Syrian War: News #16

PapaDragon wrote:'
Drone attacks, armoured vehicles, political noise in media and all that crap are just usual distraction to take away steam from SAA offensive

It can all be sorted out later, what matters now is that offensive keeps going and that massive amounts of territory are retaken

Everything else is white noise just like those Israeli airstkes during previous offensives, ignore the background noise and focus on achieving objectives

These random irelevant details pale in comparison to retaking entire province

Losing Abu Duhur air base means Idlib will fall one day very soon (before 2020).

Saraqib and Jisr Sukoor are the keys to ending the insurgency in the north. The revolution brand will end once those two towns fall, followed by Idlib city itself (which is mostly empty or inhabited by foreign settlers).

A better overall map than the last I posted plus some comment from MoA.



Moon of Alabama
‏ @MoonofA
20h20 hours ago

New on MoA:
Syria - Erdogan (Again) Switches Sides - Delivers New Supplies For Terrorist Attacks
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/01/syria-erdogan-again-switches-sides-delivers-new-supplies-for-terrorist-attacks.html …

Also, on claimed Turkish activity.


Ömer Özkizilcik
‏ @OmerOzkizilcik
3h3 hours ago

#Turkish army started to deploy to #Anadan and #Hraytan in western #Aleppo.

#Assad forces started artillery fire on #Turkish units. Reports claim one #Turkish soldier lightly wounded

Following previous comments above


Gerards
‏ @GerardsScw
Jan 11

Faylaq al Sham operates Panthera F9's made by UAE based company Minerva Special Purpose Vehicles during counter attack against Syrian regime advances in South east Idlib. Likely Turkish supplied. This is the first time they were used during a rebel attack in Syria.


Meanwhile in the East


Ben Watson
‏Verified account @natsecwatson
24h24 hours ago

FWIW, State's David Satterfield says 2,000 US troops and 10 diplomats are in NE Syria holding down some of Washington's most successful post-ISIS stabilization operations. (map via @Liveuamap)
https://www.foreign.senate.gov/hearings/us-policy-in-syria-post-isis-011118 …

Many people may think here that there are some issues regarding trust between Turkey & Russia. Which is, somewhat correct. But as a follower of Turkish political environment, I can surely say that Russian/Turkish cooperation against American imperialism is seen crucial in Turkish politics. However, there are problems in this cooperation.

Surely, it could be claimed that since Turkey is a NATO country, it would follow and support US policies over possible Russo-Persian expansion in Middle East. However, this is highly unlikely after 15 July Coup attempt which was orchestrated by an US supported faction. So, Russo-Persian clique in Middle East is a key for Turkey to balance possible American aggression in the region.

But, surely, there are concerns for Turkey in Syria. One of which is refugee crisis. Turkey is the most suffering country from Syrian refugee flux. And the latest offensive seems to trigger thousands and probably even millions of refugees to move Turkey. Turkey is a host for 3+ millions of refugees and this is very problematic. And Idlib offensive can not be initiated without a proper preparation for a buffer zone. However, before Sochi negotiations, Russia wanted to gain a little more for regime side and let this operation start. That is why Turkey clearly supported whoever opposing regime in that region. There are vehicles supported even Turkish army does not have any.

So, being apart from personal opinions, I can say that this cooperation is not superficial and important for both countries. But such movements may damage both countries.

I think Syrian problem will be solved by an agreed common ground between Russia/Iran and Turkey hence keeping US out of the equation. Anybody here thinking US is negotiateable for a stable and peaceful Syria is clearly in a deception.

By the way, Turkish army movement was as planned back in Astana. A buffer zone stretching from northern Latakia frontline to Western Aleppo countryside, excluding Idlib city center.

However, this buffer zone was not established by Turkish army yet and even regime wanted to declare this movement as an occupation. And then started an offensive through Idlib. This can easily drive civilians in the region to a chaotic replacement from their current settlements. This is not desirable.

calm wrote:Current Situation after huge advances by the Syrian Arab Army. The newly created pocket is very likely empty but the Syrian Arab Army didn't enter every village yet.

I can see how SAA has improved since those silly spearhead advances like in Zakia crossroads back in June 2016. We see much more complex advances from multiple fronts and axes. FSA is getting encircled by pincer movements and assaults from locations they never expect.

Brilliant stuff.

Turkey condemns US’ YPG army plan in Syria

Turkey has strongly reacted against the United States decision to build a new force with the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in order to secure Turkish and Iraqi borders with Syria.

The Foreign Ministry slammed media reports that the U.S.-led international coalition against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) would establish a 30,000-strong new border security force with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)—the U.S.-backed group that is largely controlled and manned by the People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Syria.

The Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Jan. 14 saying Turkey had reiterated on numerous occasions that it was “wrong and objectionable” to cooperate with the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) “terrorist organization” on the ground in Syria in order to fight ISIL and stabilize the areas liberated from it.

Turkey condemns US’ YPG army plan in Syria

The soviets knew all about Hitler . Yet they partitioned Poland . A deal with the devil . Appeasement and perhaps peace of some sort . Is history repeating in Syria ? Partition Syria . A deal with the devil . They know full well about Trump . His racist ideology is not an imaginary construct of liberal media . And it is all about national interest right ? The same narrow national interest that led them into partition of Poland ? It is not about narrow national interest . It is about what we stand for in life .

Turkey and Iran and Syria and Iraq and Russia ( taking the back seat for now , if they like ) should now confront the new threat in the region . The Kurdish / yank / zionist plot to partition Syria . If they all act together , then the yanks become isolated . Not able to fight on five fronts . Start with a small operation and take joint credit for it . Wait and see them in retreat and humiliation .

nomadski wrote:The soviets knew all about Hitler . Yet they partitioned Poland . A deal with the devil ....

After everyone and their grandma already made deal with Devil. Soviets were years behind everyone else in making that deal.

nomadski wrote:.....They know full well about Trump . His racist ideology is not an imaginary construct of liberal media....

Meh, still better than Hilarry

nomadski wrote:...And it is all about national interest right ? The same narrow national interest that led them into partition of Poland ? It is not about narrow  national interest....

Original Soviet plan was to cooperate with UK and France to take out Hitler's Germany preemptively.

France was down for it but UK put the kibosh on it because, you guessed it, Poland objected to it.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/3223834/Stalin-planned-to-send-a-million-troops-to-stop-Hitler-if-Britain-and-France-agreed-pact.html

nomadski wrote:....It is about what we stand for in life....

As someone who has seen geopolitics play out from relative proximity I can tell you that only thing worth standing for is yourself and your national interest.

USSR stood for things. Look where that got them.

nomadski wrote:...Turkey and Iran and Syria and Iraq and Russia ( taking the back seat for now , if they like ) should now confront the new threat in the region . The Kurdish / yank / zionist plot to partition Syria . If they all act together .............

This is Middle East. If they could do anything together there wouldn't be any of this mess at all.

This is brilliant if it turns out to be true big backfire for Usa lol. Let's hope the rest of the city and Syrias largest oilfield goes the same way.

Breaking: Arab fighters of US-backed forces raise picture of Syrian President al-Assad in Raqqa city (VIDEO)

https://mobile.almasdarnews.com/article/breaking-arab-fighters-us-backed-forces-raise-pictures-syrian-president-al-assad-raqqa-city-video/

nomadski wrote:The soviets knew all about Hitler . Yet they partitioned Poland . A deal with the devil . Appeasement and perhaps peace of some sort .

Good lord... Historical ignorance of the epic variety...

The German invasion of Poland in 1939 was solely due to the desire to reunite with the lost territories in the East taken from Germany by the absurd Verseilles treaty, and to deal with an aggressive Poland which had been run by a military dictatorship since Pilsudski's coup in 1926 (the regime had INVADED Ukraine & Russia between 1919-21 to take advantage of Russian weakness after the Civil War, and remained in occupation of significant Soviet territory until the Nazi invasion). Russia originally sought to counter Nazi power with a military alliance with France and UK, but they declined, and Chamberlain instead went to Munich. Given the inevitablity of Germany retaking her eastern territories, Stalin had no choice but to conclude a deal. The USSR would avoid war with Germany (for a time) and would recover her lost Western territories, and neutralise the Polish threat at the same time.

Of course, in the all-knowing all-seeing exceptional West, we like to ignore the complexities of inter-war European power politics and promote the simplistic "Stalin allied with Hitler" narrative. The vast majority of our population are utterly devoid of any historical knowledge, so they suck up the lies like a parched sponge absorbs water....

Big_Gazza wrote:

nomadski wrote:The soviets knew all about Hitler . Yet they partitioned Poland . A deal with the devil . Appeasement and perhaps peace of some sort .

Good lord...  Historical ignorance of the epic variety...

The German invasion of Poland in 1939 was solely due to the desire to reunite with the lost territories in the East taken from Germany by the absurd Verseilles treaty, and to deal with an aggressive Poland which had been run by a military dictatorship since Pilsudski's coup in 1926 (the regime had INVADED Ukraine & Russia between 1919-21 to take advantage of Russian weakness after the Civil War, and remained in occupation of significant Soviet territory until the Nazi invasion).  Russia originally sought to counter Nazi power with a military alliance with France and UK, but they declined, and Chamberlain instead went to Munich.  Given the inevitablity of Germany retaking her eastern territories, Stalin had no choice but to conclude a deal.  The USSR would avoid war with Germany (for a time) and would recover her lost Western territories, and neutralise the Polish threat at the same time.

Of course, in the all-knowing all-seeing exceptional West, we like to ignore the complexities of inter-war European power politics and promote the simplistic "Stalin allied with Hitler" narrative.  The vast majority of our population are utterly devoid of any historical knowledge, so they suck up the lies like a parched sponge absorbs water....

Poland also invaded Czechoslovakia together with Hitler!

Poland took advantage of the German invasion of her neighbours and took territory too.

When Germany approached the Soviets regarding Poland the Soviets made offers to Britain and Poland and both refused the offer.

The Soviets then had two options... one is do nothing and Germany would take all of Poland and be that much closer to Moscow, or sign an agreement with Germany and get half of Poland... they chose the obvious option.

Amusing that some people also point to the Soviets holding back during the Warsaw uprising... that was no different from the western allies not starting D Day until 1944... and for the same reasons.

GarryB wrote:...............
Amusing that some people also point to the Soviets holding back during the Warsaw uprising... that was no different from the western allies not starting D Day until 1944... and for the same reasons.

I would also like to point out one detail about Warsaw.

Red Army reached Warsaw (Vistula river to be more precise, city was bonus) after completend massive offensive where they covered huge amount of territory and were exhausted and dangerously overstretched. They were literally using amphetamines (legal and sold freely worldwide at a time) just to stay awake.

Their logistics train needed months just to catch up.

Had Germans managed to muster counteroffensive it could have been a disaster.

Warsaw rebellion, instead of doing logical thing and coordinating with Red Army that was right next door, listened to Churchill who was all the way in UK (and who already screwed Poland once before) and do most reckless and obviously disastrous thing possible.

Any Red Army grunt from across to river would have told them to just lay low and wait for several weeks until shit is sorted out on their end (if it weren't obvious enough already)

To say nothing of Polish government in exile that was playing petty geopolitics with lives of their own citizens from comfort of their London hotel. They had to be fully aware of the fact that Uncle Joe was in no mood for their bullshittery and that he was not above cutting people loose (Poles are always first to point this out so no way they could have played ''we didn't know'' card)

They decided to gamble with lives of their own people. And for what? What would they even accomplish? They would get to control several offices in Warsaw while Red Army would still control entire Polish territory. Different details, identical outcome.

Red Army had to stop and reorganize, it was not optional. Churchill was just playing geopolitics as did Stalin once Churchill made his move. It costed both nothing. Insurgents were caught in the middle.

Real guilty party here is Polish government in exile. Their job was to look after Polish people and instead they threw them under the bus over impossible gamble. They are culprits. Not Stalin and most definitely not Red Army. To imply latter is downright insulting.

US Tillerson troops to stay in Syria to counter Iran تیلرسون ماندن در سوریه برای مقابله با ایران

No confirmation from anywhere else yet. No nothing about the site but clearly Kurdish supporting and worried that they could well be on their own with no US support (wrong Kurdish tribe).

Note that Turkey is also shelling the YPG near Kobane as well, definitely a SDF/US area.

After much posturing at a potential invasion of the Syrian city of Afrin, currently held by Kurdish fighters from the YPG force the Russian units stationed there are to withdraw. This came within hours of a high level meeting between Turkish military and intelligence commanders and their Russian counterparts. The topics discussed were focused on Afrin and the future of the Syrian civil war.

This is a shocking blow to the Kurdish YPG forces which have used the Russian troops stationed in Afrin as a mechanism to increase the political cost of a Turkish invasion of the city.

However agreements between Turkey and Russia may prove to negate that defense and push the YPG towards a defense of the city military. Due to the low altitude hills and relatively large valley towards the city the military advantage lies heavily on the Turkish military and the YPG is unlikely to hold the city after invasion. However YPG forces from other parts of the Syrian-Turkish border have indicated they are willing to go to war in Turkey should an invasion of Afrin occur.

https://al-sura.com/russian-troops-in-kurdish-held-afrin-withdraw-hours-after-talks-with-turkish-military/

I think it's because the Russians are pissed off with the Kurds blatant romance with US and separating parts of Syria, where Russia just said screw them and let the Turks have a go

Just my view.

As any mindful body can see, these traitorous Kurds use whoever saves their arses from their enemies. When things go south, they turn their back...

Kurds are not real actors, they are just being used by sides to have extra advantage over deals. Russian and Turkish deal also has kinda same characteristics. Russians just used Kurds to decrease further support for rebels from Turkey. And also they knew that, for Turkey, eliminating seperatist Kurdish threat from Turkish border is more important than having some rebels holding some Syrian territory. After this issue, there will be only one enemy left, US and its so called SDF.

From that point on, Turkey will have ensured that seperatist Kurds will never go for Mediterrenean Sea, and also have acknowledged that Russia/Iran backed regime did not fall (general atmosphere in media is that "heck we wanted Asad to fall, but now we have a bigger evil, so let us ignore this and focus on the common enemy" kind of thing) so leaving only US policy as problematic. As for Russia, minimized and controlled "green" threat will become a problem which can be solved politically (with the help of Turkey) so leaving US as the sole bandit, and as for Iran, US pressure is growing deadly, so making friends will become a necessity.

Everyday, Russia/Iran/Turkey bloc, even if they do not agree on things completely, is getting more and more effective, or let us say needs to be more effective as aggressive US policy continues. My guess is that final draft of this bloc's agreement would be like;

-Russia/Iran will no longer intervene in Turkish-YPG confrontation, instead, an alternative Kurdish representation will be established (which is present, and called as ENKS, but oppressed by traitorous Kurds)

-Turkey will immediately establish checkpoints and let Russia/Iran monitor each and every movement across deescalation zones/borders.

-After all necessary and agreed operations, all airstrikes and operations will be ceased, except for ISIS and any rebel organization West to Euphrates does not comply this agreement.

-Once military actions completed west to Euphrates, political transformation will start and a proper transitional government will be embodied.

-And Yankees will go home.

These predictions always failed.

The people talks like if Turkey would not be a NATO country with US nuclear weapons looking at Russia.

eehnie wrote:
These predictions always failed.

The people talks like if Turkey would not be a NATO country with US nuclear weapons looking at Russia.

Hmm. Ok. I will tell this to Mr.Lavrov and ask how the hell they reached an agreement with such a country! They must be fools!

eehnie wrote:
These predictions always failed.

The people talks like if Turkey would not be a NATO country with US nuclear weapons looking at Russia.

Think of it as the first serious crack in the organisation....in any case, I don't think Trump really cares much about Nato

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