Military Events in Syria and Iraq Thread #4

[Schmelzer]

The Syrian army (the Tiger forces) have taken several villages from the IS pocket in the South-West, the actual map is close to this:

On the other hand, the IS has started a serious attack in Suweida, from their pocket around the As Safa Vulcano. This was a region which, before the operation in Daraa, has been cleared from the IS, but later the IS has reappeared there. If this reappearance was based on their local forces (this is a large mountainous desert region, so enough places to hide) or based on support from the nearby US occupied Al Tanf pocket is unclear, that they came from Al Tanf is quite plausible, there was a similar reappearance of IS in the desert on the other side of Al Tanf too, so, as long as Al Tanf is occupied, there will be a danger of IS reappearance in the desert regions around it.

Given the discussion about Israel above, a quite interesting thing has happened. The IS has shot a few rockets into the Golan Heights. With the quite obvious intention that Israel will "retaliate" as usual, that means, against the Syrian army. Israel has, indeed, retaliated - but in a quite heavy way against the IS. Everybody was surprised, I'm too, the Russians have already thanked Israel for this via their military channels. One is free to speculate about the reasons for this change of the usual policy - if it was a change at all: The cases where Israel has "retaliated" against the Syrian troops based on claims that something has hit their territory were about fightings with the "moderate rebels" of Al Qaida, not against the IS, and Israel may follow different policies for Al Qaida and for IS.

Some have proposed the idea that the shooting of the Syrian plane was simply out of frustration for what has happened a day before. According to a not very reliable source, but at least partially confirmed, Syrian has shot two rockets toward IS positions. Israel tried to shot them, thinking they were directed against the Golan Heights. But once it became clear that they don't leave Syrian territory, they decided to stop this and started the self-destruction mechanism. Now, the first failure: It worked only for one fo the two interceptors. The second fell on Syrian territory. Usual in such a case Israel would, first, bomb the region where it fell down, and then send helicopters to either destroy or take away the remains, but, the second failure, they did not know where it landed. Those who found it was the Russians. So, they have identified the place where it landed only following the Russian helicopter which landed there to take it. To attack a Russian helicopter to destroy that rocket was, for obvious reasons, considered to be too dangerous. Why is this frustrating for Israel? It was the first application of their newest rocket defense system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David's_Sling which was, in particular, designed for defense against Iskander rockets. According to this wiki, "One of the interceptors was detonated over Israel while the fate of the other is unknown." Correct, nobody (except some Russians) knows where it is now.

PS: I see, I have not yet posted this, forgotten it yesterday in the evening. Today, the map looks very different:

Essentially, the IS pocket has collapsed. The key for this was, it seems, that Tal Jumou has been taken - the key of the IS defense. After this, most of the region was indefensible and simply given up. Can the IS succeed to establish some defense line in the remains? There is, at least, a chance given the geography - the Eastern borderline of the remains is a quite serious valley, in principle easy to defend. But I doubt.

 

[iceaura]

You're talking about false flag attacks (or no-flag attacks) which kill less than 4 people at a time, sometimes only one, and these are people who belong to countries at war with Israel and who were allegedly up to something involving murdering Israelis and Jews.

Not only - also the terrorist car bombings by Lehi, with similar attacks into modern times, that killed many bystanders.

Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Pakistan, Lebanon and numerous other countries, or large majorities of their citizens, openly call for death to America and/or its citizens, and are directly responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans

The deaths of American soldiers on military duty as an invading or occupying army in the countries you name do not belong here, as victims of "terrorism".

That's a galaxy far, far away from what you speculate on, which would be attacks killing and wounding thousands of American soldiers

? Nothing like that appears in my posts.
Only the fact: that in the case of terrorist attacks in Syria (such as by gas, or bombing/shelling without claimed source, and so forth), especially those of large political effect, a false flag operation by Israel has to be considered a reasonable possibility. It's in their MO.

 

[CptBork]

Not only - also the terrorist car bombings by Lehi, with similar attacks into modern times, that killed many bystanders.

There was only 1 car bombing as far as I'm aware, with 15 Arab casualties.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Lehi_operations

And it was condemned by Israel's main fighting force, the Haganah, who even fought against Lehi and other gangs on occasion. That's a drop in the bucket compared to what other countries have engaged in before and since. A single Palestinian did as much damage just by blowing themselves up in an Israeli pizza shop, the "Battle of Sbarro", and that was one of dozens of such attacks. Sure, you can go on a high-minded rant about chickens coming home to roost, except the Palestinians were engaged in terror attacks and purges against Jews before the British even arrived, and you can also ask what the Palestinians gained by resorting to violence in 1947 other than providing justification for the current status quo.

The deaths of American soldiers on military duty as an invading or occupying army in the countries you name do not belong here, as victims of "terrorism".

What about when they target soldiers and civilians indiscriminately? What about all the terror attacks conducted by Muslims and Muslim countries on US and European soil? What about those fighting to defend the terrorists of Al Qaeda and Taliban hand-chopping rapists in Afghanistan, what freedoms are they fighting for?

? Nothing like that appears in my posts.
Only the fact: that in the case of terrorist attacks in Syria (such as by gas, or bombing/shelling without claimed source, and so forth), especially those of large political effect, a false flag operation by Israel has to be considered a reasonable possibility. It's in their MO.

So you consider it a reasonable possibility, based on a small number of limited covert actions against people allegedly involved in killing Israelis and Jews, that Israel would do something 100x worse against thousands of innocent civilians? Do you think it's reasonable that Israel would drop chemical shells in Syria and then the Assad government would cover for it by blocking inspectors from investigating until they've had a chance to cleanse the site?

I feel like this conversation is taking an outright idiotic turn. If Israel dropped chemical weapons on Syrian civilians with the intent of blaming Assad, you would hear the Assad regime howling for the rebels to accept a ceasefire and permit inspectors to access the site without any preconditions, not holding them back for weeks even after the area has been captured and civilians are able to freely travel there.

 

[CptBork]

Given the discussion about Israel above, a quite interesting thing has happened. The IS has shot a few rockets into the Golan Heights. With the quite obvious intention that Israel will "retaliate" as usual, that means, against the Syrian army. Israel has, indeed, retaliated - but in a quite heavy way against the IS. Everybody was surprised, I'm too, the Russians have already thanked Israel for this via their military channels. One is free to speculate about the reasons for this change of the usual policy - if it was a change at all: The cases where Israel has "retaliated" against the Syrian troops based on claims that something has hit their territory were about fightings with the "moderate rebels" of Al Qaida, not against the IS, and Israel may follow different policies for Al Qaida and for IS.

Well it may be surprising to you, but it's not surprising to anyone who actually reads objective sources about world events. Remember what I said about lying bullshitters like you having zero predictive power over events? The reason ISIS survives as long as it has in the pockets where it operates, is because Russia, Iran and Assad have intentionally permitted it to flourish while they work to eliminate all pockets of moderate resistance, so people like you can come here and lie to everyone about the rebels all being hardline Muslim extremists (other than those who surrender themselves to Russia's mercy, of course). That's why the US is in Syria fighting ISIS, because your folks weren't getting the job done and weren't even trying.

Meanwhile, Turkey's own mainstream media videotaped Turkish intelligence officers providing transportation and weapons to ISIS fighters entering Syria from their own soil. Why the fuck do all the retards here want to blame Israel?

Some have proposed the idea that the shooting of the Syrian plane was simply out of frustration for what has happened a day before.

Israel is now saying the plane actually strayed into their territory, and probably did so because the pilot was incompetent. Maybe he picked up some bad drinking habits from his new instructors.

 

[Schmelzer]

The reason ISIS survives as long as it has in the pockets where it operates, is because Russia, Iran and Assad have intentionally permitted it to flourish while they work to eliminate all pockets of moderate resistance, so people like you can come here and lie to everyone about the rebels all being hardline Muslim extremists (other than those who surrender themselves to Russia's mercy, of course). That's why the US is in Syria fighting ISIS, because your folks weren't getting the job done and weren't even trying.

Very funny.
Here, just for your information: The actual fighting is against the IS pocket in SW Syrian. It bordered all the time of its existence, with Jordan, Israel, and your beloved "moderate rebels". It did not even have a common border with the Syrian army to fight against it. See the map:

All the red dashed line was the front line between the "moderate rebels" and the Syrian army. The IS holds, now, the black area. Ok, it is already reduced to a half or so, but Nawa as well as Tafas where hold by the "moderate rebels". The same actually holds in the Eastern part. The remaining pockets of the IS are on the Eastern side of the Euphrates:

You know, the part where the US airforce hits the Syrian army if it tries to fight there.

What else? Some remains in the desert - all of them more or less close to the US occupied Al Tanf border crossing. The Russians have openly said that these IS remains have US support.

So far about the actual situation. What about the past? Let's compare two maps - when the Russians started their action, and the beginning of this year:

You see how much the green ("moderate" rebels) areas have been reduced by the Syrian army: Essentially, you have to know where the Syrian army has advanced to see the difference. Yes, there is a difference, and this includes also important parts, like Aleppo itself. But even if those green areas have been reduced, none of them disappeared completely. And then see the IS. Reduced to essentially nothing but a pocket in the desert. The remaining important pockets were in the Kurdish region and the pocket in Daraa.

And only after the destruction of the IS, the Syrian army started to clear, in a serious way, all the remaining pockets hold by all those "moderate rebels". And the overwhelming part of this happened without much fighting.

The serious fighting was with forces which were seriously jihadist, Al Qaida (under various names) and their allies. Initially, in Latakia, there were strong Chechen jihadists, targeted first by the Russians, for quite obvious reasons. In Aleppo, Al Zinki (those US-supported child head cutters). In East Ghouta, Jaish al Islam. All those are serious hardcore jihadists. And this is simply a fact - the really strong forces were jihadists. The only strong jihadist forces where one can argue about hardcore or not may be the Turkish supported ones. FSA was not really a force - they played some role initially, but their specialty was robbery, and this was what made the difference - the jihadists were interested in creating some Shariah state, with Shariah law, not some lawless state, and, moreover, they didn't have to live from robbery, because they were paid by the Saudis. So, all the other non-jihadists were simply local self-defense forces. They cooperated with those Saudi-paid jihadist gangs because they had to, and as Sunnis, they had no big problem with Saudi versions of Sharia law. These are those who switch the side easily.

Israel is now saying the plane actually strayed into their territory, and probably did so because the pilot was incompetent.

A civilized country would not shoot a plane which, fighting IS, strayed, moreover, if already on the way home (else, the plane would not have crashed on Syrian IS-held territory).

 

[pjdude1219]

A civilized country would not shoot a plane which, fighting IS, strayed, moreover, if already on the way home (else, the plane would not have crashed on Syrian IS-held territory).

in World War 2 american and british ground troops routinely fired upon american planes. as a matter of self defense. honestly there is nothing wrong with this.

 

[iceaura]

So you consider it a reasonable possibility, based on a small number of limited covert actions against people allegedly involved in killing Israelis and Jews, that Israel would do something 100x worse against thousands of innocent civilians?

Not according to my post.
According to my post I consider it reasonable to keep Israeli false flag operations in mind when evaluating some acts of terrorism in Syria and the neighborhood. As a possibility. As something we've seen before, from Israel.

Meanwhile, Turkey's own mainstream media videotaped Turkish intelligence officers providing transportation and weapons to ISIS fighters entering Syria from their own soil. Why the fuck do all the retards here want to blame Israel?

You are reacting strangely. Many here have included Turkey among the bad actors and suspect influences in Syria, nobody here has excluded Turkey from consideration.

A civilized country would not shoot a plane which, fighting IS, strayed, moreover, if already on the way home (else, the plane would not have crashed on Syrian IS-held territory).

It's a war. The motives of straying warplanes are invisible, and the place to shoot them down is where they will not fall on you.

 

[Schmelzer]

The advance of the Syrian army in the Yarmouk pocket of the IS continues. Two villages have been taken, which is around one-third of the remains.

It's a war. The motives of straying warplanes are invisible, and the place to shoot them down is where they will not fall on you.

First, there is a ceasefire, and it holds over years, thus, it is stable. Then, the ceasefire agreement clarifies that the only place to shot planes is the own territory. And the only way to shot a plane on your territory, so that it falls down on the territory of the other side, is to shot it when it is flying in direction of its home. But in this case, the motive follows trivially from the direction of flight: It is clear that the intention was not to attack the other side, but accidental straying.

 

[iceaura]

First, there is a ceasefire, and it holds over years, thus, it is stable.

Whatever is going on around the Golan Heights and in Syria generally, a cease fire it is not. A fire quite a bit, is what's happening.

But in this case, the motive follows trivially from the direction of flight: - -

No, it doesn't. The possibilities are numerous, many of them hostile, none of them clear.

 

[CptBork]

First, there is a ceasefire, and it holds over years, thus, it is stable. Then, the ceasefire agreement clarifies that the only place to shot planes is the own territory. And the only way to shot a plane on your territory, so that it falls down on the territory of the other side, is to shot it when it is flying in direction of its home. But in this case, the motive follows trivially from the direction of flight: It is clear that the intention was not to attack the other side, but accidental straying.

Oh right, because all countries are carved into perfect little squares with straight lines marking their borders.

Israel says it was probably due to pilot incompetence, I find that entirely plausible. It doesn't even matter whether Israel seriously considers the possibility of Assad attacking the Golan; if it doesn't enforce its red lines, Assad and his backers have a history of ignoring them and pushing more and more to see what they can get away with.

 

[CptBork]

And only after the destruction of the IS, the Syrian army started to clear, in a serious way, all the remaining pockets hold by all those "moderate rebels". And the overwhelming part of this happened without much fighting.

Nonsensical bullshit. While ISIS was on the verge of overrunning Kobane with something like 50,000 citizens facing a massacre, the Assad regime was busy buying oil, water, electricity and gas from them while attempting to starve Aleppo into submission.

The serious fighting was with forces which were seriously jihadist, Al Qaida (under various names) and their allies. Initially, in Latakia, there were strong Chechen jihadists, targeted first by the Russians, for quite obvious reasons. In Aleppo, Al Zinki (those US-supported child head cutters). In East Ghouta, Jaish al Islam. All those are serious hardcore jihadists. And this is simply a fact - the really strong forces were jihadists. The only strong jihadist forces where one can argue about hardcore or not may be the Turkish supported ones. FSA was not really a force - they played some role initially, but their specialty was robbery, and this was what made the difference - the jihadists were interested in creating some Shariah state, with Shariah law, not some lawless state, and, moreover, they didn't have to live from robbery, because they were paid by the Saudis. So, all the other non-jihadists were simply local self-defense forces. They cooperated with those Saudi-paid jihadist gangs because they had to, and as Sunnis, they had no big problem with Saudi versions of Sharia law. These are those who switch the side easily.

The FSA was not interested in lawlessness, that's your personal specialty. They have governing bodies which negotiate with world governments about democratic power transitions in Syria, and it's Russia that prevents the UN from getting involved in this process. Considering all the areas that you claim were controlled by hardline Jihadists, your claim cannot be taken seriously when more than 90% of the war's civilian casualties are attributed to Assad and his allies. If every significant piece of rebel territory has been controlled by Jihadists, then they were more democratic and humane than Assad ever was, and they had to run their societies while cut off from basic supplies of food and medicine while Assad had his coffers filled by loans from Putin that he'll never be able to pay back.

No, the reality is that parts of Syria were controlled by Jihadists, parts were controlled by rebels seeking democratic reform, the territories and allegiances are constantly changing, and to lump them all in one category is a deliberate logical fallacy you hope will gain acceptance with enough repetition, which was Putin's strategy all along. In any case as I noted, Assad has in fact acted with greater brutality against civilians than all the Jihadists combined, while his Iranian allies are just as radical and vicious as Al Qaeda, but slightly smarter in their choice of targets by first going after America's allies before there's any thought of taking on the US itself.

 

[Schmelzer]

The reduction of the IS pocket continues, another village has been taken:

Whatever is going on around the Golan Heights and in Syria generally, a cease fire it is not. A fire quite a bit, is what's happening.

Between Israel and Syria, it is. Ceasefires often have a tendency to be violated sometimes, so, a ceasefire does not cease to be a ceasefire because of some minor violations.

No, it doesn't. The possibilities are numerous, many of them hostile, none of them clear.

Explain the hostile possibilities if one plane (among many planes attacking the IS near the border) slightly violates the borderline but already this returns, without any shooting. A plausible one, please, not some theoretical fantasies.

Israel says it was probably due to pilot incompetence, I find that entirely plausible. It doesn't even matter whether Israel seriously considers the possibility of Assad attacking the Golan; if it doesn't enforce its red lines, Assad and his backers have a history of ignoring them and pushing more and more to see what they can get away with.

A pilot error is indeed plausible, and you don't even have to postulate incompetence, even competent pilots can, in such a situation (attacking terrorists near the border) err. Therefore no responsible country would, in such a case, shoot a plane. The history of what Assad has done is, of course, a cheap propaganda fantasy, at least as far as it differs from what airplanes of hostile forces do all the time even if there is no state of war.

Nonsensical bullshit. While ISIS was on the verge of overrunning Kobane with something like 50,000 citizens facing a massacre, the Assad regime was busy buying oil, water, electricity and gas from them while attempting to starve Aleppo into submission.

You think Assad should have made his own population (in particular, of most of Aleppo) leave without electricity, water, gas, and oil, just because the plants which delivered them to Aleppo had been under the control of the IS? Sorry, but as Assad, as the IS are more civilized than you in this regard, and do not want to harm the peaceful population unnecessarily. In Kobane, the Syrian army was simply unable to do anything, simply because this was far away from areas they controlled.

The FSA was not interested in lawlessness, that's your personal specialty. They have governing bodies which negotiate with world governments about democratic power transitions in Syria, and it's Russia that prevents the UN from getting involved in this process.

Correct, as far as you are talking about the leadership living in 5-star hotels in Istanbul. But the FSA gangs on the ground lived from robbing the local population. This is simply the reason on the ground why the jihadists were able to gain much more popular support from the local population.
Those more or less secular militias which did not rob the local population were simply local self-defense forces. Which were, after the initial time, all the remaining forces using the label "FSA" (except for some jihadists, who used the label to get US money).

Considering all the areas that you claim were controlled by hardline Jihadists, your claim cannot be taken seriously when more than 90% of the war's civilian casualties are attributed to Assad and his allies.

As if anybody cares about such propaganda attributions.

If every significant piece of rebel territory has been controlled by Jihadists, then they were more democratic and humane than Assad ever was, and they had to run their societies while cut off from basic supplies of food and medicine while Assad had his coffers filled by loans from Putin that he'll never be able to pay back.

Similar nonsense. There was no cut off from basic supplies, neither by Assad nor by all the other participants of the civil war. I know there have been Western propaganda claims about this, but they have nothing to do with the reality on the ground. Nobody had enough forces to encircle all those pockets in such a way that nobody would have been able to smuggle essentially everything in an out.

No, the reality is that parts of Syria were controlled by Jihadists, parts were controlled by rebels seeking democratic reform, the territories and allegiances are constantly changing, and to lump them all in one category is a deliberate logical fallacy you hope will gain acceptance with enough repetition, which was Putin's strategy all along.

This could have been plausible during the initial time, say, 2011-2012. After this, there were no secular opposition forces playing an important role. And, by the way, a very (some claim the most) important secular opposition force in the West was the family of this nice guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rifaat_al-Assad

 

[Schmelzer]

removed double posting

 

[Schmelzer]

The progress continues:

 

[iceaura]

Between Israel and Syria, it is.

The Golan Heights are disputed - and adjoining a war zone.
And this was a minor violation - one plane shot down.

Explain the hostile possibilities if one plane (among many planes attacking the IS near the border) slightly violates the borderline but already this returns, without any shooting. A plausible one, please, not some theoretical fantasies.

Recon and defense testing, for one. Attack aborted when defenses detected, another. There are many.

A pilot error is indeed plausible, and you don't even have to postulate incompetence, even competent pilots can, in such a situation (attacking terrorists near the border) err. Therefore no responsible country would, in such a case, shoot a plane.

Silly. All those circumstances are also cover conditions for real attacks, recon, etc - acts of war.
Just as Israel uses them, at its own risk.

 

[Schmelzer]

Another village has been liberated from the IS. The ceasefire line with Israel is now under full control of the Syrian army:

The Golan Heights are disputed - and adjoining a war zone.
And this was a minor violation - one plane shot down.

Indeed. And it is typical for a ceasefire that the dispute does not disappear.

Recon and defense testing, for one. Attack aborted when defenses detected, another. There are many.
Silly. All those circumstances are also cover conditions for real attacks, recon, etc - acts of war.
Just as Israel uses them, at its own risk.

Ok, if one likes to invent a reason, one can always use such propaganda techniques to make such claims. It works always: the objective evidence to the contrary is simply cover. For the evil intentions of the enemy, one does not need any evidence.

But such an approach is not a civilized one.

 

[iceaura]

Ok, if one likes to invent a reason, one can always use such propaganda techniques to make such claims. I

Recon and defense testing is not an act of war on your planet?

But such an approach is not a civilized one.

War is not a civilized endeavor. Syria is an active war zone.

 

[Schmelzer]

The news of the day: The South-Western IS pocket is finished.
What will follow? The next nearby problem are the remains of IS in the East Suweida desert. It looks something like this:

Behind this map is a quite good source with a lot of inside information from the Tiger forces, so it may be more reasonable than what other maps paint in the desert, where to get reasonable information is a hard job.

Recon and defense testing is not an act of war on your planet?

???????????? My point was this is an accusation, which is always possible in such a case, to justify an otherwise evil (because supporting the IS) action. If the accusation would be correct, it would be a moral justification, which, in combination with the legal justification (violation of the borderline) would be sufficient to justify the shooting. But it is only a propaganda accusation, moreover, one which you have invented for the sake of the argument here.

War is not a civilized endeavor. Syria is an active war zone.

It is starting a war which is not civilized. Participating in a war may be, in itself, just, and just behavior would be civilized too.

 

[iceaura]

My point was this is an accusation, which is always possible in such a case, to justify an otherwise evil (because supporting the IS) action. If the accusation would be correct, it would be a moral justification,

The possibility is a moral justification, in a war zone. It doesn't matter whether it's correct, in a war zone - there's no way to determine that.

It is starting a war which is not civilized.

Nobody ever does that, any more. Not even Putin, in Crimea, or the US, in Iraq.
In the case of the plane shot down, the pilot broke the ceasefire - for example.

 

[Schmelzer]

During the last days, the Syrian army fought against the IS remains in the desert of East Suweida. The Syrian army advances and clears the area. There is talk that some IS forces have been seen to withdraw toward Al Tanf, under US protection.