Russia airstrikes on #Zakat village
#Hama cs #Syria JAN 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HO7Vjh0ALlI …
Rebels storming #Hmaymin airbase with STS missiles
#Latakia #Syria JAN 2
pic.twitter.com/nHpeCCh6XG
Iranian TV reports from #SheikhMaskin with Shiite sectarian flags being hoisted.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d0e_1...rL0QMWD9QKE.99 … pic.twitter.com/74pFUtgPdF
Situation in #Aleppo province
Regime fights mainly #rebels
ISIS fights SDF & #rebels
SDF fights ISIS
= rebels lose
pic.twitter.com/K2s47sfEeX
Latest situation in #Aleppo by @HalabNewsN. Rebels in green trapped between ISIS, Assad & SDF w/ Russia from the air
When #Russian state news & all major newspapers report on the "SAA capture of #SheikhMaskin", you know, who ordered the attack.
Iranian TV reports from #SheikhMaskin with Shiite sectarian flags being hoisted.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?=d0e_14...rL0QMWD9QKE.99 …
Snow storm is over in #Syria.
#Putin's and #Assad's storm resumes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2SSpRI9SXc …
Another regime attempt to advance into the Marj area ends badly, JaI says more than 25 regime forces killed. #Damascus #Ghouta
Levant Front: stop calling us Nusra, the groups fighting SDF at Tanab are us, Ahrar, FSA 1st Reg, Div 13, Div 16
http://eldorar.com/node/93199 Ar.
For a bit of background to the Efrin-Aazaz fighting between SDF & Arab rebels & why USA doesn't like it one bit, see http://carnegieendowment.org/syriaincrisis/?fa=62207 …
Russia airstrikes on #Hayyan
#Aleppo cs #Syria JAN 2
Russia airstrikes on #Bayanoun village,2 martyrs (woman & child)
#Aleppo cs #Syria JAN 2
SCD rescue operation aftermath #SAA shelling mortars targeting #al_Shifouniyah village
#Damascus cs #Syria JAN 2
ASSad main target; civilians and popular markets.
#Douma #Damascs cs #Syria JAN 2
Airstrikes on #Hamouriyah
#Damascus cs #SYria JAN 2
SCD - 3 martyrs and dozens wounded aftermath airstrikes on #Hazat village
#Damascus cs #Syria JAN 2
Aftermath #SAA shelling using #Russia Cluster Bombs targeting a popular market in #Douma
#Damascus cs #Syria JAN 2
More #Russia airstrikes on #Lahaya
#Hama cs #Syria JAN 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVzD0LYzF0s …
Russia airstrikes on #Lahaya
#Hama cs #SYria JAN 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUAuAhmvU6s …
RUssia airstrikes on #Morek
#Hama #SYria JAN 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZ47M-7KsvY …
SAA barrel bombs on #Darayya
#Damascus cs #SYria JAN 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPRt8zOBDPI …
32 barrel bombs so far ONLY in #Darayya since morning..
#Damascus cs #Syria JAN 2
3 martyrs including #SCD HERO Hassan AlHadj,victims of #Russia airstrikes on #Maarat_al_Alortiq
Clashes ongoing between rebels & regime forces/militias after rebels regained control today of Burj al-Qasab in Jabal al-Turkman, #Latakia
Official Repression of Salafis in North Caucasus Seen Radicalizing Other Muslims There
http://www.interpretermag.com/offici...muslims-there/ …
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 01-02-2016 at 05:25 PM.
And the famous Wehrmacht Anti-Tank Lehrfilm
"Men vs. tanks" from 1943 .
https://youtu.be/k6rdydaJ1Xs
Close Combat vs. Tanks 1942
WW2 German Wehrmacht Training film
https://youtu.be/FcsXLXTDLGY
A Wehrmacht Lehrfilm
German Snipers - Der deutsche Scharfschütze 1944
https://youtu.be/78-lF7nlB4c
This roundup from battle tactics of the Vietnam war cld still offer some ideas for the rebels despite differences.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLF_an...battle_tactics …
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 01-02-2016 at 05:37 PM.
CrowBat---what do you think of these numbers from this commenter.....
Any guesses on the number of #Assad's imported foreign shia fighters allowing these multiple offensives?
25-30k?
My guesstimate for #Assad's mercenaries:
5-7k #Hezbollah, 5k Iran, 10k Iraqi Shia, 5k various shia (afghan Hazara & others)? @VivaRevolt
A #Nusra combat vid from the failed #Handarat OP
https://youtu.be/UhxxYpGKpBo
Guess you know this. Even JN's Wolf unit might still learn something here, not to speak of the avg. FSA marksman.
IRGC-QF (incl. Afghan Hazaras, Pakistanis, Mars People etc.) + Hezbollah/Iraq = 30,000Originally Posted by OUTLAW 09
Hezbollah = 3,000 (they're rotating their units in and out a lot).
BTW, my calculations for NDF (incl. whatever was left of the SyAA) is 'down to 70,000' and I simply can't understand how can nearly everybody babble about 'SAA' around, when all the photos are showing either NDF, SSNP, BPM, PFLP-GC or IRGC (and Hezbollah)...
...it's the same like all of these maps circling the internet: majority are entirely useless, because drawn by pro-regime idiots, who are constantly understating insurgent-controlled areas... (@David; please send my warmest regards to the BBC and ISW, and ask them to close their shop; at least until they discover there's a battlefield in eastern Idlib province too - and then the one with biggest concentration of Shi'a Jihadists in Syria... BBC was always awful in regards of 'precise' reporting about the Middle East, but meanwhile they're just BS-itting).
In that sense, look at this: seems that this offensive in south-eastern Hama became possible only thanks to deployment of that recently-established 'Ba'ath Brigade' (the first photo is from their graduation and establishment ceremony, back in mid-December)... gauged by the look of their combatants, this is nearly 'Hitler's last 15 from Volkssturm'...
...'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...?
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...
CrowBat--BTW---Carnegie Moscow flipped fully to support in their articles 300% of the Putin line in eastern Ukraine.........
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
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."
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 01-03-2016 at 05:54 PM.
Considering amounts of absurdities launched by Russians, Assadists, IRGC and 'friends', I do not even understand why anybody bothers to 'find out' what are Russians about to do in Syria?
Putler is obviously curious at using this 'crisis' to distract from the mess he's created at home. It's as simple as that.
In such situations, there's no 'plan B': like Nikolay II in 1914-1917, or Galtieri in 1982, he'll 'ride the wave' as long as it goes - and then the entire house of cards is going to collapse in a big bang...
BTW, for those 'confused' by all the reports citing 'SAA' did this', 'in cooperation with NDF' and all other sorts of similar hogwash... or prone to 'disbelieve' my reports on the number of IRGC-run gangs of Hezbollah and Shi'a Jihadist gangs in Syria, and low numbers of 'Syrian' units still fighting for Assad (or, better said: on his side, not really for him)... well, see the illustration below.
Add the insignia of the NDF, SSNP, BPM and other militias to that illustration, and then compare what you get to see on so many of photos supposedly showing 'SyAA/SAA' or whatever else, that are launched by regime-fans on Twitter, FB, etc.
Namely, it's the presence of all of these groups - and not some illusion about that famed super-turbo-wunderwaffen Russian air farce - that has enabled 'the regime' to went on offensive after (once again) reaching the brink of collapse. Without them, the regime had - at best - approx the same number of combatants like the FSyA alone (means: less if one adds all of the IF, AAS, and JAN, and not to talk about the Daesh)...
(Note: I purposedly named this file 'SyAA Units'; as a declared and dedicated sarcast, couldn't but do so because - with one exception - not one of units in question is from Syria...)
French Ambassador Rationalizes Iranian Belligerency | writes @LeeSmithTWS in The Weekly Standard
http://www.weeklystandard.com/french...rticle/2000401 …
...and not only Carnegie: I still have hard times to believe what do I get to hear from certain established authors/researchers there (UK), lately...
It's like nearly everybody is on one or the other page of Putler's paylist...
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