World |
Syrian army, backed by Iranian fighters, advance south of Aleppo: monitor
BEIRUT
Syrian troops backed by Hezbollah and Iranian fighters made advances on Saturday in their offensive to retake territory around the northern city of Aleppo from insurgents and jihadist fighters, a monitoring group said.
The campaign around Aleppo, which the army launched on Friday, is one of several assaults it has waged against rebel fighters since Russian jets began carrying out air strikes on Sept. 30 in support of President Bashar al-Assad.
It has concentrated so far on clearing rebel areas south of Aleppo rather than the city itself, which is home to 2 million people and divided between government forces and rebels.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the army and its allies retook three villages amid fierce fighting in which at least 17 Islamist fighters and eight soldiers or allied forces were killed.
Troops are also trying to advance to the east of Aleppo towards Kweires military airport, aiming to break a siege on the base by Islamic State and other insurgents, the UK-based Observatory said.
Hezbollah's Al-Manar television said the army had captured the village of Huwaija, on the way to Kweires. The Observatory said it the army was advancing in Huwaija, one of several villages where heavy fighting was continuing.
The army and its allies have also been fighting to retake parts of the northern provinces of Hama, Idlib and Latakia seized by rebels in recent months, as well as insurgent areas north of Homs city, around the capital Damascus, and in the southern province of Deraa near the Jordanian border.
The Observatory reported fighting around the town of Talbiseh, part of a rebel-held enclave north of Homs city which has faced heavy bombardment by Russian jets for the last two weeks, and a ground offensive by the army and allied militias.
The monitor said that at least 72 people, including 31 children and women, were killed in the past 48 hours in the assault in Homs.
(Reporting by Dominic Evans; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)
ALEPPO IN 2012, BEFORE THE NEOCON AND WESTERN SPONSORED DESTRUCTION OF SYRIA
ALEPPO IN 2012, BEFORE THE NEOCON AND WESTERN SPONSORED DESTRUCTION OF SYRIA
’Do You Realise What You’ve Done?’ – Putin Pulverized Western Actions in Syria at UNGA
ReplyDeleteMake no mistake about the criminal damage done by the Neocons for the benefit of Israel:
ReplyDeleteAlso note former CIA agent Bob Baer's assessment of the neocons' Syria policy. This quote is from way back in 2011. The pol he's talking about is Rick Santorum but it could apply to any leading Republican presidential contender not named Paul.
Even then it was obvious to all thinking people what would happen if the U.S. tried to "liberate" the Syrians from their dictator:
"Who does he propose supporting in Syria?" Baer said. "Anyone with any common sense knows it's the Muslim Brotherhood that would take over. There are no white hats in Syria."
That happened right on schedule.
Anyway, the list of columns below is long and you probably won't want to read them in one sitting. But I thought I'd post them here for posterity. These go only halfway through Obama's first term. I will publish the rest later.
I already ran three collections of the columns I wrote going back to in the Bush years. Now I am posting the columns from the Obama years - when we at least had the pleasure of knowing it was a Democrat who was screwing things up by following the same left-wing internationalist politics of his predecessor.
The list below is quite long. I recommend bookmarking it. Then whenever you head some neocons say something really stupid, come back to this. You will see that stupidity predicted. Here goes:
Date: 2011/09/18
Headline: Some folks are exceptionally stupid (Note: Our own Chris Christie has been parroting this "American Exceptionalism" nonsense of late, and also promising to increase defense spending while also balancing the budget, which is impossible without huge tax increases.)
Among my least favorite clichés is that one about "speaking truth to power." It's easy to speak truth to powerful people. There aren't many of them and they don't care what you say.
What really takes nerve is to speak truth to knuckleheads. There are tens of millions of them. And they get to vote.
That is the charm of Ron Paul. I think I can say, without fear of contradiction, that no politician in recent history has irritated so many knuckleheads in so few words.
Despite 13 years of evidence to the contrary, many Americans are still under the mistaken impression that the so-called “neo” conservatives are hard-headed realists.
ReplyDeleteNope. They' re pure fantasists who follow a philosophy descended from the thinking of Leon Trotsky. It's old-time conservatives like Pat Buchanan (see note above) and me who are the realists. We don’t believe the U.S. military should be used to perform the social work needed to “liberate” our potential enemies in the Muslim world and help them create functioning democracies.
http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2015/01/when_youre_right_youre_right_the_realists_vs_the_l.html
LOOK AT THE DATE - READ THE WORDS
ReplyDeleteDate: 2004/10/07 Thursday
’Liberating’ Iraqis is destined to backfire”
By PAUL MULSHINE
In a recent Gallup Poll, 42 percent of Americans surveyed thought Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks. An amazing 32 percent said they thought Saddam had personally planned the attacks.
Neither of the above propositions is true, as Vice President Dick Cheney said in that debate Tuesday night. "I have not suggested there's a connection between Iraq and 9/11," Cheney said.
So why did we get out military bogged down in a hellhole like Iraq? It now appears that all
along we were moved by the spirit of democracy.
"Twenty years ago we had a similar situation in El Salvador," Cheney said in the debate. He noted that a "guerrilla insurgency controlled roughly a third of the country, 75,000 people dead, and we held free elections."
Cheney went on to observe that "the determination of these people to vote was unbelievable" and that "today El Salvador is a whale of a lot better because we held free elections. The power of that concept is enormous. And it will apply in Afghanistan, and it will apply as well in Iraq."
No, it won't. A democratic Mideast would almost certainly be taken over by the same Islamic fundamentalists we are trying to suppress, says Robert Baer, a former CIA agent who spent years in and around Iraq and other Mideastern trouble spots.
"Look at Algeria," said Baer when I phoned him after the debate. "They had free elections and the army stopped it because a fundamentalist regime would have come in. Look at any polls coming out of the Gulf. The biggest popular movements since the 1970s have been the fundamentalists. Is that really what we want?"
Cheney and his fellow politicians are making a mistake often attributed to generals: They are fighting the last war.
DeleteIn the Cold War, no Marxist-Leninist regime could survive multiparty elections. Democracy, therefore, was the perfect antidote to Communism.
That is not the case with our current enemy, Islamic fundamentalism. Jimmy Carter proved that quite convincingly 25 years ago. In the name of democracy, he ditched a perfectly good dictator in Iran. The liberated masses thanked him by setting up an Islamic republic that promptly declared a never-ending war on the Great Satan. George Bush has made the same mistake in “liberating” Iraq.
"It was idiocy in a sense," said Baer, author of "Sleeping with the Devil," an excellent book on Saudi Arabia. "The administration had no idea about the country of Iraq. The basic facts are that Iraq is not a real country but three nationalities all warring against each other. It was all held together by an army, the same army that kept the Iranians from stirring up the Gulf. Why did we want to go and remove that army from the face of the earth?"
Egypt, tambien
DeleteIt is hard to keep score : )
Delete.
DeleteLOOK AT THE DATE - READ THE WORDS
After 3 years watching the gang that couldn't shoot straight operate in Iraq and Afghanistan anyone with an ounce of sense could have written that column, at least for Iraq and Afghanistan. (The Arab Spring caught a lot of people by surprise.)
.
MORE FROM 2004
ReplyDeleteThe Star-Ledger 2004
Headline: Rumsfeld’s neocon critics dodge the blame, too
By PAUL MULSHINE
On Friday, this page ran a column by leading neoconservative Bill Kristol on the issue of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's botched handling of the Iraq war. The day before, an interoffice e-mail gave a synopsis of the column:
"Bill Kristol says it's time for Rumsfeld to go," the e-mail read. "He blames everybody but himself."
For a second there, I thought the "he" in that second sentence applied to Kristol rather than Rumsfeld. There's a lot of blame to go around for this mess, and Kristol certainly deserves his share.
Kristol is the editor of the Weekly Standard, the magazine that, true to its name, sets the standard for neoconservative philosophy in America. That philosophy differs from old-fashioned conservatism in the area of foreign policy. Old-fashioned conservatives want either to crush potential enemies or leave them alone. The neocons can't figure out whether they want to conquer them or cuddle up to them.
That sort of thing never works. But instead of admitting that the conquer-or-cuddle philosophy is flawed, Kristol blamed Rumsfeld for its execution.
"All defense secretaries in wartime have made misjudgments," he wrote. "Some have stubbornly persisted in their misjudgments. But has any so breezily dodged responsibility and so glibly passed the buck?"
Good question. Let's apply it to Kristol and the other neocons. Here's how Kristol envisioned the war back in September 2002:
"We can remove Saddam because that could start a chain reaction in the Arab world that would be very healthy, and it would weaken the radicals who use terror, who sponsor terror. I think the single best thing we can do is hurry up and get rid of Saddam."
Oops. Instead of weakening the radicals, the neocons managed to create thousands of new ones.
As for the old-fashioned conservatives, they saw this one coming. A month before the war began, Pat Buchanan predicted, “This Wilsonian ambition will end in disaster for this country.”
John Mearsheimer, a political science professor at the University of Chicago and a military veteran, foresaw exactly where things would go wrong. He predicted that the initial invasion of Iraq would go well but the occupation would be a disastrous diversion from the so-called "war on terror."
"Every dollar spent occupying Iraq is a dollar not spent dismantling terrorist networks abroad or improving security at home," Mearsheimer wrote just before the invasion. "Invasion and occupation would increase anti-Americanism in the Islamic world and help Osama bin Laden win more followers."
He got that right. I phoned Mearsheimer the other day and asked him where he thought the neocons drifted from reality.
Delete"They thought you could go into Iraq and effect regime change and produce a new democracy that would be stable and pro-Israel and that would let us have bases," he said. "Then you move on to the next target."
Instead of moving on, they're stuck in Iraq. Neocons posed as realists, but their conception of human nature was anything but realistic, he said.
"They believe democracy is the most powerful political ideology," he said. "You go in and remove the regime and this democratic impulse that's hard-wired into every individual would manifest itself and Iraq would become a democracy."
The problem, said Mearsheimer, is that the impulse that's hard-wired into human nature isn't democracy. It's nationalism. "Once you trigger nationalism, an insurgency invariably results," he said.
That worked to our advantage in the Cold War. Now it's working against us.
"When you occupy their countries, people fight back," he said. "We were successful in the Cold War because it was the Soviets who were occupying Eastern Europe."
But now we're the occupiers - and we're stuck. Instead of going on to Syria or Iran, the United States is stuck sorting out a deadly and expensive mess in Iraq.
So much for that "chain reaction in the Arab world" Kristol anticipated, the one that would be "very healthy." It's not too healthy for the Americans in its way - and the lack of armor on their vehicles is just a tiny screwup in a vast universe of bad moves.
Mearsheimer doesn't expect the neocons to admit that the fault lay more in their strategy than in its execution. "I don't expect them to take the blame," he said. "Rumsfeld is going to be the fall guy."
Perhaps so. And if the defense secretary feels like writing an opinion piece giving his views on how well the editor of the Weekly Standard is doing his job, The Star-Ledger will be glad to run it.
2006
ReplyDeleteDate: 2006/05/23
HEADLINE: THE NEOCON NONSENSE IS NONSTOP
By PAUL MULSHINE
In Iraq, the terrorists have won, at least if you accept Washington's definition of "terrorism."
The post of prime minister is now in the hands of the Dawa party, the same group of people that U.S. officials called the "Dawa terrorists" back in 1983. That was when they attacked the U.S. embassy in Beirut with what was then an innovation in terrorist warfare, the suicide car bomb.
The new Iraqi prime minister, Nouri Kamal al-Maliki, was an active party member back then. He was hiding out in Syria, presumably thinking unkind thoughts about the country that would later bring him to power in his native country.
The intellectual authors of the Iraq war, the so-called "neoconservatives," are fond of talking about the terrorists we're fighting. But they never mention the terrorists we're fighting for, including that party of ex-suicide bombers to whom we've helped hand the most powerful position in the new government.
This is a strange phenomenon. It's as if Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman had pursued a long and costly war in the Pacific only to put a kamikaze pilot in charge of Japan.
Actually, it's worse. The Dawa party has from its inception had a very specific mission: to restore control of Iraq to an Islamic government. It never could have done this on its own, but thanks to some deep thinkers in Washington, the party is well on its way.
Among those deep thinkers is Max Boot, a fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations and a frequent contributor to the Los Angeles Times. This paper recently ran one of his columns in which Boot asserted that, now that the United States has brought democracy to Iraq, we should concentrate efforts on Egypt.
The idea of spreading democracy to the Mideast remains central to the neocon philosophy. That philosophy is not grounded in reality. We've seen two great experiments in democracy in the past couple of years. In Iraq, the Dawa is actually among the most moderate members of the ruling coalition, which is busy replacing a secular government with an Islamic republic. In the Palestinian territories, meanwhile, the homicidal Hamas won a free election.
But don't worry, the neocons tell us. Things will all work out just fine after we spread
democracy to all those other countries where the great masses of people seem to prefer Islamic fundamentalism to Western secularism.
Never before has a philosophy of foreign policy been so thoroughly discredited so quickly by events. Yet its proponents seem not to have noticed. Boot is but one among many neocons who got everything wrong about Iraq but still insist everything's going right. Just before the war began in 2003, for example, Boot wrote that "the conquest of Afghanistan definitely denied the terrorists an important base of operations. The ouster of Saddam Hussein will achieve the same purpose.”
DeleteOops. Before the war, there were perhaps a few dozen terrorists based in Baghdad. But now, if one accepts the neocons' definition of "terrorist," there are at least 20,000, perhaps more. And that's just on the enemy side. The terrorists now in the Iraqi government have in the past few years killed dozens of times as many Americans as terrorists linked to Saddam Hussein ever did.
Another prominent neocon, Richard Miniter, in his recent book, "Disinformation: 22 Media Myths That Undermine the War on Terror," compiled a list of all the terror groups that could in any way be linked to Saddam. The total number of U.S. deaths Miniter attributed to them: 36.
The forces of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whom we "liberated," have killed hundreds of American troops and wounded thousands. And while other terrorists of all descriptions now have bases all over Iraq, Sadr has a base right inside the Green Zone, where his party plays a major role in the new government.
The sad fact is, if every al Qaeda sympathizer and ex-Ba'athist in Iraq were to disappear tomorrow, we'd still need to keep troops around indefinitely just to make sure our new allies didn't go back to their old tricks.
This is as complete a foreign-policy screwup as can be imagined. President Bush certainly deserves blame — but not from the Democrats. They bought into the neocon philosophy from the beginning and have only recently come around to offering a few tepid criticisms, none of which involves the central error of promoting democracy where it is not in our interest. Only a few far-right critics, such as Pat Buchanan, have questioned whether this exercise in nation-building was a fitting use of American force in the first place.
The problem, near as I can deduce it, derives from Americans' failure to understand that the rest of the world does not share our two-party system. If A is bad, the typical American thinks, then his opponent, B, must by definition be good, or at least better.
But what if, while A is indeed bad, B is awful, C is despicable, D is reprehensible and E is downright monstrous? This seems like a simple enough concept to grasp, yet it seems to elude even the deepest of our deep thinkers.
___________________
In Egypt the move to 'democracy' brought the Egyptian Army into direct rule of the country.
DeleteUS support of 'democracy', in Egypt, certainly aided the Egyptian Army in it's consolidation of political power.
http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2015/01/when_youre_right_youre_right_the_realists_vs_the_l.html
ReplyDeleteAnd what do the Israeli Firsters have to say about anyone who criticizes the NEOCONS?
On April 22, Republican booster and talk show host Rush Limbaugh entered the fray. He denounced
“these media people speaking in their own code language. A case in point is their use of the term `neoconservative.` Whether they choose to hyphenate the label or not, it`s a pejorative code word for `Jews.` That`s right. They use it as a way to say guys like Bill Kristol, Irving Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Norman Podhoretz, John Podhoretz and others are just trying to support Israel at the USA`s expense
On April 22, Republican booster and talk show host Rush Limbaugh entered the fray. He denounced
“these media people speaking in their own code language. A case in point is their use of the term `neoconservative.` Whether they choose to hyphenate the label or not, it`s a pejorative code word for `Jews.` That`s right. They use it as a way to say guys like Bill Kristol, Irving Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Norman Podhoretz, John Podhoretz and others are just trying to support Israel at the USA`s expense.
You are totally out of your mind.
ReplyDeleteThings started to go to shit when O'bozo took the troops out of Iraq.
O'bozo has been Commander - in - Chief for the last SEVEN LONG YEARS.
You got 'neo-con' on the brain.
I'm just surprised you haven't implicated the Israelis in your latest non-sense.
For awhile there not long ago your were toying with rat's thesis that Israel was the total puppet master pulling all the strings behind the scenes.
Looking on the bright side, we can call this 'progress'.
Vandals up against Troy at 12:30 Pacific Time, Vandal Fans !
I shall post running scores.
I am hoping Jake what's his last name our freshman quarterback gets some real playing time.
Thing went to shit in Iraq in 2004.
DeleteRight after the US troops stepped in to stop local elections, elections organized on the local level.
Mr Bremmer wanted a "top down" solution.
US proconsul cancels municipal election in Iraq
By Peter Symonds
23 June 2003
The cancellation of an election for the post of mayor in the southern Iraqi city of Najaf demonstrates once again that the Bush administration has no intention of allowing even the semblance of democracy in the country.
The poll, which was due to take place last Saturday, was being stage-managed from start to finish by the US army. Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Conlin, a Marine commander, appeared on local TV to announce the election. Late last month US marines were sent to local schools to help teachers to register voters and a central location was chosen where soldiers were to count the vote.
The event appears to have been designed as a public relations showpiece. While municipal administrations in other cities have all been handpicked by the US-led occupying forces, Najaf was to be the exception, with a mayor chosen in the first “open election”. Some 18 candidates began campaigning and each was promised equal time on the local television station.
But no sooner had the voter registration begun than the head of the US military occupation, Paul Bremer III, stepped in to abruptly overrule the local commander, suspend the election and, then, just over a week ago, postpone it indefinitely. The election, he declared, would be “premature”
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2003/06/iraq-j23.html
Go back to the casino, your niece or a ball game you ignorant dope.
ReplyDeleteEven The New York Times is calling O'bozo's foreign policy "hallucinogenic".
DeleteThe Casino, my Niece particularly, or the Idaho games are all much more interesting than your hateful fantasies.
You voted for the "Neo-Cons".
Nothing more deranged than a former "Neo-Con" -
And, now "socialism" is all your rage..................
Jesus, it must be confusing.....
I don't begrudge you your limo, Deuce, nor your walled compound, nor your trips to Europe. You've earned them yourself.
I don't want Bernie to take them away from you.
I will have your best interests in mind when I vote Republican in the next Presidential election.
I feel you know best what to do with your own legally gotten money.
Bernie wants to put a 'cap' on your income of, say, 200 thousand dollars, or something, and, then, take 80% of that $200,000 in income taxes.
I don't like it.
When you think of Uncle Bob, think of him as your good own good Uncle Bob, always looking out for nephew's best interests.
Bernie don't know how to spend your money.
You know best how to spend your money.
And that is what I will vote for in the next election.
Even The New York Times is calling O’bozo’s foreign policy “hallucinogenic".
DeleteIs there a louder mouthpiece for the Neocons than The New York Times?
.
DeleteWhen O'bumble once again makes a fool of himself and no one is buying, he changes the subject, this time to 'deuce's limo' (?).
One thing you have to admit, the Idaho Potato is never embarrassed even when he proves himself the fool.
.
UPDATE - Hezbollah, Syria, Iran and Russia undoing the damage done by the Neocons:
ReplyDeleteA senior leader from Al-Nusra Front, Al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria, has been reportedly killed alongside two other members of the terrorist group in the province of Aleppo.
Sanafi Al-Nasr, who was allegedly killed in an airstrike near the town of Dana, was Al-Qaeda’s senior strategist and an important power broker, the Iranian Fars news agency reports, citing jihadist sources close to the killed militant leader.
Al-Nusra released several photos showing a car hit by an air strike along with several bodies of the dead militants, although their identities were not verified. However, jihadists claimed on social media that Al-Nasr had been killed.
Other photos published by the terrorist organization show the alleged graves of Al-Nasr and two other militants who were killed in an airstrike.
The Russians and Syrians both have a long history of successfully fighting radical Islam.
DeleteThe fact that the Israeli favor al-Qeada in Syria, should not corrupt US foreign policy.
Israel prefers Daesh (al-Qeada) in Syria, over the Alawites, Christians and their Kurdish allies
Israel’s Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren told the Jerusalem Post that Israel so wanted Assad out and his Iranian backers weakened, that Israel would accept al-Qaeda operatives taking power in Syria.
“We always wanted Bashar Assad to go, we always preferred the bad guys who weren’t backed by Iran to the bad guys who were backed by Iran.”
Even if the other “bad guys” were affiliated with al-Qaeda.
http://www.jpost.com/Syria-Crisis/Oren-Jerusalem-has-wanted-Assad-ousted-since-the-outbreak-of-the-Syrian-civil-war-326328.
HOW ABOUT THAT LIBYA DEAL:
ReplyDeleteFour years ago next week, Libyan strongman Muammar al-Qaddafi was killed amid an armed uprising, backed by a NATO air campaign, against his 42-year rule. At the time, his death seemed like an opening for the kind of democratic transition demanded by Arab Spring protesters. Today, Qaddafi’s demise has given way to chaos, civil war, and the slow-motion implosion of the Libyan state. Recently, in New York, I met representatives from one fragment of that state, who told me how they planned to make the country whole again.
Nowadays in Libya, disparate militias are regularly battling each other, buffeted by two competing governments. One is the General National Congress (GNC), a group of disbanded lawmakers whose military arm, Libya Dawn, seized the capital of Tripoli last year. The GNC is not recognized internationally and has reportedly forged alliances with various Islamist militias and groups, including Ansar al-Sharia, which the United States considers a terrorist organization and has accused of being involved in the deadly 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.
OUTSTANDING: OOrah!
DeleteNow, now, Deuce ...
DeleteThat Libyan sweet, 1 million barrels per day, was off the market for almost three years.
A boon for the Saudi Arabians and their 'friends'.
Now, let's remember who controls "Faux" News ...
DeleteBin Talal is the second largest shareholder of Newscorp. As such, the Saudi Prince has demonstrated an ability to influence how news is portrayed on Fox News Channel. For example, back in 2005, during coverage of Muslim riots in France, Fox News displayed a banner that identified the riots for what they were – “Muslim riots”.
Bin Talal relayed what happened next, via Think Progress:
I picked up the phone and called Murdoch… (and told him) these are not Muslim riots, these are riots out of poverty. Within 30 minutes, the title was changed from Muslim riots to civil riots.
DeleteState Dept. OKs Possible Black Hawk Sale to Saudi
Awad Mustafa | Defense News
The US State Department has approved a possible Foreign Military Sale to Saudi Arabia for nine UH-60M Black Hawk utility helicopters at an estimated cost of US $495 million.
I see the crapper is back.
ReplyDeleteTime to watch Fox News, and tune in the something interesting like the Idaho game.
Good idea. Your most intelligent comment in weeks.
DeleteKeep yourself busy.
DeleteAfter many scares and several false starts, the crucial battle for Syria’s second biggest city has begun.
ReplyDeleteFor more than a year the southern edges of rebel-held Aleppo have been a wasteland. Regime soldiers have been fixed in their positions several kilometres from the battered city limits, while rebels have shored up defences on their side of the ruins.
Now, three weeks into Russia’s intervention in the Syrian war, there is movement on one of the conflict’s most static fronts. And weary opposition forces don’t like what they are seeing.
“The regime advanced six kilometres [on Friday] and they took three villages,” said Zakaria Malafji, a member of the Free Syrian Army inside Aleppo. “The Russians showered us with bombs even in the civilian areas. They want to clear everything so the regime tanks and even the soldiers on foot can advance.”
Pitched against the mix of Islamists and non-ideological rebels in the rubble is the strongest force that Bashar al-Assad has been able to call on at any point during the four-and-a-half-year war. An Iranian military brigade is stationed around 20km south, along with hundreds of Hezbollah fighters, Shia militias from Iraq and the Syrian Army.
A senior US official on Friday said the Pentagon estimated the Iranian strength at 2,000 officers and soldiers – Tehran’s largest contribution to a battle and a signal that it is no longer shy to acknowledge the fact that its troops are actively defending the regime.
Straight from a grinding battle in the mountains near Damascus, Lebanon’s Hezbollah has also travelled to Aleppo en masse. “Every one of the brothers I know has gone there,” said one resident of the Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh, a Hezbollah stronghold. “This is the first time they’ve all disappeared like that. They’re even shortening their vacation times.”
Rebels inside Aleppo say they have the weapons and the stamina to keep their enemies from seizing the eastern half of the city they have controlled since July 2012. They say that large numbers of anti-tank missiles supplied by their allies – Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the US – have reached them in recent days and warn that they have had three years to prepare their defences.
However, rebel numbers have been stretched by a three-pronged advance on the city; the attack from the south, a similar push from Idlib province towards western Aleppo, where opposition groups had been trying to besiege the regime-held area, and also from a resurgent Islamic State, which is now within striking distance of the city’s northern limits.
Malafji said that the few remaining residents of eastern Aleppo, most of whom lived in areas that had been repeatedly barrel-bombed by the Syrian air force, were now fleeing. “Civilians immediately started leaving their houses in waves and fled to the neighbouring villages,” he said. “And our people had to retreat for more support.”
Usama Abuzaid, a senior adviser to the Free Syria Army, said: “In the last couple of days the attacks increased everywhere in the countryside, even in the areas where Isis is trying to advance.
“Aleppo is very important for everyone. For us, it is our supply line to Turkey for food and weapons. Also, it has a revolutionary value for us. It holds our main FSA headquarters, and that’s the reason the Russians are advancing.
“The regime and Isis tried to take Aleppo last year and they couldn’t, and now they are trying again with the Russians. The Russians are doing Isis a huge favour. They are giving them air cover while they are attacking us from the ground.”
DeleteThroughout the opposition lines, inside Aleppo and in Idlib to the west, where Islamists and jihadis hold sway over non-ideological units, the politics of the latest offensive and what they mean for both the war and the region are now being hotly debated. Until now Iran had tried to avoid a public show of its role in the war, fearing that it would be portrayed as a Shia invasion force, amplifying already febrile sectarian tensions.
Mohammed al-Sheikh, a senior member of an FSA-aligned unit called Division 1, said: “We know that, if the Iranians bomb us, it would be the start of the third world war. Everyone from the Arab world would come and join us, because it would be a Persian attack on Syria. This is why the regime has played it smartly, by bringing in the Russians.
“For the regime, Aleppo is the economic hub. If we lose Aleppo, it doesn’t mean we lose the war, it means we lost a phase. The same is happening with the regime. Each day we win one part and then we lose another.
“Our friends understand the gravity of the situation, but their hands are tied by politics and international agreements. We are the Syrians who are losing on a daily basis because of these politics.
“If we look at who has what in Syria, you will see that Isis is only controlling the desert, and it is worthless. Yes, they have oil and water, but now we are controlling the core of Syria and that’s why the regime is crying for help.”
Syria’s allies have been determined to portray themselves as acting in support of the country’s army in battles around the country. However, the state army’s track record in numerous battles nationwide over the past year had been poor, and Iran especially had feared that the regime was teetering, as it was in late 2012, when opposition units penetrated the heart of Damascus.
Both Tehran and Moscow maintain that their now muscular interventions are aimed at countering Isis, a claim that may prove true, but not before the more potent threat to Assad – the armed opposition to him – is neutered.
In the meantime the FSA in Aleppo has given up on its earlier hopes of receiving broader support from the US. “We are confused about the Americans,” said Malafji. “We can only see the Americans active near the Kurdish areas, but not anywhere else.”
From a base in Aleppo’s southeast, not far from the city’s airport that is still used by the regime, Abdur Rahman, a long-term member of an Islamist unit, said: “We used to dream about the sound of F-16s. But for us it’s just the Syrian planes, and the deeper roar of the Russian jets. That’s our fate.”
Additional reporting by Mais al-Baya’a
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/17/aleppo-isis-iran-russia-rebels-bombing
The Jordanian newspaper al-Ghad (Tomorrow) is reporting that the commander of the Jerusalem Brigade of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards has been spotted near Latakia, urging on a volunteer militia of Alawite Shiites.
ReplyDeleteThe Jordanian newspaper al-Ghad (Tomorrow) is reporting that the commander of the Jerusalem Brigade of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards has been spotted near Latakia, urging on a volunteer militia of Alawite Shiites.
ReplyDeleteThe report comes as AP says it was told by a senior Western official that 1500 Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) troops have assembled in Syria for the campaign to link Hama and Latakia to the northern metropolis of Aleppo. A wave of Shiite Hizbullah fighters from Lebanon has also gone to the front just north of Hama.
Qasem Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s special operations forces, appears to have been urging on an Alawite militia, which may be preparing to join a Syrian Arab Army attack on Jisr al-Shughour. This town in the Ghab valley lies between Latakia and Idlib city, the capital of the province of the same name. The Army of Conquest, a coalition of hard line Salafis that includes al-Qaeda in Syria, took Jisr al-Shughour recently, from which it can menace the Alawites of Latakia to the west. Jisr al-Shughour had some 44,000 residents before 2011, most of them conservative Sunnis. Many of them fled the town while it was under the control of the Syrian Arab Army.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/iran_in_syria_reports_its_troops_plan_idlib_aleppo_campaigns_video_20151015
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