Syrian Crisis...2013

kalel17 said:

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?

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kalel17 said:

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?

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kalel17 said:

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.

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kalel17 said:

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.

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SinoSoldier said:

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?

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SinoSoldier said:

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.

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thunderchief said:

Al Qaeda has leadership . On the other hand , it could be spontaneous but end effect is the same .

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These rebels, according to Szoldra, appear to be using an app to level the tube because they don't have sights on the mortars to help level it out and aim at a target.

Here's Paul's analysis of the operation:

The baseplate is way too sunk in (which means they've been firing from that position for at least a while ... every round it goes lower.) You can see the bipod in front how far forward it is.

The other thing is the elevation of the tube. It's almost straight up. Either they are trying to kill themselves and fire a round that will land right back on top of them, or where they are shooting is extremely close to them.

Paul added that even with the iPad, the lack of sights means it looks like "they are simply dropping a round and praying."



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According to Wiki , 74% are Sunni , 16% other Muslims , 10% Christians . In Bosnian Civil War , Bosnian Muslims fielded around 500 000 combatants from 1.9+ million population , and Bosnian Serbs around 300 000 from less then 1.4 million .



Wrong . If majority of both Shias , Sunnis and Christians support Assad , and considering the fact that he has superior fire power , he would have won long time ago .

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kalel17 said:

End effect is the same? These are the great tactical rebels at work:

That is an article of rebels using an ipad to aim a mortar, look at the analysis by the military expert. These men are almost incapable of basic strategy and decision making.

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kalel17 said:

Do you know that the majority of the shia population are from the upper and upper middle class? How much of these people would fight in the war when they can just get up and leave?

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kalel17 said:

I can apply your same logic in Iraq: In that country there is a majority Shia population with all the weapons at the disposal of the government, yet large areas are controlled by Jihadist militia and there is still a low key civil war going on there. The majority population supports the IRaqi government, but they can still do nothing to stop Al Qaeda groups from rampaging all over.

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SinoSoldier said:

Please provide a link to the thread, thanks in advance

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Israel, eying Iran, comes off Syria fence
By Victor Kotsev

That Israel has chosen to publicly come out against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad just when he and his Russian and Iranian allies seemed to have scored a major victory suggests that there is a lot more to the drama than meets the eye.

Whether a new grand initiative, perhaps on Iran, is in the making, or the Syrian crisis is nearing another major unexpected twist, is hard to tell, but the recent interview of the Israeli Ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, in the Jerusalem Post brought up both of these possibilities.

"We always wanted Bashar [al-]Assad to go, we always preferred the bad guys who weren't backed by Iran to the bad guys who were backed by Iran," Oren told the Post.

There are several odd things in this statement: it came after many months of silence from the Israeli government, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reprimanding on occasion ministers who would break rank and speak out against Assad. It came from a diplomat rather than a politician - albeit a diplomat who is believed to be very close to the prime minister. And most importantly, it came at a time when Assad is widely perceived to be making progress in the bloody civil war.

That the Russian-American agreement preventing a US military attack in exchange for a somewhat unrealistic commitment from Syria to give up its chemical weapons has bolstered Assad in the short term is evident from the fact that the Syrian army resumed with full force its conventional offensive against rebel positions near Damascus the moment the threat of Tomahawk missiles flying in had dissipated.

Amid a heavy fog of war, some versions of the story go as far as to claim that a military operation had been nipped in the bud by the Syrians and the Russians. Various unconfirmed speculations suggest that cruise missiles or even American aircraft had been shot down near Syria's borders, while more credible reports claim that a significant foreign-sponsored rebel offensive launched from Jordan turned into a disaster and was beaten back with heavy losses.

"This was a well-trained and equipped force meant to eventually reach Damascus and overthrow the regime," a Western diplomatic source told the World Tribune earlier this month (bits and pieces about the rebel debacle came out in regional media as well).

"Instead, the rebels crossed the Jordanian border and within hours were on the run." [1]

In other words, all of a sudden Israel appeared to throw its weight behind the losing side in the Syrian civil war. On the other hand, I have written previously in these pages (see Syria attack stuck in fog-shrouded limbo , Asia Times Online, September 11, 2013) that the US-Russian agreement could increase the chance of a Western military intervention in Syria down the road, and the Israeli government usually has advance notice on such developments.

Alternatively, there are some indications of a grand bargain shaping up between the US and Iran, and Israel may be trying to present itself as a victim of American timidity in Syria in order to force the hand of US President Barack Obama to come down harder on the Islamic Republic. Reports that the new Iranian president, Hassan Rohani, may be willing to shut down the heavily fortified uranium enrichment site at Fordow [2] back this hypothesis.

In fact, the prevailing wisdom among analysts is that the Syrian civil war and the Iranian nuclear program would be closely linked in any US-Iranian negotiations. Israel is well aware of this linkage, and may be trying to use it to its advantage.

According to Israeli analyst Avi Shilon,
The strategic objective is ... to carry out in Iran what will happen in Syria. Because it's clear to everyone that Iran's nuclear program, like the chemical weapons in Syria, cannot be destroyed completely in a military attack. The disarmament agreement in Syria produces a result more effective than any bomb - even if it is not implemented in its entirety. Netanyahu is now at the peak of implementing his strategy - precisely because of the reasons that ostensibly prove that it is weakening. [3]
There are certainly significant risks for both Israelis and Americans in this strategy, not least because Iran may choose to heat the situation in Syria up in order to drive a harder bargain over its nuclear program.

It doesn't help that, according to some analysts such as the US-based firm Stratfor, a US military intervention in Syria (likely to turn into another quagmire) may in fact serve Iran's longer-term interests:
Unlike Syria's Arab neighbors, which want stability in the region, Iran welcomes disruption. It is reasonably secure internally, and it knows its spheres of influence may weaken but ultimately will not dissolve. Strategists also believe that having lived under sanctions for decades, Iran has grown accustomed to suffering. So while chaos in Syria would threaten inherently weak Arab states, it would not affect Iran quite as much. Tehran could then exploit Arab chaos to its advantage. [4]
But for now, amid continued bickering at the United Nations Security Council about who is responsible for the use of chemical weapons in Syria and what threats to include in the upcoming resolution addressing the crisis, diplomacy is the order of the day.

The long-expected report by the UN chemical weapons experts, which was finally released on Monday, confirmed that sarin had been used in the August 21 attack on Damascus suburbs, but omitted a few important details, and included a few important disclaimers. It did not, for example, explicitly blame the government for the gas attack.

Dr David Caldicott, a senior lecturer at the Australian National University, confirmed that some of the substances that the scientists stated they found on the scene, such as sarin itself and "the main breakdown product of sarin", isopropyl methylphosphonic acid, proved beyond reasonable doubt that sarin had indeed been used.

"What I'm not seeing is any explicit technical description of what biological analyses were performed...," he said in an email. "The report has also been very careful not to attribute origin - I've seen no commentary on the Cyrillic lettering found on one of the shells...!"

The fine print of the methodology descriptions also raises some eyebrows. What comes out is that the inspectors were under tremendous time pressure and had to rely on the rebels for interview subjects and access to sites. "During the time spent at these locations, individuals arrived carrying other suspected munitions indicating that such potential evidence is being moved and possibly manipulated," the report clearly states.

Thus, the debate between Russia and France about whether the sarin used in Syria is of higher quality than the gas Saddam Hussein used indiscriminately against civilians some 30 years ago, and whether the missile design suggested that that the projectiles were homemade, is likely to drag on.

Surprises, either on the military field or in the secret fields of diplomacy, are possible and even likely. But regardless, the only thing that seems all but guaranteed to remain constant is the bloodletting, which has killed more than 110,000 people in two and a half years and has left millions wounded, traumatized or driven from their homes.

Notes:
1. Syrian Army crushes US.-backed rebel assault from Jordan , World Tribune, September 3, 2013.
2. Intelligence Sources: Rohani Prepared to Shut Down Nuclear Site , Der Spiegel, September 16, 2013.
3. Netanyahu's deceptive tactics obscure strategic success, Ha'aretz, September 18, 2013.
4. Iran: Managing US. Military Action in Syria, Stratfor, September 4, 2013.


Victor Kotsev is a journalist and political analyst.

(Copyright 2013 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

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That the Russian-American agreement preventing a US military attack in exchange for a somewhat unrealistic commitment from Syria to give up its chemical weapons has bolstered Assad in the short term is evident from the fact that the Syrian army resumed with full force its conventional offensive against rebel positions near Damascus the moment the threat of Tomahawk missiles flying in had dissipated.

Amid a heavy fog of war, some versions of the story go as far as to claim that a military operation had been nipped in the bud by the Syrians and the Russians. Various unconfirmed speculations suggest that cruise missiles or even American aircraft had been shot down near Syria's borders, while more credible reports claim that a significant foreign-sponsored rebel offensive launched from Jordan turned into a disaster and was beaten back with heavy losses.

"This was a well-trained and equipped force meant to eventually reach Damascus and overthrow the regime," a Western diplomatic source told the World Tribune earlier this month (bits and pieces about the rebel debacle came out in regional media as well).

"Instead, the rebels crossed the Jordanian border and within hours were on the run." [1]

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Tuesday, September 3rd, 2013 | Posted by WorldTribune.com
Syrian Army crushes U.S.-backed rebel assault from Jordan
Special to WorldTribune.com
LONDON — President Bashar Assad has defeated a U.S. effort to use
Jordan as a launching pad for the overthrow of his regime.
Western diplomatic sources said Assad’s military and security forces
crushed a U.S. campaign to send hundreds of trained and equipped Sunni
rebels from Jordan to regain a key city in southern city.

The sources said a force sponsored by the Western-backed Free Syrian Army failed to reach even 10 kilometers within Syria before the rebels were detected and attacked by the Syrian Army.
“This was a well-trained and equipped force meant to eventually reach Damascus and overthrow the regime,” a source said. “Instead, the rebels crossed the Jordanian border and within hours were on the run.”
The sources said the FSA force, with fighters from Egypt and Saudi Arabia, consisted of two battalion-size units, or nearly 600 fighters.
The sources said the fighters, trained by the CIA as well as Jordan’s Special Operations Force Command, were equipped with anti-tank, anti-aircraft missiles as well as night-vision systems.
Most of the equipment was said to have come from the former Yugoslavia.
Since late 2012, Jordan has served as the main venue for the U.S.-sponsored
project to train and equip Syrian rebels.
On Aug. 17, the two FSA units crossed the Jordanian border for the
nearby Syrian city of Dera, a distance of fewer than 15 kilometers. But the
sources said the FSA fighters were immediately besieged by Druse and Bedouin
militias and refused help by Al Qaida-aligned units.
“Nobody wanted them, and even those who have been fighting Assad saw
them as a threat,” another source said.
Within hours, Syrian Army units arrived and pursued FSA fighters west
toward the Golan Heights and the frontier with Israel. The sources said
discipline broke down within the FSA units and some of the fighters tried to
attack a United Nations peace-keeping force in the Golan in an attempt to
acquire human shields.
“The CIA plan was simple: To establish an FSA presence in southern Syria
that would serve as a magnet for other opposition forces to march on to
Damascus,” the second source said.
By Aug. 20, the sources said, the FSA force, which contained Western
mercenaries disguised as rebels, was routed, with elements besieged by
Syrian Army units. They said the FSA defeat ended U.S. hopes of using Jordan
for a rapid rebel advance that could decide the Syrian war in 2013.
The sources said the defeat highlighted the increasing isolation of
Washington in directing the rebel campaign in Syria. They said the U.S.
strategy drew from the revolt against Col. Moammar Gadhafi in Libya in
2011, in which NATO allies used Benghazi as a launching pad for attacks.
“The Americans have been pursuing this Benghazi strategy for more than a
year despite the fact that Syria is not Libya, Assad is certainly not
Gadhafi, and that Damascus has powerful allies that are fighting to save
the regime,” the second source said. “But the feeling among the allies is
that America is not listening.”

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