mortaring the place, but have no confirmation about re-capture (yet).

[OUTLAW 09]

Really captured the depth of the Russian airstrikes today---

The size of regime/Russian attack on Kafranbouda before the ground attack today.
https://youtu.be/a_Hc_YUnAto

[OUTLAW 09]

Crow Bat--think the tank numbers are correct???

So how many tanks/armoured #Assad army still have out of the 150 allegedly participating in northern #Ham offensive? anyone keeping count?

[CrowBat]

According to my estimate (based on number of vehicles imported since 1955, minus those reported as lost in various wars up until 2011), the regime started this war with an arsenal of about:
- 2,500 MBTs (incl. about 1000 T-72s, 500 T-62s and 1000 T-55s, approx 50% stored)
- 2,000 IFVs, APCs and armoured cars (incl. about 1700 BMP-1s)

On ACIG.info forum, we have a gent who's keeping a weekly count based on reviews of all videos and photos that become available (note: losses documented by videos and photos only; i.e. no 'claims'). His last post from yesterday went like this:

Between5 october 2015 and 11 october 2015, according to different videos and photos, Assad lost:
- 3 BMP destroyed and 0 captured by rebels =3 BMP lost
- 13 tank destroyed and 1 captured by rebels= 14 tank lost
- 1 ZSU-23-4 destroyed and 0 captured by rebels= 1 ZSU-23-4 lost
= 18 AFV lost

Between 24 May 2012 and 11 october 2015, according to different videos and photos, Assad lost:
- 368 BMP destroyed and 166 captured by rebels = 534 BMP lost
- 712 tanks destroyed and 338 captured by rebels= 1050 tanks lost
- 41 ZSU-23-4 destroyed and 35 captured by rebels=76 ZSU-23-4 lost
- 24 2S1 and 2S3 destroyed and 19 captured by rebels= 43 2S1 and 2S3 lost
= 1703 AFV lost

So, roughly one half the MBTs and a quarter of IFVs lost so far. AFAIK, situation should be much more critical in regards of self-propelled artillery (like 2S1s and 2S3s): this is meanwhile extrmely rare in regime's formations.

That said, there should be another website, with a much higher 'score' (something like 2,300 AFVs).

[OUTLAW 09]

BM-30 Smerch stationed at Mount Zayn al-Abdeen in #Hama targeting whole countryside (90km) with Cluster bombs

[OUTLAW 09]

According to my estimate (based on number of vehicles imported since 1955, minus those reported as lost in various wars up until 2011), the regime started this war with an arsenal of about:
- 2,500 MBTs (incl. about 1000 T-72s, 500 T-62s and 1000 T-55s, approx 50% stored)
- 2,000 IFVs, APCs and armoured cars (incl. about 1700 BMP-1s)

On ACIG.info forum, we have a gent who's keeping a weekly count based on reviews of all videos and photos that become available (note: losses documented by videos and photos only; i.e. no 'claims'). His last post from yesterday went like this:

Between5 october 2015 and 11 october 2015, according to different videos and photos, Assad lost:
- 3 BMP destroyed and 0 captured by rebels =3 BMP lost
- 13 tank destroyed and 1 captured by rebels= 14 tank lost
- 1 ZSU-23-4 destroyed and 0 captured by rebels= 1 ZSU-23-4 lost
= 18 AFV lost

Between 24 May 2012 and 11 october 2015, according to different videos and photos, Assad lost:
- 368 BMP destroyed and 166 captured by rebels = 534 BMP lost
- 712 tanks destroyed and 338 captured by rebels= 1050 tanks lost
- 41 ZSU-23-4 destroyed and 35 captured by rebels=76 ZSU-23-4 lost
- 24 2S1 and 2S3 destroyed and 19 captured by rebels= 43 2S1 and 2S3 lost
= 1703 AFV lost

So, roughly one half the MBTs and a quarter of IFVs lost so far. AFAIK, situation should be much more critical in regards of self-propelled artillery (like 2S1s and 2S3s): this is meanwhile extrmely rare in regime's formations.

That said, there should be another website, with a much higher 'score' (something like 2,300 AFVs).

Great--thanks---

[OUTLAW 09]

I know they're mortaring the place, but have no confirmation about re-capture (yet).

offical Nusra account claim now they regained Sukayk village

[OUTLAW 09]

Bad day for #Russia T-72 Tanks in #Syria today

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eK5C_MXelWw … https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MpAQHLt_gkk … https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9rSF8d9pf-o …

Hama From battlefield in Ghab plain/ Mansoura village
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFf0OnplUv8 …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.643138&lon=36.355391&z=14&m=b …

Hama #Assad-forces shows enter to Kafranbouda, but not forced retreat hours later https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wd51u5OUXJg …

[CrowBat]

offical Nusra account claim now they regained Sukayk villageJAN can claim whatever it likes, most of it is nonsense. Jawlani was foremost busy offering a bounty of 3 million for Assad's head today.

Following insurgent units are either in position in Kfar Zita area, or have deployed reinforcements there today:
- Ahrar ash-Sham (arrived in Kfar Naboudah this evening)
- 101 Division (FSyA; it's 5th Battalion arrived today)
- 111 Division (FSyA, underway to combat zone)
- Furqa al-Wusta (FSyA, underway to combat zone)
- Liwa Fursan al-Haqq (FSyA; was there, now reinforced)
- Suqour al-Ghab (FSyA; was there, now reinforced)
- Tajamu al-Aazza (FSyA, was there, now reinforced)
- Salvation Front of Victorious Army (IF)
- Sham Front (IF).

The JAN tried to send some gang to Kfar Naboudah (possibly Jund al-Aqsa), but these clashed with Ahrar's guards at a check-point north of the place, and were forced to go away.

- Central Division FSyA is in the rear, trying to reorganize after recent losses. No news on the 60 Division FSyA (seems this was largely destroyed in Sukayk).

[OUTLAW 09]

My estimate: #Assad reduced his "scorched earth policy" with barrel bombs on populated towns the past week- not damage #Russia'n- int. image

2 rockets hit #Russia'n ambassy in #Damascus

Russia launched Cruise Missiles from its Navy vessels at #Tartous coastline
Latakia #FSA shelling Regime forces in Kafr `Ajuz near #Durin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ui3SNASRDY …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.667756&lon=36.150448&z=16&m=b …

Hama #FSA at entrance to Atshan

More photos of the incubator of cluster bombs,which targeted the refugee camp destroying it
Rural #Idlib #Syria Oct9

Local activists reported several air attacks on al-Bara, Mowazra, Ayn Laroze & Ehsim villages in Mount Zawiya. 4 pbly RuAF still over #Idlib

Warplanes launched an air strike on al-Bara village in Idlib countryside.
http://youtu.be/eec3TEPSADc

Civil defense in Idlib protest the kidnapping of their members by criminal militants.
http://youtu.be/VHCx1SIVLr4

From yesterday's fighting--
Clashes between FSA & regime in rural Hama.
Atshan: http://youtu.be/rWDL5uq5dYE
Kafrnabouda: http://youtu.be/bRNuzZz8-gc

Russian MoD gets it's data mixed up again, again and again-------

RuAF airstrike "near ТЭР-ТЬЯНА"
https://youtu.be/143YH5eBPE4 geolocated 2 Sukayk http://wikimapia.org/#lat=35.417817&lon=36.756788&z=18&m=b … 60km frm Tartiyah

[OUTLAW 09]

Crow Bat--can you confirm this? This would be the second high level Hezbollah commander killed in the last week of fighting???

2nd sr. Hezbollah militia leader killed by rebels in 24 hrs in #Ghab battlefield Mahdi Hassan Obaid "Abu Ridah"

Also this popped up today-----
Iranian "General Hamedani killed in an ambush during a tour of Hama frontline", not in Aleppo in a car wreck as claimed last week

This seems to be the Farsi version of Gen Hamadani Syria story
http://bit.ly/1OyQFsA

A secondary source for Tabnak (IRGC-linked?) story on death of Gen Hamadani at hands of Hama rebels not IS in Aleppo
http://bit.ly/1k125Km

[OUTLAW 09]

UPDATE: IDF now also confirming that it has returned fire against Syrian armed forces positions in the Golan Heights

[OUTLAW 09]

Breaking #Map #Syria
#Nusra storms #Doreen village (#Latakia), held by #Assad since years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CgXqNgPk_E&feature=youtu.be … pic.twitter.com/jfoxaMl1yy

News
#Nusra calls for killing of "Russian population and soldiers" in #Russia as revenge for Russian intervention in #Syria.

Hama Ahrar als Sham claim regained southern Mansoura & grain silo area http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.640208&lon=36.352730&z=15&m=b …

Israel'i airstrike on Tell al-Sha'ar in #Quneitra #Syria
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=33.173012&lon=35.943017&z=15&m=b …

WHAT is the YPG up to????
As a supporter of the #YPG, they really need to answer to these accounts. What exactly is going on here?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlOzoCHaNeM …

[OUTLAW 09]

BreakingNews
#Assad / #Putin offensive to cut #Turkey from rebel-held #Aleppo started.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6Sjgx0GYCc … pic.twitter.com/kxZLOMNqgF

[OUTLAW 09]

BreakingNews
Russian Su-25 bomb school, used as #IDP camp in rural #Idlib province
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewLnLZ_ZXR0 …

The just luckily missed the school by some meters. One child was injured.

BUT THEN Russian trolls start doing their info war thing......................

Алексей Рябов ‏@leha_san · 1h1 hour ago
@JulianRoepcke Two parts in this video with different white balance. Can't be sure it's not combined from pieces -different places and time.

@JulianRoepcke As a photographer I can see different white balance of pieces in many other videos from Syria. Some of them probably fake.

Андрей Соловьёв ‏@andrew_s76 · 2h2 hours ago
@JulianRoepcke US AF more professional. They does not missed. Wedding, hospital, two excavators. All targets succesfull destroyed.

YuriyGaraev ‏@yurajazzz · 2h2 hours ago
@JulianRoepcke Holes from tank shells hit. This building was destroyed long ago. Why are you faking information?

[CrowBat]

Crow Bat--can you confirm this? This would be the second high level Hezbollah commander killed in the last week of fighting???

2nd sr. Hezbollah militia leader killed by rebels in 24 hrs in #Ghab battlefield Mahdi Hassan Obaid "Abu Ridah" Yup, Hezbollah confirmed his death.

Can't confirm (nor deny) any of rumours about Hamedani's death. Eventually, it doesn't matter how he died: what's important are effects. People with really good 'management skills' are meanwhile quite rare in Iran (so rare, same managers/officers remain in same position for ages, while same people are sent from one crucial position to the other); even the IRGC has no endless supply of them.

That said, there is one thing that's making me curious: I would like to point at the following video, taken on 4 October 2015, and showing a TOW-attack of the Suqour al-Ghab Brigade on a group of (supposedly) 'Assadist and Russian officers holding a meeting':
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWzGe5i_WuI

It's not only that bodies can be seen flying around, or that it's clear that more bodies are then 'urgently' taken away from the scene... but if 'put into context'... it's not only that Hamadani and Abu Ridah were KIA in a matter of last four days, but a number of other Hezbollah and regime commanders.

So, perhaps - repeat: perhaps (this is a guess, nothing else) - it's so that those 'up-the-chain of command' were waiting for a suitable opportunity to report the death of commanders in question...?

And there is no more suitable moment but, 'see, brave soldiers of Assad/Jesus Christ/Sayida Zaynab Shrine/enter your choice, at the time of powerful enemy counter-attacks, your commanders are right next to you in the first line of defence, dying together with you'...

[OUTLAW 09]

Rebels have retaken Mansoura village in Ghab in Hama from regime army and captured a tank and BMP

#Syria More indications of coming regime-offensive on N/W outskirts of #Aleppo after a dozen airstrikes on rebel hold suburbs

#Syria #Hama Ahrar als Sham claim regained southern Mansoura & grain silo area http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.640208&lon=36.352730&z=15&m=b …

[OUTLAW 09]

Russia wants @WhiteHouse to join so that #Kremlin can claim #US/RU ties improved, force west accept #Assad.

https://twitter.com/AFP/status/653891193462484992 …

[OUTLAW 09]

Yup, Hezbollah confirmed his death.

Can't confirm (nor deny) any of rumours about Hamedani's death. Eventually, it doesn't matter how he died: what's important are effects. People with really good 'management skills' are meanwhile quite rare in Iran (so rare, same managers/officers remain in same position for ages, while same people are sent from one crucial position to the other); even the IRGC has no endless supply of them.

That said, there is one thing that's making me curious: I would like to point at the following video, taken on 4 October 2015, and showing a TOW-attack of the Suqour al-Ghab Brigade on a group of (supposedly) 'Assadist and Russian officers holding a meeting':
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWzGe5i_WuI

It's not only that bodies can be seen flying around, or that it's clear that more bodies are then 'urgently' taken away from the scene... but if 'put into context'... it's not only that Hamadani and Abu Ridah were KIA in a matter of last four days, but a number of other Hezbollah and regime commanders.

So, perhaps - repeat: perhaps (this is a guess, nothing else) - it's so that those 'up-the-chain of command' were waiting for a suitable opportunity to report the death of commanders in question...?

And there is no more suitable moment but, 'see, brave soldiers of Assad/Jesus Christ/Sayida Zaynab Shrine/enter your choice, at the time of powerful enemy counter-attacks, your commanders are right next to you in the first line of defence, dying together with you'...

CB--reference the video--it appears that the TOW round was the HE version not the AT version that was fired---the jeep "disappears' and the small bus to the left of it as well which would have happened from an HE round--notice no further damage to the building directly behind the blast area.

Secondly there appears to be a small bus to the left of the command jeep which might have been used to transport say 6-8 personnel and the command jeep was probably an armed escort jeep--another 3-4 in it.

Knowing Russian officers-- the whole group appears to be huddled around something as if in a field command meeting/briefing--which it probably was and the field commanders were going over probably a map briefing of the front positions opposite the SAA positions.

BTW--what surprised me was the simple fact they apparently did not hear the TOW launch--in the open like that was you definitely hear the short pop of the launch but you definitely hear the engine kick in--they kept on with the meeting totally oblivious to the incoming rocket.

Still cannot figure out exactly why the SAA groups do not get the range of the TOW and the accuracy of it?

Have seen some of the Syrian TOW gunners even angle upwards the TOW before bringing it back down--almost like lobbing it- to get over hindrances.

BLUF--fully agree that this was a high level meeting and this is where Hezbollah took their loses--AM also assuming Russian officers were also killed--suspecting at least a Russian COL if not higher and he was GRU would have been with them as well.

CB--question back to you---just how did the TOW team know there was going to be a meeting at that exact location as the TOW teams have been surprisingly well positioned for all of their attacks?

[OUTLAW 09]

Massive explosion of Russian bomb in a town in rural #Idlib https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBhKN_u2o-k …

.Russian air strike hits civilians again--------
Russian SU-34 air strike on populated Dārat ‘Izzah north of #Aleppo. Aftermath shows casualties
https://www.youtube.com/watch?

A lone Su-25SM armed with two dumb bombs. Is RuAF generating more sorties just for the sake of it?

[OUTLAW 09]

I have posted this on the Ukrainian military thread a number of times --in order to understand Putin read Orwell's 1984.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/war-is-peace-russias-orwellian-propaganda-op-ed/538675.html

War Is Peace: Russia's Orwellian Propaganda (Op-Ed)

By Alexander Golts

Oct. 12 2015 20:06


The Russian authorities have achieved remarkable success in the Syrian war. According to a poll by state-run VTsIOM, 66 percent of citizens approve of sending Russian combat aircraft to Syria, even though more than half have no idea what Moscow is fighting for there.

Think about it: The majority of Russians approve of the war without even taking the trouble to understand its purpose. It's just that the average citizen gets a big kick out of watching television footage of Russian planes locking in and destroying their targets exactly as if it were a video game. The armchair audience likes watching the General Staff issue its daily report listing the number of terrorist command and control centers destroyed and the ever-increasing number of terrorists killed.

It seems as if the producers at state-controlled television channels are using George Orwell's "1984" as a handbook. The modern-day Orwellian war of Oceania against Eurasia — aka Russia versus fascist Ukraine — is already over and forgotten, and now Moscow has launched a new battle between Oceania and what Orwell called Eastasia.

And yet, the Defense Ministry does not even try to give a semblance of plausibility to its communiques of military triumph. After all, what type of aerial reconnaissance could confirm that Russian aircraft have destroyed a factory producing belts for suicide bombers? Do those belts explode differently than other munitions, or can Russian drone aircraft peer into windows and straight through brick and concrete walls?

The fact that Russians gave such enthusiastic support to the annexation of Crimea and Moscow's "secret war" in Ukraine revealed their deep inferiority complex over the collapse of the Soviet Union. The seizure of Crimea and the hybrid war in Donbass served as potent psychotropic drugs that allowed Russians to finally feel like citizens of a great empire — and therefore happy. However, like any powerful drug, it proved addictive. A new dose was needed. And one appeared, in the form of a safe little war in Syria that carried no risk for Russia.

That drug works on Russia's ordinary citizens and military chiefs alike. To help celebrate President Vladimir Putin's recent birthday, they launched 20 of Russia's most advanced Caliber cruise missiles from the Caspian Sea fleet to hit terrorist targets in Syria. Military observers were simply overcome with joy. For the first time in its military history, Russia used long-range cruise missiles to hit targets 1,500 kilometers away. That was a convincing demonstration of "the long arm of Moscow" and its long-awaited ability to "project force" abroad.

Of course, those same analysts who are simply bubbling over with happiness begin to stammer and mumble when trying to explain why those missile attacks were necessary in the first place.

It was clear why the United States used cruise missiles in its operations in Yugoslavia and Iraq — namely, to employ its full military might to send the enemy into confusion, destroy its reserves, interrupt communications and diminish its will to resist.

Russia's air operations are a bit different. In a campaign that is far from intense, the air squadron stationed in Syria carries out extremely limited strikes against targets that are most likely selected by the Syrian army. There are no targets in Syria that Russian aircraft cannot reach, and so there was no need to use cruise missiles against them.

The show that Russia has staged in Syria is essentially a historical reenactment of U.S. operations in Iraq. I can imagine how humiliated and envious Putin must have felt 12 years ago as those damned Yankees sent volley after volley of cruise missiles to destroy pinpoint targets thousands of kilometers away. Now Putin has shown that not only can Russia play that game, too, but under his visionary command, can perhaps outperform the Yankees.

Putin was not the only one to indulge his militaristic fantasies. Retired admiral and Duma Defense Committee head Vladimir Komoyedov argued that there was simply no stopping those "Komsomol volunteers" in their desire to ensure the happiness of the Syrian people. He implied that Moscow should create brigades, or perhaps even a battalion of volunteer Russian forces, and that fighters languishing in the Donbass for lack of a war could immediately relocate to Syria.

He even suggested that those intrepid Russian volunteers, so eager to bring happiness to their downtrodden Syrian brethren, could earn paychecks far surpassing standard military salaries. What Komoyedov forgot to mention is that "volunteers who fight for money" are actually called mercenaries.

Many years ago, after the tragedy in Vietnam, the U.S. developed the so-called "Powell Doctrine" that spells out criteria for the use of military force abroad. According to that doctrine, U.S. leaders can resort to military force only when, among other things, they have a clear and attainable military objective. However, Russia's war in Syria is primarily a propaganda stunt and lacks an end goal that could be achieved by military means.

What's more, it is fraught with the risk of entanglement. If the current air operations do not secure victory for the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad and his Iranian colleagues, Russia's military chiefs might risk launching ground operations. In fact, such plans were already developed as part of the large-scale Center 2015 military maneuvers. First, an airborne regiment flies in and prepares a base for the main forces. They are followed by a division of troops, and then the general army.

True, it is not clear how Moscow plans to deploy infantry to Syria, but in the end, it can commandeer civilian aircraft. It was a stroke of luck in this regard that private Russian air carrier Transaero went bankrupt recently, allowing state-controlled Aeroflot airlines to buy a 75 percent stake in the company.

Russia's military brass continues to insist that it has no plans for ground operations in Syria. However, for some reason the Defense Ministry hurriedly pushed through amendments to the law on the punishment for evasion of reservist training …

[OUTLAW 09]

Jaish al Fatah (#JaF) launch counter-battle for #Hama province

[CrowBat]

Massive explosion of Russian bomb in a town in rural #Idlib https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBhKN_u2o-k …

.Russian air strike hits civilians again--------
Russian SU-34 air strike on populated Dārat ‘Izzah north of #Aleppo. Aftermath shows casualties
https://www.youtube.com/watch?

A lone Su-25SM armed with two dumb bombs. Is RuAF generating more sorties just for the sake of it?
So, now they are 'retaliating against civilians' - instead of providing CAS for regime's battered ground troops?

Often repeated - but none-the-less dumb mistake.

And nope: the number of sorties generated by their 'Aviation Group in Syria' is in decline.

They should have received some reinforcements (additional Su-24s, apparently), 3-4 days ago, but the number of sorties is down meanwhile, from 60+ per day, to 50+ per day - and this despite deployment of Su-34s to drop dumb bombs... (imagine F-15Es bombing Daesh in Iraq with Mk.82s... :rolleyes: ).

[OUTLAW 09]

Russians claimed this village was abandoned--notice the laundry being dried on the terrace----

The Russian MoD seems to do nothing but lie about every attack----

Footage
Russian bombign raids on villages in rural #Idlib province toda.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIYSHLlusGs …

More footage from the Russian bombing raids to support #Assad's offensive north of #Aleppo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_vcCw5gb7Y …

MORE civilians being targeted by Russian troops------
Footage
An #Assad-fired Grad missile hits civilians in al-Ghantu, #Homs province.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvFuKOnM6e4 …

[OUTLAW 09]

For those that do not think the Russian troll system is not automated-----


To let you know:
The automatised pro-Assad/Putin spam attack on me continues since 16 hrs.
@Twitter @Support @hilfe say they can't stop it.

See what a Russian oligarch gets for his 700M USD Investment into FB-----

[OUTLAW 09]

BreakingNews
Russian Su-25 bomb school, used as #IDP camp in rural #Idlib province
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewLnLZ_ZXR0 …

The just luckily missed the school by some meters. One child was injured.

BUT THEN Russian trolls start doing their info war thing......................

Алексей Рябов ‏@leha_san · 1h1 hour ago
@JulianRoepcke Two parts in this video with different white balance. Can't be sure it's not combined from pieces -different places and time.

@JulianRoepcke As a photographer I can see different white balance of pieces in many other videos from Syria. Some of them probably fake.

Андрей Соловьёв ‏@andrew_s76 · 2h2 hours ago
@JulianRoepcke US AF more professional. They does not missed. Wedding, hospital, two excavators. All targets succesfull destroyed.

YuriyGaraev ‏@yurajazzz · 2h2 hours ago
@JulianRoepcke Holes from tank shells hit. This building was destroyed long ago. Why are you faking information?


Footage
School children run to school to avoid #Assad's bombs in al-Ghantu,#Homs province.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AshrEvsN_7k …

[OUTLAW 09]

Yup, Hezbollah confirmed his death.

Can't confirm (nor deny) any of rumours about Hamedani's death. Eventually, it doesn't matter how he died: what's important are effects. People with really good 'management skills' are meanwhile quite rare in Iran (so rare, same managers/officers remain in same position for ages, while same people are sent from one crucial position to the other); even the IRGC has no endless supply of them.

That said, there is one thing that's making me curious: I would like to point at the following video, taken on 4 October 2015, and showing a TOW-attack of the Suqour al-Ghab Brigade on a group of (supposedly) 'Assadist and Russian officers holding a meeting':
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWzGe5i_WuI

It's not only that bodies can be seen flying around, or that it's clear that more bodies are then 'urgently' taken away from the scene... but if 'put into context'... it's not only that Hamadani and Abu Ridah were KIA in a matter of last four days, but a number of other Hezbollah and regime commanders.

So, perhaps - repeat: perhaps (this is a guess, nothing else) - it's so that those 'up-the-chain of command' were waiting for a suitable opportunity to report the death of commanders in question...?

And there is no more suitable moment but, 'see, brave soldiers of Assad/Jesus Christ/Sayida Zaynab Shrine/enter your choice, at the time of powerful enemy counter-attacks, your commanders are right next to you in the first line of defence, dying together with you'...

CB--if this keeps up then we will have all of those that were hit by the TOW----

IRG's commander Fershad Hassouni has been killed in #Syria.
Still unclear who is killing all those Iranian and Hezbollah top commanders.

SYRIA: Iranian media report that a former special forces commander has been killed in #Syria.
http://basijpress.ir/fa/news-details/59667/%D9%81%D8%B1%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%AF%D9%87-%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%A8%D9%82-%D8%AA%DB%8C%D9%BE-%D8%B5%D8%A7%D8%A8%D8%B1%DB%8C%D9%86-%D8%AF%D8%B1-%D8%B3%D9%88%D8%B1%DB%8C%D9%87-%D8%A8%D9%87-%D8%B4%D9%87%D8%A7%D8%AF%D8%AA-%D8%B1%D8%B3%DB%8C%D8%AF/ …

All three IRGC officers, as well as two senior Hezbollah field commanders, appear to have been killed in the Hama region.

And another senior former IRGC commander, Hamid Mokhtarband (aka Abu Zahra), killed in Syria. http://goo.gl/qyN0gs

[OUTLAW 09]

Syria #SAA-commander Ahmed Shaaban killed in Mansoura /Ghab plain

SNHR: 14 victims died in regime warplanes missiles fired on local market in Ein Tarma in Rif Dimashq, Oct 13

[OUTLAW 09]

Assad has destroyed #Syria and displaced its people and our stance towards his is unchanged, #Saudi FM says - @AlArabiya_Eng

Syria:interview w/FSA commander in Kafr Nabuda,north Hama countryside https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuihu2Ivr80 … Mentions also participation of Nusra et al.

[OUTLAW 09]

So, now they are 'retaliating against civilians' - instead of providing CAS for regime's battered ground troops?

Often repeated - but none-the-less dumb mistake.

And nope: the number of sorties generated by their 'Aviation Group in Syria' is in decline.

They should have received some reinforcements (additional Su-24s, apparently), 3-4 days ago, but the number of sorties is down meanwhile, from 60+ per day, to 50+ per day - and this despite deployment of Su-34s to drop dumb bombs... (imagine F-15Es bombing Daesh in Iraq with Mk.82s... :rolleyes: ).

Syria will close #Lattakia civilian airport. It will be used by #Russia to increase the sorties against rebels from 60 to 200.

Number of Russian strikes currently insufficient 'cause only 2 bases available, a 3rd base will be ready next month
http://www.alraimedia.com/ar/article/special-reports/2015/10/12/626723/nr/iraq

[OUTLAW 09]

HadiAlabdallah ·
Noteworthy! #ISIS announces capture of several Aleppo points, including free zone in Sahawat. #Assad then announces control of same area.

HadiAlabdallah
PHOTO: Regime TV reporter near al-Mushah in Aleppo, days after ISIS captured the barracks then gave it to Assad army

When you think it can´t get worse, #Russians surprise us with even more #RussiaVsISIL nonsense.
Russian Ministry of Defense: ISIS have lost most of their ammunition and equipment as a result of Russian air strikes.

HadiAlabdallah 
Jaysh al-Fatah (Army of Conquest) announces offensive to liberate Hama city from Assad-Russia-Iran occupation.

[OUTLAW 09]

Crow Bat-----

More than 400 Assad forces killed in Hama in just a week. Bodies transferred to national hospital in water tanks

http://fb.me/6VKKNCRr4

[OUTLAW 09]

T-72s and BMPs in Port of Novorossiysk allegedly ready to be shipped to #Syria

PHOTO: Photo allegedly shows Syrian and Russian troops together in #Syria, exact location unknown. -
pic.twitter.com/5Zy06PUGSr

[OUTLAW 09]

CB--if this keeps up then we will have all of those that were hit by the TOW----

IRG's commander Fershad Hassouni has been killed in #Syria.
Still unclear who is killing all those Iranian and Hezbollah top commanders.

SYRIA: Iranian media report that a former special forces commander has been killed in #Syria.
http://basijpress.ir/fa/news-details/59667/%D9%81%D8%B1%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%AF%D9%87-%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%A8%D9%82-%D8%AA%DB%8C%D9%BE-%D8%B5%D8%A7%D8%A8%D8%B1%DB%8C%D9%86-%D8%AF%D8%B1-%D8%B3%D9%88%D8%B1%DB%8C%D9%87-%D8%A8%D9%87-%D8%B4%D9%87%D8%A7%D8%AF%D8%AA-%D8%B1%D8%B3%DB%8C%D8%AF/ …

All three IRGC officers, as well as two senior Hezbollah field commanders, appear to have been killed in the Hama region.

And another senior former IRGC commander, Hamid Mokhtarband (aka Abu Zahra), killed in Syria. http://goo.gl/qyN0gs

Qassem Soleimani is back.

[OUTLAW 09]

Pentagon: Saturday, there was another encounter between US and Russian pilots over Syria. They came close enough to make visual contact.
US military spokesman Col Steve Warren says most US-Russian encounters over Syria involve the Russians trying to get a look at US drones
RUAF An-124 82037 departed #Latakia, Syria around 0500Z

In four days gov aviation dropped 197 barrel bombs until 18:00 of Mon, Oct 12 according to #SNHR doc.

[OUTLAW 09]

GRAPHIC--for those that think allowing Assad to remain in power is the solution--this is his track record.

AND for those that think he is not a War Criminal.

(Graphic) Pics of his military prison in #Damascus http://leaks.zamanalwsl.net/tortures_group.php …

[CrowBat]

For those that do not think the Russian troll system is not automated-----


To let you know:
The automatised pro-Assad/Putin spam attack on me continues since 16 hrs.
@Twitter @Support @hilfe say they can't stop it.

See what a Russian oligarch gets for his 700M USD Investment into FB-----
I know why I've got no Twitter, no FB, no Instagram or other 'social media' accounts... :rolleyes:


CB--if this keeps up then we will have all of those that were hit by the TOW----Please keep in mind: that's just a guess. A guess and nothing more.

One shouldn't forget that IRGC-commanders (and so Hezbollah too) are 'leading from the front'. They're not only expected to do so, but consider themselves 'warriors' and lead per example.

Finally, for many of them, there's hardly any bigger honour but to get maryred for their principles. 'Insh'allah...'

[OUTLAW 09]

FSA al-Izza troops beautiful TOW hit destroy regime BMP on the move in Lahaya #Hama.https://youtu.be/Eh-1gX_RC1w

Hama rif – update news for 13/10/2015

Regime forces reiterated Kafranbude battle but in Al Mansura

Regime forces attemtped to advance towards Al Mansura, fully backed by the russian jetfighters SU 30 and combat helicopters, and a pre-emptive artllery fire power that forced JAF forces first to withdraw a little then to move foreward and recapture all the points they lost earlier to the regime forces and militias. The regime forces were forced to withdraw defeated leaving behind their deads and destroyed equipments. JAF forces destroyed 1 tank, bulldozer, and grabbed 1 BMP.

Northern rif

Russian jetfighters carried out 2 airstrikes with vacuum missiles onto Kafranbude several districts.

Eastern rif

Regime forces targeted from Morek town the village of Latmin with missile launchers and artillery shells, destroying the public buildings. JAF retaliated by destroying a BMP at Lahaya with a TOW

Missiles fired from #Russia|n warships near #Tartus hit targets in al-Turkman & al-Akrad mountains in #Latakia countryside

[OUTLAW 09]

I know why I've got no Twitter, no FB, no Instagram or other 'social media' accounts... :rolleyes:

Please keep in mind: that's just a guess. A guess and nothing more.

One shouldn't forget that IRGC-commanders (and so Hezbollah too) are 'leading from the front'. They're not only expected to do so, but consider themselves 'warriors' and lead per example.

Finally, for many of them, there's hardly any bigger honour but to get maryred for their principles. 'Insh'allah...'

Here in my take--yes one can led from the front but then they are virtually admitting then a serious defeat if they were all killed leading fron the front--still tip the TOW.

Why the TOW--Syrian info war media brushed right over the video and "claimed" as did the Russian propaganda it was a so called fake report on the killing of a Russian officer--lessons learned from the Ukraine WHEN Russian info warriors state one thing then it means 100% just the opposite.

Then the small report yesterday concerning an "ambush" which one could in fact call the TOW attack--remember I asked the question just how did the TOW team know where to exactly setup and what would be there as there was virtually no other major worth while target for a TOW outside of this small jeep and bus WHICH has not been the "normal" FSA TOW targets lately.

Actually hitting the small jeep and bus was total over kill for a TOW round--at 60K USD per round--it was an expensive wasted round????

[OUTLAW 09]

Jaysh al-Fath troops inside al-Mansoura grain silos re-taken from Assad Army in #Ghab plain.
https://youtu.be/A1lueZyw2v0

Kafranbouda frontline with al-Maghyer.
https://youtu.be/jKYMesHuWQs

Aftermath of #Russia|n airstrikes on Darat Azza in #Aleppo where at least 5 civilians were killed & 10s injured.
http://youtu.be/C3uPYYOzo4E

FSA Fursan al-Haq on the Mare'a front in #Aleppo holding positions against #ISIS in Harbel
http://youtu.be/t4n5XSc3k68

New #Russia|n airstrikes on liberated towns in #Aleppo inc. Anadan, Hayan, Ratyan, Bayanoun, Darat Izza & Hraitan. Casualties reported

According to Hezbollah Sources,the goal of the offensive is to recapture Rebel-Held Latakia and Hama,the Turkish-Syrian border in Idlib

[OUTLAW 09]

Lavrov says #Russia's war in #Syria is not about religion. Why drawing the Cross on so many tanks then?!

ISIS in a new statement: We still control the Free Zone after a short retreat.. #Aleppo #Syria

[OUTLAW 09]

http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/how-the-syrian-crisis-will-change-matters-in-iraq

How the Syrian crisis will change matters in Iraq

Hassan Hassan

October 12, 2015 Updated: October 12, 2015 06:27 PM


Nearly two weeks after the Russian intervention began in Syria, one could say it has not got off to a good start. Last week, the Syrian regime launched its first ground offensive against the rebels under Russian air support.

The assault, in Hama’s northern countryside, failed spectacularly – rebels affiliated to the Free Syrian Army destroyed at least 18 tanks and held their ground. The anti-government forces had advanced last month towards Al Masasnah, where the battles took place on Monday, and one of the villages that would lead the rebels further into the regime’s heartlands. The offensive was thus an important operation for the government and at the heart of the Russian forces’ role in Syria.

The following day, US officials claimed cruise missiles fired by Russian warships in the Caspian Sea crashed in Iran. And over the weekend, the Syrian army also lost control of “the UN hill” in Quneitra.

But the most significant development happened on Wednesday, when ISIL swept through several rebel-held villages and reached the doorsteps of Aleppo. The advances, made possible by the disruptive targeting of opposition forces committed to fighting ISIL, were the most important gains for the organisation in Aleppo since the rebels expelled it from much of the north in early 2014.

Of course, it is hard to judge the Russian intervention based on last week’s performance. But the developments so far serve as a reality check for early speculation about the scope of the Russian role, such as a ground offensive to expel ISIL from Palmyra. Moscow will be forced to focus its mission on the daunting task of securing the regime’s vital areas.

So the idea that the government would commit forces to retake areas from which it had withdrawn overlooks the fact that Russia came to prop up a weak army. If Bashar Al Assad sends his forces to ISIL’s areas, he risks exposing key fronts.

The situation might get worse for the regime: the war already appears to be intensifying and the rebels are poised to receive increased aid from regional allies. According to the BBC’s Frank Gardner, Saudi Arabia has delivered 500 TOW missiles. Vladimir Putin’s meetings with Gulf officials over the weekend indicate his mission will hinge on whether the rebel backers will raise the stakes.

In this context, unconfirmed reports suggested that Moscow and Tehran would send foreign volunteers to help the regime stage ground campaigns. This reality leads to a question that everybody should be asking: how will the intensification of the Syrian conflict, which might prompt Iran to commit more resources and forces to it, affect the war against ISIL in Iraq?
Any increased attention to Syria will no doubt be at the expense of Iranian-backed forces in Iraq. Last year, when ISIL took Mosul, many of the Shia militants fighting in Syria had to return to Iraq to help defend the capital and holy areas. This is particularly the case as the anti-ISIL forces in Iraq, by the admission of US officials in closed settings, are now exhausted and demoralised.

Not much has been happening on the Iraqi anti-ISIL front in recent weeks. Baghdad has announced major battles to liberate Fallujah, Ramadi and even Mosul. But Baghdad has little to show for its rhetoric. A major media campaign that accompanied the battle for Fallujah two months ago quietly faded away. Promises by the US secretary of state John Kerry in May that Ramadi would be retaken “in a few days” did not materialise.

[OUTLAW 09]

Qassem Soleimani is back.

BREAKING: Leader of the Iranian elite Quds force, Gen. Qassem Suleimani has arrived in #Syria - @alihashem_tv

[OUTLAW 09]

I know why I've got no Twitter, no FB, no Instagram or other 'social media' accounts... :rolleyes:

Please keep in mind: that's just a guess. A guess and nothing more.

One shouldn't forget that IRGC-commanders (and so Hezbollah too) are 'leading from the front'. They're not only expected to do so, but consider themselves 'warriors' and lead per example.

Finally, for many of them, there's hardly any bigger honour but to get maryred for their principles. 'Insh'allah...'

Seriously ...
The pro-Russian/Assad cyber army hacked this account to spam me..
Together with some thousand others.

pic.twitter.com/19oaYxix1N

[OUTLAW 09]

Appears #Russia(n) Propaganda "Journalist" Sasha Kots may have been killed in #Syria
https://twitter.com/ValkryV/status/651839349328375809 … pic.twitter.com/JqhZ0ijjZa

He was a major reporter for Russian news media in eastern Ukraine-----

[OUTLAW 09]

Iraq Daesh claimed they downed an Iraqi drone near Tikrit but the chute is deployed, more likely due to technical problem
pic.twitter.com/rF3RYBpAnR

Russia arrested men "trained in #Syria & planning Moscow attack” but forgot that it killed them earlier in Chechnya
http://tass.ru/proisshestviya/2330328 …

Interfax: Iraq's air force starts using Russian intelligence data for strikes on ISIS.
https://twitter.com/interfax_news/status/653982505406713856 …
Hope they can find IS better than the Russians are doing in Syria----


Carl Bildt ✔ @carlbildt
New types pf cluster munitions used in Syria. Neither Russia nor Syria has signed agreements against such weapons.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/10/10/syria-new-russian-made-cluster-munition-reported …

[OUTLAW 09]

VIDEO #Syria(n) rebels firing at #Russia(n) aircraft with ZSU-23 AA cannon North #Hama
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_UyyDfSKT8 … pic.twitter.com/bQS9AItEUf

VIDEO #Russia(n) airstrike on civilian area #Jobar #Damascus (NOT #ISIS) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f57AFBgXTws …
pic.twitter.com/ZtCJX22mkj

[OUTLAW 09]

Hama Rebels destroyed tank with TOW in Khirbat al-Naqus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjnG-F5w8hM …

Artillery Battalion of Ahrar al-Sham part of Jaysh al-Fath says will mobilise all its forces for #Hama offensive.

VIDEO #Syria(n) rebels clearing Kvrenbaudh North #Hama of #Assad troops after seizing city https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyucbiOSQEM …

Regime artillery and RuAF pounding al-Taman'ah and trying to advance to the village northern #Hama.
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=35.458153&lon=36.746521&z=14&m=b …

Local activists say Jaysh al-Fath mobilising huge forces for #Hama offensive include 10s VBIEDs and 1000s of fighters backed by artillery.

Assad AirForce attack on Duma #Damascus.
https://youtu.be/cUt0fGhvPv4

Jaysh al-Fath GRADing Regime/Russian positions in Al-Suqaylabiyah #Hama.
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=35.358816&lon=36.395988&z=14&m=b …
https://youtu.be/Fl1Wg2i4CBM

Nur ad-Din az-Zanki kind of apologies for the exaggeration in their last statement after conflict w/ Nusra in #Aleppo

Important:
Jabha Shamiya commander blames ‘complete lack of coordination’ for Aleppo losses - Syria Direct: http://syriadirect.org/news/jabha-shamiya-commander-blames-%e2%80%98complete-lack-of-coordination%e2%80%99for-aleppo-losses/#.Vh1Sk01X73o.twitter …

Parts of the Damascus-Homs M5 highway remains under Jaysh al-Islam control near Harasta.

Rebels are trying to repel a regime attempt to advance in Atshan-Skayk again. #Hama #Syria

[OUTLAW 09]

ARE Russian air strikes deliberately targeting civilians to create more refugees????--appears so today--this is Chechnya all over again........

Russia is systematically bombing IDP camps near Turkey

Just in, a poultry farm used by internally displaced people on the outskirts of Tahtaya in S. #Idlib, #Syria was targeted by #Russia|n jets.

Reports of several civilian casualties but lots wounded now including children still under the rubble. #Syria

GRAPHIC----
15 civilians killed & > 20 injured in Assad airstrikes on a market in Ein Tarma, #Damascus today. Very graphic vid http://youtu.be/9FKXolj4ZnM

[OUTLAW 09]

Assad unleashes hell this AM (airstrikes, MRL, shelling) on Ghouta (Kafrbatna, Jobar, Saqba, Douma, Zamalka, Sheefoniya, Hosh Salhiya, etc)

Most artillery shelling is from Qasioun mountain & rocket fire, mortar shells from the regime’s launch site at Abbasiyyin stadium #Damascus

Western MSM still is basically false reporting Syria--why is that???

From Reuters today--
Reuters forgot to add that the offensive against rebels was backed by ISIS as well

[OUTLAW 09]

Assad unleashes hell this AM (airstrikes, MRL, shelling) on Ghouta (Kafrbatna, Jobar, Saqba, Douma, Zamalka, Sheefoniya, Hosh Salhiya, etc)

Most artillery shelling is from Qasioun mountain & rocket fire, mortar shells from the regime’s launch site at Abbasiyyin stadium #Damascus

Western MSM still is basically false reporting Syria--why is that???

From Reuters today--
Reuters forgot to add that the offensive against rebels was backed by ISIS as well

Syria #Damascus Seems #Assad-forces (reinforced with #Zabadani-troops) try to storm Jobar/Ain Terma suburbs.
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=33.520002&lon=36.340241&z=15&m=b … …

Assad is shelling randomly and intensely on #Alghouta near Damascus who've been fighting ISIS for years! +100 of dead and injured #Syria
Syria #Damascus Heavy clashes this morning in Jobar/Ain Terma areas
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=33.520002&lon=36.340241&z=15&m=b …

[OUTLAW 09]

Regime, Iran & Russia can't attack in Aleppo, Latakia & Hama together..rebels must understand this fact & prepare..

Suheil aka "Abu Tow" (#FSA Coastal division member) seriously injured during clashes in N.#Latakia province

Thousands of Iranian troops are now in Syria for ground offensives against insurgents
http://read.bi/1GGkBfM
pic.twitter.com/JRHz0gIkwO

[OUTLAW 09]

Appears Russian Syrian info warriors are getting concerned or their own safety??

After two weeks of constant coverage in videos and pics by Russian TV crews from #Syria, now they pixelate faces?

pic.twitter.com/p1qw4CBnbW

[OUTLAW 09]

Worth reading----

Should US work with Russia vs #ISIS? @ForeignAffairs 33 expert 'brain trust' weighs in and…

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/syria/2015-10-08/should-united-states-work-russia-syria …
pic.twitter.com/LBfidY6SzY

[OUTLAW 09]

ARE Russian air strikes deliberately targeting civilians to create more refugees????--appears so today--this is Chechnya all over again........

Russia is systematically bombing IDP camps near Turkey

Just in, a poultry farm used by internally displaced people on the outskirts of Tahtaya in S. #Idlib, #Syria was targeted by #Russia|n jets.

Reports of several civilian casualties but lots wounded now including children still under the rubble. #Syria

GRAPHIC----
15 civilians killed & > 20 injured in Assad airstrikes on a market in Ein Tarma, #Damascus today. Very graphic vid http://youtu.be/9FKXolj4ZnM

More Russian dumb bombs---
One of three Su-24M2s of #RuAF in Syria armed with FAB-250M54s during take-off from Bassel Al-Assad on 10th October.
pic.twitter.com/2CzHpkNJwe

[OUTLAW 09]

Syria: Many reports about very heavy shelling and beginning regime offensive on #Ghouta, #Damascus now.

Syria #Damascus #Assad-forces remove sand barriers to southern Tadamon suburb & try to advance into
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=33.479527&lon=36.311145&z=15&m=b …

#Syria #Damascus Regime launch offensive on eastern Ghouta suburbs equivalent to northern Hama assault this morning said #Douma coordination

A pic of an incubator of cluster bombs, which targeted the refugee camp in rural #Idlib Oct 9 http://syria.liveuamap.com/en/2015/13-october-a-picture-of-an-incubator-of-cluster-bombs-which …

[davidbfpo]

I thought this article and map were interesting:http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2015/10/map-only-state-of-play-of-the-current-saa-ground-offensive-in-nw-syria.html

What struck me as a potential "game changer" was this passage:
As far as the number of direct hits through rebel TOW missiles is concerned, this is likely to increase the ongoing installation of electro-optical jammers (Shtora type) on SAA MBTs and APCs, which could be a potential game changer as such, given that it would significantly reduce the effectiveness of the rebels' most potent weapon in the current engagements.

[OUTLAW 09]

Can it be that the official US Obama foreign policy is to collaborate with the Islamic State and Russia against those anti Assad forces that want Assad out??

Without massive #US airstrikes (like in #Kobane) rebel hold areas in northern #Aleppo collapse against #IslamicState & #Assad-forces

Aleppo Seems rebels were able to repelled #IS assault on Tall Jibbin
but no infos about Ahras town
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=36.378381&lon=37.144175&z=14&m=b …

While both the US and Russia declare they want to destroy IS--both really are not doing that at all it appears---

Commander of #FSA Ibn Taymiyyah Battalion was killed in clashes with #IS at Tell Jibbin #Aleppo countryside

Remember Assad & co #Aleppo offensive? #ISIS launched a fierce attack on rebels in Ihras & Tal Jibin in the north this AM, clashes ongoing.

[OUTLAW 09]

Damascus #Assad-forces massing in Sheikh Arsalan -to advance into eastern suburbs http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=33.512882&lon=36.318837&z=17&m=b …

SYRIA: Iranian MPs arrive in Damascus, #Syria before joint offensive.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/14/us-mideast-crisis-syria-iran-idUSKCN0S80LT20151014 …

SYRIA: #US drops leaflets on #ISIS held areas in N #Aleppo calling them to surrender

Massive explosion in #Jobar neighbourhood in #Damascus this morning #Syria

BREAKING: #Turkey says summons #US, #Russia envoys over support for Syrian Kurdish militia - @DailyStarLeb

[OUTLAW 09]

Damascus #Assad-forces massing in Sheikh Arsalan -to advance into eastern suburbs http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=33.512882&lon=36.318837&z=17&m=b …

SYRIA: Iranian MPs arrive in Damascus, #Syria before joint offensive.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/14/us-mideast-crisis-syria-iran-idUSKCN0S80LT20151014 …

SYRIA: #US drops leaflets on #ISIS held areas in N #Aleppo calling them to surrender

Massive explosion in #Jobar neighbourhood in #Damascus this morning #Syria

BREAKING: #Turkey says summons #US, #Russia envoys over support for Syrian Kurdish militia - @DailyStarLeb

JAI says fierce clashes are ongoing as well with regime militias/forces who’ve been trying to break into #Jobar this morning. #Damascus

Russian journalists on the ground are reporting a major offensive as well.

Video from Jobar today, under heavy regime bombardment. #Syria #Damascus
http://youtu.be/TdY9tY8NWac

[OUTLAW 09]

Russia Today reports the Russian Foreign Ministry saying the acceptance of Assads departure means accepting the demands of "terrorists"--in Russian info war language THIS means anyone who is opposed to Assad remaining which is just about everyone in Syria at the moment.

So I guess that the Russians want Assad to remain in power forever???

[OUTLAW 09]

Footage
Russian air strikes near #Morek today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKCi6-u_CIg …
pic.twitter.com/ydmOiySof1

[OUTLAW 09]

Lavrov says US rejected Russia's offer of a Moscow meeting on Syria & its proposal for a Russian delegation to fly to Washington

[OUTLAW 09]

I thought this article and map were interesting:http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2015/10/map-only-state-of-play-of-the-current-saa-ground-offensive-in-nw-syria.html

What struck me as a potential "game changer" was this passage:

There was a comment that I posted here within the last few days or so concerning the possible delivery of the Russian AT missile deterrent---currently they are installed on the T90s when they were first seen in Moscow---it's not a cheap solution.

AND the FSA has been capturing tanks so it could fall into US hands is also a deterrent.

In theory it works together with a anti IR flare concept for aircraft but only for armored vehicles on the move--right now a majority of the TOW hits have been on largely stationary armored vehicles and or ZSUs and emplaced artillery.

If you really watched the unending videos it seems half the time the SAA does not even see them coming as they are being fired at the max range of the TOW and it appears the SAA does not realize they are still in range even though not close to the front defense lines.

What is also interesting is that the FSA has captured a number of Russian advanced ATMs but prefer the TOW for ease of use and accuracy.

[OUTLAW 09]

Syria Regime dropped barrel bombs on Eastern Gharya in Daraa's countryside.
http://youtu.be/fw_pJXRzL6Q

[OUTLAW 09]

I thought this article and map were interesting:http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2015/10/map-only-state-of-play-of-the-current-saa-ground-offensive-in-nw-syria.html
What struck me as a potential "game changer" was this passage:

David--read the link and am somewhat puzzled as social media is depicting a totally different ground battle---if one takes both the FSA and the SAA reporting BUT more importantly the battle videos that the SAA is not releasing to confirm their side of the story the major assault in Hama has been stopped in it's tracks with heavy loses and the offensive assault today into Jobar Damascus has also be stopped.

Even if one split down the middle of what is being stated and shown via videos from both sides the SAA is not "winning".

The only area the FSA and it's groups have lost after holding for over seven months is in Aleppo where both the Islamic State and Russia ganged up on FSA and not a single Russian bomb was dropped on IS during the IS operation.

Coupled with the killing of now going on five major really solid IRGC and Hezbollah Field Commanders the fighting has been rough for the SAA---they are definitely right now not "winning--actually in some areas the FSA has actually moved forward.

Another indicator that things for the SAA are not going to plan--the RuAF sortie numbers are actually falling the last few days as I think the Russians have run out of targets and they are not tactically equipped to handle true CAS operations with a tactical ground controller calling the shots as there have been two verified Russian friendly fire hits on SAA troops..

So I am puzzled by the comments in the article as I have learned Syrian ground reality is a hard beast to fully understand as everything goes over sat phone or sat internet with long time delays--so who won in the morning could be reversed by the evening and the news about the wins and losses comes the next day?

[OUTLAW 09]

BreakingPicture
Rebels stopped the #ISIS push on #TellJabin for now
Terrorists paid a high price
pic via @Abduhark

VIDEO: #FSA in combat against #SAA in Latakia countryside, #Syria.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6K2U27i-54 …

VIDEO: Rebel group 'Homs Liberation Movement' fire rockets at #SAA checkpoint.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlVMGhtZh7U …

[OUTLAW 09]

It took the Chinese a full two weeks to respond to rumors floating in social media about their involvement in Syria----

China denies reports that it plans to send troops to #Syria. - @Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/14/us-mideast-crisis-china-idUSKCN0S80W120151014?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews …

IMHO--the Chinese did want to get involved as they have their own AQ problem and assumed the Russians would have been far further along than they currently are--they now realize Russia is getting bogged down and now are backing out.

An indicator to me was the extremely slow time it took for them to deny the reports as China monitors heavily the net and knew the reports were out there and they are very quick to deny ---usually.....but this took 14 days??

[OUTLAW 09]

Regime, Iran & Russia can't attack in Aleppo, Latakia & Hama together..rebels must understand this fact & prepare..

Suheil aka "Abu Tow" (#FSA Coastal division member) seriously injured during clashes in N.#Latakia province

Thousands of Iranian troops are now in Syria for ground offensives against insurgents
http://read.bi/1GGkBfM
pic.twitter.com/JRHz0gIkwO

Just a note: the reports of thousands of Iranian troops amassed don't fit Iranian modus operandi. Bulk of manpower supplied by proxies.

[CrowBat]

I thought this article and map were interesting:http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2015/10/map-only-state-of-play-of-the-current-saa-ground-offensive-in-nw-syria.html

What struck me as a potential "game changer" was this passage:
...if only the Russians would have these in their service- which they seem not to have.

Seems all the stories about Arena and Shtora are like stories on R-77 AAMs: everybody is claiming them for 'better than AIM-120', while actually there are none - at least not in Russian service.

(Original R-77s not only proved of dubious manufacturing quality, but also too expensive. So, all rounds that were manufactured have been exported to customers like China, Sudan and Syria. The RuAF only opened a 'tender' for a buy of modified Izeliye 170-1 of the R-77, early this year. Details were expected to be released on 9 October, but there is still nothing about their planned purchase except for budget assigned to this project. Similarly, the much-acclaimed R-27AE turned out to be a PR-gag based on some wishful thinking from anno 1989...)

[OUTLAW 09]

http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20151014/1028492595/Syria-Moderate-Opposition-Terrorists.html#ixzz3oXjOcIQ5

UN Security Council Loophole Masks Terrorists as Moderates – Ambassador

09:38 14.10.2015


Russian Ambassador to Syria Alexander Kinshchak said that absence of many terrorist groups on the UN Security Council’s list is being used by some forces as an attempt to present terrorists as an armed moderate Syrian opposition.

Interview: Who Is This 'Moderate Opposition' The US Is Arming in Syria?
DAMASCUS (Sputnik) – The absence of many terrorist groups on the UN Security Council’s list is being used by some forces as an attempt to present terrorists as an armed moderate Syrian opposition, Russian Ambassador to Syria Alexander Kinshchak told Sputnik.

“With the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra everything is clear, these organizations are acknowledged by everyone as being terrorist and included in the according list of the UN Security Council…The absence of the remaining terrorist groups in this list is being used by several forces for speculation, distortion, and attempts to present these criminal groups as insurgent representatives of the armed wing of the moderate Syrian opposition,” Kinshchak said in an interview.

Kinshchak added that terrorists need to be categorized by their actions, including the killing of prisoners, shooting civilians, that they are family members of civil servants or military, as well as using discriminatory measures in regard to individuals of other religious beliefs, and shelling residential districts in cities.

The creation of the Jaysh al-Sham group in Syria is an attempt to legitimize well-known terrorist organizations as a moderate opposition with which to work with, Alexander Kinshchak said.

“I understand that this is another attempt at ‘rebranding’ famous terrorist organizations with the goal of legitimizing them as a moderate opposition, which supposedly expresses the aspirations and will of the Syrian people, and which may and must be worked with. As far as I understand, Jaysh al-Sham is being formed from former militants from Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham, who have a deserved reputation of being complete cutthroats and are up to their elbows in blood,” Kinshchak said in an interview.

Kinshchak added that Russia will not hold any talks with terrorists and similar attempts to legitimize the militants of terrorist groups will “remain on the conscious of those attempting to overthrow the legitimate government of Syria by any means.”

Moscow has turned for help from countries in contact with the moderate Syrian opposition in order to reach agreement in the joint fight against terrorism, Russian Ambassador to Syria said.

“In regard to this we have turned for help from those countries that are maintaining close ties with the armed wing of the so-called moderate Syrian opposition. So far we haven’t received any concrete information and I’m not sure that we will in the near future,” Kinshchak said in an interview.

Kinshchak also cast doubt that the moderate opposition has any sort of military capabilities with which it would be possible to agree in a joint fight against terrorists.

Moscow welcomes Iran’s efforts in destroying terrorist organizations in Syria and is prepared to cooperate with all states wishing to contribute to the joint fight against terrorism, Alexander Kinshchak said.

“Iran is contributing considerable material aid to the legitimate Syrian government…We can only welcome their efforts directed at destroying the terrorist presence in Syria and are ready to cooperate with all states that can and want to contribute to this joint fight [against terrorism]. We call on all countries to unite in a broad anti-terrorist front,” Kinshchak said in an interview.

Airstrikes by Russia’s Aerospace Forces in just a few days of operations in Syria have delivered a serious blow to the infrastructure of terrorists and have created favorable conditions for the Syrian Army’s offensive, Kinshchak said.

“It seems to me that there is something that should and needs to be proud about in the attained results. In a short period of time we were able to do what our partners in the US-led international coalition could not do in a year…Thanks to the effective and productive work in just a few days, we were able to deliver a serious blow to the infrastructure of terrorists, and by doing so have created favorable conditions for the development in the offensive of the Syrian Army on the ground,” Kinshchak said in an interview.

Mutual understanding between the Syrian authorities and the opposition after the war will significantly speed up the process of “local peacemaking” and may provide for joint efforts in the fight against terrorism, Russian Ambassador added.

“Getting a mutual understanding of how to rebuild Syria after the war would give considerable impulse to the process of local peacemaking and could provide for the joining of efforts by the army and wholesome elements of the armed opposition in the fight against terrorists,” Kinshchak said in an interview.

The changing of the Syrian regime through a military coup supported from without would be a heinous violation in international law and Russia will prevent this from happening, Kinshchak said.

“Today, Russia is practically blocking attempts to change the regime from without through a military takeover of power, which would be a heinous violation to the basic norms of international law. And looking at the nervous reaction to our [military] operation, countries standing behind these plans are upset,” Kinshchak said in an interview.


NOTICE Russia says nothing about the 250K killed, about their blockade three times of humanitarian aid, about their targeting of civilians now with their bombing and the list goes on........BUT everything else is the fault of the West

[I]Russia it seems has forgotten that old proverb---"one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist" from the days of the "Wars of National Liberation" which the Soviet Union so strongly supported which actually violates everything this Russia article is talking about.

[OUTLAW 09]

...if only the Russians would have these in their service- which they seem not to have.

Seems all the stories about Arena and Shtora are like stories on R-77 AAMs: everybody is claiming them for 'better than AIM-120', while actually there are none - at least not in Russian service.

(Original R-77s not only proved of dubious manufacturing quality, but also too expensive. So, all rounds that were manufactured have been exported to customers like China, Sudan and Syria. The RuAF only opened a 'tender' for a buy of modified Izeliye 170-1 of the R-77, early this year. Details were expected to be released on 9 October, but there is still nothing about their planned purchase except for budget assigned to this project. Similarly, the much-acclaimed R-27AE turned out to be a PR-gag based on some wishful thinking from anno 1989...)

Crow Bat --nice to see you up and running again---yesterday was a rough Russian/Syrian troll day all around the net.

[CrowBat]

Better yet: while everybody is all the time complaining about 'no moderates' in Syria - although these are operating about 1000 of different units - nobody can say where is this 'SAA/SyAA' - i.e. where is regime's 'Syrian Army'.

...and Western politicians and diplomats appear much too ill-informed (or outright 'too dumb'?) but to ever come to the idea to ask Putin about the whereabouts of the SyAA...


Crow Bat --nice to see you up and running again---yesterday was a rough Russian/Syrian troll day all around the net....which was unsurprising: there were no good news from the frontlines any more.

Now they're babbling about 'Phase 2', cheering indiscriminate bombardment of Douma and Jobar, and looking forward for Ra'astan-Talbiseh pocket to get overrun - while ignoring the fact that the regime is trying to overrun this pocket since 4 years...

Somewhere it's almost fun (it would certainly be big fun if not so many Syrian civilians would get massacred in the process) to watch them creating their own parallel universe...

Anyway, 'don't worry': I'm around most of the times - unless busy with my next projects (after all, some publishers there still want to get out various of my stuff; it might be there are even more than 15-20 readers for some of it ;-)).

[OUTLAW 09]

Reports from #Jobar that 4 Assad tanks & several vehicles were destroyed/damaged by JAI today. #Damascus

Clashes still ongoing in #Jobar but reports indicate regime forces have suffered considerable losses today. #Damascus #Syria

Jaish al-Sham cmdr Abu Homs Ratyan in N #Aleppo w/ bodies of #ISIS fighters killed (~50 killed) in failed atk today

[OUTLAW 09]

Crow Bat--either someone is strictly following a "kill list" OR????---this many cannot be "dying leading the troops"??

I keep going over that video---that is something to that TOW hit that no one on any side is wanting to comment on.

Iran's #IRGC death toll in Syria raised to 8 in two days. Names&links:

https://goo.gl/X1k9st

[OUTLAW 09]

Better yet: while everybody is all the time complaining about 'no moderates' in Syria - although these are operating about 1000 of different units - nobody can say where is this 'SAA/SyAA' - i.e. where is regime's 'Syrian Army'.

...and Western politicians and diplomats appear much too ill-informed (or outright 'too dumb'?) but to ever come to the idea to ask Putin about the whereabouts of the SyAA...

...which was unsurprising: there were no good news from the frontlines any more.

Now they're babbling about 'Phase 2', cheering indiscriminate bombardment of Douma and Jobar, and looking forward for Ra'astan-Talbiseh pocket to get overrun - while ignoring the fact that the regime is trying to overrun this pocket since 4 years...

Somewhere it's almost fun (it would certainly be big fun if not so many Syrian civilians would get massacred in the process) to watch them creating their own parallel universe...

Anyway, 'don't worry': I'm around most of the times - unless busy with my next projects (after all, some publishers there still want to get out various of my stuff; it might be there are even more than 15-20 readers for some of it ;-)).

CB--let me know when something is released--I for one will purchase a copy--your info is solid.

[CrowBat]

CB--let me know when something is released--I for one will purchase a copy--your info is solid....not always, but amazingly often. ;)

Thanks for your interest. I've been told that this one is (finally) going to press, later this or early next month, i.e. should be available in mid- to late-November:
Syrian Conflagration (http://www.helion.co.uk/new-and-forthcoming-titles/syrian-conflagration-the-syrian-civil-war-2011-2013.html?___SID=U).

[OUTLAW 09]

...not always, but amazingly often. ;)

Thanks for your interest. I've been told that this one is (finally) going to press, later this or early next month, i.e. should be available in mid- to late-November:
Syrian Conflagration (http://www.helion.co.uk/new-and-forthcoming-titles/syrian-conflagration-the-syrian-civil-war-2011-2013.html?___SID=U).

CB--that TOW video is interesting---not a single heavy armor vehicle to be seen anywhere which is the current typical FSA target set--no major fighting positions- not many troops to be seen in the immediate area.

Simply an "atypical FSA TOW target actually"---the group appears to be around 10 in size if one goes frame by frame and the TOW gunner had his sights clearly on the individual in white as middle mass of the target.

This was a TOW killing ambush and someone or some agency gave the time and location--- as a FSA TOW team has to drive to the location, carrying the three pieces, setup/hide itself and be ready for the shot to be taken--it was as if they knew when and where and were simply waiting--and notice they could have delivered a follow up shot on the second white vehicle but did not as they knew that had hit their chosen target cleanly.

They did not simply drive to that location, setup and say "ho hum we will wait to see if anything comes by".

No one from either side as said much about the attack outside of the video being released.

[OUTLAW 09]

Next Russian/Iranian campaign area----

North Aleppo now displays a horror show of military coordination between ISIS, Russia, Assad and Iranian militias

Whilst ISIS launches a mass offensive to overrun the rebel fortified line, Assad and Iran are massing militias in Bashkuy/SheikhNajjar

Looks like Iran plans to launch a massive offensive surge on the Bashkuy-Hayyan/Hardantain/Bayanun-NubolZahra rebel valley

A similar surge last year, much by Afghan militias; was half successful before being repelled. This time will be under Russian air cover

rebels under coordinated ISIS-Assad attacks, larger force, and heavy Russian air cover; little stops Assad breaking Nubol/Zahra siege

The result would be the total rebel cut off from the last supply route from Bab alSalameh border crossing with Turkey, to Aleppo city

The issue is geographical distance between Baskhuy and Nubol/Zahra is so short, RUAF can just blitz it with clusterbombs etc

Assad's militias can swarm the short passage in a thousand man charge before rebels can recover composure after RUAF strikes

[OUTLAW 09]

RuAF cannot bomb targets because they do not know where to bomb--what the heck is that for an argument from the Russians?????

So Putin isn't bombing ISIS because Russian bombers can't find them w/o US coordinates? Huh?

Whining does not become Putin—just how did he think war is easy…..he forgot the Ukrainians could not fully strike back………

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/14/world/europe/putin-complains-about-us-cooperation-on-syria.html?_r=0

Putin Says U.S. Fails to Cooperate in Syria

By NEIL MacFARQUHAROCT. 13, 2015


MOSCOW — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia criticized the United States and others on Tuesday for what he said was their lack of cooperation with the Russian military campaign in Syria, suggesting that they had “mush for brains.”

Mr. Putin was responding to widespread accusations in the West that Russian warplanes were targeting practically every group opposed to the Syrian government except the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. He complained that while the Russian government had asked for the coordinates of the groups that should or should not be attacked, the United States had not responded to either request.

“Recently, we have offered the Americans: ‘Give us objects that we shouldn’t target.’ Again, no answer,” he said. “It seems to me that some of our partners have mush for brains.”

In Washington, defense and military officials have privately described the reluctance to work with Russia as a trust issue. First, they fear that the Russians might use the coordinates to target the groups the Americans do not want attacked. Second, Syrian opposition groups are already suspicious that the United States is coordinating with Russia on the attacks, a perception the Pentagon does not want to feed, the officials said.

Russia’s intervention in Syria is partly strategic, but President Vladimir V. Putin has another reason, a long-held belief, for supporting the Syrian president’s government.

Mr. Putin, speaking at a forum for international investors, also said that Washington did not seem interested in a visit he had proposed by a high-level political and military delegation to coordinate actions in Syria. The Russian delegation would be led by the prime minister, Dmitri A. Medvedev, and include senior military and intelligence officials, he said.

Aside from propping up Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, Russia’s staunchest regional ally, the Russian government is believed to be motivated by the idea of ending its international isolation stemming from the Ukraine crisis. It also wants to be treated as an equal partner by the West in addressing the intractable problems facing Syria, which include the spread of the Islamic State extremist group and the need to shape a political transition to end the civil war that has killed at least 250,000 people and displaced millions.

Mr. Putin said the only coordination so far included basic military matters. Consultations on technical details like how to identify aircraft as friend or foe is “not enough,” he said — instead, the various forces inside Syria needed to be pushed to work together.

“If we want to be effective, if we want to not simply shoot and make missile strikes and reach a political settlement, then we need to motivate the forces inside the country — and this conflict is complex and multifaceted — for joint work between various forces on Syria’s territory,” Mr. Putin said.

Mr. Putin’s remarks came hours after two mortar shells hit the grounds of the Russian Embassy in Damascus during a rally outside the walls by Syrians supportive of the Russian intervention.

A building in Aleppo destroyed by what local residents said were Russian warplanes. President Vladimir V. Putin said a lack of intelligence-sharing showed Americans had "mush for brains." Credit Ammar Abdullah/Reuters

One shell struck a sports field, and the other landed on the roof of a residential building, Sergey V. Lavrov, the foreign minister, told reporters. No one was injured, he said.

“Evidently, this is a terrorist act, aimed to frighten the supporters of the fight against terror, so that they would not win in their struggle against extremists,” the foreign minister said as he prepared to meet the United Nations special envoy on Syria, Staffan de Mistura, in Moscow. Opposition groups in exile have recently expressed hostility toward sitting down with Russia because of its bombing campaign.

Continued.........

[OUTLAW 09]

RuAF cannot bomb targets because they do not know where to bomb--what the heck is that for an argument from the Russians?????

So Putin isn't bombing ISIS because Russian bombers can't find them w/o US coordinates? Huh?

Whining does not become Putin—just how did he think war is easy…..he forgot the Ukrainians could not fully strike back………

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/14/world/europe/putin-complains-about-us-cooperation-on-syria.html?_r=0

Putin Says U.S. Fails to Cooperate in Syria

By NEIL MacFARQUHAROCT. 13, 2015

Syria: Jaish al Islam press release refuting #Russian allegations of #IS presence in #Ghouta and shelling embassy.

[OUTLAW 09]

Typical Russian MoD press release--notice they did not identify what Allied aircraft was approached????? SO an altered state of reality statement or really just another outright lie????

Минобороны России Verified account 
‏@mod_russia #SYRIA #AerospaceForces' fighter approached to unidentified aircraft at a distance of 2-3 km to identify it, and returned to the group

According to #Russian MoD their aircraft received radio impulses over #aleppo, SU-30 approached unidentified plane

[OUTLAW 09]

PYD`s Salih Muslim also confirms that the new "Syrian Democratic Force" is an anti #IS, regime neutral project.

Syrian Express is still sailing equipment into Syria from Russia----

Dvinitsa50 is coming from Novorossiysk, a major hub for #SyriaExpress ; Very likely going either to Tartus or Latakia pic.twitter.com/zWXZP0sBeT

[OUTLAW 09]

Crow Bat--here come the missing RuAF aircraft that the Russians suddenly realized they need----

Russia's sending its only aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov to Syria, it carries many more planes for potential strikes.

[OUTLAW 09]

RuAF cannot bomb targets because they do not know where to bomb--what the heck is that for an argument from the Russians?????

So Putin isn't bombing ISIS because Russian bombers can't find them w/o US coordinates? Huh?

Whining does not become Putin—just how did he think war is easy…..he forgot the Ukrainians could not fully strike back………

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/14/world/europe/putin-complains-about-us-cooperation-on-syria.html?_r=0

Putin Says U.S. Fails to Cooperate in Syria

By NEIL MacFARQUHAROCT. 13, 2015


New York Times World ✔ @nytimesworld
Vladimir Putin criticized the U.S. for lack of cooperation in Syria, suggesting the Americans had “mush for brains.” http://nyti.ms/1VRGYeF

[CrowBat]

Crow Bat--here come the missing RuAF aircraft that the Russians suddenly realized they need----

Russia's sending its only aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov to Syria, it carries many more planes for potential strikes.
That is going to be funny to see: Su-27 can't launch from Kuznetsov at full combat weights. Guess, they'll be limited to max of four FAB-250s...

Of course, that's nothing that might disrupt MOD in Moscow: they are happy to brag about number of sorties flown...

[OUTLAW 09]

Hama #Russia'n airstrikes on Kafr Nabudah city continued today
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3gdCzB1yJ4 …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.430918&lon=36.488943&z=15&m=b …

From battlefield in Jobar Damascus.
https://youtu.be/wP6Hoe5Pka4

Hama Regime-forces try to storm Al-Sirmaniyah in northern Ghab plain http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.720176&lon=36.281834&z=15&m=b …

Aleppo Rebels repelled #IS- assault on Ahras & Tall Jibbin
& killed dozens of Daesh https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NMO8antrpA …

Aleppo Rebels blow up regime T-72 tank at Handarat front
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=36.295965&lon=37.156277&z=14&m=b …

Idlib 3 #Russia'n airstrikes on Tel Nabi Ayoub today
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpklrsLREAA …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.730262&lon=36.483128&z=16&m=b …

[OUTLAW 09]

Hama Rebels blow up technical (14,5mm) in Ghab plain TOW again
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWv0KZUMqD4 …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.648718&lon=36.325521&z=15&m=b …

Footage
Rebel TOW vs. #Assad 23 mm gun in the #Ghab plain.
TOW wins.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWv0KZUMqD4 …

Barrel bomb attack on #Salma in the #Latakia highlands https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2wLkjeXPq8 … http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=35.686005&lon=36.139527&z=14&m=b&search=salma …

NOTICE--appears the Russian FSB is removing and or blocking the youtube videos depicting TOW strikes------

Interesting the YouTube is playing along with the Russians---

[OUTLAW 09]

Crow Bat--either someone is strictly following a "kill list" OR????---this many cannot be "dying leading the troops"??

I keep going over that video---that is something to that TOW hit that no one on any side is wanting to comment on.

Iran's #IRGC death toll in Syria raised to 8 in two days. Names&links:

https://goo.gl/X1k9st

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/10/14/iran-s-losing-major-operatives-in-syria.html

Ten Little Khomeinists

10.14.151:00 AM ET

Iran’s Losing Major Operatives in Syria


From Revolutionary Guards generals to Hezbollah commanders, Tehran’s agents are being offed at a rapid rate in a foreign war zone.

With the aid of Russian airstrikes, Iranian-backed foreign fighters, and a combination of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s regular and militia forces are on the march. Yet Iran and its proxies have taken some significant high-ranking casualties since the start of their recruitment and deployment drives to Syria.

These losses all serve to map out the current offensive being launched in the northwest of the country, including Idlib, Hama, and Aleppo. While other significant losses had been suffered in past engagements, deaths of key members were often more sporadic or concentrated on one group during a specific battle. If the goal is to secure an Assad-led coastal Syrian rump-state, it is coming at high cost to Assad’s Iranian ally.

The most well known of Tehran’s casualties was the 67 year old Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Brigadier General, Hossein Hamedani. Announced as having been killed on October 9th, Hamedi was reportedly killed in Aleppo. Officially, he was described by the Iranians as a, “high-ranking military advisor” to Assad. But to write Hamedani off as merely an “advisor” would be the equivalent of referring to Napoleon as just, “a French general.”

Hamedani’s career spanned the decades as a true believer in Ayatollah Khomeini’s radical Islamic Revolution in Iran. In the early days of the Islamic Republic of Iran and like his cohort, IRGC Quds Force leader Qassem Suleimani, Hamedani received his baptism by fire combatting insurgents in Iranian Kurdistan and fought in the Iran-Iraq War. Additionally, he had served as deputy commander in the IRGC-controlled Iranian militia known as the Basij. More recently, Hamedani was a key figure involved in suppressing Iran’s Green Movement, which protested the rigged 2009 presidential election. According to Iranian publications, Hamedani later went on to operate out of Najaf, Iraq.

Hamedani was also one of the more vocal IRGC leadership elements operating in Syria. While IRGC involvement in Syria is general knowledge, Tehran often masks their intervention. Still, on May 2014, Hamedani announced IRGC involvement in the conflict, and went so far as to say that thousands of IRGC and Basij would be sent to Syria. In 2014 he remarked, “today we fight in Syria for interests such as the Islamic Revolution”.

In Syria, Hamedani’s expertise in spreading Iran’s Islamic Revolution, combating insurgent elements, and propping-up local strongmen truly gleamed. In his last interview, the IRGC leader noted that with his assistance, Iran had been able to not only spread Iranian ideological influence, build up Assad’s forces, and extensively push back anti-Assad elements. In other obituaries, it was also claimed he had participated in 80 “major operations” to help further these goals.

Praising the IRGC and Basij while gloating over the expansive presence Iran had gained in the region, in 2014 Hamedani told Iranian veterans of the Iran-Iraq War, “know that by establishing the Basij the third child of the revolution is being born in Iraq after Syria and Lebanon. It is no longer just Iran that says ‘down with America.’ All nations are in unison and are shouting the slogan.”

With the loss of Hamedani came the loss of a major leadership element within the IRGC, one Tehran will not likely be able to regain. Still, Hamedani was not the last IRGC commander to have met his end in Syria in the past few days. On October 12th, two more IRGC Brigadier Generals were slain. Farshid Hasounizadeh and Hamid Mukhtarband, both were former commanders of the Sabreen and 1 Brigades, respectively.

While Hamedani was the recipient large memorial celebration by Lebanese Hezbollah, Iran’s “first among equals” in terms of proxy groups, Hezbollah itself has also been suffering leadership losses in Syria.

Announced killed on October 10th, Hassan Hussein al-Hajj (aka Abu Muhammad al-Iqleem/Al-Hajj Maher) was a vaunted Hezbollah commander, one which the pro-Hezbollah Al-Akhbar named as one of the most, “prominent leaders of the Resistance [a euphemism for Hezbollah and other Iranian-controlled organizations].” Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)-linked Fars News showcased Hajj’s role claimed he was involved in, “Major operations…with Russian air cover.”

Al-Hajj’s career was further illuminated by semi-official Hezbollah Facebook martyrdom pages and other pro-Assad social media pages.

Photographs possibly from the late-1980s or 1990s showed Hajj conversing with a then black-bearded Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s secretary general since 1992. It was asserted that Hajj was an early supporter of Hezbollah, starting in 1983 and launched his first major operation in 1986. In July 1993 and April 1996, he took part in Hezbollah’s operations during Israel’s Operation Accountability and Operation Grapes of Wrath, respectively. He was also active in the 2006 Hezbollah-Israel War. There were also claims Hajj, “directly participated” in an ambush of Israeli soldiers it was claimed crossed the Israel-Lebanon border in August 2014.

“Loyalty, expertise, and leadership-skill are hard to come by. And like Lebanon’s thousand-year-old cedars, once these leading combatants are felled, there is little hope in quickly finding replacements.”

Prior to his command position in Idlib, Hajj served as a commander in the mountainous Qalamoun region. During the Qalamoun campaign he had fought in the major Battle of Yabrud. The battle for the town started in late-2013 and ended in mid-March 2014. He had also allegedly fought in the internecine battles in the Damascus-eastern suburb of Ghouta.

Soon after the announcement of Hajj’s death, Mahdi Hassan Obeid (Al-Hajj Abou Rida) was declared killed on the night of October 12th. According to Ad-Diyar, a paper with links to Hezbollah ally the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, Obeid had reportedly fought the Israelis in the so-called south Lebanon Security Zone, until Israel’s pullout in 2000. He once again fought the Israelis in 2006. The paper asserted he later joined the battle in Syria to combat a “Zionist American conspiracy” crafted by the west to destroy Hezbollah.

Despite Obeid’s high rank and limited background, his death further demonstrates the hard slog Hezbollah and other Iran proxies are facing during their new offensive. He, like Hajj, was reportedly killed fighting in Idlib.

In mid-September, Sayyid Alaa Kasad Mahudar al-Musawi from the Iraqi Shia Iranian proxy Harakat al-Nujaba (aka Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba) was also killed in Syria. Harakat al-Nujaba has been a leading Iraqi Shia militia used by Tehran to funnel fighters into Syria. Over the summer and early fall, the group has upped its recruitment and deployment of fighters to Syria.

Musawi’s death, like many of the Iraqi Shia killed in Syria, was greeted with less fanfare than his Lebanese or Iranian compatriots in Western or even Arabic-language media. This was assisted by Harakat al-Nujaba’s demure and vague official martyrdom announcement. Other posts claimed he had died “Defending Sayyida Zaynab” (a Shia shrine south of Damascus), a common narrative utilized to explain why Shia foreign fighters were killed fighting in Syria.

Prominently mentioned, however, was the fact that Musawi was considered a “martyr commander”. It was later established that he was a lead commander for the Iraqi Shia militia in Aleppo. Underscoring his importance, Nujaba TV, the group’s satellite TV station, regularly played clips of Musawi lecturing and leading other fighters.

Loyalty, expertise, and leadership-skill are hard to come by.

As the war in Syria grinds on, the chances new commanders for Iranian proxy elements will rise to the foreground is a certainty. However, these new commanders’ formative experiences will be shaped more by Syria’s hyper-sectarian conditions and brutality, something which may lead to even more radicalism in the future. For the IRGC, growing a new leadership crop to control these elements will also face similar difficulties as Iran continues to expand its reach across the Middle East.

Regardless, to prop-up Assad and to show its Russian allies it can act on the ground, Tehran is bleeding out some of its top military leadership which helped form the current IRGC-controlled proxy network operating today.

[OUTLAW 09]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/10/14/iran-s-losing-major-operatives-in-syria.html

Ten Little Khomeinists

10.14.151:00 AM ET

Iran’s Losing Major Operatives in Syria


Crow Bat--what do you think-----

[OUTLAW 09]

New Video Showing Iranian Major Qasem Soleimani (Rumors Say @ #Latakia, Syria)
https://youtu.be/StqrDJqZJyg

Met a russian today who wondered why these syrian refugees flee to cold europe now that #Putin & "our boys came to save them"... speechless.

Latest military situation #map: #DeirEzzor
Created by @NowresR
HD: http://img15.hostingpics.net/pics/855579DeZCity20151013M.jpg …

Important:
Daesh defector witnessed how Russia strikes helped Daesh capture the #Aleppo infantry school
https://www.zamanalwsl.net/news/64946.html#.Vh1IKUrJQvQ.facebook …

Russia jetfighters targeted #FSA Ferqat Al Wosta HQ #Idlib

Aleppo, Harakat Nureddine Zenki shells regime forces with Hell Gun-New Aleppo

[OUTLAW 09]

#FSA rebels in Tall Jibbin (N #Aleppo) after they pushed out #Daesh from the village https://youtu.be/-NMO8antrpA

Syria: seems the regime has abandoned any short-term plans to break the #Daesh-siege on the Kweiris airbase, east of #Aleppo

Syrian military admits it supports Islamic State
Syria #Aleppo #ﺣﻠﺐ #SAA fired atleast 40 Artillery Shells at #Tell_Jabin after Terrorist Groups recaptured it from Another Terrorist Group

[OUTLAW 09]

The Aesthetics of War. Drone footage from #Syria. Chillingly beautiful.

https://youtu.be/9c5SzVA_EbQ

[OUTLAW 09]

https://yallasouriya.wordpress.com/2015/10/14/field-report-for-14102015-syria-f/

Field report for 14/10/2015 #Syria

•FSA regains locations from ISIS in Aleppo
• Russian airstrikes target an FSA base in Idlib
•FSA destroys regime vehicles in Damascus and its countryside
Southern Region


Damascus and its countryside:

Al-Islam Army, al-Rahman Legion alongside other factions in Jobar foiled regime forces’ attempts to advance towards the neighborhood. Clashes left at least twenty regime soldiers killed and two regime vehicles destroyed. In Douma in Damascus countryside, al-Islam Army destroyed a regime tank using a Konkurs missile. It also targeted Bisher Bain hospital checkpoint using mortars. Meanwhile, three civilians were killed and others were injured following regime shelling on Zakiyah town and Khan al-Sheeh camp. Our reported in the area reported that regime land and aerial shelling targeted the towns of Ghouta which are close to Jobar.

Dara’a:

Clashes broke out between Southern Front Factions and regime forces in al-Manshiyeh neighborhood; several regime troops were killed in addition to an FSA fighter. In the meantime, colonel Ibrahim al-Ghorani was appointed commander of al-Haramain al-Shareefain Brigade of the Southern Front. In addition, regime barrel bomb attacks killed four civilians in western al-Ghariyeh and a little girl in Da’el city.

Central Region

Homs:

Homs Liberation Movement in the northern countryside targeted regime locations at Karad al-Dasniyeh front using missiles.

Hama:

Suqour al-Ghab Gathering destroyed a regime tank, a 23 mm gun and a bulldozer in Khirbet al-Naqous, and destroyed a 130 mm gun in Mourek using heavy artillery. It also targeted regime troops positioned at Jisir al-Touteh and al-Hakourah checkpoints with mortars. Meanwhile, FSA factions battled regime forces and prevented them from advancing in Kafer Banoudeh and al-Mansourah. Ahrar al-Sham targeted regime locations in al-Suqailabyeh using Grad missiles.

Northern Region

Idlib:

Russian airstrikes targeted FSA locations in Idlib. They destroyed al-Sham Legion base in Tahtaya town in Idlib countryside along with all of the Legion’s vehicles, and killed all fighters present in the area. Since they began, Russian airstrikes killed more than thirty civilians, and targeted FSA factions in Northern Syria such as al-Izza Gathering, the First Coastal Division, Suqour al-Jabal Brigade and Division 13.

Aleppo:

Nour Eddin Zinki destroyed a regime T-72 tank at Handarat front using a TOW missile, and targeted regime locations at New Aleppo front using Jahannam launchers destroying a building housing regime soldiers. Aleppo Liberation Operations Room regained the villages of Tal Jabeen and Ihress following clashes with ISIS; more than thirty ISIS fighters were killed. In the meantime, Abu Khaled Azizah, military commander of Fastaqim Kama Umert Gathering of the FSA, was killed during clashes with ISIS in the northern countryside.

Source: RFS Media Office

[OUTLAW 09]

Syria, slideshow of #FSA brigades and divisions via RFS Media Office
https://yallasouriya.wordpress.com/2015/10/14/syria-slideshow-of-fsa-brigades-and-divisions-via-rfs-media-office …

Syria, slideshow of important regime locations via RFS Media Office
https://yallasouriya.wordpress.com/2015/10/14/syria-slideshow-of-important-regime-locations-via-rfs-media-office …

Syria, 3000 families without bread as Russian airattacks target the bakeries
https://yallasouriya.wordpress.com/2015/10/14/syria-3000-families-without-bread-as-russian-airattacks-target-the-bakeries-dlib-rif-warcrimes …

GRAPHIC-Footage
Recapture of #Ahras from #ISIS by the #FSA.
Graphic! Dead terrorist on the ground.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90r7uv0p1ws …
pic.twitter.com/kULvOhZfQb--

Footage Syrian rebels fight to keep #ISIS terrorists out of #TellJabin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bz-BF9J9AYk …
#Aleppo pic.twitter.com/wWRHk1Famd

Analysis #Map
Rebels lost control over grain silos S of Hobait,#Hama, but hold the front.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCGOs9Lb4H0 … pic.twitter.com/rWHd58Tjux

[OUTLAW 09]

RuAF zero military results & lots of destruction in Kafranbouda Hama
http://youtu.be/e7Tb9G21L3k
http://youtu.be/_3gdCzB1yJ4

RuAF several attacks on Khan Shaikhoun outskirts northern #Hama.
http://youtu.be/eiVUnhSCVWE

New from ISW. "Joint Syrian-Iranian-Russian Offensive Achieves Only Limited Initial Gains." http://bit.ly/1Llevnj

Russian Military Uses Syria as Proving Ground, and West Takes Notice http://nyti.ms/1VTafpi

Shk. Mheisny of Jaysh al-Fath confirm #Hama offensive and promise a massive operation to take the province.
http://youtu.be/hxDrm_zNpgk

Syria: well known activist-turned-rebel Abu Khaled was killed today in clashes with #Daesh in northern #Aleppo

[OUTLAW 09]

Major Yasser Abdel al-Rahim of Fatah Halab announces a new wave of attacks on #Daesh https://youtu.be/D9diJbSi5m4

Another FSA TOW hit----
Nour al-Din al-Zinki (Fatah Halab) destroyed a regime tank in Handarat (#Aleppo) https://youtu.be/gAjUB5_v4o4

Syria: might be important to note that rebels in northern #Homs don't have any TOW missiles at the moment....

Syria: the regime has launched an offensive on rebel-held northern #Homs, indiscriminate bombardments on Talbiseh & Rastan this morning

Syria "In a close cooperation, Iran and Russia double down on Syria". http://aerohisto.blogspot.fr/2015/10/in-close-cooperation-iran-and-russia.html …

Israel claims Soleimani visited #Syria's #Golan before #Latakia
http://www.timesofisrael.com/irans-soleimani-visits-syrian-golan-as-tehran-bolsters-war-effort/ …

[OUTLAW 09]

Big explosion east of Jableh, #Latakia this AM. Unclear if bad airstrike, oppo rocket or something else

Seems Rebel-forces in eastern #Qalamoun fired SCUD-missile toward #Russia'n airbase https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/NewsReports/566059-mystery-blast-rocks-syria-coastal-region …

Damascus View to regime hold Hospital at southern entrance to rebel hold suburbs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svSNo-gqCU4 …

Second tank destroyed today in Nabhan barrier Front Terre Maaleh.

As I expected: Massive regime regime assault from #Homs toward rebel hold towns #Talbeesa & #Rastan

Regime forces try to cut off Ter Maela & Al Ghantoo from #Talbeesa http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=34.811901&lon=36.717510&z=14&m=b …

Homs Nonstop #Russia'n airstrikes give close air support for attacking regime troops south of #Talbeesa

Russian air strikes again hitting civilians--they do not seem to really care if they do hit civilians----
Homs Victims of Regime-rocket-shelling on #Talbeesa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXYZM6NSb5E …

Another TOW hit----
Quneitra Rebels blow up regime tank north of Khan Arnabah

[OUTLAW 09]

4 RuAF airstrikes targeted Kansafra village in #Idlib.
https://youtu.be/Dn6MH_IsCaM

Brave field reporter Mahmoud al-Hamwi close footage for barrel bombs in al-Ltamenah #Hama.
https://youtu.be/ap7u-iAs0pU

Russia is still brutally bombing civilians with random attacks which have nothing to do with IS--did not Putin state he was attacking IS--THEN why attack civilians??

Russia airstrikes targeting civilians!
@SyriaCivilDef continue to recovery bodies
#Hamoryah #Syria Oct15
Dead woman under the rubble after an #Assad air strike in rural eastern #Damascus today...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1byvrD8LHbY … pic.twitter.com/1Ekp9Heogw

Multiple regime airstrikes reported in Marj al-Sultan, Zamalka, Hamouriya & Kharabo in E. Ghouta, #Damascus, #Syria

Talbisa #Homs under heavy artillery and air attacks. Fierce clashes reported in the s/sw fronts with regime forces.
https://youtu.be/x8RwsXjU4AY

[OUTLAW 09]

KSA getting even with Putin's Shia support role----
Riyadh is retaliating in Moscow's backyard of Europe with aggressive price discounting...Dumping prices in Poland" http://nyti.ms/1RJoK9i

Russia's normally-saner Web commissioner says Moscow must boost its global military presence to sell more hi-tech. http://www.newsru.com/russia/15oct2015/marinichev.html …

Kremlin spox says the Ukr website posting names & personal data of Russian pilots in Syria commits a "hostile act." https://slon.ru/posts/58047

[OUTLAW 09]

Russia air strikes are still targeting civilians----
Footage from al-Ghantu where people dig w/ their bare hands for civilians under the ruble.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xzayNGr6xI … pic.twitter.com/s9NgMwEH0H

Confirmation
New massacres are taking place in #Talbisah as the Russian air force bombs civilians.
pic.twitter.com/HPlDlsx7f6

BreakingNew via @dpa
"Like Judgement Day" - Russian air strikes kill at least 10 in the #Iran / #Assad / #Russia #HomsOffensive.

As long as Kremlin supports Bashar al-Assad, US "doesn't agree and will not agree to cooperate with Russia."http://mirror572.graniru.info/Politics/World/US/m.245033.html …

[OUTLAW 09]

RuAF still s dropping dumb iron bombs---not single precision weapon seen on their SU34s-

Again, a Su-34 Fullback with not a single PGM in #Syria, although Russian MoD videos only shows those pic.twitter.com/ZGgkT1it5Q

Syrian Express is now using Turkish rented freighters to resupply Syria--they ran out of cargo capacity it appears----
Russia starts using civilian cargo ships it acquired from Turkey to supply Syrian invasion http://bmpd.livejournal.com/1523279.html pic.twitter.com/oMEH2quJyQ

Heavy clashes in #Homs as #SAA makes a strong push with air cover from #Russia this morning
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRrQsPiNgAE …
pic.twitter.com/JmBWQuMxn8

[OUTLAW 09]

4 RuAF airstrikes targeted Kansafra village in #Idlib.
https://youtu.be/Dn6MH_IsCaM

Brave field reporter Mahmoud al-Hamwi close footage for barrel bombs in al-Ltamenah #Hama.
https://youtu.be/ap7u-iAs0pU

Russia is still brutally bombing civilians with random attacks which have nothing to do with IS--did not Putin state he was attacking IS--THEN why attack civilians??

Russia airstrikes targeting civilians!
@SyriaCivilDef continue to recovery bodies
#Hamoryah #Syria Oct15
Dead woman under the rubble after an #Assad air strike in rural eastern #Damascus today...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1byvrD8LHbY … pic.twitter.com/1Ekp9Heogw

Multiple regime airstrikes reported in Marj al-Sultan, Zamalka, Hamouriya & Kharabo in E. Ghouta, #Damascus, #Syria

Talbisa #Homs under heavy artillery and air attacks. Fierce clashes reported in the s/sw fronts with regime forces.
https://youtu.be/x8RwsXjU4AY

So far #Assad-forces not able to advance in northern #Homs despite #Russia'n airstrikes
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=34.874384&lon=36.732788&z=12&m=b …

[OUTLAW 09]

NOW we have the MILAN ATM in the mix----
Homs Rebels hit T-62 with MILAN-ATGM south of #Talbeesa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sAWB2sJZc0&feature=youtu.be …

Finally the Assad military attacks Islamic State---
Syria: regime forces have captured the village of Tall Na'am (east of #Aleppo near the Kweiris airbase) from #Daesh militants

Russian drone is shot down---
JN #AQ claim bringing down a drone over reef #Hama, #Syria.

Russian air strike numbers are actually falling even with a intensive air attack today---
Russia/n Air Force announced 33 #ISIS targets were hit today in different parts of northern #Syria.
Most of these 33 attacks targeted the FSA not Islamic State--another Ru MoD set of lies---

VIDEO: Sham Front rebels fire rockets at #ISIS in northern #Aleppo, #Syria.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1k_ZoZA-zY …

VIDEO: RT discuss the Su-30SM 4th generation aircraft and it's role in #Syria.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEbpRWT0SUc …

[JWing]

Cross posting this story because it relates to both Syria and Iraq. Several new Iraqi militias began recruiting for Syria during the summer and are now taking part in the new Assad-Iranian-Hezbollah-Russian offensives in Homes, Ladhidiya and Hama. Are all connected to Iran which is why they went. Read the story here (http://musingsoniraq.blogspot.com/2015/10/iraqi-fighters-taking-part-in-new-assad.html).

[OUTLAW 09]

Hama #JaF shelling Ma`an
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3EHbPrFwWg …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.359376&lon=36.796131&z=14&m=b …

After #Russia'n airstrikes now regime helicopter dropped its TNT barrels on Ghantoo in northern #Homs
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=34.822012&lon=36.698284&z=15&m=b …

Russia'n airstike on Ghantu in northern #Homs
#Россия #Путин
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=rk4qINATaug …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=34.821977&lon=36.698585&z=15&m=b …

[OUTLAW 09]

After a week of Iranian/Iraqi/Syria ground assaults supported by the RuAF--actually little to no ground gain--what a waste of money by Russia with an average per day cost of 2M USD you would think they could show more for their investment.

Syria About 30 civilians killed by #Russia'n airstrikes & regime artillery shelling on northern #Homs towns today
-but no progress on ground-

Also a sudden media amnesia about complete failure of Soleimani's grand offensive in Daraa and Quneitra last year

In today's northern rural Homs battles, Syrian rebels have so far destroyed 4 tanks: 3 in Mahata, Talbiseh, Kam, and 1 Shilka in Ghanto.

HadiAlabdallah · 1h1 hour ago
Russian warplanes hit Mamlouk checkpoint in Homs, the largest Assad checkpoint in the city!! Great mistake!! ��

[OUTLAW 09]

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/10/syria-civil-war-213242#ixzz3oeDW8PIG

I Got Syria So Wrong

I spent early 2011 trying to ease tensions between Syria and its neighbors. I never predicted the brutality that would come from inside.

By Frederic Hof

October 14, 2015


Now and then I am asked if I had predicted, way back in March 2011 when violence in Syria began, that within a few years a quarter-million people would be dead, half the population homeless and hundreds of thousands of defenseless civilians terrorized, traumatized, tortured and starved. The companion question, more often than not, is if I had forecast the failure of the West to offer any protection at all to Syrian civilians subjected to a systematic campaign of mass homicide. Having first been exposed to Syria as a teenage exchange student, I was expected by questioners to know something about the place. And as a State Department officer, I was assumed to know something about my government.

But no. It took me the better part of eighteen months to comprehend fully the scope of an unfolding humanitarian and political catastrophe. By September 2012, when I resigned my State Department post as adviser on Syrian political transition to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, I knew that Syria was plunging into an uncharted abyss—a humanitarian abomination of the first order. And I knew that the White House had little appetite for protecting civilians (beyond writing checks for refugee relief) and little interest in even devising a strategy to implement President Barack Obama’s stated desire that Syrian President Bashar Assad step aside. But at the beginning, nothing drawn from my many years of involvement in Syria inspired accurate prophesy.

That Russia’s recent military intervention in Syria has shocked the Obama administration is itself no surprise. For nearly two years, Washington had chased Moscow diplomatically in the belief that the Kremlin’s soothing words about supporting political transition in Syria were truthful. That which was obvious to many—Russia’s desire to perpetuate Assad in office—is now jarringly clear to the administration. That training and equipping anti-Assad rebels to fight anyone but Assad has been dropped like a bad habit by an administration warned not to proceed along these lines is hardly a bolt from the blue. But the White House is not alone in failing to accurately forecast the severity of the Syrian disaster.

The major reason for my lack of foresight: It didn’t have to turn out this way, and I remain mildly surprised that it did. It is not that Syrians were without grievances concerning the way they were being governed. Widespread unemployment, underemployment and opportunity deficits were already prompting those with means among the best and brightest to leave the country. Although the regime’s corruption, incompetence and brutal intolerance of dissent were hardly state secrets, Assad was not universally associated by Syrians with the system’s worst aspects: “If only the president knew” was a phrase one heard often. Some Syria watchers believed that the Arab Spring would visit the country in the form of political cyclone. I did not. I did not think it inevitable that Assad—a computer-savvy individual who knew mass murder could not remain hidden from view in the 21st century—would react to peaceful protest as violently as he did, with no accompanying political outreach. And as Syria began to descend into the hell to which Assad was leading it, I did not realize that the White House would see the problem as essentially a communications challenge: getting Obama on “the right side of history” in terms of his public pronouncements. What the United States would do to try to influence Syria’s direction never enjoyed the same policy priority as what the United States would say.

Back in early 2011, it seemed possible not only to avoid violent upheaval in Syria but to alter the country’s strategic orientation in a way that would counter Iran’s penetration of the Arab world and erase Tehran’s land link to its murderous Hezbollah militia in Lebanon. Much of my State Department time during the two years preceding Syria’s undoing was thus spent shuttling back and forth between Damascus and Jerusalem, trying to build a foundation for a treaty of peace that would separate Syria from Iran and Hezbollah on the issue of Israel.

There was a degree of idealism in my quest, born in the brain of an American teenager many years before. But there was another personal element as well. Long before Hezbollah murdered Mr. Lebanon—Prime Minister Rafik Hariri—in 2005, it had brutally and pathologically tortured to death a friend of mine serving as an unarmed United Nations observer, Marine Lt. Col. Rich Higgins. Peace between Israel and Syria would require Damascus to cut all military ties to Hezbollah. It would require Syria to stop facilitating Iran’s support to Hezbollah. It would set the stage for a Lebanon-Israel peace that would further marginalize Lebanon’s murder incorporated. Peace for its own sake is good. But the prospect of beating Hezbollah and its Iranian master was inspiring. This prospect, more than anything else, motivated the mediation I undertook as a deputy to Special Envoy George Mitchell in the State Department.

Assad, told me in late February 2011 that he would sever all anti-Israel relationships with Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas and abstain from all behavior posing threats to the State of Israel, provided all land lost by Syria to Israel in the 1967 war—all of it—was returned. My conversation with him was detailed in terms of the relationships to be broken and the behavior to be changed. He did not equivocate. He said he had told the Iranians that the recovery of lost territory—the Golan Heights and pieces of the Jordan River Valley—was a matter of paramount Syrian national interest. He knew the price that would have to be paid to retrieve the real estate. He implied that Iran was OK with it. He said very directly he would pay the price in return for a treaty recovering everything.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was interested. He was not at all eager to return real estate to Syria, but he found the idea of prying Syria out of Iran’s grip fascinating. And the negative implications for Hezbollah of Lebanon following Syria’s peace accord with Israel were not lost on him in the least. Although there were still details to define about the meaning of “all” in the context of the real estate to be returned, Netanyahu, too, knew the price that would ultimately have to be paid to achieve what he wanted.

But by mid-April 2011 the emerging deal that had looked promising a month earlier was off the table. By firing on peaceful demonstrators protesting police brutality in the southern Syrian city of Deraa, gunmen of the Syrian security services shredded any claim Assad had to governing legitimately. Indeed, Assad himself—as president of the Syrian Arab Republic and commander in chief of the armed forces—was fully responsible for the shoot-to-kill atrocities. Even so, he told Barbara Walters in a December 2011 ABC TV interview, “They are not my forces, they are military forces belong[ing] to the government . . . I don’t own them, I am the president. I don’t own the country, so they are not my forces.”

Before the shooting began the United States and Israel were willing to assume Assad had sufficient standing within Syria to sign a peace treaty and—with American-Israeli safeguards in place—make good on his security commitments before taking title to demilitarized territories. But when he decided to try to shoot his way out of a challenge that he and his first lady could have resolved personally, peacefully and honorably, it was clear he could no longer speak for Syria on matters of war and peace.

Some of my U.S. government colleagues from bygone days tell me we dodged a bullet: that an uprising against the Assad regime’s arrogance, cluelessness and corruption in the middle of treaty implementation would have caused real trouble. Others believe we were too slow: that a treaty signing in early 2011 could have kept the gale force winds of the Arab Spring from unhinging Syria. I don’t know. I don’t know if Assad or Netanyahu would, in the end, have done a deal. What I do know is that I felt good about where things were in mid-March 2011. What I also know is that by mid-April hope of a treaty was gone, probably never to return in my lifetime.

Assad’s decision to apply lethal violence to something that could have been resolved peacefully was the essence of betrayal. He betrayed his country so thoroughly as to destroy it. Four years on, he reigns in Damascus as a satrap of Iran and a dependent of Moscow. In the end, he solidified Israel’s grip on land lost in 1967 by his defense minister father.

[OUTLAW 09]

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/10/syria-civil-war-213242#ixzz3oeDW8PIG

I Got Syria So Wrong

I spent early 2011 trying to ease tensions between Syria and its neighbors. I never predicted the brutality that would come from inside.

By Frederic Hof

October 14, 2015

It's feared that the latest #Assad #Russia|n offensive in northern #Homs aims to displace the remaining Sunni population

[OUTLAW 09]

Russian drone in Syria-

It looks like the russian:
БЛА-05 "Типчак" pic.twitter.com/rW39pzIbLo

[OUTLAW 09]

Not confirmed by any other source---

Fox News reporting that Cuban soldiers joined Assad forces in Syria.
Only North Korea late for the Axis of evil party

[OUTLAW 09]

Burning Shilka AA tank in northern #Homs battle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwoKndfnhPE …

Damascus Jaish als Islam blow up 2 BMPs who tried to evacuated wounded

Daraa Regime forces try to push deeper into Shayk Maskin city from
north & east
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=32.831856&lon=36.163216&z=14&m=b …

1st tank-----TOW hit.
https://www.jaishalislam.com/video/show/9/144/ …

Jaysh al-Islam blow 2nd tank in E #Ghota with ATGM.
https://www.jaishalislam.com/video/show/9/145/ …

3rd BMP-------TOW hit.
https://www.jaishalislam.com/video/show/9/146/ …

FSA rebels in #Hama have reportedly received a new delivery of TOW and konkurs missiles

[OUTLAW 09]

Breaking-----

Putin's seen the light - joined the Syria rebels as their Air force - and hit two major Assad Army checkpoints today in Homs killing 40+

[OUTLAW 09]

Syria incredible. #RuAF airstrike South of Kansaffra, filmed by Russian MOD & rebels.

RU MoD video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThLkCtqIO78 …

FSA video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dn6MH_IsCaM …

[OUTLAW 09]

Breaking-----

Putin's seen the light - joined the Syria rebels as their Air force - and hit two major Assad Army checkpoints today in Homs killing 40+


NOW the "real truth" from the Syrian info warriors---
Syria Regime media claim 40+ #Assad-forces killed by bus traffic accident on road Beit Yashout-Nahr al-Barid
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.285704&lon=36.240120&z=13&m=b …

BUT reality hits again-----
@HadiAlabdallah
Brigade 26 in Homs suburbs is the second position for Assad forces to be hit mistakengly by Russian warplanes. Keep it up Moscow!

[OUTLAW 09]

Russian propaganda leaflets being dropped on Syrian civilians

Russian leaflet:
40 types of missiles wait for you. They can destroy targets above and under the ground, shelters..

[OUTLAW 09]

Regime Executes 19 Soldiers for Refusing Deployment to Hama Front #Syria http://sobsrvr.com/MiKd781m via @observesyria

FRANCE 24 ‏@FRANCE24 ·
Iran ready to send fighters to Syria: senior official http://f24.my/1OEsV6c

Syrian Rebels just received tonnes of shipment of weapons in Syria, won't say which area. Stuff that would make @STWuk have brain aneurism

For #Aleppo map makers:
IS control cement factory & Infantry Military College
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=36.332379&lon=37.227345&z=15&m=b …

Russia'n airstrikes on areas around besieged Shiite enclave Nubbol & Al-Zahraa
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=36.369120&lon=37.015772&z=14&m=b …

[OUTLAW 09]

Not confirmed by any other source---

Fox News reporting that Cuban soldiers joined Assad forces in Syria.
Only North Korea late for the Axis of evil party


Yesterday, the University of Miami’s Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies reported that Cuban soldiers were in Syria:

The Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies has received information that General Leopoldo Cintra Frias, Head of the Cuban Armed Forces, visited Syria recently leading a group of Cuban military personnel sent by Cuba in support of Syria’s dictator Assad and Russian involvement in that country.

The Cuban military contingent will be primarily deployed in Syria manning Russian tanks provided to Assad by the Russians. It will also operate as a military force against Isis and other opponents of the Assad regime.

Now FoxNews is confirming that report:

On Wednesday, a U.S. official confirmed to Fox News that Cuban paramilitary and special forces units are on the ground in Syria, citing evidence from intelligence reports. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Cuban troops may have been training in Russia and may have arrived in Syria on Russian planes.

An Arab military officer at the Damascus airport reportedly witnessed two Russian planes arrive there with Cuban military personnel on board. When the officer questioned the Cubans, they told him they were there to assist Assad because they are experts at operating Russian tanks, according to Jaime Suchlicki, the institute’s executive director.

The U.S. official described Cuban’s involved in Syria as similar to the “Cuba-Angola arrangement” — a reference to Cuban troops operating on behalf of the Soviets in several central African countries in the 1970’s. Cuba also sent troops to Syria in 1973 to support them in the Yom Kippur War against Israel and deployed officers to observe Israeli military tactics.

The official could not confirm whether Cuba’s top general is in Syria, or if Cuban forces are manning Russian tanks provided to Assad by Russia.

If you go back to the last years of the Cold War you will see that Cuba provided ground troops to act as a proxy army for the USSR in many areas of the world. When the 1st Ranger Battalion (1-75 Infantry) jumped at Port Salinas airfield on October 25, 1983, they opposing force was not Grenadian, it was Cuban. The Cuban army fought in Eritrea, 1500 Cubans fought in the Yom Kippur War, it was involved in the Ogaden War (Somalia-Ethiopia), it was a major force in the Angolan civil war and fought a pitched battle with the South Africans which was, arguably, a draw but looked a lot like a Cuban victory. It was in Nicaragua and El Salvador.

“If this information about the presence of Cuban troops in Syria now is confirmed, it would indicate that General Raul Castro is more interested in supporting his allies, Russia and Syria, than in continuing to normalize relations with the U.S.,” the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies said in a statement Tuesday.

“Raul Castro has expressed publicly his support for the Syrian regime and his solidarity with Russian and Iranian objectives in the Middle East,” the group said. “This new Cuban internationalism reaffirms one more time that the Castro’s brothers are more interested in their role in the world in opposition to the U.S. than in modernizing Cuba and helping the Cuban people rise above their current misery.”

This deployment shows the extent to which Obama’s Syrian policy has become a laughingstock for the world and the extent to which his much ballyhooed opening with Cuba was nothing more than abject surrender.

[OUTLAW 09]

Hama Lost by #Russia'n aircraft above Al-Lataminah
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYWKiJNqZDs …

Potential air fuel bomb
РБК-500

Maybe it's the same device as this one dropped by a damaged jet a week ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8udAa9M6yk&feature=youtu.be …

[OUTLAW 09]

Hama Lost by #Russia'n aircraft above Al-Lataminah
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYWKiJNqZDs …

Potential air fuel bomb
РБК-500

Maybe it's the same device as this one dropped by a damaged jet a week ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8udAa9M6yk&feature=youtu.be …

Thermobaric RPG used by Russians in the Ukraine---now in Syria
One RPO-A among the pics taken by SAA forces in Al-Safsafah & Fawru, #Hama via @IraqiSuryani1
pic.twitter.com/DdRlqaYjRP

[OUTLAW 09]

New attempt by Regime forces to retake the Military Security Branch in NE #Damascus city. Clashes ongoing.

Reports of Brig. Maan Deeb #Assad Army Commander in northern #Homs campaign killed.
Pro #Assad media sources mourn Brig. Maan Deeb; SAA Commander in northern #Homs countryside..

North Aleppo rif – Map with Daesh progress
https://yallasouriya.wordpress.com/2015/10/15/syria-north-aleppo-rif-map-with-daesh-progress/ …

[OUTLAW 09]

NOW the "real truth" from the Syrian info warriors---
Syria Regime media claim 40+ #Assad-forces killed by bus traffic accident on road Beit Yashout-Nahr al-Barid
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.285704&lon=36.240120&z=13&m=b …

BUT reality hits again-----
@HadiAlabdallah
Brigade 26 in Homs suburbs is the second position for Assad forces to be hit mistakengly by Russian warplanes. Keep it up Moscow!


Syria: Seems #Russia'n pilots need better maps for #Homs
7 failed airstrikes hit regime positions

[OUTLAW 09]

BreakingNews Pro #Assad pages: Massive fires spreading near the seaport after extremely loud explosion rocked

BreakingNews Massive explosion rocked #Syria|n coastal city #Tartus a while ago..

and supposedly some new T72s arrived there recently for SAA

Significant if confirmed. Tartus home to Russian naval base in Syria. https://twitter.com/RamiAlLolah/status/654742018988490752 …

[OUTLAW 09]

EXCLUSIVE: In Iraq, Russian Gun With Iranian Ammo Found on US-Origin Tank.

http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/2015/10/15/iraq-russian-gun-iranian-ammo-found-us-origin-tank/73999398/ …

[OUTLAW 09]

Exclusive #BreakingNews #Israel|i air-forces have carried out several airstrikes inside #Syria today..

[OUTLAW 09]

Assd tanks using smoke to try to protect themselves from TOWs--do not realize they cannot "smoke" all day----

Assad-forces in the "fog of war" in northern #Homs battle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqSCJ4EpeJk …

From battlefield in northern #Homs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psYGVLolhqQ …

Aleppo #IS overtaken hill position near Industrial City- seems #Assad-forces abandon it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0wh_-n33V4 …

Hama: Syrian Rebels recaptured Tal Sukayk & Atshan after Russian blitz helped Assad regime capture those two areas

Local activists says Intl Coalition targeted a Jabhat al-Nusra car near Sarmada in #Idlib and killed 2 ppl.

[OUTLAW 09]

Today Syrian Rebels in Ghouta & Quneitra ended up destroying a total of 5 Assad tanks

Let's just say Assad offensive didn't end well in north #Homs too.
http://youtu.be/wqSCJ4EpeJk
http://youtu.be/Ub53unflmJU

Nusra explosives expert explains how to dismantle Russian bombs & re-use them against regime's soldiers & armor http://youtu.be/7qY6Vm40kjo

al-Hadder hospital in south rural #Aleppo was targeted by Russian airstrikes today, several civilians inc medical staff amongst casualties

[CrowBat]

IMHO, we should pay special attention at this offensive from Aleppo in southern direction.

Namely, that first push into northern Hama and NE Lattakia might have not went very far. At least the capture of 6 villages in exchange for about 500 KIA - including nearly all of involved top commanders - was a hefty price for actually achieving nothing. There is only one arena in which it was successful: it drew at least 20 different insurgent formations in its direction (i.e. these were deployed to reinforce the frontlines in Hama, Lattakia and SW Idlib).

The simultaneous collapse of insurgent positions north of Aleppo, Daesh and regime advances in direction of Nubol-Zahra pocket (Shi'a enclave north-west of Aleppo) drew even more insurgents in that direction: they must protect their last major communication to Turkey.

Assault on Rastan-Talbiseh pocket was expected: insurgents there cannot be helped by other insurgents because they are cut off and isolated since nearly four years.

But, the size of this attack does signal the importance of the Homs-Hama-Aleppo highway for IRGC & Russian commanders of this 'Syrian' military (i.e. 'the regime').

In that relation: attack from Aleppo down that highway in southern direction comes unexpected but is perfectly logical. And the word is that this is undertaken by two IRGC brigades and Ba'ath Party militia. Means: something like 'the shock force' of the regime.

This is now imposing the following question: have insurgents still enough reserves - and enough coordination - to stop that advance too?

[OUTLAW 09]

IMHO, we should pay special attention at this offensive from Aleppo in southern direction.

Namely, that first push into northern Hama and NE Lattakia might have not went very far. At least the capture of 6 villages in exchange for about 500 KIA - including nearly all of involved top commanders - was a hefty price for actually achieving nothing. There is only one arena in which it was successful: it drew at least 20 different insurgent formations in its direction (i.e. these were deployed to reinforce the frontlines in Hama, Lattakia and SW Idlib).

The simultaneous collapse of insurgent positions north of Aleppo, Daesh and regime advances in direction of Nubol-Zahra pocket (Shi'a enclave north-west of Aleppo) drew even more insurgents in that direction: they must protect their last major communication to Turkey.

Assault on Rastan-Talbiseh pocket was expected: insurgents there cannot be helped by other insurgents because they are cut off and isolated since nearly four years.

But, the size of this attack does signal the importance of the Homs-Hama-Aleppo highway for IRGC & Russian commanders of this 'Syrian' military (i.e. 'the regime').

In that relation: attack from Aleppo down that highway in southern direction comes unexpected but is perfectly logical. And the word is that this is undertaken by two IRGC brigades and Ba'ath Party militia. Means: something like 'the shock force' of the regime.

This is now imposing the following question: have insurgents still enough reserves - and enough coordination - to stop that advance too?

CB--think they can as I am assuming from the MOM and MOC they are being at least given the necessary intel on Syrian/Russian round movements in order to counter---they are not worrying about air strikes as they have already out positioned their munition/arms depots because of the Russian moves. The reason I say this is that the first few days of high TOW hits it appeared to signal that they knew actually what was coming and where in order to pre position the TOW teams--in the last few days the rebels are "quiet with their TOWs" and using other ATM systems (MILAN and Russian) more or less as a defensive effort---but where did the TOW teams disappear to?

Think even the Russians are running out of air targets since it appears they have cut back on their GPS guided munitions.

The Syrian ground units have started using armored vehicle smoke trying to screen themselves from the ATMs---they do not realize the TOW teams have recorded hits on tanks using smoke and smoke on the move so it is not new to them--they have adjusted and simply move in their head two fingers ahead of the smoke and presto there is the armored vehicle.

Ah.....now we know where the TOW teams headed.........
Rebels destroyed 3 tanks, 1 technical 23mm gun & 1 rocket launcher in regime offensive in southern #Aleppo countryside this morning

What is interesting was a small comment two days ago that the FSA and others did not have a lot of ATMs in this area?

[OUTLAW 09]

Russia'n airstrikes on Kafr Dulbah near #Salma in #Latakia mountains

JaF launch counter assault on advancing #Assad-forces in southern #Aleppo countryside

Quneitra Rebels repelled regime assault on Trinjeh
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=33.230252&lon=35.861907&z=15&m=b …

Rebels repelled #Assad-forces to storm Balas & Tell al-Shaheed in southern #Aleppo countryside
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=36.015227&lon=37.165117&z=14&m=b …

[OUTLAW 09]

Russians are deliberately killing civilians--better yet they do not care if they kill civilians--they had plenty of practice at it in Chechnya.

Damascus Airstrikes on #Douma suburb killed 3 children this morning
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pr3OK71tqnU …

#Russia'n airstrikes on towns in northern #Homs this morning
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNR-o_gydzw …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnP4JRfBm_M …
yd hit a public shelter

#Russia'n airstrikes continues on northern #Homs this morning
after 65 dead yesterday- mainly civilians

[OUTLAW 09]

It seems the US coalition woke up last night & targeted #ISIS positions in #Dabiq north of #Aleppo.

News
#Assad's army started a new assault in the south,trying to recapture #Brigade82 in #ShaykhMaskin. #FSA fights

Fierce push by Assad & co under Russian air cover in Jabal Azzan this AM, reports 1 Assad tank destroyed & 1 BMP taken in al-Wadihi #Aleppo

More #Russia|n airstrikes this morning on Teirma’ala, Talbiseh & Ghanto in #Homs because not enough civilians were killed yesterday.

Assad-forces taken over Abtin town
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=36.046601&lon=37.124605&z=15&m=b …

News #Pictures
Besieged #Homs province this morning: Russian Su-24 bomb al-Ghantu and other towns.
pic.twitter.com/b4w9aKnP3c

[CrowBat]

...Ah.....now we know where the TOW teams headed.........
Rebels destroyed 3 tanks, 1 technical 23mm gun & 1 rocket launcher in regime offensive in southern #Aleppo countryside this morning

What is interesting was a small comment two days ago that the FSA and others did not have a lot of ATMs in this area?
The essence is mobility of TOW-teams. If you've followed the team of the 13 Brigade FSyA:

- 7 October: they knocked out 4 MBTs in Latameah/Kfar Naboudah Area
- 8 October: BMP + technical on western side of Ghab plain

That's a move of at least 40km (probably more than 60) over the night: from Kfar Naboudah in northern direction, via Khan Sheikhoun to Jishr ash-Shugour, then to Salma...

Similarly: TOW-armed Fursan al-Haq was in Latameah area on 7-8 October. Since 12 October it's in position north of Aleppo. That was a move of about 100km.

If there are reports about MBTs knocked out in Abtin area, then some of such groups are now there. That would be 'good news' for insurgents.

[OUTLAW 09]

IMHO, we should pay special attention at this offensive from Aleppo in southern direction.

Namely, that first push into northern Hama and NE Lattakia might have not went very far. At least the capture of 6 villages in exchange for about 500 KIA - including nearly all of involved top commanders - was a hefty price for actually achieving nothing. There is only one arena in which it was successful: it drew at least 20 different insurgent formations in its direction (i.e. these were deployed to reinforce the frontlines in Hama, Lattakia and SW Idlib).

The simultaneous collapse of insurgent positions north of Aleppo, Daesh and regime advances in direction of Nubol-Zahra pocket (Shi'a enclave north-west of Aleppo) drew even more insurgents in that direction: they must protect their last major communication to Turkey.

Assault on Rastan-Talbiseh pocket was expected: insurgents there cannot be helped by other insurgents because they are cut off and isolated since nearly four years.

But, the size of this attack does signal the importance of the Homs-Hama-Aleppo highway for IRGC & Russian commanders of this 'Syrian' military (i.e. 'the regime').

In that relation: attack from Aleppo down that highway in southern direction comes unexpected but is perfectly logical. And the word is that this is undertaken by two IRGC brigades and Ba'ath Party militia. Means: something like 'the shock force' of the regime.

This is now imposing the following question: have insurgents still enough reserves - and enough coordination - to stop that advance too?

SAA Brigade General Maan Dib -leading battle for northern #Homs
-killed

[OUTLAW 09]

The essence is mobility of TOW-teams. If you've followed the team of the 13 Brigade FSyA:

- 7 October: they knocked out 4 MBTs in Latameah/Kfar Naboudah Area
- 8 October: BMP + technical on western side of Ghab plain

That's a move of at least 40km (probably more than 60) over the night: from Kfar Naboudah in northern direction, via Khan Sheikhoun to Jishr ash-Shugour, then to Salma...

Similarly: TOW-armed Fursan al-Haq was in Latameah area on 7-8 October. Since 12 October it's in position north of Aleppo. That was a move of about 100km.

If there are reports about MBTs knocked out in Abtin area, then some of such groups are now there. That would be 'good news' for insurgents.

Some would call this an "intelligence fight" meaning the silent guiding hand of someone who understands the Russian/Syrian moves--OR just "good ole common sense" acquired from fighting SAA for four years coupled with their own ground spies??

[OUTLAW 09]

Putin’s Smart Bombs Aren’t All That Smart

http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/10/14/putin-smart-bombs-arent-all-that-smart/?utm_content=buffer1c428&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer …
pic.twitter.com/i0Yc64d6rE

[OUTLAW 09]

Even Putin no longer "knows" what the "truth" is??????

Putin says there are 5-7,000 Russian speakers in ISIS, which is about 3x more than he said there were a month ago http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-16/putin-says-5-000-7-000-from-russia-cis-fight-for-islamic-state …

[OUTLAW 09]

What a scary read. Praising Putin for taming nations and keeping them peaceful:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elena-ulansky/

Ms. Ulansky is at present a Managing Director at Platinum Partners, a sizable hedge fund, located in New York City. Her background includes several business development activities, raising capital, originating deals for PE firms & cross border M&A. She is part of a unique "think tank" organized by a famous hedge fund owner and participates regularly in the assessment of geo political situations and their global impact.
She graduated with a Master's degree in Economics, with distinction, from Moscow State University. She has a diploma in Art & Sculpture.
Her Scandinavian descent combined with upbringing in US and Russia, gives her an ability to relate to different cultures and issues. She is fluent in English & Russian and can navigate in French, Spanish & Italian.
She is passionate about spirituality & practices Yoga. She continues to expand her activities for the various causes as a "brand ambassador". Other interests include ballet, tennis & skiing.

Syria vs Chechnya - West Has to Learn From Putin

Posted: 10/15/2015 2:05 pm EDT


President Obama and other Western leaders are critical of President Putin's support of Syrian President Assad. The West is upset about Russia's use of missiles and aircraft to attack anti-Assad rebels in Syria. While there is no debate about the value of Russian attacks on ISIS; there is a deep concern over his support of Assad and the long-term consequence for the middle east of the effect of Russia, Iran and Iraq working together.

Putin on the other hand has complained of the lack of co-operation by the United States with the Russian military plan in Syria. Putin described this failure as a result of the West having "mush for brains".
To understand Putin's support of the Assad regime, one has to understand when Putin sees Syria he sees many of the same issues he has been dealing with in Chechnya. For Putin Syria is Chechnya. Chechnya has gone through wars with Russia and is now firmly aligned with Moscow.

Syria is too reminiscent of Chechnya for Putin. In both conflicts, the State fought rebels who had ISIS type terrorist actions (blowing up theatre in Moscow). Kadyrov has rebuilt Grozny (with significant financing from Moscow) and created his own version of the peaceful Islamist Republic of Chechnya. The last two years, Putin hoped that Assad would be able to do what he himself did in Chechnya.

After two decades of Sunni separatist fighting, Chechnya is now headed by Ramzan Kadyrov, a former rebel who switched to pro-Russia side. Putin established a stable government in Chechnya and is able to sustain it regardless of numerous factors that make this region of Russia by far one of the most volatile in the world.

This is true despite Chechnya's population being primarily Sunni followers of Islam. There have been many reports of ISIS in Iraqi freeing Sunni's and executing Shiites. To Sunni ISIS fighters, Shiites are apostates and must die. The one result of the Syria war Putin cannot allow to have happen, is the Sunni ISIS fighters spreading to Chechnya.

Currently Chechnya is a part of Russia. As a part of a republic, Chechnya is obliged to follow the Federal law of Russian Federation. But Putin has allowed exceptions to federal law in an attempt to promote peace in Chechnya. For example is monogamy. In keeping with Islam, it is legal to have multiple wives. This "flexibility" is just one example of Putin's flexibility in his control of Chechnya. Of course Chechnya is still very far from being a self-sustained and balanced country. Russian subsidies of Chechnya's economy could be considered astronomical; but if one compares it to the "price" of war Russia would have to pay otherwise, they make perfect sense.

Vladimir Putin believes that if Assad is permitted to be overthrown and ISIS survives the Middle East will be more of a mess than it is today. While the West is seeking a "transition" to a democratic government and rejecting Assad, it's "track- record" of nation building in the Middle East is dismal. Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, clearly, are not a desirable model for a future Syria. Putin fears of what may happen in the Middle East if Syria is left without Assad's strong leadership and no clear understanding of who will replace him. The current situation reminds him of what has been happening in Chechnya years before his leadership, and how successful he views his strong military response and control of Chechnya.

However unsuccessful Assad has been in fighting ISIS, Putin has a point asking the West some basic questions: who will be responsible for Syria after the removal of Assad? Who will contain Sunni extremists? Who will help Russia if ISIS extremists return home to cause terror in the North Caucasus and other Russian regions with significant Sunni Islamic population? And finally, who will guarantee the safety of chemical weapons in Syria?

Bottom line - Putin has done something close to impossible by "taming" the Chechen nation, and keeping them peaceful for more than a decade. Perhaps it makes sense to listen to his position on Syria.

[OUTLAW 09]

Rebels claim captured high rank officer + 5 #SAA soldiers during battle in southern #Aleppo countryside

Aleppo: Syrian Rebels regain positions lost in Sabiqah, Bahriya+Muqasarat in south Aleppo, repel pro Assads & kill 8 http://fb.me/2q45ADMUx

At least 3 killed, tens wounded in a wave of #Syria|n regime air strikes on #Douma today.

Looks like regime fails completely in their offenses & focusing now on Jabal Turkman it appears.

Every day #Assad-forces testing a new frontline in northern #Syria - all attempts supported by #Russia'n airstrikes but results very limited

Southern #Syria mostly quiet, but regime continues to advance into Shayk Maskin & dropped 4 barrels on city today http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=32.824932&lon=36.154718&z=14&m=b …

Russia'n airstrikes on hospitals of Al-Eis/Al-Hadher in southern #Aleppo countryside http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=35.989535&lon=37.038431&z=14&m=b …

[OUTLAW 09]

Reference Putin's "Syrian adventure"

What worries me is that I don't think he has an exit strategy. Possibly losing face in upcoming Hama offensive will make him more aggressive

Such a valid comment--Putin also did not have an exit plan for the eastern Ukraine--it appears he always depends on western leaders to "save his face" and give me an exit??? WHY is that????

Putin looking for any type of victory/advance on the ground to bargain with. So far rebels didn't even give him that

Regime offensive is not going well in #Aleppo according to latest reports as well.

[OUTLAW 09]

Several Assad soldiers spotted trying to sneak thru Salamiyah-Homs highway N #Homs & ended up in rebel's truck box.

Northern Homs battlefield, no time to fix the position, two rebels hold DShK gun & one fires
https://youtu.be/tAuDdLwio3o

BTW--single shots of a 12.7mm MG is an art not a science----

[OUTLAW 09]

33 combat sorties from #Hmeymim airbase ystd in Idlib, #Hama, #Damascus, #Aleppo & #Deir ez-Zor provinces compared to 84 the day be4.

In a very good functioning air targeting intel fight you should be able to run 24 X 7 X 365---what it appears is that the Russians have simply run out of targets and do not know what to hit that will help "their ground attack".

AND the Russian CAS has been hitting and killing Assad positions and troops far faster than Islamic State positions.

Russians are rapidly learning what the US learned in over 12 years of fighting --air power is great BUT in the end the" boots on the ground rules".

Russia airforce reduces nmbr of sorties in #Syria as it monitors, process &analyse militants' retreats, new positions & logistical routes

It's also aimed at allowing ground forces to move closer to rebel fronts.
THIS is the true admission that they cannot run CAS without tactical ground controllers of which they have none.

http://eng.syria.mil.ru/en/index/syria/news/more.htm?id=12060909@egNews …

BASED on the Russian MoD press releases--THEY are chasing the terrorist and especially Islamic State completely out of Syria--BUT notice their information differs from the actual reality on the ground reporting.


In the course of the last 24 hours, the Russian aviation group in Syria has continued conducting pinpoint airstrikes against ISIS facilities on the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic.

The Russian aircraft performed 33 combat sorties from Hmeymim airbase engaging 32 ISIS infrastructural facilities in the Idlib, Hama, Damascus, Aleppo and Deir ez-Zor provinces.

The flight intensity of the Russian Aerospace Forces has decreased.

This is caused by transformation of contact line as a result of offensive operations carried out by the Syrian Armed Forces.

The militants are retreating and trying to equip new positioning areas and change the ammunition, armament and materiel supply logistical system.

The Russian reconnaissance means are registering these changes. The processing and analyzing of data received by both Russian reconnaissance means and Informational Centre in Baghdad is also carried out.

The intensity of reconnaissance flights of aviation and UAVs is certainly increased in order to check and confirm the received data.

In the Eastern Guta region (Damascus province), a fortified fire position of Osa AA missile system, which had been captured by the militants, was destroyed by a Su-34 bomber. Strike with KAB-500 guided bomb caused elimination of concrete fortifications, which used to shelter the AA system. The air defence missile system was eliminated.

Su-24M bombers hit a two-storey building, which the ISIS militants had used as command centre (Aleppo province). As a result, the target was destroyed by a direct hit of an air bomb.

Near Al-Atarib, Idlib province, Su-25 attack aircraft carried out strike against underground plant manufacturing high-explosive mines. The militants produced the mines in order to plant them at the highways of the region. The detonation of the explosives caused destruction of the target.

During reconnaissance operation near Khan Shaykhun (Hama province), the aviation detected a strong point with a hidden terrorist artillery battery.

It is worth mentioning that the artillery positions equipped in compliance with strict engineering rules is the evidence of presence of well-trained professionals among the ISIS terrorists.

After reconnaissance check, Su-34 and Su-25 aircraft carried out a sudden group strike against the targets. Fortifications, six artillery guns and four off-road vehicles equipped with mortars were eliminated by the strike.

In the mountain area of Damascus province, air reconnaissance means detected a hidden base of the terrorists. There were three armored vehicles and eight off-road cars equipped with large-caliber machine guns and mortars.

Two Su-25 aircraft hit the base and eliminated military vehicles, ammunition and fuel depots.

After task performance, all the Russian aircraft sucessfully returned to the Hmeymim airbase.


NOTICE--attacking and killing civilians is not in the MoD PR????
75 confirmed dead today in #Homs due to #Russia airstrikes many of whom are kids and women. Heartbreaking. Bodies still under rubble

Russia likely to be responsible for 2nd largest number of civilian deaths in October behind #Syria Government

[OUTLAW 09]

VIDEO: Infamous TOW operator Abu Hamza destroys #SAA technical in #Latakia, #Syria.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lz4-DJHYBNo …

Footage
#Assad forces and the Russian air force pound #Salma (Latakia) w/ all they've got.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBtd2Ee1hWA …

Footage
A Russian cluster bomb container that hit Al-Lataminah in #Hama prov.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_358XwQZww …
Confusion over whether it is a cluster bomb and or a fuel bomb.

Telegraph World News ✔ @TelegraphWorld
Syrian army and Iran fighters in major Aleppo assault http://tgr.ph/1OHKmTC

Four these in Syria currently and have been used against FSA---
Footage of #Russia's TOS-1.
A devastating weapon that uses only thermobaric warheads
https://youtu.be/SDdEP7q8Ums?t=14s …

From the Russian info war media Sputnik----
Russian state news agency suggests more missile strikes likely (though the use of "at any moment" is a bit strange) https://twitter.com/SputnikInt/status/654964041123823617 …

[OUTLAW 09]

MORE Russian "altered state of reality"---now who exactly has joined them again......maybe Cyprus????? Or even Malta??

RussiaSays "Moscow has made progress in building broad coalition to combat Islamist extremism & terrorism in Syria" http://go.shr.lc/1Lo8zd2

[CrowBat]

Some would call this an "intelligence fight" meaning the silent guiding hand of someone who understands the Russian/Syrian moves--OR just "good ole common sense" acquired from fighting SAA for four years coupled with their own ground spies??
Think it was Gen Odierno who recently observed something like, 'company commander nowadays has better intel on tactical situation than I had while serving as division commander 20 years ago'...

[OUTLAW 09]

Chechen Center @ChechenCenter

"Rus media writes killed"Ahrah Sham"leader Abu Bakr al-Shishani..By posting photo 1 ISIS leader Abu Umar al-Shishani https://twitter.com/beslanu/status/654703899505332230 …

[OUTLAW 09]

Senior #Saudi diplomat "#Turkey & #Qatar have done admirable things with #Syria opposition as We drastically increase support now"

Senior #Saudi diplomat "KSA & allies are going to increase the quality of support to the 3 main #Syria opposition coalitions drastically"

Saudi foreign minister "We (#KSA & #Turkey) are in agreement that there will certainly be NO role for #Assad in #Syria"

Saudi foreign minister in #Ankara "Saudi & #Turkey are in agreement on supporting opposition in #Syria & warn #Russia again on its policy"

[OUTLAW 09]

Rebels blow up ammo-truck near Mount Azzan in southern #Aleppo countryside
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=36.052430&lon=37.176189&z=13&m=b …

SO Putin stated he was in Syria to just attack Islamic state...come on....reality tells the "truth".....

Russia'n army claim targeted 380 positions of Free #Syria'n Army #FSA
since the start of its air operations

[OUTLAW 09]

Seems, we have the "bad guy" here.
Downed small #drone on Turkish-Syrian border seems to be in the picture. pic.twitter.com/bGwsKBzrF5

My best guess is the Iranian copy of the ScanEagle.
pic.twitter.com/rWW5RjGDyq

BREAKING: #Turkey's military says its jets have shot down an unidentified drone at #Syria|n border - AP

[OUTLAW 09]

Appears as if the RuAF really is flying CAS for the FSA---another "friendly fire incident".

At this rate Russia will have killed more Syrian military than Islamic State fighters---

Oops!#Russia(n) airstrike hits #Assad troops on offensive north #Homs #Syria
https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/NewsReports/566065-russia-jets-accidentally-target-syria-regime-troops-activists …

[CrowBat]

Ho-hum... given regime's cooperation with the Daesh, at least the MOD in Moscow can announce it has delivered 'pin-point precise air strikes on ISIS', yesterday...

[OUTLAW 09]

Homs 20+ #Assad-forces killed in battle west of Al Dar Al Kabira
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=34.787092&lon=36.681633&z=15&m=b …

Russia'n airstrike on Mansoura in Ghab plain
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.649973&lon=36.349726&z=15&m=b …

Сorrection: UAV shot down by Turkey not Orlan-10, but matches other UAV shot down in Ukraine http://ukrpravda.net/index.php?
topic=11001.0 …

RFE/RL Russian service citing Turkish military confirming downed UAV is Russian made drone https://twitter.com/SvobodaRadio/status/655012085135491073 …

Maybe it's the prototype of Orlan-10 or an early version (pre-production model)?

The Orlan-10 variant's downed by Turkey. 3D mapping (12) cameras missing.

As well as tail fin, main difference is propeller below air intake (opposite to Orlan-10)

Yes! Russian defence companies experiment every day with variations and new models.

US suggested that downed drone by Turkish Air Forces belongs to Russia
Maybe it's "Granat-Ч"
https://twitter.com/novaya_gazeta/status/655004516765585408 …

Idlib #Russia'n airstrike on Kafar Karmin 10km away from border to #Turkey http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=36.165458&lon=36.792526&z=13&m=b …

Aleppo From Mount Azzan battlefield
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIebLaoHtbY …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=36.058883&lon=37.170267&z=14&m=b …

Another last ge. Mohajer 4 UAV over Al Ghab plain.
https://youtu.be/Ct4xLgjikrg?t=1m44s …

Russian General: "one base with Navy, Air Force & ground troops components" in Syria
http://www.kp.ru/daily/26446/3316981/ …
pic.twitter.com/Mdji1omBSE

[OUTLAW 09]

Syria general killed in #Homs offensive; reportedly was head of regime's campaign in area
http://mme.cm/GBAW00

[OUTLAW 09]

Ho-hum... given regime's cooperation with the Daesh, at least the MOD in Moscow can announce it has delivered 'pin-point precise air strikes on ISIS', yesterday...

One really does have to ask whose side the RuAF is actually supporting this last week---that or they have really poor air maps.

Blackout in #Damascus bc failed #Russia'n airstrike hit electricity tower

[OUTLAW 09]

MORE evidence of the joint Russian, Syrian and Islamic State military cooperation--but was not Putin's own remarks such that he stated he was attacking Islamic State?

So Putin basically lies every time he talks?

IslamicState taken over main barrier "Ithriya" on crossing #Hama - #Aleppo - #Raqqa from regime forces
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.366201&lon=37.777262&z=14&m=b …

UK Against ISIL ✔ @UKAgainstISIL
85% of Russian air strikes targeted where #ISIL isn't even present; #Russia is fighting Assad's civil war - not ISIL
pic.twitter.com/zj9djewVB7

[OUTLAW 09]

Turkey President Erdogan: "#Syria'n people now fight a war for independence"

[OUTLAW 09]

Homs 20+ #Assad-forces killed in battle west of Al Dar Al Kabira
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=34.787092&lon=36.681633&z=15&m=b …

Russia'n airstrike on Mansoura in Ghab plain
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.649973&lon=36.349726&z=15&m=b …

Сorrection: UAV shot down by Turkey not Orlan-10, but matches other UAV shot down in Ukraine http://ukrpravda.net/index.php?
topic=11001.0 …

RFE/RL Russian service citing Turkish military confirming downed UAV is Russian made drone https://twitter.com/SvobodaRadio/status/655012085135491073 …

Maybe it's the prototype of Orlan-10 or an early version (pre-production model)?

The Orlan-10 variant's downed by Turkey. 3D mapping (12) cameras missing.

As well as tail fin, main difference is propeller below air intake (opposite to Orlan-10)

Yes! Russian defence companies experiment every day with variations and new models.

US suggested that downed drone by Turkish Air Forces belongs to Russia
Maybe it's "Granat-Ч"
https://twitter.com/novaya_gazeta/status/655004516765585408 …

Idlib #Russia'n airstrike on Kafar Karmin 10km away from border to #Turkey http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=36.165458&lon=36.792526&z=13&m=b …

Aleppo From Mount Azzan battlefield
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIebLaoHtbY …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=36.058883&lon=37.170267&z=14&m=b …

Another last ge. Mohajer 4 UAV over Al Ghab plain.
https://youtu.be/Ct4xLgjikrg?t=1m44s …

Russian General: "one base with Navy, Air Force & ground troops components" in Syria
http://www.kp.ru/daily/26446/3316981/ …
pic.twitter.com/Mdji1omBSE

RUAF An-124 82037 noted on Caspian Sea entering Iranian airspace on her way to #Latakia
pic.twitter.com/hxIvqF2mp7

[OUTLAW 09]

Homs 20+ #Assad-forces killed in battle west of Al Dar Al Kabira
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=34.787092&lon=36.681633&z=15&m=b …

Russia'n airstrike on Mansoura in Ghab plain
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.649973&lon=36.349726&z=15&m=b …

Сorrection: UAV shot down by Turkey not Orlan-10, but matches other UAV shot down in Ukraine http://ukrpravda.net/index.php?
topic=11001.0 …

RFE/RL Russian service citing Turkish military confirming downed UAV is Russian made drone https://twitter.com/SvobodaRadio/status/655012085135491073 …

Maybe it's the prototype of Orlan-10 or an early version (pre-production model)?

The Orlan-10 variant's downed by Turkey. 3D mapping (12) cameras missing.

As well as tail fin, main difference is propeller below air intake (opposite to Orlan-10)

Yes! Russian defence companies experiment every day with variations and new models.

US suggested that downed drone by Turkish Air Forces belongs to Russia
Maybe it's "Granat-Ч"
https://twitter.com/novaya_gazeta/status/655004516765585408 …

Idlib #Russia'n airstrike on Kafar Karmin 10km away from border to #Turkey http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=36.165458&lon=36.792526&z=13&m=b …

Aleppo From Mount Azzan battlefield
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIebLaoHtbY …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=36.058883&lon=37.170267&z=14&m=b …

Another last ge. Mohajer 4 UAV over Al Ghab plain.
https://youtu.be/Ct4xLgjikrg?t=1m44s …

Russian General: "one base with Navy, Air Force & ground troops components" in Syria
http://www.kp.ru/daily/26446/3316981/ …
pic.twitter.com/Mdji1omBSE

The drone was probably a Russian test on Turkey. To see where the red line would be drawn. Now they know.

Ruble Rate to Dollar Plunges at News of Turkish Downing of Russian UAV
http://www.interpretermag.com/russia-update-october-16-2015/#10478 …
pic.twitter.com/mKDHoiDLui

[CrowBat]

One really does have to ask whose side the RuAF is actually supporting this last week---that or they have really poor air maps.

Blackout in #Damascus bc failed #Russia'n airstrike hit electricity tower
...well, if MOD in Moscow would at least replace 'ISIS' with 'terrorists' in its daily prose, and considering regime is not only cooperating with the Daesh, but Hezbollah and IRGC too...

... Russians would be 100% right with their claims - especially so when hitting 'friendly' forces. :D

[OUTLAW 09]

Reference the newest and greatest Russian command center---
Screen on background,
http://MarineTraffic.com being used by Russian MoD like they did with @flightradar24 ?
pic.twitter.com/0zFmbYjFPT

Fresh infographics!
"Russian Military Involvement In #Syria"
High resolution -
http://uacrisis.org/35976-russian-military-involvement-in-syria …
pic.twitter.com/SuqSQgscb2

Iraqis carried out air strikes against ISIS using Russian SU-30 jets. The only problem is that Russia never officially supplied them to Iraq

[OUTLAW 09]

Finnish researcher: Russia ramping up its information war
http://yle.fi/uutiset/8385245

[OUTLAW 09]

Reports tha a key Al Qaeda operative in Syria Abu Yassir al-Jazrawi was killed by coalition airstrike.

Al-Jazrawi was sent by AQ central to Syria three years ago to help consolidate Nusra after ISIS formation. Abu Khaled Al-Suri's successor.

[OUTLAW 09]

Pro-Assad Telcom MTN sending text to people "ur leaders started to flee to Turkey & left u behind to be killed SAA".

Jaysh al-Fath might surprise Russians with few SA7 MAPADs seized from #Assad Army in their upcoming #Hama offensive.
http://ar.rt.com/h30z

Regime reinforcements in southern rural #Aleppo today.
https://youtu.be/L1Cd5CbThGw

Heavy Civilian Casualties After Russian Jets Bomb Towns In Northern Homs http://bit.ly/1MtVe2U pic.twitter.com/QK2MiJYyQV

[OUTLAW 09]

...well, if MOD in Moscow would at least replace 'ISIS' with 'terrorists' in its daily prose, and considering regime is not only cooperating with the Daesh, but Hezbollah and IRGC too...

... Russians would be 100% right with their claims - especially so when hitting 'friendly' forces. :D

U.S. intelligence: Russian strikes haven't greatly aided Syria's Assad
http://cnn.it/1GJUKno

[OUTLAW 09]

AmbassadorPower confirms "#Iran launched on Oct10 a medium-range ballistic missile inherently capable of delivering a nuclear weapon"

Cont'd: this was "a clear violation of UNSCR 1929... we will raise the matter directly w/our Sec. Council colleagues" - @AmbassadorPower

[OUTLAW 09]

Medvedev characterizes Washington's refusal to meet with him over Syria as "stupid behavior."

http://ria.ru/syria_peace/20151016/1303138190.html …

"Stupid behavior" is defending a genocidal dictator and claiming he is legally representing the Sunni's in his country.

[OUTLAW 09]

Seems lots of Russian military movement through Crimea at the moment
https://twitter.com/UkrWatchTower/status/654954039583637504 …

VIDEO: Russian military equipment moving through occupied Crimea. 14/10/2015
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vEnyJa7ge40&feature=youtu.be …
pic.twitter.com/64JWTlGfC3

[OUTLAW 09]

Syria's Al-Qaeda leader is calling for attacks on Russian soil pic.twitter.com/wDBtdqu9tf

Damascus suburb #Daria today
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsKPCvKlEj4 …

Woah, regime BMP trashed up in fireworks near #Salma in Kafr Ajoz village by 1stCoastal #TOW. reef #Latakia

Syria #map - Ongoing Loyalist offensive in South #Aleppo / HD file :
http://www.agathocledesyracuse.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/South-Aleppo-16-Oct-2015-big1.jpg …

Rebels target ISIS with mortars in Northern Aleppo. #Syria
http://youtu.be/wSS_uMA8QMk

[OUTLAW 09]

Yesterday there was a short comment of Israeli airstrikes somewhere in Syria—then nothing more reported---so was this the work of the Israeli AF?

80 Assad thugs killed 'mysterious' jet attacks !! This is the drunk Russian pilots I suspected yesterday

http://all4syria.info/Archive/260823

[OUTLAW 09]

BREAKING: Russian media report that drone shot down in Turkey isn't Orlan-10 but new project that is not yet public

http://www.gazeta.ru/social/2015/10/16/7825181.shtml …

[OUTLAW 09]

Syria: regime forces have captured the small village of Nasiriyah (between #Aleppo and Kweiris airbase) from #Daesh militants

250,124 people have been killed in the Syrian revolt. Breakdown:
74k civilians
81k opposition fighters
92k pro-regime fighters

[OUTLAW 09]

Saudi Arabia and Russia are at war over oil markets, says @bershidsky http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-10-16/saudi-arabia-s-oil-war-with-russia …

Qassem Suleimani allegedly in Al-Safira, south of #Aleppo, leading new pro-#Assad offensive
http://www.almasdarnews.com/article/general-suleimani-oversees-the-large-scale-offensive-in-southern-aleppo/ …
pic.twitter.com/GK94HiFVuj

Probably most are Afghan refugees from Iran being forced 2 fight. I found many on Lesbos fleeing forced recruitment. https://twitter.com/glcarlstrom/status/654552940531818496 …

Russia at risk of revenge attacks over #Syria strikes - expert
http://uatoday.tv/society/russia-514597.html …

82037 and EMERCOM Il-76 both approarching #Latakia
pic.twitter.com/pNlybajby0

Jaysh al-Fath might surprise Russians with few SA7 MAPADs seized from #Assad Army in their upcoming #Hama offensive.
http://ar.rt.com/h30z

Russian airstrikes in Homs on regime held Mulouk checkpoint accidentally kills 2 colonels and 6 privates.

[OUTLAW 09]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/10/16/cuba-is-intervening-in-syria-to-help-russia-it-s-not-the-first-time-havana-s-assisted-moscow.html?via=desktop&source=twitter

10.16.151:02 PM ET

Cuba Is Intervening in Syria to Help Russia. It’s Not the First Time Havana’s Assisted Moscow.


Reports that Cuban forces are now fighting in Syria follow a long history of the Castro brothers working closely with their patrons in Moscow.

Not for the first time Cuban forces are doing Russia’s dirty work, this time in Syria. On Wednesday it was reported that a U.S. official had confirmed to Fox News that Cuban paramilitary and Special Forces units were on the ground in Syria. Reportedly transported to the region in Russian planes, the Cubans are rumoured to be experts at operating Russian tanks.

For President Obama, who has staked his legacy on rapprochement with America’s adversaries, the entrance of Cuba into the bloody Syrian civil is one more embarrassment. Russia, Iran and Cuba—three regimes which Obama has sought to bring in from the cold—are now helping to prop up the regime of Bashar al-Assad, ruler of a fourth regime he also tried in vain to court early on in his presidency. Obama has been holding his hand out in a gesture of goodwill to America’s adversaries only for them to blow him a raspberry back in his face—while standing atop a pile of Syrian corpses.

Yet for seasoned Cuba-watchers the entrance of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces into the Syrian civil war is a surprise but hardly a shock. A surprise because Cuba was forced two decades ago to curtail its military adventurism by a deteriorating economy (the Cuban military has been reduced by 80 per cent since 1991).

Largely thanks to the involvement of Cuban troops in the fight against Apartheid South African in Angola in the 70s and 80s (not to mention the more recent medical “missions” to disaster-stricken parts of the world) Cuba has gained something of a reputation for internationalism. At one point the Cuban presence in Angola reached 55,000 soldiers, inflicting a defeat on South African forces which helped precipitate the end of Apartheid. “The [Cuban army’s] decisive defeat of the aggressive apartheid forces [in Angola] destroyed the myth of the invincibility of the white oppressor,” Mandela told the Cuban leader on a visit to Havana in 1991.

In recent years Angola has lent the Castro regime a romantic penumbra which says that, for all its faults, the Cuban revolution is on balance progressive (watch the film Comandante by the ludicrous Oliver Stone to get a sense of what I mean).

Yet while everyone remembers Cuban heroics in Angola, few remembers Cuban terror in Ethiopia.

Those of us who are old enough probably recall the Live Aid concert organised by Bob Geldof in 1985, put on to raise money to help alleviate Ethiopia’s worst famine in a century. 400,000 people died in the famine of 1984/85, and while many people remember the gut-wrenching television images of fly-speckled children with pronounced rib cages and distended stomachs, few know that the tragedy was largely a consequence of the policies pursued by the Communist dictatorship that ruled Ethiopia at the time—a regime propped up by Cuba and the Soviet Union.

The Russians airlifted 17,000 Cuban troops to Ethiopia over the 14 years the Dergue—the dictatorship which ruled Ethiopia—were in power. During 1977-78 it is estimated that over 30,000 Ethiopians perished as a result of the Red Terror unleashed by the Communist government. During the terror, Sweden’s Save the Children Fund denounced the execution of 1,000 children—children whom the communist regime had preposterously labelled “liaison agents of the counter revolutionaries”.

As with Stalin’s war on the kulaks in the thirties, Ethiopia’s Marxist government embarked on its own utopian ventures in the countryside, forcing between 12 and 15 million Ethiopians into collectivized farms. According to Alexander De Waal, one of the foremost experts on the Horn of Africa, “more than half this mortality [400,000] can be attributed to human rights abuses that caused the famine to come earlier, strike harder, and extend further than would otherwise have been the case.” The Ethiopian army, reinforced by Cuban troops, prevented the distribution of food to areas of the country whose inhabitants were rumored to be sympathetic to opposition groups.

Following Russia’s lead, Cuba’s alliance with African nationalism extended to support for the bloody regimes of Nguema Macias in Equatorial Guinea and Idi Amin in Uganda. Cuba also gave political cover to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan—an odd position for a member of the non-aligned group of nations to take, until you consider that the Soviet Union might have limited the massive aid it sent to the island had Cuba stepped out of line.

A genuine affinity certainly exists between many of the world’s dictatorships based on a common hatred of the liberal democracies. Quickly sensing the way the wind was blowing in Tehran, the former Cuban President Fidel Castro was one of the first heads of state to recognize the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979, informing then Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini (disingenuously for someone who had previously interned religious believers in labor camps) that there was “no contradiction between revolution and religion.” Similarly cordial relations have also long existed between Cuba and Syria, where Cuba has intervened militarily in the past. From 1973 to 1975 a Cuban tank brigade was stationed facing the Golan Heights after the Israeli victory in the Yom Kippur War. In 1985, then Syrian President Hafez al-Assad wrote to Fidel Castro honouring the friendship between both countries as beneficial “for the two peoples in their joint struggle against world imperialism and its allies..

Ultimately, though, Cuba’s reported entrance into the conflict in Syria should be seen as the island paying new dues to its benefactor in the Kremlin. While the Obama-Castro relationship has filled the headlines in recent months, the overtures the Russian leader Vladimir Putin has been making towards Cuba have gone largely unnoticed. Last year Putin wrote off a massive $32 billion of Cuba’s debts to Russia – a 90 per cent reduction in what was previously owed. Putin also pledged to assist oil exploration projects off Cuba’s northern coast and re-opened Russia’s Cold War spy base in Lourdes, south of Havana.

Putin is reportedly indignant at the U.S. for what the Russian President considers to be U.S. meddling in his country’s “backyard” in Ukraine. Putin’s generosity towards Cuba is thus an attempt to wrestle back the initiative by discomfiting the United States 90 miles off the coast of Florida. But Russia’s new-found enthusiasm for Cuba has another happy side effect: just like in old times a Russian leader can ask its Cuban padawan to get its hands dirty.

[OUTLAW 09]

Homs 20+ #Assad-forces killed in battle west of Al Dar Al Kabira
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=34.787092&lon=36.681633&z=15&m=b …

Russia'n airstrike on Mansoura in Ghab plain
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.649973&lon=36.349726&z=15&m=b …

Сorrection: UAV shot down by Turkey not Orlan-10, but matches other UAV shot down in Ukraine http://ukrpravda.net/index.php?
topic=11001.0 …

RFE/RL Russian service citing Turkish military confirming downed UAV is Russian made drone https://twitter.com/SvobodaRadio/status/655012085135491073 …

Maybe it's the prototype of Orlan-10 or an early version (pre-production model)?

The Orlan-10 variant's downed by Turkey. 3D mapping (12) cameras missing.

As well as tail fin, main difference is propeller below air intake (opposite to Orlan-10)

Yes! Russian defence companies experiment every day with variations and new models.

US suggested that downed drone by Turkish Air Forces belongs to Russia
Maybe it's "Granat-Ч"
https://twitter.com/novaya_gazeta/status/655004516765585408 …

Idlib #Russia'n airstrike on Kafar Karmin 10km away from border to #Turkey http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=36.165458&lon=36.792526&z=13&m=b …

Aleppo From Mount Azzan battlefield
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIebLaoHtbY …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=36.058883&lon=37.170267&z=14&m=b …

Another last ge. Mohajer 4 UAV over Al Ghab plain.
https://youtu.be/Ct4xLgjikrg?t=1m44s …

Russian General: "one base with Navy, Air Force & ground troops components" in Syria
http://www.kp.ru/daily/26446/3316981/ …
pic.twitter.com/Mdji1omBSE

Official: The drone shot down by Turkey was a "secret" Russian technology, operated by Russians but not the Ministry of Defense.
So it was operated by the GRU????

Russia sets up contact with Turkish military after it downs aircraft
http://www.unian.info/world/1154919-russia-sets-up-contact-with-turkish-military-after-it-downs-aircraft.html …
pic.twitter.com/IcjczdwHJB

[OUTLAW 09]

Humor------

A Russian drone maker will send a bill to Turkey for cost involved in proving that its Russian drone isn't Russian.

[OUTLAW 09]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/10/16/cuba-is-intervening-in-syria-to-help-russia-it-s-not-the-first-time-havana-s-assisted-moscow.html?via=desktop&source=twitter

10.16.151:02 PM ET

Cuba Is Intervening in Syria to Help Russia. It’s Not the First Time Havana’s Assisted Moscow.

Russia doubled number of troops in #Syria to est 3,000

http://www.voanews.com/content/next-phase-of-iran-led-ground-offensive-in-syria-coming/3009287.html …
pic.twitter.com/698Iq3tMVC

[OUTLAW 09]

Russia's Low-Tech Bombing Campaign in #Syria Prone to Inflict More Collateral Damage
http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/natosource/russia-s-low-tech-bombing-campaign-in-syria-prone-to-inflict-more-collateral-damage … pic.twitter.com/CsccsKdKCq

The Syrian regime's Faustian bargain with Isis over gas: kick-ass investigation led by FT's @ErikaSolomon
pic.twitter.com/cC1PVBXkcJ

SNHR: 9 victims including 5 children & 2 women died in regime warplanes missiles fired on Kafr Karmeen in Idlib, Oct 16

Syria
Women Victims:
On Oct 15, 2015, #SNHR documented the killing of (13) women by gov forces.

[CrowBat]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/10/16/cuba-is-intervening-in-syria-to-help-russia-it-s-not-the-first-time-havana-s-assisted-moscow.html?via=desktop&source=twitterThe Daily Beast is badly wrong there: Cuba didn't become involved in Angola on something like 'request from Moscow', but on its own.

Ditto in regards of Ethiopia. Yup, Russians helped airlift Cuban troops to that country, but it was actually so that a) not only Castro was first to visit Mengistu (months before any ties betwene Addis and Moscow were established), but also b) Castro helped Mengistu convince Brezhnev to provide aid (for details see: Wings over Ogaden (Since NATO/CENTOM tech is largely deemed “superior” , the more technology (capability) the Russians can demonstrate – the less chance of the East-West confrontation?)).

It might sound 'naive', but Cubans were really convinced of 'internationalism' and 'helping Socialists in countries under Imperialist pressure'.

...and all of this is a reason more to have doubts about such reports.

[OUTLAW 09]

Syrian Network ‏@snhr
#Syria
Children Victims:
On Oct 16, 2015, #SNHR documented the killing of (7) children by gov forces.

Syria
Casualties:
#SNHR documented up to this moment, Friday Oct 16, 2015, the killing of (29) victims by gov forces

South #Aleppo front update : fighting going on in Wadihi; rebels reppelled #SAA in Sabiqiyah and Kadarah and took back tank batallion

FSA 1st Coastal Division here killing an Assad BMP with a TOW missile in Kafrdalba, #Latakia,
http://youtu.be/tzRHCCKqono

FSA 1st Coastal Division cooks another Assad tank w/ a TOW missile in Kafrajouz, #Latakia,
http://youtu.be/SLVIEM8k8Zs

FSA Southern Front cooks an Assad tank with a TOW missile in Sheikh Miskin, #Daraa,
http://youtu.be/kunxWTDOEUY

[OUTLAW 09]

South #Aleppo front update : fighting going on in Wadihi; rebels reppelled #SAA in Sabiqiyah and Kadarah and took back tank batallion

Homs #Russia'n airstrikes hit town center of Ter Maela -killed a dozen residents
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lrju1r2BG98 …
youtube.com/watch?v=uWwt_dTw9VU …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBK6dMC5e6Y …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=34.801858&lon=36.708112&z=15&m=b …

Jaysh al-Islam hunting regime soldiers with IEDs and Howitzers in Dahiyat al-Assad Mounts.
https://youtu.be/-_q0IwApVV0

Daraa From battlefield at outskirts of Shayk Maskin at former brigade 82 base https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxLcm76iZyA&feature=youtu.be …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=32.845306&lon=36.170297&z=15&m=b …

[OUTLAW 09]

Beside mercenaries, #Iranians also brought their medics & equipments to #Aleppo Azzan Mount.
https://youtu.be/qIebLaoHtbY

Iranians are not the only "all in" Assad allies, Russ brought thr jets, pilots & kitchens! I guess they don't trust Assad even with thr food

Some irony here. Cuba, after a recent diplomatic opening with the US, is sending soldiers to man Assad tanks
http://warincontext.org/2015/10/15/worst-job-in-syria-being-given-to-cubans/ …

VIDEO: See first images of drone shot down by #Turkey near #Syria.
http://reut.rs/1PnhnWL
pic.twitter.com/OjGMxQBwTq

Putin choice shouldn't be bolster Assad or let Syria collapse. Stop his attacks on civilians.
http://bit.ly/1Pmyqbx
pic.twitter.com/v8Y6AoY3iD

[OUTLAW 09]

"@JarnoLim:Will speak today:#Russia|ns(and others)are testing the boundaries of #cyber-#battlefield.
pic.twitter.com/ysi5Vp2N1z"

[OUTLAW 09]

Michael Weiss ✔ @michaeldweiss
Johann Hari just said Syria is a result of global warming. Yes, I remember the greenhouse effect gassing 1,500 in Damascus.


Julia Davis @JuliaDavisNews
Syrian Government Forces, Backed by Russian Jets, Strike at Rebel-Held Towns (instead of ISIS)
http://nyti.ms/1k7TWnE