Levant crisis - III

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chetak
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Re: Levant crisis - III

Post by chetak »

deejay wrote:^ The entity of Islamic State in Syria and Iraq is defeated not the organisation. It exists, there are members who exist and the thought continues to influence. Ignore at your own peril.
ISIS may resurface in cashmere in bits and pieces.

Medical facilities are the one thing that the ISIS has always sought and India has been on its radar with access to advanced medical facilities as one of the urgent objectives.
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Re: Levant crisis - III

Post by UlanBatori »

Maybe it is time for ISIS to take over Pakistan. There was a website operating from (where else?) Londonistan back in the 1990s titled
Khilafat For Pakistan
I think that is what morphed into ISIS. They may go back to their original plan.
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Re: Levant crisis - III

Post by deejay »

The action on ISIS west of Euphrates in the Al Bukama areal changes into a mopping role. Clearing of last pockets, caves, tunnels, mines etc will be slow and tedious. For most part, ISIS has become a security challenge now and not a military challenge. Sleeper cells will keep popping out and suicide bombings will continue. A new pocket of a few villages in NE Hama countryside has been created by ISIS where they suddenly appeared and took those villages from HTS.

US on the East bank of Euphrates has denied permission for Russian Jets to overfly that area, effectively creating a no-fly zone. This means it will be very easy for ISIS remnants to exist safely in parts of Syria controlled by Syria. They will probably merge with SDF and hide their ISIS identity.

The US role is increasingly in support of terrorist groups. Another major development is in Yemen. Linking an article on this here as it reinforces what I wrote above wrt Syria.

https://www.thenewamerican.com/reviews/ ... troy-yemen
It’s remarkable that whenever you read an article about Yemen in the mainstream media, the central role of Saudi Arabia and the United States in the tragedy is glossed over or completely ignored. A recent Washington Post article purporting to tell us “how things got so bad” explains to us that, “it's a complicated story” involving “warring regional superpowers, terrorism, oil, and an impending climate catastrophe.”

No, Washington Post, it’s simpler than that. The tragedy in Yemen is the result of foreign military intervention in the internal affairs of that country. It started with the “Arab Spring” which had all the fingerprints of State Department meddling, and it escalated with 2015’s unprovoked Saudi attack on the country to re-install Riyadh’s preferred leader. Thousands of innocent civilians have been killed and millions more are at risk as starvation and cholera rage.

We are told that US foreign policy should reflect American values. So how can Washington support Saudi Arabia — a tyrannical state with one of the worst human rights record on earth — as it commits by what any measure is a genocide against the Yemeni people? The UN undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs warned just last week that Yemen faces "the largest famine the world has seen for many decades with millions of victims." The Red Cross has just estimated that a million people are vulnerable in the cholera epidemic that rages through Yemen.

And why is there a cholera epidemic? Because the Saudi government — with US support — has blocked every port of entry to prevent critical medicine from reaching suffering Yemenis. This is not a war. It is cruel murder.

The United States is backing Saudi aggression against Yemen by cooperating in every way with the Saudi military. Targeting, intelligence, weapons sales, and more. The US is a partner in Saudi Arabia’s Yemen crimes.

Does holding hands with Saudi Arabia as it slaughters Yemeni children really reflect American values? Is anyone even paying attention?

The claim that we are fighting al-Qaeda in Yemen and thus our involvement is covered under the post-9/11 authorization for the use of force is without merit. In fact it has been reported numerous times in the mainstream media that US intervention on behalf of the Saudis in Yemen is actually a boost to al-Qaeda in the country. Al-Qaeda is at war with the Houthis who had taken control of much of the country because the Houthis practice a form of Shi’a Islam they claim is tied to Iran. We are fighting on the same side as al-Qaeda in Yemen.

Adding insult to injury, the US Congress can’t be bothered to even question how we got so involved in a war that has nothing to do with us. A few conscientious Members of Congress got together recently to introduce a special motion under the 1973 War Powers Act that would have required a vote on our continued military involvement in the Yemen genocide. The leadership of both parties joined together to destroy this attempt to at least get a vote on US aggression against Yemen. As it turns out, the only Members to vote against this shamefully gutted resolution were the original Members who introduced it. This is bipartisanship at its worst.

US involvement in Saudi Arabia’s crimes against Yemen is a national disgrace. That the mainstream media fails to accurately cover this genocide is shameful. Let us join our voices now to demand that our US Representatives end US involvement in Yemen immediately!

Ron Paul is a former U.S. congressman from Texas. This article originally appeared at the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity and is reprinted here with permission.
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Re: Levant crisis - III

Post by Singha »

Trump claims arms to kurds will be stopped to please turkey

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/mi ... story.html

Ashwathama the elephant is dead. The arab elements of sdf now mixed up with rebadged isis will continue to hold the SE corner of syria east of euphrates and look to be a pita for the shia crescent

They are also sitting on al omar oil field so smuggling oil will provide revenue

A new pakistan is being created to keep both syria and iraq in check
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Re: Levant crisis - III

Post by UlanBatori »

Don't know why this surfaced now..
This appears to be a monumental campaign to bulldoze the more moderate strains of Islam, and replace them with the theo-fascist Saudi variety. Despite being well aware of the issue, Western powers continue to coddle the Saudis or, at most, protest meekly from time to time.

For instance, a Wikileaks cable clearly quotes then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton saying “donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide.” She continues: “More needs to be done since Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qaeda, the Taliban, LeT and other terrorist groups.” And it’s not just the Saudis: Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates are also implicated in the memo. Other cables released by Wikileaks outline how Saudi front companies are also used to fund terrorism abroad.

{Note that HiC did not say that Saudis funding terrorists was bad, just that they had lots of money that could/was already be coming to HiC}

Evidently, the situation has not improved since Hillary Clinton was secretary of state. Late last year, Vice President Biden caused a stir by undiplomatically speaking the truth at an event at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, saying:

“Our allies in the region were our largest problem in Syria. The Turks were great friends... [and] the Saudis, the Emirates, etcetera. What were they doing?.... They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad — except that the people who were being supplied, [they] were al-Nusra, and al-Qaeda, and the extremist elements of jihadis who were coming from other parts of the world.”
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Re: Levant crisis - III

Post by Philip »

The poor "Turds" as
I predicted long ago that they would be led up the garden
path by the US and co. BY betraying the Turds yet again,The US hopes that it can wean Turkey and the Sultan of Ot away from its new-found friendship with Russia,which it embarked upon to avoid huge Russian anti-Otto moves on the chessboard after it had shot down an Ru aircraft over Syria.

https://www.rt.com/news/410908-syria-ku ... us-turkey/

‘US betrayal of Kurds an attempt to fix troubled relations with Turkey & failed Syria policy’
Published time: 25 Nov, 2017 05:13
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Re: Levant crisis - III

Post by Singha »

6 backfires from mozdok base, south ossetia are paying a daily visit to SE Syria to pound ISIS, sometimes joined by Su24 from hymenim
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/ru ... zor-video/

video shows they have changed from dropping 12 small cylinder type bombs each to 6 long bombs which must be 1000kg from looks of it.
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Re: Levant crisis - III

Post by Singha »

al masdar
https://mobile.almasdarnews.com/article ... les-idlib/

BEIRUT, LEBANON (9:25 P.M.) – The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) is making their final preparations for their upcoming offensive to retake the strategic Abu Dhuhour Military Airport in the eastern countryside of the Idlib Governorate.

Led by several brigades from the 4th Division and Republican Guard, the Syrian Army has been building up their forces in northeastern Hama and southern Aleppo for what is expected to be the largest offensive in 2018.


Also joining the 4th Division and Republican Guard are the following units:

Tiger Forces
Syrian Marines
Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP)
National Defense Forces (NDF)
Ba’ath Battalion
11th Tank Division
Qalamoun Shield Forces
Syrian Hezbollah
The preliminary phase of this offensive has already began, as the Syrian Army attempts to clear the northeastern countryside of Hama and southern Aleppo.
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Re: Levant crisis - III

Post by Singha »

these Idlib jihadis have heavily fortified their defences in the south , at aleppo and al-ghab region taking advantage of open turkey border, ample funds and recruits and the year off they got when SAA was busy defeating ISIS.

they will have to be hit from unexpected and multiple directions for a breach to occur.

they also have ample number of ATGMs like TOW and russian origin stuff looted from captured saa stocks or supplied from bulgaria by agencies via turkey
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Re: Levant crisis - III

Post by Singha »

lot depends on if RuAF will support this campaign in 2018 or call it mission accomplished and go home.
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Re: Levant crisis - III

Post by Singha »

tiger forces at al khasma are 10km away from meeting up advancing saa units from al bukamal.
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Re: Levant crisis - III

Post by UlanBatori »

Meanwhile in the world's #2 democracy...
allowing Russia to register international media outlets as foreign agents in a quid pro quo to the U.S. demand made to a Kremlin-funded TV channel. Putin signed the bill into law Saturday after the upper chamber of the Russian parliament adopted it Wednesday. The move is Russia's retaliation after state-funded RT television was registered with the U.S. Justice Department as a foreign agent following pressure from Washington.
Without even waiting for the law to come into effect, Russia's Justice Ministry last week warned U.S. government-funded Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, along with its regional outlets, that they could be designated as foreign agents under the new law.
They forgot CNN and BBC?
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Re: Levant crisis - III

Post by deejay »

A video with English Subtitles on the road to Abu Kamal with the Tiger Forces. Since Abu Kamal is already captured, the Ops has changed priorities and the link up at Abu Kamal is yet to happen.

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Re: Levant crisis - III

Post by Singha »

isis have fortified two towns near al bukamal and resisting strongly. one of them is al khasra.
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Re: Levant crisis - III

Post by Singha »

Singha
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Re: Levant crisis - III

Post by Singha »

Hassan Ridha‏
@sayed_ridha
9h9 hours ago
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After days of intense clashes with IS, SAA and allies take control of al-Asharah city and several other towns south of Mayadeen in rural DeZ


^^ tigers has sent reinforcements seeing the stiff resistance
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Re: Levant crisis - III

Post by UlanBatori »

I c y Tal Afar and D-e-Z were so toughly contested.
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Re: Levant crisis - III

Post by Singha »

^^ glad you saw the point.
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Re: Levant crisis - III

Post by Shanmukh »

The path followed by that road is interesting. Why does it follow the Tigris from Baghdad to Mosul & then turn southwest? The natural ancient roads, IIRC, used to follow the Euphrates from west of Babylon (southwest of today's Baghdad) to Zeugma (east of Aleppo). Why is the current road so zigzag?
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Re: Levant crisis - III

Post by Singha »

it avoids the sunni heartlands of anbar province, rife with sleeper cells and spies.

SDF denies a secret truce with ISIS

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/sy ... ludicrous/
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Re: Levant crisis - III

Post by Austin »

Russia already preparing military withdrawal from Syria: agencies

Reuters Staff
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian Security Council secretary Nikolai Patrushev said on Thursday Moscow was already preparing to withdraw its military contingent from Syria, Russian news agencies reported.

“Preparations are underway,” RIA news agency quoted Patrushev as saying.

The chief of the Russian military general staff said last week Russia’s military force in Syria would likely be significantly reduced and a drawdown could start before the end of the year.
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Re: Levant crisis - III

Post by Singha »

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/fo ... ons-kurds/

former SDF spokesman the turkmen leader Talal silo says the US is interested in arming kurds only, not arabs, assyrians and turkmens
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Re: Levant crisis - III

Post by Singha »

the remnants of ISIS is hiding and reorganizing in these areas
Image
Emmanuel Retweeted

-GEROMAN
@GeromanAT
Nov 25
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Re: Levant crisis - III

Post by Singha »

Iraq salah al din province and parts of anbar desert are still infested with the devils.
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Re: Levant crisis - III

Post by Austin »

Syrian air defense intercepts 3 Israeli missiles targeting military site near Damascus – state media

https://www.rt.com/news/411937-syria-in ... les/[quote]

Israel has reportedly launched air strikes at a Syrian military research facility in the Damascus countryside, local media report, claiming that the country’s air defense systems engaged and destroyed three out of at least six incoming missiles.

At 11:30pm Monday, Syrian “air defenses confronted an Israeli missile attack on one of our sites in the Damascus suburbs and three of the targets were downed,” SANA reported, citing a military source which blamed Tel Aviv for launching repeated attacks against Syrian government’s military installations in order to “lift the morale of the collapsed terrorists.”

While details of the alleged strike remain scarce, a government source told Sputnik that “Syria's air defense destroyed three of the six missiles that Israel launched at the Research Center in the suburbs of Damascus.”

Witnesses have meanwhile told Reuters that three strong explosions were heard near the village of Jamraya, some 5 kilometers (3 miles) northwest of Damascus. Smoke was also allegedly visible rising above the area. The strikes in Jamraya, allegedly by Israeli warplanes, were also confirmed by Hezbollah-affiliated Al Mayadeen News, which also noted that the Syrians managed to destroy three out of six missiles.[/quote]
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Re: Levant crisis - III

Post by Austin »

In Syria, "Pantisir S1" shot down the latest Israeli missile complex LORA

https://vpk.name/news/200290_v_sirii_pa ... html[quote]

The self-propelled antiaircraft missile and cannon system (ZRPK) "Pantsir-S1" of Russian production shot down the latest Israeli missile of the operational and tactical complex LORA.

This means of defeat was used in the attack on the military base in the Syrian city of Al-Kiswa.

According to Israeli data, this is a relatively small rocket, it weighs about 1.7 tons. Its length is 5 meters. The range of fire reaches 300 kilometers.

In the opinion of military experts, the defeat of such a relatively small-scale goal is a great achievement in the calculations of air defense that participated in repelling the Israeli raid.

Earlier in Syria, the complex "Pantsir C1" shot down a Turkish plane "Phantom", as well as a large number of unmanned targets.[/quote]
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Re: Levant crisis - III

Post by Singha »

fighting goes on north of al bukamal as ISIS fights tiger forces for every inch of land.
this is not reported much nowadays.

the syrians have only just cleared the islands behind deir azzor town.
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Re: Levant crisis - III

Post by Singha »

idf fired some 6 missiles (said to be lora with tcs) at a weapons facility near damascus. syrian sa6 and pantsyr batteries got 3 of them while 3 hit.
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Re: Levant crisis - III

Post by deejay »

Latest situation around Al Bukamal

Image

From:https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/sy ... ezzor-map/
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Re: Levant crisis - III

Post by Philip »

Russia should not make the same mistake the Dubya Bush did in Iraq when he famously said "mission accomplished"...how many years ago was that? :rotfl:

With the palace coup in the KSA and a Mad Bull determined to go on the rampage,Yemen,Syria,Iraq,Iran ,wherever,we may be witnessing merely the "interval" in this latest round of internecine ME warfare that has afflicted the region for centuries. The silver lining with the Russian withdrawal is that their air and missile prowess can be exercised at any time as we're still seeing with the Backkfire bombers exercising themselves almost daily. Yemen is now the area of prime focus where Mad Bull S is using the same tactics as did "Bomber" Harris in WW2.The untold misery being experienced by the population there is simply unacceptable to any civilised state and the UN appears to be as potent as a eunuch without even a tongue,as its complete subservience to the Saudi war criminals makes a mockery of the institution.
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Re: Levant crisis - III

Post by Singha »

Yusha Yuseef Verified account
@MIG29_
18h18 hours ago
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Breaking , SAA Tiger forces arrived to Al-Bukamal city from Al-Mayadeen Axis .
Tiger forces meet Other troops near Al-Hamdan west Al-Bukamal
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Re: Levant crisis - III

Post by Singha »

the triangular area between al bukamal , dez and sukhnah still has intact raiding units of ISIS who can cause problems. that area will need to be swept atleast once and watchpoints created. its impossible in vast desert to IFF a truck or two moving around even if JSTARs were available 24x7. could be villagers, SAA or ISIS all look the same and drive the same vehicles. all are armed.

the real remnants of ISIS are now concentrated in a area near ash shahdadi to the north of al bukamal near SDF lines and in Saleh al din province desert of Iraq. the russians have already expressed an interest in being allowed to bomb this region to put pressure on the usa to act.
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Re: Levant crisis - III

Post by Singha »

Petolucem map on twitter
US has got a adjacent area to Al bukamal to setup a listening post and humint op to monitor hezbollah traffic via albukamal border


Image
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Re: Levant crisis - III

Post by Singha »

Haidar Sumeri‏
@IraqiSecurity
Dec 2
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Great news as #Iraq's forces have reportedly cleared around 70% of the Jazirah region that runs from western Anbar all the way up to Ninawa province. Da'ish have used this desert as a safe haven as they fled major cities. Baghdad hasn't controlled this desert since 2003
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Re: Levant crisis - III

Post by Singha »

Haidar Sumeri‏
@IraqiSecurity
Nov 23
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Massive ops have been launched by #Iraq's armed forces to hunt down Da'ish terror cells hiding out in desert areas in Anbar, Salahuddin and Ninawa.

These kinds of ops back in 2013 would've prevented the Da'ish takeover in 2014. Godspeed warriors
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Re: Levant crisis - III

Post by deejay »

Singha, UB, others check the video on the link. That is some crazy flying.

Stunt for stunt's sake.

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/ra ... s-mission/

Found the youtube link:

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Re: Levant crisis - III

Post by Austin »

Very risky thing to do , either of the two might get caught under under some sort of air turbulence [ not sure if that is the right technical word to use ]

That is MKI brother Su-30SM
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Re: Levant crisis - III

Post by deejay »

Austin wrote:Very risky thing to do , either of the two might get caught under under some sort of air turbulence [ not sure if that is the right technical word to use ]

That is MKI brother Su-30SM
Close formation can be flown that close but the peel off was scary. Also, the escort was very close at the time of the drop.
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Re: Levant crisis - III

Post by Singha »

well I think its under control.
he was skulking around somewhere below the IL76 until the load dropped.
their relative velocity is almost 0, so any "brush" would be a light slap on wrist - like the many videos of the usn refueling baskets hitting the windshield or probe of navy fighters
and i think he used a bit TVC to make that peel off super stylish.

#strongmove
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Re: Levant crisis - III

Post by deejay »

^Yes it. The way he slips in line astern is exactly how it is done. Close Form can infact be closer still.

Peel off was very unusual. Also unusual was the proximity during drop.
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