ISIL War in Iraq and Syria II

[Vanoi]

I found it interesting that suddenly 3 Kurdish mayors were arrested for having ties to the PKK. The witch hunt continues.

[PointOfViewGun]

Seem Turkey is very very mad over not getting an opportunity to ravage Rojava.

Today 3 biggest municipalities that got the votes of millions of people were forcefully taken again with "terrorism" links. The decline of Turkish democracy continue over the un-solved Kurdish issue. It is more harm to Turkey than to Kurds at this point, since not much changes for them anyways...

This was a pathetic move by AKP to hurt HDP's political presence in the region. We all know such measures back fires and it will only hurt AKP in the long run. The move was condemned by pretty much every party with the exception of AKP and MHP. However, it doesn't have anything to do with what's happening in Syria. These are also not the biggest municipalities, nor they represent millions of votes. Total votes Diyarbakır, Van and Mardin represent is 2,188,159. HDP received 959,920 of them in the latest elections.

[Cookiegod]

What are your sources? To me it seems unlikely they'll try to tackle this city head-on so quickly, and secondly everything indicates they're instead trying to flank it and took Tal Al Nar to the north of the city.


Also: Their operations from Sukayka haven't made much progress so far due to the strong enemy counter attacks recently, so the attack would have to come from one very narrow direction with little support from its flanks.

It seems far more likely they'll keep building on their gains to the north of Khan Sheikhoun where the enemy is weak, including likely reaching the M5 highway near Moqa and thereby effectively cutting the salient off from the north.

Turns out I was right. SAA reached the M5 Highway north of Khan Sheikhoun. Turkey has lost the race. They had tried to establish a new "observation post" directly north of the city, to stop the Syrians from cutting the supply lines, but that convoy was forced to stop, once it got targeted by the SAF. Now they're too late and SAA presence a fait accompli. Encirclement might happen soon.

[dogukan]

Good to see Turkey lose its leverage in Syria. Once they establish that ineffective thing with USA, they'll also scare off Syria-Iran-Russia again. And when Idlib falls, Turkey will have nothing to offer to Putin anymore. This would strenghten the bargaining power of Kurds if USA stay in the game at its low-cost mode.

This was a pathetic move by AKP to hurt HDP's political presence in the region. We all know such measures back fires and it will only hurt AKP in the long run. The move was condemned by pretty much every party with the exception of AKP and MHP. However, it doesn't have anything to do with what's happening in Syria. These are also not the biggest municipalities, nor they represent millions of votes. Total votes Diyarbakır, Van and Mardin represent is 2,188,159. HDP received 959,920 of them in the latest elections.

It will hurt AKP on the long run indeed. It will also hurt Turkish democracy badly.
AKP and MHP are HALF of the country in case you haven't noticed (add the bonus Vatan party which has a weird base as it represents a nationalist extremity of CHP). And İYİ parti is on the edge on this issue and part of its base is likely sympathetic to this act.

However, it is certainly bringing CHP and HDP even closer together as it should. Finally a proper democratic left is forging against the Turk-Islam synthesis in Turkey that was blurring the frontlines of politics.


It doesn't have anything to do with Syria? Everything that happens there has EVERYTHING to do with Syria. Even Istanbul relations had something to do with Syria, given Öcalan was contacted to use as a leverage against PKK-YPG. Why is this happening NOW? And on what legal basis?

They are the biggest municipalities of Kurdish areas. And they represent the urban cores of a party that represents millions of people +(their children)

In any case, this only shows the weakening power of Turkey over the Kurds. The more Turkey needs to bring in violance to rule over Kurds, the more it seems they are losing their grasp over the populace. At this point, there is no way that Turkey can keep its hold over the region without recognizing Kurds in a democratic country. Thus the country de-democratizes, and it ends up hurting the WHOLE country's democracy.

[PointOfViewGun]

Good to see Turkey lose its leverage in Syria. Once they establish that ineffective thing with USA, they'll also scare off Syria-Iran-Russia again. And when Idlib falls, Turkey will have nothing to offer to Putin anymore. This would strenghten the bargaining power of Kurds if USA stay in the game at its low-cost mode.
It will hurt AKP on the long run indeed. It will also hurt Turkish democracy badly.
AKP and MHP are HALF of the country in case you haven't noticed (add the bonus Vatan party which has a weird base as it represents a nationalist extremity of CHP). And İYİ parti is on the edge on this issue and part of its base is likely sympathetic to this act.
However, it is certainly bringing CHP and HDP even closer together as it should. Finally a proper democratic left is forging against the Turk-Islam synthesis in Turkey that was blurring the frontlines of politics.
It doesn't have anything to do with Syria? Everything that happens there has EVERYTHING to do with Syria. Even Istanbul relations had something to do with Syria, given Öcalan was contacted to use as a leverage against PKK-YPG. Why is this happening NOW? And on what legal basis?
They are the biggest municipalities of Kurdish areas. And they represent the urban cores of a party that represents millions of people +(their children)
In any case, this only shows the weakening power of Turkey over the Kurds. The more Turkey needs to bring in violance to rule over Kurds, the more it seems they are losing their grasp over the populace. At this point, there is no way that Turkey can keep its hold over the region without recognizing Kurds in a democratic country. Thus the country de-democratizes, and it ends up hurting the WHOLE country's democracy.

Sigh... This is pure propaganda talk. Sticking to futile exaggerations, pointless boasting, delusional connections, inability to make accurate points... Simply exchanging one dogma over an other based on hatred. You don't realize that this kind of talk simply hurts simple Kurdic folk rather than help them be treated with dignity.

[dogukan]

says who? you?

[Cookiegod]

Syrians took the hill Tell Terai south of el Tamaniya, both being to the east of Khan Sheikhoun, which the Syrians also are in the process of clearing (according to some sources that process is already over). So the cauldron is now established, but it will not last long, given that the insurgents began pulling out of it already yesterday.

A major Saudi HTS affiliated cleric (based in Idlib) has meanwhile issued a fatwa calling for the members of what used to be called the al-Nusra front to relocate to Libya to aid the fight against Khalifa Haftar. Not surprising, since that would mean Turkey woild be able to kill several birds with one stone. For one, they're siding with the Muslim Brotherhood + Al-Qaida against Haftar in Libya. Secondly, they didn't have a lot of success with keeping HTS under control, which gave the Syrians all the reasons and opportunities needed to conduct the current offensive. Pro Turkish sources claim that the HTS didn't accept reinforcements from pro Turkish insurgent groups at an earlier stage of the campaign. And the Russians quite rightfully pointed out to the Turkish complaints that not only have the so called "moderate" rebel groups failed to expell HTS, as had been the deal, but even lost a lot of ground to them.

Most of the Idlib pocket is now being held by the HTS, though they will likely/hopefully have been severely weakened by this battle. The Syrians on the other hand have secured 4 strategically significant medium sized cities that had a combined pre-war population of over 100000, shortened the frontline and pushed the thugs further away from major population centres further to the south.

France, US & Co. are also stuck with al Qaida and have demanded the Syrians stick to the ceasefire, even when their opponents never did.

[Vanoi]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/iraqi-mil...171052780.html

Things are getting rather heated. Drone strikes targeting Iranian supported militias is new. Looks like Israel is not letting up in targeting Iran. I do wonder how they managed to get a drone that far into Syria/Iraq without at least the Syrians noticing the drones in their airspace.

[ioannis76]

And it seems the "powerful" turkish army has stooped to begging the Syrian military not to shoot:

Turkish forces in Morek: We're just following orders, don’t shoot

https://anfenglish.com/news/turkish-...-t-shoot-37196

Best remove those soldiers from the rest of the "observations points" before it's too late.
I warned that such a thing would happen but do they listen to poor old Ioannis? Noooooo...

[ioannis76]

An interesting bit in 10:18:
"Here is the turkish observation point in Morek, (points a few hundreds of meters away from that, to the south west) here is the post of Hayat Al Sham (jihadist terrorist organisation)"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfSpLVFgDwQ

Looks like Turkey has some explaining to do. Why did they assign blind soldiers to the observation post?

[ioannis76]

Just when I thought that the turkish military humiliation in Idlib can't get any worse, the turkish ministry of foreign affairs claims that they have guarantee from Russia that their cut off troops aren't going to be attacked by the SAA:

https://syria.liveuamap.com/en/2019/...ian-guarantees

I would recommend removing the troops from the checkpoint to the west, or they might get cut off, too. If that happens, then Turkey will have to give something to Syria in order for the SAA to let their troops go home in one piece.

[BundesReich]

If caliph=religious leader; If sultan=military leader...then yes, Sultan Erdogan the 1st is truly a genius! "What me?!? What did I do wrong now!?!" Sigh........

[ioannis76]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2COeefAttPA

HTS thugs acting as turkish police/military to disperse protesters. Nothing we didn't know of course, only now it's "official"

[Heathen Hammer]

Apparently some of the "moderate" jihadis backed by a certain number of members of certain American alphabet agency (we can presume CIA, sounds like their kind of thing) tried to capture 29 Russian soldiers near Idlib. Their problem was that as it turned out later, those soldiers were Russian special forces and mercs from Chechnya, which led to some lethal consequences for both terrorists and their American buddies.

[Abdülmecid I]

The article is two years old, the author cannot spell Caucasus, his vocabulary resembles that of balding cure ads and his numbers come straight from Assyrian royal chronicles. Not impressed, wouldn't tweet. There's a reason why the more sober Russia Today channel is considered as more efficient propaganda tool by the Kremlin than the bombastic Insider.

[Vanoi]

Lots of protests in Iraq lately. Things seem to be getting out of hand.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

At least 18 people have been killed and more than 700 injured in Iraq as armed forces fired shots and tear gas to suppress anti-government protesters demanding jobs, improved services and an end to perceived corruption.

https://www.dw.com/en/iraq-several-k...ist/a-50685064

The reconstruction of infrastructure is ridiculous slowly for a theoretical rich country.

An article from April 2019 about Irak:

Iraq, Germany's Siemens sign power agreement
Iraq and German giant Siemens have signed a framework electricity agreement potentially worth billions of dollars. The Iraqi premier was in Berlin to meet with Chancellor Angela Merkel.


Iraq's government and German industrial conglomerate Siemens have signed a framework agreement to upgrade the electricity grid of the power-strapped country.

Siemens chief executive Joe Kaeser and Iraqi Electricity Minister Luay al-Khatteeb "signed an implementation agreement to kick off the actual execution of the roadmap" agreed to last year, the company said in a statement.

"This includes the addition of new and highly-efficient power generation capacity, rehabilitation and upgrade of existing plants and the expansion of transmission and distribution networks," Siemens said in a statement.
Under the first phase of the agreement, the two sides agreed to contracts worth €700 million ($785 million) for the construction of a 500 megawatt gas-fired power plant, the upgrade of 40 gas turbines and the installation of 13 substations and 34 transformers across Iraq.


Siemens in place


Siemens is already active in Iraq and has a good chance of being awarded "a large part of these projects," he said.

US multinational General Electric is also competing for projects.
"Our claim is that we are a reliable and affordable power supplier to the people of Iraq and want to help them rebuild their country," said Kaeser.


Financing projects


Siemens may also help with financing the projects, which would create tens of thousands of jobs and lead to billions of dollars in fuel savings and revenue generation, the company said.

Siemens intends to increase electricity production in Iraq by around 50% through the building of new power plants, upgrading existing ones and modernizing the inefficient electricity grid.
Iraq suffers from major electricity shortages despite sitting on some of the world's largest oil and gas fields. Much of the country's gas is wasted through gas flares.
Summer electricity and water shortages in the oil-rich but impoverished south of the country have triggered near-yearly protests against the government.

https://www.dw.com/en/iraq-germanys-...ent/a-48550430


And there is a unhealthy competition between Siemens and GE:

German industrial giant Siemens has signed an informal deal to supply electricity to Iraq. There was a similar deal for US competitor General Electric, reportedly after intervention from the White House.

https://www.dw.com/en/siemens-and-ge...raq/a-45975492

[Odenat]

Turkish universities is starting to open faculties in Northern Syria. Some people in Turkey are started to call jokingly of the area as "North Syria Turkish Republic." on twitter. Turkey also announced that it is ready to spend 27 bn $ to built new towns at North Syria. The plans consist of the settlement of at least 1 million people.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-s...-idUSKBN1WJ0Z3

[Exarch]

US betrays its kurdish allies; yet another sorry episode of Perfidious America, i dare say, it's like they can't help themselves, like they are culturally the same as Perfidious Albion.

Already the kurds are begging at the gates of US bases for protection, only to find the gates barred to them:

‘Down with the occupation’? Syrian Kurds protest near US-occupied military base seeking protection from Turkish occupation

https://www.rt.com/news/470337-syria...ey-occupation/

The US will of course do nothing; like Lawrence of Arabia in previous times, promising the world and lying to the natives and using them and once used, to be discarded like a used tampon. No wonder US soldiers often have PTSD and become police officers who shoot first and murder civilians.

[conon394]

No wonder US soldiers often have PTSD and become police officers who shoot first and murder civilians.

Really you are rolling with that after the stream of news out of Hong Kong? Hey and didn't something happen in a big square in China once? PTSD is sort of a function and feature of going off to war for a fair percentage of people. I take it millennial zoomers in China are immune right?

The US will of course do nothing; like Lawrence of Arabia in previous times, promising the world and lying to the natives and using them and once used, to be discarded like a used tampon

You do realize that is fate of every bit player most of the time for most of history at the hands of any Great Power including China or any other example. There was never a war with Vietnam right nor a significant difference over who to help in Cambodia after that love fest China had with Nam because of US actions?