Syria in 2017 (April-December)

[CrowBat]

...ah yes: talking about the IRGC....

...and because even some of best think-tanks in the USA and the EU seem entirely unable to understand what's actually going on in Syria...

...here a somewhat 'raw' Write-up & Collection of Links on Assadist Regime and its Functions, Financing (i.e. IRGC’s Sponsoring), and Troop Strengths

Should anybody be 'sceptic' about all the stuff collected and concluded there, check the following: late last year, I've put together an 'ORBAT' (Order of Battle) for Assadist forces in Syria, and published this on the ACIG.info forum (requires a registration to read). Between others, this contained an estimate for the total strength of the famed Quwwat Nimr (aka 'Tiger Force'), of about 1,600.

Early this year, a slightly updated version of the same was published on the website of Truppendienst, military magazine of the Austrian Ministry of Defence (see: Assad Streitkräfte) - citing a figure of 1,500 combatants for the Quwwat Nimr (unsurprising, considering their losses in Aleppo and Palmyra, in period November 2016 - January 2017).

Everybody who only could - but especially all sorts of online 'experts' on this war - were ridiculing me for that. Supposedly, 'Tiger Force has thousands of troops'.

Now lookie here: by side that the Quwwat Nimr suffered something like 50% of casualties during latest fighting against the Daesh... but it turns out I was right, and that gang is meanwhile down to only some 1,000:

https://twitter.com/IvanSidorenko1/s...19851772698214

Guess, all those calling me names for my analysis and reporting about what's going on in Syria must feel 'very much confirmed' now.

[CrowBat]

Here two quick reads for fans of ideas like 'War in Syria is over' and 'Russia's victory in Syria':

The first is here, and the second here.

[CrowBat]

Reading the latest piece by Charles Lister & Dominic Nelson published by the Middle East Institute - All the President's Militias: Assad's Militiafication of Syria - left me wondering: is it an accident that the two authors are drawing a number of conclusions that are the same like mine expressed a month ago in A Write-up & Collection of Links on Assadist Regime and its Functions, Financing (i.e. IRGC’s Sponsoring), and Troop Strengths...?

The only thing they have surely missed - almost certainly because they never cross-examined financial backgrounds of the groups in question, and the 'battlefield organisation' of the Assad-Regime and the IRGC-QF (includes Hezbollah) in Syria - is the conclusion that it's the IRGC that's controlling all of the militias in question.

Reason?

Because, and as anybody with serious interest in monitoring, discussing, and understanding warfare should know - supplies (whether of money, beans, bullets or gas) are the essence of any war. No supplies = no war.

Thus, the party that pays most of the bills is also the party that's controlling the war.

In the case of Syria, and because it's paying 200,000-250,000 combatants deployed there (no matter of what nationality, and including at least 80,000, probably up to 150,000 Syrian nationals) - there's only one such party. That's the IRGC-QF.

...which in turn means that recommending the US government such things like,

...in dealing with pro-Iranian militias in Syria, the U.S. government should make greater efforts to publicly map said militias and to designate those deemed to have violated international law, in particular through maintaining direct links to the I.R.G.C.’s Quds Force...

....is missing the point, actually: except for 25,000-30,000 directly subordinated certified killers (see 'Quwwat Nimr/Tiger Force', 'Republican Guards', '4th Division', 'IV Assault Corps', 'V Corps', air force, and various HQs of 'SAA Divisions'), EVERYBODY THERE is controlled by IRGC-QF.