Oh Syria the victory is coming

Hamza Asadullah said:
.....the fact that the weapons are mainly french...
Click to expand...

Interesting observation brother, God knows where you're at,
Was reading through this thread from page one and am not too amazed at how things are panning out - it appears that the media hype around the time of the start of this thread had made some to forget that the corrupt colonialists had positioned themselves as enemies of Islam quite a while back
Well the plot continues to unravel and Allah's plan continues to surround it.
Sarcozy's investments are maturing fast - after 250,000 dead.
Something of an Islamic State is straddling the border between iraq and syria, the fact that it's across the border has helped blur the nationalist border rhetoric, obama's still in iraq, the days of reliance on columbian ex-FARC mercenaries have passed, excuses for bombing muslims in syria are still weak, though regularly prodded for.
hundreds of thousands (if not millions) globally have ditched government worship and have accepted God as their ruler and Islam as their way of life.
Amazing how some weird people still believe the democracy lie though when most - if not all of the faces change - whilst the stories of the "looney conspiracy theorists" continue to play out.

Did i hear them say they want to support assad now?
Or is it just that they're still trying to get their bloody hands in Syria?
 
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Latest:


Israeli airstrikes fail to propel Al-Qaeda forces in the Golan Heights
By
Leith Fadel -
27/06/2017 1
A rebel fighter of al-Jabha al-Shamiya (the Shamiya Front) covered with mud carries his weapon as he sits near the front line with Bashkuwi village, north of Aleppo, Syria, February 19, 2015. REUTERS/Rami Zayat

BEIRUT, LEBANON (10:55 A.M.) – The Al-Qaeda lined rebels received a big boost from the Israeli Air Force these last 72 hours, as the latter has carried out at least three different attacks against the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) in the Golan Heights region of Al-Quneitra.

With the Syrian Air Force grounded, the jihadist rebels attempted to bully their way through several different fronts in the Golan Heights; however, every attack has ended with their forces sustaining heavy casualties and significant damage to their military equipment.

The latest attack by the jihadist rebels targeted the strategic hilltop of Tal Ahmar, which is located near the U.N. ceasefire zone in the Golan Heights.

https://mobile.almasdarnews.com/art...es-fail-propel-al-qaeda-forces-golan-heights/





Fighting intensifies in Syrian Golan Heights
At least 12 people reportedly killed as Assad's forces and opposition fighters clash in Quneitra amid Israeli strikes.

Fighting between government forces and opposition fighters has intensified in the Quneitra province in Syria's south, situated in the 30 percent part of the Golan Heights under Syrian control.

More than a dozen people were killed, including both pro-government forces and opposition fighters, in the latest increase in fighting in the countryside of al-Baath city and near the town of Khan Arnab, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said on Sunday.

The deaths came as the al-Qaeda-linked Levant Liberation Committee [Hayat Tahrir al-Sham] and allied anti-government groups launched an offensive to take control of al-Baath city, one of the few towns in the province that has remained under control of Syrian government forces in recent years.

Abu Omar al-Jolani, a Quneitra-based media activist, told Al Jazeera that "the battle is ongoing" and that armed groups "managed to break the regime's first line of defence".

Also on Sunday, Israeli fighter jets targeted Syrian government positions in the region for a second day in a row, reportedly destroying a handful of tanks.

The UK-based SOHR reported that the strikes killed two Syrian army soldiers and injured several others.

After Israeli air strikes hit the area on Saturday, Syrian state news agency SANA accused Israel of supporting the Levant Liberation Committee, formerly known as al-Nusra Front.

Israel has been occupying roughly 70 percent of the Golan Heights since the 1967 Middle East war.

Since the outbreak of fighting in the Golan region in 2012, it has carried out sporadic air strikes, mostly targeting government forces and their allies.

In recent months, President Bashar al-Assad's forces, backed by Russian air power, have gained ground in Syria from opposition fighters and armed groups.
New attack launched

Since the war began in 2011, it has killed hundreds of thousands, driven millions more from their homes, caused a global refugee crisis and drawn in regional and world powers.

The conflict is far from over. Opposition fighters hold large expanses of the country, including around Idlib province near Hama, and launched a new attack in Quneitra in the southwest on Saturday.

Anti-government fighters also hold the Eastern Ghouta area near Damascus, parts of the desert in the southeast and a large pocket south of Hama around the city of Rastan.


As recently as March, opposition fighters advanced from Idlib province to within a few miles of Hama, before the army and its allies pushed them back in weeks of fierce fighting.

However, the army drove the fighters from their biggest urban stronghold in Aleppo in December and have also forced several important opposition enclaves to surrender over the past year.

US-led coalition air raids have also caused large numbers of civilian casualties, according to the SOHR.

It said on Saturday that coalition air strikes in and around Raqqa, the besieged stronghold of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group, have killed nearly 700 civilians so far this year.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/06/fighting-intensifies-syrian-golan-heights-170626033648183.html






World
Israel Secretly Paying Salaries of Syrian Rebels on Golan Heights Border: Report
By Jack Moore On 6/19/17 at 9:34 AM

World
Israel
Syria

Israel is secretly supporting Syrian rebels operating near its occupied Golan Heights territory, providing money, food, fuel and medical supplies, according to fighters who claim to receive the aid.

Israel has previously treated wounded Syrian rebels in its hospitals but interviews with rebels conducted by the Wall Street Journal suggest that Israel is directly supporting opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the six-year-long civil war.

Israel is opposed to the rule of Assad and his forces. It also sees militants belonging to Lebanese militia Hezbollah who support Assad’s regime forces as posing a threat to its security on the Golan Heights border.

Daily Emails and Alerts- Get the best of Newsweek delivered to your inbox

Syrian rebels A picture taken from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights shows armed men, reportedly rebel fighters, driving a motorcycle near an abandoned UN building in the Syrian side of the Golan Heights, at an abandoned U.N. base at the Quneitra border crossing, on November 28, 2016. Jack Guez/AFP/Getty

The payments are aimed at creating a buffer of friendly forces on the Golan Heights border, the Journal reports, to keep their foes at a distance.

It says the Israeli military has direct communication with rebel commanders and is providing funds to them that pay for their salaries, ammunition and weapons. The payments began in 2013 under former Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon and continue.
Read more: Israel launches airstrikes in Syria prompting retaliation

One particular group that Israel is allegedly supporting is Fursan al-Joulan, or the Knights of the Golan, which has around 400 fighters. It gives them $5,000 a month and Israel’s support ensures its existence, according to the group’s figures.

http://www.newsweek.com/israel-secretly-paying-salaries-syrian-rebels-golan-heights-627155




Kulanu MK Akram Hasson's comments in an interview with Channel 2 came amid fierce battles in recent days near the Druse village of Khader in the Syrian Golan Heights.
Kulanu MK Akram Hasson issued a harsh rebuke of the IDF on Monday, saying that not only is the army not helping the Druse population caught up in Syria's civil war, it is cooperating with the Nusra Front, al-Qaida's Syrian affiliate.

Hasson's comments in an interview with Channel 2 came amid fierce battles in recent days near the Druse village of Khader in the Syrian Golan Heights.

Hasson accused Israel of being responsible for harm being caused to the Druse population of the Syrian Golan. "The IDF is shelling Syrian army positions, which is enabling the Nusra Front to seize Druse land."



The Kulanu MK further charged that "it is no secret that the IDF is cooperating with [the Nusra Front]. In the past they have told us that the Nusra Front coordinates with the IDF. We don't know? What, were we born yesterday?"

Hasson claimed that under former defense minister Moshe Ya'alon there was an agreement in place by which it was understood that nobody would enter the Druse village, and in exchange the local Druse would not interfere with the fighting in the area.

"Today, after they took control of the most strategic positions and after the Syrian army left the area, they blocked the access road to Damascus, and isolated Khader from the rest of Syria, and they are slaughtering people," he added.



Hasson's comments came a day after some 200 Israeli Druse held a demonstration in Majd al-Shams, calling on Israel to help their Syrian brethren.

The village of Khader, which is right across from Majd al-Shams, on the other side of Mount Hermon, is home to some 25,000 Druse.

The Nusra Front has sought to control Khader for some time in order to gain control of the entire Golan Heights. The al-Qaida-linked fighters number several hundred men as well as dozens of tanks that they have seized.

During fierce fighting near Khader last year, and fear for the Druse community, the IDF sent messages to the Nusra Front through the Free Syrian Army, warning the Islamist group not to harm Syria's Druse.

Yossi Melman contributed to this report.

http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-C...-al-Qaida-in-Syria-at-expense-of-Druse-467518





I still remember at the beginning of these events the whole threads that we had spent hours typing that zafran and co. complained were "conspiracy theory" and had deleted after they descended into arguments where some of us had stated that the crimes taking place in Syria were most likely being perpetrated by secularist western government mercenaries with the aim of provoking a war and creating justification for another illegal invasion of another country, and that instead of Muslim fighters attacking and destabilizing syria, as they were being prodded to do by the governments of U.S.A, France, and Britain, they would be better off legally attacking the secularist extremist armies illegally occupying Iraq, and that the pretence of helping Muslims was being used as a tool by the very people who were trying to harm Muslims.
It is illegal for the Non-Muslim Israeli mercenary government propped up by U.S.A and Britain to be attacking the people of Syria and using other hypocrite mercenaries with Muslim labels to kill people in Syria - what has the U.N done so far in condemning Israel and punishing them for these acts of illegal aggression? Bear witness to this deceitful secularist system which only uses so called "international law" when it comes to attempting to falsely justify crimes.
 
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Salaam

On Israels interests in destroying Syria.


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Salaam

Another update

Syria: Bashar al-Assad rejects security cooperation with west

Assad praises Russia, Iran, China and Hezbollah for supporting government as shell kills several at international fair



The Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, has railed against the west, saying any security cooperation with western nations or the reopening of their embassies would not happen until they cut ties with opposition and insurgent groups.

Shortly after Assad gave his speech, a shell hit the first international fair in the country since the war began six years ago, killing and wounding several people.
We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled review – voices from Syria
Wendy Pearlman’s remarkable collection of testimonies from Syrian refugees offers a strong anti-Assad narrative
Read more

Assad’s defiant comments come at a time when his troops and pro-Iranian militia are gaining ground across the country under the cover of Russian airstrikes. Many countries have ceased calling for him to step down.

Speaking in front of dozens of Syrian diplomats in Damascus, Assad praised Russia, Iran, China and Lebanon’s Hezbollah for supporting his government during the conflict. He said Syria would look east when it came to political, economic and cultural relations.

“The direct support of our friends, politically, economically and militarily, made our advance on the ground greater and the losses of war less. Therefore, they are our partners in these achievements on the road to crush terrorism,” Assad said.

“Let’s be clear. There will be no security cooperation nor opening of embassies or even a role for some countries that say that they want to play a role in ending the crisis in Syria before they clearly and frankly cut their relations with terrorism. At that point maybe we can speak about opening embassies.”

Following months of steady military advances, Syria’s government has sought to portray itself as the victor in a war that is winding down, and is looking ahead to reconstruction. The Syrian president said his country’s economy was turning to growth again “at a very slow pace, although we are under an almost complete embargo”.

The government had billed the international trade fair, which opened three days ago, as a victory and a sign of renewed confidence in the war-torn nation.

The Mortar News in Damascus Facebook page, which tracks violence in the capital, said the shell hit the entrance of the fair, killing four people and wounding four others.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition-run group that reports on both sides of the conflict, said the shell killed five people and wounded 11 but did not say who was behind the attack.

The state-run news agency said the shelling inflicted casualties but gave no further details. It blamed the rebels in the suburbs of the capital, saying they fired the shell in violation of a truce reached earlier this month in the eastern suburbs of Damascus known as eastern Ghouta.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/20/syria-bashar-al-assad-rejects-security-cooperation-with-west
 
Salaam

The rebellion is being slowly crushed.

Turkey seeks to isolate Syria Idlib jihadists opposing truce

ISTANBUL/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Turkey is luring militants away from the jihadist alliance that controls Syria’s northwestern Idlib province as a step toward implementing a deal to reduce violence there, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Tuesday.

Idlib is one of four “de-escalation” zones which foreign powers agreed to establish in opposition territory in western Syria after years of civil war. But the former al Qaeda branch which controls the province has pledged to keep fighting Syrian government forces and their allies.

The ex-Nusra Front’s stance has raised doubt about how Turkey, one of three parties to the agreement, can proceed with plans to deploy observers inside Idlib. Russia and Iran, the other two countries involved, are due to police its edges.

Cavusoglu said the first stage, already under way, was to separate “moderate rebels” from “terror organizations” - a reference to Nusra, which cut ties with al Qaeda last year, rebranded itself and now spearheads the Tahrir al-Sham jihadist alliance that dominates Idlib.

His comments endorsed remarks by a rebel source who said that efforts by foreign states were under way to encourage defections from the alliance, to break it up, isolate it and reduce its capacity to oppose any Turkish military deployment.

“With regards to Nusra, they are working to weaken it through intelligence operations,” the source told Reuters. Those could include assassinations and campaigns to undercut the group’s popular support, the source said.

The aim was to encourage jihadist fighters who are not members of al Qaeda to “melt into society”.At least two million people live in Idlib, the largest populated Syrian area held by rebels - including some nationalist Free Syrian Army factions who sometimes fought alongside jihadists.

The province’s population has ballooned as thousands of civilians and combatants have left areas seized by the Syrian army in other parts of the country, with the help of Russian jets and Iran-backed militias.

ISOLATING JIHADISTS

Turkey already controls a swathe of northern Syria east of Idlib following a military incursion in 2016. The rebel source said up to 2,000 fighters being trained by Turkish forces could deploy to Idlib, where many people have close ties to Turkey and could welcome a Turkish presence.

Turkey has called for the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad and supported several rebel factions, but has recently worked with Iran and Russia, both strong supporters of Assad, to stem the violence in Syria’s six-year conflict.

Comparing the array of factions fighting Assad to a divided family, Cavusoglu said it was vital to avoid indiscriminate bloodshed and criticized the continued Russian and Syrian air strikes in Idlib which he said were killing civilians.

”Think of a family with four sons,“ he said in a televised interview. ”Two of them are members of the Free Syrian Army, which everybody supports, one is not related to anything and the last one is a member of a terror organization.

“What do we do? Will we bomb this family and kill them all; the mother, father and small children? We have to determine the one and separate him from the others”.

Cavusoglu said work to separate the jihadists from other factions had been “going on rapidly”, but needed meticulous application and would require broad international support.

Tahrir al-Sham, which was formed in January, has been hit in recent months by the breakaway of two of its significant fighting factions, Nour el-Din al-Zinki and Jaish al-Ahrar.

In a change of leadership announced on Sunday, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the head of Nusra Front, assumed command of Tahrir al-Sham after Abu Jaber al-Sheikh quit that post. Tahrir al-Sham gave no reason for the resignation, adding in a statement that al-Sheikh had been appointed head of its Shura Council.

Insurgent sources in northwest Syria say ideological divisions between the groups that form Tahrir al-Sham have been a big factor leading to the departure of some members.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-idlib/turkey-seeks-to-isolate-syria-idlib-jihadists-opposing-truce-idUSKCN1C81UN?il=0

- - - Updated - - -

Salaam

Another update

Israel sees Assad winning Syria war, urges more U.S. involvement

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel’s defense minister said on Tuesday President Bashar al-Assad was winning Syria’s civil war and urged the United States to weigh in as Damascus’s Iranian and Hezbollah allies gain ground.

Avigdor Lieberman’s comments marked a reversal for Israel, where top officials had from the outset of fighting in 2011 until mid-2015 regularly predicted Assad would lose control of his country and be toppled.

“I see a long international queue lining up to woo Assad, include Western nations, including moderate Sunnis. Suddenly everyone wants to get close to Assad. This is unprecedented. Because Assad is winning, everyone is standing in line,” he told Israel’s Walla news site.

In late 2015, Russia helped Assad turn the tide with a military intervention that put Moscow’s forces in the field alongside Israel’s most potent foes - Iran and the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah - opposite Syrian rebels.

The United States has focused its Syria operations on fighting rebel jihadis like Islamic State - dismaying Israel, which has tried to persuade both Washington and Moscow that Iran’s expanding clout is the greater threat.

In its decades under Assad family rule, Syria has been an enemy of Israel, with their armies clashing in 1948, 1967, 1973 and 1982. While largely keeping out of the Syrian civil war, Israel has tried to sway the world powers involved in the conflict and cautioned it could strike militarily to prevent Iran and Hezbollah entrenching further on its northern front.

“We hope the United States will be more active in the Syrian arena and the Middle East in general,” Lieberman said. “We are faced with Russians, Iranians, and also the Turks and Hezbollah, and this is no simple matter to deal with, on a daily basis.”

Lieberman did not elaborate on what actions he sought from the Donald Trump administration, which Israel has been lobbying for reassurances that Iranian and Hezbollah forces will not be allowed to deploy near its border or set up bases within Syria.

“The United States has quite a few challenges of its own, but as a trend - the more the United States will be active, the better it will be for the State of Israel,” Lieberman said.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-israel/israel-sees-assad-winning-syria-war-urges-more-u-s-involvement-idUSKCN1C81BK
 
Salaam

Another update, after continuous air raids into Syria over the years looks like Israel's luck has run out.


Israel launches attacks in Syria after F-16 crashes

#SyriaWar

Israel says Iran and Syria are 'playing with fire' but that it is not seeking escalation

Israel said it launched air strikes against air defences and Iranian targets in Syria on Saturday and the Syrian army claimed to have hit an Israeli F-16 that crashed in northern Israel in a major escalation of tension. The Israeli military said the F-16 jet crashed during a mission to strike Iranian drone installations in Syria, where Iranian and Iran-backed forces have established a major foothold while fighting in support of President Bashar al-Assad. Israel said it had sent its jets into Syria after shooting down an Iranian drone flying over Israeli territory earlier on Saturday. Israel said its warplanes came under fire in Syria, though it was still unclear why the jet had come down.

"Twelve targets, including three aerial defense batteries and four Iranian targets that are part of Iran's military establishment in Syria were attacked," the Israeli military said in a statement.

"During the attack, anti-aircraft missiles were fired towards Israel, triggering alarms that were heard in Northern Israel," the military said. Israeli military spokesman Jonathan Conricus told journalists in a phone conference the Syrians and Iranians were "playing with fire" but Israel was "not looking to escalate the situation." "This is the most blatant and severe Iranian violation of Israeli sovereignty in the last years," Conricus said, referring to what he described as an Iranian drone entering Israeli airspace from Syria.

"That's why our response is as severe as it is."

The military alliance fighting in support of Assad said on Saturday that Israel will witness a "severe and serious" response to its "terrorism" from now on. In a statement, the alliance said Israeli claims that a drone entered Israeli airspace were a "lie".
The statement said Israel attacked a drone base in central Syria. The alliance added that drones had left the T4 air base in the morning to conduct routine operations against Islamic State in the Syrian desert.

"When the base was targeted our aircraft were still flying over the town of Sokhna, towards the desert," the statement said. Sokhna is a town northeast of the city of Palmyra in central Syria. "Reports of downing an Iranian drone flying over Israel and also Iran's involvement in attacking an Israeli jet are so ridiculous ... Iran only provides military advice to Syria," Iranian state TV quoted Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi as saying.

Syrian state media reported two separate Israeli attacks. In the first one, a military source said Syrian air defences had opened fire in response to an Israeli act of "aggression" against a military base, hitting "more than one plane Later, Syrian state media said air defences were responding to a new Israeli assault and air defences had thwarted attacks on military positions in southern Syria.

Iran's expanding clout during Syria's nearly seven-year-long war, including deployments of Iran-backed forces near the Golan frontier, has raised alarm in Israel, which has said it would act against any threat from its regional arch-enemy Tehran.
The clashes marked a dangerous new confrontation between the international powers caught up in Syria's seven-year-old war.

Iranian and Iran-backed Shia forces, including Lebanon's Hezbollah, have deployed widely in support of Assad. Iran's military chief warned Israel last October against breaching Syrian airspace and territory.

Massive' anti-fire

Israel said one of its attack helicopters shot down an Iranian drone at around 4.30am (0230 GMT) that had come from Syrian into Israel. "In response, the IDF [Israel Defence Forces] targeted Iranian targets in Syria," the military said.
Conricus said a "substantial" number of Israeli warplanes on the mission had come under "massive Syrian anti-air fire", and only one Israeli jet was harmed.

The F-16 came down in a field near the northern Israeli village of Harduf, television footage showed, and one of the pilots was injured as they ejected, the military said. David Ivry, a former Israeli Air Force chief, told Reuters he believed it was the first time an Israeli F-16 had been brought down since Israel began using the jets in the 1980s.

"We don't know if the pilots ejected because of the [Syrian] fire," Conricus said. It was also unclear at what stage of the mission they ejected, he said, "but it is of extreme concern to us if they were shot down".

http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-launches-attacks-syria-after-f-16-crashes-485299063
 
I think syria is the only muslim nation that will attcked before the dajjal because the north korea war is a false alaram
 
Salaam

Another update, long detailed article.

Putin’s Shadow Army Suffers a Setback in Syria

For the first time in fifty years, U.S. and Russian military forces have engaged in direct combat. Soldiers from the two countries last clashed during the Vietnam War, when Soviet soldiers shot down U.S. warplanes with anti-aircraft weapons. Last week, on February 7th, the two powers met again, when U.S. drones, attack helicopters, and fighter planes struck a contingent of pro-regime fighters near Deir Ezzor, a Kurdish-held city in eastern Syria. As would emerge later, among those killed were up to a hundred Russian citizens who were fighting in Syria as private military contractors, a shadowy mercenary force whose presence in Syria is not officially recognized by the Kremlin.

Not long before the attack, the Russian contractors, fighting alongside members of pro-Assad tribal militias, carried out a strike against a compound held by Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-led army, backed and advised by U.S. troops. During the maneuver, the Russian contractors crossed the Euphrates River near the town of Khusham, breaching what Moscow and Washington have agreed is the dividing line separating their respective zones of authority. U.S. Special Forces embedded with the S.D.F. called in the ferocious response from the air.

According to investigations in the Russian press, as many as two thousand or three thousand Russian contractors are involved in military operations in Syria. Most of them are linked to a structure called Wagner, a company that has apparent ties to Yevgeny Prigozhin, a onetime St. Petersburg restaurateur who became close to Vladimir Putin in the early aughts. Prigozhin ended up with lucrative contracts to supply food to the Russian Army and has taken to overseeing the sorts of enterprises that the Kremlin finds useful but doesn’t want to manage itself. On Friday, the special counsel, Robert Mueller, indicted Prigozhin and twelve other Russian nationals for allegedly interfering in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. He is widely linked to a so-called troll factory in St. Petersburg, where hundreds of people are paid to sit and create fake social-media accounts to foster discontent and confusion in political discussions online. Wagner was named by its commander, a former Russian special-forces officer named Dmitry Utkin, who is a fan of the German composer. In 2016, Utkin was photographed at a Kremlin ceremony in which Putin handed out awards for military valor.

Many of the Wagner mercenaries previously fought with pro-Russia rebel groups in eastern Ukraine; their motives run from financial necessity to a kind of ultra-patriotic enthusiasm. (According to the Conflict Intelligence Team, an online monitoring group, average monthly salaries at Wagner range from ninety thousand to two hundred and fifty thousand rubles, or about sixteen hundred to forty-four hundred dollars.) Wagner fighters tend to be drawn from a hodgepodge of experienced veterans, war adventurers, and committed nationalists. A field commander who fought in Ukraine and knew many of those who died in Syria told the Russian paper Moskovsky Komsomolets, “They believed they went to defend the Russian world on the edges of our sphere of influence. So write it like this: ‘They perished for the sake of their homeland, and for an idea.’ ”

It remains unclear why the Russian contractors attacked the compound in Syria held by the American-backed militia. An oil-processing plant in the area might have been the ultimate target—an objective with both mercantile and strategic appeal in the Syrian war. A report in Moskovsky Komsomolets went further, quoting a source in Syria who said “it was a purely commercial issue. It had nothing to do with war.” Another Russian paper, Kommersant, reported that the offensive operation had not been sanctioned by the country’s official military command in Syria and was viewed as a “dangerous self-initiative.” According to U.S. military officials, before launching the air strikes they used a Russian-U.S. hotline to ask if Russian forces were in the area, and were told that none had crossed the Euphrates—meaning that the Russian military command either was not aware of the movements of the private contractors or did not want to admit the presence of soldiers it does not openly acknowledge.

When I spoke with Noah Bonsey, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group who covers Syria, he told me that the entire incident is “clouded in more ambiguity than usual, even by the standards of the Syrian war.” As he put it, “The key question is: Who ordered this foray across the Euphrates, and why? Was it a local decision? Did the Russian military command know about it?” He suggested that the oil facility made sense as a target because, in recent weeks, the Trump Administration has referred explicitly to control over the oil fields of eastern Syria as leverage in the ongoing conflict. This may have increased Russia’s interest in those same oil fields. At the same time, Kurdish forces are caught in a prolonged battle with the Turkish Army in Afrin, in northern Syria. The S.D.F. has moved some of its troops to aid in the fight, repositioning them out of Deir Ezzor. “Someone may have viewed that as an opportunity,” Bonsey said.

Russia’s official involvement in the war in Syria began with an air campaign that Putin launched in September, 2015. Since then, reports have circulated in the Russian press of undeclared, private Russian mercenaries fighting on the ground. Russian contractors participated in both battles for Palmyra. The liberation of the city is perhaps Russia’s chief propaganda victory in the war. Shadowy,undeclared mercenary forces are attractive for several reasons: they allow the Kremlin to maintain the fiction that Russia is fighting from the air only, giving Putin the opportunity to declare an easy victory and avoid public discontent over the loss of human lives during a dragged-out conflict. Last December, during a surprise visit to a Russian airbase in Syria, Putin said that the “task of combating the armed groups here in Syria” had been “largely resolved,” and made a show of ordering many Russian units to leave the country.

Over the last two and a half years, Russia’s intervention in Syria has served several of the country’s interests, as Putin sees them. It saved the Assad regime from defeat, holding off the spectre of a regime change, and secured Russia an undeniable and influential role in the geopolitics of the Middle East. Considering Russia’s isolation in the aftermath of the conflict in Ukraine, Putin must consider it a fortuitous turn of events. It has also allowed Russia’s military officials and war planners to test a new generation of Russian weapons and military strategy. In Syria, Russia deployed drones widely, and launched air strikes with weapons guided by the country’s GLONASS navigation system. “The use of private military companies is part of this process of trial and error,” Ruslan Pukhov, a leading defense analyst and the director of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, said. The appearance of groups like Wagner on the battlefield in Syria represents a “complete innovation” in Russian military practice, he told me.

As with much in the defense sphere, Russian officials are convinced they are playing catchup with the West, particularly with the United States. The Kremlin began to consider the notion of private military companies in the years after the U.S. war in Iraq, where companies such as Blackwater and Triple Canopy took on outsized roles. But whereas in U.S. operations private military contractors tend to perform support and logistics functions—escorting supply convoys, guarding bases and top officials—the opposite seems true of Wagner forces in Syria. Many Wagner units carry out dangerous assault missions, and while official Russian special forces work alone, or in concert with Russian air power, Wagner mercenaries are given the task of embedding and coördinating with Syrian militia groups.

One source with close ties among private Russian military companies told me that the Russian defense ministry provides Wagner with everything from munitions to food, and even transport aircraft, to move its fighters in and out of Syria. “In theory, all its operations and tactics should be agreed to by the military command,” the source explained. “But there’s always the human factor,” the source added, guessing at how things might have gone so wrong in Deir Ezzor. It’s possible that someone on the ground came to an agreement with local Syrian paramilitaries and didn’t bother to inform Russian military headquarters, or misled it about the nature of the mission. Or the Russian Army gives winking approval to Wagner’s more commercially inclined operations while formally claiming no knowledge of them. Last year, the Associated Press obtained a contract between a Wagner-linked company and Syria’s state-owned petroleum corporation, which promised a twenty-five-per-cent cut of the profits from oil and gas production at fields captured from militant control.

Complicating all of this is the fact that, at least technically, private military companies are illegal in Russia, and previous attempts in parliament to draft the necessary legislation to formalize their status have gone nowhere. “We’re at crossroads,” Ivan Konovalov, a defense analyst and the author of a Russian-language book on private military companies, said. “Either we’ll see the winding down of the operations of such companies or the passing of legislation to regulate their activity.” One deputy in parliament this week called for exactly that. Konovalov hopes a law will soon appear. “Without it, there’s no mechanism to deal with such situations, no one knows what to do,” he told me.

So far, Russia’s campaign in Syria has given Putin a seemingly cost-free propaganda boost, but, with the Russian losses at Deir Ezzor coming a month before Putin is up for reëlection, things may get trickier to manage. State-news broadcasts have been able to air stirring and choreographed reports of Russian military prowess without the ugliness and confusion of a prolonged ground war. The officially recognized number of Russian military personnel killed in Syria is small—forty-six people—and the deaths the state has publicly acknowledged have tended to come with heroic narratives, such as that of the Russian fighter pilot who blew himself up with a hand grenade as ISIS fighters encircled him when his plane was brought down over Syria, earlier this month. Up until now more unpleasant stories, like the capture of two Wagner fighters by ISIS last November, have been infrequent and small-scale enough for the state to successfully ignore. A poll last fall by the independent Levada Center showed that half of those surveyed thought Russia should send its military operations to Syria.

The Kremlin fears, perhaps rightly, that it cannot sell a costly military engagement to the Russian people—it wants geopolitical leverage abroad and a patriotic boost at home without any echoes of the doomed Soviet war in Afghanistan or more recent campaigns in Chechnya. At the same time, despite years of caustic rhetoric, Putin and those around him have little appetite for an actual, full-throttle conflict with the United States: Russian officials are comfortable in the pose of ersatz, made-for-television showdowns with the U.S., not the real thing. That is all the more true in the age of the Trump Presidency, when Putin still hopes relations with the United States can be made more productive, or at least not head down the road to a third World War.

In Moscow, one gets the sense that the Kremlin would like the whole story of Deir Ezzor just to disappear. Putin has yet to address the incident publicly, and it has received little attention on state television. Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesperson, claimed that the Kremlin had no information about private Russian mercenaries in Syria. “Let’s be clear: there are a good many of our compatriots in many countries around the world,” he said. Later, when pushed on whether Putin would announce a national period of mourning, Peskov acted flummoxed. “I don’t get why a mourning period needs to be declared,” he said. Meanwhile, the Trump Administration and the U.S. military also seem to have little appetite for chest-thumping, or making the clash into a bigger deal than it already is. Defense Secretary James Mattis has tried to downplay the fact—potentially quite incendiary—that U.S. forces struck Russian fighters, telling reporters he didn’t know whom the U.S. air strikes had hit: “Right now I don't want to say what they were or were not, because I don’t have that kind of information.”

Does that mean the deaths of dozens of Russian fighters as a result of a direct U.S. military attack will quietly fade away, however improbable that may seem? Earlier this week, a person close to private Russian military companies told me that those involved in the ill-fated battle in Deir Ezzor talk of a simmering feeling of betrayal—even if it’s hard to know who is responsible for it. “Some of them say they were betrayed by local Syrian militias who proposed this mission; others think they were betrayed by the Kurds, who asked the Americans to hammer them,” the source said, before moving farther down the list. “As they see it, the Americans can’t really have betrayed them because they are already enemies, anyway. Nor do they blame the Russian defense ministry: these guys know they got into something they shouldn’t have. And, as for the Russian government itself, well, none of them expect much of anything from the state, anyway.”

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/putins-shadow-army-suffers-a-setback-in-syria
 
Salaam

Another update, they seem to be have doing this for some time, what are they up to?

To Push Iran Back, Israel Ramps Up Support for Syrian Rebels, 'Arming 7 Different Groups'

With the Assad regime's advances the civil war and America's reduced involvement in the region, Israel has been forced to make significant changes in its policies in the Golan Heights

The recent tensions along the Israeli-Syrian border have been mainly aerial. But due to developments in the Syrian civil war, real changes are also taking place on the ground in the Golan Heights.

The Assad regime, which has gained the upper hand in the war, is now focusing on aggressively attacking rebel enclaves east of Damascus and in the northern Idlib province. But it is also gradually bolstering its presence in southern Syria, including in the Syrian Golan Heights. And accordingly, Israel is altering its deployment to prepare for what’s to come.

The de-escalation agreement for southern Syria, which the United States, Russia and Jordan signed last November, included a promise to keep Iran and its affiliated Shi’ite militias away from the Israeli border. Israel wanted the Iranians and their agents to be kept almost 60 kilometers from the frontier, east of the Damascus-Daraa road. But it didn’t get its wish; the agreement committed to keep them only 5 kilometers from the front lines between the regime and the rebels.

What this means in practice is that the Iranians are allowed to come to within 20 kilometers of Israel’s border in the central Syrian Golan and within just 5 kilometers in the northern Syrian Golan, which is controlled by Assad’s army. But it’s safe to assume that Hezbollah operatives and even members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards sometimes come right up to the border. The Assad regime has posts overlooking the Israeli border near Quneitra in the northern Golan, and it’s possible that senior Hezbollah operatives and Iranian representatives visit these posts, which are quite close to Israeli territory.

That isn’t the only important development in recent months. About a month ago, the regime retook the enclave of Beit Jin in the northern Golan from Sunni rebels; it’s located less than 15 kilometers from the Israeli border. Israel Defense Forces officers believe that sooner or later, Assad will make an effort to regain control of the rest of the Syrian Golan, in part because of the symbolic importance of sovereignty over the border with Israel. Members of the security cabinet, who toured the Golan with senior IDF officers almost two weeks ago, think the same.

Analyst Elizabeth Tsurkov, who has followed events in Syria closely for the last several years and has interviewed many rebel militiamen and residents of the Syrian Golan, published a detailed survey of developments in southern Syria in the War on the Rocks blog last week. Tsurkov said the scope of Israel’s involvement in southern Syria has changed in recent months in response to the regime’s successes in the civil war and Iran’s consolidation in Syria. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warns about the latter on every possible occasion and has repeatedly said Israel will work to thwart it.

According to foreign media reports, over the past few months Israel has begun carrying out airstrikes against Syrian army facilities and targets linked to Iran and its Shi’ite militias, in addition to its longstanding targeting of convoys carrying arms to Hezbollah. Tsurkov also reported on other developments taking place.

Dozens of rebels who spoke with Tsurkov described a significant change in the amount of aid they receive from Israel. Moreover, she said at least seven Sunni rebel organizations in the Syrian Golan are now getting arms and ammunition from Israel, along with money to buy additional armaments. This change has taken place at a time when America has greatly reduced its involvement in southern Syria. In January, the Trump administration closed the operations center the CIA ran in Amman, the Jordanian capital, which coordinated aid to rebel organizations in southern Syria. As a result, tens of thousands of rebels who received regular economic support from the U.S. have been bereft of this support.

At the same time, Israel has also increased its civilian aid to villages controlled by the rebels, including supplying medicine, food and clothing. Last summer, Israel admitted for the first time that it provides civilian aid to villages in the Syrian Golan, but declined to confirm claims that it also provides military aid. Tsurkov said these Israeli moves are intended to help block the Assad regime’s advance in the Golan and its conquest of rebel-held villages near the Israeli border. Nevertheless, she wrote, there’s an expectations gap between the two sides. The rebels expect unlimited Israeli support, and some are even hoping for help in their efforts to topple the regime. Israel’s plans are much more modest, and are intended as a holding action.

Relatively moderate Sunni rebels, whom the Israeli defense establishment terms “the locals,” control most of the Syrian-Israeli border, aside from two areas – a regime-controlled area in the northern Golan and a section of the southern Golan controlled by a branch of the Islamic State, Jaysh Khalid ibn al-Walid. According to Tsurkov, Israel is also helping the rebels in their war against the Islamic State.

There have been skirmishes between ISIS and other rebel organizations over the last several years, but these battles have produced no significant change in the forces’ deployment. However, rebels told Tsurkov that Israel has recently begun helping them by launching drone strikes and antitank missiles at Islamic State positions during these battles.

https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/syria/with-eye-on-iran-israel-increases-military-support-for-syrian-rebels-1.5826348
 
Salaam

Another update

Negotiations continue between rebels and the Syrian Army, but the bombardment of Ghouta won't stop any time soon

Exclusive: Ghouta will fall. That is the message. And when it falls, Idlib must surely be next. And then the Syrians must decide how to break the US-Kurdish hold on Raqqa

Syria continues to mass its armed forces around the east Ghouta enclave of Damascus, including army units commanded by President Bashar al-Assad’s brother Maher and by Colonel Soheil Hassan, the “Tiger” whose military victories across the country have made him legendary among Assad’s supporters.

Instead of moving by night - the traditional tactic adopted by the army in the war - vast quantities of Syrian armour have been humming along the highways to the capital in broad daylight from Aleppo and Homs in the north, from Deraa in the south, and from the countryside of Damascus itself. The Syrian authorities want them to be seen, to show the Islamist rebels of Ghouta know how their battle will end.

Despite Russia’s veto at the UN on Thursday night, however, negotiations have continued between three rebel groups and the Syrian army - under the direct mediation of the Russians - to establish “humanitarian corridors” and “escape routes” for the tens of thousands of civilians trapped inside Ghouta, the vast area of suburban slums and farmland held by Islamist and other rebel groups since 2013. Almost identical talks took place between Islamists and the government over eastern Aleppo before its fall in December 2016. Bloodshed and negotiations have long been a feature of the Syrian war.

But despite all the West’s rhetoric - and the UN’s constant refrain that the civilians of eastern Ghouta are experiencing “hell on earth” - the massive Syrian and Russian bombardment is going to continue. The Islamist Nusrah faction, the “child” of al-Qaeda of 9/11 infamy, appears to be more reluctant to surrender to the Syrians - even if allowed to leave with its light weapons - than Saudi Arabia’s favourite militia, the Jaish al-Islam, or Qatar’s proxy “Rahman Legion”. There are even suggestions that the Saudi and Qatari supported factions are arguing with each other - even now, inside Ghouta - about the Gulf dispute between the Saudis and Qataris.

There appears to be no such disunity among their enemies. The Presidential Guard is on the edge of Ghouta, and the Syrians have brought their 14th Division (Special Forces) to the suburbs. Maher Assad’s 4th Armoured Division, based in Damascus, is positioned on the perimeter, as is the military’s 7th Division, and troops belonging to units commanded by Colonel “Tiger” Soheil Hassan.

Given the multitude of army regiments around Ghouta, Hassan cannot be the overall commander, a post which remains diplomatically undefined. But the convoys of tanks, armoured vehicles, field guns and trucks pouring in daylight towards Damascus – and enthusiastically captured on film by government photographers – is meant to be seen.

Ghouta will fall. That is the message. From within the Syrian military, there are attempts to explain the ruthlessness of the assault. Thousands of soldiers have been killed in the battles around Ghouta since 2013; vast military “resources” – the word the army uses – have been poured into this battle over the years. Most of the car bomb attacks in Damascus and the constant shelling across the centre of the capital for the past four years have come from Islamist forces in Ghouta, especially from the Douma district. Of course, there are the usual explanations from artillery officers: of “surgical” strikes, of rebels hiding in hospitals and using civilians as “human shields”; but these are words the world has heard before – from the Americans about Mosul and Afghanistan, from the Israelis about Gaza, and the Russians about Chechnya.

And pictures, as usual, speak louder than words. While the footage from eastern Ghouta pointedly fails to show the armed Islamists who are fighting in the enclave, there is no reason to doubt the suffering of the civilians. And some of these civilians, it should be remembered, will inevitably be relatives of the very Syrian soldiers who are planning to storm Ghouta; there were many Syrian military personnel who captured eastern Aleppo in 2016 whose own families also lived there.

But Ghouta is experiencing a different sort of siege, one that has no precedent in size during this war. “Shock and awe” – or shock and terror – is what Syria’s enemies are supposed to experience. The Russian and Syrian air attacks are proof of that. Even if maps look simple on television screens, wars are infinitely more chaotic. Think of the effect of a brick hitting the windscreen of a car, of the dozens of fractures across the glass; that is what Syrian military maps look like.

It is now being said that if the first Syrian advance into Ghouta moves against areas controlled by al-Nusrah, it means that the al-Qaeda fighters are being more stubborn in the negotiations than the other two major groups. They will suffer first, along with the civilians of course. This is the inevitable lesson of this terrifying war. The Syrians, along with Iraqi militias and Hezbollah, do indeed have plans for the overrunning of rebel-held Ghouta. And after this demonstration of firepower, how could the Syrians and Russians stop now? If they did, who would believe the message of the next siege? In northwestern Idlib, for example. Or in the towns around it.

And so, when Ghouta falls, Idlib must surely be next. And then the Syrians must decide how to break the US-Kurdish hold on Raqqa – perhaps that is one reason why pro-Syrian forces have now gone to the rescue of the Kurds in the northern province of Afrin, to drive a further wedge between the Turks and the Americans, and force Washington to abandon its Kurdish allies on the Euphrates.

It is painful to remember how these huge landscapes of river and desert and mountainside lived in peace for a century – their societies straitjacketed, of course, and without justice – before the bloodbath. Ghouta receives the waters of five rivers, and the 1912 French edition of Baedeker’s travel handbook to “Syria and Palestine” describes how the tributaries flowing into the sands to the east conferred upon Ghouta the name of “Lakes of the Prairies”. But that was the old Syria.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/syria-civil-war-eastern-ghouta-assad-regime-rebels-talks-artillery-air-strikes-a8224701.html
 

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