ISIL War in Iraq and Syria II

[Odenat]

So sanctions do work now? Earlier you said this wouldn't have much of an effect.

So much for doom and gloom. Kurds just need to trade with someone else other than the Syrian goverment and the sanctions won't effect them. Hell according to the article the Kurdish administration is exempt from the sanctions.

I don't think you know how the sanctions are working or who the Kurdish trade with. It was you who said that sanctions will work, if you are right, than your own terrorist allies will be affected as they are "inside" Syria. PYD have to trade with Assad because there are no one else to sell them oil. Do you think Iraq, Iran or Turkey will sell them? lol.

Now, imagine who is winning by American sanctions. Thank you

https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/se...ish-lira-37202

[Vanoi]

I don't think you know how the sanctions are working or who the Kurdish trade with. It was you who said that sanctions will work, if you are right, than your own terrorist allies will be affected as they are "inside" Syria. PYD have to trade with Assad because there are no one else to sell them oil. Do you think Iraq, Iran or Turkey will sell them? lol.

Now, imagine who is winning by American sanctions. Thank you

https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/se...ish-lira-37202

Did you actually read your own article you posted? The Kurds are exempt. It seems to me you don't know much about the sanctions.

And the Kurds don't need oil.

https://www.iraqoilreport.com/news/o...ifeline-42495/

The Syrian Kurds export oil to Iraq. They don't need Assad, Iran, or Turkey to get oil. Seems to me you know absolutely nothing about the Syrian Kurds and how they make their money.

[Abdülmecid I]

An interesting article about the issues surrounding the OPCW's report about the attack in Douma. I can't judge how legitimate are the objections of the whistle-blowers, but the incidents of state interference in the work of the organisation, as well as the media silence, are very worrying phenomenons. The conclusions from generally well-respected and supposedly independent institutions can easily be used to justify an otherwise controversial policy to the eyes of the public opinion. Let's hope that the OPCW succeeds in maintaining his impartiality, despite the pressure from Washington (which, as the author underlined, also occurred in 2002, as a result of the debacle surrounding the accusations that the Iraqi regime secretly kept weapons of mass-destruction).

[Vanoi]

There's more to the story that the article doesn't discuss.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douma_chemical_attack

An engineering report written by Ian Henderson was leaked in 2019. The head of the OPCW, Fernando Arias, said that, at the time the OPCW was assessing the Douma attack, Henderson was a liaison officer at the OPCW Command Post Office in Damascus who was temporarily assisting the FFM with information collection at some sites in Douma.[85][86] Henderson concluded in his assessment that the evidence encountered at the site in Douma indicated that the liquefied-chlorine cylinders were not dropped from helicopters, but manually placed in their respective locations. This dissenting assessment was not included in the final report.[87] Arias, stated that Henderson's assessment "pointed at possible attribution, which is outside of the mandate of the Fact-Finding Mission with regard to the formulation of its findings". Arias said:

As is the case with all FFM investigations, the Secretariat encourages serious and professional debates within, so all views, analysis, information and opinions are considered. This is what the FFM did with the information included in the publicly disclosed document; all available information was examined, weighed and deliberated. Diverse views were expressed, discussed and considered against the overall facts and evidence collected and analysed. With regard to the ballistics data collected by the FFM, they were analysed by three external experts commissioned by the FFM, and working independently from one another. In the end, while using different methods and instruments, they all reached the same conclusions that can be found in the FFM final report.[86]

Henderson and the whistleblower Alex have had their points challenged.

Forensic Architecture worked with Bellingcat to examine and compare Ian Henderson's assessment with the OPCW's report, and the claims made by both reports about the dimensions of the cylinder and the crater in the roof.[88] The OPCW's final report included precise measurements of the size of the cylinders, the size of the crater in the roof, and the dimensions of the spaces in which they were found.[88] Forensic Architecture used a technique called 'image-matching' to verify the dimensions provided in the OPCW's report.[88] The image-matching of available photographs supported the measurements of the cylinder and crater provided in the OPCW's report.[88] Henderson's report provided a diagram based upon a drawing from the OPCW's report.[88] According to Forensic Architecture, if the OPCW's dimensions are followed, there appeared to be an error in Henderson's diagram and the proportion between the cylinder and crater were drawn incorrectly.[88] The cylinder in Henderson's diagram was approximately 1.48m in length, 8cm longer than the size of the cylinder as determined by the OPCW's report.[88] Forensic Architecture concluded that photographic evidence was consistent with a cylinder 1.4m in length and inconsistent with a cylinder of 1.48m.[88] Henderson's diagram also superimposed over the crater an outline of the cylinder's harness in its damaged, deformed state.[88] Forensic Architecture determined this drawing to be misleading because it should have taken into account that the deformation was caused by the impact on the ceiling and the subsequent impact on the floor of the room below.[88] Forensic Architecture had originally collaborated with The New York Times to investigate the Douma chemical attack in July 2018.[88]

The Bellingcat investigation team explained some of the aspects of the chemical behaviour of chlorine in a December 2019 article.[93] The following month, a further article investigated the claims made by "Alex" insisting his "claims about chemistry are flawed and hugely overstated". Arguing that "Alex" implied that some of the compounds discovered can be found in “household chlorine-based bleach”, Bellingcat responded that these were found in samples "taken at both Location 2 and 4, on multiple levels and on the adjacent street. Although it is possible that the inhabitants of Location 2 and 4 were in the habit of cleaning virtually everything in their buildings with bleach, including the walls and rubble in the street, it seems unlikely." "There is also the fact that the highest concentration of chlorinated organic compounds were found in a slat of wood underneath the cylinder on the bed at Location 4." His account, Bellingcat asserted, also ignored the fact that chlorine has rapid corrosive power; metallic objects at location 4 all had visible signs (the room where a cylinder was found on a beds). Further, "Immediately after the attacks, the metal frame around the munition at Location 4 was relatively clean and did not show any clear corrosion (the metal frame at Location 2 was removed by the time the OPCW inspectors arrived). However, by the time the inspectors visited 18 days after the attack, the frame at Location 4 had become heavily corroded." [94] As of November 2019, Alex had only made allegations through third-parties, each of whose account differed slightly.[90]

Bellingcat raises some great counters to the problems raised by Alex in the report.

[Abdülmecid I]

I know their conclusions have been disputed, but that still doesn't justify the indifference of the media, the effort of the OCPW to censor disagreement and the state intervention in the work of a nominally independent international organisation. Anyway, as the Caesar sanctions are enforced, the healthcare system of Syria is sinking in an even more precarious position. The irony is that before the war, Syria was praised for her health services, in comparison to her various neighbors in the Middle East. The sanctions are not the sole factor for the deterioration, of course, since Syria is essentially now a bankrupt state, but the sanctions have not only exacerbated her financial difficulties, but they also make it impossible for hospitals to purchase the necessary medicine and equipment provisions.

[Vanoi]

https://apnews.com/article/syria-10-...b833fadf47da26

https://www.npr.org/2021/03/15/97635...here-it-stands

10 years on. Much of Syria is in poverty and it's the worse it's been since the 10 year conflict began. Half of Syria's pre-war population is displaced.

Even with Assad taking back a lot of the territory he lost to the rebels and ISIS, the war shows no signs of ending. Assad is currently unable to take back the territory held by the Kurds or the territory held by the rest of the rebels without stepping on Turkey and the US's toes.

At best it looks like Syria remains a failed state for years to come.

[Vanoi]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/putin-sta...124825513.html

Great article detailing how Russia uses it's "siege and starve" strategy in Syria to help gain the upper hand for Assad.

What changed was not the scale of need, which has actually increased since the UN aid program began and Syria’s economy fell into crisis. Nor has violence gone down. What changed was Russia, which has been exploiting its veto power at the UN Security Council to systematically shut aid gateways, one after the other.

The aid flows to regions held by Syrian opposition forces, which are being systematically starved out by dictatorial president Bashar al-Assad. Russia considers Assad an ally, and so any aid—even for humanitarian reasons—is an affront to his rule. Accordingly, last January, during negotiations scheduled to determine the extension of aid access, Russia forced the closure of a crossing from northern Iraq and another from Jordan. Both had been providing a lifeline to northeastern and eastern Syria. Then last July, Russia used the same tactic to shut down the Bab al-Salam crossing from Turkey into northern Aleppo.

That left only one road for aid to arrive, via Turkey, at Bab al-Hawa. And now the Russians have already signaled their intention to shut that as well when it comes up for a vote in the UN Security Council this summer. If they succeed, it will cut off UN cross-border aid altogether—and all but sever northwestern Syria from the global community, and from any semblance of help.

Russia has purposely used it's clout at the UN to cut or limit humanitarian access to both northwestern and northeastern Syria. Cutting off critical aid to millions of people.

Government areas re-taken by the rebels get no help.

. Even areas violently retaken by the regime no longer receive cross-border aid, while being all but abandoned by the bankrupt government in Damascus. In southern Syria, for example, which was administered by the opposition until mid-2018, living conditions are dire and communities have been forced to call upon relatives abroad to pool money together to rebuild things like water pipes and electricity lines.

And how much aid does Russia supply to Syria while it's bombing rebel hospitals and cutting off aid to millions of people?

Clearly aware of the optics associated with its intended veto, Russia has blocked Syrian civil society organizations and even the International Rescue Committee from speaking to the Security Council in recent weeks. The structure of the Security Council gives Russia leverage over Syria’s aid delivery out of all proportion to its contributions to it. In this case, the U.S. and Europe fund over 90 percent of the UN aid effort to Syria, while Russia accounts for only 1 percent; and yet Russia’s veto power at the UN provides Putin with overwhelming power to hold the UN hostage and potentially sever aid access altogether.

Is this what winning is like for Assad and Russia? Is this what is supposed to be the best choice Syria when it comes to ending the civil war and forming a stable government?

Assad should have been taken out in 2013 when the US had the chance. Instead the war continues on for it's 11th year.

[Abdülmecid I]

A very interesting article about the use of car bombs during the 2015 Idlib offensive. The achievements of the defenders in the siege of the Jisr al-Shughur hospital are film-worthy. What I also found interesting is that not all operations were suicide attacks, but in some of them the vehicle was simply parked and not rammed at the Syrian Army positions. The Islamist rebels described these cases as purely tactical decisions, but in some instances, it looks like the driver simply lost his courage and ran away to save his life.

EDIT: A great article about ISIL's current "Caliph". He's a very obscure personality, even Wikipedia seems to have two separate pages about him. In social media, there are videos circulating with Qardash trying to defend his PhD thesis and getting roasted by the committee. He dedicated his paper to those who work from the shadows (totally not al-Qaeda in Iraq), but the irony is that the professors assumed he was referring to Sufism, because his thesis talked about the Hanafi School of Jurisprudence (considered by some as moderate and progressive) and not the Hanbali School, one of whose offshoots is Salafism and then Wahhabism. I wonder if Qardash used the Lobachevsky method to write his dissertation...

Last but not least, a twitter thread about the extremely poor and biased journalism of geopolitics-orientated think tanks. The problem with this kind of fear-mongering articles is that they also fuel the narrative of the "great replacement" and "Shiite indoctrination" that Wahhabi extremists, like ISIL and al-Qaeda propagate, in order to increase their appeal among more moderate Sunnis. It basically encourages polarisation and sectarianism.

[PointOfViewGun]

Apparently, SDF copied Assad in the latest protests against forced conscription in Manbij.

Manbij protests | Residents express anger over death of young man shot by Asayish members

SOHR activists have reported several demonstrations in Manbaj city which is under the control of the “Manbij Military Council” of Syrian Democratic Forces, north-east of Aleppo against Internal Security Forces (Asayish) that opened fire on group of demonstrators in al-Hadhod village in north Manbij countryside, east Aleppo, rejecting the SDF campaign for mandatory conscription. SOHR activists reported that members of Internal Security Forces (Asayish) shot live ammunition at a demonstration in al-Hadhod village in northern Manbij countryside east Aleppo, rejecting the SDF campaign for mandatory conscription, which caused the death of a young man, while three other demonstrators injured.

SOHR sources had reported a demonstration in Manbij city in the north-eastern countryside of Aleppo, as demonstrators condemned the decision of mandatory conscription and the current security chaos, which started from the area of the Grand Mosque and covered the city’s neighborhoods and streets. The demonstrators also demanded the authorities allow exportation of cement and increase Manbij allocations of fuel.

Syrian Observatory activists said earlier this morning that the residents of Manbij city, which is under the control of Manbij Military Council in the north-eastern countryside of Aleppo, started a general strike, protesting the decision of mandatory conscription in areas under the control of the Autonomous Administration and the recent military campaign which led to the arrest of hundreds of people who has been driven to military service.

[Exarch]

Congratulations to President Assad for a landslide election victory!!!

Not long now for the long suffering people of Syria, Final victory over the traitors and Daesh is soon a-coming.

[Gromovnik]

Great news.

[PointOfViewGun]

Eight killed in protests against Kurdish-led forces in northern Syrian city

At least eight people were killed and scores injured on Tuesday when U.S. backed Kurdish-led forces fired live rounds to disperse Arab tribal protests against their rule in the Syrian city of Manbij, according to security and medical sources and residents.

The protests took a violent turn when hundreds of demonstrators marched near checkpoints around the city a day after one civilian was killed in protests that swept the area demanding the end of Kurdish minority rule over a mainly Arab tribal population.

If this escalates we will likely have renewed fighting between YPG and Turkey with the latter taking over Manbij. The area is one of the areas under YPG control that is largely Arab.

[Abdülmecid I]

In France, the supreme court overturned the previous dismissal of charges about complicity in human crimes that had been brought against the multinational company Lafarge. The judges also upheld the charges against Lafarge's top officials about financing terrorism. Despite the civil war, Lafarge insisted that its cement factory located in northern Syria should continue its operations. As a result, many employees were threatened by the various Islamist factions that controlled the region (including ISIL), to which Lafarge paid several million dollars, in order to assure the protection of the facilities. A large portion of that money was given to ISIL. Also, a few leaked documents indicate that the French intelligence services were aware of Lafarge's shady actions, which they used to gather intelligence. They never warned Lafarge about the illegality of their actions, but on the contrary they took advantage of them for their own purposes.

[Heathen Hammer]

The funniest part is that they were doing this back when jihadis that wanted to depose Assad were still being called "freedom fighters" by majority of Western journos, who were actively propagandizing "Assad's war crimes" and all that, so they probably assumed they'll be viewed as modern-day Charlie Wilson (who kicked the bucket before public realized that scumbag was arming terrorists). At this rate I wouldn't be surprised that Lafarge had ties to CIA or Saudi intelligence.