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And next, Syria?

Bristol is becoming a fucking hotbed of pro Assad conspiracy loon mental cases. One of them had the brassneck to call Yassin Al Haj Saleh a barbarian. A man who has spent years of his life in Assad's prisons and had his wife abducted by terrorists, insulted by some little prick.
 
I hope you will understand that I had to google Yassin Al Haj Saleh. He doesn't look or sound like any kind of barbarian to me so what on earth is the matter with this little prick and associates?

E2a though I should have as he's mentioned numerous times on this thread, I thought his face looked familiar. :oops:
 
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teqniq said:
I hope you will understand that I had to google Yassin Al Haj Saleh. He doesn't look or sound like any kind of barbarian to me so what on earth is the matter with this little prick and associates?

E2a though I should have as he's mentioned numerous times on this thread, I thought his face looked familiar. :oops:
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I don't know, I just can't fathom it. I can't work out if they are bad people or just incredibly stupid.
 
Geri said:
I don't know, I just can't fathom it. I can't work out if they are bad people or just incredibly stupid.
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I suspect there is a tendency to view situations like this as Amerika=bad meaning that in the earlier days of what became a civil war when the US and it's allies were publicly calling for regime change whilst otherwise not really signing up to it, people who might possibly be considered left-of-centre in their political views conveniently forgot or perhaps did not even realise that at one point the US were using Syria as one of the destinations for 'questioning' in it's extraordinary rendition program. So on the balance I'll go with mostly stupid.
 
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Geri Haha. I've latterly realised that I haven't really addressed your post. I suppose was more going back to the post by hashtag about the prison, though they are of a piece inasmuch as people like Saleh were never going to be supported by the U.S. because of their opposing political views, he was lucky not to end up in Saydynya, and his wife I see is still missing. And then, well the extremists, their sponsors and other outside agencies took precedence and here we are.

Subsequently the people you are talking about may have bought into the idea that anyone opposed to the regime is a 'headchopper' or whatever, not realising that there were and still are perfectly decent people opposed to the regime.
 
On Al Jumhuriya THE CASE FOR REPORTING FROM ASSAD’S SYRIA
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Multiple times since leaving Damascus, I’ve been challenged by opposition-leaning Syrians on my observations from the city. They’ve asked, indignantly, “But were you able to walk around without a minder?”

The thing is: I was. I had the Ministry of Information’s minder on hand when I was conducting man-on-the-street interviews. The Ministry gave my written reporting permissions directly to the minder, who produced them for suspicious Damascus residents when they demanded to see them. In some instances, the minder sat in on or facilitated interviews; in others, at my request, he waited politely outside while I spoke with a shopowner or a patron. But outside these set hours with the minder, I was also free to wander Damascus unaccompanied, during the day and night, either on foot or by taxi.

The point is not that Damascus is a free place, or that even my conversations without a minder on hand were being conducted out of the state’s view. The point is that the fact that these Syrians challenged me on this point means that they didn’t know. And that’s totally understandable. Before I went in, I didn’t know, either.
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It's not hard to lead a journalist up the garden path especially if they don't speak the language fluently. That's pretty evident from coverage of Syria. It's a very dangerous place to report from and it is natural to become "captured" by the groups they are in proximity to. The host has to provide a protective cocoon. There's pressure to produce good copy and maintain a storyline.

There's a repeated phenomenon in war zones of participants having a very localised view. French officials in Algeria used to talk about their overly optimistic paratroopers not being able to see beyond the muzzles of their machine guns.

Syria has always been a patchwork of localities, interweaving sect and tribe. Both the revolt and how the regime uses local power brokers to control the place is reflected in this. In Syria support for the revolt was always patchy growing out of the countryside and provincial cities. When the rebels from the burbs and Rif moved into central Aleppo they did so on the expectation of the city falling to them easily. They did find large pockets of support but in fact much of Aleppo proved rather loyal to Assad or perhaps more accurately hostile to the alien rebels.

There isn't one truth about the rebellion's or the regime's popularity.
 

...
“It’s like Iraq circa 2006,” says a Syrian who works closely with the armed factions. At that time, Iraq’s Sunni rebels were bogged down in internal squabbles over power, money, and doctrine, exacerbated by near-unbearable pressure from the U.S. military and Iranian-backed Shia militias. Some of the smaller and Gulf-funded insurgent groups began to look for a way out, and they found it in a U.S.-backed project known as the Sahwa, or Awakening, which coopted Sunni rebel and tribal fighters to serve as local defense forces on behalf of the Iraqi government. Meanwhile, many of the hardline Islamists who refused reconciliation with Baghdad decided to follow Al-Qaeda into an alliance known as the Mujahideen Shura Council, which presented itself as a unifying force among the rebels and a guarantor of principled resistance—just as Tahrir al-Sham is doing today in Syria. In October 2006, it changed its name to the Islamic State in Iraq. Those insurgent groups that tried to steer a middle course—such as the Islamic Army of Iraq, the Iraqi Mujahideen Army, or the 1920 Revolution Battalions—soon began to splinter and fade away, leaving the Islamic State as the dominant power within a collapsing Sunni insurgency. The rest, as they say, is history.
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A comparison that has occurred to me. Designed to appeal to the Pentagon but actually might resonate more with the Russians given their Chechen experiences.

Bit unfair by Sowell there; the R+6 isn't really fascist. The 21st century Russians are essentially old fashioned grabby imperialists, Boyars with iPhones, that the chaps who ran the Raj would find rather familiar. The very reactionary Iranians might be called Islamofascist revolutionaries. The Assad's family business does rather look like a corrupt 70s South American Junta with the appetite for atrocity turned up to 11. Fascist probably suggests a bit too much trains running on time organisation and energy for the lethargic Baath rentier state.

On the other side we have Tahrir al-Sham V Ahrar al-Sham; Lund puts his money on the former and its AQ core as it's more cohesive. Thinks a heavy intervention behind Ahar might preserve them. Does not rule out the al Shams finally uniting in one big unhappy Salafi-Jihadi family.
 
In The Nation Have the Syrian Kurds Committed War Crimes?
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Both the State Department and the Defense Department declined to answer specific questions or make any officials available to discuss the Nation investigation, which was underwritten by the Fund for Investigative Journalism. The State Department did not respond when asked to explain how the YPG and PKK are different bodies.

A spokesman for the US Central Command said he had “no specific knowledge” of PYD expulsions. “There are reports and rumors. There’s no way I can speak to any specific allegation,” said Col. John Thomas. “We don’t condone or work with anyone violating human rights or the laws of war.”

Washington officials, speaking on background, said they had brought up the practices with the YPG and told them to desist from future expulsions. One high-level official in the Obama administration, speaking privately, called the region under YPG control a “mini-totalitarian state.”

One reason for Washington’s near-silence may be embarrassment over the company the YPG keeps.

“The dominant force that is managing them is Iranian intelligence,” said Ibrahim Hussein, a Kurd who was a local judge under the Assad regime and stayed on in that position in Hasakah until July 2014. A Syrian Arab who had held a high-level intelligence post in northern Syria agreed. “Iran is the primary funding source for the PKK,” said Mahmud al-Naser, who defected from the Damascus regime in mid-2012.

Kurds and Arabs alike say the expulsions are best understood by looking at the PYD’s relationship with the Assad regime. They say the expulsions were not ethnically but politically motivated, directed against the anti-Assad political opposition. Indeed, former residents said YPG Asayish, or military police, after capturing villages from ISIS, arrived with lists of regime opponents whom they then arrested.
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Guttman's wrote a similarly contentious series of pieces last year on the regime backing Salafi-Jihadis. Like that one there's some basis in these allegations but it's rather slanted by rebel agitprop.

That the PKK and PYD has the same chin of command running back to Qandil was State's position a few years ago. It just became legally embarrassing when Uncle Sam decide the YPG were useful auxillaries. That the PKK might have close contacts with the IRGC and regime intelligence is not really be news. The fact that they've been enemies does not stop them collaborating tactically.

The PKK for all its current Scout troop image in our MSM does not have a great reputation amongst Kurds. It is most often hated by Syrian rebels. The PKK doesn't tolerate much real political opposition. It's habit of conscripting kids especially high school aged girls has caused riots.

I don't think I'd blame them for all of the 300K Kurds it says here have fled their oppressive rule in Rojava. The place is dirt poor, still insecure and short of water and has the TSK breathing down its neck. Most Syrian hate the idea of PKK statelet and the Americans whose air power has facilitated the creation of Rojava are fickle friends. If the revolt dies out Assad will want his NE hydro-carbons back. A lot of young Kurds have fled the better off KRG which may be broke but has considerably better prospects.

The obvious comparison to make with Rojova is rebel Idlib and that often looks worse in terms of human rights. Idlib's minorities mostly fled. The PKK tries to work with Arab groups and some Kurds that don't agree with it. The regime is pretty obviously a war criminal on a different scale in Syria.

That the PKK has a hudna with the awful Assad clan and occasionally fights alongside its forces against rebel enemies they share is a necessary compromise.
 

...
Damascus officials also reject the need for “extraordinary measures,” such as structural reform or a commitment to transfer power away from the current president. They believe that reforms must not be made from a position of weakness, or in a way that could appear to be a concession to armed actors. Instead, the officials argue that patience and what they call “long breath policies” will enable them to emerge from the war without enacting any radical changes. But they also admit that changes (in terms of decentralization, giving more administrative authority to the provinces, and better laws regulating elections and political parties) will be necessary once the government has won; furthermore, they recognize that its reforms should not appear to be concessions forced upon it.
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In some ways, Syria can be compared to the Israel-Palestine crisis, in that the Syrian government expects a long war that can be reduced to a low-level insurgency in some pockets of the country, an insurgency that the government is confident it can bottle up and manage over the long haul. Israel has managed, militarily and through local political channels, to subdue and control the West Bank and its administrative-political services through the use of overwhelming brutality and the co-opting of local leaders to the point where it is no longer a threat, whereas while Gaza remains a military nuisance, but it is not a territorial threat. The Syrian government and its allies expect the war in Syria and the rest of the region to last a long while, and it will not be a clean victory. Rather, a continued low-level insurgency or terrorist phenomenon like the one Baghdad suffers from is a realistic outcome, and part of the new “normal” in the region.
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The first snip is the strategy, which is more a matter of incrementalism.

The second the goal. There's no acknowledgment of the Syrian state's chronic man power problems compared to Iraq let alone Israel. But there is a sort of weary realism here. The awful thing about Syria is not the intensity of the conflict but its length. When the IDF go into Gaza you can assume they'll tire of the carnage in a dozen weeks. Baathist Damascus marches doggedly along on a road of bones and likely still will be when the wars a dozen years old. The awful zombie like robustness of the Syrian state is something I'd be confident of unfortunately. It was folly to hope it would fall easily. The question is what level the insurgency can be reduced to? I suspect Syria will be a fairly hot refuge for terrorists from our very selfish viewpoint.

This long piece looks to be well informed by regime views but that is perhaps a good reason to take note of it.

Bashar in his palace as the slow moving decider with a vast loyal inner circle of officials. A strong sense of affronted national identity at any attempts by foreigners to remove the leader. That threat seen as fast fading.

See's Assad as set on a reconquista but not in a great hurry. The war may go for decades and this has been the regime's view from the start. The restoration of the state being key the full regime control not so much. Idlib for instance to be more contained than conquered. Rojova to be reintegrated but with some sops such as Kurdish language rights. Sees militia-fication as a stop gap measure. A loyalist flip side of the revolt that the state hopes to reverse with reintegration into the SAA planned. Thinks there's some hope that loyalist actors might start a reform process but the state is obviously very wary of this while a ongoing insurgency exists. Has deepening corruption and crippling sanctions as a problem.

Some quibbles: the assertion that no militia has challenged state power ignores some fairly clashes I've seen reported. Rather too confident in slippery allies. Secular nationalism is noted as a strong force but has largely faded within the opposition though it's true there is the same objection to foreign interference and a strong dislike of any dismembering of Syria. Of course Euphrates Shield does rather look like that.

I'd observe the description of a future were the state rules by co-opting local power brokers is rather like the way Baathist Syria has always worked under the Baath. Slowly gluing the Syrian Humpty Dumpty together again.
 

The PKK deal with Assad was wise in terms of creating Rojava. Using US CAS against IS to expand Rojava turned defeat into a considerable PKK victory. Crossing the Euphrates and Turkish redlines may have been hubris. But the abandoned peace process with Turkey that Apo started was key to Rojava's survival.

It's pretty hard now to see the PKK in Syria converging with the SAA around the TSK's rebel fronted assault on al Bab as even an associate of the "opposition".

A lot of Arab rebels would dispute what happens to the Caliphate's lands as they did before. They are not merely mercenaries in Turkish employ. Apoism and a Syria based on Sharia were always going to collide.

The "moderate" Northern revolt consolidating under Ahar al Sham's banner is fast being reduced to two choices: to be a Turkish proxy containing the PKK/IS/AQ or to be a subjugated ally of AQ. The latter means facing US bombing as well as the usual, probably waning GCC support and is liable to be as lousy as being an Arab PKK ally in the SDF. The former is a diminished situation but one that the Russians, Iranians and even Assad may live with at least until he reagins his strength. Effectively it might become another regime hudna, a long tactical ceasefire. A Turkish backed border zone in Syria might have better chances than a Rojava surrounded by enemies. There are worse things than being a massive version of Gaza.
 
In The FT CIA’s man in Syria: the rise and fall of a rebel commander
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Rebels and regional diplomats alike share that irritation. “People have this perception the Americans weren’t very involved [in Syria]. But that’s not true — they were, and to a minuscule level of detail for a while in places like Aleppo when [the CIA programme] started,” a regional diplomat says. “The problem with American policy in Syria was in some ways the same as it always was: all tactics, no strategy . . . It was a mess.”
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Interesting tale of a Syrian fixer; a "secular extremist". The chaos described in the Müşterek Operasyon Merkezi, a Turkey based joint operation centre combining many intelligence agencies is instructive. Actually seen as undermining the revolt by some. US government actors also very poorly aligned.
 
On ISW The Campaign to Retake Raqqa Is Accelerating
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SDF MILITARY ADVANTAGES

In conducting the new offensive, the SDF will benefit from several strategic advantages. First, IS forces are engaged on several fronts at once, including Mosul in Iraq, al-Bab to the west, and Palmyra and Deir al-Zour to the south. All other actors in Syria and Iraq are now united against the group. Although Russia, Turkey, Iran, the United States, and their local allies have not created a joint operations room to coordinate their actions, they have seemingly frozen their disputes with each other in order to focus on IS. In Syria, Turkey no longer lays claim to SDF-controlled Manbij. And in Iraq, the central government and the Kurds are no longer fighting over "disputed territories," at least for now.

Second, the SDF's successful January offensive west of Raqqa put them in prime position for the next push. From Tishrin Dam to Ain Issa, they took control of the entire right bank of Lake Assad within a month, advancing far beyond their January 2016 frontline and winding up within forty kilometers of Raqqa (see map). At a time when the Turkish army and its Free Syrian Army rebel allies have been stalled in assaulting al-Bab since mid-November, the SDF once again demonstrated their effectiveness on the battlefield. This stark contrast may convince the Trump administration that only the SDF are capable of taking Raqqa, regardless of how much Ankara might protest. The Obama administration reached the same conclusion during its last month in office, and the first U.S. deliveries of armored vehicles to the SDF were made on January 31 via Rmelan airport despite the change in administration.

Third, the Islamic State's sharp decline and Washington's apparent boost in military aid have encouraged more Arab tribesmen to integrate into the SDF -- so many, in fact, that the force is now being called the "Syrian Arab Coalition" in some quarters. On December 8, U.S. spokesman Col. John Dorrian noted that some 13,000 of the SDF's 45,000 fighters were Arab. Other estimates are much lower, but if Dorrian's figures are accurate, they represent a significant increase since the SDF's creation in October 2015, when Arabs constituted only 5,000 out of 30,000 total fighters.

Fourth, local populations under IS control now seem to be rejecting the group in greater numbers. Initially, IS represented the return of a certain degree of security and normality for many Syrians (at least those who respected its often-brutal implementation of sharia). In 2014, for example, the group emptied wheat silos to supply cheap bread and imposed price controls on basic necessities. Today, however, the situation has deteriorated dramatically. IS has been unable to refill the silos it emptied, prices have risen, and its officials have proven to be just as corrupt as their predecessors. The group's finances are drying up as well, so some members who joined for pecuniary reasons are deserting. For now, a general uprising against IS remains unlikely given its continued reign of terror, but local Arab tribes can be expected to rally to the strongest party when the time comes.
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Offensive moving to cut off Raqqa from Deir. Balanche sees some risk if IS retreat from Raqqa they might finally overrun regime held Deir.
SDFpushTowardRaqqa-2-580x796.jpg
 
On Federal News Radio Syrian rebels and insurgents battle in split over peace push
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The rebel infighting and reshuffling of alliances — if it continues — could facilitate a break between Fatah al-Sham and moderate groups, making it easier for the international community to single out the al-Qaida affiliate for attack.

However, for Cafarella, the Idlib developments do not reflect the “sorting” of al-Qaida from other factions as some analysts have argued. Rather, she said it’s “the next step … in al-Qaida’s campaign to transform the opposition in its own image.”

Rami Abdurrahman who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that his activist network, which has tracked the six years of Syria’s civil war, registered only 14 dead on both sides but that he suspects the factions are keeping secret the real number of their fatalities.
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On MEE Hezbollah's war in Aleppo: Victory at any cost, even to civilians
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Abou Ali’s view of Russia's involvement is tempered with pragmatism: "Moscow is not our ally, but a faction involved like us in the war. It is the partner of President Assad, but like any other country it has its own agenda, and our agendas meet for now in Syria," he said.

Russia provides Hezbollah with air support, as well as intelligence gathering, according to the commander.

With Iran, Hezbollah’s relation is symbiotic as they are at "one with one another", says Abou Ali.

And with Iran’s help, Hezbollah is also expanding its footprint across the region: namely, in Iraq.

"We have deployed experts in Mosul as well as trainers, but have no fighters on the ground," he says.

"Hezbollah experts are also present in the Quneitra region alongside Iranians who have deployed soldiers there," says Abou Ali.

Quneitra lies on the border of the Golan Heights, a plateau located in southwestern Syria that has a strategic significance. Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 War.

For Iran and Hezbollah, the war in Syria is existential, as the fall of the regime would mean the end of the "sacred" alliance between Dahieh, Tehran and Damascus.

And finally, on the subject of civilian deaths in Aleppo under months of government and Russian bombing and ground assault, Abou Ali has no regrets - the deaths have been sidelined under the label of the "war on terror".

"Civilians die in every war. Ask France about what they did in Algeria, ask Israel about what they did in Lebanon."

The last comment is followed by a heavy silence as the small group around him ponders the fact that Hezbollah now needs to invoke war crimes committed by its staunch enemy in Lebanon to justify the validity of its endless war in Syria.
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Note the ambiguous attitude to the Russians.
 
On ISW Russian Airstrikes in Syria: January 12 – February 7, 2017
...Russia also delivered a shipment of fifty SS-21 ‘Scarab’ short-range ballistic missiles to the Port of Tartus in western Syria on or around February 6, firing at least two ‘Scarab’ and four SS-26 ‘Iskander’ ballistic missiles against opposition terrain in Idlib Province over the next forty-eight hours, according to anonymous U.S. officials. This missile capability will likely advance the deliberate targeting campaign against the acceptable opposition, which will continue until Russia dismantles these groups and compels their remnants to cooperate more closely with Salafi-jihadi forces out of military necessity. In the process, Russia will in effect enhance a Salafi-jihadi threat in Syria that it has little intent to counter.
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SS-21
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Scarab A[edit]
The initial Scarab A entered service with the Soviet Army in 1975. It carries one of three types of warhead:

  • 482 kg (1,063 lb) of conventional HE
  • fragmentation (lethal radius more than 200 m (660 ft)
  • nuclear
The minimal range is about 15 km (9.3 mi), maximum range is 70 km (43 mi); its circular error probable (CEP) is estimated to be about 150 m (490 ft).

Scarab B[edit]
The improved Scarab B (Tochka-U) was passed state tests from 1986 to 1988, introduced in 1989. Improved propellant increased the range to 120 km (75 mi). CEP significantly improved, to less than 95 m (312 ft).

Scarab C[edit]
A third variant, Scarab C, was developed in the 1990s. Again, range increased (185 km (115 mi)), and CEP decreased to less than 70 m (229 ft). Scarab C weighs 1,800 kg (4,000 lb).
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On Syria Comment A Response to Roy Gutman’s “Have the Syrian Kurds Committed War Crimes?”
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The article does raise some valid points for discussion. In general, there is a tendency to romanticise Kurdish forces in both Iraq and Syria- a trend exemplified in a piece by Michael Totten, in which he urges Trump to “back the Kurds to the hilt and give them the green light to declare independence.” Such a simplistic assertion overlooks complications like the sharp political division between the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq led by Masoud Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party and the PYD-administered areas in Syria, the financial crisis afflicting the KRG and its inability to become economically independent, and the lack of a vision for real independence in the PYD’s approach to governance that is heavily influenced by the thinking of PKK luminary Abdullah Ocalan. Besides, there are real problems concerning the behaviour of Kurdish forces towards Arab populations in both Iraq and Syria, with cases of destruction of homes and villages documented by human rights monitors (cf. here). Political authoritarianism in the Kurdish entities should also be a major concern: Masoud Barzani still clings to the KRG presidency despite the fact that his mandate expired long ago, and the PYD’s harsh behaviour towards its political opponents cannot be ignored.

However, acknowledging these issues should not blind the reader to the clear problem with Gutman’s work: namely, the author’s biases for the Syrian opposition and Turkey that have been evident for years. As such, he uncritically relays dubious testimony that a serious and fair-minded journalist would have subjected to appropriate scrutiny. This fault becomes most apparent in Gutman’s claim that the YPG and the Islamic State (IS) “have often worked in tandem against moderate rebel groups,” which I will focus on in particular here. Elaborating on this claim, Gutman asserts that “again and again, in towns where the YPG lacked the manpower or weapons to dislodge the rebels, IS forces arrived unexpectedly with their corps of suicide bombers, seized the territory and later handed it over to the YPG without a fight.”

Gutman attempts to support this narrative with cases such as Tel Hamis and Husseiniya in Hasakah province. What he completely omits is that on numerous occasions in 2013 and January 2014, rebel groups worked with what was then called the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) against the YPG. For example, Ahrar al-Sham, ISIS and other rebel militias worked together to expel the YPG from the important northern border town of Tel Abyad in August 2013, only for ISIS to take over the area in January 2014. It is rather strange that Gutman cites Tel Hamis and Husseiniya in a bid to support his narrative, since video evidence that explicitly mentions ISIS-Ahrar al-Sham coordination against the “PKK dogs” in Husseiniya can be found from early January 2014. The coordination eventually fell apart later that month as ISIS proceeded to subjugate all other rebel groups in Hasakah province amid wider infighting with rebel forces across northern and eastern Syria. As for the notion that Tel Hamees was yielded to the YPG without a fight, that claim can only be described as a travesty of the truth. The YPG lost numerous fighters in the extended campaigns to take Tel Hamees, with abundant ‘martyrdom’ commemorations to be found on social media.
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Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi points the finger at what's really more agitprop than journalism. Myself I found this latest Gutman piece actually undermined his similar allegations of the regime being behind IS.

Piece contains a smear from a 2012 Gutman piece I hadn't noticed before.
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R.S. portrayed the PKK as anti-Islamic. Performing daily prayers, fasting and reading the Quran are among the offenses that could land a recruit in prison, he told Turkish authorities. Instead, fighters were told that the religion of Kurds is Zoroastrianism, one of the world’s most ancient religions, and they should worship fire. There are said to be fewer than 200,000 Zoroastrians today, mostly in Iran and India.
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There are Kurdish Zoroastrians; there's been a minor revival in the KRG lately. I'd never heard of any such association within Apoism but I did find this describing that trope.

From what I can tell PKK's actually much less secular than it was back in the day. The PKK's political competition (the KDP and AKP) are mostly staunchly Sunni Muslim. Like the Baath an accommodation with the Mosque was politically useful. The PKK's current veneration of martyrs could be mistaken for that of Salafi.

The denigrating language of fire worship is interesting. It's how Anbaris used to talk about Iraq's new mainly Shia rulers ("The Persians") in Baghdad's Green Zone during the Occupation. It's a frequent slur against the Iranians.
 
teqniq said:
Predictably:

Syria rejects Amnesty's report of mass hangings as 'untrue'

I find it a bit odd that this has become more of a story now than it was last August. Perhaps Amnesty's report was not complete at the time and the piece from the Global Voices website was simply not picked up by larger media organisations or did not carry much weight/credence.
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No it's because East Allepo..remember that place...has now completely disappeared from the radar being of no further propaganda use and they need a new thing for Guardian readers to tut over .
 
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