The Syria Analysis Thread

10 posts

Bronze Age Pervert

I for one am tired of provocateur "Schmeisser" trying to raise up false flags for monitoring on this forum. It's as clear he is up to something. He was a Nazi neopagan "really into guns" trying to rile up the gun nutjobs of the Phora (Angler, DWW and cru), then he turned into Westboro Baptist headcase without ever having been religious--by coincidence the favorite honey trap of the kwan spooks--then he suddenly leaves that after banging their daughters and corrupting them to PC religion ...and now is a radical Sunni. He's an Iraq vet or at least did something there, and was probably contacted after ending his tour; I'm not sure if he's being paid for this or how it works, but I'm waiting for Nic to do something about it because it's clear he's attaqing. Or is Salo, as we guessed, a CHRC honey trap? Did you have to reach a deal with Canadian security over those ciggarette smuggling charges Nic?

Schmeisser
Niccolo and Donkey
Bashar al-Assad wins re-election in Syria as uprising against him rages on

Niccolo and Donkey
Longface
Shake-up of U.S.-backed Syrian rebel group ordered

[​IMG]

As the Obama administration seeks $500 million in additional aid for Syrian rebels, a leading figure of the major U.S.-backed Syrian opposition coalition has ordered the disbanding and complete restructuring of the group's military wing.

The shake-up is the latest sign of disarray within the Syrian National Coalition, the exile-based opposition umbrella group backed by Washington and its allies. The Obama administration has touted the coalition as an alternative to the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad and has backed the group with funds and equipment.

Ahmad Tomeh, prime minister of the coalition's opposition government, ordered the dissolution of the Supreme Military Council, which oversees the Free Syrian Army, the affiliated rebel faction fighting in Syria. He referred members of the military command to a financial and administrative oversight committee "for investigation."

A statement late Thursday from Tomeh did not specify any charges of wrongdoing.

The recently appointed opposition military chief, Brig. Gen. Abdullah Bashir, was fired in the overhaul.

The move was meant in part to put the military campaign directly in the hands of Syria-based commanders, Tomeh said Friday in an interview with Al Arabiya, the Saudi-owned news channel.

The Syrian opposition group has long faced complaints that its leaders spend too much of their time in five-star hotels in Turkey and in allied Persian Gulf states, although Bashir was officially said to have been based in Syria.

Most commanders "no longer have a presence on the ground in Syria and live on Turkish soil," said Tomeh, a dentist with a long history in Syrian opposition circles.

"A new force on the battlefield deserves to be represented," Tomeh told Al Arabiya.

The overhaul drew condemnation from the ousted military leadership. In a statement, the former commanders described the decision as "irresponsible" and a "gross legal mistake."

The shake-up is the latest upheaval in the ranks of the U.S.-backed Syrian opposition. U.S. officials say they provide aid only to "moderate" rebel groups that reject Islamic extremism, support retaining a secular governing structure in Syria and respect the rights of Syria's minority groups.

The Free Syrian Army has long been a major disappointment to its overseas sponsors. On the battlefield, its forces have been eclipsed by various hard-line Islamist opposition factions, including Al Qaeda-style groups. It has never been clear how many troops fight under the FSA banner or report to its command structure.

Formed in December 2012, the Supreme Military Council aimed to bring together disparate rebel groups under a unified command that would plan and execute military operations as well as oversee the distribution of weapons and funds. U.S. officials applauded the move.

Its creation was in part an attempt to reassure supporters in the United States and elsewhere who were alarmed about the rising influence of Islamist fighting formations, including the Al Qaeda-affiliated Al Nusra Front and its arch-rival, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS.

But the U.S.-backed Syrian opposition has complained repeatedly that Islamist factions are better funded and have superior arms.

A major blow to the pro-U.S. "moderate" rebel movement came in December, when Islamist rebels seized stocks of U.S.-supplied "non-lethal" supplies that had been stored in warehouses along the Syria-Turkey border. Washington cut off some new aid deliveries for several months. Critics argue that there is no guarantee that weapons and other lethal aid provided to "moderate" rebels will not fall into the hands of Islamist militants.

Sweeping advances this month in Iraq by ISIS may have prompted the White House to bolster support for the Syrian opposition.

On Thursday, the Obama administration said it was asking Congress for $500 million in aid to train and equip "appropriately vetted elements of the moderate Syrian opposition," according to a statement from the National Security Council.
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SweetLeftFoot

Stalin famously asked how many divisions the Vatican has.

I honestly think the Vatican forces would roll up the "FSA" in a day.

Niccolo and Donkey
SweetLeftFoot

Let's get back to Syria. The Americans are now floating the trial balloon that they must hit Syria to 'get rid of ISIS'. Utterly transparent.

The Brits chime in:

UK rules out alliance with Bashar al-Assad in fight against Isis

Fitz
West poised to join forces with Assad in face of Islamic State

Covert co-operation may signal the beginning of a once unthinkable alliance

Patrick Cockburn
Friday, 22 August 2014

Islamist forces are fighting their way into western Syria from bases further east, bringing forward the prospect of US military intervention to stop their advance. If Isis, which styles itself Islamic State, threatens to take all or part of Aleppo, establishing complete dominance over the anti-government rebels, the US may be compelled to act publicly or secretly in concert with President Bashar al-Assad, whom it has been trying to displace.

The US has already covertly assisted the Assad government by passing on intelligence about the exact location of jihadi leaders through the BND, the German intelligence service, a source has told The Independent . This may explain why Syrian aircraft and artillery have been able on occasion to target accurately rebel commanders and headquarters.

Syrian army troops are engaged in a fierce battle to hold Tabqa airbase in Raqqa province, the fall of which would open the way to Hama, Syria’s fourth-largest city.

Further north, Isis has captured crucial territory that brings it close to cutting rebel supply lines between Aleppo and the Turkish border. The caliphate declared by Isis on 29 June already covers the eastern third of Syria in addition to a quarter of Iraq. It stretches from Jalawla, a town 20 miles from Iran, which the Iraqi army and Kurdish Peshmerga are trying to recapture, to towns 30 miles north of Aleppo.

The question of possible US military action in Syria, such as air strikes, jumped to the top of political agenda on Thursday when the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington, General Martin Dempsey, said: “Can they [Isis] be defeated without addressing that part of the organisation that resides in Syria? The answer is no.”

He stressed that he was not predicting that the US was intending to take military action in Syria, but the US is very conscious that Isis can survive indefinitely if it has a large safe haven in Syria.

Chas Freeman, the former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, told The Independent that General Dempsey was pointing out that Isis straddles the Iraq-Syrian border and there should be a consistent policy towards it on both sides of the divide.

General Dempsey “did not spell out the implications of that but, to me, they point in the direction of calling it off with Assad. It might also imply the sharing of intelligence with the opponents of Isis, even those from whom we ourselves are estranged. Odder things have happened in the Middle East.”

....
Angocachi
The post-Ahmadinejad traitor government in Tehran has been talking about using the fight against the Islamic State to convince the US to drop sanctions.

The US will attempt to defeat IS the same as it attempted to defeat it when it was AQ in Iraq. They have made the FSA into Sahwa. Dump money on Sunni Arab mafia bosses, give the Kurds air support so that they don't tear up their contracts with American firms, and if that doesn't work.. send in an army of special forces and mercenaries whose casualty figures don't get published.
None of that will work and it is all to IS immense benefit to be seen fighting America again. Right when IS needs to prove that it is more Al Qaeda than Zawahiri... Obama guarantees with each airstrike a fresh and thick injection of fighters, funds, popularity, legend, and legitimacy. What other group in the world wars with the Persians, the Romans, the Arab and the Kurdish polytheists, implements Shariah and has a Caliph. They're a phenomenon on the Earth and their enemies make themselves wind in IS sails.
nuclear launch detected
I don't know how true this is but it looks like Assad's gamble of letting the secular rebels and Islamists bleed each other dry worked. It's only a matter of time before Assad has full control of the entire Syrian state now.