A lot of truth in this comment......
The #AdmiralKuznetsov has now done more damage to Russian aviation than Turkey did.
Printable View
Aleppo: Military map for besieged Eastern #Aleppo.
One resident describes tens of bodies out on the street near his house that can't be reached, further attacks on those that try.
Painful to hear Syrian contacts, who have seen so much, describe current situation as 'horrific' with real fear in their voice
Replenishment at sea - Russian style. Back-to-back, with a tug to keep the two in a straight line.
Aleppo: #Russia|n @RT_com propaganda reporter was injured by rebel shelling in #Aleppo today.
Yes, Syrians saw right away that their struggles were linked with Ukraine's. It's a shame that Western leaders took so long to figure it out
AND they still have not yet figured it out.....based on their total inaction in the face of genocide...starvation in Syria and constant Russian attacks inside Ukraine...
Russian MoD officially accused #USA in ordering killing of a Russian medic in Aleppo.
https://twitter.com/Repub_Breaking/s...56059168231425 …
What are your thoughts on Brad Hoff's Levant Report?
He is one commentator on the war who questions the existence of the Free Syrian Army in terms of its secular or moderate character, and is of the opinion that the Syrian armed opposition is comprised primarily of Islamists.
He also challenged Kyle W. Orton's knowledge of Syria and the war, although he omitted that Orton had visited Lebanon and had contact with Syrian refugees.
As for Hoff's credentials, well, he is fluent in Arabic and lived in pre-war Syria for four years.
Timothy Heckenlively is also in Hoff's camp, knows basic Arabic and has traveled in Syria. Jack Murphy at SOFREP, who was dismissed by CrowBat, also knows basic Arabic, served in Iraq on multiple tours and was a trainer to the Iraqi Security Forces.
On the other side, we have Kyle W. Orton, who aside from some graduate work in Lebanon with refugees, has not visited Syria and may not speak even basic Arabic.
We also have Charles Lister, whose background is in international relations and security. He knows basic Arabic, but based out of Doha, it stands to reason that his information is filtered by Qatar, which is involved in the war.
The problem with Hoff and Heckenlively is that they both seem myopically focused on the state of Christians in Syria. While Christian civilians have come under attack from Islamists, Christian communities have largely sided with Assad, who is indiscriminately shelling and bombing Sunni communities. Therefore, attacks on Christians must be taken within the context of how the various ethnicities and sects are aligned.
But if Ottoman history is any guide, majority rule by Sunni Arabs will not be beneficial to Christians, Alawites, Druze or Kurds.
Lastly, the opinions of Orton and Lister must be seen in the context of their struggle against Iranian-Russian-Syrian disinformation (i.e. the denial of any moderate, secular or peaceful opposition), which might prompt them to overlook flaws in the FSA...
Thoughts?
With respect to Lister's objectivity, not only is he based in Doha, but he works for Brookings, which has received $15 million from Qatar from 2013-2015 in addition to funding by the UAE.
'Assad is regularly visiting Churches for Christmas'.... sigh... :rolleyes:
I have visited the country bout a dozen of times, and spent nearly 6 months in total there. I do not really speak any Arabic: I can read some, but talking-wise I can at best order myself a can of coke in that language. Sure, I have studied its military for... well, it's exactly 30 years, and could say a lot about it, no doubt. But, I am far from declaring myself any kind of 'expert' on Syria.
Nevertheless, I do feel to be in position to say: if this is the way Hoff's 'gauging' the Assadist regime, he's either plain dumb or a blind religious fanatic.
And re. 'are there flaws in the FSyA': not that they are directly comparable, but tell me, are there flaws in the Democratic or Republican parties of the USA...? Are there flaws in the US or any other military...?
And I didn't receive 1 cent from anybody. And still: I'm usually drawing similar conclusions to his, and that (usually) 12-24 months earlier.Quote:
With respect to Lister's objectivity, not only is he based in Doha, but he works for Brookings, which has received...
So what?
Azor...you ask some interesting questions.....
1. having spent time also in Iraq when the Iraqi Salafists and QJBR then AQI were basically running a phase 2 guerrilla war that no one and yes no one even on the SOF side saw it....and I caught massive pushback or repeatedly pointing it out....I greatly distrust anyone who states I was there speak some Arabic thus "I understand the ME"........
2. right now if we take just the work done by Lister...Orton....CrowBat....Hassan Hassan and Weiss for just say the last five years.....literally tons of articles and then compare them to other writers claiming to "know Syria" or the various Salafist groups as well as the moderate secular FSA and their reporting on the over 1000 Syrian self governing groups I then take them hands down.......
Their accuracy in naming the groups and sub groups and the twists and turns of what is ongoing inside cannot be matched by another group of writers or single writers......
I post them repeatedly just because of their accuracy.......
Just a side comment....I was writing a series of intel reports one day in a BCT TOC when the BCT intel officer was writing his monthly intel summary for Baqubah Diyala Province which in 2005/2006 was like the Wild West for insurgent activities....
Well anyway he asked me....do you have any idea why we see almost like clock work a series of insurgent attacks on five major ISF controlled checkpoints in Baqubah.....about every four weeks.....
Without looking up I said take a look at the targets...five different styles of control points .....the insurgents are graduating a trainee class and are doing a live fire attack exercise.....as they have been doing indoor dry fire training and need to finally conduct true attacks.....
His response...but they do take loses and wounded..my response...that is the guerrilla Darwinian principle at work....only the good ones make it onto the attack teams.....
His response...that is to simple and higher will not accept such a short explanation.....and he did not report it that way....actually he fudged around and never did accurately reflect what was happening on the ground......
WHICH flew in the face of my interrogation reports which in fact verified what I had said....because that was a question I placed to a Salafist we had picked up by "accident"....because I had spotted the guerrilla tactic and had in fact checked the five objectives....and had photos taken of them to confirm my thoughts...
I distrust to a degree many Syrian writers on a number of military type blogs...the group around Orton...Lister...Weiss....Hassan Hassan and CrowBat...inherently "know" the ground.....and basically reconfirm each other's analysis work and or sometimes critique each other which is academically healthy...
BTW Hassan Hassan and Orton as well as Lister have published a number of articles on what the ME might look like without IS the "day after"...and how the US has sided with the "wrong Kurdish group YPG/PKK" and they gain no traction in the US MSM.....
Azor....BTW.....I am probably the only SWJ commenter who has spent literally hours of face to face conversations with Salafists, Takfirists and Sunni secularist/nationalist insurgents....hours literally hours.....in Abu Ghraib and Baqubah Diyala Province...AND the only interrogator at that time using the Koran and Islam as the basis for those discussions......and that from someone who could not spell Koran before arriving in Iraq....I could even repeat the oath of allegiance of the Ansar al Sunnah a Kurdish/Sunni/Salafist Iraqi insurgent group......much to the surprise of those that we would capture from AAS.......
The Army interrogators were told to not use religion was a basis but how can one avoid religion in the ME??? Especially when Shia and Sunni's share the same areas....same towns...and sometimes share the same tribes.....???
The only commentary that comes to my mind in regards of this story about 'rebel attack on Russian military hospital' is: '...and I've had sexual relationship with Amanda Righetti...'
'nuf said.
***********
That said, the insurgents report they've had something like 'Grad Day' in Syria, yesterday.
Faylaq ash-Sham rocketed Nubl & Zahra in NW Aleppo
JAI rocketed Nubl & Zahra
Jabhat ash-Shamiyya rocketed Tel ash-Sheikh Yusuf
Jaysh Halab (new designation for FSyA coalition inside Eastern Aleppo) rocketed Aziza
Ahrar ash-Sham rocketed Fuah (northern Idlib)
FASH rocketed Fuah & Kefraya
Suqour ash-Sham rocketed Fuah & Kefraya
Suqour ash-Sham rocketed 'Military Academy and Al-Hamdania Stadium' (in Western Aleppo)
JAM rocketed 'Military Academy' (they didn't say which)
If I'm to ask, this is just a waste of precious rockets. Deploying these to rocket Nayrab AB/Aleppo IAP, Hama AB, perhaps Kweres AB (if it's within range, at all) and especially the helidrome at as-Safira would be less spectacular, but would pay off in a far better fashion.
Namely, as-Safira is the place from where nearly 90% of helicopter strikes on Eastern Aleppo are launched. Kweres is the major hub for L-39s that are targeting Eastern Aleppo. And Hama and Nayrab are still launching sporadic air strikes too (say: 5-10 in total a day).
Disinfo_Digest @Disinfo_Digest
The role of tech companies in the fight against #disinformation by @edwardlucas
Just one - related, I think - episode that occasionally comes to my mind...
It so happened that back on 4 July 2003, I was invited to the usual party at the local US embassy.
As of that time, I've spent exactly four days in Iraq - and that during the times while Saddam was still in power, years earlier. I was not the least interested into 'everyday politics' or actually really interested into what is going on in Iraq. My core interest were (and remain) 'air forces and air wars'. It just so happened that through monitoring what the IrAF was doing (or not at all) during the US-led invasion of Iraq and immediately afterwards, I found out there the Ba'ath began setting up local HQs at local Ba'ath offices, turned off all of its Turya sat-phones at the same time, began using couriers for comms instead, began organizing first attacks on different checkpoints etc.
Anyway, at some point in time during that party, I found myself chatting with (one of) US Army Attachés, and then spontaneously blurting the sentence, 'You're rapidly losing control of the situation (in Iraq)'.
While I was still startled with what I said (and how frankly), he just looked me into eyes, then nodded in confirmation.
Whatever: is it so that one must've been there in order to know what's going on? Is 'been there' making anybody 'right' or 'wrong'...?
15-20 years ago, I would definitely say (even insist), 'yes, that's crucial'. Even today, I would say that 'been there' is very important for understanding what's going on, for getting the 'picture' of people and (especially) terrain. But, many things have changed in these 'internet times': IMHO, nowadays it's far more important to have 'right contacts in right places' - and some sort of 'secure' or at least 'not too obvious' comms to the people in question.
The killed #Russian medics in #Aleppo were from Byrobidzhan. A settlement of deported Jews in Far-East. Next to Japan & China.
UN comments based on the Russian complaints of their hospital being hit...
IRC told RF agencies attck suggestd parties cd not “fulfill their duties” 2 protct medicl staff, patients, hospitals https://themoscowtimes.com/news/mosc...n-medics-56426 …
Russian Def Ministry is deeply offended by Red Cross' "cynical" response, accuses of "indifference" against Russians http://www.interfax.ru/world/540024
MAYBE it was the Russian air strikes on anything that looks and acts like a Syria hospital ......
Syria New 360° video shows destruction in Sha'ar district in east #Aleppo city
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tay7cJcTYE0 …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=36...86124&z=16&m=b
While #Russia & #China vetoed #UNSC resolution to suspend #Aleppo bombings #PutinAssad used banned incendiary bombs against #Syria civilians
BTW...we seem to have similar problems with Us Senators and Congressmen "knowing everything"??????
The last time I checked Crimea was militarily annexed by Russia and was Ukrainian to begin with.......
JUST another example of US Congressmen who cannot seem to get history/geography correct these days....BUT it is definitely better than Congressman Rohrbacher who called the Ukrainian government Nazi"s....two years ago because he had received a large supporter donation from Russia....AND never admitted it came rom Russia.....
Pro-Putin congressman says he is on Secretary of State list http://politi.co/2fPdle2
Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter offers Ukraine exchange:Crimea for peace in Donbas + weapons from US.
WTH? http://sprotyv.info/ru/news/kiev/tor...medium=twitter …
BTW....none of this which was carried on the internet ever made it into the US MSM reporting...ever wonder why????
CrowBat.....you are 500% correct...the ground contacts are the most important pieces of a puzzle...then using the open source analysis ability of the internet to confirm and or deny....
With the Russian shot down of MH17 and their physical invasion of Crimea and eastern Ukraine and now in Syria the open source intel analysis of internet commenting has taken on a complete new dimension these days...especially if coupled with ground sources....
Example...
Something is very wrong here. #Russian medical camp in #Aleppo. Plenty stuff for OSINT & geolocation.
https://twitter.com/MH17_RUS/status/805814720603291652 …
Comment was posted by a long time Ukrainian commenter and open source analyst.....Russians claimed they were treating civilians...children and Assad military but nowhere to be seen in this drone photo...WHAT is interesting is that the Russians admitted mortars hit the admission area of the field hospital which is not setup to the standard Russian Army configuration....
Russia doesn't have to "win"-just stay: Aleppo's fall would be win for Russia, defeat for U.S. in Mideast
http://reut.rs/2gJNcxT
Charles Lister
✔ @Charles_Lister Ironically though, both CIA & DoD have said the fall of #Aleppo would represent a major dent to our CT fight.
Yet no response whatsoever...