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When Obama is pushed for a decision on anything--all we hear is we need more time..........hoping to outlast the problem and the chatter will disappear thus not needing a decision.....
White House: more time needed for new Iran missile sanctions
http://reut.rs/1NYig5q
pic.twitter.com/HiTuIUHw0z
Go figure, #ISIS is now in #Daraa. What absolute nonsense. Pure comedy from @RT_com & @MuradoRT as usual
Reports of 11 martyrs frozen to death do far in #Arsal refugee camp
#Lebanon #Syria JAN 3
Madaya under siege
#Assad regime & his #Shiite thugs impose a deadly siege on Madaya city #Damascus countryside, people there die of famine
Assad uses starvation as a battlefield tactic to cleanse Sunni areas...AND Putin continues this tactic which he also used in Chechnya....
Ahmed Abdul Karim died due hunger, more 1/100s starves to death by #ASSad & his occupiers #Hebollah siege in #Madaya
#Syria JAN3
#FSA repealed #SAA attempt to infiltrate #Darayya backed by #Russia airstrikes & barrel bombs, dozens SAA killed& weapons seized
#Syria JAN3
Kurdish sources confirm the capture of Kashtiār, claiming it was "in defence" and only vs. #JaN and #ahraralsham.
http://jinhahaber.link/en/ALL-NEWS/content/view/41064
BreakingNews
#YPG forces took two villages this morning with indirect #Russian air cover on rebel-held town nearby
Kishtar was recaptured this morning, Tenab recaptured 2 days ago. No airstrikes on any of the villages.
MyTwoCents
Looking forward to see the west's disbelieving eyes when #SDF (90% #YPG) ,#Assad and #Russia shake hands in some months.
Civilians speak after another night of #RussianAirstrikes on their homes in #Tall_Rifat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7KToovKXqM
Footage
Devastation after a "#RussianAirstrike" on a town in #EastGhouta.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9-ztUEnxYg
Footage
Rockets hit the #Saudi embassy in #Baghdad this morning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXI8Z9BwGdw
Footage
#Russia's terrorism vs. the Syrian population continued in #Tall_Rifat last night.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VN1dc3lnzk
ANOTHER Russian info war mistake.....
RT took a tweet from @NorthernStork,in which he accidentally mixed up Daraa and Quneitra provinces.
44km fr. Sh.M.
Rebels this morning foiled a regime attempt to break into the NW side of Daraya, 10s of regime forces reportedly killed. #Damascus
Unbelievable regime bombing of Daraya & Moadamiya last night, massive explosions kept many awake in #Damascus
Hama Rebels seized barrier near #Maan
Eliot Higgins @EliotHiggins
Just stumbled across this, Kata'ib Hezbollah showing off their various IRAM launchers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUkopUHDpf0
Zaman Wasl continues to dump purported data leaks from #Syria's security apparatus. Here, 96k names of wanted people https://zamanalwsl.net/news/67004.html
With Jund al-Aqsa & Feilaq al-Sham out, Jaish al-Fath is:
- Ahrar al-Sham
- Nusra Front (AQ)
- Jaish al-Sunna
- Liwa al-Haqq
- Ajnad al-Sham
Syria's MB proxy Feilaq al-Sham splits from Jaish al-Fath, after the latter began to veer into hard jihadi rhetoric
Former pacifist Haitham Mannaa goes full warlord in a letter to UN, written in his new role as DSA president
https://zamanalwsl.net/news/67526.html
Things that weren't immediately evident about Mannaa in 2010: that five years later he'd lead a Kurdish army battling a psychotic caliphate
Seems to be the new thing: No point in talking to Assad, says NC, since he "barely controls 18% of Syrian territory"
http://en.etilaf.org/all-news/news/h...iate-with.html
Bold words for a group that controls 0% of Syria. And by that metric, the only group invited to Geneva would be IS. Possibly a bad idea.
But percentages aside, he has a point: "How can there be ceasefire talks in the absence of our armed forces, who control 16% of #Syria?"
.@laurapitel reports on Madayya, the mountain town whose starving residents are eating weeds and cats to survive: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-a6793386.html
Syria's 2015 broke all sorts of records, incl. being the best-ever year for hashish sales
http://alwatan.sy/archives/34663 by Mohammed Manar Hamijou
QUESTION is--WHO made the money and WHO moved it?????
SAA warplanes carried out airstrikes targeting #al_Qariyatain village
#Homs #Syria JAN 3
Nimr hanged in #Saudi and #Aleppo pay the price..
#hezbollah terrorists mercenaries occupiers "revenge"
#Syria JAN2
Hezbollah fires rockets at Syrian towns in revenge for Nimr execution
BUT WAIT Nimr was verbally against Assad....????
BREAKING
The 2nd death of today in #Madaya; woman died due hunger results of #ASSad & #Hezbollah occupiers siege
#Damascus CS #Syria JAN 3
Madaya
17 deaths in the last two months as a result of hunger as a result of the siege of the #Assad regime
Syria 30+ #Russia'n airstrikes hit Sheik Miskin in southern #Daraa province today- to pave #Iraq'i Shiite militias the way into the city
Serious if only Kurds just keep on tanking Arab towns and villages that have nothing to do with Kurdistan.......AND the US says nothing....
YPG and #PKK keep advancing in the northern countryside of Aleppo today the occupied keshtaar village near from menagh airbase
Shia militias crimes everyday killing innocent Iraqis Sunni civilians without guilt This militias backed by Iran
pic.twitter.com/UdobPgXR0b
Pictures
Today's victims of #Assad's and #Putin's war against the Syrian population (in #Douma) incl. 0 yo #Firas.
pic.twitter.com/vAUjRDl99J
SOHR #Sham_Legion announces his withdrawal from #Jaish_Fateh, they're heading to #Aleppo
http://www.syriahr.com/en/?p=41981 pic.twitter.com/TyeP9fEJkM
Syria: #NDF members in #Hama wearing helmets of the NVA (Army of GDR, Eastern Germany). pic.twitter.com/9XpzPucJ7l
NOTE:: not your typical 1990 NVA helmet.
Source claims (yet again) that testing of 400-km missile 40N6E for S-400 SAM system is nearing completion.
http://bit.ly/22FoKOi .
The Varyag, like the Moskva (already deployed off Syrian coast), has off shore S-300 capability. Russia continues to beef up air defenses.
Russian rocket cruiser Varyag heading to the Mediterranean. Flagship of Pacific Fleet.
https://twitter.com/mod_russia/statu...58163623702529 …
Eliot Higgins @EliotHiggins
We now have images from @ruptly, @RT_com, @SputnikInt, and @mod_russia showing cluster bombs on Russian jets in Syria. That's a full house.
Eliot Higgins @EliotHiggins
If you're going to deny Russia uses cluster bombs please explain why Russian jets in Syria are loaded with them https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/sta...29579125108736 …
Eliot Higgins @EliotHiggins
Ironic that Russia's own propaganda channels have provided the strongest evidence they're lying about not using cluster bombs in Syria
#Iran's idea of dismantling #SAA in favor of militias will help them keep influence in #Syria after #Assad by breaking up the Syrian state.
Is exactly the same tactic inside Iraq......
Another obvious regime problem. Fighters, despite being called #SAA are mostly militias like #NDF or #Baath.
pic.twitter.com/2RR8vDKhMj
Assad and Russian use of starvation as a weapon system..........
Activists: 40k Syrian civilians slowly starving to death in town of Madaya, encirlced by landmines, Hezbollah forces http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-a6793386.html …
Cost of 1kg of basic items in Assad besieged Madaya today:
Semolina Wheat $238
Oil $208
Bulgur $208
Sugar $178
Let's not forget the Iranian & Russian roles in this starvation. That's why US approach to both in Syria is perverse
Nasrallah's tears for #Nimr - calling him peaceful activist - are pure sectarian hypocrisy.
https://twitter.com/sayed_ridha/stat...45542040141824 …
Russia's MOD already issued a #medal for the #military operation in #Syria, despite limited successes:
pic.twitter.com/LM6L1LgqSn
Syria Falaq-2 based IRAM used by KH in southern Aleppo. AFAIK, first time used in this location.
pic.twitter.com/1KGvVqeyrD
FSA Nur al-Din Zanki Movement using a hell cannon on the western outskirts of #Aleppo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oreOL_cehs …
Iranian executions----and yet they critique the KSA for executing a Shia cleric....
2011: 360
2012: 314
2013: 624
2014: 743
2015: 753
Yeah, these guys have the moral high-ground to lecture on executions.
Deraa: Dozens of Assad forces sniped in Manshiya
30+ #Russia'n airstrikes hit Sheik Miskin in southern #Daraa province today- to pave #Iraq'i Shiite militias the way into the city
Not even the local council & a stationary shop were spared Russian bombing in #Douma, #Damacus, #Syria
http://youtu.be/pR45f4JxVnY
Russian AF flying sir strike missions and ground support missions for US supported YPG which is just another name for the so called SDF which the US tries to claim includes the FSA........BUT it is just another Kurdish invasion army taking over Arab towns and villages......AND the Obama Syrian strategy is really working...??????
After dozens of Russian airstrikes in support of YPG/JT offensive on liberated areas in N. #Aleppo, YPG/JT have recaptured Kashta’ar again
YPG/JT v. happy. Russian airstrikes again targeted liberated areas of Mar’anaz, Kafrantoun, Tal Ajar, al-Ziayara & Deir Jamal in N. #Aleppo
...'one group of fighters moved'.... 'one column drove'... is Carnegie now down to BBC's style of ignoring IRGC's Shi'a Jihadists in Syria...?Quote:
Originally Posted by OUTLAW 09
I mean: any sane person monitoring this war is already bamboozled enough by all the BS reported by even most 'authoritative' sources, but this is really getting too much to bear...
Turkish hackers attacked a Russian minister's social network account http://read.bi/1YZhuxu
pic.twitter.com/pUiTvfznEA
Chechen Center @ChechenCenter
Russian crimes in occupied Chechenia continue, kidnapped teacher of Groznyi University was found dead (Rus)
https://tvrain.ru/news/chechya-401233/
After Nimr, Iran proxy militia + U.S.-designated FTO Kataib Hizballah on the Saudi border in Iraq with missiles.
https://youtu.be/B57fEpPJoeI
#Iraq: Rocket fire at Saudi embassy in Baghdad.
pic.twitter.com/9mTA9AdM65
The death of 1793 individuals in Dec 2015 by the influential parties in Syria. - SNHR
1. Assad
2. Russia
3. IS/Daesh
pic.twitter.com/FZwRsVUbFI
CrowBat--BTW---Carnegie Moscow flipped fully to support in their articles 300% of the Putin line in eastern Ukraine.........Quote:
Originally Posted by CrowBat
Kafranbel: might the world at least save the children from being starved to death by Assad in #Madaya?
pic.twitter.com/TvdIfO1li5
CrowBat---more from our Carnegie friends.......
Russia has a 'plan B' for #Syria that would allow it to 'redefine the international order'
http://read.bi/1OESGWw
pic.twitter.com/qSc5DCMwS5
Quote:
Russia's pattern of airstrikes in Syria indicate that it is preparing a "plan B" should the regime fail to restore a central Syrian state and be forced to retreat to a fragment of government-held territory along the Mediterranean.
"A second option [for Russia] is to fall back to the defensible parts of useful Syria after guaranteeing the safety of the Alawi canton," Joseph Bahout, a visiting scholar in the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote of Russia in Carnegie's "Syria in Crisis" blog.
"This is perhaps already a consideration, as the majority of Russian airstrikes concentrate on the contours of this area."
Since intervening on behalf of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in late September, Russia has used airstrikes to create a buffer zone between rebel-held territory in the southern Idlib province and the traditional homeland of the Assads' Alawite sect in the Latakia governorate.
The airstrikes have also targeted rebel-controlled territory just north of Homs that borders this so-called Alawi canton.
"Based on the majority of Russian air strikes and SAA [Syrian Arab Army] fighting, the regime and Moscow are securing an Assadland or Alawistan," Boris Zilberman, a Russia expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), told Business Insider on Thursday, referring to a term used by the foundation's Tony Badran to describe the Alawi enclave in Latakia.
"The regime is taking land they think they can hold with the assistance of Russian air power. So first and foremost they are securing the regime."
A 'new international order'
To be sure, Assad's forces, with Russian air cover, are still battling to retain control over the two most symbolically and strategically important cities in Syria. Those are Damascus, the capital — which has been long viewed by rebel forces as the key to winning the war — and Aleppo, Syria's second-largest city and main urban center in the north.
But even if the regime were to drive the rebels out of Aleppo and Damascus, holding the cities would require a significant commitment of funding and manpower.
The SAA was fatigued, overstretched, and nearing the point of collapse before Russian air cover helped the army regain territory. It would likely either need to be completely revamped, — or Russia would have to devote ground troops to fortifying the cities against counter-attacks that would likely continue as long as Assad is in power.
Solidifying a Russian "protectorate" in western Syria that is already held by the regime and dominated by a sect of Shia Islam loyal to the Assads, however, would give "a tangible reality to Moscow’s concept of a new international order."
That's according to Marc Pierini, a visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe and a former EU ambassador, who wrote in Turkey's English-language newspaper Hurriyet in September.
"To its snap annexation of Crimea and dominance of eastern Ukraine, Russia is now adding 'Assadland,'" Pierini wrote. "In doing so, it is showing the rest of the world that it has the capacity to redefine the international order, or at least the guts to act as spoiler in chief."
'An acceptable lesser of many evils'
Mark Galeotti, a Russia expert and professor of Global Affairs at New York University, agreed that while an "Assadland" or "Alawistan" would not be the Kremlin's first choice, it is "an acceptable lesser of many evils" for Russia.
"It is not that Moscow would be happy with an Alawite statelet, but it is obviously and inevitably thinking of fallback options should it not gets its ideal, which is an outright victory for Damascus," Galeotti told Business Insider on Friday. "Given that the Russians are not so naive as to consider that a done deal, or even a likelihood, they will also have alternatives under consideration."
He added: "A defensible, economically-viable and politically more homogenous 'Alawistan' would both ensure they retain a client-ally in the region and yet also be a much more manageable unit to have to support and project."
It would also be appealing to Assad. A statelet in the west would ensure that the regime retain access to its key partner, Hezbollah, as well as to potential offshore energy in the eastern Mediterranean.
Significantly, this "solution" would likely be unacceptable to the predominantly Sunni interior and periphery of Syria that has been fighting to see Assad completely out of power — or dead — for nearly five years. Moreover, as Zilberman of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies said, an Assad stronghold along the coast would "continue to be a great recruiting tool for jihadis."
With negotiations over Syria's future due to begin in late January with Assad at the table, however, the partition of Syria in a way that would protect him and his family — and ensure Russia's continued relevance in the region — could very well form part of a negotiated long-term "solution" to the conflict.
"If you are part of, or back, the Syrian regime, it makes sense right?" Zilberman said. "If you can make it through this and retain some sort of state that the Assads can control in the future, then you've won."