Aleppo: Rebels have killed #Assad Brigadier General Ali Dib in Western #Aleppo. He was a prominent commander from the Republican Guard.
Aleppo: Rebels have killed #Assad Brigadier General Ali Dib in Western #Aleppo. He was a prominent commander from the Republican Guard.
Under the WOW rubric......
Moscow-backed Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has said that the Islamic State group (ISIS) is sending Nato-trained assassins to kill him.
Deir Ezzor province… a possible solution from southern Syria and a more complex one from north of the country
http://en.deirezzor24.net/deir-ezzor...f-the-country/
Date: 17 / 4 / 2017
Obama justified dithering by making it sound a choice between inaction and 'regime change'; 'boots on the ground' & 'Syria invasion'.The Assud Sharqiyah, one of the most significant factions from Deir Ezzor province, has been involved in fierce clashes against Daesh in the Syrian Badiyah and the eastern Qalamon for several days. The ‘Sarajnah Al-Jiyahd’ (We Have Saddled Our Horses) military operation has enabled the faction to liberate, in cooperation with some factions from rural Damascus, around 150 km square of Syrian territory from the organization.
The ongoing military operations against the organization are aimed at the lifting of the siege on the eastern Qalamoun in order to link it with the liberated areas in the Syrian Badiya. However, the real goal of the Assud Sharqiyah is focused on liberation of the Syrian Badiya and the eastern Qalamon to secure supply routes for penetration operations into the northern countryside of Deir Ezzor province. The central command of the factions has made it obvious that its primary goal behind the operations is to re-enter Deir Ezzor three years after their withdrawal from it. It also wants to cut off roads to the SDF who will have more chance to move towards the province once the Raqqa campaign’s achievements are attained.
The Assud Sharqiyah has a strong support from the mass in Deir Ezzor, which will facilitate the liberation of the province in a short period. If they entered Deir Ezzor, it would trigger a local resistance from the anti-Daesh tribes and activate the sleeper cells of the factions who have long been conducting assassination operations against the organization and targeting its patrols with IEDs. This would confuse and shake the organization from the inside and reduce the effectivity of their security in the province. Assud Sharqiyah, and other local factions from Deir Ezzor, could also push many of the local factions, who have supported the organization since their arrival in the province, to fight alongside them by giving them guarantees, given the fact that the military operations of those factions have been limited to the regime-held areas.
The local factions in Deir Ezzor have more advantages than the SDF for they are full aware of of being the geographical and social structures of the province, meaning that a military solution from southern Syria is possible, more productive and practical if a it obtained a support from the international coalition. The coalition is not relying on them to the very moment, bearing in mind that they are fighting against Daesh in southern Syria without any logistical or areal support from it.
The southern solution is faced with a northern solution which is more complex and has a little chance to be put into practice. This is embodied in the halting of the Euphrates Shield military operations in northern Syria, of which two local factions from Deir Ezzor ( Ahrar Sharqiyah and the Deir Ezzor Military Council, which has been formed recently in northern Aleppo) were part of.
However, there is a hope that that solution would be implemented, mainly after the reports about an agreement between Turkey and USA to use factions from Raqqa, Deir Ezzor and Hasakah, who had operated under the command of Euphrates Shield, being backed by Turkish special forces to take part in the liberation of Raqqa and then Deir Ezzor in cooperation with the SDF.
This is not a new plan as Turkey had previously rejected similar plans after the launching of ‘Wrath of the Euphrates’ operation to liberate Raqqa. It does not want the SDF playing any role in the liberation of the province, making it the weakest and the most unlikely solution to execute. The practical and futile southern choice, which is not backed by the international coalition, and the complex northern solution puts the SDF in a favorable position in which they will be the selected forces to launch the operation to capture Deir Ezzor province from the organization for they are a trusted and tested US ally.
But, to rely mainly on the SDF in the battle of Deir Ezzor, will cause several difficulties, first of which is to eliminate the participation of the local faction in the battle, which would cause instability in the province if Daesh was expelled from it since the locals see the SDF as an enemy who has announced on public their alliance with the Assad regime and Russia. The SDF will also empower the propaganda of the organization which revolves around injustice being inflicted on Sunni Arabs by the alliance of the ‘forces of evil’, meaning that many families would side with it against for some of them see its presence in the province as the lesser of evil, preferring it over the regime and its allies.
The polices practiced by the SDF are counter-productive for the locals in Deir Ezzor, particularly because of the displacing of Arab civilians and carrying out massacres against them through the delivery of coordinates of their homes to the coalition in the countryside of Raqqa and Hasakah following the retreat of Daesh from those areas. The participation of some Arab factions in the SDF operation such as the Deir Ezzor Military Council and the Nukhbah Forces will not change the equation that much.
These scenarios are faced with the regime’s avidity for the capturing of the entire province from the organization. It has begun advancing towards eastern Aleppo and Palmyra in the Syrian Badiyah. It also formed a faction in Deir Ezzor made up of the locals and named ‘the Popular Mobilization” which has headquarters in Damascus and Palmyra in order to provide them with data and intelligence that would help them advance from Palymara to Shukhan from which they would advance to the Shula in north of Deir Ezzor, which would enable them to open a supply route for the regime forces who have been besieged in the regime held pocket since 2013.
Trump’s abrupt regime-change pivot raises concerns about a “Mad Max Syria” should Assad fall -
https://theintercept.com/2017/04/17/...ld-assad-fall/
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 04-17-2017 at 07:17 PM.
Abu Shuayb al-Masri -- a former ISIS, former Ahrar al-Sham, now with HTS -- says that HTS doesn't follow Abu Muhammad al-Maqdsi's fatwas.
Azor...something for you.....
Today: Anti-Assad protest in Sweidaa (Druze-majority governorate) for independence day. "The people want the downfall of the regime"
Among the chants in the 2nd video from Sweidaa: "Long live Syria, down with Assad'
Original links https://www.facebook.com/deyaalabdal...66809620066185 …
https://www.facebook.com/deyaalabdal...type=2&theater …
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 04-17-2017 at 07:32 PM.
SYRIA: The life and work of anarchist Omar Aziz in the Syrian revolution
https://thefreeonline.wordpress.com/...an-revolution/
Really worth reading......
Very interesting that this popped up in my Google search when I searched for Khan Sheykhoun.
Fake news is a booming industry.
If the Syrian refugees were kept in neighboring countries, there would be much greater pressure to resolve the Syrian Civil War and resettle them. This pressure would be toward Assad ending his sectarian cleansing campaign and/or stepping down. Thus far, Germany and Sweden are enabling Assad's population transfers.Originally Posted by OUTLAW 09
Obama watched Syria burn for almost six years. What Trump's strategy for Syria will be is unknown yet. Again, not delving into U.S. domestic politics here.
Russian Air Defense and the US Strike on Al-Shayrat
From Roger McDermott at the Jamestown Foundation: https://jamestown.org/program/russia...ke-al-shayrat/
Emphasis added...Moscow’s reaction to the United States’ cruise missile strike on a regime target in Syria, on April 7, has proved both swift and predictable: ranging from condemning an “act of aggression,” to suspend the bilateral de-confliction agreement and promising to further boost Syria’s air defense capability (Nezavisimoye Voyennoye Obozreniye, April 9). However, some Western and Russian experts have utilized the US strike to question the capability of Russia’s most advanced air defense systems, including the S-400 and S-300V4, in certain cases reaching the conclusion that such assets are ineffective. It is worth highlighting Russian claims and analyses of the US cruise missile attack to establish what issues are of real concern to Moscow and its implications for Russian air defense in Syria (Vzglyad, April 7).
Russian reporting concerning the attack establishes the following basic facts. Around 03:40 (Moscow time), on April 7, the USS Porter and USS Ross destroyers launched a massive assault by firing 59 sea-launched cruise missiles (SLCM) against the Al-Shayrat airbase in Syria. Moscow had been informed two hours in advance (although mainstream US media reporting suggests the Russians were given only one hour), and measures were taken to ensure that no Russian personnel at the airbase would be harmed. At this point, many of the other details surrounding the Tomahawk cruise missile strike diverge between Moscow and Washington: the former alleges there was no delivery of chemical weapons from the airbase on Idlib earlier in the week, and suggests only 23 missiles hit the target. One issue that stands out in Russian media analysis is that the strike supposedly proved ineffective, destroying only nine aircraft, damaging hangers and airbase infrastructure but failing to cripple the airbase. Within a short period, the Syrian Air Force resumed operational use of the airbase, the Russian media reports (Nezavisimoye Voyennoye Obozreniye, April 10; Voyenno Promyshlennyy Kuryer, April 7).
However, questions surrounding the possible implications of the strike on Al-Shayrat for Russian air defense systems relate to the presence of the advanced S-400 system to protect the Russian airbase in Latakia and the S-300V4 system located at the Tartus naval base. These are among a number of other Russian air defense systems deployed in Syria, largely in response to the downing of the Su-24M attack jet, in November 2015, by the Turkish Air Force. The S-400, depending on the missile used, has a range of up to 400 kilometers, while the S-300V4 uses the 9M82M missile against targets up to 200 km away. Since the reinforcement of Russia’s air defense capabilities in Syria and following the formation of the joint Russia-Syria Air Defense system, Russian officials have exaggerated the capacity of these assets, claiming Moscow has built up an air defense bubble covering the entire Syrian airspace. Nonetheless, questioning the competency of the S-400 and S-300V4 systems based on the consequences of the April 7 US cruise missile strike misreads the actual capability of these assets (Voyenno Promyshlennyy Kuryer, April 10).
These systems are not principally designed to counter low-flying subsonic Tomahawks; their capacity to attempt this is limited to approximately 30–40 km. Colonel (retired) Mikhail Khodarenok, a defense correspondent for Gazeta.ru and an air defense specialist, notes the Al-Shayrat airbase is located around 200 km from Latakia, which he suggests lies at the outer limit of the S-400 range: to strike a target at this range requires it to be flying at an altitude of 8–9 km. If it flies lower, the S-400’s multifunctional radar cannot see the cruise missile due to the curvature of the Earth’s surface. Similarly, the S-300V4 at Tartus has a range of around 100 km and requires a target altitude of 6–7 km. According to Air Force Colonel General (retired) Igor Maltsev, the former chief of the Main Staff in the Air Defense Troops, since Tomahawks fly at 50–60 meters above the ground, the outer effective range for the S-300V4 system would only be around 24–26 km in cross country terrain. Maltsev concluded that the S-400 and S-300V4 located in Latakia and Tartus did not have even a theoretical chance to counter the US cruise missile strike. Moreover, to protect against a similar strike in the future, Maltsev believes Al-Shayrat would need four to five S-400 battalions, alongside a radar reconnaissance system to provide depth of detection against cruise missiles, in addition to an air regiment of Su-30SM or Su-35 fighters (Gazeta.ru, April 7).
Some of the technical aspects of the strike on Al-Shayrat were assessed by Nikolai Novichkov, in Voyenno Promyshlennyy Kuryer. Novichkov concurs with air defense specialists such as Khodarenok and Maltsev that the S-400 and S-300V4 is effective to around 40 km against cruise missile targets, but he examines details surrounding the US strike to extrapolate lessons for the Russian military. Novichkov refers to the timing of the attack, considering whether the strikes were synchronized between USS Porter and USS Ross; he concludes they probably were (Voyenno Promyshlennyy Kuryer, April 10).
Noting the Russian defense ministry version, which places the attack between 03:42 (Moscow time) and 03:56, the author argues nearly 30 pairs of Tomahawks were fired almost simultaneously. The time interval from the lead pair to the final pair was about seven minutes, giving a total time interval of 14 minutes. Fired from south of Crete, in the Mediterranean Sea, at a distance of 1,100 km from the Syrian coast, Russian air defense could not have detected the launches. Novichkov highlights the use of EW-18G Growler aircraft to provide electronic warfare (EW) cover for the attack, and suggests the cruise missiles could have crossed the Syrian coast close to Tartus, allowing some degree of tracking. This would provide the Russian military with a real world lesson in anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) in Syria, which can be applied elsewhere (Voyenno Promyshlennyy Kuryer, April 10).
The US cruise missile strike on Al-Shayrat did not expose the Russian air defense systems to be flawed. On the contrary, US planners are well aware of the characteristics of these systems and took careful steps to circumvent them. The strikes were conducted at sufficient distance from the Syrian coast, and likely flew far enough south of Tartus to avoid Russian air defense assets, or through Lebanese airspace before entering Syria and were also supported by EW (Voyenno Promyshlennyy Kuryer, April 10; Gazeta.ru, April 7).
In reality, the Russian air defense bubble never extended across Syria, but instead may be accurately denoted as a series of smaller “bubbles,” which the US Navy precisely circumvented in the attack. Creating a national air defense “no-fly zone” for Syria is doubtless seen by Moscow as far too costly and potentially dangerous.
If you had been tracking the Russian AD coverage that I posted here many of the points were already well known just after the attack......
If you had read the CrowBat posts as well over the past year both S300s/400s are not a serious threat even to non TLAMs....which Russia has been trying to avoid talking about.....
BUT here is the interesting single point....at all weapons trade fairs over the past year..check the Russian materials being handed out.....
They emphasize the fact that both systems have a anti cruise missile capacity...question will be now can they hold those previous statements when potential buyers point out that fact????
Secondly, the EW use of Growlers formerly Prowlers is a well documented simple fact that even the Russians should have taken into account when setting up their AD bubbles....
NOW go to the Ukrainian thread and di out the comments of the Russian A2AD bubbles being built against NATO.....where they claim they cannot be broken through on ...you must then seriously question whether they are simply bluffing or outright lying......
In the Cold War days the Soviets literally built SA6/8 "belts" that had to be broken through by SEAD aircraft where the US calculated heavy loses during the 1st/2nd SEAD waves before the belts were broken....
NOW the Russians are talking about S500s......
Here is an interesting fact...if the cruise missile detection and engagement bubble is only 30/40kms what happens if the aircraft suddenly are Tornado's are Growlers using HARM type missiles travelling low and slow?
Remember this package was used often in VN with Prowlers armed with HARM type missiles leading the attack waves....usually followed by F4s...the high SAM shot down rates over VN was due to simply barrage firing of SAMs which in Syria the S300/400s cannot sustain....
Find it interesting though that the Russians signal their weaknesses in public and hopefully are trying to coverup their basic failure in detection and non downing of anything fired that morning...
Find it also interesting that they keep repeating on 23 hit anything when US ISR clearly tracked from start to finish 58...with one going down along the way...and one misfire....
What they did indicate as a major naval weakness inadvertently was the fact that they cannot fire their missiles either in pairs and or in combination with other ships simultaneously....or in the US case as a broadside like in the cannon days.... then go immediately into a complete reload at sea mode...
This is something the Russians cannot do....
Largely unconfirmed but many are trying to get CCN Turk to confirm this was said by Trump to Erdogan as it was being reported as such by CNN Turk EN.....could just be Erdogan's PR machine hard at work....CNN Turk largely silent on this as of this morning.
BUT again Trump has extensive Turkish business holdings and it is quiet possible this was stated....Trump to Erdogan: I don't like checks and balances on my power. Congratulations on radically curtailing them on yours.
In 2015, Trump told Bannon: "I have a little conflict of interest b/c I have a major, major building in Istanbul" >>
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/...terest-turkey#
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 04-18-2017 at 06:47 AM.
NEWS
The #Kremlin regime killed up to 10 "beautiful babies" in nighttime air strikes on Ma'aret Hurmah (Idlib) & Urem Al-Kubra (Aleppo).
Trump's own words to justify his "Wag the Dog TLAM moment"...the US MSM has such a short memory....
Trump's Syrian FP is exactly that...nothing actually other than TLAM barrage and then total silence as he moved his "Wag the Dog" onto NK and AFG......
At least Obama WH could handle multiple events on a global scale...
McDermott is an expert on the Russian military and wrote the book on the South Ossetia War, which is how I began following him.
Some of what he wrote was a reiteration of what we already know or have deduced.
However, he has made good points about the Russians' admission that they have trouble detecting and targeting subsonic low-flying maneuverable cruise missiles such as the Tomahawk.
You will recall that there is grave concern over the efficacy of US cruise missiles, prompting development of the LRSO, etc. A number of analysts are concerned that US missiles are too slow, but it seems that stealth and maneuverability are actually better.
In addition, McDermott has noted that Russia has no A2/AD zones, but rather small bubbles.
Basically, as CrowBat would agree, the fears over Russian and Chinese SAMs are overblown both qualitatively and clearly quantitatively i.e. no more Cold War era dense belts...
You cannot shot down what you cannot "see" and or "hit"....speed is not everything....
A number of analysts are concerned that US missiles are too slow, but it seems that stealth and maneuverability are actually better.
BUT what was missed in the Russian lying about number of hits was the accuracy of the 58 hits....and there are now some US sources saying the targeting of several inbound TLAMs was changed and or flights were corrected on the fly indicating just how far the US has come in the integration of missile GPS and satellites in " near real time" as there is a drag time of 3 seconds on the signal delay side....and in 3 seconds a missile travesl how far?
REMEMBER when the Russians fired their very first volley of their own cruise missiles from the Black Sea...video footage showed them flying somewhere over Iran and then targeting somewhere inside Iran and or simply crashing along the way...
Was designed to impress the US but largely failed in that attempt to impress anyone including the rebels....
Russian MoD can come nowhere close to this in any of the latest systems.....
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