And next, Syria?

[Casually Red]

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.

What has that got to do with people being fully aware regime change in Syria ....a crime of aggression btw...was a western and Saudi / Al Q project ? When you say " didn't fully sign up to it " you mean bomb the place . They couldn't . This time Russia and china stopped that from happening .
People opposing this are quite sensible . It's the idiots supporting them who'd be cheering on a new head chopper principality and genocide .

 

[Casually Red]

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.

Amnestys report is a load of old bollocks that violates their own guidelines . And they have form for it , such as the Kuwaiti incubators nonsense . The co author of the report also has some serious form too .

Amnesty International’s Kangaroo Report on Syria - American Herald Tribune

 

[CrabbedOne]

Imagine the beard scratching this could have saved.

 

[teqniq]

CR in full of shit shokka.

 

[CrabbedOne]

Hilarious.

 

[CrabbedOne]

 

[CrabbedOne]

Well the PKK finally handing captured territory near Raqqa over to the regime isn't that implausible.

 

[CrabbedOne]

In The WSJ Trump Administration Looks at Driving Wedge Between Russia and Iran

...
A number of Russia experts in Washington say they believe Mr. Putin would demand a heavy price now for any move to distance himself from Iran. In addition to easing sanctions, they believe he would want assurances that the U.S. would scale back its criticism of Russia’s military operations in Ukraine and stall further expansion of North Atlantic Treaty Organization membership for countries near the Russian border.

Montenegro is scheduled to join NATO this year. The U.S. Senate still needs to vote to approve the bid.

In a report released Friday, the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank, cautioned that even if Moscow were to distance itself from Tehran, it wouldn’t contain the enormous influence that Iran wields over Syria’s economic, military, and political institutions. “Any U.S. effort to subvert Iran’s posture in Syria through Russia will undoubtedly end in failure,” the assessment said.
...

That AEI report is upthread.

 

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...
Since launching in May 2016, Malhama has grown to do brisk business in Syria, having been contracted to fight, and provide training and other battlefield consulting, alongside groups like the al Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (formerly known as the Nusra Front) and the Turkistan Islamic Party, a Uighur extremist group from China’s restive Xinjiang province. And despite recent rebel setbacks in Syria, including the loss of Aleppo, demand for Malhama Tactical’s services in the country is as strong as ever, Abu Rofiq told Foreign Policy in an interview conducted over the messaging app Telegram.

But he is also beginning to think about expanding elsewhere. His group is willing to take work, Abu Rofiq says, wherever Sunni Muslims are oppressed. He cites China and Myanmar as places that would benefit from jihad. He also suggests that Malhama Tactical might go back to its roots, returning to fight in the North Caucasus against the Russian government.

In November, the group placed job ads on Facebook looking for instructors with combat experience to join the group. The ad described the outfit as a “fun and friendly team” looking for recruits who are willing to “constantly engage, develop, and learn” and work with Jabhat Fateh al-Sham. It even specified that instructors were privy to benefits like vacation time and one day off a week from jihad. The wording was more befitting of a Fortune 500 company than a group of extremists fighting in a brutal and bloody war. Jihad went global long before Malhama Tactical, but rarely with so entrepreneurial a spirit.
...

My bold, that's a new one.

 

[CrabbedOne]

From

 

[CrabbedOne]

Same month as ISW published this warning about how compromised the rebels were and the need to split them from AQ.

 

[CrabbedOne]

 

[CrabbedOne]

Long piece that I don't see much new in.

People really should stop hysterically comparing the long slow siege of rebel held parts of Aleppo with the Rwandan genocide while complaining about Russian misinformation campaigns. That isn't clever agitprop. That said it has some well supported Bellingcat work.

There's rather faint acknowledgement that the regime had support in the commercial capital of Syria which had done rather well under Bashar's neoliberalism. It's silent on what went wrong with the opposition. This is a battle the rebels lost through political failings more than the R+6 won by brute force.

I would not dispute the basic thesis that there was a lot of indiscriminate bombing of rebel areas in Aleppo. Neither the Russian nor the regime used expensive precision ordinance much. The regime resorted to dumping explosives out of helicopters. Even precision 500lb bombs used "delicately" on a populated urban centre are often going to kill non-combatants.

I'm missing this sort of concise summary of the butchers bill:

...
With over four years of fighting, the battle of Aleppo represents one of the longest sieges in modern warfare, which left an estimated 31,183 people dead,[83] almost a tenth of the overall Syrian war casualties. The Violations Documentation Center in Syria assessed the death toll. According to its records, between 19 July 2012 and 15 December 2016 there were 22,633 adult male deaths (73%), 2,849 adult female deaths (9.2%), 3,773 child male deaths (12.2%) and 1,775 child female deaths (5.7%). 23,604 or 76% of all fatalities were civilians, while only 7,406 or 24% were military deaths. Causes of death were explosions (910 deaths), shelling (6,384 deaths), field execution (1,549 deaths), shooting (9,438 deaths), warplane bombardment (11,233 deaths), chemical and toxic gas attacks (46 deaths) and others.[83]
...

Let's look at the proportion of deaths compared to the stoutly defended actions of the IDF in Gaza in 2014 to get an idea of relative discrimination.

...
Current reports of the proportion of those killed who were civilians/militants are incomplete, and real-time errors, intentional data manipulation, and diverse methodologies produce notable variations in various sides' figures.[279][280][281] For example, the Hamas-run Interior Ministry has issued instructions for activists to always refer to casualties as "innocent civilians" or "innocent citizens" in internet posts.[282][283] However, B'Tselem has stated that after the various groups finish their investigations, their figures are likely to end up about the same.[284] UNICEF and the Gaza Health Ministry reported that from 8 July to 2 August, 296–315 Palestinian children died due to Israeli action, and 30% of civilian casualties were children;[285][286] by 27 August, the total number of children killed had risen to 495[16]–578,[31] according to OCHA and the Gaza Health Ministry. In March 2015, OCHA reported that 2,220 Palestinians had been killed, of whom 1,492 were civilians (551 children and 299 women), 605 militants and 123 of unknown status.[287] According to ITIC, 48.7% of the identified casualties were militants[288] and in some cases children and women participated in military operations.
...

So 76% civilian deaths in Aleppo (more than double the usual rate in Syria) compared to 49% in Gaza. Both are by modern standards bad, Aleppo is clearly worse. You'd hope to get this ratio down below 40% a base figure is probably 20%.

Israeli hasbara would count all military aged males killed as combatants. This is of course bollocks. But the very high ratio of adult males killed in Aleppo suggests either a population that was mostly male (not what I've observed on video) or that males were targeted for killing. The report does note a large number of draft dodgers being present in rebel held Aleppo but I'd say this very high ratio of civilian male deaths indicates attacks singled out potential combatants as is visible in the Gaza figures. What also hits me here is a low ratio of child deaths in apparently very young populations. This might be explained by evacuation from danger spots but again it suggests a level of effective discrimination.

Let's low ball the rate of kids killed in Gaza at 14% and think about that with 21% in Aleppo. Bear in mind here the IDF made heavy use of precision munitions and Bibi became very sensitive to the display of telegenic dead over the course of the conflict. I'd allow that the Israelis here are at least making efforts to minimise child deaths. Yet they are only doing 7% better than the "barbarously" indiscriminate R+6. Now that's not to defend the actions of the R+6 which have killed an order of magnitude more people in the years long siege of Aleppo than the brief incursion into Gaza by the most moral army in the world but we do need to be conscious of there being an inevitability to high rates of civilian casualties in these things. They are best avoided and if they must happen be short.

In Gaza Hamas was deservedly criticised for fighting pointlessly from the shelter of a densely populated area without actually having much capacity to defend the civilians and also randomly bombarding enemy civilians. The same needs to be said of the rebels in East Aleppo. Hamas at least was an almost entirely Gazan force with a lot of popular support. When under assault even PLO folk who hate them came out in support. The Pals have a pretty coherent political cause. They did not face a relentless meat grinder an enemy but one with a known pattern of short bloody incursions. Gaza could be called a popular act of resistance in a long political struggle. The rebels in Aleppo had pockets of support but were always to some extent outsiders in a loyalist city that didn't want them. They always lacked unity and fell to fighting each other more than once. When Aleppo unlike the Rif didn't rise with them as expected it was questionable to persist there for so long. That they finally boarded green buses and left was a belated act.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On Syria Comment Yes, Syrian Kurds Have Committed War Crimes – Roy Gutman Responds to Aymenn Tamimi

...
My biggest single objection to his posting is that while Mr Tamimi says my article “does raise some valid points for discussion,” he doesn’t discuss them.

So here they are:

• Tens, possibly hundreds, of thousands, of Arabs were forced from their homes by the PKK’s Syrian affiliate, the People’s Protection Units or YPG.
• Well over 500,000 Kurds fled rather than submit to YPG rule and abuses.
• The expulsion of the Arabs was carried out in close cooperation with the Assad regime, which sought to rid the region of political dissenters and joined the YPG in destroying villages.
• Brutal expulsions continued through mid 2016.
• The YPG and its political organization, the Democratic Union Party, don’t acknowledge any of this, haven’t investigated haven’t punished anyone.
• Iran played a major role in the setting up of YPG role in northern Syria.
• The U.S. has been all but silent about the human rights abuses and possible war crimes.

Did these alleged abuses and war crimes occur? Should the YPG acknowledge, investigate and punish them? Mr Tamimi doesn’t say.
...

Tamimi did actually agree that Kurds have been rather romanticised and sheltered from criticism pointing also to very problematic behaviour in the KRG. None of the local parties fighting IS have a spotless HR record.

From what I've read there's some basis to the above but I'd not hop up and down about without comparing it with a rebel Idlib pretty much cleansed of minorities and increasingly looking to the Taliban as a model of governance.

This would have been stronger if he'd made an attempt to defend against the allegation of persistent bias towards the rebels. Particularly the silence on their frequent collusion with very undesirable actors in Syria that it seems Gutman would have as a cardinal sin only of others in Syria.

 

[teqniq]

Mad Max gets a kahki flower power makeover.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On Syria Comment Further Response to Roy Gutman: Balancing the Picture

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I draw the line here in this discussion. I stand by my initial assessment while reaffirming that I am not questioning Gutman’s professional integrity. Similarly I reject notions of supposed anti-Kurdish prejudice on Gutman’s part and other personal attacks on him. However, a serious debate about the YPG and its relationship with the U.S. must be based on reasoned consideration of the evidence, taking into account the benefits the partnership has brought in blunting IS while also noting the human rights abuses and the PKK connections and understanding why there are Turkish concerns. Looking forward, seemingly intractable land disputes similar to those we observe in Iraq between the Kurdish and Arab actors will mar the Syrian landscape for a long time even if IS were completely removed. There will be no easy resolution.

The point here that the Obama administration may have pushed back IS with it's Apoist auxiliaries but the result may just be protracted instability is perhaps more important than HR violations that happened in the process.

The Turks, remaining Takfiri, rebels who nearly all have residual nationalist leanings, opposition Kurds and finally the regime if it regains strength will all have a bone to pick with Rojava. Obama left himself no other choice but to pick the Syrian PKK as allies against IS.

He did far too little to correct the inherent flaws of that arrangement. He optimistically ignored IS's very obvious recovery in Iraq in 2011-12 while fiddling destructively with a misunderstood Arab Spring. It's this not failing to win the war for the Syrian rebels he should lose sleep over.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On ISW Warning Update: Turkish Aggression Against Syrian Kurds Threatens to Halt U.S. Anti-ISIS Operations in Syria

Key Takeaway: The U.S.-led coalition’s fight against ISIS in Syria is in jeopardy as Turkey threatens an offensive against the U.S.’s primary partner force on the ground, the Syrian Democratic Forces. Turkey has stated its intent to shift its focus from ISIS to the Syrian Kurds after the seizure of the ISIS-held town of al Bab in Northern Aleppo Province, which ISW forecasts is likely in the coming weeks. If the U.S. fails to protect its partner force, the Syrian Kurdish-led de facto government of Northern Syria may pursue closer cooperation with Russia, which could hinder the U.S.’s ability to influence the outcome of the Syrian Civil War and continue its operations in the country. Conflict between the U.S.’s allies in Northern Syria will also relieve pressure on ISIS in Raqqa Province and thereby allow ISIS to seize territory from the Syrian regime or reinforce its core terrain in Iraq.
...

Points out the US is liable to also involve the Turks in taking Raqqa to mollify them but this isn't at all compatible with the current SDF based arrangements. That Erdogan's patriotic anti-PKK drive is intended to make him Sultan. Also that the Russians are holding a pan-Kurdish meeting in Moscow (which is exactly the sort of thing the US should be doing IMO). That the regime has been supplying the SDF and a deeper reconciliation might not be difficult.

I'd say this isn't something Erdogan will be deflected from easily and given the level of popular hatred for the PKK in Turkey there's a danger of the US pushing the Turks towards Russia. Edging the Great Satan out of Syria rather fits with the way Iran's may be going in Iraq. Assad in his last interview was very clear he wanted the meddling US entirely out of his country. For the Russians this would mean being the key broker in PKK matters for the Turks and having the power to take the IS obsessed Trump administrations toys away in Syria. Another means of manipulating the US. A country under Trump in danger of not becoming not so much pussy whipped as Putin whipped.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On Informed Comment Al-Qaeda Rising? After Aleppo defeat, Syrian Rebels turn on Each other

...
Rise Of The Jihadists

Jihadist groups now stand ascendant among the coalition battling Assad. JFS in particular has spent years ensuring its indispensability to the antiregime effort. Those opposing the JFS are unlikely to succeed in any open war against it. The FSA and associated groups fought against IS in 2014, when they were much stronger — a campaign that cost them dearly. Those groups simply cannot afford to fight against JFS as well. As it stands, little can stop JFS from near total control of northwestern Syria.

All of this is of course a gift to Assad. Not only are the rebels fighting among themselves, and in the process weakening the coalition against him, but the regime can double down on a longstanding propagandist tactic of arguing that it is on the front lines of the battle against Jihadism. "Us or them?" runs the argument: an argument that, though largely fallacious, is being strengthened by the day.

Indeed, Turkey — once seen as the great ally of the FSA and a direct threat to the Assad government — is now fighting virtually side by side with Syrian soldiers in the campaign against IS in Al-Bab. The regime may be witnessing either a rebel implosion or a jihadist takeover of the opposition, both of which it will welcome with glee. It will help Turkey defeat IS while Al-Qaeda linked groups prosper.

This is a calculated move by the Assad regime, which has shown little interest in confronting jihadists of any stripe.

As Hassan concludes: "It is important to remember Idlib is small, it is only 1.5 percent of Syrian geography. Northwestern Syria is the only area where Al-Qaeda is dominant, so it is a major battle that the international community should keep its eyes on and try to shape."

 

[CrabbedOne]

...
Sunday’s protest in Manbij was organized by the Democratic Arab Youth Movement to condemn what they called “the international conspiracy” against Ocalan.

The demonstration began at the Martyr Faisal Abu Layla roundabout and passed on to the market and downtown, where participants carried pictures of Ocalan.

Mohsen Jassim, a member of the Democratic Arab Youth Movement, denounced the arrest of Ocalan, and said that Ocalan sacrificed his freedom for the freedom of Arabs, Turkmen, and Kurds to live together in peace.

The city of Manbij was captured by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on 12 August 2016 with support of the US-led coalition.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday threatened to attack Manbij, and also take Raqqa.

“After Al-Bab is over, the period following that will be Manbij and Raqqa,” Erdogan said about the Turkey-led Euphrates Shield campaign in northern Syria.

Erdogan told reporters in Istanbul that the final goal of the Turkish intervention is to clear a 5,000sq-km “safe zone”, vowing to press on towards ISIS’s Raqqa.

Lund, is right there, really very silly.

 

[CrabbedOne]

 

[CrabbedOne]

Istanbul (AFP) - Turkey-backed Syrian rebels and President Bashar al-Assad's forces have created a security corridor to avoid clashes in the battle to capture the flashpoint town of Al-Bab from Islamic State jihadists, a newspaper reported on Tuesday.

If confirmed, it would mark a rare case of contact in the conflict between the Damascus regime and the rebels seeking to oust it.

The Hurriyet newspaper likened the zone to the demilitarised "Green Line" in Cyprus between the Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot communities.

The corridor has been set up in the south of Al-Bab and varies in width from 500 metres to 1,000 metres (yards), Hurriyet said, adding that occasional communication took place between the rival sides.
...

I can see that model being expanded.

 

[CrabbedOne]

Repeat after me: "short controlled bursts."

 

[CrabbedOne]

 

[CrabbedOne]

...
The severe political repression has also contributed to the reluctance of Kurds to serve in the YPG, Kurdish refugees said. As of last autumn, according to Kurdwatch researcher Eva Savelsberg, as much as 40 percent of the security forces in Rojava are recruited by force. The rest, mainly young men from poor families, join largely for the salary in a region where there are almost no employment opportunities.

Despite the forced recruitment, the YPG was still short of fighters last year, so a new rule was issued on October 17 requiring nine months of service, with three more months tacked on for those who don’t register by December 1.

Rojava opposition politicians claim that the PYD support base is no more than 10 percent of the population; as proof they cite the YPG’s closure of the border with Iraqi Kurdistan since last spring. KRG officials say that if the YPG were to open the borders to Iraqi Kurdistan, three-quarters of the population would flee.

In Bani Shkawe, the public mood remains defiant. “Our village is surrounded by hills and valleys, and the village people know every valley and stone,” said a resident, who asked not to be named for fear of retribution. “Our youth go into hiding when the village is stormed.”

“We don’t want anything from the PYD,” said the resident. “We just want them to leave us alone.”

My bold, I doubt it's that low.

I recall seeing some polling that suggested PKK support was closer to 40% amongst Syrian Kurds but that was a couple of years ago when PKK popularity was riding high after the successful defence of Kobani. I've seen similar figures for PKK support amongst Turkish Kurds but it usually drops when they are on a war footing. The IRA was generally more popular when it was at peace as well.

Forced conscription is practiced by several parties in Syria. It's very unpopular with rioting being a common response. It's not that Syrians are uniquely unwilling to defend themselves. It's more that bodies like the SAA project soldiers in appalling conditions to die far from kin they'd defend by choice. PKK campaigns in Syria now have that nature as well. Bloody fights for distant mainly Arab cities are a harder sell.

This article gives very high casualty figures for the taking of Manbij last year with the PKK losing several hundred fighters. I'd read elsewhere it was eating up their most experienced Kurdish guerrillas and they were having to conscript more reserves. Raqqa will probably be much worse.

Mentions a very high ratio 4:1 of ideological training and very inadequate military training; only a week. Getting a conscript indoctrinated into revolutionary Apoism is probably very necessary for morale. IRGC/HA training also involves a large chunk of Twelver Great Satan hating sessions but I think less than this. HA training programs vary with the "Special" guys getting long and deep training of up to year. IRGC backed Iraqi Hashd fighters are also often undertrained. IS and AQ in Syria takes about six weeks to train a typical recruit and I have the impression about half of that is Takfiri religious education. Like HA both have deeper programs. I recall a week of military training was all tribal fighters got from the US military in Iraq. Often packed off with an old AK and fifty rounds to face columns of hardened IS fighters. TSK training to rebels appears to be equally hasty.

Western military training usually works up over months from individual confidence to skills to working in larger units, from Squad to Division. In a week it's going to be very, very basic. You can see the usually cruddy weapon handling results in some of the Green Lemon videos up thread and that's the easy bit. If it is mostly on the job training that'll often be fatal facing experienced IS units.

 

[CrabbedOne]

From TCF The Economics of War and Peace in Syria

...
More than five years on, the war in Syria has become tangled in an ever-more complex web of interests, which are not dominated by a singular force. Political ideology and political power, economics, historical grievances, sect, ethnicity, and humanitarian concerns will all factor into the ultimate resolution of the war, whatever shape that may take. Of these dimensions, however, the economic one is consistently neglected by analysts and diplomats—particularly the economics of the conflict itself and the new elites who have grown rich from it, or whose precarious fortunes are dependent on one outcome or another. The violence in Syria is staggering, but we must acknowledge that there are those who have economic incentives to keep it from ending quickly. Without addressing those incentives, peacemakers and those who are eventually charged with heading the country’s reconstruction will have little success.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On folk fleeing Rojava. Well the place is dirt poor, often arid and war torn. It isn't surprising that a lot of folk with the means to flit did.

I recall Balanche noted that minorities have often been put to flight by the revolt in Syria. On exception was Sunni Kurds in the Caliphate. IS made efforts to integrate them despite being engaged in a war with the largely Kurdish PKK. If you are not going to flee IS's Stasi state you can probably put up with the PKK's controlling little ways. The PKK also deserves some credit for making some efforts to be inclusive of Arabs.

 

[CrabbedOne]

 

[CrabbedOne]

...
The ability to adapt its construction and employment throughout the years with regard to changing types of combat also shows that the SVBIED is an extremely versatile and adaptable weapon of war. As I have shown earlier, the usage of each type of VBIED is very closely related to the amount of territorial control and the intensity of fighting in a given area. For example, the usage of parked VBIEDs and ‘covert’ SVBIEDs is mostly limited to areas where IS have little territorial control – while up-armored SVBIEDs are exclusively used in areas where IS have territorial control. This doesn’t mean either is limited to a specific time period, as up-armored SVBIEDs were used in small numbers during the Iraq war, and parked VBIEDs and ‘covert’ SVBIEDs are still used today.

As this stage of the anti-IS fight continues, up-armored SVBIEDs will continue to be used in great numbers, peaking when the battles for Raqqah city and the western side of Mosul are initiated. As anti-IS forces take over more and more of their territory, the VBIED manufacturing capabilities of IS will eventually be diminished. As IS are once again pushed out of their traditional strongholds, VBIED workshops will shift toward manufacturing more parked VBIEDs and ‘covert’ SVBIEDs for use in the areas it just lost. Once IS loses the overwhelming majority of their territorial control and the frontlines fade away, VBIEDs will become ‘covert’ en masse once again.

There is no real reason to believe that defeating IS ‘militarily’ (i.e. denying them territorial control) will defeat the group in a final sense. The current anti-IS campaign has been too focused on re-capturing territory quickly that was lost to IS in 2014 than it has been in using the right forces to do so. IS were able to resurrect after the intense campaign against them in the late stages of the Iraq war, and they will most likely be able to come back in some shape or form after this campaign too.

The one thing that’s clear is that the VBIEDs will continue to detonate.

Excellent piece that.

Going the full Takfiri.

 

[CrabbedOne]

Well it takes all sorts.

 

[CrabbedOne]

Pretty small considering rotations and all.