Levant crisis - III

[Lalmohan]

TSJ - the thing that i really don't understand is how junior assad was one day the darling of the west and londonistan was celebrating his beautiful wife the london raised top babe, and the next day he turned into a baby eating monster...

i don't understand how certain channels carry footage of war crimes that we know from casual reading happens on both sides, and yet on our screens appears very one sided...

oh and old uncle gaddafi did a few turns like that too...

as did uncle sad-damn come to think of it...

the only one missing is unkil mussharrat

[Dipanker]

hopefully, Putin is going to send even more men, equipment, ships, mijjles, etc., to help Assad.

let's hope China gets involved also. then they are sure to win.

thank you baby Jesus for these thy gifts for which we are about to receive.

they better go help the houthies too in their struggle with Uncle Sams floating tin cans.

It won't make sense for Russia to send more of anything to Asad, may be just enough to keep the rebels/terrorists mired to a slow rate of attrition but hellbound for sure.

Russia will save the good stuff for a theater closer home i.e. Ukraine. After all if there is a no fly zone over Aleppo, Russians have to fly their plane somewhere!

[Rudradev]

Way back when we were in junior college and doing lukkha-giri we would go to, say, Churchgate Station in Mumbai and to our delight we would sometimes come upon two very angry commuters on the railway platform facing off against each other. They would be yelling and abusing each other, with really pissed-off faces and gestures and postures. We would take great pleasure not only in drinking in the scene, but also trying to escalate the situation into a fist fight. We would shout from the gathered crowd:

"Eh, kya bola rey?"

"Maro saale ko!"

etc. in the hope that one bugger would snap and take a swing at the other.

That rarely actually happened, but it was fun

[Karan M]

hopefully, Putin is going to send even more men, equipment, ships, mijjles, etc., to help Assad.

let's hope China gets involved also. then they are sure to win.

thank you baby Jesus for these thy gifts for which we are about to receive.

they better go help the houthies too in their struggle with Uncle Sams floating tin cans.

^^ Puck-puck-puck-puck Puck-AAAAAAAACK

LOL. Rudradev - imagine Russia's "obsolete" Urans and Sizzlers finding their way to Houthie land. Same way Kornets and Metis were field tested against the invincible Merkava. Imagine TSJs reaction then...

[TSJones]

yeah, yeah, shoulda, woulda, coulda,.........maybe.......wish upon a star....

[Y. Kanan]

hopefully, Putin is going to send even more men, equipment, ships, mijjles, etc., to help Assad.

let's hope China gets involved also. then they are sure to win.

thank you baby Jesus for these thy gifts for which we are about to receive.

they better go help the houthies too in their struggle with Uncle Sams floating tin cans.

Why hasn't this disgusting troll been banned yet? Sack up admins your Gora love is showing. Such meek slavishness from you guys. It would be one thing if the Terrorist State of Jones actually contributed something to this forum, but he doesn't and his minuscule military knowledge is straight from the 1980's. He doesn't know jack sh*t and serves only to annoy everyone.

[UlanBatori]

But he annoys you!

[Singha]

and thats why he keeps coming back

[Singha]

Khalid Ahmed Alradhi
‏@alradhi_
I spoke with everybody I know in Yemeni Navy & Radars Command all assured me that not even a rifle bullet was fired at any of these US ships

------------------------
Iran deploys warships off Yemen coast in the Gulf of Aden: Tasnim
Iran sent two warships to the Gulf of Aden on Thursday, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported, establishing a military presence in waters off Yemen where the U.S. military launched cruise missile strikes on areas controlled by Iran-backed Houthi forces.

"Iran's Alvand and Bushehr warships have been dispatched to the Gulf of Aden to protect trade vessels from piracy," Tasnim reported.

The U.S. military strikes were in response to failed missile attacks this week on a U.S. Navy destroyer, U.S. officials said.

Iran's key regional rival Saudi Arabia accuses Tehran of providing support to the Houthis, a charge the Islamic Republic denies.

Tasnim said the Iranian ships will patrol the Gulf of Aden, south of Yemen, which is one of the world's most important shipping routes.

(Writing by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Toby Chopra)

[Singha]

Russian Embassy, UK ‏@RussianEmbassy Oct 12
.@BorisJohnson's call-up: a single person turned up at the Russian Embassy today

[Austin]

Yemen: US bombs three Houthi radar sites on Yemen’s coast

[Austin]

Looks like Houthi has no intelligence on the class of ship or the nation it belongs too , They are just firing it based on what they see on radar screen as some ship near their coast , assuming its enemy ship.

It can be dangerous as they might hit a US ship or for that matter even a friendly Iranian one if they are not aware of it or informed in advance.

[Austin]

Iranian warships deployed off Yemen coast after US bombs Houthi targets

https://www.rt.com/news/362643-iran-war ... emen-aden/


Now iran is deploying couple of ships near Yemen coast to protect its interest , Likely these ships would provide intelligence to Houthis on the nationality/class of ships before they would fire at

[Austin]

Assad says Aleppo to serve as springboard for liberation

MOSCOW — A military victory in Aleppo would provide the Syrian army a springboard from which to liberate other areas of the country from “terrorists,” President Bashar Assad said in an interview with a Russian media outlet.

In an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda released Thursday, Assad said Aleppo is effectively no longer Syria’s industrial capital but taking back the city would provide important political and strategic gains for his regime.

“It’s going to be the springboard, as a big city, to move to other areas, to liberate other areas from the terrorists. This is the importance of Aleppo now,” Assad said. “You have to keep cleaning this area and to push the terrorists to Turkey to go back to where they come from, or to kill them. There’s no other option. But Aleppo is going to be a very important springboard to do this move.”

[...]

Assad also said that Saudi Arabia has offered to help his government if it agrees to cut ties with Iran, one of Syria’s main allies.

He said the Saudis told him: “If you move away from Iran and you announce that you disconnect all kinds of relations with Iran, we’re going to help you. Very simple and very straight to the point.”

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

[Austin]

Russian MOD footage on terror strike yesterday outside allepo , All targets were tracked by UAV during attack

[Austin]

I am not sure after Allepo is in SAA hands they should try to recapture other area , They need to consolidate and fortify the area under their control , rather then fight on others and thin out.

This war is that of attrition , Air Power will help to some extent but the victory will be done only by ground forces ......better to keep what they have now and fortify then keeep extending to other areas.

Political settlement is a must cant fight endlessly

[Singha]

houthis have spy fishing boats who lie low and go in close to id targets, perhaps with satcom phones. both the abortive attack on the uae FFG and the successful attack last week on the trimaran supply ship had close in footage first of tracking the target and then aftermath of the hit.
a US DDG will keep a sharp eye for such boats and not allow them within a couple 100m for sure due to Cole incident, but beyond that place is filled with fishing boats and none knows which are spies...one or many and you cannot just go into italian marine mode and shoot up random fishing boats and trawlers just because they crossed your track. crowdsourced agile 'radar' of sorts and immune to soft countermeasures. or they could use somali pirate tactics and go even more agile - have a fishing trawler as mothership and use the lean speedy almost invisible skiffs as spotters on a expected area....these skiff agents were successfully hijacking ships 100s of km off the somali coast.

see here, someone was a 1 mile off and tracking the target


and this about a year ago - either the missile failed or was decoyed or shot down

[Singha]

sensor (skiff) to shooter is connected by satcom phone (thuraya types) or inmarsat terminal or VHF radio as its near the shore.

[Karan M]

yeah, yeah, shoulda, woulda, coulda,.........maybe.......wish upon a star....

a page back you were complaining about some chinese missile being fired. some good ole bourbon cheered you up?

[Austin]

Smoothie ( Anderi Martyanov ) is a guy who worked with Soviet/Russian navy both surface and subsurface and though he rarely comments on submarine but I did ask him about what are US options if it has to attack Russian Assets in Syria , on his blog , posting his reply below

http://smoothiex12.blogspot.in/2016/10/ ... 2948540159

Too complex of a contingency (contingencies) to speculate in few words. For starters, attacking AD bubble which is built currently in Syria is a task USAF never encountered in its history. All US strikes always start with two things:

1. ECCMs by various means and then...
2. Massive launch of Tomahawks (JSOWs, what have you stand-off weaponry) to overwhelm whatever is out there. Then, comes the cavalry (fighters, bombers etc.)..

Russia has more than just layered state-of-the-art defense there. Yes, it still could be overwhelmed, granted that it is still limited, but at what price? What Russia has there is a very developed ECM (ECCM) capability. How great is this capability there? I would suggest that it can blind just about anything. So, in this case operational decision US will have to make will have massively serious political and ideological ramifications. The loss of several F-22s, not to mention legacy jets, will create additional political crisis in D.C., that is in addition to suicidal decision to attack Russian bases in Syria. So, even overwhelming, which is doable, limited Russian defenses in Syria may come at a price which will be absolutely prohibitive primarily for a reputational risks. Those risks are enormously high for US there. Russia defense there is not to just completely exclude such an attack but to make such an attack, if the decision will be made, so costly that it will literally destroy US military reputation. Yes, in media dominated world this will have massive consequences. For US it is catch-22 or, as I started writing--damned If you do, damned if you don't. Hence a hysteria. Russian military IS NOT backward and incompetent Arab militaries--it is a completely different technological, tactical and operational level. I hope this answers your question, I think many people in DOD in US understand that.

[Austin]

^^ Read the article in that link Hysteria & Dillusion gives you good idea on what US diplomacy is all about these days.

[LokeshC]

Thats why I think there wont be any WWIII or nookular stuff hitting the fan anytime soon. If war does break out, the body bag count on EU/Massa side would leave only two choices:
1) soosaaai by nooks
2) Fold and face save.

Even Trump will choose (2).

[Singha]

the low tech equivalent of a Tu192 bear or P8 poseidon in tracking and finding targets 100s of km out .. all it needs is a cheap trawler for mothership. this is what the houthis must be using.

[Singha]

thats what I also said Austin, no need to build up the kind of defences moscow has. but raise the cost of intervention high enough.... SKIFFS = on-demand cloud based sensor net which can burst up and down in nodecount based on consumer demand. very lean in resources needed. can survive on rice and fish for a month, needs no electric grid or fancy bases and ground crews.

[Singha]

30 KIA but IS vbied in azaz - a shams front checkpost


Hassan Ridha ‏@sayed_ridha 12h12 hours ago
The Kurdish PKK & Yezidi YBŞ groups will reportedly participate in Mosul offensive under the auspices of Baghdad

Hassan Ridha ‏@sayed_ridha 13h13 hours ago
Fallujah offensive required a force made up of over 20,000 soldiers, manpower involved for Mosul will be almost 3x larger

[Singha]

minas tirith battle shaping up..every formation has answered the call...on both sides...

[Philip]

I loved the pic of the lone protestor heeding BoJo's call to arms against Russia! In fact it would've been even better if the Russian embassy had welcomed the protestor and invited him for a cuppa!

[IndraD]

there is undercurrent of support for Putin action even in UK. This shows in hesitation UK is showing in rambling up military action , infact in the meeting yesterday at power corridor it was decided UK & US should not touch the crisis spiralling out of hand with their own military.
Further it appears Ru has sort of flattened strong holds of US backed rebels and their air sorties are working very well: West is debating Ru jets over Aleppo like headless chickens

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 60226.html

[LokeshC]

thats what I also said Austin, no need to build up the kind of defences moscow has. but raise the cost of intervention high enough.... SKIFFS = on-demand cloud based sensor net which can burst up and down in nodecount based on consumer demand. very lean in resources needed. can survive on rice and fish for a month, needs no electric grid or fancy bases and ground crews.

Lean, agile methodology defeating older planning "waterfalls".

[Singha]

every guy using a phone or beacon could be a spotter

how do the reapers and predators over the sea decide ? each spotter in a skiff can definitely spot a warship with binoculars around 15km away in clear red sea weather in the day ... 700 sq km for a mk1 pirate ...
they could even hand over tailing a target to the next zones guy and wait until dusk to slip away like they did for the trimaran ship...night falls...the missile telars get the final target co-ords and launch.

being Fri I am in think like a paki mode. any long and loose blocade of TSPian harbours has to deal with this too, so shoe could be on our foot too.

[Singha]

a series of videos by murad gazdiev on children wounded and in ICU in govt held western aleppo are here
https://twitter.com/Ibra_Joudeh

western aleppo has long been a favourite target of the hell cannons...

[Singha]

Reuters

By Ahmed Rasheed | BAGHDAD
Islamic State has crushed a rebellion plot in Mosul, led by one of the group's commanders who aimed to switch sides and help deliver the caliphate's Iraqi capital to government forces, residents and Iraqi security officials said.

Islamic State (IS) executed 58 people suspected of taking part in the plot after it was uncovered last week. Residents, who spoke to Reuters from some of the few locations in the city that have phone service, said the plotters were killed by drowning and their bodies were buried in a mass grave in a wasteland on the outskirts of the city.

Among them was a local aide of IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who led the plotters, according to matching accounts given by five residents, by Hisham al-Hashimi, an expert on IS affairs that advises the government in Baghdad and by colonel Ahmed al-Taie, from Mosul's Nineveh province Operation Command's military intelligence.

Reuters is not publishing the name of the plot leader to avoid increasing the safety risk for his family, nor the identities of those inside the city who spoke about the plot.

The aim of the plotters was to undermine Islamic State's defense of Mosul in the upcoming fight, expected to be the biggest battle in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Mosul is the last major stronghold of Islamic State in Iraq. With a pre-war population of around 2 million, it is at least five times the size of any other city Islamic State has controlled. Iraqi officials say a massive ground assault could begin this month, backed by U.S. air power, Kurdish security forces and Shi'ite and Sunni irregular units.

A successful offensive would effectively destroy the Iraqi half of the caliphate that the group declared when it swept through northern Iraq in 2014. But the United Nations says it could also create the biggest humanitarian crisis in the world, in a worst case scenario uprooting 1 million people.

Islamic State fighters are dug in to defend the city, and have a history of using civilians as human shields when defending territory.

CAUGHT

According to Hashimi, the dissidents were arrested after one of them was caught with a message on his phone mentioning a transfer of weapons. He confessed during interrogation that weapons were being hidden in three locations, to be used in a rebellion to support the Iraqi army when it closes in on Mosul.

IS raided the three houses used to hide the weapons on Oct. 4, Hashimi said.

“Those were Daesh members who turned against the group in Mosul," said Iraqi Counter-terrorism Service spokesman Sabah al-Numani in Baghdad, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State. "This is a clear sign that the terrorist organization has started to lose support not only from the population, but even from its own members.”

A spokesman for the U.S.-led military coalition which conducts air strikes on Islamic State targets in Syria and Iraq was unable to confirm or deny the accounts of the thwarted plot.

Signs of cracks inside the "caliphate" appeared this year as the ultra-hardline Sunni group was forced out of half the territory it overran two years ago in northern and western Iraq.

Some people in Mosul have been expressing their refusal of IS's harsh rules by spray-painting the letter M, for the Arabic word that means resistance, on city walls, or "wanted" on houses of its militants. Such activity is punished by death.


Numani said his service has succeeded in the past two months in opening contact channels with “operatives” who began communicating intelligence that helped conduct air strikes on the insurgents' command centers and locations in Mosul.

A list with the names of the 58 executed plotters was given to a hospital to inform their families but their bodies were not returned, the residents said.

“Some of the executed relatives sent old women to ask about the bodies. Daesh rebuked them and told them no bodies, no graves, those traitors are apostates and it is forbidden to bury them in Muslim cemeteries,” said one resident whose relative was among those executed.

“After the failed coup, Daesh withdrew the special identity cards it issued for its local commanders, to prevent them from fleeing Mosul with their families,” Colonel al-Taie said.

A Mosul resident said Islamic State had appointed a new official, Muhsin Abdul Kareem Oghlu, a leader of a sniper unit with a reputation as a die-hard, to assist its governor of Mosul, Ahmed Khalaf Agab al-Jabouri, in keeping control.

Islamic State militants have placed booby traps across the city of Mosul, dug tunnels and recruited children as spies in anticipation of the offensive.

(Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; editing by Peter Graff)

[Singha]

as a unschooled desi armchair patton my plan for mosul would be simple and direct

1) capture the airport using airborne forces and use that as a helicopter gunship FARP and artillery base - to apply fire to any part of the city on demand , also base to evac wounded quickly .. let the NATO units helping out like french take command of the artillery fire control center.
2) send heavy armour along the eastern bank of the river from both ends to link up and split the city into two - setup parallel earth berms toward eastern half of the city to fight off any linkup attempt and destroy the 5 bridges
3) use bull runs along the main roads , fronted by armoured dozers and mine ploughs with helicopter gunships in overwatch to slice and dice the western half of the city into manageable chunks which can be defeated peacemeal by 2nd echelon militias and tribal units = soon as one block is free , move civilians out south into temp camps for a couple months until demining is done - for this a fleet of buses will be needed
4) attack the eastern half of city from 6 different directions since manpower is not an issue using these as hammer and river as the anvil to flush out and kill the rats
5) shower food packets & water purification tabs daily all over the city, sure the rats will eat but most of the civilians might get a bite as well
6) do not turn this into a slow siege which will kill 1000s of civilians - be as abrupt and quick as possible. keep electricity running.
7) military bridges north and south of the city under tight control to move forces and supplies back and forth
a outer ring of checkposts and spies to screen civilians who escape on own for burqa clad IS cadres

[Singha]

iraqi army abrams are being trucked to the site, hope they have solid breacher model mine ploughs coming along for the initial push

http://previewcf.turbosquid.com/Preview ... iginal.jpg
http://www.ipmslivonia.org/ipms/Gallery ... -0236a.jpg

[Singha]

IDF style armoured dozer - hope massa is arranging these - great for putting up earth berms under fire and demolishing houses and walls

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armored_b ... AT_D9R.jpg

it can withstand direct hits from RPGs and survive IEDs upto 500kg in weight.

[Singha]

the syrians also used a russian made explosive mine clearing cable system in areas like Jobar. clears lanes for armour & infantry to advance.

the UR77 meteorit it damn near shatters a whole neighbourhood

[Austin]

thats what I also said Austin, no need to build up the kind of defences moscow has. but raise the cost of intervention high enough.... SKIFFS = on-demand cloud based sensor net which can burst up and down in nodecount based on consumer demand. very lean in resources needed. can survive on rice and fish for a month, needs no electric grid or fancy bases and ground crews.

Agreed and looking at the stuff in pipeline both indiginous and israel/russian stuff we would be there in next 5-8 years , Completely renovated ADGES and Aerospace Defence

[Gyan]

Re Singha
what's the political position of Iraqi Govt? Is it pro US or anti US? and how does it reconcile its pro US position with US general encouragement to ISIS?

[Singha]

US is anti-ISIS in iraq and ambivalent if not exactly pro-ISIS in syria - whoever is against Assadists is not really a true enemy of the US there if not a great friend. there are some rebel formations in south syria and along golan heights who were not core ISIS to start with but declared allegiance to the Khalifa later on, israel is quietly helping them with aid x-border...this cannot be without US knowledge or blessings.

Iraq needs american aid both financial and military (drones, hummers, artillery support, SF for airstrikes, F-16 etc) and has no option for now. but they are also buying up HW from russia like frogfoots, havocs, atgms ... long term once they stand on feet, they will slowly become non-aligned - neither pro-US nor pro-Iran but pro-Iraq. as the inheritors of the sumerian, mesopotamian and assyrian civilization they are not like the saudis ...

[IndraD]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ussia.html

ISIS fighters 'will be allowed to flee Mosul and retreat to Syria under agreement made with the US' claims Russia
US agreed a deal for the safe transfer of 9,000 terrorists, Russia claims
Russia says agreement is on the premise ISIS fights Vladimir Putin's troops
President Barack Obama plans to liberate Mosul this month, report says
ISIS captured the Iraqi city in 2014, but its grip on stronghold is slipping