Michael WeissOriginally Posted by OUTLAW 09
✔ @michaeldweiss Been denied by IRGC media. Iran's General Soleimani in Moscow for talks: three sources
http://reut.rs/1V5VFto
Northern #Aleppo: #ISIS is shelling the rebel held town of #Dudiyan now.
Ukrainians with Turkish background return to their roots
http://uatoday.tv/politics/ukrainian...ts-631767.html …
Is #Russia bringing #Ukraine and #Turkey together?
via @Newsweek
http://europe.newsweek.com/estranged...2Frss%2Fsocial …
Aleppo: #ISIS is advancing fast against #Assad forces east of #Khanasir.
AFP news agency
✔ @AFP #BREAKING Syria opposition says willing to govern with regime 'diplomats, technocrats'
Michael Weiss
✔ @michaeldweiss Iran and its proxies suffered major losses in Aleppo this week. A trip by Hajj Qassem to Moscow now would make sense and bode ill.
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 04-15-2016 at 05:34 PM.
Michael Weiss
✔ @michaeldweiss Been denied by IRGC media. Iran's General Soleimani in Moscow for talks: three sources
http://reut.rs/1V5VFto
IVECO Lynx delivered to Tartus port (picture 1) num plate matches with one of the IVECO Lynx used by Tiger Forces
Light humor......
BREAKING: #Su24 doing 'simulated attack' passes over Turkish restaurants in #Moscow amid #Erdogan's @SputnikInt ban
At the other side of the front, #YPG Kurdish militia now targeting rebels held #Azaz with heavy machine guns.
IslamicState claim took over 7 regime controlled villages east of #Khanasser
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35...22166&z=13&m=b …
Rebels coalition trying to retake Kafr Ghan and Baraghidah villages seized by ISIL y'day north Aleppo
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=36...94471&z=14&m=b …
Reports that rebels took Braghideh and are clashing with ISIS now in Kafrghan in northern Aleppo
Syria Regime closed #Hama -> Khanasir -> #Aleppo supply road again
#IS try to storm Shallalah Kabira
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=35...76675&z=14&m=b …
Rights groups estimate more than 200000 detainees in Assad jails since revolution started 2011. Dozens die everyday.
Syria: #FSA rebels have launched a counter offensive against #Daesh, recapturing the N #Aleppo villages of Baraghidah and Kafr Ghan
Aleppo: Highway from #Hama to #Aleppo is closed now. #ISIS has reached the highway between #Khanaser and #Safira.
Russian Forces Remain Heavily Involved in Syria, Despite Appearances
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/16/wo...?smid=tw-share …
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 04-15-2016 at 06:45 PM.
#Damascus #SAA Brigadier General Riad Mattar Al Shalash killed in battle with #IS near Dumayr Airbase
Iran admits two more of its forces were killed in #Syria.
Both from #Zahedan city, close to the Pakistani border.
Assad's military just keeps on supplying IS.....
IS seized a lot of heavy weapons from #Assad-forces near Khanasir
Huge spoils after the Islamic State's latest offensive in Eastern Aleppo, including a T-72M1 with the Sarab-1!
Assad-forces lost 18 villages east of Khanasir the past
2 days to #IslamicState
ISIS terrorists captured 12 locations in south #Aleppo province from the #Syria-n Gov. forces Most villages lay on the Shubajt hilltop, just some of them : Zabad, Kuwajs, Akil, Qulajah, Atsanah..
FSA lost Qasajik to #IS in northern #Aleppo
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=36...49696&z=16&m=b …
IS published pics from captured #Iran lead militia members & ID's near Khanasir in SE-rural #Aleppo
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 04-16-2016 at 06:20 AM.
Charles Lister @Charles_Lister
Says it all, really:
Senior Western diplomat - #Assad regime is "doing everything it can to kill the negotiations."
Syria regime avoids political transition talk after joining Geneva meeting
"Assad regime" includes as well Putin and Khamenei...and yet Putin talks all the time about a settlement...
Not so sure Assad, Putin and Khamenei fully realize that if these talks truly fail as the HNC has shown remarkable flexibility in achieving some sort of settlement .......the Saudi's and Turks are ready to move in to Syria under the guise of taking on IS when the Russians and the US cannot seem to be able to do.
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 04-16-2016 at 05:57 AM.
Daesh is sending a entire convoy from Sawran to attack rebels in Dudiyan, no coalition activity over N #Aleppo tonight
Now appears US CAS was not needed......
Faylaq Al Shaam killed 25 IS fighters when the later tried to attack Dudeyan village, North Aleepo
Syria #war battle for #Khanaser #Khanasser #Khanasir map April 16 #SAA #DAESH #ISIS
http://edmaps.com/html/syrian_civil_war_in_maps.html …
Breakdown of the ISIS capture of weapons/ammo/gear near Khanaseer. Collaboration with @oryxspioenkop http://spioenkop.blogspot.com/2016/0...es-of.html?m=1 …
Persian words on the almost all of Ammo boxes which have been captured by ISIS terrorists in S-E Aleppo,Syria
#Assad said in 2008 - America was creating 'more terrorists by bombing and fighting them' instead of talking peace!
Regime's priority is to fight Opposition, not ISIS. No problem to hand weapons for ISIS to save manpower to fight Opposition.
Last edited by davidbfpo; 04-16-2016 at 08:22 AM. Reason: remov duplicate link
Well, some conclusions about the Daesh in Syria are meanwhile unavoidable:
- 1.) They have excellent intel and/or reconnaissance;
- 2.) and they know where to strike in order to hurt the other side.
This is not to say that blows they deliver are always something like '100% guaranteed success'. Furthermore, they are obviously losing every battle against a well-organized, -equipped, and -dedicated opponent. But, there is no doubt that although facing qualitative and quantitative odds, they're doing well at evening these by quite a margin.
CrowBat..you point out something that many IS commenters fail to notice....their battle tactics have not changed greatly since 2004 when they first showed up as QJBR in Iraq.
Actually they have been quite capable of learning from their failures and adapting to those failures.
They had in 2004 already several things going for them........an unusual tactical patience to pick their attack points and target sets, coupled with extremely long target surveillance phases. PLUS they have become literally the world's greatest IED makers...point in case are the large amount of really large VBIEDS in the ton ranges....on 2006 they were already using 2 to 4 ton homemade explosive VBIEDs against the US Army in Iraq....or the use of "swarm attacks" already being successfully used in 2005.
I was able to debrief an entire 24 man Ansar al Sunnah group complete with their Emir on their battle tactics that we were seeing and was not surprised to see just how close they paralleled standard guerrilla tactics just adapted for the ME mindset.
If true that a bulk of those leading IS now were former Iraqi intel officers and senior military officers under Saddam and the internal structure is being driven by this group.... their ability to hang in and fight is not a surprise. They have been under air strikes and ground attacks for now over two years and while losing say about 8% of their territory they are largely still in control of their areas and in Iraq are capable of driving fear still into the new and retrained Iraqi Army...the Iraqi Army attacks, bullets fly and then they flee is about all we have been seeing for the past year.
What is surprising is that what they win they cannot hold onto it due to manpower issues...much as does FSA have a problem with holding areas they take but this is due to the concept of taking villages and towns to hold onto large areas....I have yet to see anyone make a massive cross country dash behind each others lines to strike deep granted the RuAF is making it hard but it is still possible.
In the end the actual fight will be between FSA and their groups against IS...simply because both are highly motivated and have trained former officers/NCOs leading them and both are fighting for a "flag and a cause"...
What remains of whatever makes up SAA, Hezbollah and the Iranians are fighting but for money and after the latest numerous loses IMHO their heart is no longer in the fight and they are going through the motions.
In the end it will be boots on the round needed to actually combat IS face to face and those boots must be Syrian...why the Obama WH has had a hard time with this idea is totally unexplainable.
BTW...this kind of sums up the positon of the West quite nicely......
Kyle W. Orton @KyleWOrton
The West panics over arming #Syria's rebels beyond minimal light weapons, while #IS loots Iraq's army and the Iran/Assad regime by the ton.
Since most of the weapons & ammo captured yesterday are of Iranian origin can you say #Iran is indirectly and willingly supplying #ISIS now?
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 04-16-2016 at 10:41 AM.
After long time of calmness in #Aleppo city #Assad-forces try to advance in Salah Aldien neighborhood http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=36...22438&z=16&m=b …
Assad Regime Negotiating in #Geneva Whilst Starving Children in #Syria
http://ow.ly/4mJT3G
Another Assad war criminal bites the dust.....
Southern #Aleppo: War criminal Abu Azrael, fighting for #Assad regime in Southern #Aleppo, was killed yesterday.
A video from this AM shows an entire residential district destroyed by Assad airstrikes in Talbiseh, #Homs, #Syria
Assad continues bombing Teir Ma'ala in #Homs today.
Multiple Assad airstrikes targeted #Morek & #Kafrnaboudeh in #Hama, #Syria about an hour ago
Reports of an Assad rocket attack targeting Latamna in #Hama, #Syria
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 04-16-2016 at 10:40 AM.
More bombs on besieged #Homs province.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqrZZdhnKDo …
Couldn't be more cynical.
#Assad drops bombs and leaflets with threats on the same towns.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFRqO20nfEs …
More air strikes on #Talbisah as #Assad further ignores any kind of "ceasefire".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDmXADJE2xg …
Same procedure as every day.
#Assad throws bombs on families, drying their clothes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIuQmvvXSME …
BREAKING: Poland's foreign minister says #Russia is 'more dangerous than ISIS' —
EU announces 6.5 mn euros of humanitarian aid to Afghan refugees in #Iran including educational funds for their children
BUT WAIT Iran is already recruiting all Afghan males into their Shia mercenary army fighting in Syria so is the EU supporting Iranian war efforts??????
Iran media: 3 "Basij"- members killed in #Syria
New in IS admin docs: monthly salary scheme table for a battalion from Aleppo province, w/ my analysis and comments http://www.aymennjawad.org/2016/01/a...ve-documents-1 …
Iran Needs Afghans + Pakistanis in Syria .....Swiss article
https://www.offiziere.ch/?p=26297
Ahrar al Sham blow up convoy of #Assad-forces in Rasm Amaysh in south eastern #Aleppo http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=35...63722&z=14&m=b …
Assad-forces lost this morning another T72 tank north of Khanasser
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 04-16-2016 at 11:12 AM.
Kyle W. Orton @KyleWOrton
Re Wahhabized mosques in the West v. MENA: Was said of Ziad Jarrah he never missed a party in Beirut, never missed a prayer in Berlin.
Iranian military support for Islamic States just keeps on giving....
Syria #IS claim seized ~250 Grad rockets, lots Katyusha rockets, 5 heavy artillery cannons, 3 tank howitzer, 29 mortar launchers /Khanasser
Assad, Putin and Khamenei attempting to change the UN Geneva talks "goalposts".....ABSOLUTELY no comment by the Obama WH....why is that...maybe they agree with the changes?????
Charles Lister @Charles_Lister
Very bad signals from #Geneva, as regime delegation chief Ja’afari issues “amendments” to De Mistura's “Essential Principles” document.
De Mistura's offer today—Assad + 3 oppo VPs—suggests critics right: #GenevaIII about setting terms of Assad's victory, not getting him out.
UN Envoy presented a proposal (suggested externally) to opposition HNC today:
- #Assad stays +3 Vice Presidents w. full powers
HNC said no
UN growing exasperated at regime obstruction of aid access & delivery; requests take 1-2 weeks to receive response, many go ignored entirely
Assad regime forces have continued multiple sieges inside #Syria, while blocking UN aid & stealing medical equipment from UN relief trucks.
That document wasn’t intended to shape trajectory of 2nd round of talks, but settle regime’s initial obsession w. defining “principles."
That De Mistura cancelled his presser today underlines his exasperation with regime obstructionism from addressing issue of transition.
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 04-16-2016 at 11:35 AM.
Indeed: this is the most astonishing aspect of the entire 'Daesh-War' - whether in Iraq or in Syria:
- Daesh carefully reccons its objective;
- then launches a quick, foremost 'surprise' attack;
- opposition collapses (usually alone out of panic of the sort, 'Daesh ante portas, Daesh ante portas'...) - regardless how strong, equipped, and well-entrenched;
- opposition (no matter if ISF, IRGC, FSYA/AAS or else) then makes the mistake of returning to 'classic' tactics of, 'we have to properly prepare our counter-attack', which is only
- buying time for the Daesh to heavily mine their newly-reached objective: Daesh then mines the area then 'guards' it with only few weak gangs, which have little problems to impose (often massive) attrition for weeks without an end...
And yet: nobody fighting them - apparently: not even the well-funded ISF - comes to the idea to change anything about their behaviour about the Daesh. They all remain overreliant on 'light infantry' for fighting the Daesh, instead of taking care to develop properly equipped units of combat engineers, supported by large-calibre automatic weapons (just for example, and because it seems that overpowering the Daesh with high-rate of firepower - even by such 'obsolete' weapons like S-60 flak calibre 57mm - is the only really effective method of fighting them, at least on the ground).
Add to this the micromanagement of the war by the White House - which more often than not is resulting in reluctant deployment of air power - and I would say one has got an excellent explanation for why it's so hard to beat what the Pentagon says are hardly more than 25,000-30,000 Daesh out there (in Iraq and Syria combined).
************
Another absurdity of this war is the Russian misuse of air power for little else but PRBS purposes.
They stacked Hmemmem AB up to the roofs of local hangars with obsolete fighter-bombers; then launched these into hundreds of air strikes every day, armed with 2-4 bombs only (whereas the same aicraft could load up to 10 such bombs each); then they claimed each of fighter-bombers is striking 2 (sometimes more) targets per mission, while actually 99% of weapons they've deployed were dumb bombs 'sprayed then prayed' in direction of whatever 'targets' they deemed...hm... 'useful to target'...? ...or something else... heaven only knows about their targeting processes, then no matter how much I studied these, they simply make no sense.
Anyway, all of this unleashed against about everybody possible in Syria.
Just not the Daesh.
Even less so against al-Qaida's affiliate JAN - and this because, at least in theory, both are 'mortal enemies' of Russia? And the JAN should be a CIA/al-Qaida-conspiracy?
Bottom line: hand-on-heart... OK, that intervention was aiming to stabilize Assad's position. Buy him some time to recover his military. But then: 9,000 combat sorties flown, about 25,000 bombs spent for achieving absolutely nothing else but to be able to say they have flown 9,000 combat sorties and dropped 25,000 bombs.
Then, barely a month after its 'air show' has ended, the very parties that were supposedly 'bombed back into stone age' and 'severely defeated' by Russians have not only 'recovered', but are so well on the way of defeating the regime again, that this now must be saved by a 'surge' in deployment of Iranian Army (not only the IRGC)...
Charles Lister @Charles_Lister
#ISIS re-arms for months more fighting… thanks to weapons captured from #Assad & #Iran-backed militia in S. #Aleppo
- 1 T72 tank
- 3+ artillery pieces
- 1 Safir jeep w SPG-9
- 50+ Grad rockets
- 200+ artillery shells
100s anti-aircraft gun rounds
- 1,000s rounds of SALW ammo
- +/- 10 anti-tank missiles
- 150+ RPGs
- 50+ tank shells
-Dozens of AK-series assault rifles
- 100+ grenades
- 5+ trucks to be used to transport everything back to Raqqa
- 1 2S1 Gvozdika howitzer
& more…
Overall not a bad Iranian resupply effort to IS......
US policy on #Iran + #Russia is "not really appeasement—it's an Obama reeducation program," says @LeeSmithTWS
Great overview of Sheikh Maqsood by @AbuJamajem: the front that never even had a reduction in hostilities.
http://thebea.st/22APvRl
ISW's #Syria Situation Report is back! Now in partnership with @SyriaDirect.
http://bit.ly/1p4DpCw
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 04-16-2016 at 11:35 AM.
CrowBat...notice the great fanfare Russian MoD announced when they sent two fully manned combat engineer demining BNs with only two IED bomb dogs from Russia into Palmyra..."we are going to fully demine Palmyra due to it's historical value that we have just recused from IS"...yet weeks later the two BNs are so bogged down in demining that the Russian MoD is afraid to announce IS really did a great job......and "we are having some serious problems"........not a good PR message......
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 04-16-2016 at 11:41 AM.
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