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And next, Syria?

On Al Monitor How these Syrians went from opposition fighters to pro-regime militiamen
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“I was angry at the army and the police,” he told Al-Monitor. “My house was attacked by the authorities, and my brother, who was in the army at the time, was jailed for six months.”

He said, “We gave everything for the army, and no one cared about us, no one took care of us — that’s why I defected.” Many of those who joined him had the same issues with the security forces, while also swept up by the revolutionary mood that had taken the country.

Ahmad Kabboul, a former FSA fighter and now member of the Golan Regiment, told Al-Monitor why he defected from the Syrian army in 2011. “I was a soldier and I got injured in the leg while serving,” he said. “The army wouldn’t allow me to get the wound checked out and I suffered.”

He said, “At the same time I heard what Majid was doing so I decided to join him,” adding that his superior officer in the army was the main reason behind his defection.

As an opposition group, Liwa al-Mutasim operated in Jabata, Khan Arnabeh, Madinat al-Baath, Bir Ajam, Breika and the areas along the separation fence between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Liwa al-Mutasim formed a loose coalition with other FSA factions in the area, and together they began to gain control on the ground, taking over towns and villages along the border.

But for Hammoud, there were question marks over some of the other opposition groups they were fighting alongside.

“Some groups wouldn’t even fight, they would come to the battlefield after the clashes had ended, take pictures and videos next to destroyed buildings and tanks, and then send them back to their financiers in Jordan or the Gulf states in order to collect their paychecks,” he said, referring to Alwiya al-Furqan, an Islamist group that operates in Quneitra.

“Others didn’t seem to have a problem working with the Israelis. In one commander's meeting with an Israeli agent, he promised help with refugees, medical aid, fuel, food, ammunition and logistics. In return, the Israelis wanted the opposition to stay on the Syrian side of the fence and not point its weapons toward Israel,” Hammoud noted. “I was shocked. For us, working with Israel is a red line.”

Jordanian-backed Southern Front sources told Al-Monitor that no relations between its factions and Israel exist, dismissing the claims made by Hammoud. “He is an opportunist and a liar,” said one military source. “He is a traitor and a regime agent.”

While the same sources do admit that Israeli aid — both food and medical — has made its way on a regular basis into opposition-controlled areas along the border, they deny it is through contact between their factions and Israel. “Israel is operating in areas where Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham are in control, not the Southern Front,” the Southern Front source said
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Badly treated SAA soldiers join the rebels, don't much like it and flip back to the regime.
 
The only state actor with sufficient means at their disposal to do anything meaningful by way of removing Assad/the regime is the US, not that I think they ever had any real intention of doing so even under Obama. As for now:

 
Geri said:
Over 100 dead so far. What will it take to make the world care?
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I agree. and thats a real invitation to ge into preachy mode but I shan't.
Ever been on a CAAT or Stop The War Demo or similar; it;s vaery sad how few people turn out and how few people care.
Last CAAT I did in London was mainly happy clappies as well, but bless em for turning up.
As for the last CAAT demo I did in Farnborough, ther must have been 15 to 20 of us, all being videoed by the old Bill.
So sad.
 
As a general point I would agree. When there's demos on here in Cardiff, even if I want to go to them sometimes I can't as I'm often working at weekends which is when most of them happen.
 
As I said above, at farnborough, there was about 20 of us. The single biggest arms fair in the country, selling all sorts of shit to some of the most corrupt and questionable countries in the world. Even the demos at the guinea pig farms in Derbyshire (?) Attracted far more news attention :facepalm:
It makes me sad and makes me wonder.
 
Geri said:
Over 100 dead so far. What will it take to make the world care?
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the 2013 thread makes interesting/depressing reading.

people cared last time, but it turns out more people cared about Obamas relationship with arms dealers, or Camerons internal party squabbles, or you know, Blair, than they cared about the very obvious consequences of our friend Assad learning an interesting lesson regarding the consequences of using CW - that there aren't any.

he won't even have to break his stride now he knows what he knows, and with the Russians swarming all over Syria acting as both sword and shield he knows he has nothing to fear.

what are we at now, 150-200,000 dead? its a good job the naysayers stepped in, otherwise western intervention against Assad in 2013 might have pushed it higher than the 35-45,000 is was at the time...
 
On TCF After Khan Sheikhoun, “War Crimes” Might Have No Meaning
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The strike in Khan Sheikhoun, if it is eventually proven to be a regime act, will mark the second brazen contravention of international norms—and this time, it comes at a moment when Bashar al-Assad already appears on the cusp of obtaining most of what he seeks from his erstwhile enemies, potentially prevailing against long odds. Why risk that imminent victory and possibly turn a President Trump who appears predisposed to deal with Damascus against Assad?

We might never know the motive for the gas attack, but its impact will be clear. The countries that have voiced opposition to Assad will now have to consider whether to match actions to their words. And Russia and China, the most powerful countries that sympathize with the transactional dog-eat-dog view of international relations, will have to decide whether to exercise their United Nations Security Council vetoes to limit any response to Khan Sheikhoun.

Unless the unlikely occurs and a sizable portion of the international community stands against the outrage, we’ll be another step closer to an international order without order, a world of war where there’s no longer any such thing as a war crime.
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Well Tillerson did give the nod to Assad staying on. After glad handing the Saudis and promising to support their war in Yemen Trump's has just been going all gooey over Gen Sisi. If I was Assad I'd be interested in testing some limits with the new apparently human rights averse regime in DC.

On being poked in the chest Trump's predictable response to this attack seems to be basically it was Obama's fault.
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"These heinous actions by the Bashar al-Assad regime are a consequence of the last administration's weakness and irresolution," Trump said in a statement. "President Obama said in 2012 that he would establish a 'red line' against the use of chemical weapons and then did nothing."

The Syrian military denied responsibility and said it would never use chemical weapons.

The chemical weapons attack on Tuesday, which killed scores of people, including children, came a week after both Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said their focus in Syria was on stopping Islamic State militants rather than pushing Assad to leave power.

A senior Trump administration official said on Tuesday the government was looking at policy options after the attack in Idlib but that the options were limited and that the views expressed by Tillerson and Haley still held.

"Nothing has changed in terms of that dynamic. Our ability to get rid of him doesn’t rise because he does something terrible," the official said.
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The big pussy just blinked.

He's not entirely wrong of course but he might have been coping with an even worse mess if Obama had "degraded" Assad. Unlike Obama in 2012 he faces a Syria that has well prepared air defences due to his Russian chums. After all the fond words he's really going to look like a chump if he collides with Putin over R+6 CW use so it may well continue.
 

Thread by Stein. Russians appears to be complicit in actions in the area. Friend Putin brokered the CW deal that allowed Obama to back down but it seems Assad has retained some capabilities and may continue to use them. Puts poor old Trumpski in an interesting bind.
 
DownwardDog said:
Why is he in a bind? He probably doesn't give a fuck if Assad gasses everyone in Syria.
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Trump does give a fuck about the Israelis though. If Assad's not just violating a ceasefire as usual but testing the water for starting up CW production again that would be difficult. The Israeli aspect was a important consideration in going with CW agreement Obama brokered with the Russians. Trump will have that very nasty man Bibi yelling done the blower at him if he fails to maintain the agreement.
 
Depressing analysis and in all probability will work in the regime's favour whether this was intentional on their part in relation to the CW attack is neither here nor there.

upload_2017-4-5_14-0-22.png
 
CrabbedOne said:
Trump does give a fuck about the Israelis though. If Assad's not just violating a ceasefire as usual but testing the water for starting up CW production again that would be difficult. The Israeli aspect was a important consideration in going with CW agreement Obama brokered with the Russians. Trump will have that very nasty man Bibi yelling done the blower at him if he fails to maintain the agreement.
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Alternatively, it gives the Israelis the opportunity to use their shiny new F-35's for the second time in a month - Trump will then try to take credit for selling them to the Israelis.

The idiots who support Trump will fall for it, and Bibi will keep his hole firmly closed, as being no one's fool, he knows that the Donald is as thin-skinned and petty as they come, and will seek revenge on anyone, even the Israelis, who makes him look bad.

His reward will be more free goodies.
 
I made the mistake of looking at Bartlett's and Beeley's Twitter accounts earlier. :mad:
 
I see BA has posted a screenshot of one of Beeley's tweets on the thread about her. What the fuck is the matter with these people? :(
 
On Informed Comment Washington’s Supreme Hypocrisy on Chemical Weapons and Civilian Deaths
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The Reagan administration shamefully ran interference for six years as Saddam Hussein of Iraq systematically deployed chemical weapons against Iranian troops at the front. Everyone knew this was going on. After then Searle CEO Donald Rumsfeld went to Baghdad in 1983 and famously shook Saddam’s hand, George Schultz’s State Department complained about Saddam’s chem, provoking angry puzzlement in Baghdad. Did Reagan want a new ally against Khomeini’s Iran, or not? Reagan had State back down. And, indeed, when Iran appealed to the United Nations Security Council to condemn what Iraq was doing, the Reagan administration maneuvered at the UN to make sure that Iran’s case was not taken up.

I saw an Iranian survivor interviewed. He said he wished he had been killed instead. His lungs had been permanently scarred by mustard gas, and every breath he took was pure torture. Imagine how many breaths a person draws every day.

Emboldened by Reagan’s running cover for him at the UN, Saddam went on to have his relative “Chemical Ali” al-Tikriti use sarin gas on the Kurdish town of Halabja. Again, lots of little children were among the thousands dead. Some were walking to school and their little hands were still grasping lunch pails. George H. W. Bush was vice president and must have been in the loop. His son, W., later invaded Iraq and gave as one of his pretexts that Saddam had used ‘weapons of mass destruction’ on ‘his own people.’

Iraq used chemical weapons for the same reason that the Syrian army does. They are deployed to level the playing field in the face of superior manpower on the other side. Saddam Hussein had a country of 16 million and invaded a country of some 40 million. US military doctrine of the time was you should only invade at a ratio of 3 to 1. So Saddam would have needed a country of 120 million to invade Iran. Needless to say, he lost the war very badly after an initial lightning invasion, since Iran could always over time raise a much bigger army than Saddam could. Hence the use of mustard gas and sarin gas on Iranian troops at the front.

Some Syrian military units have a chem team in case they face being overwhelmed by a more numerous enemy. The Syrian army was 300,000 before the war. It is at most 50,000 now. That number is not sufficient to control the whole country, though with the help of the Lebanese Hizbullah and Iraqi militias and some Afghans dragooned by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, plus vigorous Russian air support, they have been able to fight off the rebels and to take most urban areas. The small number of troops means that when they fight in a rebel-held territory like Idlib Province, they are tempted to deploy chemical weapons to offset their small numbers.
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Cole's got a point there but I'd quibble with the spin.

Saddam intended to have a short war with Iran to settle border issues and ended up in war of attrition. He thought the Arab West of the country would rise up and support him but it did not. Iran had numerical advantages, very difficult bumpy terrain and lots of good Western kit. The Iraqi's made increasingly heavy use of CW against both Iranian units and civilians. The terms the war ended on left Iraq the smaller loser in part because Saddam threatened a massive CW campaign against Iranian cities. It's CWs capability as an instrument of state terrorism that's key here not really as a force multiplier. It has much the same role in Syria artillery and airpower having been much more lethal.

It's entirely true that Western countries looked away from Saddam's atrocities early in the war. It was a war in which we appeared to want no winners and as is often the case rather favoured a long period of attrition. The Israelis actually helped the Iranians to some extent and there was even talk of a joint strike on Iraqi's French supported nuclear program. The Russians backed Saddam though reluctantly as he persecuted Iraqi communists. The Saudis reluctantly funded a Saddam they correctly viewed as dangerous to Gulfies to kill Iranians. Europeans early on supplied Iraq with the materials to make chemical weapons. The British I recall were particularly vocal deniers of Iraqi atrocities. Reagan's leant towards Saddam partly out of fear Revolutionary Iran was too strong and would emerge as a new regional hegemon. The American Congress did get queasy about the whole thing. It's an episode the Iranians who lived through that war will never forgive. Part of the reason they've rushed to support clan Assad is Baathist Syria choose to side with them during it.

Halabja has attained an oddly separate status from a long series of Iraqi atrocities. It's often forgotten it was an attack by Saddam on Iranian allies in the closing days of that bloody war. The Iranians and their Kurdish allies had just retaken the town two days before. The FO at the time decided punitive measures against Iraq were not appropriate.
 
On SWJ Syria’s Desert Hawks and the Loyalist Response to ISIS
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The ease with which a position as heavily fortified as Palmyra had fallen to ISIS gave rise to intense speculation about the relationship between ISIS and the Syrian government. Opposition sources claimed there had been collusion. In February 2016 the Syrian government’s attorney general in Palmyra defected and gave an extensive interview, describing the fall of Palmyra as a regime-concocted ruse to accelerate Russian intervention and carried out in coordination with ISIS leadership.[25]

Purported links between ISIS and the Syrian government are often traced to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, when Syrian security and intelligence agencies sought to bolster the Iraqi insurgency in order to keep U.S. troops and jihadists too preoccupied with one another to focus on Syria.[26] The Syrian revolt of 2011 partially severed links whatever links may have remained between the government and jihadists, and one of Mohsen Hussein’s missions in the Badia Branch likely involved reestablishing and strengthening informant networks in light of changing political conditions. By 2015 the Badia Branch claimed to have infiltrated ISIS to the extent of being able to direct the organization’s operations, according to testimony from the government’s attorney general in Palmyra following his defection.[27] Residents of jihadist-controlled territory were regularly detained and forcibly recruited as informants, and the government retained some leverage by continuing to pay the wages of state employees in the Euphrates Valley and other jihadist-controlled locales.

ISIS heavy-handedness and extreme violence furthermore drove many residents of the self-proclaimed caliphate into loyalist arms. The most notable example comes from members of the Shuaytat (Shaitat) tribe, whose men flocked to the Desert Hawks-linked “Eastern Lions” seeking revenge after ISIS fighters murdered hundreds of their kinsmen in Deir Ezzour.[28] The Shuaytat tribe was divided, as their men also represented a significant number of ISIS’s Syrian ranks. The presence of ISIS members’ neighbors and relatives in the loyalist camp naturally facilitated the potential for both cooptation and cooperation between the parties.

According to the former attorney general of Palmyra, in 2013 the Syrian government began relying on middlemen such as the Jabers to help contain the threat of ISIS. With the Desert Hawks acting as their private militia, the Jaber brothers established themselves as key brokers in trades between ISIS and the government involving oil, gas, wheat, barley and livestock, in addition to medicine and consumer goods.[29] They are accused of paying ISIS in weapons, under the cover of allowing the group to overrun heavily stocked government positions.
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My bold, I would take with a pinch of salt the idea that the regime engineered the fall of Palmyra to IS as a ruse to scare the Russians into intervening. It may have had that effect on the Kremlin but it was one of a series of bloody losses to IS that I recall were viewed with dismay by regime supporters. Men being sent to Palmyra before it fell complained being sent to their deaths. It crushed SAA morale. On the other hand that a loyalist warlord might conspire with IS to loot SAA bases doesn't sound that unlikely to me.
 
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