So the ceasefire is in effect Elijah J. Magnier @EjmAlrai 21 FSA, rebel and jihadi groups reject officially the cease-fire conditions and refuse to take a distance from #AQ Laura Rozen @lrozen Kerry says if this effort fails, likely escalation against Assad (by regional actors) and "we can't stop that."
Alexander Marquardt Verified account @MarquardtA IDF says 2 Syrian surface-to-air missiles were fired overnight after Israel targeted artillery, no damage to aircraft.
Death of ISIS chief spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani confirmed. Got him in an airstrike. Big loss for IS on this one, he was huge in coordinating recent European attacks as well as being an IS mouthpiece and their 2nd most senior leader behind only al-Baghdadi.
Not current but 30 minute CNN report(in multiple parts) from June 10, 2000 right after Hafez al-Assad died and Bashar succeeded him.
US accidentally bombed and killed dozens of Syrian government soldiers today. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-37398721
Sounds like we submitted that target to Russia before the strike and they didn't give us any warning. I bet there's a lot of fuckery going on between us and Russia with them wanting us to work closer with them in Syria.
Russian MOD(from SAA) saying 62 soldiers dead which I highly doubt with their typical exaggerated reports.
The Associated PressVerified account @AP 11m11 minutes ago BREAKING: Syria's military declares cease-fire over, blames rebel groups for undermining the agreement
Conflict News @Conflicts UPDATE: Officials confirm to @ABC that UN convoy carrying aid for #Aleppo has been attacked. Still unclear who attacked it - @WilliamsJon
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/fe...itory-forgiveness-murder-160920043504153.html Very interesting read, some good first hand accounts.
The Inside Source @TheInsideSourc BIG! SAA launches wide scale assault on Aleppo and its countryside amid collapse of ceasefire , read for more -http://bit.ly/2cPTTL0 ^^^^Government biased source^^^^ Qalaat Al Mudiq @QalaatAlMudiq E. #Damascus: reports a Mig-23 crashed in E. #Qalamoun. Yusha Yuseef @MIG29_ I confirmed , its downed near AL-Batraa Area eastern Qalamoun
At some point if the Syrian army and Russia continue to target aid conveys and hospitals the USA will have to step in.
SAA pilot was rescued Brasco_Aad @Brasco_Aad #Russia/n Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu: 'The Russian Federation has dispatched the Admiral Kuznetsov Aircraft Carrier to #Syria'
Definitely interested to see how long it lasts out there in sustained operations. Carrier operations is the one thing America dominates every other country with no hope of anyone in the next few decades of catching up.
SAA soldiers flee from Nusra advance despite being better equipped and leave all their equipment behind
the changing of the landscape, emptied cities, and discarded/destroyed hardware littering basically most of the country when this is all said and done is going to look like 100 Chernobyls
These are probably the 3 cities with the most destruction, some of it is post apocalyptic. The rebels in Darayya signed a treaty and left a few weeks ago. Aleppo drone footage Darayya(8 km from center of Damacus) video http://www.aparat.com/v/HduWw Homs drone footage
'loyalist forces' is a loose term. Assads strongest militants are gangsters. Shits inevitable to go to shit soon after. Without a doubt there will be another revolution.
Best case scenario for the regime is Iraq taking back Mosul asap and all but ridding ISIS from Iraq which will flee up Iraqi militias(PMU) to go fight for the Syrian government. Even if the regime takes all of Aleppo city(which will take a long time) there's still no way they could conquer the rest of the country(primarily Idlib province) without significantly more foreign manpower.
Highly doubt that this is going to happen. The Sunni areas of Iraq are going to have to be secured and patrolled, and the Sunni elements of the PMU will never fight for Assad. The situation at the border will be very interesting, but I doubt the PMU will go fight around Damascus and the north of Syria.
If Soleimani wants them to go to Syria they'll go to Syria. Obviously not all of them and not Sunnis but even 5k-10k would really help.
So we'll get Shiite forces helping crush a rebellion against a non-Sunni leader in a Sunni majority country? Sounds like a good recipe. There's just no good ending for this at all. And to think about 7-8 years ago Syria was a place I really wanted to visit.
Oh, I know, and there are Iraqi Shia militiamen fighting too of course along with Hezbollah, but they've just been maintaining his position primarily of course. If those groups actually move into the Sunni areas and crush the opposition, it's going to be ugly--even uglier than what it is now. I don't see how that can possibly work.
From what I understand it seems like conventional wisdom but who really knows. The regime needs reliable manpower from anywhere and they don't exactly have a big recruiting pool. Regime has transferred the Tiger Forces and Suheil al-Hassan to Hama where the SAA has been losing ground.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...ge-family-deaths-wahida-mohamed-a7337801.html Iraqi grandmother 'decapitated Isis fighters and cooked their heads' to avenge her family's death 'I have shrapnel in my head and legs, my ribs were broken, but all that didn't stop me from fighting' Samuel Osborne @SamuelOsborne93 14 hours ago 40 comments Wahida Mohamed Al-Jumaily, 39, published a photo on Facebook appearing to show her carrying a severed head, and another showing two severed heads in a cooking pot Facebook/Wahida Mohamed An Iraqi grandmother claims to be one of the people most feared by Isis and has received personal death threats from the group's leader. Wahida Mohamed Al-Jumaily, 39, said she has beheaded and cooked the heads of Isis fighters to avenge the deaths of her family. Isis killed her second husband earlier this year and has previously killed her father and three brothers. Um Hanadi recently led her militia in the battle to help government forces drive Isis from Shirqat (Facebook/Wahida Mohamed) READ MORE Isis defeated in key town of Shirqat as Iraqi army prepares for Mosul offensive Isis launches triple suicide bombing in Iraq as security forces advance towards stronghold of Mosul Isis cracks down on civilians in Mosul over rebellion fears ahead of Iraqi army offensive Better known as Um Hanadi, she leads a 70-strong militia in the fight against Isis in the recently liberated town of Shirqat, which sits 50 miles south of the Isis' Iraq stronghold of Mosul. "I fought them, I beheaded them, I cooked their heads, I burned their bodies," she told CNN. The militia leader, who describes herself as a "housewife," has published a photo on Facebook appearing to show her carrying a severed head, and another showing two severed heads in a cooking pot.
Defense volunteer pulls dead infant out of an explosion Spoiler baby isn't dead, he starts crying that he saved a life