...ah, and according to official releases, following officers of the 11th Armoured Division are already 'confirmed as KIA':
1. Brig Gen Mou'az Waakad Abu Assaaf (Deputy CO, came from Suweida)
2. Col Wasseem Al (from Maysaf in Hama)
3. Capt Arwa Haatim Taraaf (from Baniyas in Tartous)
4. 1st Lt Mohammad Khalil (from Aleppo)
So far the only 'higher' ranking officer known to have managed it back to Moarek is Col Ahmad Afouf (from Aleppo): he and Lt Rami Issa are WIA.
...to 'complete' (well, almost) the story about flight of regime troops from Wadi ad-Dayf, here the IDs of some that didn't manage it:
https://twitter.com/archicivilians/s...09845831766016
**********
...further to my critique of that WINEP-article about Syrian Arab Air Force's supposed 'offensive' against the Daesh, here a list of actual targets of most of air strikes:
About 3000 air strikes by al-Assad air forces in 60 days
***********SOHR documented 2973 air strikes by regime warplanes and helicopters around Syria since 20th of October/2014 until yesterday’s midnight in the 10th of December/2014.
...warplanes went in 1611 air strikes targeted areas in Damascus, Dar’aa Aleppo, Idlib, Reef Dimashq, al-Quneitra, Homs, Hama, Der-Ezzor, Lattakia, al-Hasakah....
...helicopters dropped no less than 1362 explosive barrels on areas in Damascus, Dar’aa Aleppo, Idlib, Reef Dimashq, Homs, Hama, al-Hasakah, Lattakia...
...another issue that rose quite a few eyebrows the last few days was article An influential, unpublished report looks to radically revise notions of how to achieve peace in this war-torn country
Written by somebody who is unlikely to have at least even went through the customs at Damascus IAP, this is full of entirely misguided conclusions, like:
Such are making me wonder about what Syria is he talking? The one on Earth or perhaps some on Jupiter....?Rosen... attempts to partially rehabilitate the image of the Syrian regime. “While the Syrian state was not the most attractive one even before the 2011 uprising, it also was not the worst regime in the region,” he writes. “It has strong systems of education, health care and social welfare and compared to most Arab governments it was socially progressive and secular…. It had a solid infrastructure and a relatively effective civil service.”
'Not the worst' = has detained and/or murdered most of political prisoners in the entire Middle East
'Strong system of education' = that's why everybody who only could was sending kids abroad for education
'Health care' = yup, if one could pay for it
'Social welfare' = in what form? Employing thousands in useless jobs to keep them loyal?
'Socially progressive' = sure, if one is either Alawite or Ba'athist
'Secular' = while even Bashar 'converted' (pro-forma) to Sunni Islam, his followers - and they are those making the 'regime' - consider him a 'God'...
'Solid infrastructure' = guess, Rosen never travelled any of the highways in Syria, or saw all the construction sites that remain unfinished for decades...
'Effective civil service' = if this means 'all the intelligence/security services' responsible for maintaining regime in control of population... then yes, he's finally right.
**********
...Russia continues providing new armament to Syria. Between others such like BM-27 Uragan MLRS, some of which can be seen in action against insurgents in Jobar:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHQiKGGCNwQ
...while the future of Iranian ability to continue providing aid for Assad is anything but certain:
Iran's support for Syria tested by oil price drop
There are already rumours about some sort of rift between Rouhani and Khamenei, with the former insisting on stopping deliveries of crude and cash to Assadist regime.If it had not been for Iranian support we could not have survived the crisis," a senior Syrian trade official said from Damascus, requesting anonymity.
"It was Iranian support that has been the most important. In return, we are promising them more and more, and opening more and more doors for them to invest in Syria," he said.
...
“The 50 percent steep fall in oil prices will break Iran’s back, not just the level of support for Assad,” a prominent member of the Damascus Chamber of Industry said, also requesting anonymity.
Iranians have delivered turbines for power plants and have been promised contracts to rebuild housing, roads and other infrastructure destroyed by the war on the understanding that Tehran would finance them in return for equity shares.
...
Growing power cuts have hit government-controlled areas as more gas fields go out of action, forcing the authorities to rely even more on imports of fuel for its power plants.
Islamic State militant control of some of the border crossings with Iraq has disrupted the flow of tens of thousands of barrels of crude from Iraq that were delivered overland by oil tankers, an oil trader based in the region said.
Four Iranian tankers have discharged cargoes of gasoline products in the last two months in Syria's ports, traders said. But they did not end shortages accentuated by higher demand in the winter season, prompting small protests in Alawite villages near the port of Latakia, the heartland of Assad support.
**********
On the other hand, a Daesh-operated UAV was shot down by regime forces over Dayr az-Zawr, and an Israeli UAV over Qunaitra:
Unmanned reconnaissance aircraft crashes near Syrian town of Quneitra, Syrian state-run news agency reports
...
An Israeli drone was 'brought down' near the Golan Heights town of Quneitra, Syrian state TV reported Sunday night.
...
The report described the drone as a Skylark.
...
**********
Not everything is milk and honey for the Daesh any more:
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/f1705...#axzz3MOAiWEPe
IN that sense: IS said to execute 100 foreign fighters who wanted to quitMorale isn’t falling — it’s hit the ground,” said an opposition activist from Isis-controlled areas of Syria’s eastern Deir Ezzor province. “Local fighters are frustrated — they feel they’re doing most of the work and the dying . . . foreign fighters who thought they were on an adventure are now exhausted.”
...
Analyst Torbjorn Soltvedt, of Verisk Maplecroft, a UK-based risk analysis group, said morale may be taking a hit as militants grapple with the shift from mobile army to governing force.
They feel they are the ones going to die in big numbers on the battlefield but they don’t enjoy any of the foreigners’ benefits- Activist in Deir Ezzor
“Before they were seizing territory, forcing armies in Iraq and Syria to retreat,” he said. “Now they’re basically an occupying force trying to govern.”
After flocking to Syria and Iraq during Isis’s heady days of quick victories, some foreigners may also be questioning the long, gruelling fight ahead.
Mr Solvedt said his organisation has had many reports of foreign fighters, including Britons, contacting family members and state authorities seeking ways to return home.
Isis members in Raqqa said the organisation has created a military police to crack down on fighters who fail to report for duty. According to activists, dozens of fighters’ homes have been raided and many have been arrested. Militants told a local journalist that they must now carry a document identifying them as a fighter and showing whether they are assigned to a mission.
An opposition activist in close contact with Isis fighters in Raqqa showed the Financial Times a document listing new regulations restricting jihadis’ behaviour. The paper, which could not be verified and which did not appear to have been issued in other Isis-held areas, warned that those who did not report to their offices within 48 hours of receiving the regulations would be punished.
“In Raqqa, they have arrested 400 members so far and printed IDs for the others,” the activist said.
The identification document for one fighter from the Gulf consisted of a printed form stating “name, location, section and mission assignment”, with his details filled in by hand.
...
Activists in Isis-held parts of Syria said many fighters in Raqqa were angry about being sent to Kobani, a small Kurdish town near the Syrian border with Turkey that has become a focal point for coalition strikes. The fighters argued that the town was not strategically important enough to justify the losses they were incurring. According to a December 7 report by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group with a network of activists across Syria, Isis lost about 1,400 fighters in 80 days of fighting. The US official said many Isis fighters have been killed in the town.
Foreign militants have often been the most active in major battles but opposition activists said as fighting intensifies, more demands are being made on local fighters who do not have deep-rooted loyalties to Isis.
Rumours have it that the CENTCOM is claiming up to 1,000 killed Daesh in Ayn al-Arab/Kobane alone; YPG/PYD is claiming another 1,000, plus the FSyA about 500. That would make this the costliest Daesh battle so far. No wonder there isunrest.
Anyway, the YPG/PYD and FSyA are meanwhile in control of about 75% of that town.
More about Assadist struggle to ascertain its own survival with help from Tehran and Moscow:
- From here:
- Nevertheless, from here:The Syrian delegation included mostly government officials in charge of financial and economic issues in Syria. It seemed that the purpose of the visit was mainly to get additional aid from Moscow. However, Syrian officials issued surprising statements afterward denying that Damascus had asked Moscow for any financial loans or a "line of credit."
The same diplomatic source said that this formal speech in Damascus aims to cover up that the demands of the Syrian economic delegation to Moscow included Russian loans, or a so-called line of credit of about $3 billion. However, the Russian side failed to meet this demand. This Syrian denial then arose merely to cover up the Russian rejection. Such a rejection can be justified because Moscow is dealing with other pressing priorities at the moment, including the Ukraine crisis and the global decline in the prices of energy resources; more important, Moscow must clarify some points with Damascus, not only on the level of economic aid and military logistical support, but also on the political level, in terms of the general behavior of the two allies regarding the ongoing events in Syria.
...
With other words: as long as Iran can pay, Russians are happy to continue providing......The report also claimed that Russia and Iran had opened a new credit line to Syria worth 6.4 billion dollars. Tehran has opened a credit line of 4.5 billion dollars and Russia opened a credit line of a billion dollars, in addition to 500 million intended for food and 400 million intended for flour.
What's left of Aleppo's old city
Via https://twitter.com/green_lemonnn/st...58544115531776.
November 2010
-------
October 2014
If you don’t read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed. – Mark Twain (attributed)
It was only a matter of time
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/12...ilot-captured/
ISIS reportedly shoots down Jordanian plane over Syria, pilot captured
Islamic State group fighters shot down a Jordanian warplane on Wednesday over Syria and captured its pilot, activists and the country’s military said.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the aircraft was shot down near the northern city of Raqqa, the Islamic State group's de facto capital.
Jordan’s state news agency, Petra, confirmed that the pilot was from Jordan and he has been captured, the BBC reports.
The CENTCOM and the Jordanian MoD have meanwhile denied a 'shot-down'. Without revealing any kind of details, they're talking about some sort of 'clear evidence' that the plane came down for other reasons.
Whatever was the case, the F-16AM (ex-Dutch, apparently) came down in a lake 11km east of ar-Raqqa. Lieutenant Muaaz Yusuf el-Kasasbah, its pilot, ejected safely and is now.... a 'hostage' (or 'POW'?) of the Daesh.
Few things are notable here:
- Generally, Coalition aircraft are flying high enough to avoid most of Daesh air defences; but sometimes they do get low to strafe. Whichever is the case, and despite some reports about the Daesh getting MANPADs from stocks captured from the Syrian military, or even from sources in Eastern Europe (see here for details), presently there is no evidence that any of these have been used.
- The RJAF is 'just another' of so many local air forces that de-facto represent USAF-clones: they were trained and are flying the same way, have the same procedures, tactics etc. The only difference between them and the USAF is that they are clocking more hours (they're not grounded for months because of political struggle over budgets though, contrary to the USAF).
- That said, it is notable that the plane in question is probably the oldest type in action against the Daesh: these F-16AMs were manufactured (primarily by Fokker) in the early 1980s. It is also notable that the F-16 has a history of engine-related crashes too...
One thing is interesting, though: the unit that captured the pilot seems better organized than most of the other Daesh units shown so far.
Overall, I'm sorry for the pilot, but somehow....can't put this into proper words (and certainly not into anything like 'politically correct expressions')... I'm not as concerned for his fate as if he would've been from some other state. Jordan is run by experts in turn-coating: the gov there is officially 'strongly against' the Daesh and the RJAF flying strikes against them, but at the same time they are tolerating 'Sunni revolutionaries', although these are openly collaborating with the Daesh. With other hands: the gov is likely to have its links to the beasts, and the pilot to get bought out in one way or the other.
************
Harrowing Journeys With Free Syrian Army’s Farmers and Fathers
Abandoned mansions and Al Qaeda amusement parks were among the things Lindsey Snell saw in the fall of 2014, as she and her team spent time with factions of the Free Syrian Army and civilians in and around Aleppo. They chronicle life in rebel-held territories three years into the brutal civil war. The mansions left behind by the rich who fled Syria are now military bases. Abandoned amusement parks are war trophies. Some schools are open, but they’re frequently hit in bombing attacks by the Assad regime, often when students are inside. “The regime is clearly targeting schools. It’s in [Assad’s] benefit to keep the future generation illiterate,” a teacher tells us. Some displaced civilians have spent years in camps that routinely flood. In spite of the hardships, the Syrian people push on.
...
Foreign jihadis change face of Syrian civil war
The title comes from an article in The Guardian. We have steadily grown used to the role of foreign jihadis in the Syrian civil war; this time it is the reaction of Syrians - outside state controlled areas - who get quoted:http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...P=share_btn_tw
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