A pointer to this review of Syria todayhttps://warontherocks.com/2017/06/th...-syrias-noise/
Russian Mission UN
✔
@RussiaUN
#Safronkov: There is no threat from #Syria|n Armed Forces to the American experts. We don’t have any credible information on this issue.
Syria as it is, not as we want it to be.
A pointer to this review of Syria todayhttps://warontherocks.com/2017/06/th...-syrias-noise/
davidbfpo
Palmyra: #ISIS has killed #Assad Brigadier General Yusuf Ahmed east of #Palmyra.
Several casualties aftermath #SAA terrorists carried out the 3rd Chemical Attack on #Zamalka
July 2
WELL so much for the US warning to not use CWs.....Trump WH claimed success in supposedly stopping attacks such as this one....
Iran recruited over 10k Afghan refugees to fight its worst battles in Syria. Most don't know why they're fighting
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/30/o...-iphone-share#
Amid rumours that Turkey gears up for an Afrin-offensive, is this its future base in Syria's Idlib governorate?
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena...turkish-base/#
Three car bombs hit Damascus, at least seven people killed
http://reut.rs/2sfdhYk
Syria #Assad's beheading militia "Suqur al Sahra" lead by warlord Mohammad Jaber advance on villages in eastern #Hama with #Russia'n CAS
What ISIL really thinks about the future
https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/w...future-1.91394There is still a long way for Iraq and Syria to go before they can properly claim to have defeated the group, writes Hassan Hassan
Concerning recent assad chemical gas attakcs largely unreported by MSM....and ignroed by Trump and his red line FP.....
A massive Turkish artillery attack destroyed the #YPG position, overlooking #Azaz city.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9wiQA_3h7k#…
Unfortunately, this article ignores Syria's demographics and essentially advocates for minority Alawi-Kurdish rule over the Sunni Arabs. It also ignores that Assad is dependent upon some 30,000 to 35,000 Iranian-led foreign Shia mercenaries to preserve his rule. Are these foreigners to stay in order to enforce "stability"?Originally Posted by davidbfpo
UK Delegation OPCW @UK_OPCW
In OPCW mtg on chem weapon use in Syria. Russia agrees that sarin or sarin-like substance used. Says no grounds to disbelieve OPCW finding.
Actually interesting in that it was Assad who gave the soil samples taken at the impact point that were the confirming evidence....that caused a major fallout among Assad online supporters who then claimed the soil samples were "fake"....
Afrin today.
In a move to stop the looming TK military intervention by showing the world its autonomy from the terror org PKK ...
Oh wait.
Deputy commander of Jaysh al-Thuwar Ahmed Sultan (#FSA faction of SDF) says they will halt #Raqqa op. to fight against Turkey in #Afrin.
Turkey says it's not 'declaring war' in Syria, but ready to respond:
http://reut.rs/2tqveF0
Kurdish YPG militia expects conflict with Turkey in northern Syria.
http://reut.rs/2tJyPk0
Only #Syria'ns should decide about own future- Not #Russia, #US, #Iran or #Turkey -Colonialism failed ->Sykes Pycot demarcation
Azor...now do you finally realize just how correct I and CrowBat have been? We critiqued Obama ME FP because he did not understand what was actually ongoing inside Syria and Trump has no idea what the heck he is doing for any FP.
This will now drive FSA into the open arms of HTS/AQ and the US will be ground into the dust of Syria, Iraq and ME for the coming decade as Is reverts back to it's basic roots, guerrilla warfare and working with disillusioned Sunni's about US bombs raining on them and the high number of Shia killings of Sunni civilians.
Trump just provided Putin a major win and the question is why?
WINNERS, Assad, Putin and Khamenei.
LOSSERS Trump and DoD and DoS and Us allies
Trump ends CIA arms support for anti-Assad Syria rebels: U.S. officials
http://reut.rs/2uKe9Jx
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 07-20-2017 at 06:36 AM.
Outlaw,
This announcement is disappointing to be sure, but it is important not to exaggerate its impact or to ignore the current dynamics of the war:
- As CrowBat concurred, I would suggest that the end of Timber Sycamore may well ease U.S. restrictions on GCC, Turkish and Jordanian support for the Free Syrian Army
- The announcement could be a public relations ploy, as another secret CIA program may replace it
- The FSA elements in the Turkish and Coalition (SDF) salients will continue to receive support as well as protection from pro-Assad forces
- Turkey can independently support FSA elements in northwestern Syria while Jordan can do the same for those in southern Syria
- The rebellion is a melee in northwestern Syria as rebels fight one another and pro-Assad forces
- Timber Sycamore was clearly not enough for the FSA to survive both pro-Assad forces and Islamist units
- In the absence of a full U.S. commitment to regime change and reconstruction in Syria, the operation could only continue to keep Syria ablaze
- Pro-Assad forces will not be able to take the Coalition or Turkish salients
We will have to see how the war develops over the coming weeks, and whether social media can keep us abreast of the FSA's operations.
Commentary from Omar Sabbour (Sussex Friends of Syria)
From Omar Sabbour on Facebook:
1) The end of the CIA "vetting" program of "arming rebels"
For those who have closely followed Syria over the years, they will know of course that the CIA programme has not been dictated by actually providing weapons to the rebels directly (groups which received weapons directly from the US tended to have agreed not to use them against Assad, such as the SDF, New Syrian Army, Mou'tasem Brigade, Hamza Division), but in "co-coordinating" (i.e. controlling) the arms supply to them coming from other parties (i.e. Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and private parties - references for this can be found at the bottom [1]). This control has been exercised via two main "Operation Centres" - the MOC in Jordan and the MOM in Turkey - and has taken the form of determining the quantity and quality of weapons which are allowed to go in (for instance advanced weaponry are either restricted - such as anti-tank missiles - or altogether blockaded - such as anti-aircraft missiles; whilst the flow of regular weaponry and ammunition varies according to events and strategic interests on the ground) and which groups receive them.
Of course the CIA and Jordanian intelligence had already been banning (the already previously restricted [2]) arms going into the South for the purpose of anti-Assad operations for years (https://mkaradjis.wordpress.com/…/us...n-demand-sou…/), whilst in the North the CIA had restricted allowing arms to rebel operations even against ISIS [3] - though the degree of US control here had been much less than in the south, as the US had been circumvented more by Turkey (whilst Turkey always pressured the US to allow in an effective supply of weaponry to the rebels, by contrast Jordan had an effectively identical position to the US vis a vis Syria: i.e. supporting the survival of the opposition but not empowering it to overthrow Assad).
What this news piece means, in other words, is that the US is going to try and institute a total blockade of any rebel weaponry going into north or south Syria. This essentially means a return to the US policy before the CIA program (i.e. 2011-late 2013), which consisted of "unofficially" (i.e. not through the MOC or MOM) seizing even light weaponry shipments - this CIA policing policy at the time was described as "choking" the Syrian rebel supply [4].
In combination with what appears to be Turkey's selling out of the rebellion, this is essentially merely a "publicisation" of the undeclared US-Russian-Turkish arrangement aimed at ending the armed resistance to Assad which had which begun with the fall of Aleppo (when the US actually bombed rebel areas of the city during the siege, with US officials even justifying the Russian bombardment - whilst Turkey blocked arms supplies going in during the siege [5]). Supporters of Turkey need understand that whilst Turkey did indeed want to empower the rebels militarily to overthrow Assad (unlike Jordan), it has never been brave enough to cross the US red-lines which were explicitly against this policy [6].
2) The capture of Mosul by the Iraqi government
Warning to Syrian groups: With the capture of Mosul it is very likely that you will find the Iraqi government reshifting its full efforts to helping Assad in Syria. Of course, there are already about a dozen or so core Iraqi PMU groups which are part of the Iraqi Military (not Army, which is a noteworthy distincion) and and are salaried by the central government, but have not had so-called official "permission" to fight there by the Prime Minister Abadi (although obviously the permission is very much present by the fact that they're paid and armed by the government) who have been fighting in Syria for a long time. A few weeks ago I read that one of the PMU groups (who hadn't yet intervened in Syria) "asked Abadi" for permission to do so. As so many others have already done so without waiting for "official permission", the fact that this group has "asked" raises the notion that the Iraqi government might "officially" adopt intervention in Syria. As a result you might very well have much more PMU units (and one should know that there are a lot more of those with tens of thousands of more fighters than the ones already in Syria) who've been tied down in Iraq against ISIS coming to fight in Syria - and these units would likely be backed much more directly by the central government, security forces and Army (i.e. even if the regular Army divisions don't actively cross the border into Syria, they will likely provide the PMUs with other forms of support, intelligence, etc.).
With Trump's policy direction of the effective declaration that the US will seek to block any external weapons supplies to the rebels, it seems very likely that there won't be any pretense of US opposition to the central government's "official" acceptance of intervention in Syria. Of course this "official" distinction is largely irrelevant as the Iraqi PMUs are very much backed by the Iraqi government in their Syrian invasion, but the point is that the abandonment of the official pretense will likely be accompanied with a far-escalated and directed support to Assad coming from Iraq.
Footnotes:
[1]
https://www.alaraby.co.uk/…/anti-air...iles-could-be…
http://web.archive.org/…/12/cia-syri...n_3912583.html
[2]
https://eaworldview.com/…/syria-spec...-saudi-confl…/
http://www.nytimes.com/…/citing-us-f...limit-aid-to-…
http://syrianobserver.com/…/The_U_S_...g_Syrian_Oppo…
https://www.pri.org/…/why-are-us-mad...k-missiles-sh…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…/russ...ention-in-s_b…
[3]
http://syrianobserver.com/…/The_U_S_...g_Syrian_Oppo…
[4]
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/…/cia-cho...-weapon-suppl…
http://web.archive.org/…/report-cia-...s-groups-eff…/
http://www.upi.com/…/CIA-allegedly-o...3401344880820/
[5]
https://www.facebook.com/SyriaSolida...32620766438901
https://www.facebook.com/SyriaSolida...33937461307236
http://uk.businessinsider.com/defens...nt-nusra-alep…
[6]
http://foreignpolicy.com/…/state-dep...re-never-goi…/
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