And next, Syria?

[brogdale]

The Morning Star's front page.

Final liberation of Aleppo is in sight

 

[CrabbedOne]

According to this the Russians started the panicky flight.

 

[CrabbedOne]

Little unfair AQ led two good goes at breaking the siege. They also reinforced the defence with 1-2K of their Beards who it seems won't be offered a negotiated retreat. AQ are only about 5K strong in Syria. Their combat losses here are going to be considerable but it has been excellent PR. IS spoiling Dr Z's moment by taking Palmyra again is the only blot on the landscape.

 

[CrabbedOne]

 

[CrabbedOne]

 

[CrabbedOne]

 

[CrabbedOne]

On War On The Rocks THE MEANING OF AN ISRAELI CLASH WITH AN ISLAMIC STATE AFFILIATE

...
Indeed, no further incident has taken place despite the retaliatory Israeli airstrikes on Jaysh Khalid bin al-Waleed territory. The group must focus in the meantime on a new rebel offensive aiming to take its territory, though past evidence suggests that there is unlikely to be any meaningful change in the situation. None of this is to say that Israel should not be concerned about the Jaysh Khalid bin al-Waleed presence on its border, but the prospect of an all-out war remains unlikely for the foreseeable future so long as the group’s priorities lie elsewhere within Syria.

For Israel, a policy of keeping a cautious distance, while making clear that any aggression will be met with severe retaliation in the form of airstrikes rather than deploying troops inside the Yarmouk Basin area, makes the most sense. Meanwhile, the backers of the Southern Front based in Amman need to provide better incentives for the Southern Front to amass forces and try to capture the Yarmouk Basin in a swift offensive. The continuation of the prolonged siege with its hardships for the locals will only increase resentment towards the rebels and make securing the area all the more difficult.

No big war with the "Joos" in prospect despite Syria being thronged with a rich ecosystem of antisemitic Beards. They are busier fighting each other.

 

[Idris2002]

How credible do we think the reports of atrocities in "liberated" Aleppo are?

I've already seen stuff saying that Assad has given amnesties in the past, meaning that maybe these new atrocity reports aren't credible, but for fuck's sake, come on, this is fucking Assad here.

 

[camouflage]

Assad, gloating over his latest victory this morning....

doubtless all kinds of massacres and atrocities are now taking place, we fear for the people of Allepo. If only the freedom-fighters had been given more support to defend themselves against the brute.

 

[Flavour]

Game over in Aleppo. The country burns.

 

[camouflage]

Game over in Aleppo. The country burns.

Images of crowds of people in celebration and relief on the streets of Aleppo suggest that this is not a universally accepted position.

 

[teqniq]

How credible do we think the reports of atrocities in "liberated" Aleppo are?

I've already seen stuff saying that Assad has given amnesties in the past, meaning that maybe these new atrocity reports aren't credible, but for fuck's sake, come on, this is fucking Assad here.

Pro-Assad troops have slaughtered 82 civilians in the past few hours in Aleppo

Images of crowds of people in celebration and relief on the streets of Aleppo suggest that this is not a universally accepted position.

Really?

Toddler weeps for dead father in harrowing footage from Aleppo

 

[camouflage]

Pro-Assad troops have slaughtered 82 civilians in the past few hours in Aleppo



Really?

Toddler weeps for dead father in harrowing footage from Aleppo

Yes really, weeping toddlers and jubilant crowds underline my point. It's almost as if war is a situation where not everybody is in agreement... maybe even by definition if you think about it.

 

[Flavour]

you happy Assad is staying then?

 

[rekil]

Bessies.

 

[mikey mikey]

I'm not happy. I wanted to further destabilise the region, hand over hegemony to Saudi Arabia, bolster Erdogan, further the PNAC group's long term foreign policy and bring us one step closer to war with Russia.

Sometimes i feel like I can't catch a break.

 

[Idris2002]

Yes really, weeping toddlers and jubilant crowds underline my point. It's almost as if war is a situation where not everybody is in agreement... maybe even by definition if you think about it.

Yes. Jubilant crowds. That must be it. Yes.

 

[rekil]

Don't suppose anyone would like to have a go at identifying those pictured here with conspiraloon Vanessa Beeley and the regime guy?

 

[teqniq]

Yes. Jubilant crowds. That must be it. Yes.

Nearly as full of shit as liarboy CR.

 

[CrabbedOne]

How credible do we think the reports of atrocities in "liberated" Aleppo are?

I've already seen stuff saying that Assad has given amnesties in the past, meaning that maybe these new atrocity reports aren't credible, but for fuck's sake, come on, this is fucking Assad here.

Completely credible, it's often how a long siege ends if stormed, Drogheda innit.

It's partly being blamed on Iraqi Shia militias. They do have form in these things. About 1,200 men disappeared from the Fallujah area after it fell a few months ago. Still no sign of half of them. Iraqi and then our air massacred 800+ of IS fighters and probably their families as well. Killing any military aged male you lay hands on in these thing is not an uncommon regional practice. That does not seem to happening. Some unlucky campers are being drafted into the SAA meat grinder. The regime is that desperate even for such highly unreliable manpower.

There also are quite a lot of Beards in the pocket including AQ fighters we'd happily kill extrajudicially. That's a genuine security problem. They may want to kill a lot of them rather than fight them again in Idlib. Some will try to merge into the fleeing civilians to escape or make mischief. As in Mosul the R+6 will sometimes shoot approaching civilians for fear of suicide bombers. There'll be a Mukhabarat death/torture list as well that will cover supporting medical staff, civilian activists, Twittering folk etc. The Baathist state isn't known for its fussiness in these things they'll be taking it out on kin as well. They did for decades after the MB rising in the 80s. Detain, coerce a confession naming names, detain and so on, it's like a terribly inefficient pyramid scheme.

Naturally regime supporters (much of Aleppo) will be cheering all this on. In West Aleppo it's like the 11th night without the slabs of Tennant's Extra and Lambeegs.

 

[camouflage]

Yes. Jubilant crowds. That must be it. Yes.

Yep, there are jubilant crowds. Doubtless you'll want to dismiss these images because they're shown on RT (as we know, the BBC or CNN et al would definitely show images of crowds jubilant at the fall/liberation of Aleppo if they could) or you might argue these people are all paid stooges of Assad and/or have been strong-armed into pretending happiness at the situation because, y'know... Assad. So I guess we can ignore these so called 'jubilant crowds' and push and plead for the international community to get off it's ass and do something to save Syria from Assads bombs.

One thing's for sure, not everyone in Syria agrees that what's happened in Aleppo is a tragedy, some (many of them Syrian) seem quite pleased with the development.

 

[camouflage]

Naturally regime supporters (much of Aleppo) will be cheering all this on.

yup, those Aleppans that are cheering all this are just regime-supporters so... y'know, fuck what they think, Assad-loving muppets to a man of em. It's the real Aleppans we need to concern ourselves with.

 

[teqniq]

Interesting. The still from the beginning of that footage is from a relatively old photo which has been posted somewhere on this thread, I seem to remember it's not even Aleppo, but rather a Palestinian enclave in a suburb of Damascus.

 

[camouflage]

Interesting. The still from the beginning of that footage is from a relatively old photo which has been posted somewhere on this thread, I seem to remember it's not even Aleppo, but rather a Palestinian enclave in a suburb of Damascus.

The still is certainly a powerful image of the horror and destruction of war regardless of where you stand on this issue (well, apart from psychopaths obviously).

 

[teqniq]

What is more interesting to me is that RT should use an image from 2015 of the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus as a prelude to scenes of cheering crowds in Aleppo.

 

[camouflage]

What is more interesting to me is that RT should use an image from 2015 of the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus as a prelude to scenes of cheering crowds in Aleppo.

I think that's the youtube posters decision tbf.

 

[teqniq]

Oh rly?

 

[CrabbedOne]

What is more interesting to me is that RT should use an image from 2015 of the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus as a prelude to scenes of cheering crowds in Aleppo.

Well RT's job is basically to bombard an easily gulled RT audience with misinformation so nothing inconsistent there. Easily detectable bollocks is on mission. Like Fox News a fundamental idea is undermine other sources. While our free media is busily on message regurgitating government information operations with a few folks on the ground trying to fit in with the "story".

 

[CRI]

This might sound a rather obvious question, but how does "jubilant crowds" in one part of Aleppo negate the impact of maimed bodies in the streets, injured children trapped under rubble in another part of the city, etc.?

 

[camouflage]

As Syrian government forces recapture more parts of eastern Aleppo, many civilians are risking their lives to flee the besieged opposition-controlled areas, telling the world that the so-called “rebels” stop at nothing to prevent people from leaving.

The Syrian government and its Russian allies have long accused armed opposition groups in Aleppo of holding civilians hostage, whereas western governments and media have been promoting a different narrative in tune with “rebel” and “activist” sources. This narrative is now falling apart.

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