Syria in 2017 (January-April)

[CrowBat]

So Putin's toys do in fact work...

That's uncertain: certain is only that, according to Russian sources, in this case they were not even in a position to do anything.

Interesting. Do you believe that he will be assassinated by opposition forces?

I consider it more likely that the regime is going to liquidate a potential 'crown witness' at an opportune point in time.

[OUTLAW 09]

Azor...after the Trump spokesperson's statement yesterday that Hitler did not use gas forgetting the gassing of thousands of Jews.....

Sean Spicer is morally defective and profoundly stupid.

If he's Trump's spokesperson this time tomorrow, you know all you need to about this WH.

NOT a single rebuke of Spicer's comment.....

First class stupidity.....

Sean Spicer is a USNR PAO and graduate of the Naval War College. Which speaks volumes about our Navy and the worthlessness of NWC "degrees".

[OUTLAW 09]

Yup, at least something.

I got really beasty in that case then, just 1 such strike back in 2012 or 2013, could've changed so much - and saved so many lives.

They couldn't. Not only that - despite the warning - they were still caught by their pants down; but, they knew they were wrong, caught red-handed, and they were left with too little time to find an excuse to open fire (at Tomahawks). Besides, even if they would have opened fire, they would've only missed, because TLAMs passed beyond their radar horizon.

One thing in this regards:
This didn't happen. Col Hasouri was advanced in rank to that of Major-General, and is still alive.

The entire action was apparently an attempt to distract attention of those who began tracking him carefully (meanwhile, the social media is reporting every time he gets airborne).

If the again aging Tornado's can under fly radar and clear by 10 feet the tops of trees using their onboard radars ..at a high speed rate...the newest TLAMs are no different....the biggest problem that German pilots initially had was learning to trust their radars and not touch a single thing on low level radar controlled flights....the natural reaction is to pull up if something is to close...

You cannot simply lower your missiles that low to engage....

[OUTLAW 09]

Azor..well worth reading.....

Russian Dark Art.....

Essential reading. It just won the Pulitzer:
https://www.nytimes.com/series/russias-dark-arts#

[OUTLAW 09]

Azor...how can the US do anything FP wise in Syria when they do not understand Ukraine....it is all tied together...

Tillerson's "why care about Ukraine" borders on incompetence for SoS, utter lack of understanding of Russia threat
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/a...tter-politics#
…

[Azor]

Two weeks before the major Russian and Hezbollah attack on Aleppo...the Russian ambassador in Syria publicly stated "Assad will not attack Aleppo"...what then was the results of that Russian statement...Aleppo fell...

And long before that remember when Assad gave one of his first public interviews where he publicly stated he was going to recapture all of Syria...AND everyone said he was crazy because he did not have the troops...BUT now we see at 150K Shia troops inside Syria AND he was not publicly rebutted by Russia...

Again, none of this disputes my opinion that Assad’s and Khamenei’s diverge sharply from those of Putin. As for the “150K Shia troops”, most of these would be Alawis enrolled in the National Defense Force. But we both know that the 35,000 foreign Shia mercenaries led by Iranian officers are the ones doing the actual fighting, killing and dying on the front-lines, supported by Russian and Syrian airpower.

To some extent, you are conflating the Russian relationship with Luhansk and Donetsk, with the Russian relationship with Damascus and Teheran. The sack of Aleppo was probably more of an opportunity to gain aviation ground-attack experience and to make the U.S. appear powerless, than it was an operation that the Russians were advocating for.

From Michael Kofman at War on the Rocks (https://warontherocks.com/2017/04/no...rough-start/):

Assad made fools of both Presidents Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama, who certified that he had given up his chemical weapons as part of the arrangement which first spared him from American strikes in fall of 2013. Hence, we saw practically no response from Putin. Instead, Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev was trotted out to ramble something akin to a rebuke on his Facebook account. Just to make it clear, Monday night the head of Russia’s Federation Council implied they were not going to defend Assad from external threats. Given the outcome, Putin is unlikely to forgive Assad for this embarrassment, and may be dreaming of firing 60 cruise missiles at something Assad cares more about than al-Shayrat airbase. For Moscow, this affair is probably an unexpected and bitter pill to swallow. It once again demonstrates that their desire for a role as power broker in Middle East is aspirational at best, and control over local actors in Syria remains elusive

.

Russia is not going to abandon Assad and leave the ME which has been their major dream since WW2...Obama had abandoned the US position there for 70 odd years and actually Trump will continue that move...

Russia is doing a full mobilization as the rest of the Western Military District follows 1.GuardsTankArmy. East and Central MDs already out. Russia is now in the midst of a full scale combat alert FOR the entire Russian Army...never done even in Cold War...

I have never suggested that Putin is going to abandon Assad or exit Syria. What I have consistently said is that Putin seems satisfied with the current military balance and territorial dispositions, and seems more interested in freezing the conflict than aiding in the reconquest of Syria and re-establishment as a unitary state under Assad’s rule, which would probably be a march to folly.

As Kofman also noted: “Russia’s military footprint in Syria remains intentionally so small that it clearly is not meant to defend Assad.” Some saber-rattling in the Western MD says nothing about a deeper Russian commitment to Syria. Clearly, Putin is angry and seeking to save face publicly. I am more keener on what may be going on behind closed doors, as I hope you would be. Putin does not have to confront the West in order to placate his increasingly unruly domestic audience, but he must be seen to be doing so.

Russia is in the strange position of having more overseas basing opportunities than military assets to deploy, whether we are speaking of Syria, Cuba, Vietnam, Nicaragua, and probably Iran and Venezuela as well.

As for your references to Trump and his domestic political imbroglios, I won’t be touching that with a ten-foot barge pole.

[Azor]

[OUTLAW 09]

Again, none of this disputes my opinion that Assad’s and Khamenei’s diverge sharply from those of Putin. As for the “150K Shia troops”, most of these would be Alawis enrolled in the National Defense Force. But we both know that the 35,000 foreign Shia mercenaries led by Iranian officers are the ones doing the actual fighting, killing and dying on the front-lines, supported by Russian and Syrian airpower.

To some extent, you are conflating the Russian relationship with Luhansk and Donetsk, with the Russian relationship with Damascus and Teheran. The sack of Aleppo was probably more of an opportunity to gain aviation ground-attack experience and to make the U.S. appear powerless, than it was an operation that the Russians were advocating for.

From Michael Kofman at War on the Rocks (https://warontherocks.com/2017/04/no...rough-start/):

.



I have never suggested that Putin is going to abandon Assad or exit Syria. What I have consistently said is that Putin seems satisfied with the current military balance and territorial dispositions, and seems more interested in freezing the conflict than aiding in the reconquest of Syria and re-establishment as a unitary state under Assad’s rule, which would probably be a march to folly.

As Kofman also noted: “Russia’s military footprint in Syria remains intentionally so small that it clearly is not meant to defend Assad.” Some saber-rattling in the Western MD says nothing about a deeper Russian commitment to Syria. Clearly, Putin is angry and seeking to save face publicly. I am more keener on what may be going on behind closed doors, as I hope you would be. Putin does not have to confront the West in order to placate his increasingly unruly domestic audience, but he must be seen to be doing so.

Russia is in the strange position of having more overseas basing opportunities than military assets to deploy, whether we are speaking of Syria, Cuba, Vietnam, Nicaragua, and probably Iran and Venezuela as well.

As for your references to Trump and his domestic political imbroglios, I won’t be touching that with a ten-foot barge pole.

BUT it is that exact "ten foot barge pole" that have many questioning US intentions with the TLAM strike...was it really a "red line" or really just to divert from his worsening poll numbers and the FBI CI Russian investigation?

Aside...Putin is fast running out of time on his economic front....the true choice that he has needed to face since in his eastern Ukraine misadventure invasion is one that the US faced eventually in VN....guns or butter but not both at the same time....

Both eastern Ukraine...Crimea and Syria is costing him per day anywhere from 9-11M USDs per day per month per year and that is if there is no heavy fighting...

In Crimea the installed Russian "head" who was previously Ukrainian openly complained recently that things there are now worse than they were under Ukraine and for all his use of GRU to force Tartar submission...it is getting stronger not weaker.

Telling actually.....

Putin has just enough troops and combat power to tip the scales if his infantry comes from Iran which is the case....and as long as Iran provides the infantry....Assad will continue to try to recapture the entire country.

Outwardly there might appear to be some daylight between Assad and Putin BUT there is none as they are lock stepped at the hip now....

Here is Putin's problem....they stepped up and in an open agreement with the US for not bombing Assad after his first major gas attack in 2013 THEY Russia would guarantee that ALL Assad CWs would be withdrawn....which we now no did not truly happen.....

So it behooves Russia to fix the problem....this has nothing to do with what Obama did and or did not do.....Russia was the guarantor for the CW removal not Obama WH......the Obama WH mistake was not to heed warnings from some serious CW investigators that not all had been removed...

If you really watch Trump's WH they did the one strike and have been all verbal since then...basically finding all kinds of reasons to not follow it up with further strikes in order to stop even the normal plain barrel bombs.....

Here is my opinion...Putin is trapped right now by his own actions....he desparately started all of this ie eastern Ukraine...Crimea and Syria to be "accepted as an equal super power and be able to look into the eyes of the other two superpowers US/China at the same eye level"....and suddenly it looks like China/US are potentially doing a joint deal on NK without Putin and the US is directly and suddenly confronting him in Syria......

So right now he is not at "eye level"....and at the same time he has a growing number of Russians willing to openly demonstrate against him and his corruption ie the current trucker unrest which is spreading across all of Russia...because the owner of the toll company is the son of a very close Putin supporting oligarch and there was no need for the sudden toll increases other than to increase the corruption earnings of the son...

Guns or butter....that is Putin's choice and he can no longer pull off both at the same time....

BTW...Putin sees the Chinese moving closer to the US on the NK issue....
China looking increasingly uncomfortable in middle of US-DPRK crisis. Xi calls Trump, urges peace.
http://wapo.st/2p4hRKK?tid=ss_tw#

BUT NASDQ warned this week that 150K Chinese troops have been placed on alert and moved closer to the NK border...

[OUTLAW 09]

Azor....this is that "ten foot barge pole" that urgently needs to be discussed.....

Since the Trump ordered TLAM strike suddenly we are seeing white nationalists and white supremacists who openly and strongly supported Trump via blogsites...and social media and who often accepted and passed on fake Russian news and comments in support of Trump....NOW they are in open revolt against his actions and in full support of Putin and Assad....

So for the first time we see "brown elements" fully and completely accepting and pushing Russian FP goals...why is that???

Ever notice that MSM is shying away from that story???

Self embarrassing idiot. LaRouche/Assad cultist Scott Gaulke.

BTW Larouche once wrote in one of his early books..."you do not need to wear brown to be brown"...AND his daughter is the formal leader of the European Workers Party (EAP) and sits in Brussels....also a neo rightist group...

[OUTLAW 09]

This is just how the current Trump WH is misreading Putin...

Russia seeks to "save face" in Syria - U.S. envoy to UN Nikki Haley, the US envoy to the United Nations, is characterizing Russia as skittish and isolated in the wake of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad's deadly chemical weapon attack last week that killed scores of civilians, including children, according to CNN

.

https://www.unian.info/politics/1872...voy-to-un.html

I do not see Putin skittish and isolated at all in his Syrian actions....as long as Russians are currently voicing their support for eastern Ukraine and Syria he will stay the course....and the latest polling indicates they are standing by him...

[OUTLAW 09]

Hassan Hassan حسن
✔
@hxhassan
Reason why Syrians find this particularly amusing is that "ya hiwan" is a signature Syrian mukhabarat slur word.

BTW Iraqi's also use the term mukhabarat meaning state security police (secret police)

[OUTLAW 09]

While Trump has been bashing Assad and Putin...Russia wants back Alaska...

Alaska's Arctic policy adviser falls victim to Russian media provokatsiya.
https://www.adn.com/arctic/2017/04/1...ws-in-russia/#

Reverse fake news hits Russia....

[OUTLAW 09]

Interesting piece from @EliotHiggins back in 2014 - still relevant to the tin foil hat claims of false flag in Syria
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...-attack-syria#


AND in 2017...Russian claimed immediately it was a rebel CW factory they "accidently hit"?

OPCW also said Syria used chlorine as a CW, but Russia rejected that conclusions for ~reasons~

BTW...it is said that in the Russian MoD gift shop you can purchase "magic beans"...

[OUTLAW 09]

NOTICE anything here....

Минобороны России‏
Verified account
#
@mod_russia
#SYRIA Insurgents are delivering toxic substances to areas of Khan Sheikhoun, Jira airport, East Ghouta and to the west from Aleppo

SO are we seeing the Russians layout the following areas for follow on sarin attacks using the excuse ..."it was those pesky rebels with that bombed out CW factory we said we destroyed but the West did not believe us"?????

Note that siege of E #Ghouta has tightened, prices skyrocketing, food supplies running low. Nobody is "delivering" anything there right now

Kyle Orton
✔
@KyleWOrton
It's either #Russia just polluting the information space after Khan Shaykhun, or it's Moscow preparing for more chemical attacks in #Syria.

US officials estimate Assad has used chemical weapons more than 200 times since the so called CW destruction was certified by Russia....that is an average of 6-7 times a days...

UN figures are at 167 attacks....

[OUTLAW 09]

FSA battle against #IslamicState in Yarmouk Basin /south western #Syria without any help by #US #Pentagon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yxLAA7Bbhw#

[OUTLAW 09]

Spicer's statement was made on behalf of a president who, in 2015, minimized a chemical gas attack that killed 5,000

[OUTLAW 09]

Russians around Palmyra

[OUTLAW 09]

BREAKING: Tillerson and Lavrov are discussing possibility of establishing no-fly zones in Syria

BUT WAIT....
Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister says U.S. rhetoric is "primitive and loutish"

BREAKING: United States calls for the immediate withdrawal of #Hizballah in #Syria — State department spokesperson.

Syria Prisoners exchange btw #Hezbollah/#Iran & #Ahrar_al_Sham near #Idlib city
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5c2VdUq4Xs#

[OUTLAW 09]

Here we go again...everyone's worse nightmare....

Iran's former President Ahmadinejad has filed to run in the country's presidential election

[OUTLAW 09]

Assad give orders for new wave of deportations
(now 4-5000 residents from the #Damascus suburbs #Zabadani & #Madaya) to northern #Syria