ISIL War in Iraq and Syria II

[Heathen Hammer]

I see this as something almost like the Battle of the Bulge - one last major offensive put under a delusional hope that maybe, just maybe, they can score a breakthrough and send the enemy into flight.

The reason why Germans wanted to advance there was to deal a significant blow to Western Allies, which could serve as ground for a potential truce, as opposed to eventual complete capitulation.
Same here with ISIS. They probably want to strike a deal with one of the major sides so they could at least have a chance of surviving. They also know that the times is against them: as soon as Trump is in the office, he'd probably dedicate much more effort to deal with them.

[Condottiere 40K]

I think he'll just contain them, and give Putin a free hand in Syria, upto the borders of Kurdistan.

[Tureuki]

That doesn't prove anything but that you have a different understanding of law. They are Salafists with sympathies regarding IS. Many of those even joined IS in Syria. However German law is very precise. It does try to protect the individual person. As long as the organization is not listed as terrororganisation, it is not against the law to be a Salafist. They act a bit in the dark zones and honestly the police doesn't want to make them illegal, because they can monitor them better as it is right now. So they are observed and every one and then when some of them is ready to become a terrorist, he gets flagged, but only than. This is to prevent people getting innocently arrested like in Turkey where your opinion is already a reason to get jailed. This is the reason why the Pakistani a few days ago was released, while in Turkey he would have been used even if the authorities knew they had the wrong one, because they can't show weakness and show that they are wrong.

The point is, they werent part of isis. It was more then a year before ISIS even become an active partipiciant in the crisis. They were simply some bearded guys who happened to be there in a public visit and got a souvenir photo with the minister. Is presenting this as "Turkish minister visits ISIS militants" sounds objective to you? Nothing but propaganda.

I'm not answering the other guy unless he picks up a dictionary and learns the meaning of evidence. But I doubt this is gonna happen because as I said before, some people simply seek to support their political agenda. They dont care about the truth. They dont even care about the context.

[Odenat]

Thank you, Odenat, for making my point.

Wow! Ioannis, you totally ignored that the source says it's Greek middle men who are buying oil from ISIS, bring it to Turkey with correct documents (showing as the source of oil Iraq Kurds) and then sell it to Israel!

So, you are not accusing Greek middle men, you are not accusing Israel but you are accusing Turkey. The only thing Turkey can be accused of is to allow Greeks who are trading with ISIS to enter Turkey. But, those people have EU passports and probably they are partners with corrupt EU and Greek officials. So, catching them is not easy.

[Abdülmecid I]

Whole sentence :



Don't worry. At this point everybody understand Assad's government sources are the only one reliable "according to your standards". Reuters does not say if the accusation is true. Only you see it that way.
I do not care what you may think about this pro rebel account. It is totally irrelevant. The important information he gives are reports of regime shelling in the vicinity of the water station. It can be easily verified.


They were not attacked so far because they are supposed to be under a local truce. The latest truce agreement was signed only two months ago.

Yes, I apologize for taking the water-supplying authorities of Damascus (exactly like Reuters, which apparently considered their claims plausible) more seriously than Sami, a random pro-rebel twitter account, who hasn't even denied that rebels intentionally contaminated the water. The one doesn't contradict the other, although the only evidence that you have provided of the water facilites being bombed by the airforce is Sami's rants and two Youtube videos in Arabic, which show two locations being destroyed by the war. Not exactly very convincing, Anne. Let's not beat around the bush, the only sources that could know the truth are the jihadists of al-Fijah and the Syrian government and neither of them is particularly objective. Especially, the former, as the opposition is notorious for its much more effective censorship, frequently resulting in sadistic executions, which renders any attempt to learn the truth about the situation in the rebel-held Syria inevitably fruitless, as every "activist" is either forced or determined not to respect its audience's rights for well-balanced information. Finally, your source, despite being Enab Baladi, the newspaper of the Daraya rebels, essentially the news agency of the rural Damascus' opposition and therefore less credible than even the mouthpieces of Qatar, such as Lister or Middle East Eye, totally supports my statement of rebels blackmailing the government, based on their privileged position.

The agreement includes several items in exchange of maintaining the line supplying Damascus with water, which was exploded two days earlier.

A more serious article about the issue, which records the long history of the local warlords exploiting the needs of the citizens of Damascus to promote their own interests. There is nothing controversial going on here, just the rebels proceeding to materialize their repeatedly and clearly expressed threats.
EDIT: Slightly irrelevant, but for whoever is interested, an excellently detailed description of the urpising in Eastern Ghouta, the diverse factors that led to the revolt (ranging from desolate slum-dwellers to the tradition of Douma as a center for Islamic scholarship), the nature of the uprising, the region's economy, the blurred lines between siege, corruption and bilaterally recognized "smuggling, the rise and fall of Zahran Alloush' Islamic Army, crafty merchants and the ideological bankruptcy of "secular" groups:
tcf.org/content/report/into-the-tunnels/

[Linke]

As media forgets about Aleppo evacuation, it turns out there were som 35 000 people rather than hundreds of thousands in Aleppo, according to united nations, http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.as...3#.WGEjy0p86rU .

[ioannis76]

Wow! Ioannis, you totally ignored that the source says it's Greek middle men who are buying oil from ISIS, bring it to Turkey with correct documents (showing as the source of oil Iraq Kurds) and then sell it to Israel!

So, you are not accusing Greek middle men, you are not accusing Israel but you are accusing Turkey. The only thing Turkey can be accused of is to allow Greeks who are trading with ISIS to enter Turkey. But, those people have EU passports and probably they are partners with corrupt EU and Greek officials. So, catching them is not easy.

the source says it's Greek middle men who are buying oil from ISIS

LOL, and what do you think that proves? That 1 or 10 Greeks are scumbags? I can show you 100 more. We are not talking about individuals, we are talking about GOVERNMENTS. STATES. I am talking about Turkey, the country, not 1 or 2 or 10 Turks. The articles I bring you are talking about AKP, the GOVERNMENT.

And I return to YOUR articles:

Szubin said the “far greater amount” of Islamic State oil ends up under Assad’s control while some is consumed internally in Islamic State areas but some ends up in Kurdish regions and Turkey.

“Some is coming across the border into Turkey,” Szubin said.

Who is responsible for guarding Turkish borders? Not the turkish government?

According to the report, the oil originates primarily from the Dir A-Zur region in Syria and two separate oil fields in Iraq, reaching the Kurdish city of Zakhu, near the borders of Syria, Iraq and Turkey. At this point in the chain of sale, Israeli and Turkish mediators negotiate the prices in the relative safety of Kurdish territory, then the oil is smuggled to Silopi, a city in southeastern Turkey.

Who is responsible for the oil going into Silopi? Whose responsibility is it to stop the smuggling?

Your OWN ARTICLES PROVE what I am saying.

[Marcus Aemilius Lepidus]

As media forgets about Aleppo evacuation, it turns out there were som 35 000 people rather than hundreds of thousands in Aleppo, according to united nations, http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.as...3#.WGEjy0p86rU .

While i appreciate your bringing up of the numbers we have to be honest about them. The 35k where the last remaining people. Those who stayed in the last quarters because they had no choice since they lived there or because they had connection with the rebels. Remember that those who came from Idlib in 2012 brought entire families with them which became citizens of Aleppo. It is true that there were never 250k people in Eastaleppo like it was always claimed, but in the following of the liberation up to 70k people fled in to kurdish or government held areas. So it was slightly over 100k people in the end and obviously many of those people were hold hostage by a minority.

http://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2...isten-rebellen

Its a german source but they also say the rebels didn't told the truth and that there were actually 100k people in East Aleppo instead of the 300k claimed by opposition sources. It only showed that their propaganda worked since every major newspaper was bringing up that numbers for months. When i wrote that months ago, people were laughing at me...

[Garbarsardar]

This is a thread to replace/continue the one here, which was closed because it reached the 10,000 post limit. The last five pages of the now closed thread have been copied and added to the new one, in order not to interrupt the ongoing debates.

[Odenat]

Breaking news; Turkish media just announced that Russia and Turkey have agreed on a countrywide ceasefire at Syria!

Peace meeting will start at Kazakhstan next month between Syrian government and rebels groups. The latest news is that both sides are started to meet already.

It's a very good news, Syria was created by Western powers (France&England) after WW1. It was an unworking state, a source of chaos at Middle East. Right now, Turkey&Russia have a chance to bring peace at the country and reorganize it. Of course, there are other Western created entities at Middle East, like Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Time will tell what will happen to them.

It's not clear if any Western country will join to the peace meeting. At his latest speech, Putin said that Astana meeting will be between Russia, Iran, Turkey and Assad's government.

Here is the press release from Russian foreign affairs webpage;

http://www.mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/...ent/id/2580568

[IrishBlood]

Unfortunately a faction of Syrian rebels (believed to be the FSA + their allies) broke the ceasefire agreement a few hours after it began by attacking the Syrian Army. The peace deal is not off to a great start. :/

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/rebels-attack-syrian-army-positions-northern-hama-break-ceasefire/

It seems that one of the most powerful rebel factions, Ahrar al-Sham, have also rejected the ceasefire just before it was set to take place and have since continued fighting against government forces.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/putin-sa...hed-1483014654

[Roma_Victrix]

Unfortunately a faction of Syrian rebels (believed to be the FSA + their allies) broke the ceasefire agreement a few hours after it began by attacking the Syrian Army. The peace deal is not off to a great start. :/

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/rebels-attack-syrian-army-positions-northern-hama-break-ceasefire/

It seems that one of the most powerful rebel factions, Ahrar al-Sham, have also rejected the ceasefire just before it was set to take place and have since continued fighting against government forces.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/putin-sa...hed-1483014654

Can't we all just give peace a chance? Some people find it hard to keep their dicks in their pants, I guess.

So what is the future of Syria, then? Partition of its sovereign territory into new nations or regional devolution of its government to create autonomous and semi-autonomous areas, such as the ones clearly controlled by the Kurds? The Sunni majority areas will probably follow the same route, if that happens.

[IrishBlood]

Well I think it's pretty inevitable that the Kurd's will achieve autonomy. They have the backing of the West and have organized themselves into a fairly homogeneous and (relatively) stable government with a well equipped standing army. They have also achieved a reasonably stable detente with Assad that will be likely to hold.

I get the feeling that Russia and Iran will force Assad to accept Kurdish demands for autonomy. They can't keep bankrolling him with money and troops forever and the Kurd's don't pose the same direct threat to their interests that the Opposition/Islamist rebels do.

As for the Sunni areas, I'm not sure. They are far less homogeneous or organized. The fact that they have been unable to form themselves into a single organized fighting force to combat Assad after all these years speaks volumes about how divided and fractious those areas would be if they attempted to establish autonomous areas akin to what the Kurds have achieved. There's just too many well armed warlords with too many violently different agendas.

T

[IrishBlood]

Well I think it's pretty inevitable that the Kurd's will achieve autonomy. They have the backing of the West and have organized themselves into a fairly homogeneous and (relatively) stable government with a well equipped standing army. They have also achieved a reasonably stable detente with Assad that will be likely to hold.

I get the feeling that Russia and Iran will force Assad to accept Kurdish demands for autonomy. They can't keep bankrolling him with money and troops forever and the Kurd's don't pose the same direct threat to their interests that the Opposition/Islamist rebels do.

As for the Sunni areas, I'm not sure. They are far less homogeneous or organized. The fact that they have been unable to form themselves into a single organized fighting force to combat Assad after all these years speaks volumes about how divided and fractious those areas would be if they attempted to establish autonomous areas akin to what the Kurds have achieved. There's just too many well armed warlords with too many violently different agendas.

[Condottiere 40K]

1. Lebanon 2.0.

2. Chances are, that unless the Iranians are willing to invest more troops and money, the borders are set.

3. Outside of the Syrian Air Force, the Syrian military will take decades to recover, so Assad will be reliant on militias indefinitely to hold what he has.

4. Unless extensive ethnic cleansing occurs, beyond the normal purging of suspected collaborators and settling of old scores, Syria will enter into an era of guerrilla warfare.

5. Putin will not want to be drawn into that, militarily or financially.

6. A direct push against the Kurds by Assad will draw in the Americans, so that will be up to the Turks.

7. I believe that Trump is building another of his monuments in Istanbul, so he and Erdogan might come to some sort of settlement.

8. The Daeshii will likely go underground in Iraq and Syria, once their field formations have lost cohesion and the territory is retaken.

9. My suspicion is that the Kurds have made provision if the Turks intervene within what they perceive are their territories, possibly they will welcome an extended campaign of directly drawing out Turkish army units and blooding them, to weaken Turkish resolve.

[sumskilz]

As for the Sunni areas, I'm not sure. They are far less homogeneous or organized.

They also contain pretty much all the country's oil that isn't otherwise within the Kurdish area.

[Marcus Aemilius Lepidus]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...ke-us-military Its already three weeks old but shows how two-faced media is.

[Costin_Razvan]

I get the feeling that Russia and Iran will force Assad to accept Kurdish demands for autonomy.

I doubt it. Remember Turkey is firmly against Kurdish autonomy demands.

[Flavius Julius Nepos Augustus]

About that, here is a detailed map.

The Turkish Army dealt with the some Kurdush cities. PKK has left Sinjar , the military bases in northern Iraq seems to be directed against PKK. I don't know the details about this conflict but it is a very useful map.

In other news: Suheil al-Hassan has reportedly been promoted to rank of Brigadier General as well as chief of the Air Force Intelligence branch in Aleppo. If he runs one day for office he will take it!

[Marcus Aemilius Lepidus]

The rebels in Wadi Barada say now they would agree to a ceasefire if Hiszbollah and SAA would stop their attacks. Than the Goverment might sent in teams to repair the watersource. I ask myself again, if from the beginning they have not the people to keep the infastructure up and running why hold the ground their? That is what terrorists do, attacking infastructure. Its the same with the Mossul-dam. It was conquered by IS and since at least 2014 nobody was able to repair it, which has constantly to be done. Its an earthquake region and the ground is constantly moving. The damn thing has to be daily repaired with cement.