Syria in 2016 (January-March) [Archive] - Page 11

OUTLAW 09

03-10-2016, 02:00 PM

Perfect example of just why the current Obama WH has foundered in their approach to dealing with IS and yes even AQ...remember SWJ recently carried a MSM article stating publicly that the Obama WH had this great Syrian IS strategy that was working...it just needed some more messaging in order for us poor folks to understand that it was working........

NOW it is clear that the Obama tilt towards Iran is indeed a full scale tilt to the disadvantage of the Sunni's in the entire ME...never thought I would see a sitting US President state that just as he states clearly the Ukraine is in the Russian "sphere of influence"....this article is a clear signal that he backing the US out of Europe and the ME and clearly defines him as a retrenching Wilsonian President.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/10/wo...smtyp=cur&_r=0

WHAT is extremely interesting is that both the Saudi's and the Turks have stated multiple times when the US SecDef and or Obama asked for assistance in combatting IS in Syria..."you led and we will follow"....and "we will provide plenty of troops and aircraft".....BUT nothing except silence came back from the US. He also failed in the article to fully indicate that the Saudi's and the Turks offered numerous times to help institute a NFZ that would have avoided the large number of current refugees....AND Obama remained silent....

The first sentence is telling....in all my years of following international relations I NEVER have seen two arch rival regional hegemons EVER share the same battle space.....life is not that perfect??...ESPECIALLY when it entails the sectarian rivalry between Sunni and Shia for the global leadership of the Muslim world.

WASHINGTON — President Obama believes that Saudi Arabia, one of America’s most important allies in the Middle East, needs to learn how to “share” the region with its archenemy, Iran, and that both countries are guilty of fueling proxy wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

In a series of interviews with The Atlantic magazine published Thursday, Mr. Obama said a number of American allies in the Persian Gulf — as well as in Europe — were “free riders,” eager to drag the United States into grinding sectarian conflicts that sometimes had little to do with American interests. He showed little sympathy for the Saudis, who have been threatened by the nuclear deal Mr. Obama reached with Iran.

The Saudis, Mr. Obama told Jeffrey Goldberg, the magazine’s national correspondent, “need to find an effective way to share the neighborhood and institute some sort of cold peace.” Reflexively backing them against Iran, the president said, “would mean that we have to start coming in and using our military power to settle scores. And that would be in the interest neither of the United States nor of the Middle East.”

So if we intently look at this article.....I am not sure even Obama fully understands the depth and breadth of the current sectarian divide that is between Iran and the KSA.

If anything this article will actually cement in the minds of the Saudi's and the GCC that the US is no longer a "trusted partner"....just ask the Israeli's who stood up Obama last week in their no we are not coming to visit you...WHY Obama had promised extra military aid to win over the Israeli's during the Iran Deal which has simply stopped going anywhere and was not even followed up on by Obama after the Iran Deal cleared Congress.

So even the Israeli's "mistrust" Obama.....they are now simply waiting for the next incoming President who will have to dig themselves out of a very deep deep cave in the ME.

In seven years this President has basically driven 70 years of US ME FP into the sands of the ME.....

BTW...after this article makes the rounds in the ME and Europe...not so sure Obama is going to find any further support for US actions against IS...as the ME and Europe will on their own figure out what to do.

OUTLAW 09

03-10-2016, 02:29 PM

BTW..the Obama comments on Libya are quiet a rewrite of history..as someone deeply involved in the targeting process the US under Obama guidance was immediately the first one's into Libya and then handed off to NATO..ALL the while still maintaining "high touch" on the bombing, intel support and logistical side with a strong contingent of US fighter aircraft/drones but under NATO.

After the hand off to NATO the Obama WH went into a denial period...meaning NATO is running all of it now....and really failed to tell the US public just how deeply we were still involved and now he comes out blaming the French and the UK for getting the US involved?????

Obama "smokescreens" the US public just about as good as Putin does the Russian public.

OUTLAW 09

03-10-2016, 04:50 PM

I previously mentioned an Obama "informational smokescreen"...here it is in full action with an attempt to rewrite a tad bit history and place his legacy in the center of the article: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-obama-doctrine/4...

The Obama Doctrine

The U.S. president talks through his hardest decisions about America’s role in the world. By Jeffrey Goldberg

NOTE: The following comment is a tad off base...check an interview that Kerry had together with the Russian FM where he during a reporters question went off the reservation and stated..."we could see a strike not being carried out if the chemical weapons were removed"....when he was called out on the statement by the same reporter he hesitated and repeated it...then the Russian response was immediately there two days later..THIS had nothing to do with the G20 meeting....Kerry is known for veering off base during press conferences and this was debated by the MSM for a number of days after he said it as being just one of those moments.
Notice the comment...and ask yourself ..why would he pull Putin to the side after he had already made the announcement to not strike???

At the G20 summit in St. Petersburg, which was held the week after the Syria reversal, Obama pulled Putin aside, he recalled to me, and told the Russian president “that if he forced Assad to get rid of the chemical weapons, that that would eliminate the need for us taking a military strike.” Within weeks, Kerry, working with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, would engineer the removal of most of Syria’s chemical-weapons arsenal—a program whose existence Assad until then had refused to even acknowledge.

NOTE: There is a tendency by Obama to negate certain countries......while this comment applies to KSA...some in Ukraine point to his lack of interest in helping Ukraine with defensive ATGMs as he was a major Senate sponsor of a disarmament bill that destroyed literally tons of munitions and weapons that were urgently needed by the UAF during their earlier days of fighting with the Russian invasion force and the Obama total reluctance to use the word "invasion" instead of his preferred word....."incursion".......ALSO is one looks at the Kerry demands placed on the HNC to basically surrender and give in to Assad...THERE is no difference in his statements that with a "little effort and some good faith" the sanctions could be pulled off Russia and it does not include the US demands placed on Ukraine for a number of unilateral appeasement moves that Russia wanted...all without a single reciprocal move made by Putin......
BTW...we have seen this same tendency to negate the general US public as being incapable of understanding his very own Syrian IS strategy he claims is working so well and it is the fault of the US public and foreign leaders that they simply do not get it and need more "messaging"...in order to understand it fully.

The Saudis, too, were infuriated. They had never trusted Obama—he had, long before he became president, referred to them as a “so-called ally” of the U.S. “Iran is the new great power of the Middle East, and the U.S. is the old,” Jubeir, the Saudi ambassador in Washington, told his superiors in Riyadh.
NOTE: Obama is quick to negate farmers, carpenters and engineers who have after five long years of fighting Assad become a very professional urban warfare militia and who has basically been fighting IS for the last three years as well as now dodging Russian air strikes...HAD he simply provided weapons and support IS would have been cornered a long while ago.....BUT he did not..WHY...many point to his not wanting to jeopardize his Iran Deal by siding with the Sunni farmers, carpenters and engineers.....BUT what did we get out of the Obama WH smokescreen...one really long debate on "what and who are the moderate forces" when ALL along he knew they were farmers, carpenters and engineers who were being radicalized by a genocidal dictator.........

Obama flipped this plea on its head. “When you have a professional army,” he once told me, “that is well armed and sponsored by two large states”—Iran and Russia—“who have huge stakes in this, and they are fighting against a farmer, a carpenter, an engineer who started out as protesters and suddenly now see themselves in the midst of a civil conflict …” He paused. “The notion that we could have—in a clean way that didn’t commit U.S. military forces—changed the equation on the ground there was never true.”
NOTE: How often has Obama told the US public that IS is not an existential threat"....cannot remember him ever saying this publicly......

“Isis is not an existential threat to the United States,” he told me in one of these conversations.

NOTE: with the previous article and statements that Obama was angry at "partners riding US coat tails"...DOES this sound like a US leading anyone anywhere? Has Obama provided deep US leadership in say eastern Ukraine, Crimea and or Syria...not really......he has basically allowed the EU, NATO, Assad, Iran and the UN to take the lead.......Notice Kerry made a big to do with the delivery of humanitarian aid to the approximately 470K besieged and hard to get to Syrian population...WELL it has not be delivered and yet he says not a single word......

But he also has come to learn, he told me, that very little is accomplished in international affairs without U.S. leadership.

OUTLAW 09

03-10-2016, 05:35 PM

The German BILD MSM news outlet has been at the forefront of fighting the Russian info war concerning accurate reporting from both Ukraine and now Syria AT the same time and they have not shied away from the brutal reality genocidal photos of Russian air strikes.....nor of what Russia is doing in eastern Ukraine....

There is only one word for this: #Censorship, which is forbidden according to the German basic law.
We must continue to show the reality!

Julian Reichelt ‏@jreichelt · 2h2 hours ago
Kommission für Jugendmedienschutz will @BILD verbieten, Fotos aus dem Syrien-Krieg zu zeigen. Wir werden uns wehren!

Outrageous!
German "Youth Media Protection" wants us to stop showing #Assad's crimes and stop calling him "devil".

Here @jreichelt explains why we will not comply with this demand:
In German....
Julian Reichelt Verified account 
‏@jreichelt
Und hier der Link dazu:
http://www.bild.de/politik/inland/syrien-krise/jugenschuetzer-ruegt-bild-wegen-kriegsfotos-44882190.bild.html …

In some aspects...why does not the US MSM get brave enough to copy what BILD is doing....then we might be seeing a far far different Obama WH.....

OUTLAW 09

03-10-2016, 06:02 PM

RUSSIA mercenaries "learning" #Hezbollah terrorists "chants"..
#Syria

More than 50 #SAA terrorists exterminated by #Jaysh_alIslam in 2 days of heavy clashes in E #Ghouta
#Syria MAR 10

SCD rescue operation aftermath #RUSSIA airstrikes targeting #alBara city in #Ariha #Idlib cs #Syria MAR 10

RUSSIA airstrikes targeted a Detergent & Chemicals Factory in #Maarat_alNouman, no martyrs
#Idlib #Syria MAR 10

Russia warplanes carried out airstrikes targeting #Ramouse neighborhood moments ago
#Aleppo #Syria MAR 10

RUSSIA airstrikes targeting the Archaeological site of #Palmyra earlier today
#Homs cs #Syria MAR 10

SAA terrorists shelling targeted #SCD Rescue facilities in #Douma plus 3 martyrs
#Damascus cs #Syria MAR 10

3 martyrs including 2 children,several wounded victims of #SAA terrorists shelling on #Douma #Syria MAR 10

Disarming the PMN-2 Anti-Personnel Blast Mine
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/50296798/Disarming%20the%20PMN-2%20Anti-Personnel%20Blast%20Mine.pdf …

Caution: mine setters are known to booby-trap mines they place with secondary mines with pull fuzes and pressure plates

CrowBat

03-10-2016, 06:02 PM

CrowBat......one comment for you......

RuAF Su-25 spotted with 4*fuel tanks ,over #Lattakia #Syria
That IS interesting. Su-25 is quite short-ranged.

OUTLAW 09

03-10-2016, 06:03 PM

Obama Doctrine:
1-question Israel security edge
2-don't treat Saudis as allies
3-Iran outreach

Image of Pres Obama by the end @JeffreyGoldberg intv: disdainful of US allies, resentful of US responsibilities, sympathetic to Iran

Obama describes exact concert system in Middle East that @Doranimated has arg'd is end-goal of O's regional policies

On "balance" or "equilibrium" between allies and enemies in the Middle East.

The demand to be evenhanded between Riyadh and Tehran misses the insight of Ibn Hazm , given a millennium ago…”If you treat your friend and your enemy the same, you will arouse distaste for your friendships and contempt for your enmity and you will not be long for this world.”

OUTLAW 09

03-10-2016, 06:38 PM

Appears that social media is winning against the Russian and Syrian info warfare...

Lavrov calls Kerry to ask him to stop the "anti-Russian campaign" in the Western press.
http://www.interfax.ru/world/497960

OUTLAW 09

03-10-2016, 07:11 PM

OUTLAW 09

03-10-2016, 07:19 PM

Perfect example of just why the current Obama WH has foundered in their approach to dealing with IS and yes even AQ...remember SWJ recently carried a MSM article stating publicly that the Obama WH had this great Syrian IS strategy that was working...it just needed some more messaging in order for us poor folks to understand that it was working........

NOW it is clear that the Obama tilt towards Iran is indeed a full scale tilt to the disadvantage of the Sunni's in the entire ME...never thought I would see a sitting US President state that just as he states clearly the Ukraine is in the Russian "sphere of influence"....this article is a clear signal that he backing the US out of Europe and the ME and clearly defines him as a retrenching Wilsonian President.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/10/wo...smtyp=cur&_r=0

WHAT is extremely interesting is that both the Saudi's and the Turks have stated multiple times when the US SecDef and or Obama asked for assistance in combatting IS in Syria..."you led and we will follow"....and "we will provide plenty of troops and aircraft".....BUT nothing except silence came back from the US. He also failed in the article to fully indicate that the Saudi's and the Turks offered numerous times to help institute a NFZ that would have avoided the large number of current refugees....AND Obama remained silent....

The first sentence is telling....in all my years of following international relations I NEVER have seen two arch rival regional hegemons EVER share the same battle space.....life is not that perfect??...ESPECIALLY when it entails the sectarian rivalry between Sunni and Shia for the global leadership of the Muslim world.

So if we intently look at this article.....I am not sure even Obama fully understands the depth and breadth of the current sectarian divide that is between Iran and the KSA.

If anything this article will actually cement in the minds of the Saudi's and the GCC that the US is no longer a "trusted partner"....just ask the Israeli's who stood up Obama last week in their no we are not coming to visit you...WHY Obama had promised extra military aid to win over the Israeli's during the Iran Deal which has simply stopped going anywhere and was not even followed up on by Obama after the Iran Deal cleared Congress.

So even the Israeli's "mistrust" Obama.....they are now simply waiting for the next incoming President who will have to dig themselves out of a very deep deep cave in the ME.

In seven years this President has basically driven 70 years of US ME FP into the sands of the ME.....

BTW...after this article makes the rounds in the ME and Europe...not so sure Obama is going to find any further support for US actions against IS...as the ME and Europe will on their own figure out what to do.

When Syrians thought USA won't let atrocities happen, when Amb. Ford drove 2 Hama
http://youtu.be/oI5S1IVwUyo ..
But what do u do whn ur let dwn?

OUTLAW 09

03-10-2016, 08:09 PM

Assad's reply to the #SyriaCeasefire: Bombing fire fighters east of #Damascus.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZYNywIPZdM&feature=youtu.be …

We've seen this plate-carriers/ammo rigs before... #FSA #Syria
https://twitter.com/AbraxasSpa/status/670555936424095744 … +
https://twitter.com/AbraxasSpa/status/670557938843561984 …

Great footage
#US-backed Kurdish #FSA & Turkish-ba. Sunni #FSA fight side by side vs. #ISIS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ck_aFRxWizg …

Footage
Faylaq Al-Sham with "new" weapons and ammunition vs. #ISIS north of #Aleppo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9Ez4tmq-Uo …

MFA Russia
✔ ‎@mfa_russia The statements of the US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter about the need to deter and pressure Russia inadmissible http://sptnkne.ws/aPhs

Footage
#Assad regime air strike on #EastGhouta in ignorance of the #SyriaCeasefire.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo6rWaG14gE …

Footage
Just another day where #Assad forces ignore the #SyriaCeasefire east of #Damascus.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTGjjdTrUkE …

NewsMap
#FreeSyrianArmy forces have liberated #QaraKubri from #ISIS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z99HBFVrcXQ …

BreakingFootage
#Russian jets perform multiple strikes on civilians in #Palmyra.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuSVsqFDvIc …

70 #ISIL militants killed or wounded in scores of airstrikes by Syrian & Russian warplanes on #Palmyra #Homs - SOHR

Cool map by @CarterCenter showing each faction's territorial control over the course of 2015
http://www.cartercenter.org/syria-conflict-map/ …

OUTLAW 09

03-10-2016, 08:33 PM

OUTLAW 09

03-10-2016, 08:40 PM

Saudi FM: GCC to take further actions against #Hezbollah
http://ow.ly/ZhPRt

The Rise of the Hybrid Warriors: From Ukraine to the Middle East by @DouglasOllivant
http://warontherocks.com/2016/03/the-rise-of-the-hybrid-warriors-from-ukraine-to-the-middle-east/ …
Well worth reading......

CrowBat

03-11-2016, 07:05 AM

CrowBat......what do you think of this...appears that the "media blackout" means the NSA and FSA is getting close to taking Palmyra

Syrian journalist claims Russian reinforcements are heading towards Palmyra consisting of dozens of vehicles+arty

Are they racing to beat NSA and FSA...would explain the extremely heavy Assad and Russian air strikes there today....??
Nope. It means the Daesh is right when claiming they killed scores of NDF, BPM, PFLP-GC, and Hezbollah in battles through the ancient ruins on the western side of Palmyra, the last two days.

...which is a big surprise, really, then Col Botox... erm... Col Sohail Hassan and his Tiger Force seem to know only form of attack: frontal.

...while 'Russian CAS' is provided as usually: in form of carpet-bombing of Palmyra...

Sigh... well, it's much too late for a good part of local population, the Bell temple and plenty of other artefacts there, most of locals are anti-Assad anyway... and that egomaniac with illusions of grandeur in the White House is so proud of himself... so, why should anybody care...

CrowBat

03-11-2016, 07:11 AM

NOTE: Obama is quick to negate farmers, carpenters and engineers who have after five long years of fighting Assad become a very professional urban warfare militia and who has basically been fighting IS for the last three years as well as now dodging Russian air strikes...He's foremost diving into illusions that these 'farmers, carpenters, and enginers' are all alone - and not consisting to about 50% of professional, well-educated officers and NCOs that defected from that famed 'SAA'.

Thanks to him, I'm definitely convinced that the US foreign policy for the Middle East belongs being disabled per some sort of international order, and White House and State Department should get banned from even thinking about this area, not to talk about meddling there.

OUTLAW 09

03-11-2016, 12:28 PM

Key powers mulling possibility of federal division of Syria
http://reut.rs/1pbzvZ7

Current situation in north #Aleppo province #Syria #ISIS #FSA #SDF #TwitterKurds fullsize
http://mediafire.com/convkey/b6ff/z2eibksxdk1rdfxzg.jpg …

How Syria's Assad gave rise to one of the most senior IS leaders
http://is.gd/MnP9N4

Without taking Qizil Mazra'ah, this is a dangerous move as ISIS suicide attackers could approach the village from three sides.

More footage of the city yesterday which was also under #Assad regime helicopter attack.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9U_chNPeQA …

NewsMap
Pro-#Assad militias claim recapture of #Sardah and #AlQulayaah east of #Khanaser from #ISIS.

Meaning they either lost the whole area east of #Khanaser during the recent #ISIS push (as denied) OR they didn't & this is only propaganda.

OUTLAW 09

03-11-2016, 12:31 PM

Footage
Life returns to #Huraytan after months of Russian bombings killed more than 100.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnkTFsxyjBM …

Surprise!
#Assad's masters don't see a single ceasefire violation by their puppet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7uYqp0uGXE …

Yesterday........
Footage
#KafrNabudah
#Assad's criminal gangs ignore the #SyriaCeasefire, shelling it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmMxGqpqJxI …

OUTLAW 09

03-11-2016, 12:37 PM

Assad shelling of Bala fields in E. Ghouta continues today. No casualties reported but lots of material damage.

Residents of Waer in #Homs held a protest demanding the release of detainees in Assad's prisons

Opposition Defeat ISIS And Regime Forces In Daraa Countryside
http://fb.me/7fkPnrn8M

National defense militia threatens to execute military leaders of (YPG)
http://en.eldorar.com/node/1711

A fighter from Liwa Hamza talks about the liberation of Qara Kubri in north rural #Aleppo from #ISIS today
http://youtu.be/Z99HBFVrcXQ

Interview with one of Faylaq al-Sham’s commanders on the liberation of Qara Kubri from #ISIS in north rural #Aleppo
http://youtu.be/VXvs1AO7WlQ

At least 30 bodies belonging to regime/Iraqi militias/Hezbollah on the Marj Fadayiya front in E. Ghouta, #Damascus
http://youtu.be/rhZxQoWQcm4

Palmyra LCC declares the city a disaster zone as Russia & the regime bomb the entire city to pieces.

OUTLAW 09

03-11-2016, 12:41 PM

You killed us,
Tortured us,
Starved us,
Displaced us,
Destroyed our homes,
But failed to kill our resolve

Demonstrations against Assad were being held today in virtually all the towns and villages under anti Assad opposition forces control......

Boy Ahmad Abdullah Hassan from #Nahleh,tortured to death by #ASSad Regime after 3years arrested
#Idlib #Syria MAR 10

Message from #Aleppo to #Idlib..
"Your olive is a revelation, don't give up on their back.."
#TheRevolutionContinues

Douma now.
Syrians stage new protest, demanding the downfall of the regime.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-DBDdGuusk …

NOT sure just why Assad and Putin felt they could hold so called elections on 13 April in all of Syria.......

OUTLAW 09

03-11-2016, 01:41 PM

Two BMPs destroyed by two HJ-8 ATGMs fired by fighters of the Islamic State, Tadmur front.

OUTLAW 09

03-11-2016, 04:12 PM

JN militants tried to take over a anti-regime protest in Maarat alNuman but were told to go away by people

MaaratAlNuman in #Idlib today.
I see ONE jihadi islamist flag.
All others #FreeSyria.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5U9SPX-22Q …

Atarib protests vs. #Assad today.
Still no images of the alleged air strikes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0crzeNvGmE …

More #Assad air strikes on #EastGhouta today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkSUDRnZdkU …
#SyriaCeasefire Breach

Nusra demanded ppl in #Idlib to not wave #FreeSyria flags.
They rejected.
#Assad would have killed them.

Footage
Air strikes on #Harasta by the #Assad regime.
The #SyriaCeasefire is NOT holding.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKhpvmgwqnw …

Wow...
Syrian people in a #refugee camp near #Azaz demand the downfall of the #Assad regime
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWcDE-WN2ac …

Hobait under thick smoke after the attack by the butcher's troops.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQbfI6IoJno …

KafrZita today.
#FreeSyria and islamist flags during protest vs. the regime.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlBBZZK0GIM …

OUTLAW 09

03-11-2016, 04:15 PM

BreakingFootage
The #Assad regime shells near a funeral in #Daraa city.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KF4ISZF9IuQ …

BREAKING
Intense #Assad attacks on #Hobait during peaceful demonstrations in the town!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qJckzHROBE …

Hobait today.
The people want the downfall of the regime.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bvRdhpfrrI …

The demonstration in #Atarib before the reported air strike on it.
BreakingNews
A war plane attacked an anti-regime demonstration in #Atarib some minutes ago.

This is all over #Syria today.
Thousands protest the DEVIL #Assad and his allies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RngFn9Bwbt4 …

7 dead after airstrike on #Aleppo city Salheen district
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=36.180493&lon=37.167006&z=15&m=b …

OUTLAW 09

03-11-2016, 04:20 PM

CrowBat..........two items.

1. watched the closing Northern Thunder KSA and Arab Army exercise parade.....was it a not so subtle warning to Assad, Putin, Khamenei that in fact they would cross the border??.....also a not so subtle warning to Obama that his so called "cold peace" for the region runs through the Saudi's???

Watch now Live, "North Thunder" military parade, #KSA #Jordan......
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQq0d1LEL7M …

2. noticed a Russian AF uptick in actual air strikes on several towns where they were holding major political demos against Assad...appeared the air strikes were designed to kill the demonstrators.....

The Russians will probably argue they were targeting JaN who also participated in the demos.......

OUTLAW 09

03-11-2016, 04:28 PM

FSA try to storm Yani Yaban (Al-Judaydah) in northern #Aleppo -held by #IS
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=36.616630&lon=37.266397&z=14&m=b …

Two airstrikes hit al Fadaiya village in Eastern Ghouta that witnesses voilent clashes between rebels and regime forces.

Regime aircraft strafed the Castello road in Aleppo

Rebels fended off a regime attack on al Mallah area north of Aleppo last night

Regime launched artillery and missile attacks on the rebel held areas of Turkman and Akrad mountains in northern Lattakia

Death toll rises to 10 martyrs so far and dozens wounded victims of Russia airstrikes on #alSaliheen neighborhood
#Aleppo #Syria MAR 11

Regime Axis forces are amassing Ammunition and forces in Khalkalah Airbase in preparation to launch an offensive in Daraa.

OUTLAW 09

03-11-2016, 04:31 PM

NOTICE the UN says nothing about the Assad parliamentary elections 13 April ....

Urgent (Reuters) - De Mistura: the presidential election will be held in #Syria in 18 months.

Regime try to lay several towns & villages under siege
in eastern #Ghouta
Heavy bombing by air & ground -clashes continues

UN Number of people living under regime sieged in #Syria have doubled the past year (250.000 up to 500.000 now)

Helicopter dropped barrel bombs on Kafr Nabudah in N- #Hama
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTAqXOu-E4s …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9U_chNPeQA …

BREAKING
Several #RUSSIA airstrikes targeted #alMaadi, #alSaliheen, #alMarja neighborhoods & #alCastello Road
#Aleppo #Syria MAR 11

OUTLAW 09

03-11-2016, 04:50 PM

Syria opposition to go to peace talks, says Assad escalating war
http://reut.rs/1Rcdy2w

OUTLAW 09

03-11-2016, 05:53 PM

https://kyleorton1991.wordpress.com/2016/03/11/barack-obama-comes-clean/

REALLY worth reading.....

Barack Obama Comes Clean

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on March 11, 2016

Yesterday, Jeffrey Goldberg’s latest interview with President Obama was published. There have been numerous worthwhile takes on what is a very revealing conversation, such as Max Boot and Nibras Kazimi, and it is very difficult to quarrel with the conclusion of David Frum that “the dominant theme of these interviews is that we, all of us, have grievously let down the president,” who has exactly one self-criticism: “Obama admits he does not make sufficient allowances for how unreasonable other people are.” What I think deserves most attention is that the President has finally aligned his rhetoric, especially on Iran, with his actual foreign policy.

The key passage is this:

[Obama] went on to say that the Saudis need to “share” the Middle East with their Iranian foes. “The competition between the Saudis and the Iranians—which has helped to feed proxy wars and chaos in Syria and Iraq and Yemen—requires us to say to our friends as well as to the Iranians that they need to find an effective way to share the neighborhood and institute some sort of cold peace,” he said. “An approach that said to our friends ‘You are right, Iran is the source of all problems, and we will support you in dealing with Iran’ would essentially mean that as these sectarian conflicts continue to rage and our Gulf partners, our traditional friends, do not have the ability to put out the flames on their own or decisively win on their own, and would mean that we have to start coming in and using our military power to settle scores. And that would be in the interest neither of the United States nor of the Middle East.”

Some of us have long argued that, despite what the President says in public, his actual policy as executed is the pursuit of détente with the Islamic Republic of Iran, using the nuclear agreement as a facilitator. The President came in with one overwhelming goal: to draw down U.S. resources in the region. By deputizing Iran to protect core U.S. interests, such as this malign fantasy that the U.S. and Tehran share an interest in defeating the Islamic State (IS), while creating an “equilibrium” that protects Iranian “equities,” it would allow an order to take shape that did not require the U.S. to police it. By definition this meant empowering Iran against its neighbors, notably the Gulf States, since Iran had heretofore been contained. Here Obama confirms virtually every point of that argument.

In this time of isolationism in the West, this vision is likely to appeal well beyond the Democratic Party’s base. This is a troubled vision, however.

For one thing it neglects the wisdom of Ibn Hazm, who explained a millennium ago: “If you treat your friend and enemy the same, you will arouse distaste for your friendships and contempt for your enmity and you will not be long for this world.” Obama “is clearly irritated that foreign-policy orthodoxy compels him to treat Saudi Arabia as an ally,” Goldberg writes, and given some of the things Riyadh has done, one has a measure of sympathy. (One is even more sympathetic to Obama’s view of Pakistan.) But, first, the Saudi regime of 2016 is not the Saudi regime of 1996 when it comes to foreign policy. Second, if one wants to strengthen negative trends within Saudi foreign policy, making them feel isolated is a pretty good way to go about it. The dawning realization they were alone has already had the Saudis reconcile with Qatar and support the Jaysh al-Fatah alliance in Syria, which contains groups Riyadh had previously shunned. Third, and more to the point, it is not only the Saudis that Obama has alienated; it is virtually every ally in the Middle East that feels betrayed by the United States. For a President so intent on avoiding massive, unilateral U.S. military action, it makes no sense to turn allies overboard in the search of conciliating adversaries: if something happens that compels the U.S. to act, Obama has left himself—and, at least for a time, his successors—no levers to use except the massive, unilateral one.

The vision fails because any notion of “balance” between the Iranian revolution and its neighbours is a mirage. The clerical regime does not intend to take the U.S. offer to “share” in bringing order to the region; Tehran intends to upend the entire U.S.-underwritten structure and replace it with Iranian hegemony—a project in which it is now receiving Russian help. Thus, “balance” is ceding the region to Iran under another name. On paper the Gulf States have military prowess that dwarfs Iran’s. In reality, Iran has asymmetric structures like the Quds Force, the expeditionary wing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps led by Qassem Suleimani, which the Gulf States do not, capable of terrorism and subversion in a way the Gulf States cannot match. Indeed both Obama and John Kerry have lamented that the Arabs do not have a Quds Force or a Suleimani, something and someone who can get things done.

This is perhaps the largest problem of all for Obama’s vision: Iran simply cannot do what he wants it to—namely bring order to the region. Iran does not want order, of course: the IS threat is very helpful in keeping Iran’s client governments in Baghdad and Damascus pliable and in inducing concessions from the Americans, plus IS’s caliphate covers areas in western Iraq and eastern Syria dominated by Sunni tribes that Iran knows it could not rule even if it wanted to. And if Iran tried to move into the Sunni Arab zones, as it has done in parts of Iraq, through its rabidly sectarian Shi’i jihadist militias, the result is terrible destruction, demographic engineering, and the setting of the stage for long-term instability.

The lesson of Iraq and the Awakening was that to defeat IS it required empowering local Sunnis to take care of their own security. This was so successful that IS itself recommended, in its post-Surge policy post-mortem (yes they really have them) that this “clever, bold idea” be annexed. Obama’s political disengagement, long before the military pull-out, from Iraq allowed the Awakening forces to wither under the dual onslaught of an Iranian-backed government that saw armed Sunnis as a coup menace and IS who saw them as traitors to the cause. The President then failed to seriously engage with the Syrian rebellion because Syria has been given to Iran as a sphere of influence in this new order. This left Sunni populations with the horrific choice of the Islamic State or the Islamic Republic, and in the circumstances they will pick the former. Iran’s presence, and especially that of its proxy regime in Syria, is not a bulwark against IS; it is a spur to IS.

There are many other revealing snippets in the interview where the President appears to feel the time for truth is upon us—even if it does not quite align with the known facts of objective reality.

Obama has a major problem with “free riders” on the American security system, specifically Europe. This complaint is the equivalent of the “waste, fraud, and abuse” slogan in budgetary debates—a Europe that disarms itself because America guarantees its security is annoying, but it means they can’t fight each other and suck America into a global cataclysm (again). Blaming the Europeans and Libyans for the lack of follow-through after the deposition of Muammar el-Qaddafi is especially rich, though. Obama announces himself “very proud” of his decision on August 30, 2013, to stand down from his threat to punish Bashar al-Assad for gassing to death 1,400 people nine days earlier.

Continued......

The “deal” orchestrated by Vladimir Putin—to decommission Assad’s chemical weapons in exchange for sparing the dictator military strikes—has of course never been fulfilled: while the deal lasts Assad is legitimized as a partner in disarmament, so Assad and the Kremlin have ensured the process lasts forever. Meanwhile, Assad has switched to gassing civilians with chlorine, and paid no price.

Continued............

Goldberg reminds us that Obama’s advisors didn’t know he was going to lay down the red line and that Kerry and Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel weren’t in the room when Obama decided to throw the matter to Congress, and it’s extremely interesting to see that Kerry has advised—repeatedly—that Obama undertake limited strikes against Assad to pressure him in the negotiations. In other words, some of Obama’s officials understand, as apparently the President does not (or will not), that military action is part of a political settlement in Syria, not its antithesis. But even as the Syria crisis widens from a regional crisis to one threatening Europe and the Atlantic Alliance, “Obama has not recategorized the country’s civil war as a top-tier security threat,” and continues to take the view that he is letting Russia make a mistake in Syria—despite Moscow having stabilized Assad and weaponized the refugee flow it is causing against the European Union.

The President’s remarks on Russia are especially troubling. It is true, as Obama says, that Russia does not control the layout of paperwork or the order of discussion at G20 meetings. It is also unfortunately true that Russia controls Crimea and large sections of eastern Ukraine and western Syria. One wonders what the Baltics make of a U.S. President saying, in public, of Ukraine, a European State with a third of its territory under occupation by Moscow and its capital penetrated and assaulted by Moscow’s intelligence agencies, that it “is going to be vulnerable to military domination by Russia no matter what we do.” This shredding of the post-Cold War order apparently does not worry the President. It “doesn’t suddenly make [Putin] a player,” Obama says.

Continued...........

OUTLAW 09

03-11-2016, 06:09 PM

https://kyleorton1991.wordpress.com/2016/03/11/barack-obama-comes-clean/

REALLY worth reading.....

Barack Obama Comes Clean

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on March 11, 2016

Obama has basically signaled to the Saudi's that they are on their own now and cannot trust the US...thus you will see KSA becoming far more aggressive in Obama's own words....." a cold peace"......

FRANCE 24
✔ ‎@FRANCE24 #ArabLeague declares Lebanon's #Hezbollah 'terror' group (official)
http://f24.my/YTliveEN

This is just the beginning and Obama has virtually no further influence in the Arab Sunni world....as he burnt his bridge with the KSA and the rest of the GCC.

OUTLAW 09

03-11-2016, 06:55 PM

Analysis of Russian PSYOPs in Syria. Russian Staged Shelling. Part 2:
https://informnapalm.org/en/mar10-syria-staged-reports/ … via @en_informnapalm

They lost a big battle yesterday. #Russia|ns now launching massive revenge strikes on #Palmyra & city

U.S. rocket artillery strikes in Syria last week were fired from HIMARS in Jordan.

MUSTREAD
Excl. interview by @bjoernstritzel w/the commander of "The grandsons of Saladin".
http://www.bild.de/politik/ausland/kurden/neue-hoffnung-gegen-isis-44891658.bild.html …

OUTLAW 09

03-12-2016, 07:33 AM

Another Russian SS21 TBM fired during what the Russians call "cessation of hostilities" ...fired at a town not under JaN or Is control and Russia knows this....and they can twist and turn but in the end they lie about JaN being there....

News
A ballistic missile hits #Hobait today.
They callthis a "widely respected ceasefire".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84CC4p5b4Ss …

ANOTHER town cleared of IS....all done by Syrian Sunni's as it should be.....
Syria: video of #FSA rebels declaring the village Yan Yaban (N #Aleppo) cleared from #Daesh
https://youtu.be/juijKe_oVYw

Arab League brands Hezbollah as terrorist org seems the price GCC requested for backing Abu al-Ghayt for Sec-General
http://apne.ws/1pdinSE

As people peacfully return to the streets against Assad, Russian bombing kill at least 10 in Salihayn, #Aleppo yesterday

OUTLAW 09

03-12-2016, 07:39 AM

Reports that Major General Ali Amar, head of Assad’s central region, was killed east of #Homs, #Syria yesterday
Killed by IS.......

Syria #Idleb
"[We prefer] death over humiliation" #تجديد_العهد
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2DA4ogp_fA …

Syria: anti-regime protest in Mare' (N #Aleppo) people shout 'azadi!' (Kurdish) and 'Arabs and Kurds are one!'

OUTLAW 09

03-12-2016, 07:40 AM

........it has always been about civil societies and their wants and needs as defined by themselves and not by the Russians and or the US.

Syria truce gave people a chance to remind us that the war began w/ a dictator & his crimes
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/10/the-guardian-view-o... …

AFTER five long years of genocide, starvation, refugee flows, torture and disappearance the Syrian civil society when there is a moment of "quiet" gets back to what they did best in 2011, peaceful demonstrations against Assad.

While Obama constantly hides behind the "smokescreen of disinformation" that there is not a "moderate force to be seen in Syrian"....there is and they have been fighting IS for over four years.

Remember it was Obama that stated...."farmers carpenters and engineers" cannot be trusted to form an effective fighting force" which has been defying Assad, his major Iranian backed Shia mercenary army, IS and now dodging Russian bombs...FOR a long five years....

DID Obama totally forget the American Revolution which was also founded on farmers, carpenters and engineers which fought for HOW long and in the end accepted foreign assistance to defeat a major power.....and there is no similarity between the US and Syrian revolutions????

BUT WAIT Obama forgot along the way to the WH his own history....and all that Harvard education cannot overcome that simple fact.

BTW...Obama claims now to be a "progressive realist"...first of all he has never been a "progressive" as progressives were and are able to think out of the box and he has really never been a "realist" as a "realist" would be able to fully recognize "genocide"....

OUTLAW 09

03-12-2016, 11:36 AM

BREAKING: After phone call between Netanyahu & Hollande, @Eutelsat_SA to stop Hamas's Al-Aqsa TV broadcasts, Israeli official says

Aftermath of another heinous #Assad air strike on #Aleppo city that killed 10, inj. 12 yday
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SrA14VUVIk …

Syria Airstrikes on Kinada in #Latakia mountains
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=35.766328&lon=36.208534&z=15&m=b …

Damascus Several airstrikes on Marj as-Sultan area / eastern Ghouta
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=33.497387&lon=36.478128&z=15&m=b …

Airstrikes on rebels in Ghranattah in northern #Homs
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=34.898181&lon=36.681547&z=14&m=b …

Regime airstrikes on Kafr Nabudah with barrel bombs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UyYLnxZrqU …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.432631&lon=36.496840&z=14&m=b …

Syria Huge Protest in #Azaz town in N-#Aleppo yesterday
but nothing Tel Rifat bc seized by #YPG

Arabs and Kurds are one!" | Kurdish FSA fighters join the protest in Marea yesterday
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lpAn-VzmBE …

OUTLAW 09

03-12-2016, 11:37 AM

Obama in his interview outlining what he viewed as a high successful FP for the last seven years stated the following;

...."when one is nothing but farmers, carpenters and engineers and facing to two major powers Iran and Russia WHY should I/we get involved...?"

FOLLOWED before by the smokescreen debate "there are no moderates" that we could support in Syrian against Assad, Iran AND in the fight against IS.

BUT WAIT...there is in fact a Sunni Army...three actually... fully capable if given support to attack IS inside Syria without US boots on the ground and are fully capable of actually defeating IS.

AND those farmers, carpenters and engineers are led by well educated/trained former SAA Officers and NCOs....

Rebels have liberated Yani Yiban (SW of Dudyian) in north rural Aleppo from ISIS last night.

Rebel groups that took part in liberation are:
Faylaq al-Sham
Hamza Brig
Sultan Murad Brig
Suqour al-Jabal Brig
Ahrar Souriya Brig
Div 99

ALL these groups have been declared in the CoH to be "moderate forces"...kind of shots down the Obama smokescreen there is no one to support that could in fact take on IS.......

NOTICE...there has been a distinct silence on the debate smokescreen "of what is a moderate"??????

OUTLAW 09

03-12-2016, 11:46 AM

In southern #Syria towards #DeirEzzor, Syrian opposition forces liberated #ISIL's garrison at #Tanf enabled by HIMARS strikes from #Jordan.
Interesting story about #HIMARS strikes fired from #Jordan by #US into #Syria.
http://wapo.st/1QS4CQx

Republican Guard Lt Bassel Ibrahim, a Syria body-building champion, was killed by Jaish al-Islam

OUTLAW 09

03-12-2016, 11:47 AM

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/03/obama-doctrine-...

The Middle East Is Unraveling—and Obama Offers Words

An accounting of the president’s actions and inactions

Hisham Melhem
Mar 11, 2016
Global

Jeffrey Goldberg has conducted the most extensive autopsy of President Obama’s foreign policy—and revealed that it is based on the doctrine that the best leader is the one who leads the least, and contemplates and talks the most.

Obama is an impressive wordsmith. The most important milestones in his political career, before and after he became president, have been well-crafted speeches. He has lived by words—eloquent, searing, soaring, contemplative words—to the point where he might equate words and concepts with what the ancient Greeks called praxis, or practical action. In Obama’s world, sharp words can be almost as effective as sharp swords.

Goldberg’s article delves into some of these pivotal speeches: the Cairo speech, the speeches on the Arab uprisings, addresses on combatting terrorism and the agony of Syria. Most of the pledges contained in these speeches ring hollow now; instead of ushering in a “new beginning” with the Muslim world, Obama’s relations with Pakistan, Turkey, and the Arab states are strained and characterized by mutual contempt. Obama told those Arabs struggling non-violently for basic rights such as free speech, gender equality, the freedom of peaceful assembly, and the right to choose their leaders that “our support for these principles is not a secondary interest.” But as I have written, when Obama “looked at the enormity of the challenges posed by the Arab uprisings, particularly when they became more violent, he simply flinched.” Obama did inherit a dysfunctional Arab state system and fraying civil societies, yet his own ill-conceived actions and inactions have contributed significantly to the great unraveling of the Middle East.

In these speeches, as in Goldberg’s article, Obama comes across as a scholar who oscillates between providing compelling analysis of the problems and trends he is confronting or anticipating, and a tireless sophist and procrastinator weaving elaborate excuses and justifications for dithering and hand-wringing. His explanation of his passivity regarding Russia’s rampaging in Ukraine and Syria is rooted in denial. Obama has convinced himself that President Vladimir Putin’s military intervention in Syria came “at enormous cost to the well-being of his own country.” He believes the Russians “are overextended. They’re bleeding.” Yes, Russia’s economy is contracting, and Putin is in charge of an autocratic oligarchy. And yet Russia has filled the vacuum Obama helped create in Syria when he failed to act on his promises and deliver on his threats. The Russia-Iran-Assad regime axis is the one determining the tempo of military operations and diplomatic maneuvering in the Syrian theater, not the United States and its allies. Putin has diabolically exploited the Syrian refugee challenge in Europe to weaken the institutions of the European Union and to divert Europe’s attention from his predations in Ukraine. Because of Obama’s dithering, Syria’s war has metastasized into a Middle Eastern and European crisis.

It is as if the president of the United States is declaring a whole generation of Arabs as the devil’s rejects.

What is most jarring is Obama’s tendency to distort the views of his detractors to the point of dissembling by reframing their original positions. He perfected this formula on critics of his maddening approach to Syria, including senior members of his administration, by belittling their proposals for establishing no-fly zones, or protected safe havens in Syria, as “half-baked” ideas or “mumbo-jumbo” proposals. Obama told Goldberg that his critics say, “You called for Assad to go, but you didn’t force him to go. You did not invade.” But Mr. President, who asked you to invade Syria? Could you please name one serious critic who said so? Obama speaks expansively and derisively about the “Washington playbook” and what he describes as the foreign-policy establishment’s “credibility” fetish; the playbook, according to Obama, tends to prescribe militarized responses to different crises in order to maintain America’s credibility. But credibility, particularly for a great power, is the coin of the realm. And it need not be purchased by force every time.

Obama boasts that he is “very proud” of the moment, on August 30, 2013, when he retreated from his threat to punish the Assad regime militarily following its mass murder of more than 1,400 innocent Syrian civilians, many of them children, with chemical weapons. He may view that date as his day of liberation from promises he made to help people who have been at the receiving end of weapons of mass destruction. But for millions of Syrians, August 30, 2013 is a day that shall live in infamy.

Obama is right to be resentful of America’s Sunni Arab allies, who foment sectarianism and anti-Americanism and help radical jihadists who are wreaking havoc in Syria and Libya. His frustration with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Egypt is well-known. Obama’s retrenchment from the Middle East reflects deep disillusionment with the region.

But it also reflects disdain for an Arab world that should be avoided. Obama ignores those states seeking tepidly to implement reforms and fight terrorism. He coldly and correctly diagnoses the ills of the majority of Arab states: predatory autocratic regimes, violent Islamist groups, diminishing civic traditions, rampant sectarianism and tribalism. But he does not see any ray of hope or promise in this bleak scene. It is as if the Arab world is inhabited only by angry Arab youths “thinking about how to kill Americans,” and totally bereft of decent Arab men and women, like those millions who marched and struggled against tyranny and called for freedom, empowerment, dignity, and modernity. He laments that if the U.S is not talking to the young people of Asia, Africa, and Latin America “because the only thing we’re doing is figuring out how to destroy or cordon off or control the malicious, nihilistic, violent parts of humanity, then we’re missing the boat.” It is as if the president of the United States is declaring a whole generation of Arabs as the devil’s rejects; it is as if he wants to have large swaths of the Middle East quarantined indefinitely.

BTW...I have stated here that in fact Obama's Cairo speech triggered the "Arab Spring"...then he backed away from what he called out......
This confirms the Obama and Kerry statements that indicated Assad would be in power for at least another 18 months....LONG....LONG past Obama leaving office.........

After FOUR long years of Obama stating Assad was the problem and had to go...now Obama says nothing.........

SO now if you are the anti Assad opposition WOULD you believe a single word Kerry and Obama say in public OR do you fully side with the Saudi's who have publicly stated Assad will go one way or another and after the large scale Northern Thunder Arab Army militay exercise we all know what the "other" means....

AFP news agency
✔ ‎@AFP BREAKING Assad ouster "red line" for regime: Syria FM

Damascus rejects any discussion of presidency at talks
http://reut.rs/1TVhNX6

OUTLAW 09

03-12-2016, 11:58 AM

Fascinating (as well as alarming) piece by @Joyce_Karam on how the Mideast views Trump:
http://www.vox.com/2016/3/11/11194516/middle-east-trump …

OUTLAW 09

03-12-2016, 12:16 PM

MFA Russia
✔ ‎@mfa_russia #Gatilov: Turkey must stop shelling Kurdish positions in #Syria as it is hampering the intra-Syrian peace talks
http://sptnkne.ws/aPBe

IN normal speak...this simply means that the Turkish shellings are hindering the current Russian/Iranian/IRGC/Hezbollah ground offensive......

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The shelling, as well as Turkey allowing arms shipments across the border with Syria, must stop "to provide a more constructive atmosphere for the intra-Syrian talks and a more durable cease-fire," Gatilov said as quoted by Bloomberg on Friday.

Turkey has been shelling the positions of Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in northern Syria along the Turkish border since February to stop the Kurds from seizing more ground in the area. Ankara considers the YPG to be an ally of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a separatist movement fighting for Kurdish self-determination in southeastern Turkey.

Earlier this month, the Russian military said that Ankara is fully responsible for continuation of hostilities in Syria's Aleppo and Idlib provinces as Turkey ensures a steady supply of weapons to terrorists and keeps shelling groups of Kurdish militia fighting against Jabhat al-Nusra (Nusra Front) radicals.

NOTICE Russia says nothing about the simple fact the Kurdish US/Russian/Assad proxy has been fighting far far far more against the FSA than IS which is sometimes only .5kms from the YPG positions but strangely not attacked by YPG......

OUTLAW 09

03-12-2016, 12:32 PM

WHAT ceasefire...........NOTICE neither the Russian Syrian Coordination Center NOR the US DoS Syrian Coordination Center releases any violation figures BUT both state the ceasefire "is largely holding"......"holding what" has never been defined........

Civilians are still being killed
Besieged towns/villages still have no humanitarian aid
Russian/Assad AFs still dropping bombs and cluster munitions
Russian SSS21 TBMs are still being fired AND
the Russian/IRGC/Hezbollah/Shia mercenary army ground offensive is still going on.......

MFA Russia
✔ ‎@mfa_russia #Borodavkin: We are satisfied that cessation of hostilities in #Syria is generally being observed
http://sptnkne.ws/aPua @mission_russian

AND are the Russians "largely holding to the ceasefire in Ukraine".....73 attacks yesterday does not lend credence that it "is holding"......

OUTLAW 09

03-12-2016, 12:34 PM

North Korean HT-16PGJ MANPADS in Syria
http://spioenkop.blogspot.com/2016/03/north-korean-ht-16pgj-manpads-in-syria.html …

The sighting of this system has become common enough to suggest the scale of their initial delivery to the Assad regime was sizeable, although the fact that they are consistently identified as the similar Soviet Igla-1E (SA-16) system also used in Syria means they have largely remained unnoticed to this date.

A single example was first identified in August 2014 in the hands of a fighter of the Islamic State at Ksesh (which was captured from Jaish al-Islam in the summer of 2014), but further research has unveiled an entire batch of at least 18 launchers and their associated systems was captured by the Free Syrian Army and Kateeba al-Kawthar (originally an al-Qaeda-linked group) at Brigade 80 in Aleppo in February 2013. While no aircraft or helicopters are explicitely known to have been shot down by these missiles, their continued presence on the battlefield, most recently in the heavily embattled Lattakia Governorate suggests they are still functional.

OUTLAW 09

03-12-2016, 01:03 PM

Russia's ships w/ Kalibr cruise missiles will now be perpetually present in Mediterranean:http://www.jamestown.org/programs/edm/single/?tx_ttnews[tt_news]=45169&tx_ttnews[backPid]=27&cHash=2f6ef89c0a558ecc0ee2fda681775a0b#.VuClpH%20p 2H1D

OUTLAW 09

03-12-2016, 01:11 PM

Idlib Jisr al-Shugour under heavy shelling/rocket attacks by Assad forces in Jorin camp who are also trying to advance towards Sirmaniya

Assad forces & Shia militias are trying to advance in Jabal Akrad & Jabal Turkman under heavy Russian bombardment. #Latakia #Syria

Airstrikes on rebels in Ghranattah in northern #Homs
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=34.898181&lon=36.681547&z=14&m=b …

Damascus Several airstrikes on Marj as-Sultan area / eastern Ghouta
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=33.497387&lon=36.478128&z=15&m=b …

Hezbollah barricaded camp on a hill in besieged #Madaya, #Zabadani from where they monitor anyone trying to escape
http://youtu.be/c8FKUVT0AMo

Tour in #Dudyian, north rural #Aleppo, #Syria after it was liberated by the FSA from #ISIS
http://youtu.be/gLl65QWX8LA

Heavy artillery shelling by Assad forces based in Tal Sha’ar targeting rebel held Mas’hara in #Quneitra,

OUTLAW 09

03-12-2016, 01:25 PM

NOT confirmed as of yet......
BREAKING
Unconfirmed reports, rebels shot down warplane in #Kafr_Naboudah moments ago
#Hama cs #Syria MAR 12

OUTLAW 09

03-12-2016, 01:30 PM

NOT confirmed as of yet......
BREAKING
Unconfirmed reports, rebels shot down warplane in #Kafr_Naboudah moments ago
#Hama cs #Syria MAR 12

NOW Confirmed........Moment of airstrike on Kafrnaboudeh in rural #Hama & the crash of regime fighter jet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqCqkpsw7gA …

OUTLAW 09

03-12-2016, 01:41 PM

AA fire targeting Assad jet over Kafrnaboudeh and pilot parachuting
http://syria.liveuamap.com/en/2016/12-march-video-shows-aa-fire-targeting-assad-jet-over-kafrnaboudeh …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POfMIOn9yDI …

FSA Jaish al-Nasr confirms reports & Jaish al-Islam takes responsibility for downing an Assad Mig-21 with AA fire #Hama, #Syria

The pilot of the downed Assad jet reportedly ejected & landed in an Assad controlled area. #Hama #Syria

Ahrar al-Sham, Jaish al-Islam & FSA Jaish al-Nasr all want to take responsibility for downing the Assad jet :) Well done to all.
I forgot FSA central div & Jaish al-Izza as well :)

Maybe the FSA has learned an old NVA tactic from VN war days...couple the 23s into groups and then simply fire away as it only takes a single round in the turbine to bring down a modern jet fighter and the 23s are a very good AA weapon system as it has the range and striking power and can pour out the rounds.

OUTLAW 09

03-12-2016, 01:51 PM

SAA's abilities under #Assad don't go any further than crushing civilians.
https://twitter.com/erzuaytkhaloy/status/708644738329669632 …

Syria #Aleppo Seems #FSA "Mountain Hawks Brigade" now equipped by #US to fight against #IS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IocXuQ3e3iQ …

FSA Division 99 also with US rifles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6nalXjWzZM …

2 #RUSSIA airstrikes on #Najy village in so far
#Jisr_alShghour #idlib #Syria MAR 12

BreakingNews
Pro-#Assad regime militias once again attack #ShaykhAqil through #SDF territory.
#Aleppo #Syria

News
52 civilians were killed by #Assad, #Russia (around 90%) and #ISIS on Friday across #Syria.
- LCC

If you seriously think,this looks like a totally failed #SyriaCeasefire ...
you are right.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_us2I3yf5A …

Rescuers save a man from under the rubble of an #Assad-hit residential building in #Aleppo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WerzFtWQa-8 …

Footage
An #Assad tank attack on just another rebel-held village in N-W #Syria.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Za7SPdrY1VA …

OUTLAW 09

03-12-2016, 01:58 PM

DAILY SABAH
✔ ‎@DailySabah BREAKING - Rocket fired from Syria has fallen into Turkey's Kilis province; the rocket did not explode, no injuries

Rockets fired from Syria hit a gendarmerie house in Kilis, Turkey
https://twitter.com/radikal/status/708649267427041280 …

ISIS shells Turkey from Jakkah in north rural #Aleppo & Turkey responds with heavy artillery shelling.

OUTLAW 09

03-12-2016, 06:52 PM

Russians cooperate with Syrian Al-Quaida (Nusra)
and Daesh (ISIS) in oil and gas exploitation
https://twitter.com/piotr_maciazek/status/708565661543489536 …

Syria gov't taking hard line on UN role. Both FM Muallem & Dr Shaaban telling De Mistura Syrians decide agenda, not him

Syria rejects the United Nation's call to discuss presidential elections
http://bit.ly/1Rdzvod

OUTLAW 09

03-12-2016, 06:58 PM

Russian Syrian Express is picking up their round trip speed......

ВМФ #ЧФ BSF Tsezar Kunikov 158 ropucha class LST returns from #Tartus #Syria & transits northbound Bosphorus

Kunikov returned from Syria in a little under 8 and a half days. Probably the fastest lap by a Ropucha. Impressive.

OUTLAW 09

03-12-2016, 07:19 PM

FSA Jaish al-Naser taking out an Assad tank w/ a TOW missile at the Safwan CP in north rural #Hama, #Syria today
http://youtu.be/BuQtJrOBGnk

Reports of a double #ISIS suicide VBIED attack against YPG/SDF forces near Tishrin Dam in #Aleppo, #Syria

Reports of a heavy MLRS attack by Assad forces in Braideej targeting Deir Sunbul in south rural #Idlib, #Syria

OUTLAW 09

03-12-2016, 07:25 PM

OUTLAW 09

03-12-2016, 07:36 PM

FSA's Division 13 has launched raids on Jabhat al-Nusra bases in Marat al-Numan (24hrs after clashes at opposition Friday protest).

After 2-week ceasefire, #Russia-#Syria military operations escalated today in #Latakia, #Hama & #Idlib targeting FSA, Ahrar al-Sham & Nusra.

Comments from the Arab Sunni ME on the Obama Doctrine interview.....

That moment in history when a US President thought that taking on a brutal dictator in Syria is "doing stupid ####".
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-obama-doctrine/471525/ …

When the @POTUS thinks that the ME nations are a piece of cake that should be shared with the Ayatollahs.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-obama-doctrine/471525/?utm_source=SFTwitter …

OUTLAW 09

03-12-2016, 07:40 PM

News
The #SyriaCeasefire collapses due to #Assad as the west aims for more #Geneva talks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8Z3Y2zHAvE …

Footage
#Assad air strikes on #KafrNabudah today
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POfMIOn9yDI&feature=youtu.be …
(Think the Su-34 is cut in tbh./sky,bomb)

News
After 15 days of ongoing #Assad/#Putin "ceasefire" offensives in #Latakia and #EastGhouta, rebels resumed their push in #Hama prov.

News
Also today, #Russian air air strikes continue of #Latakia province, #Assad ones on the eastern countryside of #Damascus.

OUTLAW 09

03-12-2016, 07:47 PM

At least 10 Russian/Assad airstrikes targeted Bala, Harasta Qantara & Beit Nayem fields in Eastern Ghouta, #Damascus today

8 civilians killed inc. 3 children & a women & more wounded in #Russia|n airstrikes on al-Sukhna in east rural #Homs, #Syria today

Russia/Assad cluster munitions attack in Kafrnaboudeh & around Shanabra village in north rural #Hama, #Syria today
http://youtu.be/yYR_bEjfhmU

Assad helicopters dropping barrel bombs on Kafrnaboudeh in north rural #Hama, #Syria earlier today
http://youtu.be/mh8Mq0M8oIc

Ahrar al-Sham responds to Putin’s & Assad’s CoH violations by targeting Assad forces in Suqaylabiyah, #Hama w/ Grads

CrowBat

03-12-2016, 07:53 PM

Appears that maybe in fact the MiG was shot down via a MANPAD not 23s.

Is this the smoke plume of a missile rebels allegedly used to shoot down the SyAAF Mig-21?
https://youtu.be/EdzUc12EiDU?t=19 …
Well, gauging by these videos, it was a Russian Su-34... or at least that is what is to be seen on the first video.

Usually, Russians and Assadists do not bomb same areas: it's only along the Turkish border that Assadist MiG-29s are sometimes flying top cover for VKS bombers (ironically, MiG-29s are armed with R-77 ARH MRAAMs; VKS aircraft have got then only after that Su-24 was smoked by Turks).

OUTLAW 09

03-12-2016, 07:58 PM

UAV over Busra al-Sham in #Daraa, #Syria today. Orlan 10?
http://youtu.be/FveqlWua2kY

FSA Jaish al-Naser captures al-Sakhr village silos in N rural #Hama following “violations & aggression by the enemy”

In response to Assad and Russia's ceasefire violations, rebels have regrouped and liberated al-Sakhr village + its silos in northern Hama.

Rebels retake Kiliz village in Jabal Turkman, #Latakia after Assad & co advanced into it yesterday.

OUTLAW 09

03-12-2016, 08:01 PM

Still some confusion over the shot down today of either an Assad MiG21 or a Russian SU-34 and whether with 23mms and or a MANPAD.....

Warplane back to fly over #Kafr_Naboudah now after Rebels shot down #RUSSIA Su-34 earlier
#Hama cs #Syria MAR 12

CrowBat

03-12-2016, 08:03 PM

OUTLAW 09

03-12-2016, 08:05 PM

Rebels using TOW, destroyed #SAA terrorists TANK at #Hamamiyat fronts in #Kafr_Zeta
#Hama cs #Syria MAR 12

SAA terrorists shelling targeting #Tel_Hara
#Daraa cs #Syria MAR 12

OUTLAW 09

03-12-2016, 08:06 PM

I know it's unlikely, but it would be really funny if one of 'super-turbo-wunderwaffe, best all-weather fighter-bomber of the world, beats even Aegis-destroyers not to talk about squadrons of F/A-18s' - like Su-34 - got shot down by ZPU-4 - because it had to descend bellow the cloud base in order to find its target...

...but that would also be so typically Russian too... ;)

BREAKING
And this is 100% #Russia Su-34
Moment Rebels shut down warplane in #Kafr_Naboudah

CrowBat...after going back over the stream of comments and videos it actually appears as if two aircraft were hit.....one a MiG 21 which appears to have been the target of the ZSU-23-2s hit with flames shooting out of the rear and a MANPAD launch that evidently hit the SU-34.

There has been some chatter about two planes down and that would have explained why a number of the FSA groups made similar claims.....

Appears to be a true MANPAD trail....with the appropriate speed and angle of climb with the missile impact obscured by the clouds.....and the impact smoke cloud is one that would depict a fully loaded fighter crashing nose in if the engine area had taken a full hit....the single parachute appears to have been from the SU-34 so maybe the MiG made it back to base or crashed further away.....
(@ 0:18-0:20):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdzUc12EiDU

CrowBat

03-12-2016, 08:26 PM

In words of one of insurgents to be heard on one of videos, 'the pig is down'.

Yup, there is a trail of smoke, so it could've been a MANPAD shot too, but I'm not sure about Su-34: there's no visual confirmation - yet.

Certain is only: a MiG-21 went down.

BTW, machine-guns to be seen on all of videos are ZPU-2s (14.5mm).

OUTLAW 09

03-12-2016, 08:29 PM

Mutual bombardment between #Turkey and #ISIS. Turkey bombed Shwayrin & other 2 villages (Ra'ael & Ghazal)

Hama Rebels took out T-72 tank at Hamamiyat barrier TOW hit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-44Kgg7etFw …

Rebels seized silos near Kafr Nabudah in northern #Hama
& took some heavy gear
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwIZbnJ5NeI …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.411552&lon=36.514006&z=16&m=b …

Heavy regime shelling on #Bosra city in southern #Syria
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXTbynRlwdY …

Spy drone above #Bosra in southern #Syria
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FveqlWua2kY …

Hama Rebels blow up BMP in Al Mughayr
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.408955&lon=36.480489&z=15&m=b …

CrowBat

03-12-2016, 08:35 PM

Ok, it was a ZU-23, see here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84CC4p5b4Ss

Bam - and engine was out (listen to the sound).

OUTLAW 09

03-12-2016, 08:44 PM

Well, gauging by these videos, it was a Russian Su-34... or at least that is what is to be seen on the first video.

Usually, Russians and Assadists do not bomb same areas: it's only along the Turkish border that Assadist MiG-29s are sometimes flying top cover for VKS bombers (ironically, MiG-29s are armed with R-77 ARH MRAAMs; VKS aircraft have got then only after that Su-24 was smoked by Turks).

CrowBat....here is the ZSU-23 hitting the MiG...he trails the sudden black puff typical of a turbine hit by AA...but continues moving forward at a high speed...so I am estimating he made it back to base as he did not climb for punching out and from VN when hit in turbine many USAF fighters made to a pick up point before bailing out or even limped in on reduced speed..the single parachute was definitely from the SU-34....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UKF2QFDXmk …

In the video depicting two ZSU-23-2s firing the one in the open did not hit it as he fired only a limited number of rounds and could not deflect the AA fast enough to get an better firing angle....the one next to the building continued firing a long time as he had the better lower angle matching the oncoming fighter.....and the MiG was definitely running under the cloud cover....the MANPAD was fired into the clouds and evidently hit the SU-34 in the cloud cover....

CrowBat

03-12-2016, 08:54 PM

Well, many of MiG-21s claimed as 'shot down' by the Israelis for example (indeed, credited as 'confirmed' to their pilots) also made it back to base (or at least made a soft belly landing in the desert). So, no doubt, the type is slightly harder to kill than usually believed in the West.

But, this one didn't get away: pilot Moussa Trekman ejected. What's unclear is if he:
- a) came down over the insurgent-held area, and died of his injuries (one version), or
- b) came down over regime-held area and was safely recovered.

Re Su-34: it seems there's no video of the downing. Thus, should insurgents get no wreckage of it, I doubt we'll ever have something of that kind confirmed.

OUTLAW 09

03-12-2016, 08:58 PM

The #SyriaCeasefire is a fiction and not a single one of the 43 Assad-imposed sieges have been broken, indeed access has been restricted.

AND absolutely no humanitarian aid has been delivered ...the so called core of the Russian proposed and supported by the US...cessation of hostilities.

OUTLAW 09

03-12-2016, 09:12 PM

Statement from Nusra: FSA 13th Division attacked and arrested some of their fighters in Marat al-Numan.

Footage
#Putin or #Assad air force Su-24 bombing northern #Hama province.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmwaP9GR1i4 …

News
Fighting between rebels & #YPG-backed pro-#Assad militias continues near #ShaykhAqil.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZfEi7tcxLo …

3 Lebanese Hezbollah fighters killed in Yemen

Aleppo: Syrian Rebels repel & kill dozens of pro Assad afghani fighters trying to capture Sheikh Aqeel

OUTLAW 09

03-12-2016, 09:44 PM

Syria 40+ airstrikes by fighter jets & 12 barrel bombs dropped by helicopters hit desert city of #Palmyra today

OUTLAW 09

03-13-2016, 07:48 AM

Russia/Assad betting on Nusra take over Idlib & expel US-backed FSA to turn rebel's stronghold Mount Zawiya villages into legitimate targets

The clashes were triggered b/c of an attempt by Division 13 to arrest members of Jabhat al-Nusra #Syria

Idlib: #Nusra killed & wounded dozens of #FSA rebels, many arrested. #Nusra also captured a lot of TOWs, some tanks and tons of ammunition.

Division 13 confirmed that its weapons (possibly including TOW missiles) were stolen, 4 fighters killed

Jabhat al- Nusra besieged FSA DIV.13 inside Idlib city, 4 death and 20 wounded on FSA side
Ahrar al-Sham is the only rebel group with enuf power & respect that could stop this inter-conflict & draw some lines before it's too late

Lots of rumours of what's going on in Marrat al-Numan but this started to sound like 2014 FSA war on ISIL expelled them out of Idlib.

OUTLAW 09

03-13-2016, 07:51 AM

41 Martyrs
[5 children 4 women 1 tortured]
15 Raqqa
8 Homs
6 DeirEzzor
4 Idlib
3 Aleppo
2 Daraa
2 Damascus
1 Hama
MAR 12

BreakingReport
Clashes between rebels in #Sandaf and #ISIS in #Tilalyan.
Not clear who attacks there, N of #Marea.

News
#Assad regime artillery attacks in #Daraa prov. were supported by #Russian drones.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6VPDcBGQwQ …

FSA-allied Jaysh al-Nasr & islamist Ahrar al-Sham captured the area south of #KafrNabudah
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BopbgBuex08 …

Territory of "al-Sakhr", Syrian rebels captured from the #Assad regime in #Hama province today.

OUTLAW 09

03-13-2016, 07:57 AM

Footage
Another TOW vs. an #Assad position in #Hama province.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbR8X4iJ7RY …

BREAKING
#Russia warplanes carried out more airstrikes on #Maarat_Harm village moments ago
#Idlib cs #Syria MAR 13

OUTLAW 09

03-13-2016, 08:08 AM

Infographical depiction of the #SDF "Battle of #Minbaj offensive"
#SAA #ISIS #FSA
http://edmaps.com/html/syrian_civil_war_in_maps.html …

OUTLAW 09

03-13-2016, 11:31 AM

Day after #Nusra assault on #FSA, #Assad&#Russia cont. hitting #FSA in 4 provinces.
Not a single tweet of outrage by regime/YPG supporters.

Brave women chant: "Ma'arat is free, free! Nusra go out, out!" next to graves of 13th Division rebels.

Footage
Syrian rebels repulsed an #ISIS counterattack on #Doudyan inv. SVBIEDs last night.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnumBhKeYQU …

BLACKHAWK!
Anti-#ISIS commander N of #Aleppo got a nice present from his trainers. ;-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkzsRTqhXBU …

OUTLAW 09

03-13-2016, 11:35 AM

Russian TV ...
NTV newsmaker misspoke about "atrocities of Turkish army in Donbass".
They"re entangled in own lies))
https://twitter.com/novostidnua/status/708957668443099136 …

Mare’a hit w/ several #ISIS mortar shells & clashes ongoing between rebels & #ISIS fighters around Sandaf & Tilalayn in north rural #Aleppo

Nusra has lost it if this is true, claim is Nusra has raided Faylaq al-Sham HQ in Tal Touqan in south rural #Aleppo

Multiple Assad airstrikes targeted the #Damascus suburb of #Douma just now.

Assad airstrikes & artillery shelling on Hubait in #Idlib today & several people wounded in Assad artillery shelling on #Douma in #Damascus

US Launches Rockets Into Southern Syria From Jordan For First Time
http://www.ibtimes.com/us-launches-rockets-southern-syria-jordan-first-time-2335353 …

Aleppo Rebels (Faylaq al-Sham, Liwa Hamza, et al) repelled an #ISIS attack on Dudyian this AM w/ VBIEDs, 10 killed
http://youtu.be/mnumBhKeYQU

Mare’a hit w/ several #ISIS mortar shells & clashes ongoing between rebels & #ISIS fighters around Sandaf & Tilalayn in north rural #Aleppo

Lana Slaik, another infant dies of malnutrition & lack of med aid in the Assad besieged town of #Douma, #Damascus

Footage
Heavy regime counteroffensive on rebels in #Hama province.
Probably lost #Sakhr.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLz7cqSQdfI …

Reality
#Douma remains under siege & #Assad / #Russian attack & its people keep suffering.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWJWJfYc1o8 …

OUTLAW 09

03-13-2016, 05:17 PM

News
Air strikes, artillery attacks and regime ground troops pushes continue in #EastGhouta.
#Douma and #Bala hotspots now.

Footage
Heavy #Assad air strikes on civilians in #Douma today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfIdQIC8Dm0 …

Rebels stopped one #ISIS SVBIED before it reached #Doudyan.
Another exploded inside.
Casualties unknown.

Reality
#Douma remains under siege & #Assad / #Russian attack & its people keep suffering.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWJWJfYc1o8 …

Reports rebels repelled an Assad & co advance into al-Zuwaiqat & Kabbana in Jabal Akrad, #Latakia

Clashes between rebels & #ISIS in Jakkah, north rural #Aleppo. Faylaq al-Sham reportedly took out a vehicle killing 10 ISIS fighters

Daraa Balad hit with an Assad IRAM rocket according to LCC

BREAKING
#SAA terrorists carried out airstrikes targeting #Deir_Asafir
#Damascus cs #Syria MAR 13

RUSSIA terrorists carried out airstrikes targeting #Kafr_Naboudah moments ago
#Hama cs #Syria MAR 13

#RUSSIA terrorists carried out airstrikes on #alHabit moments ago
#Idlib cs #Syria MAR 13

SAA terrorists serial killers carried out 4airstrikes on #Douma
2 martyrs dozens wounded
#Damascus cs #Syria MAR 13

OUTLAW 09

03-13-2016, 05:36 PM

SAA terrorists serial killers carried out 4airstrikes on #Douma
2 martyrs dozens wounded
#Damascus cs #Syria MAR 13

Clashes erupted between YPG and regime forces in Hassaka city

Syria Lots of airstrikes on northern #Hama towns
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1V5I7p99hI …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWb5Iwa38dk …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.431862&lon=36.542416&z=13&m=b …
Syria #Assad-forces shelling #refugee camp near Khirbat al Jawz close to #Turkey border with rocket launchers
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35.902608&lon=36.196089&z=14&m=b …
Mare’a hit w/ several #ISIS mortar shells & clashes ongoing between rebels & #ISIS fighters around Sandaf & Tilalayn in north rural #Aleppo

Aleppo Rebels (Faylaq al-Sham, Liwa Hamza, et al) repelled an #ISIS attack on Dudyian this AM w/ VBIEDs, 10 killed
http://youtu.be/mnumBhKeYQU

US trained "New #Syria'n Army" (#NSA) at al-Tanf border crossing to #Iraq -expelled #IS. Link does not work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?

OUTLAW 09

03-13-2016, 05:46 PM

US and France accuse #Syria govt of trying to derail peace talks

Interesting report as it included two photos taken from evidently two Russia Spetsnaz GRU soldiers social media pages.....

Syria: Lots of #Russia'n soldiers fighting in #Palmyra-battle deep in desert near #Iraq'i border

OUTLAW 09

03-13-2016, 05:46 PM

Is Turkey Responsible for the Islamic State?
http://wp.me/p4sKms-xe
by @KyleWOrton

Really worth reading the rather long article......

OUTLAW 09

03-13-2016, 05:57 PM

Russia has played a more cynical game than Turkey with regard to #IS, empowering it to help save Assad.
http://bit.ly/1SNsI4G

Update
SOHR claim that "islamist militants(sic!)" lost #Sakhr is wrong
They still hold it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1YRD2Wp1_k …

News
Jaysh al-Nasr now fights seemingly with D-30, TOW and MANPADS in northern #Hama ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOkGVoCCxJc …

Footage
Dozens of #Assad air force raids hit #Douma and #EastGhouta today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMxHBEWvQdI …

Footage
An #Assad regime surface-to-surface missile hit #Daraa city today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vo4DvymV9qA …

Footage
Syrian rebels MANPADS attack that downed an #Assad regime MiG-21 in #Hama yday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHxeirDLmCw …

OUTLAW 09

03-13-2016, 06:12 PM

2 Assad airstrikes hit Deir al-Asafir in E. Ghouta today in addition to heavy artillery shelling & rocket attacks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrYs8Hhzl6k&sns=tw …

Footage from yesterday of Assad helicopters dropping barrel bombs on the town of Kafrnaboudeh in #Idlib,
http://youtu.be/f2n2Z-Ouhdk

Footage of the Assad IRAM rocket that hit #Daraa Balad today
http://youtu.be/Vo4DvymV9qA

Damascus: Syrian rebel group "Jaish Al Islam" use underground bomb to capture ISIS positions in Al Zein

Assad regime recapture Kafr Naboudeh & Sakhr

Shiite militias launched another attempt to storm Shaykh Aqil in western #Aleppo via #YPG controlled ground http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=36.312774&lon=36.941700&z=14&m=b …

OUTLAW 09

03-13-2016, 06:27 PM

Kerry warns Syrian FM comments 'clearly trying to disrupt' peace talks
http://uatoday.tv/politics/kerry-syria-609309.html …

John Kerry says Russia and Iran should be concerned Damascus is pulling back from prior truce agreements

On the eve of more peace talks to quell the fighting in Syria, John Kerry has told Russia and Iran they should be concerned by President Assad's efforts to pull out of any ceasefire agreement.

"We all strongly support the U.N. efforts and we look forward to the resumption of talks in Geneva on March 14. And there isn't a person standing here who doesn't understand that is to witness the comments made just yesterday by the foreign minister of Syria clearly trying to disrupt the process - clearly trying to send a message of deterrence to others.

But the fact is that his strongest sponsors, Iran and Russia, have both adopted at the United Nations - in support of the United Nations and in the Vienna communiques and the Munich meetings - an approach which dictates that there must be a political transition and that we must move towards a presidential election at some point in time."

Kerry said the Syrian government and its backers were mistaken if they thought they could continue to test the boundaries of a fragile truce.

Accusing Syria of carrying out the most violations of the truce, Kerry said Russian President Vladimir Putin needed to look at how Assad was acting.

"Russia and Iran accepted responsibility for the forces they control or influence and that includes Hezbollah, the IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps), and most importantly the Assad regime. So President Putin, who is invested in supporting Assad - an enormous committment and it has made a difference, obviously, on the battlefield everyone has seen that - should be somewhat concerned about the fact that President Assad is seemingly singing from a completely different song sheet. And that he sent his foreign minister out yesterday to try to act as a spoiler to take off of the table what President Putin and the Iranians have specifically agreed to", Kerry said

OUTLAW 09

03-13-2016, 07:07 PM

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 08:05 AM

Iran delivers weapons to #yemen in its proxy war with saudiarabia http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/australia-navy-finds-2-000-weapons-somalia-bound-fishing-dhow-n533196 …

Eliot Higgins ‎@EliotHiggins
.@sams_usa also states 58 chlorine attacks, or 36% of the total chemical weapons attacks, occurred in Syria after UNSC Resolution 2209

Eliot Higgins ‎@EliotHiggins
New @sams_usa report details 161+ chemical attacks that have occurred in Syria since the start of the conflict
https://www.sams-usa.net/foundation/index.php/component/content/article/2-uncategorised/255-a-new-normal-ongoing-chemical-weapons-attacks-in-syria …

IS this an open Russian admission that they have largely failed in their so called war on Islamic State?????? Appears so.......

Russia ready to cooperate with US-led coalition in fight for Syria's Raqqa: Interfax
http://reut.rs/1RhihjF

Yday's #footage by Rossia24 TV channel: TOS-1A Buratino in #Syria

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 08:09 AM

Maybe if Russia would actually attack IS directly instead of saving Assad from FSA..THEN they might not be fearing the following......

TASS - Russian lawmaker says Ankara attack was aimed at pushing Turkey towards invasion of Syria
http://tass.ru/en/politics/862025 …

BUT here is the core problem....Russia has been supporting IS all along so is it actually behind the attacks....as pay back for the shot down of their jet????

Example........
Russia assisted #Peshmerga’s #war against #ISIS, says ministry
http://rudaw.net/NewsDetails.aspx?pageid=201196 …

There have also been rumors of Russian weapons being delivered to the PKK......

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 08:28 AM

Chemezov on Syria: "We indeed are using it as a testing ground. It's no secret."
http://www.wsj.com/articles/wsj-q-a-with-sergei-chemezov-1457657218 …

Simple fact.........
Over 53 years of Baathist tyranny, of which over 45 years under Assad murderous family.

Suggestions U/S Gottemoeller misled on Russian missile activity are misinformed & affront to her integrity.
http://bv.ms/1MbKqXV
BUT WAIT she did mislead the public because her public statements were not publicly countered her "behind the scenes statements to Congress"......

2 brave Syrian women take hidden camera through city of Raqqa to document horror under ISIS
http://cnn.it/1V5LSSV

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 08:30 AM

NOTICE Obama and Kerry simply do nothing over the Iranian UNSC sanctions on their missile firings.......they did not even notify Congress which they are required to due under several US laws.....

Iran "risks EU sanctions over missile tests" – France
http://www.unian.info/world/1289035-iran-risks-eu-sanctions-over-missile-tests-france.html …

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 08:35 AM

Scorched earth policy x10. After +80 Russian airstrikes on Palmyra yesterday Assad helicopters drop +200 barrel bombs since midnight!

An important commander of #ISIS in #Aleppo (Abu Hasan al-Liby) killed yesterday by raid (probably anti-IS coalition)

THIS really should get the attention of the US since they supported this proxy in their so called fight against IS......

Note: #YPG/#SDF launched not a single attack on #IS-towns & villages in northern #Aleppo so far
And this despite #YPG and #Assad not attacking #ISIS along a 50 km frontline north and east of #Aleppo, allowing the terrorists to regroup.

Treating the wounded at a field hospital following Assad’s rocket attack on #Daraa Balad today.
http://youtu.be/GIogWcBsJdY

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 08:38 AM

Casualties reported inc. a member of @SyriaCivilDef in Assad artillery & mortar shelling & rocket fire targeting Hayan in #Aleppo, #Syria

Rebels (Faylaq al-Sham, Sultan Murad, Liwa Mutasim, Liwa Hamza & Suqour al-Jabal) completely liberate Ghazal in N. rural #Aleppo from #ISIS

Syrian rebels now also took #Jakkah from #ISIS, several sources confirm.
Second village last night.

Confirming #FSA (Hamza Brigade) statement from the village last night.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVEYOSIEY7Q …

All against #ISIS!"
Other seemingly US-equipped Sunni Arab rebel group joins #SDF.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDp4O0Lh6lU&feature=youtu.be …

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 08:41 AM

IMPORTANT development......
Reports
Every rebel push vs. #ISIS east of #Azaz is covered by heavy Turkish artillery fire on the terrorist positions now (spotters).

Alleged Turkish artillery on IS-held #Shuwayrin, Aleppo, March 13. Location confirmed.
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=36.582297&lon=37.293499&z=12&m=b
…
Syrian rebels took Qizil Mazra'ah from #ISIS, the 4th settlement in 5 days.
Unstoppable by terrorists now.

Also the "Liberation Army of Northern #Hama" takes part in the Syrian rebel operation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RADwd0D0WlY …

US supported Kurdish proxy is acting out with their Assad regime friends......
Clashes btw #YPG & #Assad-forces in #Hasaka stopped now after gun fights during the day in city center

Also the #FSA's "Mountain Hawks Brigade" takes part in the N #Hama clashes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a--cPrEzLb8 …

JabhatalNusra attacked Sham Legion's military operations center in Tal Touqan south #Aleppo today morning for unknown reason.

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 08:46 AM

Another link worth monitoring.....

Our new #webvr site showing the carnage of Assad's barrel bombs is now live at
http://www.360syria.com

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 08:52 AM

Anonymous ‏@YourAnonCentral

#Syria: activist @BigAlBrand describes the torture he underwent in Assad regime detention:
http://bigalaabrand.blogspot.com.tr/2014/09/chapter
THIS site was blocked just now by twitter based on complaints by proAssad/Russian trolls......

10k children inside #Assad prisons: subject to torture employed on adults, including rape.
http://linkis.com/www.alaraby.co.uk/en/H34vA …

Illicit organ trade targeting dead + detained covered-up by govt + intelligence officials.
http://www.syrianobserver.com/EN/News/29588/Black_Market_Organ_Trade_Thrives_War_Torn_Syria …

Kidnapping, Extortion and Organ Trafficking in Rural Homs #Syria
http://en.etilaf.org/all-news/local-news/kidnapping-extortion-and-organ-trafficking-in-rural-homs.html …

Syria: "We fear terrorist groups but only states can torture at this scale."
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/06/assad-war-crimes-syria-torture-caesar-hospital …

Syria: rights group says activists subjected to organ theft before death by Assad regime torture.
http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/09/20/167791.html?PHPSESSID=5fbqthbrlvkpddrh2j0vjdusi5 …

Syria: Mazen al Assad & other regime doctors, involved in trafficking of human organs, activists say

http://www.aksalser.com/index.php?page=view_articles&id=cc211672205ca81b761de05c8b305580 …

Assad military hospitals: "These are not hospitals, they are slaughterhouses.”
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/06/assad-war-crimes-syria-torture-caesar-hospital …

Assad regime HR record: 65,000 disappeared, 117,000 arrests, 85,000 detained & 11,358 deaths in detention (6,786 by torture). Current estimates of over 200,000 still being held in prisons....
Starvation still being used and actively supported by the Iranians and Russians.......

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 08:56 AM

41 Martyrs
[3 Fighters and 1 child]
13 Idlib
6 Aleppo
5 Hama
4 DeirEzzor
4 Daraa
2 Hasaka
2 Damascus
2 Raqqa
#Syria MAR 13

21 Areas bombed by Assad Regime SAA & it's foreigners terrorists allies - MARCH 13

BREAKING
#SAA shelling more than 50 mortars & heavy artillery on #Darayya in the past 2 hours
#Damascus #Syria MAR 14

SAA terrorists positioned at #Joureen, shelling targeting #Talbiseh now
#Homs cs #Syria MAR 14

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 08:59 AM

Abu TOW just updated his profile pic on FB after a long hiatus, this usually means he has 12-16 rounds.

Found that Russian KAMAZ ECM/HQ/Radio truck (or similar) seen driving to Hmeimem in Oct, in mountains of Latakia.

Up-sum of 2 hrs of RUS TV news: Russia's winning in Syria, Russia's enemies are plotting, Turkey's a mess, Ukraine's a mess, Europe's a mess

Meanwhile the Russian TV "reports" that "Turkish troops committed atrocities agst civilians in South-East Ukraine" https://twitter.com/gruppa_voina/sta...19960052420608 …

With Abu arising it means spring time is here.

Abu TOW has literally become the poster boy of the FSA TOW movement in Syria....Initially it was reported he had been killed but apparently he is alive and well...one of the most accurate/quick TOW gunners I have seen in years.....

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 09:02 AM

SCD collecting remnants of #RUSSIA Cluster Bombs in #Harytan, aftermath it's airstrikes
#Aleppo cs #Syria MAR 13

Syria governement has reimposed a siege on Al-Waer neighborhood amid dispute over release of loyalists-held detainees

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 10:49 AM

Russian electronic warfare jamming system, RB-341V "Leer-3", identified in #Syria.
http://military-informant.com/army/v-sirii-obnaruzhili-rossiyskie-kompleksyi-podavleniya-mobilnoy-svyazi-leer-3.html …

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 10:49 AM

CrowBat.....something for you from the Russian altered state of reality......so now Assad and Russia are in fact "watering down" the position of the HNC....and including really a proAssad and proRussian group under the guise of "opposition".....who can take the place of the real FSA opposition in the Sunni areas in say a general election.......claiming they represent the "true Syrian opposition" not the "terrorists".....

Russia forms Assad's "opposition" inside its army base in #Syria.
Pure parody!
http://tass.ru/en/world/862052

GENEVA, March 14. /TASS/. A new Syrian opposition group has been formed at a meeting at Russia’s Hmeimim base and it may come to Geneva, Russian Ambassador to the UN and other international organizations in Geneva Alexey Borovavkin told TASS on Monday.

"We are pleased to note that the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, and his office have welcomed the formation of a new moderate opposition group," the diplomat said. "Staffan de Mistura has promised to negotiate the issue of inviting representatives of this group to the Geneva negotiations."

According to Borodavkin, this group comprises oppositionists who live and work in Syria but who have not been included in the political structure that is currently in power.

"They have taken advantage of the cessation of hostilities regime and said that they support this regime, support the Russian-American statement on how this regime should be implemented, consolidated their political will, adopted a relevant statement and created a so-called secular opposition group in Hmeimim. It happened at the base of our Center for reconciliation," the ambassador said.

According to Borodavkin, this new group could join the negotiations on Syrian settlement and could "make a positive and constructive contribution to making agreements on the implementation of the UN Security Council Resolution 2254 in the part related to the political settlement of the Syrian crisis."

TASS has learnt that this group comprises doctors, lawyers, engineers, journalist and public activist representing the Syrian organization National Action, the Front for Democratic Action in Syria, the Syrian National Youth Party and Syrian Fatherland Party, as well as the International Red Cross Committee and others. The oppositionists call themselves the Hmeimim group.

Wonder if any of this so called Russian proAssad opposition has fought in the SAA......OR are they simply a Russian "fifth column"......

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 11:12 AM

The #FSA uses freshly-delivered #US lasers vs. #ISIS north of #Aleppo.
(Just kidding.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzuEs2O5uVI …

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 11:41 AM

Breaking
#Turkey says female #PKK member one of two suicide bombers behind #AnkaraBombing.
The #YPG condemned the attack in a statement.

BUT WAIT.......the YPG is a subunit of the PKK.......just CYA that is all the statement really is...so they do not get bombed as well......

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 11:47 AM

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 12:05 PM

A #Russian T-90 with #Iraq on its flag fighting "for the unity of #Syria" ...

Pro-FSA protesters demonstrated vs. Jabhat al-Nusra in Marat al-Numan today, demanding AQ withdrawal from the town:

JN continue it's campaign against #FSA, attacking and arresting members in the HQs of 13ºDiv in #Maarat_alNouman
#Idlib #Syria MAR 14

Clashes reported between rebels & #ISIS around Dudyian in north rural #Aleppo

FSA exterminated a number of #isis terrorists as they tried to storm into the liberated #Yan_Yaban village
#Aleppo cs #Syria MAR 14

Rebels exterminated a number of #SAA terrorists after ambush on them in #alHader
#Aleppo cs #Syria MAR 14

Rebels repel #SAA terrorists advance attempt in #Khan_Touman & #alRashdeen
#Aleppo cs #Syria MAR 14

SAA terrorists from it's position at 4º Division shelling with heavy artilery on #Darayya
#Damascus #Syria MAR 14

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 12:24 PM

Appears Russia is admitting they have not yet attacked IS otherwise they would already be in Raqqa.

REPORT: Russia is ready to cooperate with the US-led coalition to force ISIS out of Raqqa
http://read.bi/1RZo1Bv

BUT WAIT...after six months of massive and intensive air strikes and exactly where are they inside Syria......???

NOTICE anything about the so called US proxy YPG attacks and the Russian/Assad attacks on IS....absolutely nothing is ongoing......

Update
#ISIS counteroffensive widened to #Doudyan.
They can use all their terrorists as #YPG and #Assad don't attack their #Aleppo front.

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 12:39 PM

Heavy clashes between #FSA & #SAA terrorists in #Teir_Maela fronts
#Homs cs #Syria MAR 14

Heavy clashes between #JAI and #SAA terrorists and heavy bombardment in #alMarj area
#Damascus cs #Syria MAR 14

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 12:46 PM

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 12:48 PM

SAA & #RUSSIA terrorists shelled with more than 200 rockets targeting #Palmyra
#Homs cs #Syria MAR 14

NDF terrorists arrested a number of civilians in #Meneen town
#Damascus cs #Syria MAR 14

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 01:06 PM

What more can I say...other than Obama seems to let his own personal biases get in the way of FP and strategy.....and personal biases are not to be ever found when conducting foreign affairs......

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/03/obama-doctrine-revolution/473481/

Barack Obama’s Revolution in Foreign Policy

When you think you’re the smartest person in the room, it’s tempting to make up your own grand strategy.

Niall Ferguson
| Mar 13, 2016

It is a criticism I have heard from more than one person who has worked with President Obama: that he regards himself as the smartest person in the room—any room. Jeffrey Goldberg’s fascinating article reveals that this is a considerable understatement. The president seems to think he is the smartest person in the world, perhaps ever.

Power corrupts in subtle ways. It appears to have made Obama arrogant. As described in Goldberg’s story, he is impatient to the point of rudeness with members of his own administration. His response to Secretary of State John Kerry when he hands him a paper on Syria is: “Oh, another proposal?” “Samantha, enough,” he snaps at the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. “I’ve already read your book.” We learn, too, that he “secretly disdains … the Washington foreign-policy establishment.”

The president is also bluntly critical of traditional American allies. He is said to have told Prime Minister David Cameron that Britain “would no longer be able to claim a ‘special relationship’ with the United States” if it did not “pay [its] fair share” by increasing defense spending. The Pakistanis and the Saudis get especially short shrift here, as—predictably—does Israel.

“Bibi, you have to understand something,” he tells the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. “I’m the African American son of a single mother, and I live here, in this house. I live in the White House. I managed to get elected president of the United States. You think I don’t understand what you’re talking about, but I do.” Netanyahu may have wondered what exactly in Obama’s biography gives him such insight into the present-day predicament of Israel.

The president is also dismissive of a number of past presidents as strategists. “We dropped more ordnance on Cambodia and Laos than on Europe in World War II,” he tells Goldberg, “and yet, ultimately, Nixon withdrew, Kissinger went to Paris, and all we left behind was chaos, slaughter, and authoritarian governments that finally, over time, have emerged from that hell.” So much for Nixon and Kissinger.

He is equally dismissive of “mythologies” about Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy. The release of the American hostages in Iran had “nothing to do with … Reagan’s posture, his rhetoric, etc.” Invading Grenada did not help “our ability to shape world events.” The Iran-Contra affair “wasn’t successful at all.” Nor was Reagan’s withdrawal of U.S. forces from Lebanon in 1983. These views are not necessarily wrong. Instead, it is the president’s tone that jars—the sarcasm that Goldberg notes. The same tone is manifest in Obama’s sole comment on his immediate predecessor. “As I recall, because apparently nobody in this town does,” he says, “Putin went into Georgia on Bush’s watch, right smack dab in the middle of us having over 100,000 troops deployed in Iraq.”

Is there anyone to whom Obama does not feel himself superior? The surprising answer is President George H.W. Bush’s national-security adviser, Brent Scowcroft. “I love that guy,” Obama is quoted as saying. This will come as no surprise to readers of his 2006 book, The Audacity of Hope, but most people will scratch their heads. The president explains: “I am … an idealist insofar as I believe that we should be promoting values, like democracy and human rights” not only out of self-interest, but also because “it makes the world a better place.” But “you could call me a realist in believing we can’t, at any given moment, relieve all the world’s misery. … We’ve got to be hardheaded … and pick and choose our spots. … There are going to be times where our security interests conflict with our concerns about human rights.”

Power corrupts in subtle ways. It appears to have made Obama arrogant.

Which brings us to Syria, the central foreign-policy failure of the Obama presidency. The grim details of what has happened as the Syrian Civil War has escalated are all too familiar: a death toll of 470,000 according to the Syrian Center for Policy Research, nearly 4.8 million refugees according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and a flood of displaced persons and migrants arriving in Europe by sea at a rate of roughly 100,000 a month. Aside from the human suffering, the escalation of the conflict has had grave strategic consequences, not least of which has been the return of Russia to the region as a major player for the first time since the early 1970s.

The consequences of American non-intervention in Syria have, in some ways, been as bad as the consequences of American intervention in Iraq, though fewer American lives and dollars have been expended. Yet the realist in Obama has no regrets. Goldberg does future historians a valuable service by setting out in detail the president’s reasoning.

The president dragged his feet on Syria for three reasons. First, having been elected partly on the strength of his opposition to the Iraq War, he was and remains in principle reluctant to deploy U.S. troops (though not U.S. drones). In 2009, he felt the Pentagon had “jammed” him into approving a troop surge in Afghanistan; four years later, he felt he was being jammed again. Second, he misread the Arab Spring, initially equating protesters in Tunisia and Tahrir Square with Rosa Parks and the “patriots of Boston.”

Third, Obama regretted succumbing to pressure from his own advisers as well as from European allies to intervene in Libya in 2011. When similar pressures were brought to bear on him over the red line he himself had drawn regarding the use of chemical weapons in Syria, Obama revolted. On August 30, 2013—after consulting only Denis McDonough, his chief of staff—he decided to call off planned air strikes against the Syrian government, telling McDonough of his “long-standing resentment: He was tired of watching Washington unthinkingly drift toward war in Muslim countries.”

CONTINUED....a long read.....

NEEDS TO BE FULLY READ AND INHALED....

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 04:59 PM

Taken from the above article which goes to the heart of some Obama issues like his non engagement in both Syria and eastern Ukraine.....

Grand strategies are judged by their consequences, not by their intentions, and in the Middle East the consequences are not looking pretty.

Not intervening in Syria may have been the toughest decision of Obama’s presidency, but it shrinks to strategic insignificance alongside his deal with Iran to slow down that country’s nuclear-arms program. The president assures Goldberg that he “actually would have” struck Iran’s nuclear facilities if he had seen the Iranians “break out,” or get to the brink of acquiring nuclear weapons. Yet the essence of his deal is that Iran’s breakout has merely been postponed—and Iran’s brazen testing of ballistic missiles in recent days strongly suggests that Tehran sees it that way.

Goldberg concludes his important and illuminating article by crediting Obama with “a set of potentially historic foreign-policy achievements … the opening to Cuba, the Paris climate-change accord, the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, and … the Iran nuclear deal.” The key word here is “potentially.”

If you think you are smarter than every foreign-policy expert in the room, any room, then it is tempting to make up your own grand strategy. That is what Obama has done, to an extent that even his critics underestimate. There is no “Obama doctrine”; rather, we see here a full-blown revolution in American foreign policy. And this revolution can be summed up as follows: The foes shall become friends, and the friends foes.

In the Middle East, Israel and Saudi Arabia are out, Iran is in. Similarly, in the Far East, China is out, Vietnam is in. As for a special relationship, the president would rather have one with Cuba than Britain. Nothing could better illustrate the extent of Barack Obama’s repudiation of the “foreign-policy establishment.”

Yet grand strategies are judged by their consequences, not by their intentions, and in the Middle East—not to mention North Africa and parts of South Asia—the consequences are not looking pretty.

If the arc of history is in fact bending toward Islamic extremism, sectarian conflict, networks of terrorism, and regional nuclear-arms races, then the 44th president will turn out to have been rather less smart than the foreign-policy establishment he so loftily disdains.

UN Security Council wraps w/no response to #Iran missile tests, #Russia sees no violation, opposes new sanctions

EXACTLY what a number of Obama critics of the Iran Deal stated would happen if Iran violated anything...no UN actions, no sanctions and Russia supporting Iran in the UNSC......

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 05:09 PM

Update. 13th Division source: not a single #TOW seized by #JAN in Maret Al Numan. Stockpiles in well secured locations.

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 05:13 PM

Russian Express in the moving.......

ВМФ #ЧФ Tapir class LST Saratov entered the Black Sea at 14:45GMT

ВМФ #ЧФ Tapir class LST Saratov returns from #Tartus in 11days. This was the 1st #Syria deployment in 2016 for 150.

ВМФ #ЧФ Tapir class LST Saratov (x-Voronezhsky Konsomolets) returns from #Tartus & transits northbound Bosphorus

As predicted, Transmar arrived to #Syria. This time via Tripoli ! (map via @MarineTraffic )
https://twitter.com/yorukisik/status/694085400554557440 …

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 05:28 PM

PKK Links, Nusra Parallels Make Syrian Kurds a Troubling U.S. Partner
http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/18201/pkk-links-nusra-parallels-make-syrian-kurds-a-troubling-u-s-partner …

SYRIA: Lavrov says US suggested it take on IS in Raqa while Moscow deals with Palmyra: "I don't think I'm revealing a huge secret here."

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 05:39 PM

Major development.........
Idlib protesters in Maaret AlNoaman stormed #Nusra HQ,freed 10 detainees and burned it down

Men women & children of #MaaratAlNuman come out to support #FSA over Nusra.

Breaking
#Nusra left the #FSA hq in #MaaratAlNuman after protesters burned the #JaF hq.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJLIP1_wRdg …

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 05:42 PM

De Mistura: "The delivery of humanitarian aid have not been adequately delivered"

BUT WAIT.....the Russian MoD today stated they had delivered 5 tons of Russian to somewhere......WAIT it was a proAssad town......and they stated as well they had delivered aid to over 117,000 Syrians.

BUT WAIT..........
1. the UN has stated there are roughly 427,000 besieged and hard to get to locations.....virtually all Sunni areas
2. that estimate is now closer to 500,000

AND how many days are we into the COH?? and humanitarian aid was a cornerstone of the so called CoH supported by Russia and the UNSC......

SO who is lying????????

THIS explains WHY Putin supports the Assad starvation campaign and really has no intentions of ever fulfilling the delivery of the agreed to under CoH humanitarian aid deliveries to eh besieged towns and hard to get to locations.

Russia defends #Assad's starvation and bombing of #Daraya by deflecting to everywhere else: http://www.mid.ru/en/press_service/spokesman/briefings/-/asset_publisher/D2wHaWMCU6Od/content/id/2140275 …

Situation in Daraya, Syria

In the past few days some officials in the media are actively spinning the story connected to the humanitarian situation in Daraya, a suburb of Damascus besieged by the Syrian government forces. Anything is used for this purpose: interviews with “eyewitnesses” and heartbreaking pictures of children, as well other means of creating an aggressive emotional impact. It is remarkable that this media background is hijacked by the so-called Riyadh opposition group for their tactic of setting down preliminary conditions for intra-Syrian negotiations in Geneva. Some days ago they threatened again that they would not join the above dialogue with the Syrian government representatives until the Daraya blockade is lifted, demanding that the UN should send emergency humanitarian aid there.

This hardline “maximalism” resembles setting forth countless new conditions to push through their agenda, as well as some sort of self-publicity. Apparently, all this is caused by a desire to derail the fulfillment of the ceasefire agreements, to prevent the launching of a steady and effective political process aimed at reinforcing the current truce and ultimately at creating the best conditions for resolving all the humanitarian issues.

Are there humanitarian problems in the area I spoke about? Of course, there are. The question is – where aren’t there such problems in Syria? And how long will it take the international community, including the Syrian opposition, to understand that the humanitarian situation in that country is on the verge of collapse? I would like to say that humanism cannot bear politicising and double standards. In this connection it would be quite reasonable to ask a question why such ardent defenders of the Daraya population, which is indeed suffering, forget about the other hotspots of the tragedy, and completely ignore, for example, the critical situation in the center of Deir ez-Zor Province with over 200,000 residents, or the situation in Foua and Kefraya in the Idlib Province. We would like to remind you that Foua and Kefraya residents have approached the UN Secretary-General asking for the protection of civilians from massive terrorist attacks. Terrorists are already making mine field lanes and digging tunnels in preparation for an imminent attack of local towns. Why do we not hear from the people, who draw attention to the humanitarian situation in some regions and ultimately speculate on human grief and pain, about the sufferings of many thousands of residents in the Kurdish district of Sheikh Maksoud in northern Aleppo? The district from which disturbing reports about the continued shelling and assaults by terrorists are coming? We would like these questions not to remain rhetorical; we would like to get an answer to them.

The logic of settlement is the logic of peace which, unlike the logic of war, is constructive, not destructive. Accordingly, we call on all the interested parties to consolidate efforts to solve specific problems for promoting the comprehensive settlement of the Syrian crisis rather than scrutinize under a magnifying glass an occasional failure in the humanitarian access. We want our call to be heard loud and clear.

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 05:52 PM

Update
#ISIS now attacking #Marea itself.
Clashes in its outskirts.
Still no actions from YPG or Assad near #Aleppo.
Of course not.

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 05:58 PM

Not confirmed potentially Russian disinformation in play as always........

What the heck is this......
#Russia claims to withdraw "main part" of troops from #Syria from tomorrow on.

Markets. Courthouses. Hospitals. It’s a war on everyday life now in Syria
http://cnn.it/21qLUoi

سانا عاجل
‏@SanaAjel
Iran renews support to Syria in its struggle against terrorism
http://fb.me/3PYianSt2

Amr al-Absi (Abu al-Atheer), released by #Assad, worked in secret with #IS deputy Haji Bakr to form the caliphate.
https://shar.es/1YaCPs

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 06:00 PM

Taken from the above article which goes to the heart of some Obama issues like his non engagement in both Syria and eastern Ukraine.....

UN Security Council wraps w/no response to #Iran missile tests, #Russia sees no violation, opposes new sanctions

EXACTLY what a number of Obama critics of the Iran Deal stated would happen if Iran violated anything...no UN actions, no sanctions and Russia supporting Iran in the UNSC......

As I reported months ago, Russia now confirms nuke deal permits Iran to build ballistic missiles, despite US claims
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-missiles-un-idUSKCN0WG1NG

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 06:09 PM

Not confirmed potentially Russian disinformation in play as always........

What the heck is this......
#Russia claims to withdraw "main part" of troops from #Syria from tomorrow on.

AFP news agency 
‏@AFP
#BREAKING Putin orders withdrawal of Russian forces from Syria

"Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin had telephoned Syrian President Bashar al Assad to inform him of the Russian decision"

Is it April 1st already?

Russia announcement of troops out of Syria. Likely either:
- A complete lie
- Means (some) troops, not air force, now west Syria is secure

The *announcement* Russia is pulling out of Syria also helps U.S. sell GenevaIII as something other than Assad's victory by other means.

If he doesn't mean the aerial component, and if the withdrawal takes months, this won't mean anything

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 06:13 PM

Assad's brother-in-law, Assef Shawkat, was so deeply involved with #IS his agency was held liable by U.S. courts.
http://mme.cm/G1AW00

Zarqawi's IS jihadis funnelled into Iraq, often after months of training, by Assad.
http://amzn.to/24ZYqzC (p 190)

U.S.'s minimal support to Syrian rebel groups does enough to provoke the extremists, not enough to help.
http://bit.ly/1UsQG45

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 06:14 PM

By fully tilting toward Iran, U.S. hampers the fight against IS and allows al-Qaeda space to embed in Syria
http://bit.ly/1UsQG45

A Price of America’s Détente With Iran: Al-Qaeda Gains Ground in Syria

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on March 14, 2016

Jabhat an-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, has driven one of America’s oldest allied rebel groups in Syria from its headquarters. Nusra began its assault on Division 13 on Saturday night and by yesterday morning Nusra had looted the rebels’ weapons and Division 13’s leader, Ahmad as-Saoud, was in Turkey. This is the third major such incident, and each time the United States has done nothing to rescue its designated proxies. The U.S.’s rapprochement with the Islamic Republic of Iran has set conditions in Syria that make it easier for al-Qaeda to spread.

The Syrian Revolutionaries’ Front and Harakat Hazm

Overnight October 31/November 1, 2014, just after the U.S. began airstrikes in Syria against the Islamic State (IS), Nusra dismantled the Syrian Revolutionaries’ Front (SRF) in Idlib Province, the stronghold of Nusra’s most powerful and ideological branch, and also home to Division 13.

SRF had been supported by the Central Intelligence Agency, which had, since June 2013, been supporting vetted moderate rebels inside Syria—now totalling some thirty-nine groups and more than 40,000 fighters, whose record of maintaining the weapons supplies they’re given and fealty to the laws of war is—especially in the circumstances—near-unblemished.

The CIA program, however, has been plagued from the beginning by being chronically under-resourced and the U.S. has refused to protect its own assets, whether attacked by the regime, the Russians, al-Qaeda, or IS. The net result was that U.S.-supported groups became a target of extremist groups like Nusra—which the U.S. has for years urged rebels to attack—but the rebels were reliant on an inconsistent supply system and were not actually backed by the U.S. if it came to a confrontation. It was a policy that did enough to provoke the extremists and not enough to strengthen or protect the moderates; it was almost designed to discredit the U.S. as a worthwhile interlocutor and empower the jihadi-Salafists. SRF was a victim of this short-sighted policy.

The reaction was somewhat muted from other rebels because SRF and its leader, Jamal Marouf, had a reputation for banditry. Marouf’s men had looted resources to secure their militia, which did not have sources of finance as reliable as the Salafists. The disorderliness of the SRF was used by the U.S. as a reason for keeping its distance. SRF, unsurprisingly, got no more effective or honest in the absence of U.S. engagement and direction.

At around the same time Nusra was also attacking Harakat Hazm, a secular rebel group composed of 4,000 men, led by defected officers, and the White House’s favourite rebel group.

After SRF was routed, four of the then-sixteen vetted groups were immediately dropped by the U.S., and in December 2014 resources to the remaining twelve were severely cut without warning. Some rebel groups were relying on sixteen bullets per fighter. Hazm lost half of its funding.

In late February 2015, Hazm came under attack again and on March 1 announced it was dissolving itself into the larger, Islamist coalition, al-Jabhat a-Shamiya (The Levant Front). Other parts of Hazm later joined Jaysh al-Thuwar, an Arab battalion attached to various armed coalitions dominated by the Kurdish PKK.

Division 13, al-Qaeda’s Syrian Strategy, and the Ceasefire

The pattern of SRF and Hazm has repeated with Division 13. One of the oldest Free Syrian Army-branded, U.S.-vetted groups, Division 13 has about 2,000 fighters, headquartered in Maarat an-Numan in Idlib, but the group has also fought in Aleppo, notably as part of the recent effort by the rebellion to repel a Russian-backed PKK attack on the Azaz corridor that was the final Aleppine supply-line from Turkey.

Nusra was joined by Jund al-Aqsa, a group set up as an al-Qaeda front that appears now to be (unofficially) pro-IS, in attacking Division 13. At least seven Division 13 soldiers were killed and about forty arrested by Sunday morning. There is a claim the captives were all released by Sunday night.

Nusra has, as part of its strategy to secure itself a long-term base for the restoration of the caliphate and the use of terrorism abroad, taken significant efforts to embed itself in rebel dynamics as a means to shield its jihadi agenda, to foster co-dependency not only with a desperate rebellion fighting virtually alone against between three and five State powers depending on how you calculate it, but among local populations, too.

Despite the pressures for insurgent unity—and simple survival, especially since the Russian intervention—Division 13 was among the groups that had eschewed cooperation with Nusra. The lessons from what has befallen Division 13, namely that it is more dangerous to be a U.S. ally than an enemy, do not favour Western security.

The “cessation of hostilities”—which is really a reduction of hostilities—that took effect on February 27 is little more than a cover for the regime and its Russian and Iranian backers to catch their breath from their recent aggression while continuing to wage their war in a more limited format as they wish. But it has had a significant impact on insurgent dynamics.

Ninety-seven rebel groups signed on to this “ceasefire,” which excluded both Nusra and IS. Since Russia was bombing whatever it wanted by calling them Nusra, it gave Nusra a certain freedom. It also meant that other rebel groups were hindered in mobilizing to respond to violations of the ceasefire. Was it worth incurring Russia’s wrath to respond? What could they do anyway? Would the population under their control turn against them if their action induced Russia to bomb their area?

When it was Nusra, not Russia, that used the ceasefire to attack the rebels the problem of mobilization persisted: Why make yourself a Nusra target? Nusra fight the regime and the U.S. wouldn’t even support you if you took on Nusra. Moreover, the U.S. has all-but sided with the regime in Syria, both de facto in terms of its military action, which only hits IS, Nusra, and some non-transnationalist rebel groups (whether on purpose or not we do not know), and increasingly in the political negotiations.

Nusra is taking a risk for its long-term strategy in this. It is difficult to dissociate Nusra’s behaviour from that of what it calls the khawarij (IS). On Friday, with the reduction in airstrikes, the population and the FSA-style rebels took to the streets again for massive, peaceful anti-regime protests all across Syria. Nusra had tried to shut down the protest in Maarat an-Numan. (Saoud himself has attended these rallies.) During the attacks on Division 13 on Saturday, protesters took the streets in the pitch-black to demand Nusra cease and desist.

Nusra’s hard edge—the real al-Qaeda—has been seen a few times over the last few years, perhaps most notably in July 2014, after IS stormed into Iraq and declared its caliphate, when a leaked recording revealed their plan for an “Islamic Emirate” in Syria. The thinking—as with anointing Taliban leader Mullah Omar as the “counter-caliph“—was that while al-Qaeda’s calls for the caliphate as the end not the beginning of their program, they could not beat IS’s something with nothing. Nusra had been fighting for three years in Syria and held very little territory; a semi-caliphate would allow al-Qaeda to do battle with IS on more firm ideological footing.

For some activists, Nusra’s aggression against Division 13 is basically the return of the Emirate project. Ahmed Alwan, a senior cleric in Maarat an-Numan, said: “It’s going to be one faction after another because Nusra wants to be the paramount force here [i.e. in Idlib].” Another activist put it more bluntly: “This is Raqqa 2,” referring to IS’s takeover in October 2013 of the city that is now its capital, after the rebels had taken it from Assad that April.

The U.S.’s Pro-Iran Tilt is Helping Sunni Jihadists

There is little appetite, with the rebellion already fighting Assad/Iran and IS, to open up a third front against Nusra, especially because Nusra is so effective in fighting the regime, but the concern is there. To untangle Nusra from the rebellion, composed demographically largely of the Sunni Arab population which is needed for the U.S. priority of sustainably defeating IS, would require giving the armed opposition another option: it would have to be more beneficial to be a U.S. ally than to collaborate with Nusra. This would involve the U.S. being committed to the overthrow of the Assad regime. It does not involve the U.S. invading Syria, but having as its operating paradigm the deposition of Assad.

At the present time, U.S. policy effectively cedes Syria to Iran as a sphere of influence and gives Assad a security guarantee. Assad being off-limits was seen with the train-and-equip program, where the Pentagon recruited rebels to the anti-IS fight on condition they stop being rebels—that is to say abandon their fight against the regime.

Continued......

The U.S.’s pro-Iran tilt plays directly into IS’s propaganda, which says there is an American-Iranian conspiracy against the Sunnis. If Sunnis believe IS will be replaced by Iran, they will stick with IS. And the escalated assault on the Syrian population by Russia and Iran since September last year, unhindered by the U.S. which is unwilling to provide even anti-aircraft weapons to CIA-supported rebels that were systematically targeted by Russia, is pushing insurgents toward reliance on Nusra.

Continued......

Put simply, the U.S.’s pro-Iran tilt is alienating potential allies in Syria and beyond, hampering the fight against IS, and allowing al-Qaeda to expand and entrench in Syria long into the future.

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 06:29 PM

Obama has not quarantined the furies of the Mid-East. Instead, he "brought [them] inside the gates."
http://theatln.tc/21ru9Fa

"Both the PYD/YPG and…Nusra…are…Syria-focused affiliates of U.S.-designated transnational terrorist organizations."
http://bit.ly/1QSgch0

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 06:37 PM

AFP news agency 
‏@AFP
#BREAKING Putin orders withdrawal of Russian forces from Syria

"Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin had telephoned Syrian President Bashar al Assad to inform him of the Russian decision"

Is it April 1st already?

Russia announcement of troops out of Syria. Likely either:
- A complete lie
- Means (some) troops, not air force, now west Syria is secure

The *announcement* Russia is pulling out of Syria also helps U.S. sell GenevaIII as something other than Assad's victory by other means.

If he doesn't mean the aerial component, and if the withdrawal takes months, this won't mean anything

Vladimir Putin: Mission accomplished in Syria
Big caveat, the statement mentions withdrawal of "main forces".
http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20160314/1036274550/putin-orders-syria-withdrawal.html …

Not a "withdrawal". Statement seems to capitalize on the military (regime gains) & political (CoH) momentum to say quick progress was made?

Assad: we agreed with Putin to decrease the number of Russian airstrikes. via @IkhwanSyria
RIGHT!!!

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu to start the withdrawal of forces from Syria starting Tuesday. Russia will however keep a military presence at the port of Tartous and at the Khmeimim airbase.

“I consider the objectives that have been set for the Defense Ministry to be generally accomplished. That is why I order to start withdrawal of the main part of our military group from the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic starting from tomorrow,” Putin said on Monday during a meeting with Shoigu and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

To control the observation of ceasefire agreements in the region, Moscow will keep its Khmeimim airbase in Latakia province and a base at the port of Tartous, Putin said.

At Moscow's initiative, a phone conversation between Vladimir Putin and Syria's President Bashar Assad was held on Monday evening, the Kremlin reported.

The two leaders agreed that the actions of Russia's Air Force in Syria have allowed them to "profoundly reverse the situation" in connection to fighting terrorists in the region, having "disorganized militants' infrastructure and inflicted fundamental damage upon them."

Bashar Assad has recognized the “professionalism, courage and heroism” of Russian Army soldiers and officers, who have taken part in the military action, thanking Russia not only for extensive help in the fight against terrorism, but also for providing humanitarian aid and assistance to the Syrian civilian population.

The Syrian leader also stressed its readiness to engage in the political process in Syria as soon as possible, the Kremlin said.

Russia's president also addressed his foreign minister. He had tasked Lavrov with intensifying Russia's participation in the peace process to solve the Syrian crisis, the Kremlin reported.

So did Putin and the Russian/Iranian and Assad militaries defeat Islamic State which is what Putin stated in the UNGA he was going to Syria to in fact do.....

So Russia defeated Islamic Sate.......?????.

So is this the Putin/Obama declared "Mission Accomplished" statement over Islamic State.....????

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 07:09 PM

This Russian development by Putin is interesting for a number of reasons.....

1. after six months the cost of fighting in Syria is costly for Russia when their economy is collapsing
2. after six months of ground fighting with a Shia/Iraqi mercenary army, Hezbollah and IRGC...they have suffered major loses overall to gain not much in principle
3. the FSA has been able to largely hold on through the heavy air strikes and ground offensives....
4. BUT more importantly the West ie Obama MUST now negotiate directly with Assad....as Russia is simply moving into a monitoring role PLUS the new opposition group that Russia is setting up as well as the coming elections both for Parliament and President.....

Exactly as they have done in eastern Ukraine......

AND it stalls the entry of Turkey and KSA into Syria.......

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 07:18 PM

If Putin thinks he's "achieved his objectives in Syria" then it's abundantly clear taking out ISIS wasn't among them.

Detail: " a timetable for the withdrawal of the Aerospace Forces’ main air grouping has been agreed." https://twitter.com/KremlinRussia_E/status/709453103284805632 …

If #Russia does withdraw from #Syria, what happened to originally stated goal of defeating ISIS? Hard to say that ISIS has been beaten.

Putin seems to declare victory, says #Russia to withdraw bulk of its forces from #Syria. Will be interesting to see what in fact leaves

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 07:26 PM

ICYMI yesterday there were several reports that a large number of Russian jets have already left Hmeimim airbase in Latakia, #Syria

If Putin announcement serious, Assad has to give up any hope for conquering all of Syria. Imagine atmosphere on pro-regime social media now

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 07:28 PM

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 07:46 PM

Breaking: "#Russia able to withdraw all planes within 24 hours from #Syria."
https://twitter.com/lifenews_ru/status/709459112229212161 …

Meanwhile SyAAF IL-76 airlifters [YK-ATA + YK-ATB] very busy lately flying between Iran (Abadan/Tehran) and Damascus

Breaking
Moment when the free Syrian men freed FSA members from jabha alnusra base/prison
http://youtu.be/Sv49hZ8NV-w
http://twitter.com/Jazrawi_Shirqat/status/709466178830393347/photo/1pic.twitter.com/gQf57r5EX8

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 08:22 PM

We should never forget what the Russian FM says........

Russian Embassy, UK
‏@RussianEmbassy
Russia’s goal in Syria is not to support Assad against opposition but stop advance of ISIL and help defeat it

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 08:29 PM

Arab Spring Was An Existential Threat To Tyrants So Putin Tried To Bomb Democracy Into Dust
http://bit.ly/1RJQuZs

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 08:32 PM

Crucially: #Russia's intervention in #Syria has battered and weakened the mainstream rebels, allowed IS into Aleppo, strengthened al-Qaeda.

Grant it to Putin: he changed the course of #Syria's war militarily + pushed US (even) further toward a political accommodation w Assad/Iran

OUTLAW 09

03-14-2016, 08:33 PM

Carl Bildt
✔ ‎@carlbildt Moscow abuzz tonight with theories on Syria partial withdrawal. One: economy has made deal with Saudi over Syria and oil prices necessary.

Carl Bildt
✔ ‎@carlbildt Russian partial Syria withdrawal said to be “coordinated” with Damascus. For certain. Brotherhood, love, understanding and harmony.

Carl Bildt ‏@carlbildt
Russia has 1 squadron modern and 1 sq less modern fighter bombers in Syria. And then 1 sq air defence fighters. Plus support & protection.
And roughly 1.5 Army Brigades on the ground with AD.....plus GRU/Spetsnaz.....

davidbfpo

03-14-2016, 10:30 PM

From ISW via the BBC and curiously the broken Assad supply line to Aleppo is shown as still controlled:http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/163F/production/_88559650_syria_control_map_624_v7.png

davidbfpo

03-14-2016, 10:51 PM

Hat tip to Scott Lucas on:http://eaworldview.com/2016/03/iran-daily-qods-forces-soleimani-defends-tehrans-military-campaigns/

Which links to a very short Press TV clip of Soleimani speaking:http://presstv.com/Detail/2016/03/13/455567/Iran-Soleimani-defending-Muslims/

davidbfpo

03-14-2016, 11:27 PM

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 04:54 AM

Foreign Affairs
✔ ‎@ForeignAffairs The House has declared that ISIS is committing genocide against Christians: http://ow.ly/ZsBEq

WHAT happen to the declaring the killing of over 450K Syrians and over 200K Sunni prisoners many tortured and disappeared and the use of chemical weapons 58 times......and especially the use of starvation.....

Guess the lives of Muslims do not count as much as say a Christian?????

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 05:00 AM

Putin hasn't left Syria & won't; he extracted max gains - Assad regime stable, w/max natural territory, int'l backing, dependent on Russia.

Note: Russian way of war was exert max violence (+ on civs) to achieve mil & political objective ASAP, not get entangled for years in COIN.

Yesterday from te Russian media outlet......
Vedomosti on troop pullout: "Mission Minimum complete: peace process started. But a long way to Mission Maximum: ending Russia's isolation

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 05:02 AM

WAS this also the same reason given for their demanding the right for nuclear weapons.....

Iran says missiles for self defense, tests do not violate nuclear deal
http://reut.rs/1U2Sl2b

The UNSC resolution is extremely clear...no ballistic missiles of any type were to be designed, tested and or fielded....

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 05:06 AM

Assad fanatic practice of labeling #Iran's mercenaries as #SAA continues to be exposed as a lie on a daily basis.

TWO more Iranian Generals sent home in coffins.....

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 05:11 AM

Huffington Post
✔ ‎@HuffingtonPost Turks eye U.S. embassy’s terror warning issued two days before Ankara attack with suspicion
http://huff.to/1P91HRo

US DoS statement was ....they had seen the Turkish Security Service warning thus issued their own warning......problem is the Turkish warning was internal and classified ..so does the US have an internal Turkish spy...???

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 05:18 AM

FRANCE 24 English
✔ ‎@France24_en Iran says US court order on 9/11 compensation 'ridiculous'
http://f24.my/1QTFPPx

Ridiculous or not the court decision can be used to enforce the collection of the damages....

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 05:23 AM

Appears without Russian air power Hezbollah feels they cannot win any further battles....or their loses were so high they figured it was time to go anyway...coupled with the KSA withdrawal of Lebanese funding as well as the GCC declaring them to be a terrorist organization....

Syria: #Hezbollah starts with withdrawal of its terrorists after #Putin announced to withdraw his troops from #Syria. #Lebanon.

BreakingReport
#Hezbollah starts withdrawal from #Syria after Russian announcement.
http://janoubia.com/2016/03/14/%D8%AD%D8%B2%D8%A8-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%84%D9%87-%D9%8A%D8%A8%D8%AF%D8%A3-%D8%A8%D8%B3%D8%AD%D8%A8-%D8%B9%D8%AF%D9%8A%D8%AF%D9%87-%D9%85%D9%86-%D8%B3%D9%88%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%A7-%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AA%D8%B2/ …

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 05:29 AM

Kremlin Photo of Putin, Shoigu & Lavrov shows 3 depressed losers = Russia felt forced to exit Syria.
http://www.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/51511 …

Concern: After having messed up in & departed from Syria, will Russia focus on Donbas again? Russia fought less in Ukraine while in Syria.

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 05:36 AM

Rebels hold Tell al-Sakhr, regime Al Musharifa.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ow1vcP_GaXY …

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 05:42 AM

Watching Russian TV coverage of Putin’s withdrawal order, you’d think the war in Syria is over, all that’s left is to dot the ‘i’s in Geneva.

When Russian state media starts using quotation marks for Russian state leader's remarks ... "objective achieved"............then in Russian info war speak that means complete failure......

In general, with support of our aircraft Syrian troops liberated 400 settlements and over 10,000 square kilometers of territory.....
Shoigu

BUT after massive destruction of virtually anything that was Sunni...Assad was still unable even with the Kurdish YPG to retake all of Syria...remember when Assad promised to retake Syria...Russia did not really say much against the idea....

To say this clearly:
Whether it was #Russia's goal to defeat #ISIS or to regain the rebel-held land w/#Assad:
Its mission was a 99% failure.

BUT WAIT after damaging the FSA...Putin leaves the West in the following position at Geneva....either support Assad or IS...their goal from the very beginning....

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 06:10 AM

Mood in #Damascus is gloomy at best after sudden #Russian announcement to withdraw major force from #Syria

Syrian govt sources refuse to comment on Russian move to withdraw major force from #Syria saying they weren't surprised

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 07:02 AM

Which of these Russian objectives in Syria have been achieved? All of them.
http://freebeacon.com/blog/russias-syria-withdrawal-is-not-a-win-for-the-west/ …

Russian pullout from #Syria begins. TV: this was "our assertive return to M/East as an independent & firm player" https://twitter.com/vesti_news/status/709631562103521280 …

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 07:06 AM

ICYMI yesterday there were several reports that a large number of Russian jets have already left Hmeimim airbase in Latakia, #Syria

Russian Defense Ministry reports planes already returning home from Syrian base
https://twitter.com/mod_russia/status/709622793651011584 …

Минобороны России
✔ ‎@mod_russia #SYRIA Aircraft will perform flight from #Hmeymim airbase to permanent location airfields of Russia accompanied by military transports

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 07:16 AM

https://meduza.io/en/feature/2016/03/15/what-russia-achieved-in-syria

What Russia achieved in Syria The main takeaways after 167 days of Moscow’s bombs
 00:43, 15 March 2016 Meduza

♦ ♦ ♦

Bashar al-Assad remains in power. And his troops have also strengthened many of their frontline positions, thanks largely to support from Russian aviation and Iranian forces. The Assad regime's greatest success is that its troops have nearly encircled Aleppo, once the nation's largest city, parts of which fell under rebel control. As a result of the siege, the city reached the verge of a major humanitarian disaster. (The UN warns that 300,000 people face starvation.) In an interview with the newspaper El Pais, Assad said that he is prepared to amnesty any combatants who agree to lay down their arms.

The West was forced to negotiate with Russia. After an international coalition levied sanctions against Russia over Moscow's intervention in Ukraine, the Kremlin's role on the global stage was significantly diminished. Russia's airstrikes in Syria marked Moscow's return to great power politics. Despite the West's strong objections to Russian bombing missions in Syria, the Kremlin's participation became essential to holding peace talks. The United States and its allies have also softened their main condition for a settlement in Syria: the removal from power of President Bashar al-Assad. Washington's latest rhetoric focuses instead on a transitional period, and Assad's immediate ouster is no longer something American diplomats demand. Russia and the US led the negotiations that produced the ceasefire announced on February 27. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry led the talks.

Once gaining ground, ISIS is now on the defensive, but it's not destroyed. In 2015, ISIS lost ground in Syria, though the terrorist organization still controls significant parts of Syria and Iraq, and it continues to carry out terrorist operations abroad. It is unclear, however, who was most responsible for turning the tide against ISIS. Both Russia and the Western coalition are eager to claim credit.

There are civilians among those targeted. Russia has repeatedly been accused of bombing civilians in its attacks ostensibly aimed at terrorists. American officials and other observers point to evidence that Russian airstrikes have targeted rebels fighting against the Assad regime, and some of these bombs, critics say, have hit civilian populations. According to the London-based monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, roughly 1,700 noncombatants were killed by Russian airstrikes between September 30 and March 1. Russia has also been accused of deliberately targeting hospitals. Defense officials in Moscow have consistently denied all accusations of civilian casualties caused by Russian airstrikes.

Russia has entered a protracted conflict with Turkey. The new tensions spiked when two Turkish jets shot down a Russian bomber over Syria near the Turkish border. Ankara insists that the plane violated Turkish airspace repeatedly, though Moscow has vociferously denied this. Vladimir Putin called the attack “a stab in the back by terrorists' accomplices.” Moscow responded by levying food sanctions against Turkey, and it canceled visa-free travel for Turkish citizens to Russia. Moscow also banned organized tourist trips to Turkey, and froze all major economic projects between the two nations. Turkish businessmen and students traveling and living in Russia have complained of harassment by local authorities. In Russian propaganda, Turkey has displaced Ukraine: national television networks now present Turkey as an enemy that collaborates with terrorists against Russia.

Moscow's military intervention in Syria did cost some Russian lives. About a month after the airstrikes began, a 19-year-old serviceman died. According to official reports, Vadim Kostenko (a professional soldier—not a conscript) killed himself after losing his girlfriend in a breakup. (Kostenko's family says it doesn't believe he would have committed suicide.) On November 24, Oleg Peshkov also died. He was one of the pilots of the Su-24 bomber shot down by the Turkish Air Force. Peshkov was killed while parachuting to the ground, after ditching his aircraft. Militants opened fire at him while he was still in the air. Peshkov's navigator, Konstantin Murakhtin, managed to reach safety, but one of the marines in his rescue party, Alexander Pozynich, was killed during the operation. On February 3, the Russian Defense Ministry reported that a military adviser to the Syrian Army died in a mortar attack. According to officials in Moscow, the man wasn't participating in combat, and was only providing training to the Syrian military, which currently receives Russian military hardware. The Defense Ministry has not released the man's name.

Russia got to try out its newest weapons. Though Putin denies that it factored into Moscow's decision to intervene in Syria, one of the airstrikes' objectives was to test Russia's newest weapons—an opportunity the Defense Ministry exploited to the fullest. The Russian military delivered its bombs not just by aircraft, but also using warships and even the Rostov submarine, firing missiles from the Caspian Sea at targets more than 1,500 miles away. The airstrikes also marked the first time in history that Russia has ever used X-101 cruise missiles and other modern weapons. Even before the X-101 launches, the news agency RBC reported that Russia was spending at least $2.5 million on its Syria campaign every day. If RBC's calculations are accurate, it means Russia's military operation in Syria has cost at least $415 million to date.

Russian Embassy, UK 
‏@RussianEmbassy
#Lavrov: No safe zones in #Syria without its Government’s consent

BY pulling out...tend to think Russia has lost their voice on the table......they still seem to feel the Turks and Saudi's will indeed come if the Sunni civilian population continues to be killed by the Assad AF, artillery and barrel bombs........

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 07:22 AM

Reference Russian info warfare that many have not tended to look at....trolls yes this no......

The more I dig, the more scared I get. The number of false-flag news sites is STAGGERING.

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 07:50 AM

CrowBat....is it possible that the MANPAD shot down of the MiG was a not so subtle warning to the Russians ......????

Can you confirm anything on this comment?

Putin orders withdrawal from Syria after being told of gulf states decision to ship anti-aircraft systems to rebels over west objections

Gulf states started sending in manpads and support teams to Syrian rebels weeks ago

What is interesting is that the video crazy FSA somehow just did not video the actual shot down especially using a MANPAD as if they wanted to protect the launch team......if you noticed all the initial reporting was around the AA smokescreen videos.....and shortly before the use of the MANPAD there was on the net a report of possible North Korean MANPADs in Syria.

Since the release of the Obama Doctrine the KSA was free to do what they wanted to as Obama had basically written them off which would explain why the GCC sent in the MANPADS...Obama has no further influence over them and that Putin was smart enough to see.

THEN if we look back over the last week the KSA FM stated just before the ending of the Northern Thunder exercise he stated they had a plan for the total removal of Assad one way or the other...so were the MANPADs the "other"....?

For #Putin removal of #Assad isn't the red line but Western/Gulf forcing him out is. So #Assad will have to go "voluntarily". It's on.

CrowBat..spent some time yesterday going back over all the released videos and posted comments from the various FSA groups concerning the MiG shot down.

The comments on the GCC supplying trainers and MANPADs is extremely interesting in that the commenter has a really solid track record especially when it comes to satellite imagery analysis in eastern Ukraine and initially in Syria and after his image confirmation of the RuAF arrival he has been extremely and unusually quiet.

He stated that he has a massive buildup of sat images that he has not commented on in order to not endanger FSA forces.......and that with the pull back he can now release the images.....which he plans to do now.

It does seem to appear that in fact a Russian SU 34 was actually hit by a MANPAD...if you look at the videos all lined up....the AA was in fact firing on the low flying and flying straight as an arrow MiG 21 under the cloud cover as if he was making a straight bomb run and then back to base located in the area.

BUT at the same time there is another video actually depicting a SU-34 and a bomb strike before the MiG comes into the fly by mix....

Another video depicting the MANPAD does have background AA chatter at the same time the MANPAD was fired but the video concentrates on the MiG and the AA firing.

The launch of the MANPAD flight is almost straight up and into the cloud cover as you can seen the reflection of the rocket engine in the clouds as it climbed through the cloud layers....

The MiG though remained all the time under the cloud cover and was clearly seen by one and all.

The only video depicting a possible crash site was a heavy black mushroom going straight up which would depict a straight in nose crash not an aircraft breaking up and scattering all over the place as in the Turkish shot down as it went in at an angle. And it was a long distance from the initial engagement site.

There was only one chute seen and recorded so in theory the SU-34 crew could have been seriously injured and did not eject.

If you see the Turkish shot down video the plane was also hit in the rear, had major damage and was on fire and the pilots barely got out.

The MiG depicted the standard initial puff of heavy smoke indicting a turbine hit and then the initial fire flamed out...there is a portion of a video depicting a possible bomb release made in an open field by the MiG to lose weight landing not far from the AA teams.

So it might in fact true that the GCC have been able to get MANPADs in along with a security team and trainers....to maintain control over them.

I say this because the FSA has been religious in their video work and I find it interesting that with something as important PR wise as firing a MANPAD no one thought about taking along a video camera.

THEN we had the RuAF confirming the shot down not Assad....and then we had virtually little RuAF activity the next day or so after the shot down as if the Russians were analyzing the problem.

CrowBat

03-15-2016, 07:52 AM

A slightly odd, almost revisionist article from Carnegie Middle East Centre, which claims there have been no mass defections from the Syrian Army. Judge for youself:http://carnegie-mec.org/2016/03/10/strength-in-weakness-syrian-army-s-accidental-resilience/iuz7? (http://carnegie-mec.org/2016/03/10/strength-in-weakness-syrian-army-s-accidental-resilience/iuz7?mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRovsqzOZKXonjHpfsX54%2B4 vXK6g38431UFwdcjKPmjr1YoGTcp0aPyQAgobGp5I5FEIQ7XYT LB2t60MWA%3D%3D)
I've got tired of explaining this... the only thing that comes to my mind any more is: the author missed all the defections (perhpas he was too young back in 2011-2012?) and thus = there were no mass defections.

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 07:58 AM

Tend to agree with this comment......

How unification of rebel groups and extension of help to them by supporters with limited land gains of SAA is turning-point of war

Especially new weapons were suddenly making it into the battlespace and even more new FSA groups were showing up and more Russian complaints of Turkish arms being delivered....together with deliberate Turkish artillery support and rumored but not confirmed Saudi/Jordanian AF strikes AND an occasional US strike thrown in for good measure against IS positions.

CrowBat

03-15-2016, 08:03 AM

Carl Bildt ‏@carlbildt
Russia has 1 squadron modern and 1 sq less modern fighter bombers in Syria. And then 1 sq air defence fighters. Plus support & protection.
And roughly 1.5 Army Brigades on the ground with AD.....plus GRU/Spetsnaz.....
Have we got something like 'day of people who miss 2/3s of what's going on in Syria' today...?

My last count is:
- 3 squadrons of Su-24s, 3 of Su-27/30s, 1 of Su-34s and 1 of Su-25s...

And in regards of ground troops, there are:
- at least 8 battalions (from 8 different brigades, i.e. an equivalent to something like 3 brigades)
- at least 11 artillery batteries from 5 different brigades (equivalent to three artillery regiments)

But, sigh, 'it's OK'. If one doesn't follow this conflict carefully enough, nothing's going on in Syria and there's no need to worry...

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 08:04 AM

Russia declares "political victory" in Syria as their reason for pulling out...via their info war media outlet....Sputnik...from today.Notiuce the two US citizens quoted by Sputnik as "experts"....

http://sputniknews.com/world/20160315/1036292970/syria-russia-putin-withdrawal.html#ixzz42xMgLtGT

Mission Accomplished: Russia's Pullout From Syria Signals Political Victory

© Sputnik/ Ramil Sitdikov

09:56 15.03.2016

Many foreign experts have already touted President Vladimir Putin's decision to start withdrawing Russia's Aerospace Forces unit from Syria as something that will help stimulate the process of settling the Syrian crisis politically.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's decision to begin pulling his country's Aerospace Forces group out of Syria is aimed at stimulating the process of reaching a political settlement which will overcome the gridlock preventing a lasting truce in the Syrian war, according to many foreign experts, including former US Senate staffer James Jatras.

In an interview with RT, he pointed specifically to Russia's air campaign, which had been backing the Syrian Army's anti-terror effort.

"We should bear in mind that the political settlement of the conflict would have been out of the question but for Russia's air support of Syria's government forces. This finally forced the terrorists to shift to defensive actions," Jatras said.

He was echoed by political analyst John Wight, who told RT that the Russian air strikes on terrorists added significantly to boosting the Syrian Army's morale, which he said helped change the situation in favor of Syria's government troops.

"Now, all attention will be focused on Geneva, where a new round of the Syria peace talks will take place," he pointed out.

The resumption of these talks became possible only thanks to President Putin's decision to start pulling out Russia's Aerospace Forces from Syria, according to another political analyst, Catherine Shakdam.

Speaking to RT, she said that Putin's move is aimed to de-escalate the situation in the region.

"This is an attempt to again start resolving the Syrian conflict by political means. President Putin and Russia know full well that they should not be involved in a full-fledged war, especially if this war is not the ultimate goal," she said.

Bruno Gollnisch, a MEP from France's National Front party, stated that this decision underscores Putin's willingness to be engaged in a dialogue with the international community.

"I believe that Vladimir Putin is absolutely right that he decided to begin the withdrawal of Russian troops from Syria. This only proves that the global community should conduct a dialogue with Putin rather than isolate him," Gollnisch said.

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 08:10 AM

WHY would the Russian military give up their established A2AD bubbles right into NATO's southern flank and the eastern Med......????

Russian official : S-400 systems will stay in Syria. No surprises there.
https://twitter.com/gazetaru_army/status/709646974878937088 …

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 08:11 AM

Hmeimim today
After killing 1885 civilians, forcing 300.000 to flee, completely destroying the critical civilian infrastructure--schools, mosques, hospitals, markets, flattening complete towns and villages & achieving none of its IS declared goals, Russia goes home

THAT is what Putin declared "a victory"....but is it enough to save Assad in the end...not really as the Russians are ready to let him fall as long as they can maintain their unrestricted SOFA and two key bases in Syria AND Iran can maintain their land corridor to Hezbollah and maintain Syria in their "sphere of influence" WHICH is what Obama has stated they can do.....win win for both Russia and the US......

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 08:35 AM

Heavy clashes continue on multiple fronts in the Marj area in E. Ghouta between rebels & Assad forces. #Damascus #Syria

Heavy clashes now between #JAI and #SAA terrorists in #alMarj fronts
#Damascus cs #Syria MAR 15

Heavy clashes now between #FSA & #SAA terrorists in western side of #Talbiseh fronts
#Homs cs #Syria MAR 15

Rebels liberated #alHanif & #alJerny, exterminating dozens of #SAA terrorists & seizing Tank BMB ammunitions & weapons
#Homs #Syria MAR 14

Sad state of affairs, YPG also using child fighters in their fight against ISIS in Syria
http://en.eldorar.com/node/1746

72 Hour Sand and Dust Storm being forecasted now for the Syria/Iraq Region:

21 Martyrs
[4 Fighters 3 Tortured 1 Child]
6 Damascus
3 Daraa
2 Hama
2 Latakia
2 Hasaka
1 Aleppo
1 Homs
#Syria MAR 14

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 08:38 AM

CrowBat.....have not seen much of anything in the way of Iranian comments on the Putin pull out.....one would have thought that they would have been fore warned?

Secondly...how is this going to play out on the ground with the Shia mercenaries having no Russian CAS to support their attacks...moral has to be suffering this morning?????

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 08:42 AM

WOW...for once Russian media is getting brave in their comments....

Russian TV: 1) RF action in Syria was "wasteful"; 2) RF only wanted more respect and got it; 3) Assad is the problem https://twitter.com/rbc_channel/status/709460380704092160 …

Although I do not think they got the "respect" they think they got as their actions actually were a tad on the "war crimes against humanity side" and that was a not a minor charge being prepared against Putin via the UN....

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 08:46 AM

AIRLIVE ‎@airlivenet
ALERT http://airlive.net/alerts
First group of Russian warplanes has left Russia's base in Syria, Russia's defense ministry says - AP

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 08:50 AM

CrowBat....care to comment...will hold mine back.....

Strength in Weakness: The Syrian Army’s Accidental Resilience
http://carnegie-mec.org/2016/03/10/strength-in-weakness-syrian-army-s-accidental-resilience/iuz7 … fascinating, by @CarnegieMEC's Kheder Khaddou

I have my own views of the quality of Carnegie's work lately and it is not good...

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 01:32 PM

Jaish al-Islam tells us: Islamic State "looking to expand" beyond south Damascus stronghold.
http://bit.ly/1RiQHss

BREAKING: Al-Qaeda in #Syria (Jabhat al-Nusra) vows new offensive after Russian pullout - @AFP

Breaking
Mass protest, involving many women, in #MaaratAlNuman, demanding #Nusra to go.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsojLcPyiY0 …

Don't forget,this is "al-Qaeda heartland".
Not a single pro-islamist protester.
Nusra(so far!) not suppressing ppl.

People not just with #FreeSyria flags, but #Division13 flags.

Breaking
Moment when the free Syrian men freed FSA members from jabha alnusra base/prison
: http://youtu.be/Sv49hZ8NV-w http://twitter.com/Jazrawi_Shirqat/status/709466178830393347/photo/1pic.twitter.com/gQf57r5EX8

People not just with #FreeSyria flags, but #Division13 flags.

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 02:02 PM

"Pack it in Sal!" continues as @RT_com withdraws it's broadcast of it's Syrian withdraw

BreakingNews
Jabhat al-Nusra Ahrar al-Sham & Fajir al-Ummah have formed a union army in #Ghouta called Fustat Army

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 02:05 PM

A really worth reading article from a Ukrainian political viewer that applies deeply to the Arab Spring and Putin.....

http://www.interpretermag.com/what-vladimir-putin-learned-from-the-arab-spring/

James Miller

What Vladimir Putin Learned From The Arab Spring

March 14, 2016

Taken from the article.......
In the April 2016 cover story of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg has interviewed the soon-to-be-former President of the United States about “The Obama Doctrine,” Barack Obama reflects on (and defends) his controversial foreign policy. We will be addressing several of the claims made by President Obama in future articles, but the overall tone of his interviews suggest that he believes that he was right to pull back from the Middle East and to not push back against Russia more in places like Ukraine and Syria. One has to question whether the 44th President of the United States was too quick to allow Russia to control not only the narrative but the political landscape and the physical battlefields of the 21st century’s greatest armed conflicts.

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 02:11 PM

How many troops is Russia leaving behind in Syria after its withdrawal? About a thousand, Moscow says.
http://www.interfax.ru/world/498528

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 02:20 PM

http://blogs.ft.com/the-exchange/2016/03/14/putins-syria-success-has-come-at-an-amazing-cost/

Ivo Daalder

Putin’s Syria ‘success’ has come at an amazing cost

Mar 14 21:07

Is this Vladimir Putin’s “mission accomplished” moment? In a surprise move, the Russian president announced on Monday that he was ordering the withdrawal of what he called “the main part” of the Russian military contingent from Syria, declaring that “the task put before … the Russian military has, on the whole, been fulfilled.” Mr Putin also called for an intensification of the diplomatic process, which, following two weeks of relative quiet in the Syrian conflict, also resumed on Monday.

But what has Moscow’s intervention actually accomplished? And what will happen once Russian forces have withdrawn? The most important and immediate effect of the military intervention has been to bolster the regime of Bashar al-Assad, which bears major responsibility for the carnage inflicted on the Syrian people. Keeping Mr Assad in power—and maintaining Russia’s military presence in Syria — was always the primary reason for the campaign.

But this “success,” if we can call it that, has come at an amazing cost. The Assad regime’s brutal tactics — ranging from dropping barrel bombs on civilian populations to using chemical weapons—have left close to half a million dead and more than half the population of 22m Syrians displaced from their homes. Yet, far from curtailing the atrocities, Russia’s five-month long intervention only intensified the violence, including the indiscriminate bombing of opposition forces and the denial of food and medicine to people in need.

Mr Assad remains in power — more securely now than before Mr Putin’s intervention — but at an exceedingly high cost to the Syrian people, hundreds and thousands of whom have chosen to flee the country rather than stay.

A second consequence of Russia’s intervention has been to accelerate efforts to end the fighting and commence peace negotiations. It is no accident that Mr Putin’s announcement comes on the same day that UN-sponsored peace talks in Geneva resumed— and after a US-Russian ceasefire agreement showed signs of endurance. The relative quiet on the front lines, combined with the resumption of diplomacy, allows Mr Putin to pivot from war-maker to peacemaker.

Yet there are many reasons to doubt that diplomacy will succeed — or even that the ceasefire will hold. Russia leaves Syria as deeply divided, politically and territorially, as it found the country when it intervened in September. Russia’s military gains on Mr Assad’s behalf leave the Syrian strongman in a better position, but the opposition remains as adamant as before that there is no political solution with Mr Assad in power. The resulting political deadlock will most likely result in a resumption of violence — perhaps sooner now that Mr Assad’s military backing is being withdrawn.

A final consequence of Mr Putin’s intervention was the return of Russia as a main player in the global diplomatic game. The intervention left US secretary of state John Kerry no choice but to deal directly with the Russian leadership. The peace talks would not have resumed, but for the pressure Russia and the US put on all parties. Similarly, the ceasefire that went into effect two weeks ago was the product of a US-Russian deal. While Moscow still faces sanctions because of its intervention in Ukraine, Mr Putin can look back at this latest use of military force as having made him a global player again.

But if Russia has achieved some gains by intervening, how lasting will this be? Here, there are reasons to be doubtful that the accomplishments will last. The fundamentals in Syria have not changed all that much. Opposition to the Assad regime remains as strong as ever— from Sunni, Kurdish, and Islamist forces. And without Moscow’s direct help, that opposition will only increase. The prospect of Syria being carved up into three or more entities — an Alawite west, Kurdish north, and Sunni east (much of it dominated by the Islamists) — is as real as it was before Russia intervened. And while Moscow may have a seat at the table, its ability to deliver Mr Assad will be reduced by the decision to withdraw the bulk of its military forces.

Mr Putin’s Syrian adventure may have strengthened Moscow’s hand, at least temporarily. But when it comes to Syria’s future, the Russian president’s declaration of “mission accomplished” may be no more lasting than when a previous American president uttered those words months after the beginning of the Iraq war in May 2003.

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 02:30 PM

Eliot Higgins ‎@EliotHiggins
Only yesterday I did a presentation on Russia's air campaign in Syria, which you can watch here
https://youtu.be/xy5Al4-HK5g?t=1904 …

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 02:42 PM

CrowBat......appears the Assad AF fears of more MANPADs have resulted in not using the Hama airfield.....this came from proAssad AMN media......then they blamed US Stingers and referenced a 2012 article claiming the CIA smuggled 12 Stringers into Syria via Turkey........

Since the aircraft crashed in Kafr Naboudeh on Saturday, the Syrian Air Force has reportedly refrained from flying out of the Hama Military Airport in fear of another manpad attack.

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/syrian-aircraft-shot-american-stinger-northern-hama/ | Al-Masdar News

.

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 03:44 PM

Maybe Putin’s Telling The Truth About Winning Syria @michaeldweiss @Daily on what we need to know on #Syria #Putin
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/03/15/maybe-putin-s-telling-the-truth-about-winning-syria.html …

BreakingNews
#Nusra releases Sheikh Khalid Sherif Zein of the #Division13 #FSA group after mass protests vs. them in #MaaratAlNuman.

IT is extremely interesting to see the Russian MoD do exactly the same exact drill that they do in eastern Ukraine.....when they attack the UAF...they flip the reporting to read...UAF attacked separatists.....

Now for every Assad, Iranian, Hezbollah, Shia mercenary and Kurdish YPG attack on the FSA it suddenly reads they attacked the Assad government forces......

Example........
Минобороны России
✔ ‎@mod_russia #SYRIA Militants of Sultan Murad Brigade and Ahrar al-Sham performed 2 mortar attacks on Kurdish detachments in Sheikh Maqsood

Минобороны России
✔ ‎@mod_russia #SYRIA During 24 hours, 15 ceasefire violations were registered (#Damascus – 6, #Aleppo, #Idlib, #Hama & #Homs – by 2 in each, #Latakia – 1)

BUT WAIT...the Russians refuse to ever talk about Assad violations whatsoever......

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 03:51 PM

Pursuing war criminals in Syria should not wait for war end: U.N.:
http://reut.rs/1QUfIHd

In a worldwide exclusive, @vicenews spent a month unmasking al Qaeda’s Syrian branch:
https://news.vice.com/video/inside-the-battle-al-nusra-al-qaeda-in-syria … via @vicenews

AFP news agency
✔ ‎@AFP #BREAKING Russian air strikes near Palmyra as Syrian troops push advance: monitor

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 03:54 PM

Russia is still not delivering any humanitarian aid to the Sunni besieged areas and or hard to reach locations as agreed to and after pulling out...do they really have to know and probably will argue it is for Assad to do which he will not.....

[B]Минобороны России
✔ ‎@mod_russia #SYRIA Humanitarian convoys to the provinces of #Aleppo, #Damascus and #Homs are being formed

SYRIA Russian Centre for reconciliation delivered 4 tons of humanitarian cargos (food products and bottled water) to Ain Bad(Hama province)[B]

BUT WAIT hundreds of tons are needed NOT four or five????????? This is for 470,000 not say 2,000 proAssad civilians.....

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 04:03 PM

IRGC agency new #RAJA in editorial claims #Putin & #Obama have made deal over #Syria: #Russia abandons #Assad, #USA forgets about #Crimea.

Editorial by Mhedi Khanali-Zadeh in today's RAJA NEWS website in Persian.

...I'm hearing this is a rumor that's been around for a while...is this for domestic consumption?

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 04:05 PM

Great comedy summary of #Russia's war on #Syria by a pro-Russian news project.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPu_t_Qd8KI&feature=youtu.be …

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 05:26 PM

Israeli official told us on the way to Moscow that Rivlin will tell Putin that any future deal in Syria mustn't strengthen Iran/Hezbollah

Russian Gov. media topic "Syrian opposition do not object to Assad's asylum in a foreign country"
https://twitter.com/rianru/status/709782523874660352 …

Detailed Situation in SE #Damascus, #FSA #Syria #سوريا Fullsize:
http://www.mediafire.com/convkey/21ac/lxloa4k4lcrr8b2zg.jpg …

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 07:14 PM

http://www.interpretermag.com/the-road-from-damascus-to-yalta/

Brian Whitmore

The Road From Damascus To Yalta

March 15, 2016

Vladimir Putin has learned that being a global troublemaker pays dividends.

He’s discovered that being a big part of the problem assures that you are treated as a big part of the solution.

He understands that the politics of blackmail and geopolitical extortion can work wonders.

Before Putin intervened in Syria’s civil war nearly six months ago, Russia was internationally isolated, bogged down in a quagmire in Ukraine, and reeling from Western sanctions.

It was a regional rabble-rouser that was — justifiably — being treated like an international pariah.

And now, amid an apparent pullout after 167 days of air strikes?

Well, now it has a seat at the big table, alongside the United States, as co-sponsor of the Syrian cease-fire.

Syria wasn’t an end — it was a means to an end.

And Moscow is seeking to leverage its success there into more global clout, the lifting of sanctions, a free hand in the former Soviet space, and a revision of the post-Cold War international order.

For Putin, Damascus is just a stop on the road to Yalta.

In addition to killing 1,700 civilians, bombing hospitals, exacerbating Europe’s refugee crisis, and keeping Bashar al-Assad’s brutal regime afloat, the Kremlin clearly thinks it has established a template in Syria to get what it has always craved: status as a global power presiding over a bipolar world.

Writing in Slon.ru, Moscow-based foreign-affairs analyst Vladimir Frolov noted that the intervention “resurrected Russian-American cooperation from the dead” and created the illusion that only the two “superpowers” can solve major international crises.

“The strategic goal of the Syrian gambit, to revive the bipolar format of Russian-American cooperation and rivalry for influence in the Middle East and the world that existed during the Cold War, has almost been reached,”Frolov wrote.

“It is obvious that the Kremlin would like to make Syria a template not only for bilateral relations with the United States, but also to develop new rules of the game in a broader sense, and in other regions, for example with respect of Ukraine.”

In fact, Ukraine will no doubt be the first place where the Kremlin will try to test what it believes to be its new-found leverage.

In a televised interview on March 13, one day before Putin announced the Syria withdrawal, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov appealed to Washington to team up with Moscow to resolve the conflict in the Donbas — presumably on Moscow’s terms.

“We know that Kyiv is heavily influenced by the United States, which actually controls everyday life in Ukraine,” Lavrov said.

“I hope that the Americans are aware of the need to search for compromise solutions to ensure the full implementation of the Minsk agreements.”

Leaving aside the fact that Lavrov’s comment is delusional in that it pretends that Russia is a mediator in Ukraine and not the aggressor, it appears to telegraph where the Kremlin is going next.

Russia will try to leverage the momentum from its Syrian gambit to get a final settlement in Ukraine that preserves Moscow’s influence in the Donbas and gives it a virtual veto over Kyiv’s political direction.

It will try to force the West to forget about Crimea and get on with business as usual.

That, of course, is how things work in the Kremlin’s preferred world order. Might makes right; rules don’t matter; great powers rule their spheres of influence and decide the fates of smaller nations.

Fyodor Lukyanov, editor in chief of the journal Russia In Global Affairs and chairman of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, all but declared the post-Cold War order dead in a gloating March 8 commentary in the official government newspaper, Rossiiskaya Gazeta.

“Twenty-five years of trying to build a new world order have vanished into thin air,” Lukyanov wrote.

“Once again, just like in the previous era, the real bosses remain Moscow and Washington, with no one else having the power or capacity to make important decisions and to start to implement them.”

This is, no doubt, premature. But the Kremlin is moving closer to making it a reality.

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 07:30 PM

Footage
Regime-held Al Mughayr in northern #Hama prov. under Syrian rebel T-62 tank fire.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ipTiWkswdw …

VIDEO: Russian journalist captures the moment that #ISIS counter attack against #SAA.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGkrkhXA8GU … pic.twitter.com/Fv60RpQ40D

Russia's flown over 9000 sorties in Syria & Russia's Air Force chief claims "not a single bomb dropped off target". How is that possible?

BreakingNews
Western jets bomb the #ISIS frontline north of #Aleppo, just hours after #Russia lifts the de facto no fly zone against ISIS.

Kerry is headed to Moscow to discuss Russia's withdrawal from Syria
http://read.bi/1RkA1us

Reports several Russian army technicals withdrawn from army base in Ma'ardas to #Hama base - @SyriaReporter
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=35.247932&lon=36.749139&z=15&m=b&search= …

Nusra says they released all FSA Div.13 members recently detained in Marrat al-Numman clashes as goodwill gesture.

FSA Div. 13 leader @alferqa13 confirm this except 5 more members still detained.

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 07:37 PM

There seems to have been a fake stmt circulating earlier of a Nusra, Ahrar & Fajr al-Ummah merger under Fustat Army, Ahrar denies being part

Explosion reported inside #Aharar_alSham ammunition depot in #Hayt town
#Daraa #Syria MAR 15

US_Coalition warplanes carried out airstrikes targeting the oil fields of #alAbu_Kamal
#DeirEzzor cs #Syria MAR 15

US_Coalition carried out airstrikes targeting #Jakah village
#Aleppo cs #Syria MAR 15

SAA terrorists shelling with heavy artillery on #Khan_alShieh
#Damascus cs #Syria MAR 15

Seems first day without airstrikes on rebel held areas in #Syria since 2 years
-no reports so far-

People of #Talbiseh celebrate 5th anniversary of #Syria'n revolution
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxGF8V2eUtM …
Note town were heavily hit by #Russia'n strikes

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 07:46 PM

Jaysh al-Nasr reacted very fast to the Russian withdrawal & deployed giant hell cannons in #Hama.
No fear of jets.

Report
#ISIS prepares for the #Manbij battle with forced militia enrolment.

Pentagon's former Russia head--> Putin Got Exactly What He Wanted in Syria
http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2016/03/putin-got-exactly-what-he-wanted-syria/126664/ …

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 07:48 PM

News
#KSA now: "We will enter #Syria to fight #ISIS, no matter the Russian withdrawal."
http://www.qasioun.net/%D9%85%D9%82%D8%A7%D9%84/%D8%B9%D8%B3%D9%8A%D8%B1%D9%8A:-%D9%82%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%AA%D9%86%D8%A7-%D8%B3%D8%AA%D8%AF%D8%AE%D9%84-%D8%A5%D9%84%D9%89-%D8%B3%D9%88%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%A7-%D8%B1%D8%BA%D9%85-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%B3%D8%AD%D8%A7%D8%A8-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B1%D9%88%D8%B3%D9%8A/10164/ …

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 07:59 PM

West should capitalize on al-Qaeda's blunder in #Syria, finally give the rebels another option.
http://bit.ly/1UwW4Do v @Charles_Lister

40% of the YPG militiamen are actually PKK Turks coming across the border

In #Syria, Obama's fear of slippery slope "loomed larger than the actual and visibly negative effects of inaction."
http://wpo.st/8w1M1

Syria's uprising began with six months of peaceful protests. As soon as airstrikes reduced the protests returned.
http://bit.ly/1SQ3j9A

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 08:06 PM

My post on the fifth anniversary of the #Syria revolution, how Assad's attempt to repress led to this
http://bit.ly/1SQ3j9A

CNN Trk ENG 
‏@CNNTURK_ENG
#BREAKING Turkish Interior Ministry says #Ankara bomber Seher ağla Demir crossed into Syria, received terror training from #YPG

Assad, from the earliest days of the uprising, strengthened #IS to try to save himself. It's not worked too badly.
http://bit.ly/1SQ3j9A

Long-time Kremlin Adviser Vitaly Naumkin named as Di Mistura top Advisor/moderator in Geneva3.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/Epn5ttD3XkI

Philip Hammond: the West shouldn't give #Russia any credit for #Syria withdrawal,since it bombed hospitals & schools http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/vladimir-putin/12194795/Vladimir-Putin-is-like-a-man-who-beats-his-wife-Philip-Hammond-says.html …

OUTLAW 09

03-15-2016, 08:19 PM

Charles Lister ‎@Charles_Lister
Acc. to @syriacham, #Assad regime team in #Geneva told UN's DeMistura that it wants Golan Heights back (from #Israel) as part of settlement.

@syriacham says 'the Americans are stronger now on the #Syria issue than we've seen for years; more tough on #Russia & on #Assad.'

OUTLAW 09

03-16-2016, 06:28 AM

Russian airstrikes over 5 moths: 1733 civilian Syrian citizens killed including 429 children
http://www.syriahr.com/en/?p=44684

OUTLAW 09

03-16-2016, 06:44 AM

FSA Liwa al-Mutasim commander on the Herbel front lines with #ISIS south of Mare'a in north rural #Aleppo, #Syria

US-delegation including diplomats and military personnel up to Afrin, north of Aleppo
http://en.eldorar.com/node/1752

Reports more than 10 civilian houses where rigged & detonated by YPG/SDF in Ayn Daqna near Tal Rifa’at in #Aleppo today. Learning from Hezb
US Kurdish proxy YPG is in fact now ethnically cleansing Arab Sunni towns they have taken over....

Israel warplanes flying over #Qalamoun now
#Damascus cs #Syria MAR 16

9 Martyrs
(2 Fighters and 1 Child)
3 Daraa
2 Damascus
2 Hama
2 Aleppo
#Syria MAR 15
The lowest death toll in years.. will be 0 in sha Allah��

13 Areas bombed by ASSad Regime & his foreigners allies terrorists
#Syria MARCH 15

SAA terrorists shelling with heavy artillery targeting #alShareiyah & #alTuwayni villages
#Hama cs #Syria MAR 15

Army of Islam ‎@Islamarmy_eng2
Clashes between ISIS' members and the mujahideen after they infiltrated today into the farms of al-Hajar al-Aswad .

OUTLAW 09

03-16-2016, 06:45 AM

Syrian moderate rebel 'spymaster' slams CIA for 'ignoring' detailed intel on Isil since 2013
http://dlvr.it/Knnw7p

The "spymaster" of a key moderate Syrian rebel group has accused the CIA of failing to act on reams of detailed intelligence his network has been supplying the US on Isil since 2013 - including GPS coordinates of its leaders and headquarters.

The Free Syrian Army’s spy chief insisted proper use of the intelligence his agents provided from within Isil’s ranks, and often at grave risk to their life, could have critically damaged the jihadist group on several occasions.

Speaking to Le Monde in Turkey, “M”, as the French newspaper dubbed the man for security reasons, said: “From the moment Daesh (the Arab acronym for Isil) had 20 members to when it had 20,000, we have shown everything to the Americans. When we asked them what they did with this information, they always gave evasive answers, saying it was up to their decision-makers”.

The Free Syrian Army, or FSA, was founded by a group of defected Syrian Armed Forces officers and soldiers in July 2011, and received backing from Britain and the US for its moderate line.

Le Monde was shown photographs of a training camp in the northern province of Latakia frequented by foreign Isil fighters. “Naturally I transmitted this to my Western contacts with the GPS coordinates but had not response,” he is cited as saying. “Agents of mine also managed to get hold of phone numbers of Isil officials, serial numbers of satellite equipment and IP addresses. But once again, zero response.”

In 2014, FSA fighters under the banner Hazzm Movement were supplied anti-tank missiles in a covert CIA programme and received US military training in Qatar on their use.

In the summer of 2014, while Isil besieged Mossul in Iraq, “M” helped devise a secret plan presented to the Americans to rout Isil from northern Syria on the Azaz-Alep line. The plan was detailed street by street, hour by hour, and included the precise itinerary of fighters and their refuelling points. “In every village held by Daesh, knew the number of armed men, where their offices and hideouts were. We had located snipers and mines, we knew where the local emir slept, the colour of his car and even the brand. From a tactical and strategic point of view, we were ready,” he said.

However, the Americans failed to give the green light, he said.

“They were reluctant to provide us satellite images. They said their planes couldn’t help once the fighting with Isil started. All they offered us was to get rid of a few obstacles before the start of the offensive,” he said.

He then provided the US with details of the Isil command structure in Raqqa, from the emir to those in charge of checkpoints and pages of GPS coordinates. “That was a year and a half ago and Raqqa is still the capital of Daesh,” he said.

OUTLAW 09

03-16-2016, 07:17 AM

Jordan Says It Knew of Russian Drawdown Plan in Syria
http://defnews.ly/1prVCex

OUTLAW 09

03-16-2016, 07:28 AM

#Russia 'to continue air strikes' in #Syria after withdrawal (Semi-withdrawal? Mini-withdrawal? Pretend-withdrawal?)
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35812371 …

CrowBat

03-16-2016, 08:30 AM

CrowBat..spent some time yesterday going back over all the released videos and posted comments from the various FSA groups concerning the MiG shot down.

The comments on the GCC supplying trainers and MANPADs is extremely interesting in that the commenter has a really solid track record especially when it comes to satellite imagery analysis in eastern Ukraine and initially in Syria and after his image confirmation of the RuAF arrival he has been extremely and unusually quiet.

He stated that he has a massive buildup of sat images that he has not commented on in order to not endanger FSA forces.......and that with the pull back he can now release the images.....which he plans to do now.What commenter is that?

It does seem to appear that in fact a Russian SU 34 was actually hit by a MANPAD...if you look at the videos all lined up....the AA was in fact firing on the low flying and flying straight as an arrow MiG 21 under the cloud cover as if he was making a straight bomb run and then back to base located in the area.

BUT at the same time there is another video actually depicting a SU-34 and a bomb strike before the MiG comes into the fly by mix....

Another video depicting the MANPAD does have background AA chatter at the same time the MANPAD was fired but the video concentrates on the MiG and the AA firing.

The launch of the MANPAD flight is almost straight up and into the cloud cover as you can seen the reflection of the rocket engine in the clouds as it climbed through the cloud layers....

The MiG though remained all the time under the cloud cover and was clearly seen by one and all.

The only video depicting a possible crash site was a heavy black mushroom going straight up which would depict a straight in nose crash not an aircraft breaking up and scattering all over the place as in the Turkish shot down as it went in at an angle. And it was a long distance from the initial engagement site.

There was only one chute seen and recorded so in theory the SU-34 crew could have been seriously injured and did not eject.

If you see the Turkish shot down video the plane was also hit in the rear, had major damage and was on fire and the pilots barely got out.

The MiG depicted the standard initial puff of heavy smoke indicting a turbine hit and then the initial fire flamed out...there is a portion of a video depicting a possible bomb release made in an open field by the MiG to lose weight landing not far from the AA teams.

So it might in fact true that the GCC have been able to get MANPADs in along with a security team and trainers....to maintain control over them.

I say this because the FSA has been religious in their video work and I find it interesting that with something as important PR wise as firing a MANPAD no one thought about taking along a video camera.

THEN we had the RuAF confirming the shot down not Assad....and then we had virtually little RuAF activity the next day or so after the shot down as if the Russians were analyzing the problem.
This is certainly something to keep in mind - even more so because getting anything of related info out of Syria (that is: info on what's going on with Russians) remains near-impossible.

That said, my conclusion about reasons for Russian withdrawal is that it was motivated by a mix of factors. Firstly, their economy is really badly hurt and they can ill-afford any further operations there. Secondly, I wouldn't be surprised the least if the GCC didn't 'make a deal' with them related to oil prices: they're all hurt by these. And finally, yup, it seems that several batches of MANPADS have been delivered: so, better for them to bug out while there is still time.

CrowBat.....have not seen much of anything in the way of Iranian comments on the Putin pull out.....one would have thought that they would have been fore warned?Oh but sure.

Iranians are hauling additional troops to Syria like there's no tomorrow: AFAIK, at least five additional brigades are to appear there by the end of this month.

Secondly...how is this going to play out on the ground with the Shia mercenaries having no Russian CAS to support their attacks...moral has to be suffering this morning?????Don't forget the 'cease-fire'...

Seriously now: the offensives in NE Lattakia have been stopped; the offensive on Palmyra has been stopped etc. The only active battlefield currently is that in northern Hama. With other words: the IRGC (read 'regime') is now limiting itself to holding what they've got.

CrowBat....care to comment...will hold mine back.....

Strength in Weakness: The Syrian Army’s Accidental Resilience
http://carnegie-mec.org/2016/03/10/s...esilience/iuz7 … fascinating, by @CarnegieMEC's Kheder Khaddou

I have my own views of the quality of Carnegie's work lately and it is not good...As mentioned above: various details are very good, but the notion about 'no mass defections' makes the entire exercise a futile one.

CrowBat......appears the Assad AF fears of more MANPADs have resulted in not using the Hama airfield.....this came from proAssad AMN media......then they blamed US Stingers and referenced a 2012 article claiming the CIA smuggled 12 Stringers into Syria via Turkey..
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/syrian-aircraft-shot-american-stinger-northern-hama/ | Al-Masdar News.Al-Masdar News... enough said.

Syrian moderate rebel 'spymaster' slams CIA for 'ignoring' detailed intel on Isil since 2013
http://dlvr.it/Knnw7pPlease read that and keep in mind: what that article is mentioning is 'only a tip of the iceberg'...

But, sigh, that intel didn't fit the picture of 'farmers, pharmacists, and teachers'...

OUTLAW 09

03-16-2016, 08:46 AM

CrowBat...am on the go today....will post the commenter on the manpads....later this evening....

OUTLAW 09

03-16-2016, 09:38 AM

What commenter is that?

CrowBat......here is the commenter link.........

Not a spy ‏@finriswolf · Mar 14

With Putin withdrawal I will be able to restart posting fresh sat imagery again. I have quite a backlog of interesting material

OUTLAW 09

03-16-2016, 09:53 AM

Russia says 2nd batch of warplanes has departed #Latakia, #Syria.
Very unusual level of publicity given by #Moscow. Must have allies fuming.

News
#Russia's air base in #Latakia still crowded but more & more jets leaving seemingly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPkRqfXjEXg …

An #ISIS-planted IED killed 6 #SDF members near #Shaddadi this morning.

Russia indeed brought some kind of peace to #Syria.
By leaving!
Only 9 deaths today.
Lowest figure in YEARS!
- LCC

Nusra reacted.
The strength and temperateness of the people caught them by surprise.

CrowBat

03-16-2016, 10:30 AM

Russia says 2nd batch of warplanes has departed #Latakia, #Syria.
Very unusual level of publicity given by #Moscow. Must have allies fuming....would love to see some evidence for anybody there leaving.

Namely:

Russia's air base in #Latakia still crowded but more & more jets leaving seemingly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPkRqfXjEXg … Yup, 'leaving' - for another attack: all the aircraft that took off were loaded with bombs.

davidbfpo

03-16-2016, 12:19 PM

Three responses to the Russian announcement, two by UK-based academics and the third a review of how Russia's military has changed.

1) Scott Lucas:https://theconversation.com/russian-syria-withdrawal-vladimir-putin-is-the-consummate-political-gambler-56301? (https://theconversation.com/russian-syria-withdrawal-vladimir-putin-is-the-consummate-political-gambler-56301?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20 for%20March%2016%202016%20-%204512&utm_content=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20f or%20March%2016%202016%20-%204512+CID_7e857359e06f8c703b1984311d1ea9f1&utm_source=campaign_monitor_uk&utm_term=Russian%20Syria%20withdrawal%20Vladimir%2 0Putin%20is%20the%20consummate%20political%20gambl er)

2) Alexander Titov: https://theconversation.com/why-putin-has-pulled-russia-out-of-syria-56325?

3) From The Guardian's Moscow correspondent:
Syrian mission restores pride in Russian military after years of decay; Moscow’s intervention in Syria revealed a Russian military transformed from the war in Georgia but cuts threaten modernisation
Link:http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/15/syrian-mission-restores-pride-in-russian-military-after-years-of-decay

A big whoops IMHO:
Over the past two years, the Russian military has been involved in two wars: the clandestine intervention to help separatists in Ukraine (http://www.theguardian.com/world/ukraine), and the very open intervention in Syria.

Really 'clandestine', who are you kidding?

OUTLAW 09

03-16-2016, 04:17 PM

Three responses to the Russian announcement, two by UK-based academics and the third a review of how Russia's military has changed.

1) Scott Lucas:https://theconversation.com/russian-syria-withdrawal-vladimir-putin-is-the-consummate-political-gambler-56301? (https://theconversation.com/russian-syria-withdrawal-vladimir-putin-is-the-consummate-political-gambler-56301?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20 for%20March%2016%202016%20-%204512&utm_content=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20f or%20March%2016%202016%20-%204512+CID_7e857359e06f8c703b1984311d1ea9f1&utm_source=campaign_monitor_uk&utm_term=Russian%20Syria%20withdrawal%20Vladimir%2 0Putin%20is%20the%20consummate%20political%20gambl er)

2) Alexander Titov: https://theconversation.com/why-putin-has-pulled-russia-out-of-syria-56325?

3) From The Guardian's Moscow correspondent:
Link:http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/15/syrian-mission-restores-pride-in-russian-military-after-years-of-decay

A big whoops IMHO:

Really 'clandestine', who are you kidding?

David....."clandestine" is the new Russian speak for "hidden in the open"....

There was a report of new Russian military trainers arriving on Donetsk this week and they were still wearing their actual Russian unit insignias and full Russian uniform....again..."hidden in the open"....

OUTLAW 09

03-16-2016, 04:21 PM

President of Russia
✔ ‎@KremlinRussia_E The President will award military personnel involved in the Syrian operation at the Grand Kremlin Palace on March 17 http://bit.ly/1QXL8h2

WOW...for killing 1800 civilians of which 500 were children, destroying 25 hospitals, bombed markets, churches, mosques, NGO/food facilities and flattening virtually all FSA held towns and or villages AND not the last...starvation ........rates now.......Russian medals it appears......

We didn't know Mi-28n were there before !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srra3IKtEg8 …

Russian Mi-28s are actually stationed at Hmeymim :)
https://twitter.com/syrianmilitary/status/710137445250113537 …

OUTLAW 09

03-16-2016, 04:53 PM

http://www.vox.com/2016/3/16/11244980/obama-syria-policy

Why President Obama sold out his own foreign policy doctrine in Syria

Jeremy Shapiro
MAR 16, 2016,

For foreign policy wonks, a 20,000-word interview with the sitting president on his foreign policy doctrine, like the one Jeffrey Goldberg published last week in the Atlantic, is a rare and delicious treat. We will be masticating it, in all of its glorious philosophical complexity, for months, probably years, to come.

But as Max Fisher pointed out, the immediate debate in the Washington policy community quickly reduced to what has become the central question of Obama’s foreign policy: "Was the president right or wrong to decline a military intervention in Syria?"

There is just one problem with this question: The United States did intervene in Syria.

Even though the president's own foreign policy doctrine of non-intervention in Middle Eastern civil wars clearly advises against just such an intervention, he nonetheless took various half-measures that, collectively, have deeply involved the United States in Syria, helped inspire counter-escalations by Iran and Russia, and threaten to involve the US further in the Syrian civil war.

In other words, Obama effectively compromised on his own doctrine. But why?

It turns out that while a president's philosophy does matter somewhat, bitter domestic politics, bureaucratic pressures, and what the president derisively referred to as the "Washington playbook" — the set of standard Washington responses to international crises — will have a powerful effect on any president's foreign policy.

The larger lesson of America’s screwed-up Syria policy is not that American inactivity produced chaos or that American meddling made a bad situation worse. It is that the Washington sausage factory tends to produce an incoherent foreign policy that satisfies no one, regardless of what the president thinks.

Intervention by another name would be just as harsh

The fact of US intervention in Syria is not really a debatable point — despite the endless hand-wringing over US inactivity. According to the New York Times, the United States has since at least early 2013 been providing military equipment, weapons, and training to armed Syrian rebel groups actively seeking to overthrow the Assad regime.

This meets any legal or commonsense definition of intervention.

If Russian President Vladimir Putin were to send anti-tank weapons to militias in the Pacific Northwest seeking the overthrow of the US government, there would not be much debate as to whether that constituted military intervention. It would rightly be seen as an act of war.

One can argue over whether US intervention in Syria was too little or too much, done poorly or done well, but not about whether it has happened.

To be fair, it is not just the critics who elide this point. The president does, too. In the Atlantic interview, Obama outlines a broad philosophy of non-intervention in Middle Eastern civil wars. He seems intent on providing a coherent answer to his critics’ charges that he has failed to act in Syria. He claims that getting involved in Syria would have bogged down the United States in yet another Middle Eastern quagmire and eroded American power, while failing to create stability. He rightly dismisses the claims of the Washington policy community that a failure to intervene in Syria reduces America’s credibility and emboldens America’s enemies.

Obama has long made a habit of outlining a broad approach of masterly inactivity in Syria and then hedging against his own strategy

Thus, for example, in September 2015 we learned that the US train-and-equip program had only trained a handful of Syrian rebels. But when the Russian airstrikes began later that month they somehow managed to find "more than enough US-supported rebels to bomb."

But if the level of US involvement in Syria went somewhat unnoticed in Washington, it certainly didn't go unnoticed in Moscow (though the Russians often failed to distinguish between US intervention and intervention by US allies such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey).

Last summer, as the Assad regime teetered on the brink of defeat under the assault of rebel groups, many backed by the US and its allies, Russia (and Iran) did what Obama’s own analysis predicted they would: They counter-escalated, and Russia began airstrikes aimed at preventing yet another US-sponsored regime change in the Middle East.

In this context, it hardly makes sense to endlessly debate whether the United States should have intervened in Syria. It did intervene. The more important question is why didn’t the president have the courage of his own convictions? Why has he consistently taken half-measures in Syria that accord with no one’s best policy recommendation, including, by the evidence of the Atlantic article, his own?

The dirty little secret of the American presidency

The answer goes some way to understanding just how hard it is to actually follow a coherent foreign policy philosophy in Washington. The dirty little secret of the American presidency is that it is not as powerful as it appears, even in foreign affairs.

The key reason is that an American president cannot, as many other leaders can, simply admit that there is nothing the United States can do about an urgent international problem dominating the headlines. After all, the US is a "can do" country with more military power than strategic sense. This spirit of action has helped make America the richest, most powerful country on Earth, but it has also gotten it into a lot of stupid wars.

The "Washington playbook" provides a menu of prefabricated solutions to such situations, most of which rely on America's unique military capacity. They range from shipping arms to training local armies to simply imposing peace through the application of superior force. None of them involves standing aside.

In the case of Syria, none of these proposals made much sense according to the president's own philosophy. But because each had a past example of supposed success, each had adherents among the eternal optimists of military force in Washington think tanks, and each had its echoes in the press. Importantly, each also had a huge rhetorical advantage over doing nothing.

With such proposals dominating the headlines, it is simply not politically viable for the president to admit that he is powerless. But it's not just that it's hard for a president to wake up every morning to allied leaders, opposition politicians, and newspaper headlines declaring that he is feckless and weak. It's also that those headlines begin to erode his popularity and threaten his capacity to deliver on other parts of his political agenda.

This becomes even more difficult as disagreements within your administration leak into the press and provide ammunition for the idea that the problem is the president's personal lack of resolve or decisiveness.

Accordingly, at every stage of the Syrian crisis — when the Assad regime began firing on peaceful protesters in 2011, when it began its brutal air campaign against Syrian rebels in 2012, when it used chemical weapons in the Damascus suburbs in 2013, when ISIS took Mosul in 2014, and when the Russians intervened in force in 2015 — the political pressure on President Obama to "do something" grew.

Responding to that pressure, Obama sought at each stage to split the difference: to respond to the crisis while remaining true to his philosophy and keeping US involvement to a minimum. I took to calling this practice, somewhat indelicately, "salami-slicing the baby." As one US official put it during the response to the September 2013 Syrian chemical weapons attacks, the White House sought a response that was "just muscular enough not to get mocked."

This approach was perhaps most evident in the White House’s reaction to the revelation in September 2015 that the US military’s train-and-equip mission in Syria, intended to train 5,400 Syrian opposition soldiers in the first year, had been a complete failure: The program had only produced four or five in the first year.

It is simply not politically viable for the president to admit that he is powerless

In briefings after the disclosure, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest suggested that the president had never supported the program. To the contrary, he explained, the entire reason for the program was to placate critics of the administration’s Syria policy. "Many of our critics had proposed this specific option as essentially the cure-all for all of the policy challenges that we're facing in Syria right now," Earnest said. "That is not something that this administration ever believed, but it is something that our critics will have to answer for."

The result of this salami slicing has been a long, slow ride down a slippery slope toward ever-greater US involvement in Syria. If the current cessation of hostilities breaks down, that ride will likely continue, perhaps under a new president not so philosophically inclined.

The curious case of US Syria policy

This all means that the story of US policy in Syria is not a story of a president inspired by an ideology of restraint standing aside, for better or for worse, when he could have acted.

To the contrary, it is a story of a president pushed by domestic politics and overly optimistic schemes into interventionist half-measures that he didn't believe in and that satisfied no one.

The lesson is that even a president who has shown extraordinary awareness that the "Washington playbook" frequently dictates unwise military interventions often feels forced to compromise his policy. A foreign policy philosophy is great, and an Atlantic article outlining it is even better. It will likely launch a thousand dissertations. But just because a president has a philosophy doesn’t mean he gets to implement it.

OUTLAW 09

03-16-2016, 05:17 PM

Russia 100% accuracy in #Syria true for hitting entire country rather than specific parts
http://bit.ly/1RmauRp

TASS: Russia's Sukhoi-25 bombers dropped 6,000 bombs during operation in Syria
http://www.unian.info/war/1292062-tass-russias-sukhoi-25-bombers-dropped-6000-bombs-during-operation-in-syria.html …

"Historical" victory by #Putin. He helped Assad to capture FIVE% of #Syria )))

BREAKING
#RUSSIA warplanes carried out airstrikes on #Kafr_Zeta moments ago, causalities reported
#Hama cs #Syria MAR 16

Martyrs and wounded civilians reported aftermath #RUSSIA airstrikes on #Palmyra & #alSokhna
#Homs cs #Syria MAR 16

Syrian Kurds to announce federal system in northern Syria. "Govt in Damascus" rules it out:
http://reut.rs/1RlUyyE

SAA raided civilians houses in neighborhoods of #Barzeh searching for who oppose #ASSad
#Damascus cs #Syria MAR 16

SAA established several checkpoints in #Barzeh and some civilians were arrested
#Damascus cs #Syria MAR 16

Sir Mahmoud Hassan Taleb died victims of #SAA terrorists snipers in #Ebtaa town
#Daraa #Syria MAR 16

Sommar Taysir alFareh, from #Mouhassan town, died under torture in #ASSad Regime prisons..
#DeirEzzor #Syria MAR 16

Awesome massive demonstration in Solidarity with #FSA 13º DIV in #Maarat_alNouman now
#Idlib #Syria MAR 16

OUTLAW 09

03-16-2016, 05:28 PM

Heavy clashes between #JAI & #SAA terrorists in #Bala & #alMArj fronts ongoing
#Damascus cs #Syria MAR 16

Civilian houses along w/ Othman bin Aafan Masjid destroyed due heavy #SAA/#RUSSIA bombing in #Palmyra
#Syria MAR 16

Update #qamishlo
#Asaysh arrested many #syrian regime officials

Photos of Qamişlo right now as areas controlled by regime have been surrounded by Asayîş of Rojava.

With #Kurds getting serious with federalization of #Syria tensions with regime will grow.

Syria Opposition HNC ‏@SyrianHNC_en ·
We are pushing for legal action under national jurisdiction to prosecute #Syria #warcrimes based on #CaesarPhotos: #Geneva

Opposition #map: The #Assad regime and its foreign militias are close to cut besieged #EastGhouta into two parts.

OUTLAW 09

03-16-2016, 05:38 PM

NOW Russian media picks up on the Syrian state media that had released this really dubious initial report based on a vague report from 2012.....

SYRIA: Russian media claim that the Syrian MiG-21 shot down last week was shot down by a US made 'Stinger' missile.

http://ria.ru/syria_chronicle/20160315/1389960432.html …

So much for the much Russian hyped reconciliation attempts.....
Regime attempts to set reconciliation in #Hama region turn out negative for them as elders are refusing all terms & advantages.

OUTLAW 09

03-16-2016, 06:16 PM

http://nypost.com/2016/03/15/the-syrian-war-just-taught-putin-to-worry-about-iran/

The Syrian war just taught Putin to worry about Iran

By Ralph Peters

Russian President Vladimir Putin surprised the world by announcing on Monday that most of his troops would leave Syria. Military analysts were flummoxed.

I, for one, had expected all of the forces backing the regime of Bashar al-Assad to catch their collective breath, then resume the offensive.

What happened?

In retrospect, it looks obvious: Putin finally met the Middle East. And unlike President Obama, the Russian czar faced reality.

Allowing that Putin could re-engage in the future, and that his forces accomplished their primary goal of propping up the regime and giving it breathing space, the announcement still came as a cold-water shock to all — except the Iranians.

Initial Western reactions have stressed the recalcitrance of Assad, who has refused to consider stepping aside. Instead, Assad’s latest pronouncements have been defiant bordering on megalomania. Putin had every reason to be fed up.

Putin didn’t go into Syria because Assad was a pal. He sent in his air power and his commandos to expand Russia’s regional influence as American power ebbed. He thought he saw a not-to-be-missed strategic opportunity.

And he certainly expected Assad to be grateful for his salvation at Russian hands.

But gratitude isn’t in the Middle East’s repertoire. As Americans discovered painfully, the region’s thanks resemble the bite of a cobra.

There’s even a cost factor: Russia’s economy’s shrinking, and Putin’s been forced to slow his cherished military renewal. Even the dumb bombs dropped on civilians in Syria carry a price.

Still, Putin’s abrupt departure has to have more behind it than a spurious desire to further peace talks, the need to save money or personal pique at Assad.

The long bet is that his generals, diplomats and intelligence hands on the ground were shocked by the degree to which Iran already and irrevocably dominates Syria. And Iraq. And Lebanon.

With a shudder, Putin recognized that his air campaign would ultimately benefit an emerging Persian/Iranian empire, rather than expanding Moscow’s influence. Similarly, our air campaign and special operations against ISIS, although necessary, will inevitably strengthen Tehran’s regional dominance (we gave away Iraq, but we still do the maintenance).

We’re trapped, but Putin wasn’t. So he got out.

Those of us who’ve warned of a burgeoning Iranian empire haven’t found much traction in Washington, where the current president clings to his appalling nuclear deal. And the Middle East still seems far away from the Potomac’s prospering shores. But it’s a very different deal for Putin.

Russia’s newest czar thought he was playing the Iranians, using them as leverage against US influence, selling them arms at a premium and using them as cannon fodder on the ground in Syria — while his combat aircraft soared invulnerably overhead.

But to paraphrase Shakespeare, Putin drank and only then saw the spider in the cup.

Contrary to his expectations of finding a pliable ally in Iran, he found the Iranians in control, glad to borrow his air force, arrogant and disdainful in Damascus (and Baghdad) and well on the path to dominating a vast stretch of strategically vital territory. And Iran has no interest in playing junior partner to anyone — least of all a traditional Christian enemy.

Suddenly, Putin had a vision of a nuclear-armed, radical-Shia empire on Russia’s southern flank. Those Iranian missiles that can reach Israel? They can reach major Russian cities, too.

Putin’s initial bet on Shia Iran also backfired by turning the Islamic world’s Sunni majority against him — not least Saudi Arabia, which can continue to hold down the price of oil and gas, punishing Russia’s economy far more than it wounds American fracking efforts. And Sunni terrorists have taken a renewed interest in Russia.

After Putin’s Syrian adventure, he may be re-prioritizing his enemies.

Of course, Putin also promised to withdraw from eastern Ukraine. Didn’t happen. And his trumpeted withdrawal from Syria could be no more than a temporary gambit — his remarks footnoted that “some” Russian troops will remain at their Syrian naval base and air base.

But Putin, whose view of the world has been bounded by the Caucasus in the south and Europe to the West (with occasional nods to China in the east), may have discovered the frightful threat under his nose.

At the very least, he’s learned that there are no strategic bargains in the Middle East. That puts him one up on us.

OUTLAW 09

03-16-2016, 06:38 PM

Reuters: Nearly half of the #Russia'n Air Force departed #Syria

Syria Dozens of #Russia'n airstrikes on #Palmyra &outskirts today
-try to pave #Assad-forces way to regain control of strategic desert city

Syrian Central Bank blames fallout from Russian withdrawal for drop in Syrian pound value.
http://sana.sy/en/?p=72170

UPDATE: Iranian media reports at least 15 wounded in explosion at a market in central Tehran.
https://twitter.com/RadioFarda/status/710133190397009920 …

Russian-speaking jihadis in Syria 'could threaten Moscow in future'
http://gu.com/p/4hj4x/stw

OUTLAW 09

03-16-2016, 06:45 PM

Syria Jamaal Marouf refuses #PYD federation and criticizes #SDF

Nour alDin alZinki political chief (a Kurd) doesn’t have much good to say about #PYD push for federalism in #Syria:

BTW....Turkey openly stated last week it would definitely not tolerate a federated Kurdish zone along it border.....

Reuters Top News
✔ ‎@Reuters BREAKING: U.S. would not recognize a self-ruled Kurdish zone in Syria: State department

OUTLAW 09

03-16-2016, 06:51 PM

KSA FM Adel Al-Jubeir hopes withdrawal of Russian forces from Syria leads to political change
http://uatoday.tv/politics/adel-al-jubeir-quot-russian-decision-to-withdraw-its-forces-is-a-very-positive-step-quot-611601.html …

OUTLAW 09

03-16-2016, 06:59 PM

Syria #Assad-forces use new #Russia'n TOS-1 & Smerch rocket launcher in #Palmyra battle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjQ3HYTA9BU … …

OUTLAW 09

03-16-2016, 07:08 PM

Jamal Maarouf returns & condemns the presence & role of #ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra, #PYD & Jaish al-Thuwar in #Syria:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gFd3m6WgRw&feature=share …

Assad delegate's Bashar Jaafari won't sit with Mohammed Aloush until latter shaves his beard. Negotiating or dating?
Jaafari, whose Assad was saved by Iran's bearded mullahs, asks opposition envoy to shave his beard. That's the regime in a nutshell

OUTLAW 09

03-16-2016, 07:09 PM

@matthew_mcinnis asks "Did #Putin just leave #Iran holding the bag in #Syria?" in his excellent @AEIfdp piece
http://www.aei.org/publication/did-putin-just-leave-iran-holding-the-bag-in-syria/ …

The March 14 Russian announcement that it was withdrawing most of its combat forces from Syria came as a surprise to most observers. Whether this proves to be a permanent shift in Moscow’s posture in the region or a temporary move for diplomatic gain at the negotiating table remains to be seen. A big question, though, is whether Russian president Vladimir Putin just left the Iranians out to dry.

First, what is Moscow actually doing here? Putin said his move was to bolster the current Syrian peace talks which resumed on March 14 in Geneva. It appears Russia may be pulling back the bulk of its shorter range fighters and most of its military personnel not stationed at its new air and naval bases on the Mediterranean. Russia would be in a position to easily redeploy these assets, however, should they choose to do so.

If the withdrawal is more than simply tactical, though, where does Tehran go from here? It would be surprising if the Russian withdrawal was not at least partially coordinated with Tehran, but initial reactions imply Tehran may not have been fully in the loop. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif welcomed the news saying a withdrawal is a “positive sign” that Russia no longer sees an imminent need to use military force to maintain the current cessation of hostilities, though he noted “we will have to wait and see.”

The Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s foreign policy adviser Ali Akbar Velayati — who appears to really hold the Syria portfolio — was more explicit. In responding to questions about whether Iranian forces will now take the place of Russian personnel in Syria, he said the reduction will not change the cooperation of Iran, Russia, Syria and Hezbollah and that Moscow will continue to fight “terrorists” when necessary. Parliamentary Speaker Ali Larijani, who sometimes seems the best bellwether for Tehran’s position, added that Iran will always support the Syrian nation, which could indicate some pragmatism on Tehran’s part and recognition of Russia’s upper hand in their collective decision-making.

Iran and Russia’s joint campaign has stabilized Assad’s hold, especially in the north. The challenge is that despite Moscow achieving its goals of shoring up its ally and securing long-term bases on the Mediterranean to challenge NATO, Iran’s interests in Syria — the need to preserve Assad and access to Hezbollah — run much deeper. Khamenei is likely still nervous the Russians are going to force a compromise with Assad, the United States, and maybe the Saudis that does not fully secure the Iranian position. There is already speculation that Putin’s phone call yesterday informing Assad of the withdrawal was intended in part to pressure the Syrian president to concede on a possible timetable to step down or power sharing arrangement. Though Iran may have a Plan B to dominate a post-Assad Syria, it would prefer to stick with the devil it knows.

Then there is Iran’s ability to militarily defend its interests in a remnant Syrian state, especially by logistically supporting Lebanese Hezbollah and its new front against Israel in the Golan Heights. Without Russian airpower support the regime’s operations near Aleppo, it is unlikely the city will finally be recaptured by the regime. Similarly, the anticipated campaign to retake Palmyra and the eastern approaches to Damascus from the Islamic State may not succeed. This would leave Assad, and Iran’s army of proxies and militia fighting for him, still quite vulnerable, especially in the south.

Maybe the Iranians have gotten what they wanted from Putin and are perfectly happy with a partial withdrawal, hoping Russia’s superior diplomatic leverage will achieve a manageable settlement in Geneva. Maybe the Russian pullout will not turn out to be serious or permanent. There is a strong possibility, though, that Putin’s decision comes too soon for Iranian comfort and forces an earlier-than-desired departure for Assad. Iran will soldier on–this is an existential issue for them. Putin can always rescue them again if needed, or so Khamenei can hope.

OUTLAW 09

03-16-2016, 07:15 PM

My detailed assessment of six months of Russian airstrikes & what the scaledown shows
http://timep.org/commentary/russia-exit-from-syria/ …

By: Hassan Hassan

03-15-2016

Five years after the uprising in Syria began, a renewed chance to steer the conflict in a less violent trajectory presents itself. Tensions have mounted between moderate rebels and Jabhat al-Nusra in northern Syria, and residents demonstrated in support of the rebels against the al-Qaeda affiliate; the Free Syrian Army has recently launched an offensive against the Islamic State in southern Syria; and Russia has announced that it will start withdrawing its main forces from the country. In the wake of positive sentiments following a semi-successful cessation of hostilities deal, the United States should capitalize on the current environment to de-escalate the conflict and shift its focus toward extremists. The Russian air campaign that began in September, while substantially improving the government’s ability to launch offensives and repulse attacks, has serious limitations and has not been the overwhelming victory that the regime would like to portray. In this context, the U.S. now has a compelling opportunity to act as counterbalance.

In a speech on July 26, 2015, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad made three uncharacteristic remarks that underscored the toll that four years of armed conflict had had on the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and foreshadowed the dramatic entry of the Russian military into the theater some two months later. The first confession was that the SAA was suffering from “fatigue,” “demoralization,” and a “shortage in manpower.” Secondly, he spoke of the necessity for the army to cede control of certain areas, even if that territory appears significant to the regime’s support base. “In some cases, we have to abandon certain areas to move forces to an area we want to hold.” Finally, Assad highlighted the central role of foreign Shi’a militias in the war. He thanked Hezbollah and other foreign militias fighting on the side of the regime. He said that Hezbollah had the experience and skills needed to battle opposition fighters, and proclaimed, “A homeland is not for those who live in it or hold its passport, but those who defend it and protect it.”

The Russian air campaign that began in September did not put an end to the SAA’s underlying challenges. The regime’s forces are still thinly stretched, and much of the recent fighting in northern and southern Syria has been spearheaded by foreign Shi’a militias, notably the Lebanese Hezbollah, the Iraqi Hezbollah al-Nujabah, and Afghan fighters. However, the presence of these militias has helped make up for the regime’s overstretched forces in areas like Aleppo, and the opposition’s forces were weakened as a result of the Russian bombardment. Even as concrete results for the Russian campaign were not evident in the early days and weeks of the airstrikes, many of the opposition’s powerful factions expressed a sense of confusion and helplessness about how to deal with the ferocious air campaign.

The opposition’s ability to deploy forces or even hold territory diminished with the appearance of the Russian onslaught, and the regime’s manpower became a less decisive factor. In November, the regime broke the sieges of the Kweiris Air Base and the Shi’a towns of Nubl and al-Zahraa. In February, they cut rebel supply lines between Aleppo and Turkey and seized dozens of towns in Aleppo, Latakia, Hama, and Deraa. Some pundits have asserted that the regime was close to retaking Aleppo and Idlib and even advancing eastward to take Raqqa and Palmyra. Assad fanned these analyses by saying he was determined to take all of Syria. Both the United States and Russia, however, denounced the statement after agreeing to support a cessation of hostilities. The deal, which excludes the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra, went into effect on February 27 and has largely held, despite wide expectations to the contrary.

A Turning Point

That the Russian entry into Syria is a turning point in the conflict in Syria is indubitable. The Russians’ military firepower has significantly boosted the regime’s ability to plan and execute its battles relative to the situation a year ago. Before September, the rebels captured territory from the regime with relative ease, executing a series of successful campaigns from December 2014 to April 2015. Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham took Wadi al-Dhaif, the country’s largest military complex in the north, and moved later under the banner of Jaish al-Fateh (Army of Conquest) to take the cities of Idlib in March and Jisr al-Shughour in April. Other rebel groups then pushed further south to capture villages in Hama province’s al-Ghab plain. Similar advances were made in southern Syria. In May, the Islamic State defeated the SAA in Palmyra in central Syria and pushed west and south.

So far, the regime forces have captured a fraction of those areas they lost over the year prior to Russian intervention. (According to the British defense think-tank IHS Jane’s, the regime lost 16 percent of its territory in that period). But the Russian military has enabled the regime to end the trend of swift defeats. From September to February, the Russian air forces concentrated airstrikes in three fronts to secure the regime, namely Hama’s northern countryside, along a line from northern Latakia to Aleppo, and from southern Aleppo toward Raqqa. The effort substantially weakened the rebels near Latakia and isolated them in northern Aleppo. Recent military gains made by anti-government forces were typically lost within a few hours, such as Jabhat al-Nusra’s March 8 assaults in southern Aleppo.

A Closer Look

While the regime’s military position is improved, it is imperative not to lose sight of the constraints on the ground that make it hard for the regime to even retake the territory it lost last year. Russia’s air support to the regime has indeed substantially propped up the SAA and bolstered its ability to launch offensives and repulse attacks, but that does not necessarily mean the government is capable of winning the war. The SAA continues to suffer from the same challenges that forced it to lose around two-thirds of the country and to rely on foreign and local paramilitary forces—foreign and local—to defend and secure the remaining third. To understand the army’s constraints, consider a battle near Damascus that took place just after the Russians intervened in Syria. While attention has been focused on how the Russian air campaign played out in northern Syria, that battle was the earliest example of how the campaign helped the Assad government push back against rebel forces.

A week after the Russian air campaign kicked off, rebels near Damascus launched an attack eight months in the making. The offensive, led by Salafist group Jaish al-Islam, was designed to cut the Damascus-Homs highway near the capital, secure the rebel-held towns, and break the government siege there. The battle took place near the capital, where the regime’s most elite forces operate and where mobilization of foreign Shi’a militias is easier (due to the symbolism of Shi’a holy sites on the outskirts of Damascus). Despite the government’s well-prepared defenses, the rebels were able to seize a key position within hours and overrun numerous government installations, forcing the regime to deploy reinforcements from nearby areas. The battle lasted for 60 days, during which Russian airstrikes played a key role in helping the regime secure or retake contested areas.

Despite the successful counterattack, the episode illustrated the limits of the government’s military capabilities, even in the area where it has its greatest concentration of troops. Assad’s forces relied almost exclusively on intensive airstrikes to retake the bases, often completely ruining them. The rebels have controlled new areas and successfully preempted a rumored offensive by the regime in the rebel-held Ghouta region. Most damningly for Damascus, the rebels who executed the offensive had been territorially isolated, away from border areas, and under relentless siege for more than three years. Unlike other rebel forces elsewhere in the country, the opposition in Ghouta does not have direct supply lines from neighboring countries, which further shows the limits of cutting supply lines from Aleppo.

Whether in Aleppo, eastern Syria, or southern Syria near the Jordanian border, the regime is more constrained by terrain and resources than it is in the areas near Damascus. Even if the SAA prioritizes populated areas like Aleppo and concentrates its forces to retake them, the effort will likely face tremendous challenges and take time. Northern Syria is even more challenging than Ghouta because the north, from Latakia to Qamashli, is more militarized than the rest of the country. Northern Syria provides a large number of fighters for both the regime and the opposition. For the regime, those fighters help secure Hama, Latakia, and the parts of Aleppo under government control. Elsewhere, much of the regime fighting in recent months has been led by foreign militias. Such militias can conduct surgical attacks and incursions in rebel-held areas, but they have to be mobile, which means the regime will still have to deploy regular forces to control a newly captured area.

Truce or Ruse?

Continued.....

OUTLAW 09

03-17-2016, 05:38 AM

Eliot Higgins ‏@EliotHiggins
Russian airstrikes in Syria were so accurate they could destroy the same target twice on different days

Heavy artillery shelling by Assad forces in Ma’an, north east #Hama targeting al-Tamana’a in south rural #Idlib, #Syria

Assad forces also still trying to push on the Kinsaba front in rural #Latakia, #Syria

Breakdown of #ISIS/#Daesh weapons/ammunition capture in #DeirEzzor by @LlamameIshmael
https://www.reddit.com/r/syriancivilwar/comments/4anuza/a_final_laky_post_breakdown_of_yesterdays_isis/ …

Heavy clashes continue in Marj area in E. Ghouta, Assad trying everything to encircle the southern part (Zibdin, Deir Asafir, Rikabiya, etc)

SAA Pilot Captain "Shadi Adib Abbas" stabbed to death nearby his home in #Tartous #Syria MAR 16

OUTLAW 09

03-17-2016, 05:40 AM

Heavy clashes now between #FSA and #Isis terrorists in outskirts of #Dodiyan
#Aleppo cs #Syria MAR 17

#Isis launched an attack on #SAA positions in the outskirts of #Khanasser now
#ALeppo cs #Syria MAR 17

OUTLAW 09

03-17-2016, 05:42 AM

SCD inspecting civilians houses after #SAA terrorists shelling mortars on #alTamanah
#Idlib cs #Syria MAR 17

Little boy Ahmed, lost his hands after #Russia landmine exploded nearby of him in #Palmyra
#Homs cs #Syria MAR 16

Little boy*** Mahmoud Hassan Taleb, victim of #SAA terrorists snipers in #Ebtaa town
#Daraa #Syria MAR 16

8 Areas bombed by ASSad and his foreigners allies terrorists
#Syria MARCH 16

OUTLAW 09

03-17-2016, 06:43 AM

OUTLAW 09

03-17-2016, 06:50 AM

Compare how hard @KremlinRussia_E pushes the military 'federalization' of Ukraine to how adamantly it ignores Syria.
pic.twitter.com/bFIDAzJyjD

OUTLAW 09

03-17-2016, 06:56 AM

Double standards it appears........

More Than a Dozen U.S. Military Personnel Disciplined Over Doctors Without Borders Hospital Bombing
http://gawker.com/more-than-a-dozen-u-s-military-personnel-disciplined-o-1765389829?utm_medium=sharefromsite&utm_source=Gawker_twitter …

BUT not a single attempt by Obama and Kerry to charge Putin with "war crimes" for the deliberate bombing of 27 hospitals all verified struck by the RuAF....

OUTLAW 09

03-17-2016, 07:09 AM

When the National Command Authority displays an inherent lack of any clear, concise and coherent national level strategy for just about anything other than his/their whim of the moment moves...you get massive "cross talk" and nothing goes anywhere.....

CENTCOM backs PYD/YPG to the hilt, empowering it to consider self-ruled zone.

State Dept. insists no territory would receive recognition.

AND Turkey has openly declared any Kurdish self rule zone on their border is a total red line and that they would hinder it...appears to have been completely overlooked/overheard.....

What has been amazing to me in this whole debate around IS is the simple fact that US has had a large Arab Sunni Syrian army made up of Syrian Sunni's more than willing to take on IS and in fact have done so for over three years AND the NCA and CENTCOM totally ignores them under the guise of "they are not moderate enough for us"....or "we cannot determine who is or is not moderate enough for us"......

Who the heck cares how "moderate" a group is or is not as long as they are willing to take on IS in their own country.....then we just need to sit back and let them work it out....which in the end the Syrian civil society is fully capable of doing on it's own....

If one is intently watching Syria right now this is exactly what is ongoing with the AQ group JaN trying to push out true moderate FSA forces in Ibid and being openly challenged rather successfully by the "Syrian street" demonstrations that forced them to pull back....

OUTLAW 09

03-17-2016, 07:28 AM

This is exactly what happens when there is no adult leadership in the WH.... strategy discussions aside.....

Senior #PYD figure reveals territorial ambitions for self-ruled Kurdish zone in N #Syria; to be announced in 5 days:

Senior PYD official, Idris Nassan, says Rojava's federal system aims to include Azaz & Jarablus, and the official formation will be on 21/3.

WHAT is staring now Obama and CENTCOM in the face is a full scale potential Turkish intervention into Syria to hinder this as they view these moves to be fully aimed at Turkish national security and have so stated this a number of times and it also places YPG in the cross hairs of the Saudi's as the KSA has stated yesterday they will indeed enter Syria to take on IS directly.

For the KSA YPG is just another extension now of the Assad regime...simple as that....

THIS is exactly what happens when the NCA displays no leadership NOR strategic thinking and or strategic aims that are clearly defined for all players to fully understand and yes that even includes Putin.

International relations is often viewed as a chess game BUT as with all "games" if there are no rules...chaos reigns......AND that is where the US is right now...BUT WAIT there is an IR concept called "chaos theory"......maybe that is where Obama is coming from??

Obama has a serious problem with this "vision thing".....and all that Harvard education seems to not have helped....

THERE is a Turkish saying......
"if the pray of dog was accepted bones would rain from skies"

OUTLAW 09

03-17-2016, 07:38 AM

BREAKING
#Germany closes its consulate and the German school in #Istanbul due to a warning of an imminent terror attack around Taksim

A "hold your breath moment".........and "we will see moment"......
BREAKING: Russia's air force commander says most of the country's jet fighters in Syria will be out within three days

CrowBat

03-17-2016, 07:40 AM

CrowBat....appears the US DoD agrees that not much has been pulled out of Syria by the Russians....so again typical Russian doublespeak move.....pull out a few, have a big medals day for Russian TV and just keep on fighting hoping no one in the West notices it exactly the same Ukrainian scenario.....

No significant reduction seen in Russian combat power in Syria: US military
http://f24.my/1Z3hRDi

It was a farce to even believe for a second Putin would pull out of a country where he holds an unlimited and unrestricted SOFA for years to come....Russia has never done that nor has the UdSSR.
Russians are meanwhile so keen on purposedly confusing everybody so to break the trust into any sort of media, that it's beyond imaginable.

Newest example is their ambassador to the UK, who went for record to state that 'not a single Syrian civilian was killed' by Russian bombs, and Russians never bombed any of Syrian cities or towns. If you don't believe this, see here (https://twitter.com/Channel4News/status/709858138749427712).

...and this just four days after Russian helicopters have attacked a bus underway from Damascus to Raqqa (yes, ladies and gentleman: the regime is running regular bus-lines from its capital to that of the Daesh in Syria, and that since two yers), and killed 15 women and kids while gravely injuring 30 others, on 11 March.

Why do I know it was Russians? Because Assadists know about these buses, and have never attacked even one so far. Only Russians are so stupid to do something of this kind - and then decorate their war criminals.

**********

Back to withdrawal: they've got scared by MANPADs, and thus stopped strikes by fighter-bombers. While Keystone Cops in Moscow (and especially their fans (https://twitter.com/miladvisor/status/710124803097812992)), are announcing withdrawal of 'all Su-24s, Su-25s and Su-34s', they have so far shown only withdrawal of four (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gt5bMVxxKYc) Su-34s (including Su-34s 20, 22, 26 and 27, i.e. 'oldest' examples in Syria), and four (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-79bQiJSNE) Su-25s (Su-25SMs 21 and 31, and Su-25UBMs 44 and 53).

On the other hand, they are sto STUPID, so endlessly stupid, that while letting representatives of the MSM take videos of 'withdrawing' Sukhois, they also let them take take videos of bombed-up Su-24s, Su-25s, and Su-30s taking off for another strike:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPkRqfXjEXg

...Mi-28Ns newly-delivered to Hmemmem AB (pay attention at around 0.18, and see the sill I made below):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srra3IKtEg8

...and Ka-52s...

...and newly-arrived Su-24s (note the fin of '53 blue', never seen before in Syria)...

With other words: not ONE word of what Moscow says can be trusted - not even taken seriously.

OUTLAW 09

03-17-2016, 07:41 AM

A very important key of the Russian pushed cessation of hostilities was the delivery of massive humanitarian aid to over 500,000 besieged Sunni towns, cities and villages and hard to get to locations that are blocked by the SAA, Hezbollah and Shia mercenaries and now YPG......

This aid was to flow via Russia and the UN....YET not much of anything has moved anywhere as Assad is still blocking it......

No aid in starving #Darayya since 12/13. “Nothing has entered.. except barrel bombs raining down from the sky.” @SyrianHNC_en @UN #Syria

OUTLAW 09

03-17-2016, 07:47 AM

BreakingNews
#ISIS recaptured #Doudyan from Syrian rebels.
Thanks #Assad and YPG for making this possible! ...

Div 13 yesterday says an officer & 17 members of Div 13 are still detained by Nusra & Jund al-Aqsa

Regime officers arrested and fighting between presidential guards and division 4 in #Damascus http://aletihadpress.com/2016/03/17/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D8%AA%D8%AD%D8%A7%D8%AF-%D8%A8%D8%B1%D8%B3-%D8%AF%D9%85%D8%B4%D9%82-%D8%AA%D8%BA%D9%84%D9%8A-%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%B9%D8%AA%D9%82%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A7%D 8%AA-%D9%84%D8%B6%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%B7/ …

CrowBat

03-17-2016, 07:50 AM

The same (with Russian lies) is valid for their reports about that 'Syrian MiG-21US' shot down by Ahrar ash-Sham on 12 March.

Namely, supposedly leaning on some military source (http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20160312/1036189815/syrian-mig-downed-pilot-shot-dead.html), Sputnik News (http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20160315/1036297706/syrian-fighter-shot-down.html) started babbling about a 'Syrian...MiG-21US' being shot down over Northern Hama, on 12 March.

...and now everybody is '100% sure', this was a 'Syrian MiG-21US'.

However, as somebody who has spent most of the last 30 years researching about Arab air forces in general - and especially such Arab air forces like Egyptian, Iraqi and Syrian (resulting in a corresponding book series, see Arab MiGs, Vol.1 (http://www.harpia-publishing.com/galleries/AMV1/index.html), Arab MiGs, Vol.2 (http://www.harpia-publishing.com/galleries/AMV2/index.html), Arab MiGs, Vol.3 (http://www.harpia-publishing.com/galleries/AMV3/index.html), Arab MiGs, Vol.4 (http://www.harpia-publishing.com/galleries/AMV4/index.html), Arab MiGs Vol.5 (http://www.harpia-publishing.com/galleries/AMV5/index.html), and Arab MiGs, Vol.6 (http://www.harpia-publishing.com/galleries/AMV6/index.html)), I know that Syrians never got a single MiG-21US.

To make sure, I went back to re-view all the photos of Syrian two-seat MiG-21s, with result that one can see only 1 MiG-21U-400 (used as instructional airframe at 'The Works', at Nayrab AB), and otherwise solely and exclusively MiG-21UMs. But no MiG-21US'.

Means: the sheer fact it's Russians who is talking about a 'MiG-21US' was shot down points at the fact that such reports are another fabrication: how shall any Syrian source talk about MiG-21US if they never got any?

Besides, Russians have never reported any kind of Assadist MiG-losses in five years of this war. Why are they doing so now?

************

For those curious to investigate further, or cross-check what I say, attached below is a combination of two of my artworks, pointing at ('subtle') differences between MiG-21US and MiG-21UM. Take a look, and then compare with all the photos of Syrian MiG-21-two-seaters published in recent years...