And next, Syria?

[TomUS]

This is unusual.

The US has carried out rare air strikes on Syrian pro-government forces after what it called an "unprovoked attack" on allied Kurdish and Arab fighters...US officials estimated that 100 pro-government fighters were killed in the incident on
Wednesday...They had allegedly tried to take ground east of the River Euphrates captured from the Islamic State group by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces...State media said the US "aggression" left dozens of people dead or wounded.

US forces repel attack on Syrian allies

 

[agricola]

This is unusual.

US forces repel attack on Syrian allies

Given what has been happening between the SDF and the regime recently, it is definately odd. Also it does beg the question of what would happen if a certain someone else tried the same sort of attack on "allied Kurdish and Arab fighters" near Manbij.

 

[teqniq]

The women fighting for Syria's vanished

 

[rekil]

Opinion | Living Under Assad’s Siege

In a cruel twist, the regime sought to extract profit by doing some business with the besieged populace. Muhyi Eddin Manfoush, a businessman connected to the Syrian Republican Guard headed by Mr. Assad’s brother, Maher al-Assad, was allowed by the regime to sell flour, packaged food, butter, oil, tea and sugar, among other things, in the besieged area, according to several merchants in Eastern Ghouta.

The deal was that Mr. Manfoush would charge the besieged and impoverished buyers a tax beyond the usual price. For a kilogram of flour, sugar and rice he charged an extra 2,000 Syrian pounds, or about $4; for clothes, shoes and cleaning material he charged an extra 3,000 Syrian pounds, or about $6, according to multiple residents. But medicines, medical equipment, electronics and building equipment were strictly prohibited from entering the besieged area.

 

[teqniq]

These people are beyond disgusting.

 

[butchersapron]

Siegewatch's December 2017 report (they are published quarterly):

...details conditions for an estimated 744,860 people trapped in at least 33 besieged communities in Syria from August – October 2017. The report shows that the Syrian government and its allies remain responsible for the vast majority of the ongoing sieges: 96.5% of people are besieged entirely by pro-government forces versus just 1% besieged entirely by opposition forces. The Syrian government and its allies also remain responsible for the threats to all of the “Watchlist” areas, where more than one million additional Syrians face the threat of intensified siege or post-surrender abuse.

The financial exploitation of those they starve is the norm.

 

[Dogsauce]

Regime has downed an Israeli F-16 that was attacking Iranian targets within Syria. Crew reported safe.

Syria war: Israeli fighter jet crashes under Syria fire, military says
Israel jet crashes amid Syrian fire - army

Reported as a response to an Iranian UAV crossing into Israeli airspace. With a straight face they complain about this as an infringement of their sovereignty.

 

[agricola]

Regime has downed an Israeli F-16 that was attacking Iranian targets within Syria. Crew reported safe.

Syria war: Israeli fighter jet crashes under Syria fire, military says
Israel jet crashes amid Syrian fire - army

Reported as a response to an Iranian UAV crossing into Israeli airspace. With a straight face they complain about this as an infringement of their sovereignty.

Some of the commentary from the IDF over this has been hilarious.

 

[butchersapron]

New edition of Burning Country being published on 20th with a new 'long' chapter on events since 2015.

A new edition of our book Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War will be released on February 20th. It contains a new long chapter called Syria Dismantled, which attempts to update the situation from the summer of 2015 to the present. It covers the stages of defeat through Daraya to Aleppo, the Russian assault and Iran’s militia surge, and the sectarian cleansing, and the PYD’s expansion, and Turkey’s intervention… Of course it’s already out of date.

But buy it, do, and ask your library to stock it. In order to understand the current situation (globally, not just in Syria), it’s necessary to understand how the democratic revolution started – and how the counter-revolution’s response sparked an endless series of wars. More importantly, our book does its best to give voice to Syrians themselves, those who dared to create new possibilities, and who paid an unfathomable price.

 

[likesfish]

Isis militants hunted down in Syria after intelligence extracted from captured members of 'The Beatles' cell

calls for them to be sent to the Hauge rather than gitmo can't really see much protest if they find themselves disappeared to a blacksite tossers.

 

[Dogsauce]

Observant folk might have noticed the tendency of these guys to dress hostages and execution victims in orange jumpsuits.

If you can figure out exactly where they might have got this idea from, and how the source of it was a great motivational and recruitment tool for ISIS, you might then consider how subjecting them to clandestine justice might not be a wholly great idea.

 

[likesfish]

Observant folk might have noticed the tendency of these guys to dress hostages and execution victims in orange jumpsuits.

If you can figure out exactly where they might have got this idea from, and how the source of it was a great motivational and recruitment tool for ISIS, you might then consider how subjecting them to clandestine justice might not be a wholly great idea.

Putting them on the tarmac and putting a round in their back and leaving the bodies for carrion seems a fitting end

 

[Mordi]

Some of the commentary from the IDF over this has been hilarious.

Some commentary I've seen on this stresses that Syria and Israel are officially still at war with each other. So there really is a balance to be struck in terms of escalation.

I guess the Israeli military/government thought they could keep up regular bombing raids without loss or they consider it worth the risk.

 

[Don Troooomp]

Starting with the Israelis.
They moan about a warplane being shot down but hardly mention it was killing people in a country they aren't at war with and came down in illegally occupied land.

To the general mess in Syria.
This pig's ear is the result of international intervention on a massive scale. I don't like Assad and what he gets up to but the various sides entering the war have made things a lot worse than they ever would have been. The refugee crisis is being handled as an invasion of Europe by the idiot right but it's really a European (Russian, American and a few others) caused problem. Any country that took part in the war, thus contributing to the damage and human misery is, at least in my view, directly responsible for the losses and should provide all genuine refugees with housing and an income that would give them the same lifestyle they lost.
A dose of responsibility, that including trials for those who ordered attacks in a country the UK and others are not at war with, is essential in stopping future similar stupidity. Wars are always bad news but to bomb a people who are no danger to the attacking country is just being a bastard. There are a whole bunch of politicians out there who deserve a seat in the dock of a war crimes trial.

 

[butchersapron]

Starting with the Israelis.
They moan about a warplane being shot down but hardly mention it was killing people in a country they aren't at war with and came down in illegally occupied land.

To the general mess in Syria.
This pig's ear is the result of international intervention on a massive scale. I don't like Assad and what he gets up to but the various sides entering the war have made things a lot worse than they ever would have been. The refugee crisis is being handled as an invasion of Europe by the idiot right but it's really a European (Russian, American and a few others) caused problem. Any country that took part in the war, thus contributing to the damage and human misery is, at least in my view, directly responsible for the losses and should provide all genuine refugees with housing and an income that would give them the same lifestyle they lost.
A dose of responsibility, that including trials for those who ordered attacks in a country the UK and others are not at war with, is essential in stopping future similar stupidity. Wars are always bad news but to bomb a people who are no danger to the attacking country is just being a bastard. There are a whole bunch of politicians out there who deserve a seat in the dock of a war crimes trial.

What attacks? List them.

 

[Geri]

The refugee crisis is being handled as an invasion of Europe by the idiot right but it's really a European (Russian, American and a few others) caused problem. Any country that took part in the war, thus contributing to the damage and human misery is, at least in my view, directly responsible for the losses and should provide all genuine refugees with housing and an income that would give them the same lifestyle they lost.

Have you ever asked any refugees about the reasons they left Syria?

 

[Don Troooomp]

Have you ever asked any refugees about the reasons they left Syria?

I'm in the sad position of not having had the chance to speak to any Syrian refugees so I have to guess their reasons, but Russia, the US and several other countries including the UK bombing the merry shit out of them is likely to be high on the list. Not forgetting ISIS bastards, the Syrian government, Israel and 'moderate' rebels killing piles of people.
Purely a guess, but I'd want to get out if that lot were killing as many people as they could and had just bombed the crap out of my town.

If those who have been lucky enough to get first hand stories from refugees would be kind enough to post with their experiences, i'd love to know if I'm right or not.

 

[Don Troooomp]

What attacks? List them.

How many bombs has UK dropped in 2017?

The UK has been bombing so-called Islamic State targets in Iraq since 2014 and in Syria since the year after.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) does not release statistics on the number of bombs dropped, but does release weekly updates of operations in the region.

BBC analysis shows UK forces have dropped bombs on 69 of the 99 days of 2017 to 9 April.

In that time, at least 216 bombs and missiles have been dropped by the Royal Air Force.

That's just the UK - I'll start on Israel, The US and Russia if you really need me to, then move on to other players.

 

[butchersapron]

I'm in the sad position of not having had the chance to speak to any Syrian refugees so I have to guess their reasons, but Russia, the US and several other countries including the UK bombing the merry shit out of them is likely to be high on the list. Not forgetting ISIS bastards, the Syrian government, Israel and 'moderate' rebels killing piles of people.
Purely a guess, but I'd want to get out if that lot were killing as many people as they could and had just bombed the crap out of my town.

If those who have been lucky enough to get first hand stories from refugees would be kind enough to post with their experiences, i'd love to know if I'm right or not.

They were asked. The overwhelming response was that it is bombing by the Syrian regime that drove them out of Syria. The UK and US bombing has been utterly peripheral in Syria.

How many bombs has UK dropped in 2017?



That's just the UK - I'll start on Israel, The US and Russia if you really need me to, then move on to other players.

Please do. Numbers/percentages and that sort of thing as well please.

 

[Don Troooomp]

They were asked. The overwhelming response was that it is bombing by the Syrian regime that drove them out of Syria. The UK and US bombing has been utterly peripheral in Syria

Please do. Numbers/percentages and that sort of thing as well please.

Your link is a little misleading as it was written by an anti Assad group.
That in no way supports Assad, but the claims from that group ignore interventions from other powers, blaming ALL the troubles on Assad.

The Syria Campaign | HuffPost

Syrians – like people all across the world – want their freedom. They want to be free of dictatorship and free of the extremism it has spawned.

The regime of Bashar al-Assad is responsible for crushing a peaceful uprising that has led to the deaths of over 200,000 people, the displacement of 10 million – half the country – and the emergence of some of the most radical, violent groups on the planet. Like Isis.

It's true Assad is a dictator with very nasty tendencies, but foreign interference caused many of today's problems, not just Assad. Imagine if Russia, the US and all the others had stayed out of it, Assad would probably have been forced out by now and there would probably have been no refugee crisis, that and ISIS would never have arisen without the invasion of Iraq and foreign interference in Syria.

This begs a very difficult question - Is it better to leave Assad in power, probably seeing him killing quite a lot of people, or support extremist groups who are trying to get rid of him but causing and prolonging a war that's killing far more people, destroying the country, destabilising the region, and bringing a massive and miserable refugee crisis?

Tough question, but that's the long and the short of it - Snipers or a drone strike excluded.
Let's be honest, if the US really wanted Assad removed, they could do it tomorrow morning while he was eating breakfast.

 

[butchersapron]

Your link is a little misleading as it was written by an anti Assad group.
That in no way supports Assad, but the claims from that group ignore interventions from other powers, blaming ALL the troubles on Assad.

The Syria Campaign | HuffPost



It's true Assad is a dictator with very nasty tendencies, but foreign interference caused many of today's problems, not just Assad. Imagine if Russia, the US and all the others had stayed out of it, Assad would probably have been forced out by now and there would probably have been no refugee crisis, that and ISIS would never have arisen without the invasion of Iraq and foreign interference in Syria.

This begs a very difficult question - Is it better to leave Assad in power, probably seeing him killing quite a lot of people, or support extremist groups who are trying to get rid of him but causing and prolonging a war that's killing far more people, destroying the country, destabilising the region, and bringing a massive and miserable refugee crisis?

Tough question, but that's the long and the short of it - Snipers or a drone strike excluded.
Let's be honest, if the US really wanted Assad removed, they could do it tomorrow morning while he was eating breakfast.

Can you outline this interference? And how it caused the assad regime to murder and torture opposition syrians in 2011 whilst quite openly helping to sectarianise the conflict. Let's have a look at your chronology.

 

[butchersapron]

Your link is a little misleading as it was written by an anti Assad group.
That in no way supports Assad, but the claims from that group ignore interventions from other powers, blaming ALL the troubles on Assad.

The Syria Campaign | HuffPost



It's true Assad is a dictator with very nasty tendencies, but foreign interference caused many of today's problems, not just Assad. Imagine if Russia, the US and all the others had stayed out of it, Assad would probably have been forced out by now and there would probably have been no refugee crisis, that and ISIS would never have arisen without the invasion of Iraq and foreign interference in Syria.

This begs a very difficult question - Is it better to leave Assad in power, probably seeing him killing quite a lot of people, or support extremist groups who are trying to get rid of him but causing and prolonging a war that's killing far more people, destroying the country, destabilising the region, and bringing a massive and miserable refugee crisis?

Tough question, but that's the long and the short of it - Snipers or a drone strike excluded.
Let's be honest, if the US really wanted Assad removed, they could do it tomorrow morning while he was eating breakfast.

Note - no syrians were involved or hurt in the writing of this post.

 

[Don Troooomp]

Note - no syrians were involved or hurt in the writing of this post.

An interesting comment, but was that about my post or the link?
The Syria campaign deserves a looking at because they claim to be disinterested politically but the initial evidence suggests there may be more to them.
I don't want to support or condemn until I have reasonable evidence either way so I will fall silent about them until I get the chance to take a closer look, hopefully at the weekend.

 

[HoratioCuthbert]

[QUOTE="Don Troooomp, post: 15436993, member: 75608]

If those who have been lucky enough to get first hand stories from refugees would be kind enough to post with their experiences, i'd love to know if I'm right or not.[/QUOTE]
Luck is needed? Syrians have made extensive use of social media, mainstream media, have written books etc to get these stories out. In my experience people like yourself just have no interest in hearing them.

 

[Don Troooomp]

[QUOTE="Don Troooomp, post: 15436993, member: 75608]

If those who have been lucky enough to get first hand stories from refugees would be kind enough to post with their experiences, i'd love to know if I'm right or not.

Luck is needed? Syrians have made extensive use of social media, mainstream media, have written books etc to get these stories out. In my experience people like yourself just have no interest in hearing them.[/QUOTE]

Exactly the opposite.
I'm most concerned about Syrian refugees and the mess that's going on over there, and would love to hear first hand, unprepared accounts of what life is like in that country and why so many are getting out.
Books and TV programs can be edited and guided to suit the point of view aimed at by the producer but one on one experience tends, in my experience, provides a far better and much more personal picture of reality.
I had a long conversation with some guys from Afghanistan a couple of months ago, getting so much more than the sanitised for TV version of what their lives in that country were really like.

You just have to see the news stories about refugees to see what I mean. When a station such as Fox shows footage, the refugees are all male, mostly young, and very loud.
A BBC documentary showed mostly families and tales of family misery.
The reality is likely some of both but I can't get that from prepared script, hence the hope of finding people with one on one real experience.

 

[HoratioCuthbert]

You maybe need to take that up with the Fox/BBC news addicts your pre-prepared statement was intended for

Any thoughts on Assad's use of force fae June 2011 onwards yet? Are you familiar with the term Shabiha for example, it's history and current use?

 

[Don Troooomp]

Any thoughts on Assad's use of force fae June 2011 onwards yet? Are you familiar with the term Shabiha for example, it's history and current use?

I dislike anyone who uses force against people who can't resist, worse when it comes to torture, government sponsored murder and hit squads. That should be plenty for you to get a grip on my opinion of Assad, and all without swearing
My disdain for him doesn't mean I support the movement to get rid of him because their ranks are filled with people just as bad, maybe worse when we look at ISIS and similar.
My general knowledge is lacking, hence my interest in talking to people about the situation over there.

 

[Don Troooomp]

As a note, and much of the reason I would like to get views from people with first hand experience, who is most prominent with claims of Assad's chemical weapons (WMD?), and who makes the claims about death squads?

The US?
U.S. Accuses Syria of New Chemical Weapons Use

Israel?
Israel said to fear Assad chemical weapons spillover into Golan Heights

How about the death squads? Oops, the Daily mail.
Syria massacre: The steroid-mad 'Ghost' killers who keep Assad in power | Daily Mail Online

These secretive death squads are on Youtube


This lot claim the CIA are behind the death squads - Lets face it, the CIA have a bit of a history of that sort of thing.
Syria: 'CIA death squads behind Syria bloodbath' | Pambazuka News

More of the same here
https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/240801911296558475/

and so on.

The news is warped and twisted to suit whoever is writing or paying for the news so can't be trusted (Especially the Daily Mail), so I would like to know the truth before I offer too much comment.
Saying that, I tend to come down on the side of Assad using the 'ghosts', but that isn't to deny the CIA trained them, as that group has done with so many sets of bastards before Assad's lot.

Of course, you might want to believe everything you hear as long as it suits your position, but I prefer pravda.

 

[butchersapron]

One avenue for the revolution that was already narrowly closing now appears to have definitively been slammed shut - if true, rather than PYD trying to put pressure on the regime to do so. I wonder what the regime's price would be?

Note also the way the PYD has morphed into 'kurds' here.

Syrian Kurdish official: deal for Syrian army to enter Afrin

Syrian Kurdish forces and the Damascus government have reached an agreement for the Syrian army to enter the Afrin region to help repel a Turkish offensive, a senior Kurdish official said on Sunday.

When asked about the reported deal, YPG spokesman Nouri Mahmoud repeated an earlier statement that said the Syrian army had yet to respond to their calls to help protect Afrin.

 

[butchersapron]

This is doing the rounds as the regime demands: