Syrian Civil War: News #2

The progress is extremely slow. Not even 1% as fast as Allied progress in WW2. Either the Syrian army is crappy or the Syrian people don't even care about liberating their own country

ultron wrote:The progress is extremely slow. Not even 1% as fast as Allied progress in WW2. Either the Syrian army is crappy or the Syrian people don't even care about liberating their own country

They don't have enough man power. It's been clear for quite some time. You have to understand their army have been fighting for almost 5 years.

ultron wrote:The progress is extremely slow. Not even 1% as fast as Allied progress in WW2. Either the Syrian army is crappy or the Syrian people don't even care about liberating their own country

Its not really... legit to compare WW2 and this war, situations are way different. Compare this to war in Yugoslavia for an example.

ultron wrote:The progress is extremely slow. Not even 1% as fast as Allied progress in WW2. Either the Syrian army is crappy or the Syrian people don't even care about liberating their own country

W... What kind of comparison is that!?

Seems like Syrian Mi25s were first time spotted using 9M17 Fleyta ATGMs.

Kimppis wrote:

ultron wrote:The progress is extremely slow. Not even 1% as fast as Allied progress in WW2. Either the Syrian army is crappy or the Syrian people don't even care about liberating their own country

W... What kind of comparison is that!?

It means, at this rate, Syrian army would still not be able to take Salma 3 years from now just like they were not able to take Salma the past 3 years.

ultron wrote:

Kimppis wrote:

ultron wrote:The progress is extremely slow. Not even 1% as fast as Allied progress in WW2. Either the Syrian army is crappy or the Syrian people don't even care about liberating their own country

W... What kind of comparison is that!?

It means, at this rate, Syrian army would still not be able to take Salma 3 years from now just like they were not able to take Salma the past 3 years.

French/British (and rest of the Allies) troops on Western front during WW1 did not move their positions on grand scale for basically 3 years either, still they won the war at the end. I know it got nothing to do with Syria but i am just following your logic here.

Militarov wrote:

ultron wrote:

Kimppis wrote:

ultron wrote:The progress is extremely slow. Not even 1% as fast as Allied progress in WW2. Either the Syrian army is crappy or the Syrian people don't even care about liberating their own country

W... What kind of comparison is that!?

It means, at this rate, Syrian army would still not be able to take Salma 3 years from now just like they were not able to take Salma the past 3 years.

French/British (and rest of the Allies) troops on Western front during WW1 did not move their positions on grand scale for basically 3 years either, still they won the war at the end. I know it got nothing to do with Syria but i am just following your logic here.

Allies liberated thousands of towns, even ones in Germany, after 2 years of offensive. It's already nearly a month of offensive in Syria, and not a single town has been liberated.

"The unidentified drone shot down by Turkish patrol planes in mid-October may have been operated by the Syrian Army or Kurdish forces, the Turkish Prime Minister said Monday. On October 16 a drone breached Turkish airspace and was downed after it did not respond to three identification requests from the local forces. The accident triggered massive speculation over which side the stray UAV came from, as several groups are participating in the civil war in Syria.

All the Russian planes and drones participating in the anti-ISIL operation safely returned to their Syrian base on that day. Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said that the drone could have been manufactured in Russia, but it belonged to the Assad forces, Kurdish troops or maybe another side."

"Could have been produced in Russia" - cant ready cyrilic boys?

Source: http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20151019/1028745592/turkey-shoots-down-drone-davutoglu.html#ixzz3p18s21th

sheytanelkebir wrote:that's because this music / singing is a "kawli" style of music... "kawli" is gypsy. Its the most popular type of music / singing / dancing amongst the "hoi poloi" lower classes in Iraq. Middle / upper classes look down upon this type of art naturally

Something similar is in Balkans , turbo-folk or pop-folk in fmr. Yugoslavia , manele in Romania , Chalgi in Bulgaria , in Greece in Albania etc. Although folk based music is listened by every layer of society , not strictly for lower classes.

Walther von Oldenburg wrote:What is Shia stance towards music BTW?

Sunnism is extremely hostile towards most forms of art... painting is banned (except calligraphy), sculping is banned, dancing is banned, musical instruments are banned (except a type of small drum allowed during certain religious festivals - and not all clerics allow even that).

In Sunni videos you never hear anything except boring singing without instruments - all in the same vocal style. Red Army Choir beats their "nasheeds" by orders of magnitude.

Most of Sunni majority countries would be considered "kafir" if the art and music part is taken as an argument , i can tell that Muslims of Balkans and Turkey are generally very musical people.

sheytanelkebir wrote:

zg18 wrote:

KoTeMoRe wrote:Shiite Gipsy music is a welcome relief to the Allahu Akbaars the "moderates" yell.

LOL Hell , indeed reminds of Gypsy music

Muharem "Aga" Serbezovski should definitely sing some of this.

that's because this music / singing is a "kawli" style of music... "kawli" is gypsy. Its the most popular type of music / singing / dancing amongst the "hoi poloi" lower classes in Iraq. Middle / upper classes look down upon this type of art naturally

Interesting, some Old Egyptians in Albania call them "kawli", which was sliced up in albanian as "gabel", well zg18 said it as it, we're Old world you're bound to find so many details among people.

Kimppis wrote:

ultron wrote:The progress is extremely slow. Not even 1% as fast as Allied progress in WW2. Either the Syrian army is crappy or the Syrian people don't even care about liberating their own country

W... What kind of comparison is that!?

It's a troll running his mouth, no big deal.

zg18 wrote:

sheytanelkebir wrote:that's because this music / singing is a "kawli" style of music... "kawli" is gypsy. Its the most popular type of music / singing / dancing amongst the "hoi poloi" lower classes in Iraq. Middle / upper classes look down upon this type of art naturally

Something similar is in Balkans , turbo-folk or pop-folk in fmr. Yugoslavia , manele in Romania , Chalgi in Bulgaria , in Greece in Albania etc. Although folk based music is listened by every layer of society , not strictly for lower classes.

Walther von Oldenburg wrote:What is Shia stance towards music BTW?

Sunnism is extremely hostile towards most forms of art... painting is banned (except calligraphy), sculping is banned, dancing is banned, musical instruments are banned (except a type of small drum allowed during certain religious festivals - and not all clerics allow even that).

In Sunni videos you never hear anything except boring singing without instruments - all in the same vocal style. Red Army Choir beats their "nasheeds" by orders of magnitude.

Most of Sunni majority countries would be considered "kafir" if the art and music part is taken as an argument , i can tell that Muslims of Balkans and Turkey are generally very musical people.

Yeah but there are those pesky Alevis and Suffis that do the heavy musical lifting. And then you have the Bektashis aka Disco Mafia.

Walther von Oldenburg wrote:Does anyone have info about religious background of Syrian refugees?

its a mix of everything I believe. My wife's cousin works in the UNHCR and sees thousands of them daily now coming into europe... the refugee groups can be split into :

1- syrian families fleeing / ran out of money in turkey (christian, alevi, shia, druze, sunni)
2- syrian youth escaping conscription / death (christian, alevi, shia, druze, sunni)
3- iraqi youth fake refugees "going on a summer adventure and getting blonde girls". since no one in europe will give them a visit visa they decided to just hitch hike their way in, knowing they'll be deported eventually. but they'll have a laugh in the meantime. daddy in baghdad sends them money by western union along their journey so they can have fun and upload their selfies to facebook with a data plan / roaming.
4- afghani / pakistani young men - pretty rough and violent lot. mostly peniless and roughly go along their journey mugging the iraqis and syrians.
5- a lot of dodgy men who are ISIS types... not short of cash but don't want to be filmed or ID'd
6- horn of africa "economic migrants" masquerading as refugees... they tend to be the proper peniless ones.
7- Gypsies from the Balkans "going along for the ride"

Latest news :
1. A bunch of high-ranking rebel commanders killed in battles for Aleppo
2. The highway Damascus-Aleppo is now under control of SAA

Solncepek wrote:Latest news :
1. A bunch of high-ranking rebel commanders killed in battles for Aleppo
2. The highway Damascus-Aleppo is now under control of SAA

well good news... how long you think till SAA managed to seal Turkish border ? ...So no more TOWboys around.

Cleaning in Joubar

Stealthflanker wrote:

Solncepek wrote:Latest news :
1. A bunch of high-ranking rebel commanders killed in battles for Aleppo
2. The highway Damascus-Aleppo is now under control of SAA

well good news... how long you think till SAA managed to seal Turkish border ? ...So no more TOWboys around.

Never going to happen as long as the US arms the Kurds. Kurds have been asking to seal the deal and take Minbij like forever. The US says no and wants them to attack Raqqah. If the Kurds could do their part and cut the JAN/FSA corridor from Turkey, then Syria can have some peace and negotiations with the Kurds.

Solncepek wrote:Latest news :
1. A bunch of high-ranking rebel commanders killed in battles for Aleppo
2. The highway Damascus-Aleppo is now under control of SAA

Both are equally good news.
Once the highway and surrounding area is fully under SAA control we can expect a good flow into Aleppo.

sheytanelkebir wrote:

Walther von Oldenburg wrote:Does anyone have info about religious background of Syrian refugees?

its a mix of everything I believe. My wife's cousin works in the UNHCR and sees thousands of them daily now coming into europe... the refugee groups can be split into :

1- syrian families fleeing / ran out of money in turkey (christian, alevi, shia, druze, sunni)
2- syrian youth escaping conscription / death (christian, alevi, shia, druze, sunni)
3- iraqi youth fake refugees "going on a summer adventure and getting blonde girls". since no one in europe will give them a visit visa they decided to just hitch hike their way in, knowing they'll be deported eventually. but they'll have a laugh in the meantime. daddy in baghdad sends them money by western union along their journey so they can have fun and upload their selfies to facebook with a data plan / roaming.
4- afghani / pakistani young men - pretty rough and violent lot. mostly peniless and roughly go along their journey mugging the iraqis and syrians.
5- a lot of dodgy men who are ISIS types... not short of cash but don't want to be filmed or ID'd
6- horn of africa "economic migrants" masquerading as refugees... they tend to be the proper peniless ones.
7- Gypsies from the Balkans "going along for the ride"

#3 was hilarious

KoTeMoRe wrote:

Stealthflanker wrote:well good news... how long you think till SAA managed to seal Turkish border ? ...So no more TOWboys around.

Never going to happen as long as the US arms the Kurds. Kurds have been asking to seal the deal and take Minbij like forever. The US says no and wants them to attack Raqqah. If the Kurds could do their part and cut the JAN/FSA corridor from Turkey, then Syria can have some peace and negotiations with the Kurds.

SAA for now can avoid that Kurdish area and concentrate on sealing the rest of area along Turkish border.
Heard that Kurdish Peshmerga is to join FSA? US is desperate to pop up the phantom FSA and nothing better than to drag in the Peshmerga into FSA.

Dima wrote:

KoTeMoRe wrote:

Stealthflanker wrote:well good news... how long you think till SAA managed to seal Turkish border ? ...So no more TOWboys around.

Never going to happen as long as the US arms the Kurds. Kurds have been asking to seal the deal and take Minbij like forever. The US says no and wants them to attack Raqqah. If the Kurds could do their part and cut the JAN/FSA corridor from Turkey, then Syria can have some peace and negotiations with the Kurds.

SAA for now can avoid that Kurdish area and concentrate on sealing the rest of area along Turkish border.
Heard that Kurdish Peshmerga is to join FSA? US is desperate to pop up the phantom FSA and nothing better than to drag in the Peshmerga into FSA.

Kurds are political animals. They will play this conflict to gain more "autonomy". "Joining" FSA doesn't preclude them on having peace with "regime". People say it's a way to arm the Kurds, claiming they arm the FSA.
Formerly Seen Alive can't fight ISIS or JAN. Kurds are never going to accept Sunni arab rule, because it would be a "majority" rule. With the other minorities, they can in order to have a counterweight.
And don't forget, the US is changing plan right now. It's better to "share" Syria with Russia than have another Libya Afghanistan Hybrid with Russian military assets in country to boot. They aren't fast learners, but they learn eventually. The trouble is the other idiots.

Cyberspec wrote:We've been criticising the SAA, but Robert Fisk thinks they're tough bastards...


Everyone wrote off the Syrian army. Take another look now
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/with-russias-help-the-syrian-army-is-back-on-its-feet-and-fiercer-than-ever-a6698866.html

Not everyone wrote off SAA...
Btw, Good article and hats off

I don't think any army/military would have survived a 4 year war with the kind of odds that has been stacked against the Syrian military and Govt. Syria have been fighting a lonely bloody battle with mainly Russian diplomatic/logistics help all these years, and with Russia directly putting its might in the ring, Syria as a whole has got a fresh new life and a much better hope for the future.

There is no doubt that almost all of SAA have become battle hardened in the course of this conflict, but what we need to see in parallel is to have the Syrian military getting upgraded/modernized with new equipment and also to keep the causalities to minimum as big battles are just coming up.