Syria - What should we do if anything?

[pulstar 55]

December 16, 2015

Syria: Stories Behind Photos of Killed Detainees

Caesar Photos’ Victims Identified

 

I wish I could say karma's a bitch, but didn't Pol Pot die in a simple shack and got cremated without paying for his crimes? I bet some thought highly of that pisspot as well.

[oxmox 73]

 

December 16, 2015

Syria: Stories Behind Photos of Killed Detainees

Caesar Photos’ Victims Identified

 

I wish I could say karma's a bitch, but didn't Pol Pot die in a simple shack and got cremated without paying for his crimes? I bet some thought highly of that pisspot as well.

 

 

The irony is that the Red Khmer got to power aswell due to meddlings from outside...

[oxmox 73]

Most Syrian rebels sympathise with Isis, says thinktank (The Guardian, Dec. 20)

More than half of the rebel fighters in Syria who are opposing President Bashar al-Assad are

sympathetic to Islamic State views, a leading thinktank has claimed.

 

The Centre on Religion and Geopolitics said efforts to wipe out Isis in Syria and Iraq would not end the global threat from jihadi groups because extremist views were common among Syrian fighters of all stripes.

 

About 60% of fighters in rebel factions in Syria identified with a religious and political ideology similar to that of the terror group, it added.

 

The thinktank, run by the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, said:

“The west risks making a strategic failure by focusing only on IS. Defeating it militarily will not end global jihadism. We cannot bomb an ideology, but our war is ideological.â€

 

It added: “If Isis is defeated, there are at least 65,000 fighters belonging to other Salafi-jihadi groups ready to take its place."

 

“The greatest danger to the international community are the groups that share the ideology of Isis, but are being ignored in the battle to defeat the group.

 

“While military efforts against Isis are necessary, policy makers must recognise that its defeat will not end the threat of Salafi-jihadism unless it is accompanied by an intellectual and theological defeat of the pernicious ideology that drives it.â€

 

 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/20/most-syrian-rebels-sympathise-with-isis-says-thinktank

[dontknowhow 33]

Interest report about Russian airstrikes. They even compare them to war crimes. Wow

 

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/12/23/middleeast/russia-airstrikes-syria-amnesty-report/

[oxmox 73]

Unbelieveable....Car is dodging Missile, fired by rebels in Syria.

 

[Tonci87 163]

Very close call....

[oxmox 73]

Russian view on Syrian Human Right Watch Organisations in Syria which is

often used as a source in the media.

 

i.e. SOHR - Syrian Observatory for Human Rights based in London/UK

 

 

Briefing - Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation

 

[ProfTournesol 956]

(Vice News) Banned Cluster Bombs Were Used in Assad's Latest Russian-Backed Offensives in Syria

[oxmox 73]

Syria: cessation of hostilities 'within a week' agreed at Munich talks (The Guardian)

 

The cessation deal explicitly excludes Islamic State and al-Nusra front, against whom military action will continue.

Some diplomats warned that the deal is merely designed to split the rebels. Peter Ford, Britain’s former ambassador in Syria said: “This agreement is going to set the cat among the pigeons among all the rebels, especially those who work hand in glove with al-Nusra ... So Russia is being quite clever.

 

Their game is to try to split the so-called moderates away from al-Nusra, so that the Syrian army, which suffers from depleted manpower, can tackle al-Nusra.â€

 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2016/feb/12/syria-ceasefire-agreed-munich-peace-talks-live

 

 

 

 

(Vice News) Banned Cluster Bombs Were Used in Assad's Latest Russian-Backed Offensives in Syria

 

 

Unfortunately, the problem is not all countries did ratified the treaty:

 

"The weapons are outlawed under a 2008 United Nations convention, but it hasn't been ratified by Russia, the United States, or Syria."

For example Saudi Arabia did not sign it aswell, using cluster bombs in Yemen.

 

But its not just about Cluster Bombs, overall civilians casualties seem to be a problem caused by air campaigns.

We see this in Syria and in other conflicts, and when is it defined as a warcrime and when is it called "collateral damage", in both ways

it is horrible for civilians and so is war.

[katipo66 94]

Russian view on Syrian Human Right Watch Organisations in Syria which is

often used as a source in the media.

 

i.e. SOHR - Syrian Observatory for Human Rights based in London/UK

 

 

Briefing - Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation

 

 

 

So all main stream western media have been quoting this Syrian Observatory for Human Rights clown for the last 5 years without verifying nothing!? how does anyone believe the shit they spew anymore!? theres no news anymore, just opinion to sway.

[oxmox 73]

Turkey shells Kurdish fighters in Aleppo province

as Bashar al-Assad's forces continue to advance on rebels (The Independent, Feb. 13)

 

Artillery fire was reported from over the Turkish border at four locations on Saturday

 

Russian planes staged at least 30 raids against rebels, Reuters reported, although it was unclear

whether the bombing was deliberately in support of the Kurds.

 

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan lashed out on the US for supporting groups including the PYD and Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) last week.

“Are you on our side or the side of the terrorist PYD and PKK organisation?†he asked, claiming the West was creating a “sea of bloodâ€.

Turkey has also said it will not permit Kurds to join peace talks, which are scheduled to re-start later this month after falling apart in January.

But John Kirby, a spokesperson for the US State Department, said America does not recognise the PYD as terrorists and support would continue.

 

Meanwhile, Assad’s forces made new gains on Saturday, capturing the village of Tamoura near Aleppo and tightening the noose around rebel-held parts of Syria’s second city.

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/turkey-shells-kurdish-fighters-in-syria-aleppo-province-as-bashar-al-assads-forces-continue-to-a6872206.html

 

 

 

 

Syria: Turkey and Saudi Arabia consider ground campaign following border strikes (The Guardian, Feb 14)

 

The Turkish military has hit Kurdish and Syrian regime targets as Ankara considered a ground assault with Saudi troops,

further complicating efforts to end the war just days after the US and Russia agreed on a "cessation of hostilities" in Syria within a week.

 

State-run news agency Anatolia said the armed forces shelled Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union (PYD) around the town of Azaz, and also responded to regime fire on a Turkish military guard post in Turkey’s southern Hatay region.

 

It said Tal Rifaat also came under attack in at least 20 Russian air strikes on Saturday.

 

With the conflict directly drawing in more international players, Turkey’s foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, quoted in Turkish newspapers, said Riyadh and Ankara were coordinating plans to intervene in Syria, where Russia has been backing a successful regime offensive against rebels.

 

Saudi Arabia and Turkey both staunchly support rebels seeking to oust Assad, and see his overthrow as essential for ending Syria’s five-year civil war that has cost more than 260,000 lives.

 

 

US secretary of state John Kerry complained that the vast majority of Russia’s attacks in Syria were against “legitimate opposition groups†rather than Isis jihadists.

 

 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/14/turkey-and-saudi-arabia-consider-ground-campaign-in-syria-following-border-strikes

[oxmox 73]

RAF Brimstone Missile Has Not Killed Any Isis Militants In Syria, And Only Seven Hit By UK Bombs (Huffingtonpost)

 

The MoD explained in the response to the FOI: "Since December 2015 UK military air activity has contributed to the Coalition’s aim

of disrupting and degrading Daesh military infrastructure, logistics and revenue streams inside Syria.

 

"This includes targeting oil infrastructure and enabling equipment under Daesh control, helping to reduce their

ability to profit from selling oil to fund their activities.

"We have also targeted Daesh’s military equipment and infrastructure, including vehicles, defensive fighting positions firing on friendly forces, a tunnel complex, weapons stores and a command and control centre.

 

"We estimate that 7 Daesh combatants have been killed or wounded as a result of RAF airstrikes in Syria between 2 December 2015 and 29 January 2016."

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2016/02/18/syria-bombing-brimstone-raf-isis-killed-_n_9261278.html

 

 

 

 

Syria conflict: Warning from NATO to Turkey -

No unconditional protection against Russia (Spiegel-google transl.)

 

NATO would provide Ankara no aid or assistance in the event of Turkish aggression

against Moscow, said Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn told SPIEGEL.

 

 

NATO-Allies have the government in Ankara signaled that in the case of a provoked military conflict

with Russia, Turkey can not count on the assistance of the Alliance.

 

The mutual defense guarantee applies only "if a Member State is attacked in a unique way," said Asselborn.

 

Spiegel Report

[oxmox 73]

Info map from ISW about russian airstrikes in February, 2016.

Unfortunately no map about the US led air campaign.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A week ago on TV (Feb. 14) the former Chief of Staff of the Bundeswehr and Chairman of the NATO, Harald Kujat, was talking about the military tactic.

 

What is it all about and what is the aim of the strategy ?

 

* stop of the suppline line from Turkey to IS forces

 

* encirclement of huge parts of IS fighters and the destruction of them

 

He said aswell the Russians will certainly reach this objective together with the Syrian Army.

 

 

In addition he did mention that there are also risks:

 

* the strategy is to push forward with a corridor, 

  left and right of the sides of the corridor lies the territory of the kurdish fighters.

 

  And in the last days it was already seend that kurdish forces tried to connect the areas.

 

The Turkey did start again to bomb the kurdish forces and did threaten to intervene with its military.

-> this would be the meltdown

 

(it was said a week ago on the first Channel/TV ARD Mediathek - video link if you understand german )

[d_lukin 16]

T-90 - allah : 1 - 0

 

[I give up 152]

If anything needs to be done about Syria, it should be "support Russia".

Because this time they are on the rigtht side of the fight.

[Tonci87 163]

If anything should be done then it is to support the truly moderate local forces, for example the Kurds.

[semiconductor 309]

is to support the truly moderate local forces

IIRC, Western support of the "truly moderate" local forces is exactly what started all this mess.

[d_lukin 16]

Putin ordered to start withdrawing troops from Syria.  :huh: 

 

 

First group of aircraft has left ‪‎Hmeymim‬ airbase for permanent location airfields in Russia

[Tonci87 163]

Putin ordered to start withdrawing troops from Syria.  :huh: 

 

Seriously?  :huh:

 

Unexpected

[St. Jimmy 272]

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday he was instructing his armed forces to start pulling out of Syria, over five months after he ordered the launch of a military operation that shored up his ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

"I believe that the task put before the defense ministry and Russian armed forces has, on the whole, been fulfilled," Putin said at a Kremlin meeting with his defense and foreign ministers at which he announced the withdrawal, starting on Tuesday.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin had telephoned Assad to inform him of the Russian decision. The move was announced on the day United Nations-brokered talks between the warring sides in Syria resumed in Geneva.

Putin ordered an intensification of Russia's diplomatic efforts to achieve a peace deal to end the civil war in Syria, that has dragged on for five years, killed thousands of people and displaced millions, many of them seeking refuge in Europe.

But the Russian leader signaled Moscow would keep a military presence: he did not give a deadline for the completion of the withdrawal and said Russian forces would stay on at the port of Tartous and at the Hmeymim air base in Syria's Latakia province, from which Russia has launched most of its air strikes.

Questions remained about the practical implications of Putin's announcement. It was not clear if Russian air strikes would stop. Russia will retain the capability to launch them, from the base in Latakia province.

Through its intervention in Syria, Putin has restored Russia status as a major international player capable of exerting its influence far from its borders, and forced the United States to reckon with Moscow's interests.

But there was also a recognition in Moscow that pressing ahead any further with the military operation would produce diminishing returns. Russian officials have said it is unrealistic to try to restore Assad's control over all of Syria and the time had come to negotiate a peace.

"FUNDAMENTAL TURNAROUND"

"The effective work of our military created the conditions for the start of the peace process," Putin said at the Kremlin meeting.

"With the participation of the Russian military ... the Syrian armed forces and patriotic Syrian forces have been able to achieve a fundamental turnaround in the fight against international terrorism and have taken the initiative in almost all respects," Putin said.

"I am therefore ordering the defense minister, from tomorrow, to start the withdrawal of the main part of our military contingent from the Syrian Arab Republic."

By signaling the start of a withdrawal, Russia is likely to soothe tense relations with the United States, which has accused the Kremlin of inflaming the Syrian conflict and pursuing its own narrow interests.

"I think we did it to show the Americans that we do not have military ambitions and don't need unnecessary wars," said Ivan Konovalov, director of the Center for Strategic Trend Studies in Moscow. "They have been accusing us of all kinds of things and this is a good way of showing them they are wrong."

Russia has said it was in Syria to fight Islamist terror groups, but a large part of its air strikes were on anti-Assad groups which Washington and its allies designate as moderate opposition groups.

Opposition fighters have alleged that Russia had combat troops on the ground fighting anti-Assad forces, but the Kremlin has never acknowledged this and so it was unclear if such forces would be covered by the withdrawal.

Putin said the naval base at Tartous and the Hmeymim air base "will function as they did previously. They must be reliably protected from land, sea and air".

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-russia-pullout-idUSKCN0WG23C

 

The main force withdraws. Some things will still remain like the naval base at Tartous and the Hmeymim air base.

[ProfTournesol 956]

They have saved the arse of Bashar, they didn't go there to fight IS.

[oxmox 73]

Hillary Clinton Email Archive - Wikileaks

(some parts of the e-mail)

 

"The best way to help Israel deal with Iran's growing nuclear capability is to help the people of Syria overthrow the regime of Bashar Assad."

 

Iran's nuclear program and Syria's civil war may seem unconnected, but they are. For Israeli leaders, the real threat from a nuclear-armed Iran is not the prospect of an insane Iranian leader launching an unprovoked Iranian nuclear attack on Israel that would lead to the annihilation of both countries.

 

What Israeli military leaders really worry about -- but cannot talk about -- is losing their nuclear monopoly.

 

An Iranian nuclear weapons capability would not only end that nuclear monopoly but could also prompt other adversaries, like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, to go nuclear as well. The result would be a precarious nuclear balance in which Israel could not respond to provocations with conventional military strikes on Syria and Lebanon, as it can today.

 

Israel's leadership understands well why defeating Assad is now in its interests. Speaking on CNN's Amanpour show last week, Defense Minister Ehud Barak argued that "the toppling down of Assad will be a major blow to the radical axis, major blow to Iran.... It's the only kind of outpost of the Iranian influence in the Arab world...and it will weaken dramatically both Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza."

 

Back to Syria. It is the strategic relationship between Iran and the regime of Bashar Assad in Syria that makes it possible for Iran to undermine Israel's security — not through a direct attack, which in the thirty years of hostility between Iran and Israel has never occurred, but through its proxies in Lebanon, like Hezbollah, that are sustained, armed and trained by Iran via Syria. The end of the Assad regime would end this dangerous alliance.

 

The rebellion in Syria has now lasted more than a year.

 

>Iran would be strategically isolated, unable to exert its influence in the Middle East. The resulting regime in Syria will see the United States as a friend, not an enemy. Washington would gain substantial recognition as fighting for the people in the Arab world, not the corrupt regimes. For Israel, the rationale for a bolt from the blue attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would be eased. And a new Syrian regime might well be open to early action on the frozen peace talks with Israel.

 

Hezbollah in Lebanon would be cut off from its Iranian sponsor since Syria would no longer be a transit point for Iranian training, assistance and missiles. All these strategic benefits and the prospect of saving thousands of civilians from murder at the hands of the Assad regime (10,000 have already been killed in this first year of civil war).

 

https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/18328#efmADMAFf

 

 

@What an expert was always saying on TV here over the years seems to be right:   The conflict in Syria is about the Iran and to weaken its Shia-Axis.

[Dwarden 1124]

sometime i wonder what NATO and Russian airforce is doing in syria, after seeing IS capturing whole ammunition and vehicle depot and freely distribue it among fronts http://spioenkop.blogspot.cz/2016/03/islamic-state-captures-ayyash-weapons.html

[oxmox 73]

Russia is following a clear strategy in Syria (FinancialTimes, March 20)

Few in Moscow believe that the Assad regime will last long without changes

 

 

Vladimir Putin’s decision to pull Russian troops out of Syria hit the headlines around the world. But it should have been expected.

 

So why now?

 

The question of an exit strategy has been raised throughout the operation, and Mr Putin felt the time was right.

 

The Syrian regime had had to be fortified because, Russia believed, the spread of radical Islam could be stopped only by strengthening statehood; the Syrian government is internationally recognised and Moscow had offered to help it. Russian aircraft bombed its opponents — Isis and other militant groups — but the mission took longer than planned because Syria’s army was less combat-ready than expected. Eventually, the situation was reversed, allowing Russia to reduce its presence and its responsibility for the future.

 

What are the results?

Can Mr Assad survive without Russia?

 

.... read more, follow the link for full article

 

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e5917508-ecf5-11e5-888e-2eadd5fbc4a4.html

[katipo66 94]

So the Syrian Army recaptures Palmyra, the biggest blow to IS since they started their caliphate and just deafening silence from the west?

 

The US state department seems not happy with the overthrow of IS in Palmyra!??

 

Very telling who supports what, the smell is sickening, Iraq all over again?