The Syria Analysis Thread

Amadis Sunday 27 Mar 2016

RUS Spetznaz @ Palmyra appear to be operating mainly as JTACs, calling in air strikes.

So far they seem to be using Zaslon at the embassy, KSO for more specialised ops (counter-sniping apparently) and GRU Spetsnaz for a combination of recon (including as JTACs) and for special missions (hunt/kill). However they've held back from conducting frontal assaults or mass deployments.

Using a small number of elite troops as a force multiplier alongside the locals gives Russia strategic flexibility, keeps the casualties low and provides complex skills. Rather than try to reconquer the entire country (like the US in Afghan), they're using a focused deployment to achieve their limited objectives.

And as we see at Palmyra, they're succeeding.

Welund Friday 1 Apr 2016

What was the conclusion here? Is Latakia now free of its Sunni demographic problem?

Niccolo and Donkey Saturday 2 Apr 2016

SAA now storming the city:

[IMG]

Niccolo and Donkey Saturday 2 Apr 2016

Latakia Province is 95% clean.

Niccolo and Donkey Monday 4 Apr 2016

Niccolo and Donkey Tuesday 5 Apr 2016

Amadis Saturday 9 Apr 2016

Serb mercenaries among Russian PMC which fought at Palmyra?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/09/where-are-the-syrians-in-assads-syrian-arab-army/

Niccolo and Donkey Saturday 9 Apr 2016

Wouldn't surprise me one bit. Around 300 Bosnian Serbs ended up as mercs in the Congo shortly after the Bosnian War ended.

Fitz Thursday 21 Apr 2016

- latest hit, a notorious regime torturer-murderer known for stabbing victims in lungs and letting them drown in their own blood.

Shadowy rebels conducting Damascus assassinations

The Deterring the Oppressors Brigades claims to have killed two regime security officials in the Syrian capital.

BEIRUT – A newly-formed rebel cell has been conducting assassinations in Syria’s capital in a bid to spread fear among security officers serving in the Bashar al-Assad government.

The Deterring the Oppressors Brigades announced their formation on April 14, explaining that their “mission was to knock out and destroy the pillars of the ungodly and unjust regime [by] targeting its cronies in various ways.”

“We say to the [regime] that we will force you to taste woes… what you are about to see is far more [dangerous] than what you imagine,” the group warned.

Hours after issuing its opening statement, the Deterring the Oppressors Brigades uploaded a video on its Facebook page purporting to show an officer it had killed.

The targeted man is shown in the video slumped over on a couch with a large blood spot over his heart where he was seemingly shot. For a second, the assassin filming the death scene moves his hand across the camera, revealing a pistol.

Screengrab from Deterring the Oppressors' video. (Facebook)

Deterring the Oppressors identified its victim as Lieutenant Said Badran, saying that he had been “lured” to the site of his death by one of the unit’s operators.

In a subsequent statement to a pro-rebel outlet, a spokesperson for the group claimed that Badran was an officer in Syria’s Political Security intelligence service.

Days later the Deterring the Oppressors Brigades claimed a second hit in the heart of Damascus, saying it “managed to assassinate Sergeant Abdul Hamid Kauwa… on the evening of [April 18] by stabbing him to death on Jalaa Street.”

The group said that Kauwa was serving in Syrian military intelligence’s notorious Brigade 235, commonly known as the “Palestine Branch.”

“Sleeper cells across Damascus”

A Deterring the Oppressors spokesperson spoke to Zaman al-Wasl about the group, claiming that it had sleeper cells distributed across the “heart of the capital.”

“All areas of the capital, without exception, are a theater for the Brigades’ operations,” the spokesperson, identified as Mohammad al-Shami, said.

The spokesperson further claimed that his faction has “cells in most [Syrian] provinces, but [the group’s] work currently focuses on Damascus.”

Shami stressed that the Deterring the Oppressors Brigades was independent, and does “not receive any funding at the moment or follow any faction.”

He also hinted that the Deterring the Oppressors Brigades has conducted more operations, but that they have been kept secret due to their sensitive nature.

Other assassination faction

Another rebel group has also claimed a series of assassinations, many of them stabbing deaths, in Damascus.

Liwa al-Adiyat started targeting regime security officers—most of them Alawite—in the beginning of the year, announcing on January 29 that it killed Firdous Ismail , a Lieutenant in the military security apparatus.

The following day, Liwa al-Adiyat claimed the assassination of Naseem Taref Nayyas, who the group identified as an officer in the “special forces.”

On February 9, the rebels claimed the killing of Lieutenant Ahmad Jamaa, saying they stabbed him in the neck as he was walking through the city in the night with a bottle of wine while accompanied by a prostitute.

Liwa al-Adiyat said it struck again four days later, with its assassins shooting to death Captain Ali Allouch—an Air Force pilot—while he was in his car in a parking lot.

On February 19, Liwa al-Adiyat claimed its members stabbed Lieutenant Hussein Dalaos in his own home in the capital. The group also posted a gruesome video on its Facebook page showing the slain officer’s body covered in his own blood.

Liwa al-Adiyat’s most notable operation came in early April when claimed it killed Colonel Hussam Abboud Shalish, who they called "a criminal responsible for the protection of Asma al-Assad," and two of his own bodyguards “in the heart of the capital.”

Amin Nasr translated Arabic-language source material.

Fitz Thursday 21 Apr 2016

this is a good question that assadists don't seem to have an answer to. The regime doesn't have anywhere near the numbers necessary to reoccupy the country. What is their plan if they were to defeat all their enemies and retake syria? Would they retain this horde of foreign mercenaries and shia-jihadis as an occupying force? They'd need to remain otherwise the only other way to prevent another rebellion would be slaughtering or severely decimating the sunni population.

The Syria Analysis Thread

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