Syrian Crisis...2013

An excerpt from a New York Times report on the incident, however read the highlighted text:

Rebel activists in Syria asserted on Monday that a Syrian warplane had been shot down. Rebel groups quoted by the Anatolian News Agency said that rebel fighters had shot down a Syrian Air Force MIG-21. It was not possible to determine whether the rebels and Turkish officials were referring to separate episodes.

Videos posted by rebel activists showed images of a fireball in the sky and what appeared to be someone with a parachute drifting toward the ground. One rebel fighter said he saw members of a jihadist brigade capture and behead a crew member.

The fighter provided an image purporting to show the severed head of the slain Syrian airman, but neither his account nor the picture’s authenticity could be independently confirmed.

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Am seriously wondering if these Syrian Rebels are human... You just capture an airman and behead him? If I was a syrian citizen I would have nightmares thinking about what would happen if they were to take over...

kalel17 said:

An excerpt from a New York Times report on the incident, however read the highlighted text:

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Am seriously wondering if these Syrian Rebels are human... You just capture an airman and behead him? If I was a syrian citizen I would have nightmares thinking about what would happen if they were to take over...

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From a purely tactical standpoint, beheading prisoners is counter productive and downright stupid as who is going to surrender never mind defect to such people? So you have every government soldier fighting tooth and nail to the death rather than just throw in the towl when things start to go south.

Remember the mass defections and desertions reported at the very start of the Syrian conflict? No more such reports now, if anything, the reverse of desertions is happening with armed civilians joining the fight on the government's side since the extremists have taken over and the killings started turning sectarian.

I don't think its a coincidence or accident that Assad's fortunes on the battlefield started turning around the same time as the extremists started posting their gruesome home videos on YouTube and started sectarian killings. Those things have done far more for Assad's war effect that Iranian 'advisors' and munitions or Russian and Chinese diplomatic cover ever could, because its soldiers that win wars, and the extremists just gave all of Assad's soldiers two very good reasons to fight and win, because if they loose, not only are their own lives forfeit, chances are so are the lives of their family and friends.

plawolf said:

From a purely tactical standpoint, beheading prisoners is counter productive and downright stupid as who is going to surrender never mind defect to such people? So you have every government soldier fighting tooth and nail to the death rather than just throw in the towl when things start to go south.

Remember the mass defections and desertions reported at the very start of the Syrian conflict? No more such reports now, if anything, the reverse of desertions is happening with armed civilians joining the fight on the government's side since the extremists have taken over and the killings started turning sectarian.

I don't think its a coincidence or accident that Assad's fortunes on the battlefield started turning around the same time as the extremists started posting their gruesome home videos on YouTube and started sectarian killings. Those things have done far more for Assad's war effect that Iranian 'advisors' and munitions or Russian and Chinese diplomatic cover ever could, because its soldiers that win wars, and the extremists just gave all of Assad's soldiers two very good reasons to fight and win, because if they loose, not only are their own lives forfeit, chances are so are the lives of their family and friends.

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Its a hallmark of Al Qaeda linked groups, I have watched several videos and they never seem to fight with much skill, they seem to lack basic common sense(like this guy running behind his friend who is about to fire an RPG and gets knocked out). Their thinking is off and that makes them very dangerous in a lot of ways; they see themselves as objects being controlled by a greater being, which means fear and normal thoughts are out of their heads.

If they studied previous wars including world war 2 and Germany's mass deportation of Ukrainians they would know that treating POWs and individuals in captured territory badly will lead to them losing support.

plawolf said:

From a purely tactical standpoint, beheading prisoners is counter productive and downright stupid as who is going to surrender never mind defect to such people? So you have every government soldier fighting tooth and nail to the death rather than just throw in the towl when things start to go south.

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Actually no . Beheading pilots is a effective way to force them (trough fear) to fly at higher altitudes and risk less when delivering their mostly unguided weapons . By now SAF is mostly Shia and none of them would defect to Sunni rebels anyway .

plawolf said:

Remember the mass defections and desertions reported at the very start of the Syrian conflict? No more such reports now, if anything, the reverse of desertions is happening with armed civilians joining the fight on the government's side since the extremists have taken over and the killings started turning sectarian.

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At the beginning of the war there were lots of Sunnis in Syrian Army (not on high places , but in rank and file ) , but not any more .

plawolf said:

I don't think its a coincidence or accident that Assad's fortunes on the battlefield started turning around the same time as the extremists started posting their gruesome home videos on YouTube and started sectarian killings. Those things have done far more for Assad's war effect that Iranian 'advisors' and munitions or Russian and Chinese diplomatic cover ever could, because its soldiers that win wars, and the extremists just gave all of Assad's soldiers two very good reasons to fight and win, because if they loose, not only are their own lives forfeit, chances are so are the lives of their family and friends.

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Front lines are pretty much stagnant for more then a year , with both sides making small gains occasionally . After initial shock Assad managed to reorganize his army on sectarian level , and so did the rebels . Lines are clearly drawn and any hope of uniting Syria as before the war is lost . One thing remains and that is to see how much territory would each side get .

Miss California on Syria

[video=youtube;6jdv_zBEIN4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jdv_zBEIN4[/video]

thunderchief said:

Actually no . Beheading pilots is a effective way to force them (trough fear) to fly at higher altitudes and risk less when delivering their mostly unguided weapons . By now SAF is mostly Shia and none of them would defect to Sunni rebels anyway .

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And you think these 'rebels' thought that deeply? Like seriously I see these men shooting at fighter jets with AK47s, do you really think they sit and consider all that?

At the beginning of the war there were lots of Sunnis in Syrian Army (not on high places , but in rank and file ) , but not any more .

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Dont make me laugh, if all or most of the Sunnis have defected Assad would have lost the war already. How many Syrian rebels are there? Estimate put them at about 200k, how much Alawi and Shia make up the Syrian population? Less than 10 percent. How much soldiers can you pull from a population of less than 2 million? I live in Jamaica, we have a standing army of 4.5k supported by 2.5k reserves and a police force of 12.7k. Total armed in a population of 2.75 million is 19.7k, at most we can pull 40k together if there was ever an all out war. There is no way Assad could be turning the tides right now if it hasnt been for the majority Sunni men in the army. The NDF or National Defence Force alone is comprised of 50k individuals, like seriously, with a loss exceeding 40k personnel killed since the start of the conflict, there is no way for the Syrian Army to muster that much in an IRREGULAR force from just the Alawite population.

What is the verdict then? The verdict is that the vast majority of the Syrian Army fighting the rebels today is composed of Sunni men and women, not Alawi and Shia.

Front lines are pretty much stagnant for more then a year , with both sides making small gains occasionally . After initial shock Assad managed to reorganize his army on sectarian level , and so did the rebels . Lines are clearly drawn and any hope of uniting Syria as before the war is lost . One thing remains and that is to see how much territory would each side get .

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Again you are making no sense, the vast majority of the Syrian people support Assad, what is the largest sect in Syria? Yes the Sunni, thus most Sunnis support Assad. He would have been dead already if the war was drawn on sectarian lines. The lines of the battlefield have not remained static for more than a year, Raqqa fell this year and huge sections of the northern portion of the country is held by Rebels. Meanwhile in Damascus and Homs most of the rebel held areas are being slowly chipped away by the Syrian Army. The loss of Khaldiyeh a few months ago pretty much seals the rebels' fate in Homes, dozens of rebel villages were overrun in the process. only small areas in Homs remain under rebel control. Want to know the size of Homs province? It's capital, Homs city is the third largest City in Syria. Capturing 90% of such a province is no small gain.

On this page there is a link to an alleged image of the beheaded Syrian pilot that was shot down by Turkish Airforce..

Dont think I can post it here so here is the link(caution graphic image):

kalel17 said:

An excerpt from a New York Times report on the incident, however read the highlighted text:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Am seriously wondering if these Syrian Rebels are human... You just capture an airman and behead him? If I was a syrian citizen I would have nightmares thinking about what would happen if they were to take over...

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Not surprised. They also beheaded a 5 year old girl. It's in a thread over at cjdby (graphic). But you'll never hear this from the likes of BBC or it will be attributed to Assad's forces.

thunderchief said:

Actually no . Beheading pilots is a effective way to force them (trough fear) to fly at higher altitudes and risk less when delivering their mostly unguided weapons . By now SAF is mostly Shia and none of them would defect to Sunni rebels anyway .

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That's the juiciest piece of Bravo Sierra I've read today. Do you really think pilots are the only people they behead? How about civilians? Old men? Are they forced to "fly higher" as well? Like Kalel said, these are the kind of people who tried to down a 747 by firing light machine guns at it; these are not people who plan out missions. They behead them and broadcast it on video as a potential deterrent to prevent people from joining the SAA. But it seems that, similar to how Hitler's bombing of London led to British furor, this tactic is counterproductive to the FSA's goals and is driving ordinary people to support the SAA because they have no choice. And no, flying higher is not a solution since the FSA would behead them on the ground given the chance.

thunderchief said:

At the beginning of the war there were lots of Sunnis in Syrian Army (not on high places , but in rank and file ) , but not any more .

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False. Watch any analysis on Syria and you'll see otherwise.

thunderchief said:

Front lines are pretty much stagnant for more then a year , with both sides making small gains occasionally . After initial shock Assad managed to reorganize his army on sectarian level , and so did the rebels . Lines are clearly drawn and any hope of uniting Syria as before the war is lost . One thing remains and that is to see how much territory would each side get .

Click to expand...

A lot of news on Syria is simply not published in Western media; the blackout is similar to what happened in Japan during WWII, where the broadcasts on the "victories" turned out to be false. Even then, there are numerous reports of major cities (not just tiny suburbs, but districts of Homs, etc) that have been captured by the SAA. If the rebels were not desperate then they would not have pushed for UN intervention in response to that fallacious chem weapons claim, would they? If the rebels were winning there would be no need for them to scream for help in forms of weaponry from neighboring nations, would they? The rebels are not only losing men, they are losing what is required for any organization to take occupation of a particular area: acceptance by the locals. But again, no Western media outlet would tell you that except for a select few.

no_name said:

Not surprised. They also beheaded a 5 year old girl. It's in a thread over at cjdby (graphic). But you'll never hear this from the likes of BBC or it will be attributed to Assad's forces.

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Please provide a link to the thread, thanks in advance