Thanksgiving in besieged Aleppo:
Turkish hackers group Aslan Neferler announced they have hacked many official Syrian sites including that of SAA.
Thanksgiving in besieged Aleppo:
EuphratesShield forces seized Ajmi from #ISIS, cutting off the M4 highway between #Manbij-Arimah & Al-Bab.
ANOTHER hospital destroyed....
News
The #Russian regime destroyed the hospital of Turmanin near #Idlib today, killing 3, wounding 7.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jrhkW7Udxo#
The real Q is: How many times can Russia bomb same hospitals 2 keep them out of service?
Russia bombs, ppl repair, Russia bombs ppl repair
What is he up to?Originally Posted by OUTLAW 09
Proving he's in charge, and 'not' the IRGC or Russians, that's what he's up to.
Here a recommended reading in this regards: Syria regime set “red line” around Al-Bab: pro-Assad daily
Why?...“The timing of the airstrike targeting Turkish soldiers came to set Syria’s redlines in the strategic region; storming Al-Bab is forbidden,” an article published Friday by Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar said.
#
The report comes less than a day after a Syrian airstrike outside the ISIS stronghold of Al-Bab killed three Turkish soldiers, prompting Ankara to threaten retaliation.
#
Syria’s government, for its part, has made no official statement on the potentially escalatory incident, while pro-regime outlets based in the war-torn did not broach the subject.
...
Because: while one could call this article 'full of speculation', actually it's so that if al-Akbar publishes statements of this kind, these were 'sanctioned' by either Hezbollah, or even the Assad regime.
'No evidence'?
OK, then check this tweet by Hosein Mortada (a....hm... 'journalist' close to Assad), stating more of such air strikes can be expected in the next days.
Why all of this?
Well, because these are people from the so-called 'Old Guard' in Damascus: those left behind from Hafez's times.
Here a story about the most important thug between them - who now dares speaking out because he's apparently short of retirement:
A Voice From the Shadows (aka: The head of Syria’s Air Force Intelligence Directorate says Bashar al-Assad was too soft)
(That all said, the only thing really 'remarkable' about all of them - Bashar, Hassan, all sorts of their supporters [in real life or on the internet] etc. - is that they are all so convinced 'everything's going to be OK', if they 'only kill or brutalize any kind of opposition'.A political taboo was quietly shattered this month, when one of Syria’s most powerful security officials, Lieutenant General Jamil al-Hassan, gave his first-ever interview to a Russian news site.
Though Hassan mostly voiced common pro-government positions that are in themselves unremarkable, the interview itself was a groundbreaking event. As head of the Air Force Intelligence Directorate, Hassan has almost never been heard from in public before, and Syrian intelligence chiefs take great care to stay out of the limelight. But another thing stood out, too: Hassan’s implicit criticism of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for having shown too much restraint in the early days of the Syrian uprising in 2011.
...
In the time of President Hafez al-Assad in the 1980s, these people were given a painful blow. It was almost lethal, particularly in Hama. I was a young first lieutenant. The decision at that time was a wise one. This time, we did not settle the matter from the beginning, which is why we have ended up where we are. But it was the decision of the leadership. As for me, my view was different. Take, for example, the students at the [Tiananmen] square in China, which changed China. If the Chinese state had not settled the student chaos, China would have been lost and the West would have destroyed it.
...
Many government loyalists seem to agree with that sentiment, but lesser figures than Hassan would hardly dare to place explicit blame on “the leadership,” which is government-speak for Bashar al-Assad. However, Hassan did not push his criticism any further. To the contrary, he insisted that the president enjoyed between 70–80 percent popular support in Syria and, when asked how he thought the late Hafez al-Assad might have handled the rebellion of 2011 had he been alive, Hassan gently defused the question: “I cannot guess at what he would have done, but every person is in his own particular situation. President Bashar al-Assad has endured major troubles, worse than those endured by the late president Hafez al-Assad.”
...
And that 'forever'.)
************
BTW... talking about Assad always brings me to Oblabla... (isn't that association interesting...?). Here the newest example of his giant success in staying out of the '#### story':
PYD hits Turkish tanks with US#rockets
Namely, I can confirm such reports. One of my sources with PKK links said today that the PKK/PYD/YPG re-directed the entire stock of TOWs delivered by the USA about a week ago - from the frontlines to the Daesh, to those facing the TSK/FSyA north and west of Manbij.The PYD, which targeted 2 armored vehicles belonging to the Turkish Armed Forces with Tow rockets, maintained similar attacks on the following day. Yet, another Turkish tank was reportedly exposed to a PYD attack on Wednesday afternoon in the region.
...
With other words: the USA are now at least supporting if not outright 'at war' with literally everybody in Syria - including its NATO-ally Turkey.
Sure. Somebody there had to explain the story on supposed Egyptian deployment to Syria, but also the next piece of Russian nonsense:
Hezbollah and Russia in first direct military meeting: report
Oh man... this deserves a big bag of popcorn and a year-supply of Cola to watch.Hezbollah military officials have held their first ever direct meeting with their Russian counterparts in a landmark sitdown that tackled the Aleppo front, according to a daily close to the powerful Lebanese militant organization.
“Less than a week ago, Aleppo witnessed the first direct meeting between Hezbollah field commanders and Russian army officers,” Al-Akhbar reported Thursday.
The Lebanese daily said that the gathering “came at the request of the Russians” who were impressed by Hezbollah’s military performance during the “Battle of Martyr Abu Omar Saraqeb,” a failed rebel offensive launched in late October against regime positions in western Aleppo.
After observing the results of the rebel campaign, which was turned back thanks in part to Hezbollah’s large military presence on the frontlines, Russia last week called for a meeting with the Lebanese organization, according to Al-Akhbar.
...
Namely, I can't wait to see how Putler thinks he can separate Hezbollah (Lebanon) from he IRGC.
Turkey does not fire at #Assad's jets,attacking its troop near al-Bab.
It invites #Russian invasion command reps from #Latakia to #Ankara.
Just another proof that Turkey and Russia sealed a deal (Aleppo for northern Syria) and some regime elements are not happy with it.
CrowBat....who is on first base.....second base and who is on homeplate...I am not so sure the actors themselves quite know anymore....???
Aleppo: Turkish airstrikes on a #YPG headquarters in #Arima have killed 7 #YPG militants and wounded many more.
RE: Civilian Casualties
Heartbreaking. However, some perspective is required.
Thus far since June, civilians have accounted for roughly 41% of the total fatalities inflicted in the fighting over Aleppo, a ratio that is in line with the Syrian Civil War overall and also analogous to the conflict in Indochina (Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos).
While Assad may be a butcher and a tyrant, and a user of chemical weapons, in terms of cold hard numbers he is far more discriminating in the use of force than either the Soviets in Afghanistan or the Russians in Chechnya. Indeed, Putin's adventure has a higher ratio of civilian losses than Assad's ground game...
Aleppo: #FSA: "We will keep going towards #Al_Bab and we will fight any forces who will stand in front of us."
YPG: "#US must fulfill their duty and stop #Turkey and #FSA."
YPG calls all #YPG units who fight for #Assad regime west of #Al_Bab "neutral Kurdish militias".
Many of these #YPG units were armed and trained by pro-#Assad forces since the siege of Eastern #Aleppo has begun.
Iran|ian #IRGC Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari: "After #Mosul we should send more #Iraq|i Shia militias (#PMU) to #Syria to help #Assad."
After #YPG the #SDF (alias #YPG alias #Manbij/#Al_Bab Councils alias #PKK) said they wouldn't be involved in the fighting vs #FSA & #Turkey.
CrowBat.....what do you think?
A snr western intelligence type tells me he doubts West's ability to penetrate Russian air defences in Syria: "they could just shut us out"
BreakingFootage
#SDF hits #TurkishArmy tank between al-Bab and Manbij with an ATGM.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Z6Z3edZi8A#
Northern #Syria.
- EuphratesShield vs. SDF
(probably with US arms)
- EuphratesShield vs. YPG, Hezbollah & Assad
- EuphratesShield vs. ISIS
And here comes the funny part of this epic disaster: This is exactly what Putin lured (not so smart) Erdogan & FSA into forgetting
The White Helmets @SyriaCivilDef
39 civilians killed &110+ injurd in #Aleppo & countryside tday
12-Taqad
7-AlMansura
5-Shaar
5-Karm Homad
5-Sakhur
5-Mashhad
Friends or foes? A closer look on relations between YPG and the regime via @bellingcat
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena...es-ypg-regime/
One of Syria’s most powerful security officials has given first interview, offering a rare look into the regime
http://carnegie-mec.org/diwan/66240
Extremely important interview! Head of #Syria's Air Force IntelService, Jamil Hassan, implicitly criticised #Assad for his actions in 2011
The interview is unprecedented but how significant are Hassan's opinions, truly?
By my reckoning a repeat of Hama was impossible, given that the civil uprising was more widespread and predicated upon human rights, liberty and democracy rather than Islamism. Indeed, Assad followed the advice of his Iranian Revolutionary Guards advisors and used paramilitary and military force to crush the uprising, prompting the defections in the first place.
Means is not equivalent to will, and just like Berlin (1953), Budapest (1956) and Prague (1968) were not repeatable in Moscow (1992), Hama was not repeatable in 2011 across the whole of the country.
Beg your pardon?
This alone makes me not 100%, but 1000% sure: you have never interviewed a single of what I call 'Assadist' pilots.
Namely, you don't know that Alawites between them are raised to hate Sunnis and to consider them 'rats'. You don't know that they are actively seeking every opportunity to kill civilians: it's not even 'punishment' any more for them, but extermination that counts. You don't know that their mindset is such that every evening when they gather to watch news on the state TV, they're de-facto staging a championship in cheering how many has each of them 'burned' that day.
If they're 'aiming' when they bomb, then only because they're seeking to cause 'mass destruction' and to 'burn Sunnis'. That's a direct translation of their own words.
What do I mean with that? All tactical training and all kind of weapons firing exercises were strictly prohibited in the last 10 years before the war. Since the start of the war, some of pilots decided to teach themselves how to use iPads as 'navigational and targeting aids'. And they would all love to have far heavier bombs, so they can kill more with one of them.
So, please, be so kind and don't ever again come to the idea to explain anything about 'discriminate' (or 'indiscriminate') bombing of civilians by Assadists (at least not when I'm around): what they do when they bomb is absolutely intentional, yet - as tragic as it is - also the best they can do.
EDIT: should you wonder how comes I know as much about them... I've interviewed about 24 SyAAF pilots and officers over the last 20 years, while working on the book series Arab MiGs, Volume 1, Arab MiGs, Volume 2, Arab MiGs, Volume 3, Arab MiGs, Volume 4, Arab MiGs, Volume 5, and Arab MiGs, Volume 6 (this developed into a sort of an 'encyclopaedia of Arab air forces at war with Israel, 1955-1973'). Six of them are still serving - and de-facto praying to Bashar, at least considering him some sort of a 'God' - and all are absolutely convinced they are doing 'the right stuff' with what they are doing every single day.
Last edited by CrowBat; 11-25-2016 at 10:35 PM.
I've heard or read a lot of that over the last 12-13 months - the 'most prominent example' was the article Political Airpower, Part I: Say No to the No-Fly Zone - and I simply do not understand such standpoints.
At most, I can't describe it as anything else but, 'politically and/or religiously-motivated hysteria'.
Sure, things got complicated since Russians moved their SA-10 (S-300) and SA-19 (Pantsyr) SAM-sites to the area between Kweres AB and as-Safira, thus reinforcing the single Assadist SA-17 (Buk-M1) site deployed at Kweres since January this year.
Such re-deployments kind of 'broke' the terrain-caused isolation and degradation of Russian air defence capabilities in Lattakia area (caused by the fact that their SAMs stationed there are low at the Med coast, and 'blind' in northern and eastern direction because of 2,000m-high Anti-Lebanon mountains).
But, hand on heart: if US + allied air forces don't know how to tackle such threats, or think they're not equipped or not trained to do so, most of the DIA (and similar, allied agencies of NATO members), and all of their commanders - from the rank of major upwards - should get fired on the spot.
Azor,
sorry mate, but such questions indicate you really have no trace of clue about 'construction' of the Syrian regime.
Please, read that article. While its official designation might sound like 'ah, another intelligence service busy collecting info on OPFOR'...the 'Air Force Intelligence' in Syria is the very core essence of the regime. It was the tool and the means with help of which Hafez al-Assad climbed to power, and ever since it is the primary tool of keeping that regime in power.
It is such a huge apparatus (over 50,000 employees and over 2 millions of informers before the war) that has a file on every single Syrian citizen and every single foreigner who ever visited Syria. It is so powerful, so well-organized, so embedded within the entire system, that the Stasi was a kindergarten in comparison.
Correspondingly, until the IRGC launched its military intervention in Syria, in early 2013, Hassan was the - declared - 'second-most-important' (and most powerful) man in the country.
That said, I do agree with you in regards of 'repeat of Hama was impossible'. The Moslem Brotherood proved 'too much 'for majority of Syrians and its insurgency of the late 1970s and early 1980s lost all of popular support. That's why it was easy to isolate and destroy it in Hama. Protesting and then the uprising of 2011 was an entirely different pair of shoes: a nation-wide, inter-ethnic and inter-confessional movement.
So, there was no comparison and there was no way to stop it even with a dozen of 'Hamas' Hussein eventually instigated - in Dera'a, in Homs, southern Damascus, Hama, Aleppo etc.
Egyptian deployment to Syria
7 November
Saudi Arabia has informed Egypt that shipments of oil products expected under a $23 billion aid deal have been halted indefinitely, suggesting a deepening rift between the Arab world's richest country and its most populous.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-eg...-idUSKBN1320RQ
To CrowBat RE: Various
Firstly, my objective with respect to quantifying and comparing the civilian fatalities in Syria was to provide some broader context or perspective beyond the daily tragedies of the war. I am well aware that the bitter fighting has led to sectarian hatred that perhaps was not as salient as in 2011. For instance, despite the acts of mass murder, war rape and attacks on towns and cities, civilian deaths comprised some 35% to 38% of the Bosnian Civil War, yet the Western mainstream media reporting would suggest that the war was a vast one-sided slaughter of civilians.
Secondly, if the Alawites of Syria were indoctrinated to consider themselves superior to the Sunni Arabs and Kurds that they governed, than so too were the Sunni Arabs of Iraq with respect to the Shia Arabs and Sunni Kurds that they governed. Yet Hafez’ suppression of dissent pales in comparisons to the punishments meted out by Hussein against Kurds and Shias alike. In fact, until 2011, Syria’s ethnicities and sects were far more harmonious than those in Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Lebanon or even Turkey.
Thirdly, I am well aware of the disproportionate role that SyAAF intelligence plays in the Syrian government. What I find insignificant is that Hassan believes that quicker and tougher suppression would have been more appropriate, as it is obvious that Assad and his inner circle believe that all of Syria can be reconquered, and are pressing forward irrespective of any diplomatic efforts at imposing a ceasefire. While Moscow seems open to Assad retaining Latakia and the country being de facto divided between the Alawites, Kurds and Sunni Arabs, Teheran seems to agree with Assad for now.
Fourth, I also agree that the S-300 and S-400 systems deployed in and off the coast of Syria are not the threat claimed by opponents of the no-fly zone. I believe that the opposition to the no-fly zone revolves around the following related but different issues, namely:
- The no-fly zone would ostensibly apply only to Syrian aircraft, allowing Russian and perhaps even Iranian aircraft to continue bombarding rebels and civilians
- There is a possibility that de-confliction with Russia would break down, leading to a skirmish
- Syrian air defenses would have to be suppressed, leading to accusations that the US is initiating a coup d’état
- Russian personnel could be stationed at Syrian air defense facilities making their suppression impossible
- US or Coalition pilots may demand that Russian and Syrian air defenses be suppressed
- Any kinetic or non-kinetic SEAD operations would allow the Russians to analyze the latest American tactics and technology
- The war is primarily land-based and therefore a no-fly zone would have no impact on Assad’s tanks or artillery
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