And bellingcat's been busy https://www.bellingcat.com/news/men...ment-august-21st-2013-damascus-sarin-attacks/
I thought that the FSA was only supplied with TOWS. Are they being supplied with Fagot ATGMs, or are they appropriating them on the battlefield?
They've had Fagots for a few years, maybe the military guys can correct me but aren't they cheaper than TOWS?
Russian made, so undoubtedly. There are a lot of different models though, so I guess the price would depend on whether they're getting the old 70's models or the updated 9 S541M2 launchers. I'm curious as to who would be supplying them to the FSA though.
There's still a lotta money from Saudi Arabia and co around, likely bought them from the left over stockpiles in Eastern Europe.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/05/politics/trump-abbas-us-embassy-jerusalem/index.html This will play well amongst our Arab friends.
This is SO FUCKING STUPID. IF North Korea doesn't spiral out of control, I'm afraid this will be the biggest foreign policy mistake of Trump's presidency. This will be a catalyst for destabilization in a region that doesn't need any help being "unstable", thank you very much
Putin, in Syria, says mission accomplished, orders partial Russian pull-out https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...orders-partial-russian-pull-out-idUSKBN1E50X1 Spoiler MOSCOW (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin flew into Syria and ordered “a significant part” of Moscow’s military contingent there to start withdrawing on Monday, declaring their work largely done. Putin, who polls show will be re-elected comfortably in March, made the announcement during a surprise visit to Russia’s Hmeymim air base in Syria - his first since Russia intervened in the conflict. He held talks with President Bashar al-Assad and addressed Russian forces. The first leg in a three-country one-day whirlwind diplomatic visit which sees Putin also meeting his Egyptian and Turkish counterparts, Putin is keen to leverage the heightened Middle East influence that Syria has given him to cast himself as a leader who can do diplomacy as well as military force. SPONSORE The Kremlin first launched air strikes in Syria in September 2015 in its biggest Middle East intervention in decades, turning the tide of the conflict in Assad’s favor. Now that it regards that mission complete, Putin wants to help broker a peace deal. “In just over two years, Russia’s armed forces and the Syrian army have defeated the most battle-hardened group of international terrorists,” Putin told Russian servicemen. A “significant part” of the Russian force could now return home. “The conditions for a political solution under the auspices of the United Nations have been created,” said Putin. “The Motherland awaits you.” Washington was skeptical about Putin’s statement. “Russian comments about removal of their forces do not often correspond with actual troop reductions, and do not affect U.S. priorities in Syria,” said Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon. Putin made clear in any case that Russia would retain enough firepower to destroy any possible Islamic State comeback. inRead invented by Teads ADVERTISING Syrian state television quoted Assad as thanking Putin for Russia’s help, saying the blood of Moscow’s “martyrs” had been mixed with the blood of the Syrian army. It also showed the two men watching what it called a victory parade with Russian troops dressed in desert uniforms marching past. Russia’s main contribution has been air strikes, and with Iran-backed Shi’ite militias doing much of the fighting on the ground, the partial Russian withdrawal may not make a huge difference when it comes to the military situation. Russia’s campaign, which has been extensively covered on state TV at home, has not caught the imagination of most Russians. But nor has it stirred unease of the kind the Soviet Union faced with its calamitous 1980s Afghanistan intervention. The use of private military contractors, something which has been documented by Reuters but denied by the defense ministry, has allowed Moscow to keep the public casualty toll fairly low. Officially, less than 50 Russian service personnel have been killed in the campaign, but the real number, including private contractors, is estimated to be much higher. Russian President Vladimir Putin (2nd R) and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (R) visit the Hmeymim air base in Latakia Province, Syria December 11, 2017. Sputnik/Mikhail Klimentyev/Sputnik via REUTERS ELECTORAL BOOST? Russia’s “mission accomplished” moment in Syria may help Putin increase the turnout at the March presidential election by appealing to the patriotism of voters. Though polls show he will easily win, they also show that some Russians are increasingly apathetic about politics, and Putin’s supporters are keen to get him re-elected on a big turnout, which in their eyes confers legitimacy. Putin, who with the help of state TV has dominated Russia’s political landscape for the last 17 years, told Russian servicemen they would return home as victors. Speaking in front of a row of servicemen holding Russian flags, Putin said his military had proved its might and that Moscow had succeeded in keeping Syria intact as a “sovereign independent state.” Slideshow (4 Images) “I congratulate you!” Putin told the servicemen. Putin is keen to organize a special event in Russia - the Syrian Congress on National Dialogue - that Moscow hopes will bring together the Syrian government and opposition and try to hammer out a new constitution. When asked about Putin’s announcement, Yahya Aridi, spokesman for the Syrian opposition in Geneva, said it welcomed any step that brought Syria closer to real peace. Putin made clear however that while Russia might be drawing down much of its forces, its military presence in Syria was a permanent one and that it would retain enough firepower to destroy any Islamic State comeback. Russia will keep its Hmeymim air base in Syria’s Latakia Province and its naval facility in the Syrian Mediterranean port of Tartous “on a permanent basis,” said Putin. RELATED COVERAGE Russia has started military withdrawal from Syria: RIA cites minister Both bases are protected by sophisticated air defense missile systems. Putin was told by the military that it had begun withdrawing 25 aircraft, a detachment of Russian military police, a detachment of Russian special forces, a military field hospital and a de-mining center. However, Russia has announced partial force draw-downs before only to later bring in different capabilities. “We’ve seen such announcements before, which turn about to be less significant than they might have initially appeared,” said one European diplomat who declined to be named. “The most significant contribution Russia can make to advancing peace in Syria is to pressure the Assad regime to engage seriously in Geneva (peace talks). Absent that, the suspicion will be that this announcement may have more to do with Russian politics than the Syrian situation.”
I am sorry we have F22s over there??? I had no idea. Curious to see how much they are being utilized.
Been a lot of protests in Iran because of their shitty economy and other things. Some protesters have been killed.
Battles on 2 fronts as Syria closes out another violent year http://www.nydailynews.com/newswire...s-syria-closes-violent-year-article-1.3729231 Spoiler BEIRUT (AP) — Government forces battled with rebels and al-Qaida militants on two fronts in Syria on Sunday as the country prepared to close out another violent year since the country descended into civil war in 2011. Rebels supported by an al-Qaida-linked cell renewed their assault against pro-government forces that have been holding a vast pocket of the Damascus suburbs under siege, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. A second front between many of the same groups saw fresh fighting in northwest Syria, along the border between Idlib and Hama provinces, according to the Observatory and Syrian military media. The fighting outside Damascus was concentrated around the contested town of Harasta and a nearby military installation. The insurgents flanked the installation on Sunday, trapping an unknown number of pro-government forces inside, reported the Observatory. The local, activist-run Ghouta Media Center reported fierce clashes and dense government airstrikes. Twenty-one soldiers and 26 rebels and al-Qaida fighters were killed in two days of clashes, according to the Observatory's director, Rami Abdurrahman. Rebels first attacked the installation seven weeks ago. The government responded with waves of indiscriminate air strikes and artillery attacks that killed more than 250 civilians in what are called the eastern Ghouta suburbs of Damascus, which are still under rebel control. The Syrian Civil Defense search-and-rescue group, also known as the White Helmets, said shelling and rocket fire killed 19 people in eastern Ghouta on Saturday, one day after medical evacuations were completed to save the lives of 29 others. The Red Cross and Red Crescent took three days to evacuate 29 patients from the besieged suburbs to receive urgent medical care at government hospitals in Damascus. The U.N. says government forces are holding 400,000 people under siege in eastern Ghouta. The region was once a hotbed of protest against President Bashar Assad's government. The subsequent crackdown on demonstrations in Ghouta and other parts of the country in 2011 sparked the ongoing civil war that has killed more than 400,000 people and displaced half of Syria's population.
SAA Idlib offensive going well but suffering a lot of casualties in East Ghouta with troops besieged by the rebels
http://www.newsweek.com/gazas-next-war-looms-isis-vows-defeat-hamas-failing-stop-trump-770694 The Egyptian wing of the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) has declared war on Hamas for failing to stop President Donald Trump’s Jerusalem declaration, in a new propaganda video released Wednesday that purports to show the execution of a man who ISIS claims worked with the Palestinian militant group’s armed wing. The nationality of the man is unclear.
Syrian army breaks siege of army base near Damascus https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...iege-of-army-base-near-damascus-idUSKBN1EW0U5 Spoiler BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria’s army has broken the siege of an army base encircled by opposition forces on the eastern outskirts of Damascus, state television and a war monitor reported on Sunday. Last Sunday, rebels, mainly belonging to the Islamist Ahrar al Sham faction, widened their control of parts of the Military Vehicles Administration base in the Eastern Ghouta town of Harasta. Army elite forces, backed by Russian jets, launched an offensive to break the siege and liberate at least 200 troops who were believed to be trapped within its sprawling, heavily defended grounds. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that the Syrian forces had “opened a loophole” that led them into the base. Extensive bombing and violent clashes were taking place inside and around the base late at night, while the army fought its way to recapture the compound’s buildings, the state tv reporter said during a live broadcast from a nearby location. “Fighting is underway to expand the route that was opened into the base ... and the army will press on with its offensive beyond liberating the base,” he added, expecting the battle for the base to end in the coming few hours. The tv station aired footage of the battles earlier in the day that showed heavy smoke billowing from the battered buildings targeted by the army fire. Rebel fighters had stormed the base last November in a drive to relieve pressure on Eastern Ghouta’s towns and villages. The base has long been used to strike at the densely populated Eastern Ghouta in an attempt to force the rebel enclave into submission. More than 300,000 people there have lived under siege by army troops since 2013. Reporting by Kinda Makieh and Dahlia Nehme; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle and Sandra Maler
Reading ISIS- Inside the army of terror by Hassan Hassan and Michael Weiss right now. Fascinating book if anyone is interested. The brutality of both Iraq and Syria is gut-wrenching to read, even having studied this area for a while.
Syria 2018: 5 key factors to watch http://www.irinnews.org/analysis/2018/01/16/syria-2018-5-key-factors-watch Spoiler Aron Lund Freelance journalist and analyst specialising on Syria, and regular IRIN contributor After a string of breakthroughs in 2016 and 2017, President Bashar al-Assad’s government now has the clear upper hand in Syria’s long war. Out east, the so-called Islamic State has been crushed between the hammer and anvil of al-Assad’s army and a Kurdish-led group backed by the United States. A ceasefire between the army and the Kurds is now in place along the Euphrates River and, despite the much-ballyhooed de-escalation zones brokered by Moscow, violence has quickly drifted back west. In Idlib, renewed fighting has driven some 100,000 civilians on the run in the first weeksof 2018. But if it seems like a government win is a foregone conclusion, there are still some developments that could throw the pro-Assad juggernaut off track. Plus, restored government control in Syria could take many forms. To help understand which way Syria’s war and peace might be headed, here are five key aspects to keep an eye on in 2018. 1. Iran The street protests that shook Iran over the last weeks serve as a timely reminder of how important regional developments are to Syria’s future. The protests now seem to have petered out, but had the Iranian government been seriously weakened, the effects would soon have been felt in Syria. There are other ways in which this key Damascus ally could get into trouble in 2018. US President Donald Trump has long threatened to tear up the 2015 deal over Iran’s nuclear programme. On 12 January, he extended US compliance once more, but warned that this would be the last time, unless the terms are renegotiated. Deadlines will keep cropping up in 2018, the next one in April. Should the deal be allowed to lapse, it’s possible nothing much happens at all. But Iranian-American relations could fly off the rails, with unpredictable consequences for Syria. Meanwhile, Israel has stepped up air strikes in Syria and is pushing to contain the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah in areas near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Israel also keeps a wary eye on Lebanon, where the first parliamentary elections in nearly a decade will be held in May. A new Hezbollah-Israel war seems unlikely, but they always do until they happen. If one were to erupt in 2018, Syria would likely be drawn into the fighting. 2. Signs of an underground insurgency Syrian rebels have long said that if al-Assad wins on the battlefield, they will flip to guerrilla warfare and wage a campaign of bombings and assassinations. So far, that’s mostly talk, and areas retaken by the army have remained more or less stable. The main exception is Homs, where rebels have staged repeated attacks on Alawite neighbourhoods. Aleppo has also seen a handful of bombings after al-Assad took back the city’s eastern half in December 2016, and every now and then a bomb goes off in Damascus. While this level of violence seems like something al-Assad could easily tolerate, the underground campaign may escalate. After losing the war in the east, IS is returning to subversive tactics, and the Idlib-based extremists in Tahrir al-Sham may end up doing the same at some point. Although they have been powerful enough on the battlefield, it is as urban guerrillas that the jihadis’ brutal tradecraft really shines. In 2018, therefore, it is worth monitoring the frequency of car bombings, assassinations, and suicide attacks in government-held cities. Take special note of atrocities calculated to spark a sectarian backlash in religiously mixed areas like Homs and Tartous – a tried and true tactic of IS. 3. The reconstruction-transition link Seven years of war has left Syria in ruins. A quarter of the population has fled abroad, with 5.5 million registered refugees near Syria’s borders and another million in Europe. Major cities like Raqqa, Deir Ezzor, and eastern Aleppo are in ruins, and 6.1 million internally displaced people are suffering in terrible conditions. The economy is in a shambles, with jobs and services hard to come by and salaries hollowed out by inflation. In all, 13.1 millionpeople depend on aid to get by. Ninja Charbonneau/UNICEF Destroyed homes in the Maysaloon neighbourhood of eastern Aleppo Although several areas of the country remain outside state control, al-Assad’s government now wants to talk about reconstruction. In large part, this is a pitch for money and international legitimacy, but Syrian envoys also point to the humanitarian situation and appeal to their interlocutors’ self-interest: after a war, there’s money to be made. For major reconstruction to take place, al-Assad will need wealthy Western and Gulf Arab nations to open if not their hearts, then at least their wallets. So far, there are few takers – these nations hate the Syrian president, having tried to overthrow him for seven years. The United States is pushing its allies to continue the isolation of al-Assad until he agrees to a political transition, though it seems clear that he never will. The policy is more of a holding pattern than a genuine plan for regime change, and some Europeans seem unpersuaded. But so far, all have stuck to the script, and Russian diplomats’ attempts to badger Europe into paying are making no headway. Full-scale reconstruction seems unlikely. But as time passes and UN transition talks continue to come up blank, more policymakers will likely start arguing that the very real leverage that Western states enjoy through aid financing should be deployed in more practical ways. Transition seems like a dead end, but something has to be done about the situation – and perhaps the regime could be more flexible on other issues? Once that conclusion settles in, Europeans will find much to haggle over: intelligence cooperation, business deals, prisoner releases, chemical weapons monitoring, restored diplomatic relations, UN cross-border access, Syrian-Israeli ties, the Kurdish question, and refugee return, to name but a few. Opposition to dealing with al-Assad is still strong, but, at some point, it may begin to fray. In 2018, watch for shifts in Western rhetoric linking reconstruction funding to transition. 4. New faces in the regime Assuming that the Syrian leader now feels more secure, 2018 could be the year that he starts putting his house in order. Though civilian ministers have come and gone with regularity, the regime’s inner security sanctum has seen few changes in the past seven years, except to fill in for those killed. The top brass is getting old, both figuratively and literally. Meanwhile, a new stratum of businessmen, paramilitary leaders, and wartime fixers has risen to positions of influence through the war economy, and the army is partly displaced by militias whose loyalty to al-Assad may be assured but whose discipline and respect for public order is not. There are no signs of organised resistance to al-Assad’s overarching control among these groups, but the loyalist camp clearly brims with accumulated personal, commercial, and institutional tensions. This ultimately undermines the state and makes it harder to normalise the situation. It is something the Syrian president will want to deal with at some point, in so far as he can, and it also ties back to the reconstruction question. If al-Assad wants to signal that Syria is past the threshold and that a new era is beginning, he’ll need to pour new blood into the system, putting forth fresh faces not overly tainted by the past seven years. In 2018, keep your ears peeled for talk about military reorganisation, security and ministerial reshuffles, and the use of new laws or anti-corruption campaigns to perform targeted interventions in the war economy. 5. The Kurds With the anti-Assad opposition now unviable or hijacked by extremists, foreign actors are shifting their bets to Syrian Kurdistan. Since 2017, the Kurdish question has arguably become the conflict’s central axis. After helping Kurdish and allied Arab troops in the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) capture northeastern Syria from IS, US officials are now turning them into a 30,000-strong border security force. Its area of operations will be the Syrian-Iraqi and Syrian-Turkish national borders, but also the front line against al-Assad’s central government. That’s a plan with no shortage of adversaries. Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Fesial Meqdad says it aims to “divide Syria;” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warns it could “split” the country. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is even more upset, accusing the US of building a “terror army” on his southern border. The Syrian Kurdish leadership is linked to Ankara’s domestic arch-enemy, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), and US-Turkish relations have plummeted since Washington started supporting the Kurds in 2014. Erdogan now threatens to invade Afrin, an isolated Kurdish enclave outside the protective umbrella extended by the US Air Force. Afrin does however host a symbolic contingent of Russian troops, which may or may not dissuade an attack – it is not yet clear what the Turks are planning. All involved seem to be keeping their options open, dancing around the overt hostility between Turkey and the Syrian Kurds and trying to work with both sides. The Americans are weighing their project in Kurdistan, which has come to represent their main source of leverage in Syria, against the damage to their relationship with Turkey, which is a major NATO ally. It is a difficult debate and the status quo may well win the day, leaving US troops in place as a holding force without any clear end goal. Meanwhile, Moscow is trying to coax Erdogan into Damascus-friendly deals by dangling the Kurds in front of him, but Russian diplomats have also tried to interest al-Assad in some sort of federal construction that could leave the Kurds where they are and wind down the war. The Syrian leader could either try that, or he could position himself as a counterweight to Kurdish ambitions, rallying Arab and perhaps even Turkish support for his claims on the northeast. Most likely, al-Assad will try to muddle through for now and wait for the Americans to pack up and leave. The power games in northern Syria could take time to fully unfold. But in 2018, keep your eyes open for any clues on how US, Russian, and Syrian policymakers want to answer the Kurdish question and its Turkish corollary. What happens in Kurdistan could reshape Syria’s future, perhaps even its borders.