And next, Syria?

[Casually Red]

You are little more than a cheapass third-rate troll who provides no credible evidence to back up your claims, lies and evades awkward questions when it is expedient so excuse me if I don't actually take you seriously.

I don't take you even remotely seriously . You've been little more than a troll on this thread . But for the benefit of anyone else


Rebels firing on civilians trying to leave eastern Allepo through the humanitarian corridors

No crossings in Aleppo as rebels bombard exit points

Civilians in east Aleppo say they’re being shot at by rebels to stop them leaving during the truce


Rebels clearly lobbing shells at the designated humanitarian corridors and using heavy machine guns to target them . Injuring a number of personnel, including Russian, who were manning the aid facilities .Followed by a jihadi demonstration in E Allepo rejecting the ceasefire and calling for a resumption of hostilities instead .




To their credit none of these aid personnel fled and held their positions .

 

[degsy]

 

[Casually Red]

And the next day, again rebel shelling of the humanitarian corridors clearly visible . This time an interview with a family who managed to make it out under the cover of darkness .



According to that interview there have been demonstrations in E Allepo by thousands of civilians demanding to be let leave through the corridors . The rebel response was to lob mortars close to we're they we're demonstrating in order to disperse them . And give a clear message about what using the ceasefire corridors would entail . These people are clearly being held hostage by the wests proxy forces and actively prevented from being allowed leave . Whilst in the background the western forces sponsoring their captors can wail and flap their arms about regarding their dire humanitarian situation . Responsible for it in the first place .

Other reports flying around about civic leaders calling for evacuation being assassinated by the jihadis . These civilians aren't just human shields, they're currency for their western backers in their geo political games. Currency they don't want to see slipping through their proxies fingers.

 

[CrabbedOne]

I'm sorry but your last link was from the Washington Policy institute...come on .

This is footage of Heavy machinery and infrastructure being shipped directly out of jihadi held territory , through the border post to Turkey they clearly control . With their flags on it and stuff .



You can't be so blindly oblivious as to how this actually works and the impact this state sponsored looting has on the average Syrian . For starters these largely nationalised industries were paid for by them Out of their purse. Billions of their national wealth was invested into creating these industries in the first place . " Only 16 % of the population " may work in industry...rather a lot . But that means a much wider percentage..their families..depend on that wage . As do the workers in numerous professions and services who depend on those wages being spent . As do those who are subsidised elsewhere, because that industry is where the govt gets the income to pay civil servants salaries and the like . So that's a hell of a lot of people directly affected by this wholesale looting by western and gulf backed terrorist groups of national assets . Efecctively all Syrians . Add to that the wholesale theft of their national oil and gas resources by jihadists and it's the people in their entirety being robbed blind by these bums .

Aleppo's businessmen blame Turks for damaged factories, looted equipment

National wealth in this case effectively meant Assad clan property until industry was partially opened up to the private sector in the 90s.

Syrian industry was not the principle funder of the poorly paid Public Sector. 45% of Syrian GDP came from Services and this was were most of the growth was. Tourism for instance was quite a big promising earner. Industry was also bound to suffer from problems other than looting. They don't even have the power on all the time and Syria is heavily sanctioned so they can't import raw materials or export goods. An enterprising businessman might as well move his costly, often idle plant to Turkey.

Opportunistic looting happens in warfare sometimes even on a large scale while we are in charge. Even in peacetime rather a lot of Syrian oil always disappeared into the black market and up to Turkey and that was mostly the work of crooked state officials. What do you expect to happen when much of an already extremely corrupt country is chaotic? SAA officers are selling on T-series tanks to rebels they are meant to be fighting is not unknown.

From that Al Monitor article:

...
A businessman from Aleppo had told me in a private gathering in Damascus that some of the army personnel who had expelled the opposition forces out of Sheikh Najjar in July 2014 had taken part in looting. This man, who is close to the regime, added, "First the opposition looted. When the army took over control, soldiers were told to remove what they could. If you ask me, both the opposition and the army were the thieves."

...

Which is denied as a lie but absolutely typical of SAA behaviour all over Syria. What happens when a journo bothers to talk to non-regime source. The Aleppo Chamber Of Commerce is entirely regime appointed, it was mentioned in that urban poor paper above. SAA officers taking the line that the awful job they do defending the country is down to a Turkish invasion is also pretty predictable.

Balanche by the way is probably the foremost French academic who is a critic of the MSM narrative on Syria with rather opposing highly evidence based views of the revolt to the likes of Lister. One studies demographics the other interviews to beards which would tend to make a wonk sympathetic to their cause regardless of funding.

 

[Casually Red]

On CNN Aleppo: Who still lives in this decimated city -- and why?

From the pocket in East Aleppo:
If he had the money he'd clearly go to Turkey if there was an opportunity. The urban poor are trapped not just by fighting but by poverty.

Also gives an account from the much larger regime held Western Aleppo were things are not so bad:
She speaks French, holds property but sees life as a refugee as economically perilous.

Notice neither are talking about a cause just material conditions.

Yes i noticed that . As your source is CNN ..Jesus..that's hardly surprising .

 

[degsy]

 

[degsy]

 

[Casually Red]

And some footage here from ground zero of one of the humanitarian corridors targeted by rebel shelling . Some shells have already fallen prompting the evacuation buses to reposition. Remnants of smoke clearly visible . Then some sniper fire becomes clearly audible and buses start moving away en masse .As that's happening another rebel shell lands just metres away , right in the middle of a civilian apartment block. God knows how many injured or killed . Typical rebel behaviour during yet another unilateral ceasefire by the Syrians and Russians . Explosion at around the 2 . 40 mark.



And to put these direct attacks on the humanitarian corridors in their direct political context here's the translation, by Qatari shill Charles lister, of the rebels rejection of the ceasefire and Humanitarian corridor initiative .



The rebel intent, and obviously that of their sponsors, is to keep as many civilians as possible confined to Eastern Allepo . Using them as human shields while alive and political currency when they die . It's as cynical as that .

Not that the western media has been saying much about this latest initiative but there are 4 corridors in total . 2 for civilians to exit . One for rebels who wish to lay down their arms to exit and avail of amnesty . While there's another at the opposite end of the enclave to permit armed rebels to leave with their families and go to rebel Idlib . Listers translation mentions the similar deals in other districts rebels have availed off to evacuate just in the last couple of weeks , and the jihadis whining about those successes. plainly the jihadis in Allepo have decided they'll use armed force to ensure that doesn't happen east Allepo . Otherwise what will western wiberals, do gooders and hand wringers have as an excuse to get upset about .

 

[CrabbedOne]

In The Seattle Times In Aleppo, jewel of Syrian rebellion faces possible collapse

...
Near Aleppo’s Old City, Zahraa al-Sayed tugged the children by the hands down the street, hurrying to stay under the shadows of the balconies.

A drone was hovering over their heads. She felt tagged as a target.

She was holding her 6-month daughter in one arm and her 8-year-old son by the other hand, followed by his three cousins, leading them to the building where their school is held.

“What exactly are they filming? A woman and four children?” the 29-year-old al-Sayed said, growing agitated as she recounted the scene to The Associated Press. “In the middle of all this destruction, they still keep an eye on us.”
...

The gorgon stare of the Syrian surveillance state. Even in the East Aleppo Pocket you are still watched.

 

[Casually Red]

In The Seattle Times In Aleppo, jewel of Syrian rebellion faces possible collapse
The gorgon stare of the Syrian surveillance state. Even in the East Aleppo Pocket you are still watched.

Yeah . What type of absolute monsters would use surveillance on a district overrun by heavily armed Al Qaeda affiliates who are lobbing shells and mortars into residential areas on a daily basis . And attacking them day and night.

You'd swear there was a war on or something .


Eta

And that's quite a ten month old kid . Able to ask his dad for potatoes . A veritable ingenue .

 

[CrabbedOne]

In The Independent Compare the coverage of Mosul and East Aleppo and it tells you a lot about the propaganda we consume

...
In present day Syria and Iraq one can see much the same process at work. In both countries, two large Sunni Arab urban centres – East Aleppo in Syria and Mosul in Iraq – are being besieged by pro-government forces strongly supported by foreign airpower. In East Aleppo, some 250,000 civilians and 8,000 insurgents, are under attack by the Syrian Army allied to Shia paramilitaries from Iran, Iraq and Lebanon and supported by the Russian and Syrian air forces. The bombing of East Aleppo has rightly caused worldwide revulsion and condemnation.

But look at how differently the international media is treating a similar situation in Mosul, 300 miles east of Aleppo, where one million people and an estimated 5,000 Isis fighters are being encircled by the Iraqi army fighting alongside Kurdish Peshmerga and Shia and Sunni paramilitaries and with massive support from a US-led air campaign. In the case of Mosul, unlike Aleppo, the defenders are to blame for endangering civilians by using them as human shields and preventing them leaving. In East Aleppo, fortunately, there are no human shields – though the UN says that half the civilian population wants to depart – but simply innocent victims of Russian savagery.

Destruction in Aleppo by Russian air strikes is compared to the destruction of Grozny in Chechnya sixteen years ago, but, curiously, no analogy is made with Ramadi, a city of 350,000 on the Euphrates in Iraq, that was 80 per cent destroyed by US-led air strikes in 2015. Parallels go further: civilians trapped in East Aleppo are understandably terrified of what the Syrian Mukhabara secret police would do to them if they leave and try to pass through Syrian government checkpoints.

But I talked earlier this year to some truck drivers from Ramadi whom I found sleeping under a bridge in Kirkuk who explained that they could not even go back to the ruins of their homes because checkpoints on the road to the city were manned by a particularly violent Shia militia. They would certainly have to pay a large bribe and stood a good chance of being detained, tortured or murdered.
...

Fair comment from Cockburn; the Western media is often near as slanted as Russia Today.

The civilian death toll was much lower in Ramadi but mainly because the civ pop had fled. If you look at the level of destruction it may be worse than a Syrian siege. It's currently still a death trap littered with IS IEDs that have injured over a hundred returning civilians.

If IS stand their ground in the much larger Mosul as it seems they will the humanitarian problems may dwarf East Aleppo. One urban siege looks much like another even with precision weaponry.

There's good reason to fear the Shia Hashd in Diyala just beneath Kirkuk even if Iraqi Shia violence against Sunni civ pop is exaggerated in GCC media. Iraq also has a torture gulag that you can disappear into if on a far smaller scale to Baathist Syria.

It seems to have been forgotten that the peculiarly savage first stage of the civil war in Iraq killed very large numbers of civilians and also created huge IDP flows. In that war mass casualty insurgent attacks on Shia markets and tit for tat butchery by Shia militias accounted for a lot of the dead. Media focus tended to look away from this to the troubles of being an occupier.

The reasons for the Sunni risings in both countries bear comparison. Very corrupt, unequal societies where an elite minority hogs all the pie and the state is both oppressive and absent in the urban slums. Envy of Sunni Arab peers doing very well as state collaborators. The appeal of Leveller Salafists even as dark as IS promising a brave new world is easy to understand. Neither revolt finally offered much real hope. Support for the rising in Syria was fragmented and proved fragile in Iraq. In Iraq the state(s) had support of the majority of the population. In Syria a substantial minority opposed the revolt. In both cases the state had powerful committed allies. Democratic Baghdad largely in the hands of squabbling Shia Islamists may slowly reform itself and is at least oil rich enough to bribe enemies into passivity. Finally there is the moral authority of Najaf to offer course correction to Iraq's governing Ali Baba's. While stiff necked Assad appears doomed to slow, in denial, economic death spiral as the Syrian state rots away even if his allies win the war for him.

 

[Casually Red]

. In Syria a substantial minority opposed the revolt. .

Where's your evidence for this quite definitive statement ? Who took this head count ?

 

[Casually Red]

In The Independent Compare the coverage of Mosul and East Aleppo and it tells you a lot about the propaganda we consume
Fair comment from Cockburn; the Western media is often near as slanted as Russia Today.

Near ? Near he says ? Ha !!

Where the fuck do you even start with a media that uniformly...all of them...talk about " the siege of Allepo " and " the besieged population of Aleppo " when most of the city is in government hands and the vast majority of the population don't even live in eastern Aleppo . And with none of them...none , not a single one...demanding the jihadists let the civilians leave . That's not even slanted . That's fell completely the fuck over with no intention of ever getting back up .

Al Jazeera Arabic have even gone so far as to openly call for the genocide of Alawites . Whipped up all sorts of sectarian hatred on a regular basis . Hardly surprising when their boss, the emir of Qatar is funding and arming IS , Al Nusra and all sorts of scum who have that very explicit intent .



Nearly as slanted my arse .

 

[CrabbedOne]

Where's your evidence for this quite definitive statement ? Who took this head count ?

Again there are multiple polls available that suggest a large minority support the regime. There's also rather a lot of academic research to support this. Parts of the revolt also have substantial support so did IS with nearly 30% of Syrians approving of them. But the revolt is politically diverse and no one group carries support across the urban centres in the way Assad does. The PKK plaster Apo's picture everywhere like a religious icon but for the rebels there's no Lenin, Castro or Khomeini only figures like the late Alloush of JaI with patchy appeal and the grey nonentities of the SNC.

Regime propaganda may be a pack of lies but it can't be denied Assad has support. It's not the sort of enthusiastic popular support Erdogan has in Turkey but a lot of Syrians don't see an alternative. It's the main reason Assad has clung to power despite his ugly regime and incompetence.

Assad carries the minorities even if many within them dislike the regime because they have nowhere to go. The revolt has proven mostly hostile to them. Syria may be 80% Sunni but if you look at regime held areas which is most of Useful Syria the minorities make up over 40% of the population. He bought the loyalty of much of the Sunni haut bourgeoisie in the boom years. They have their own hangers on with a nose in the trough. The petite bourgeoisie are that stodgy third of the population that are civil servants. Many of those are Sunni and while the regime still reliably he puts bread on their tables they'll fear the alternatives. That leaves a minority of Sunni with a stake in the regime that they stand to lose if the revolt wins. Of course this means a lot of people are effectively complicit in the crimes of the regime. Far from all urban Sunni proles are religious conservatives who can easily get on board with the Salafists. Even revolt supporters worry about that outcome as what it looks like is far from certain. Baath support could be as high as 30-40% overall and be a healthy majority in regime held areas.

Assad might even be more popular if as the rebels killed their way through his manpower he hadn't resorted to press ganging all available youth who can't come up with bribe for a deferment into the SAA meat grinder. This appears universally unpopular. Some people clearly remain in dangerous rebel held areas for the sake of their sons. We even have Alawites rioting occasionally over the draft. The Druze got so unruly about it the regime agreed to leave their youth in their areas. Both IS and the PKK have also had civil disobedience problems with their draft.

 

[Casually Red]

Again there are multiple polls available that suggest a large minority support the regime. There's also rather a lot of academic research to support this. Parts of the revolt also have substantial support so did IS with nearly 30% of Syrians approving of them. But the revolt is politically diverse and no one group carries support across the urban centres in the way Assad does. The PKK plaster Apo's picture everywhere like a religious icon but for the rebels there's no Lenin, Castro or Khomeini only figures like the late Alloush of JaI with patchy appeal and the grey nonentities of the SNC.

Regime propaganda may be a pack of lies but it can't be denied Assad has support. It's not the sort of enthusiastic popular support Erdogan has in Turkey but a lot of Syrians don't see an alternative. It's the main reason Assad has clung to power despite his ugly regime and incompetence.

Assad carries the minorities even if many within them dislike the regime because they have nowhere to go. The revolt has proven mostly hostile to them. Syria may be 80% Sunni but if you look at regime held areas which is most of Useful Syria the minorities make up over 40% of the population. He bought the loyalty of much of the Sunni haut bourgeoisie in the boom years. They have their own hangers on with a nose in the trough. The petite bourgeoisie are that stodgy third of the population that are civil servants. Many of those are Sunni and while the regime still reliably he puts bread on their tables they'll fear the alternatives. That leaves a minority of Sunni with a stake in the regime that they stand to lose if the revolt wins. Of course this means a lot of people are effectively complicit in the crimes of the regime. Far from all urban Sunni proles are religious conservatives who can easily get on board with the Salafists. Even revolt supporters worry about that outcome as what it looks like is far from certain. Baath support could be as high as 30-40% overall and be a healthy majority in regime held areas.

Assad might even be more popular if as the rebels killed their way through his manpower he hadn't resorted to press ganging all available youth who can't come up with bribe for a deferment into the SAA meat grinder. This appears universally unpopular. Some people clearly remain in dangerous rebel held areas for the sake of their sons. We even have Alawites rioting occasionally over the draft. The Druze got so unruly about it the regime agreed to leave their youth in their areas. Both IS and the PKK have also had civil disobedience problems with their draft.

Can you post up one of these many polls so we can have a look at the source. Methodology etc . Thanks .

 

[teqniq]

 

[Casually Red]

Oh look . Some do gooders armed with dozens of teddy bears demonstrated outside downing street . Calling for world war 3 to begin . They had a barely famous actress with them and everything .

Carey Mulligan joins London protest against bombardment of Aleppo

What heart of stone can't be melted by teddy bears ? It's that type of bullshit that has made this " toy smuggler of Aleppo " asshole into an international hero for the do gooders . It's unreal the amount of mainstream media stories focussing on that fuckwit . How so much of that assholes propaganda is just regurgitated by the western MSM and swallowed by hand wringers and do gooders because there's a fucking teddy bear in it . Like a machine .

Piss off with the teddy bears . Just google " toy smuggler of Aleppo ", it's unreal for christs sake the sheer volume of msm bullshit that story creates . utterly mawkish and inane stuff . Really gets on my tits that sort of thing .

 

[CrabbedOne]

Can you post up one of these many polls so we can have a look at the source. Methodology etc . Thanks .

See above you twit.

 

[Casually Red]

See above you twit.

Above what ?

 

[CrabbedOne]

I'm beginning to think that's low rent hasbara rather than an individual.

 

[Casually Red]

I'm beginning to think that's low rent hasbara rather than an individual.

You're quoting all these percentages but not providing any sources for them that I can see. Asking you for your sources for these percentages shouldn't be a big deal . Yet you're making one out of it .

 

[CrabbedOne]

You're quoting all these percentages but not providing any sources for them that I can see. Asking you for your sources for these percentages shouldn't be a big deal . Yet you're making one out of it .

I'm not going to repeatedly cite sources. Read the thread like a competent civilian.

 

[Casually Red]

Give me a clue and tell me which page . For the past month or so you've flooded every page with tonnes of text like its your own blog . I haven't bothered reading even a fraction of it. I've no intention of wading through it now. I'm also not all that inspired by a number of sources you have provided , unsurprisingly .

 

[CrabbedOne]

As far as I can tell about 850 of the AQ guys reported to be in the Aleppo pocket came in a few months ago out of Idlib. The Brothers who have been running it did not welcome them initially. Now AQ may well feel they own the place...

 

[Casually Red]

Alex Thompson confirms rebels targeting the corridors with shelling , preventing civilians from leaving .

 

[DotCommunist]

For the past month or so you've flooded every page with tonnes of text like its your own blog

did you type that with a straight face?

 

[CrabbedOne]

...
Conclusion

From the open source information available, we can draw several conclusions:

First of all, according to the flyers dropped by the Syrian government, the exit corridor near the 7th April Municipal Stadium is an exit corridor for “armed groups”.

Secondly, the location of the buses at the 7th April Municipal Stadium was shelled with mortar fire: at least ten different smoke plumes can be geolocated near or very near the buses. The moment before impact of two mortars has been caught on camera.

Thirdly, there is visual evidence that there was shelling from rebel positions, in reply to what they claim was a small Syrian government offensive at the 7th April Municipal Stadium exit corridor. There does not appear to be a way to verify this claim at this time, as we have not found any open source information such as photos or videos that could be related to this claim. There have been clashes between rebels and Syrian government forces elsewhere around Aleppo.

Fourthly, At least one pro-rebel media outlet failed to mention shelling from the rebel side, despite being at the same location at roughly the same time.

Finally, without further information from the other checkpoints, it is difficult to draw conclusions about whether this is a concerted and unified effort to prevent civilians leaving opposition-held Aleppo, or only an attack on one particular checkpoint.

Very detailed open source analysis.

Not really a firm conclusion but I take from that they are pretty much convinced the rebels are shelling a check point that been designated as a combatant exit route. It also seems possible that they could be responding to a perceived regime offensive.

What's obvious is not many people are attempting to leave while the UN thinks over 100K of the 250K civ pop want out of the closing trap. Bellingcat also detects clear signs of rebel support and thinks coercion may well be an element as well.

Because if much of the population leaves the rebels are left defending empty rubble and lose. In the rebels shoes I would not be encouraging that. I would be emphasising the risks of giving yourself up which are real enough. I might well want to make the escape paths look dangerous and heavily armed rebels with AA guns and Hell cannons can do that. We also have to remember that the rebels are not one block in the pocket. A large part of the resistance in the pocket is local youth armed by incoming Salafists, they'll have kin to consider. There are a few factions but it includes AQ and folk very close to them as well as MB types who have been there longest and probably have the deepest support. AQ certainly has form in these things and have been reported to be intimidating civ pop to stay in East Aleppo before but do not seem to be entirely dominant.

As with IDF assaults on Gaza holding different insurgent factions to one agenda may be very difficult. Hamas when in these situations always seem to benefit and grow their support in the civ pop. Beating Arabs with a stick hoping they will love you often mobilises contrary emotions. It's when Hamas go back to being the IDF's police force keeping Gaza quiet that folk start spitting at them and calling them a corrupt bunch of thieves. We could be seeing a similar radicalising effect in the heavily bombed pocket.

Actually as the siege of the far larger Mosul approaches IDP flows are lower than expected. Most folk appear to be hunkering down with supplies and trusting to luck. IS do have an obvious habit inherited from the Baathists of filling mass graves with rebellious civ pop that we don't really see as often with Syrian rebels. Pesh have been saying in the IDP flows there appear to be high levels of support for IS, perhaps 30%.

 

[J Ed]

CrabbedOne I like and appreciate your posts on here, please continue using this thread as your blog!

 

[Riklet]

Jesus yeah its refreshing to read something decent on this thread rather tyan just CasuallyRed's pro-Assad Russian propoganda.

 

[Casually Red]

I'd like to apologise to crabbed one for the bitchiness in my comment yesterday and withdraw it . I recognise that he puts a lot of effort into his posts , and my comment was uncalled for . So apologies . Please continue as before .