And next, Syria?

[butchersapron]

Stuff i saw on Twitter said the Kurds currently have no plans to attack Raqqa here we are...

You can bet some elements will be arguing for a rapid push, even if mainly exploratory. I wouldn't expect it myself though. Whole different ball game than recent battles.

 

[J Ed]

Don't really see the tactical sense in that move.

Some of it might be as simple as directing anger at losses at someone, also they may be concerned about the Kurds there being a fifth column.

 

[Casually Red]

Well , looks like this much touted southern storm offensive in Daraa hasn't paid off . Southern Front , Al Nusra and a host other ball bags launched it a few days back to much media fanfare but almost immediately there were reports of heavy rebel casualties, followed by confirmation that reported seizure of key buildings and supply routes were fake . They threw everything they had into it, tanks , artillery , bulldozers , suicide car bombs . But since then the news has gone very quiet .
Syrian army also claiming their airforce targeted the rebels command room and took a host of their leaders out . Photos floating about of senior rebels who appear very dead indeed seem to corroborate that tale . And that's not the first time that tactic has paid off either .

But despite the public disavowal by Southern Front of the Al Qaeda groups in their midst , which seem to be little more than pr aimed at soothing hopeful mugs in the west , the presence of all these groups fighting side by side in joint major offensives simply can't be denied with any credibility .

Eta

Also looks like IS have taken a bad kicking from the SAA during their simultaneously timed assault on Hasakah .

 

[butchersapron]

The offensive is failing. The idea - one that you absolutely need - that SF is islamist is a lie. You know it's a lie.

 

[butchersapron]

All them places the regimes forces have gone over to ISIS (and it is the regime who is the biggest ally of ISIS) in al-haskah over the last few days have now been taken back by the YPG btw.

 

[butchersapron]

Erdogan talking up the prospect of Turkish intervention in Syria - and for base of action...jarabulus and the gap between the last non-linked rojava canton. My view is that this is just talk to shore up nationalist vote before likely next elections - but he really is playing with fire right now, in more ways than one.

 

[butchersapron]

Hmm and to the south:

Jordan to set up buffer zone in southern Syria

Jordan is preparing to set up a security zone in southern Syria to prevent a jihadi victory in the area, carving out the first humanitarian “buffer zone” for rebels and refugees in four years of civil war.

The main aim of the operation will be to create a safe area on Jordan’s border, stretching across the southern Syrian provinces of Deraa and Suwayda, and including the city of Deraa, where the Syrian uprising began in 2011, according to people familiar with the plans.

People familiar with the situation say that Jordan is also considering a militarised zone that will segregate the buffer area from Syrian regime forces to the North. It will be manned by existing fighters in the anti-Assad rebel southern brigades, reinforced with a brigade of troops currently being trained in Jordan. The Jordanian military — one of the most capable in the Middle East — will provide support.

The plans are backed by key members of the international coalition against Isis, who are expected to provide behind-the-lines military support and advice but it remains unclear whether Washington will sanction the move: many in the Obama administration are hesitant about backing a ground operation in Syria.

Think we really may really be moving into the next stage now.

 

[butchersapron]

Latest very detailed piece from steadfast revolution supporter Michael Karadjis:

The “Israel backs Jabhat al-Nusra” fairy-tale and its deadly consequences

Unlike ISIS, Nusra fights mostly against the regime (and against ISIS) alongside other Syrian rebel groups. Therefore, this “Israel supports Nusra” fairy-story is not aimed at claiming that Israel is secretly aiding a sectarian diversion of the revolution, but, on the contrary, the aim is the same old warped conspiracy theory that the mighty Syrian revolution is just a conspiracy orchestrated by a US-Zionist-Gulf-Jihadist-Martian cabal bent on destroying the nice progressive “secular” regime of Assad. Quite deliberately, these writers conflate Nusra with the FSA and other rebels; the fact that the UN reports talk about, for example, handing two boxes to members of an “armed group” for these writers automatically means Nusra. Even when it was found out that the wounded fighter murdered by the Druze lynch-mob was in the FSA and not Nusra, these haters declare him an “Islamist” fighter, in order to be as dishonest as is humanly possible without still calling him “Nusra” – for them, Nusra, Islamists and FSA are all the same thing.

 

[Patteran]

Erdogan talking up the prospect of Turkish intervention in Syria - and for base of action...jarabulus and the gap between the last non-linked rojava canton. My view is that this is just talk to shore up nationalist vote before likely next elections - but he really is playing with fire right now, in more ways than one

Daily Beast piece about this, reporting that a military statement is expected tomorrow.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...dening-the-war.html?via=mobile&source=twitter

 

[gawkrodger]

Yeh, Telegraph getting in on the story as well

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...11706383/Turkey-planning-to-invade-Syria.html

 

[westcoast1]

Yeh, Telegraph getting in on the story as well

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...11706383/Turkey-planning-to-invade-Syria.html

From the looks of it, Turkey don't want the Kurds to link Afrin to the rest of the corridor they have opened up. From a wee conspiracy point of view-it will keep the IS supply lines going.

 

[butchersapron]

Daily Beast piece about this, reporting that a military statement is expected tomorrow.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...dening-the-war.html?via=mobile&source=twitter

Sort of statement here - thus is obv the political side of it, and there are strong suggestions the military are opposed to the hinted at plans. Note this calculated ambiguity from the the statement (my bolds):

“It has been expressed that adoption of the National Security Policy Document, which has been updated as a result of a comprehensive evaluation of domestic and international incidents, by the Council of Ministers will greatly contribute to social peace,” read the statement. It was reiterated that the struggle against illegal formations that threaten our national security, particularly the parallel state structure, would be continued with resolution.

 

[butchersapron]

Erdogan really pulling out all the stops to engineer a series of incidents with the PKK. Turkish air force now bombing PKK in Qandil mountains. (I know that's Iraq but fits best here).

A lot of people may have to die to satisfy his electoral strategy.

 

[butchersapron]

..and now HPG (PKK's military wing) say they have broken ceasefire as well.

edit: not full translation but better than nothing.

 

[butchersapron]

Hearing two turkish soldiers may have been killed in turkey tonight. I say may have been.

 

[teqniq]

 

[frogwoman]

http://www.understandingwar.org/bac...eadership-case-syrias-abu-mohammed-al-joulani

Not read this yet but looks worth it

 

[Casually Red]

Yeah , al Qaedas JN and their daesh founders seem to brimming with those as well . Fisks interviews with Syrian troops on the receiving end of this western largesse talk of 3 or 4 at a time being fired at a single tank . Not content with rendering it inoperable they want the fun of overwhelming it's fire control system and watching the crew cook . So when one considers the expense involved for such sport , because thats high end kit, its clear they've been distributed like confetti among the terrorist groups . Some reports had up to 3000 so called FSA defecting to IS around qalamoun some months back . Many others have joined the other AQ faction who are embedded alongside the so called " moderates " and who just happen to turn up at the same time as the moderates to participate in their offensives . More often than not being the largest group . Despite repeated assurances from the media they don't co operate .

Think it needs to be remembered here the wests supposed strategy to combat IS began when IS started chopping westerners heads off . And so they've handed expensive weaponry like that to the very same " moderates" who kidnapped the westerners to begin with and then sold them to IS .

 

[westcoast1]

Yea. Would not like to be fighting for SAA against those lot. Totally outgunned in certain battles.

 

[westcoast1]

Erdogan really pulling out all the stops to engineer a series of incidents with the PKK. Turkish air force now bombing PKK in Qandil mountains. (I know that's Iraq but fits best here).

A lot of people may have to die to satisfy his electoral strategy.

You got a source for that butchers?

 

[butchersapron]

You got a source for that butchers?

Here you go.

 

[Casually Red]

Yea. Would not like to be fighting for SAA against those lot. Totally outgunned in certain battles.

That's what happens when western governments and their regional partners , numerous states , actively sponsor terrorist offensives . Bad as it might be for the SAA it'd be a damn sight worse for the Syrian people if the terrorist groups win . Because then it'll be the knife , and god knows what else .

 

[laptop]

A lot of people may have to die to satisfy [Erdogan's] electoral strategy.

Are you expecting a second 2015 election soon? Or do you mean strategy for 2020 or whenever?

 

[teqniq]

Troop buildup on Syrian border to accelerate after Ramadan

Following the troops and military equipment sent from Tunceli and Gaziantep to the Syrian border and high-ranking military officials' visits coming one after another to inspect the state of affairs there, it has been reported that the Kayseri 1st Commando Brigade Command is also preparing to send some troops to the border after Ramadan. Reportedly, preparations started in the Kayseri 1st Commando Brigade and combat readiness training has doubled with wing shooting practices being intensified. It is also known that even noncombat soldiers were informed that they will be sent to the border....

 

[frogwoman]

http://www.raqqa-sl.com/en/?p=1285

This is a bit worrying. Are they saying the YPG has done this stuff or that if they have they condemn it? I really dont want this to be true.

 

[butchersapron]

It's the usual bollocks that's been around for weeks now. All sorts of idiots repeating it. Not a shred of proof ever been produced - FSA and arab organisation and networks investigated and said its bollocks. But the job is done because people are repeating it as truth and they've now helped turkey (the source of much of this politically motivated nonsense) to establish an anti-ISIS and anti-YPG turkmen militia. They've been played. That said, they were spreading anti-YPG stuff well before this. Not as bad as syria direct who know seem to know exactly what they're doing with their anti-kurd and anti-ypg stuff.

 

[frogwoman]

Ta butchers. Just that I generally trusted their info against ISIS.

 

[frogwoman]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blog...fighters-may-be-tipping-the-balance-in-syria/

This is from feb, about Shia jihadis for Assad. I dont know if anyone posted it yet. Geri etc

 

[frogwoman]

http://m.ft.com/cms/s/0/f1dde746-2a0a-11e5-8613-e7aedbb7bdb7.html

Very interesting looking book review here.

On her first trip back, in August 2012, she meets a commander of what was then called the Free Syrian Army, the rebel movement. “Under bombardment and siege, with the hunger and the snipers and the arrests, everyone will turn to the well-funded groups for arms,” he warns her. When she returns in February 2013, she spots many foreign jihadis making the same journey through Turkey, and hears how their influence has spread. “The next phase is going to be harder because these groups will have more influence and will emerge . . . stronger and more violent,” one of her friends says. “We’re going to see videos of floggings and beheadings.” Others explain to her that people embraced the Nusra Front, the al-Qaeda affiliated group from which Isis split, as they began to feel closer to its puritanical Salafi ideology and believed that, if the only option was death, then at least they would be blessed in the afterlife.

 

[frogwoman]

http://www.ibtimes.com/four-years-later-free-syrian-army-has-collapsed-1847116


This article (from march) suggests that the free syrian army has collapsed and largely exists only in name.