The Syrian Army's Switch to Murder
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The Syrian Army's Switch to Murder
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This week on Al Arabiya there has been some releases of documents claiming that the pilots of the turkish jet were executed and that several damascus car bombs were set off by the regime. There has been almost no discussion of this on other media outlets.
I have always considered Al arabiya the saudi counterpart to Al jazeera however with something of this magnitude, and its lack of concurrent coverage, it raises to question of false news.
I know that it has been criticized as the advocate of saudi foreign policy, but al jazeera has faced the same re qatar. Is al arabiya a credible foreign source?
Al Arabiya News English, http://english.alarabiya.net
Al Arabiya, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Arabiya
Iraqi Perceptions of the War, SWJ, http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=2791
Jordan Rises as Internet Hub While King Curbs Expression, By Stephanie Baker - Oct 1, 2012 2:01 PM MT, Bloomberg Markets Magazine, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-1...xpression.html
Quote:
Before there was an Arab Spring, there was a quiet revolution of sorts brewing in Jordan.
The country experienced a tech boom that gained speed as young Arabs toppled regimes from Egypt to Tunisia and millions were driven online for the first time. Jordan now hosts about three-quarters of all Arabic content on the Internet, according to the Geneva-based International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
Quote:
Can it last? Doubts grew in September when the Jordanian parliament passed a law curtailing freedom of expression on the Internet and giving the government broad powers to block websites it deems inappropriate.
Quote:
On a scale of 1 (most free) to 7 (least free), Jordan scores 5.5, or “not free,” according to the Freedom in the World 2011 report published by Washington-based Freedom House.
Thats a shame since I was hoping to use Al-Arabiya english as an saudi perspective alternative view to qatari al-jazeera.
Hi,
sorry for the late reply, I've just seen your comment.
Yes, there are other ways to enforce a NFZ beyond dealing with an aircraft as it breaches the Zone. However, it would be wrong to see that as an option in Syria which simply removes the difficulties I outlined. Pse consider:
1. It takes more than a bomb crater to close a runway and it can be repaired (hence development of the JP233 in the Cold War). Closing all SAF MOBs would require signif & repeated effort. Ramp space & Risk?
2. A punitive approach would open up allied aircraft to ambush.
3. ROE. Yes, offensive action might be limited to that which is taken against a breaching aircraft. That may be a strong political constraint. The NFZ isn't happening in a vacuum.
4. Helos are a problem even if detected inside a NFZ. What if a Helo is being used for Casevac? Again, ROE can be a real constraint (e.g. as in the Balkans).
5. The major problems with the suggestion of a list of penalty targets are the risks associated with attacking them (if beyond the NFZ) and the very real consideration of campaign escalation. E.g. would allies be happy to attack a C2 node or Regime asset elsewhere in Syria because of a helo infringement? These are genuine legal and political issues that 'lateral thinking' might ignore.
Lastly, as an ex-mud-mover I'd say my 'historical paradigm of how to take aircraft out of the equation' would be to attack airfields....!
Paul
Here is a video of a Syrian gov helo (MI-8/17?) going down and exploding in midair.
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2...ver-idlib?lite
The photographer zooms out and in several times and when he zooms out it appears the helo is coming down from a fairly high altitude, high enough that it seems improbable that ground guns got him. From my civilian point of view it seems more likely that a missile got him.
Does anybody know if those missiles that went walk about from Libya have made it to the Syrian opposition?
(Regardless, we are going to have trouble with those missing Libyan SA-24s in the years to come.)
Do those missiles leave a vapor trail. Noticed from the video when he pulled back to wide angle you could almost see where the smoke from the failing helicopter started and I did not notice any other smoke angling up towards that area.
Also did not see any tracer fire following it down from a crew served weapon (like a DShKM) ... so maybe it was just mechanical failure?????
They leave a trail while the motor is burning but the motor only burns for so long. Once it burns out, I don't know. It appears the video was shot from behind the helo, so maybe it was hit by a missile whose motor had burned out and it was hit outside the frame since it would have kept moving forward while moving down. Then again, maybe not. We will probably never know.
It appears that the helo was massively leaking fuel before it blew up. I think that is what it is trailing as it goes down.
The banker must have forgotten to mention that Sharia rules.Quote:
A staffer at a private bank from Lattakia told me in 2010 that when his brother knocked down a pedestrian in a car accident on a Damascus street he fled the capital for a month while his family attempted to sort out the issue. His family paid money to the family of the deceased. The state was not involved in this as#pect of governance and the brother faced no legal judgment for his crime. Law and justice are realms so weak, corrupt and disin#genuous in the state system that Syrians have rejected them in serious matters; they are forced to govern themselves; they can place no trust in the state.
Pay money and all is well.
Same as the CIA chap in Pakistan. Money paid and all is forgiven!
http://www.aviationweek.com/Blogs.as...f-c98fdf99a7a0Quote:
Does anybody know if those missiles that went walk about from Libya have made it to the Syrian opposition?
(Regardless, we are going to have trouble with those missing Libyan SA-24s in the years to come.)
http://www.armyrecognition.com/image...n_army_001.jpg
A manufacturing industry official in Russia apparently indicated that the SA-24s in Libya are not MANPAD capable.
SA-7 to -14 weapons adrift in the world are not a threat unique to Libya. There were literally thousands of the all over the place in Iraq, and it was not uncommon to find missiles, batteries, and trigger units lying around. The opportunity to seize these weapons was incredibly high in 2003, and although many of them probably were, I'm not so sure they had more than a minimal impact on the remaining 8 years of our presence. Analysts are getting lathered up about Libyan SAMs, but I suspect the true impact in the region and the world will be just about as limited as it was in the wake of Iraq' collapse.
The fun-n-games never stops.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/10/20...ammunition.xmlQuote:
DEIR SONBUL, Syria - The government of Syria, trying to contain a rapidly expanding insurgency, has resorted to one of the dirty tricks of the modern battlefield: salting ammunition supplies of antigovernment fighters with ordnance that explodes inside rebels' weapons, often wounding and sometimes killing the fighters while destroying many of their hard-found arms.
The practice, which rebels said started in Syria early this year, is another element of the government's struggle to combat the opposition as Syria's military finds itself challenged across a country where it was not long ago an uncontested force. The government controls the skies, and with aircraft and artillery batteries it has pounded many rebel strongholds throughout this year. But the rebels continue to resist, mostly with small arms.
They may or may not be capable of being fired from the shoulder as of this moment. Iranian engineers are pretty capable. But whether they are or not is immaterial to the degree of threat that they pose. They can be fired from the back of a pickup truck, and those can get just about anywhere. The guys who fire the missiles from the shoulder, I would guess, drive to their firing point in a pickup truck.
SA-7s and SA-14s are not SA-18s which are not SA-24s. Comparing an SA-7 to a SA-24 is sort of like comparing a Brown Bess to a Bren Gun. SA-7s and 14s has resulted in what we have had which we have been obviously able to live with. We don't know if we can live with the 24s yet. It is the top of the line Russki small anti-aircraft missile. We would be very worried if the latest iteration of the Stinger got out. This is maybe the same.
These missiles getting out is a very big deal. The threat is not only the immediate one posed by the missiles themselves. They will be reverse engineered by Iran and Red China and maybe even the North Koreans and Pakistan. This is not a good thing for the future.
What is Hezbollah’s Role in the Syrian Crisis?
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Chairman Mao vs. President Assad: People’s War in Syria
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Slaughtering prisoners video
http://news.yahoo.com/video/prisoner...151814189.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012...n-military-aid
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The Syrian opposition says it has been promised western military support in return for forming a united front, in advance of a donors' conference in London on Friday intended to consolidate the new rebel coalition.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middle...539534504.htmlQuote:
"The international community realises the situation in Syria is unsustainable and that its own self-interest is at stake as it destabilises the region," said Yaser Tabbara, a coalition spokesman. "We have assuaged a lot of the concerns and fulfilled a lot of preconditions on the Syrian armed opposition in terms of accountability and unity, and I believe the international community is ready to invest in the opposition both militarily and politically. That is the sense we got in Doha."
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The Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) has said its six member states decided to recognise the newly formed National Coalition of the Syrian opposition as the "legitimate representative" of the Syrian people.
Amazing, immediately following our national election a coalition is recognized. This will lead somewhere, but where nobody knows.Quote:
"But the Arab League stopped short of recognising it as the sole representative of the Syrian people," our correspondent said. "Rather it recognised the coalition [as representing] the 'aspirations' of the Syrian people."
"The coaliton was given observer status [at the Arab League]. They haven't yet been offered the chair left empty since Assad was no longer welcome. So observer status is a good first step."
This:
sounds well short of this:Quote:
"I believe the international community is ready to invest in the opposition both militarily and politically."
"Western" is pretty vague... who would be in a position to make promises on behalf of "the West"? Without some indication of what was promised and by who, the story doesn't mean much.Quote:
The Syrian opposition says it has been promised western military support
Dayuhan, if you want to mimic the three monkeys (say no evil, hear no evil, see no evil) that is your choice. However, the US among others have been pushing for this consolidation for months (multiple open source reports/public statements). They skillfully executed by encouraging a multilateral regional organization do the overt work, but aid will be increased, both lethal and non-lethal from the West. We'll increase non-lethal aid immeidately, and I suspect France will increase lethal aid near immediately through the regional partners. Hopefully we'll be able to facilitate whatever we're trying to accomplish without putting combat forces on the ground, at least in substantial numbers. Many claimed the Libya approach failed, I disagree, it ousted Qaddafi without getting US and other Western troops tied down in another quagmire. It was a hybrid form of UW with conventional forces playing a substantial UW role. British and French Special Forces provided assistance on the ground, as well as Qatar if the media reports are accurate.
Moving on
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2012/11/200435.htm
http://news.yahoo.com/analysis-elect...000942429.htmlQuote:
The United States congratulates the representatives of the Syrian people on the formation of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces. We look forward to supporting the National Coalition as it charts a course toward the end of Assad’s bloody rule and the start of the peaceful, just, democratic future that all the people of Syria deserve. We will work with the National Coalition to ensure that our humanitarian and non-lethal assistance serves the needs of the Syrian people. We also commend the Government of Qatar for its steadfast leadership and support of this conference.
Analysis: Election over, U.S. cautiously mulls Syria options
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"I'm amazed by how quickly people have started talking about Syria" after the election, said Joseph Holliday, a former U.S. Army intelligence officer and expert on the Syrian opposition at the Institute for the Study of War who frequently briefs American officials.
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The new united rebel leadership announced this weekend in Doha - the result of months of pressure from western states and Arab allies - is also seen as offering the best hope so far that the opposition can form a united front.
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Long-term Assad supporter Russia, some experts say, may be tiring of the Syrian leader. Moscow might have little appetite for Western-backed overthrow of Assad, but it also wants to make sure it retains influence with any government that replaces him
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The opportunity now, rebel supporters say, is for a much more coordinated strategy perhaps led by Washington.
They "are waiting for the West," Salman Shaikh, a former adviser to the Qatari royal family and now director of the Brookings Doha Center, said via video link. "They don't want to be in this alone. Only the U.S. can bring this about."