Military Events in Syria and Iraq Thread #4

There was some information about the Syrian army appearing in some places held by the Kurdish forces in Afrin. But the claims remained quite dubious and unconfirmed, with no official background. Here is the first map I have seen about this:

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The map looks like covering the minimal area covering the places where there has been some confirmation of the Syrian army (or NDF?) been where or troops under Syrian flag being there. The map is also careful, naming these areas "Syrian regime + YPG/PKK shared control". But, given that as the YPG, as the Syrian officials have always consistently denied the idea about such a shared control, I think this is simply Syrian army control.

In East Ghouta,, Hamouriha is now under Syrian army control. Rihan (East of Douma) has been taken too.

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There is information about a peace agreement with Douma.

 

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Jisrein has been taken by the Syrian army yesterday, Kafr Batna is said to be taken today, Saqba about to fall too (talk about abandoned positions there).

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There have been first claims that the Turks have taken Afrin - or that at least they are inside the town and that there is no or little resistance.

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The other big news is that there is a ceasefire in Harasta, with the civilians inside allowed to go out, and negotiations started about a transfer of those who want to continue fighting with personal weapons to Idlib. The situation with ceasefire negotiations in Douma is not clear. But it seems there are now two of three pockets involved in negotiations.

So it is only the third, Southern pocket, where there is actual fighting. Here it seems confirmed now that Kafr Batna has been taken completely and Saqba at least a large part. And even from this part civilians are now allowed to leave, and leave in large numbers.

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ISIS has started now a big offensive against the Syrian army at several places, first in the other remaining pocket South of Damascus, then near the T2 station, and also from the East of Euphrat.

The Russian ministry of defense has claimed that they have information about the US preparing forces to attack Syria and that there is information about preparations to fake a gas attack.

 

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The Syrian army has taken the farms of Ain Terma and a large part of Haze. There is a peace agreement with Harasta, so those who want to continue fighting go with green busses to Idlib, with personal weapons and families, the others give their weapons away and use the amnesty.

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One can reasonably guess that with Harasta under Syrian army control there will be no more communications between Douma and Zamalka, and even if, they would play no role because the groups are anyway different. The negotiations with Jaysh al Islam (Douma) have failed up to now, there was even a counterattack during the last two days which finally failed.

After the Turkish gangs have taken Afrin, these gangs had nothing better to do than to plunder the town. This was quite horrible for the image of Turkey so that they have send military police to Afrin to stop this.

 

The evacuation of the terrorists from Harasta has been almost finished, some ten buses or so will leave Harasta this night, and then Harasta is controlled by the Syrian army.

There is information from several sources that there is also a similar peace agreement in the Southern pocket. With Douma, there is some agreement about an exchange of prisoners.

 

The liberation of Harasta has been finished, Harasta has been declared officially terrorist-free. The first green buses are now in the Southern pocket.

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Where are the buses going to take the terrorists?

 

There have been claims that the Harasta terrorists were sent to Afrin, others said they were sent to Idlib. Afrin is not implausible, given that this was a Turkish supported gang. But the most reliable info tells that they were sent to Miznaz in Western Aleppo. According to http://nedaa-sy.com/en/news/1790 there is already a camp used in the past for similar transports.

The gangs from the Southern pocket will also be sent to Idlib - at least I have not heard anything different.

 

The Southern part of the Eastern Ghouta pocket is finally completely under Syrian control. All that remains under terrorist control is Douma:

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And there is information that there has been reached an agreement with Douma too. At least some of the fighters from Douma will be sent to Jarabolus, which is near the Turkish border at the Euphrat. They will probably be used by the Turks to fight the Kurds.

 

There is now an interesting change in the Rastan pocket, a quite great pocket between Hama and Homs:

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There are negotiations about the transfer of power to the Syrian army. And in some villages of the North-Eastern part of this pocket the result has been a completely peaceful change of power - the local people have told the "rebels" to go away, and they did leave, and the Syrian army has now gained control of several villages without any military action:

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Some of the militants in this pocket are considered to be quite moderate, but there is also an Al Qaida presence.

 

It seems that Trump has ordered the military to make plans to withdraw from Syria as soon as the remaining isis fighters are eradicated.
Predictably, the military commanders ain't happy about this.
Will Trump soon face a Truman MacArthur moment?

Meanwhile many of the Kurdish fighters have had to turn to the west to fight off the Turks. leaving the remaining ISIS fighters in the east some breathing room.

Question: Aside from the obvious attempt at a land grab in Syria, did Turkey intentionally attack the Kurds in an effort to help ISIS?

Meanwhile, Trump asking the Saudis to contribute 4 billion to help stabilize Syria seems a bad joke-------can anyone actually visualize the Saudis spending money to stabilize a Shia regime?

When we leave, will the Russians step up their game to stabilize Syria?

as usual, more questions than answers(sigh)

 

No. ISIS is already irrelevant. The US tries to preserve them East of Euphrat, to use them against Syria again, and supports them from the other, South-Western side from Al Tanf. But these are American games against Syria and the Iranian land bridge. For Turkey, ISIS plays no role.

Assad is a secular regime, not Shia. Then, I have understood the point of Trump that if the Saudi want the US army staying in Syria, they should pay the US for this.

If the US goes away, peace will be near. The Kurds will get some sort of autonomy and raise Syrian flags, the Turks will go away, and the pro-Turkish gangs will make some peace agreements with Assad too, else they will be destroyed. There would be no reason at all to step up. Instead, they could even step down. The greatest danger there is the US.

 

And now, it seems that we are setting up around Manbij to protect the Kurds from Turkey (our ally?)

 

But Iran and Iraq are Shia, not secular. And Turkey is increasingly Islamic.

Remember when you denied being fooled by paying attention to what Trump says?
Trump just appointed Pompeo and Bolton, and presented a budget with big increases in military funding - which the US Command is planning to devote to military opposition to Russia and China. The US military isn't "going away" from anywhere any time soon.

Likewise if Russia goes away, and probably if Saudi Arabia, Israel, Iran, and Turkey, go away. From Iraq.

 

I'm late to this 26 page thread and I'm definitely not up on the level of detail of maps and the different forces or even what the whole conflict is about.

I do know two things:

1) We (the US) have not been attacked by Syria; and

2) Congress has not authorized a war against Syria.

Therefore we are illegal invaders. We should get the hell out, yesterday. Either that, or Congress should have the balls to actually vote on the war they are reluctant to let Trump pull us out of.

This entire American theory that we can be running seven or eight low-key semi-secret wars, in which the CIA and the Pentagon are sometimes supporting opposite sides (as reported in the New York Times a while back) is not going to end well.

 

Welcome to the world of April 4th, 2003 - fifteen years ago this spring, when America set out to screw the pooch for real and irretrievably.

John Bolton's job title then was Undersecretary Of State For Arms Control And National Security, and he was the loudest and most influential promoter of including Syria in the list of nations whose governments the US intended to destroy and replace.

 

A country that murders peaceful political protestors doesn't deserve a say in who comes to their aid.

 

The point being? Turkey is Sunni, btw.

Nobody gives much on what Trump says.

No. If the US remains, war will remain. Without the US, war will end soon. In this particular situation, it is that simple. Turkey, Iran, and Russia have found some agreement, Israel will not start a war on its own risk, Saudi Arabia is actually too weak to start an own war. Without US support, Europe (France, GB) will also run away. What remains are some local terrorists without much support from outside.

We will see how Erdogan continues. I doubt yet that he will attack the US troops. But it looks like that in the talks with Iran and Russia they have found some agreement how to act. The fight of the Turks against the Kurds will continue, which reduces the only US vassal. And the US can essentially do nothing against - they will not start a war with Turkey as long as Turkey is yet inside NATO. So, the Turks can simply fight the Kurds even near the US bases. So, the Kurds will be reduced by the Turks, the Syrian army will finish the other terrorist enclaves. This needs some time.

The Syrian way to fight the US bases is also already clear - there will be some local anti-American gangs fighting them with guerilla methods. In Afghanistan, this works even against full US air control and a US-supported army on the ground. And the Taliban do not even have an obvious state sponsor behind them. There has been a claim that such a guerilla has started to act with an attack against a US convoy.

 

That there is no shortage of religious basis for organizing war in the region, including in Syria. And there will be cause to motivate organization (climate change refugee issues, for example).

You just did, you do, and you always have. As often quoted.
You might find Bolton quotes compatible with your stated views as well:

https://foreignpolicyblogs.com/2018/03/29/john-boltons-unrestored-mind/amp/

Maybe. Then again, especially if it marks the beginning of atrocities, maybe not.
And which was also true of Russia a year or so ago - they won, more or less. This is good?

So war will continue, and the Kurds will suffer, after the US leaves - if it ever does.

That will also work against Russian and Assad and Turkish bases.

 

If one wants war, as the US does, one can find a religious basis for this. This is a regular exercise. In Ukraine, the main point was support of Bandera fascism, but even there they tried the religious card too, using a split between two orthodox factions.

No, I don't. Bolton is part of a more radical faction of globalism - he wants the US to rule the world directly, by open use of military power. The Obama faction wants the US to rule the world using UN, human rights propaganda and so on as a propaganda cover.

I'm against US world rule, covered or uncovered by propaganda. Both factions use military means, against both factions you have to rely on your own force, else you are dead like Ghadafi. The Bolton faction prefers open wars, the Obama faction, once they like to cover their means, prefers terrorist wars. Both are thugs and villains.

I support a completely different political direction - isolationism. The only known US politician clearly supporting this is Ron Paul. So, this direction is rather weak.

The only point where I see some reason to support Bolton is that his faction will help to destroy the cover the Obama faction uses. And without this cover, the US world rule will be essentially dead in short time.

The hard question is about the danger of a nuclear war US-Russia. Here, the situation is less clear than it looks. Of course, one position is quite plausible - those who prefer open war will be more likely to start a nuclear war against Russia. That's a natural and simple position, but is it correct? That's not that obvious. The most dangerous thing is that the decision makers don't know what they do. That they think they can win a nuclear war, and therefore start it. But who is more probable to know the real situation about a nuclear war? Those who care a lot about military means to rule the world, and despise diplomatic means, or those who prefer "diplomatic" (terrorists) means?

The scenario toward the nuclear war is in any way one of unwanted escalation, with the US crossing all red lines of Russia playing chicken games. The most likely Syrian scenario: Another US fake gas attack, all the Western media crying that now the US has to bomb Syria, the Russians telling the US that in case of such an attack the attacking ships will be targets of Russian counterattacks. Up to this point, both factions already have escalated, both have received the corresponding statement of the Russian military.

The next step is that the US, playing a chicken game, ignores this and attacks Assad. The Russians do what they have promised, two US ships sink. Who is more likely not to escalate further toward a nuclear war?

The information that further escalation will be fatal for the US is more likely to be present in the pro-war faction because they have cared about these questions, they will know the situation much better. And the political pressure in favor of an escalation will be much less for the Bolton faction. For the Obama faction, the loss in the next election would unavoidable. For the Bolton faction, this would be less clear, the other side could not really say "we would not have sucked, we would have retaliated". For Trump, the political pressure would be the lowest one - he tells Bolton "you are fired" and blames him for suggesting this escalation.

To summarize, there are arguments in both directions, and it is hard to say which faction is more likely to escalate toward a nuclear war. But I tend to think that, given that the main danger is the nuclear war, it is better to have a faction ruling which is competent in military but incompetent in "diplomacy" (terrorism) than a faction competent in terrorism but incompetent in the military.

Given the actual situation, one wonders why Trump is now again (after a quite long time saying "we want to stay forever") talking about leaving Syria. One (admittedly highly speculative) hypothesis: It was the Tillerson/McMaster faction which supported "staying there", while the Pompeo/Bolton faction knows that playing chicken with Russia is not a good idea, and it is better to leave.

With "atrocities" you mean the Western claims about horrible bomb terror against the poor civilian in East Ghouta? Let's see at the numbers. According to the SOHR (a NATO propaganda organization) we have:

Think about the numbers. An aerial, rocket and artillery shelling can hardly differentiate between male and female civilians. And in a society where fighting is the job of males, there will be, among civilians, more women than men. So we have 193 adult females, but 1544-316-193=1035 adult males, among them at most 193 civilian males, thus, at least 1035-193=842 adult fighters against at most 386 adult civilians. And even if we count all children as civilians, forgetting that many militant fighters are aged below 18, this gives 842 fighters against 702 civilians, thus, a majority of fake civilians.

You missed the context of the line you quoted - in that context, it was presupposed that the US does not leave. Without the US, the other players will give up in quite short time. As mentioned yesterday, there have been already several villages given up without any fight. The Kurds will suffer only if they don't give up. They will get a nice partial autonomy offer if they give up.

The US has tried hard, but yet without success. The Syrians, as well as the Turks, have learned to live with such dangers. Don't forget that killed soldiers cause much larger problems in the US than in those countries.