Obama’s Syria Plan Teams Up American and Russian Forces by Josh Rogin, Washington Post
The Obama administration’s new proposal to Russia on Syria is more extensive than previously known. It would open the way for deep cooperation between U.S. and Russian military and intelligence agencies and coordinated air attacks by American and Russian planes on Syrian rebels deemed to be terrorists, according to the text of the proposal I obtained.
Secretary of State John F. Kerry plans to discuss the plan with top Russian officials in a visit to Moscow on Thursday. As I first reported last month, the administration is proposing joining with Russia in a ramped-up bombing campaign against Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s Syria branch, which is also known as the Nusrah Front. What hasn’t been previously reported is that the United States is suggesting a new military command-and-control headquarters to coordinate the air campaign that would house U.S. and Russian military officers, intelligence officials and subject-matter experts.
Overall, the proposal would dramatically shift the United States’ Syria policy by directing more American military power against Jabhat al-Nusra, which unlike the Islamic State is focused on fighting the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. While this would expand the U.S. counterterrorism mission in Syria, it would also be a boon for the Assad regime, which could see the forces it is fighting dramatically weakened. The plan also represents a big change in U.S.-Russia policy. It would give Russian President Vladimir Putin something he has long wanted: closer military relations with the United States and a thawing of his international isolation. That’s why the Pentagon was initially opposed to the plan…
Comments
We're seeing the biggest battle in Syria in years over the last 48 hours and there's very, very, very, very..... actually little to no western mainstream coverage.
Ever wonder why?????
BUT WAIT...just in the last moments....
FINALLY something.....
Washington Post
✔ @washingtonpost Rebel supporters in Aleppo created their own no-fly zone by burning tires
http://wapo.st/2aDKTZ6
Charles Lister @Charles_Lister
CIA/MOM anti-#Assad FSA program expanding?
US weaponry in use by Northern Division in S. #Aleppo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mrwAGRVHC4 …
Some of the weapons (M240B & M2HB Browning machine guns) are typically used by CENTCOM's T&E program vs. #ISIS.
The scale of the offensive; the breadth of groups involved; and the gains made in 1 day underline how emotive #Aleppo is as mobilizer.
Today's huge opposition #Aleppo counter-offensive has been planned for weeks & incorporates commanders from #Latakia, #Hama, #Idlib & Aleppo
For Not-Al-Qaeda, having the siege of #Aleppo to break was perfect: it is an objectively just cause, no group can or will refuse cooperation
Hassan Hassan @hxhassan
Aleppo battle has always been a microcosm of the war’s local+international dynamics & balance of power
http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs...-eBWMQ.twitter …
Hassan Hassan @hxhassan
All eyes are now on the Southern Front. Will they back #Aleppo offensive or will they continue to show they're restrained by their backers?
From @FabriceBalanche: quite possible #YPG has drawn on Western support, but has cut an ultimate deal with Assadists
PKK links to #Russia and #Assad are extensive and old. Should have made us wary of working with them; instead we have enabled maximalism.
YPG might have remained neutral…[but] clearly indicated its preference…of cooperating with Russia" (and #Assad).
http://washin.st/2aUf0ud
YPG with #IRGC proxy militia Liwa al-Baqir in Bani Zayd, last rebel outpost captured when #Assad besieged Aleppo.
Abu Saeed Al-Halabi @Saeed__Saeed01
The Aleppo offensive is still in full motion. The battle for al-Ramousa Artillery Base (the last regime stronghold) has just begun.
(Reported 59 minutes ago)
Fighting even at night is ongoing.....
Zayt and Bard Facilities near Al Wudayhi were taken..
Jaish Al-Fateh seized several facilities, inching closer to Wadihi, S. #Aleppo.
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=36....132995&z=14&m …
AhrarAlSham armor going to Sherfeh before clearing it completely. #Aleppo
http://twitter.com/Ahrar_lens/status...com/4Q0j4Xq3xQ
Without CAS 20 plus anti Assad fighting groups decided to on their own break the Aleppo seige using the King and Queen of the ground battle..armor, infantry, and artillery.......
BTW they have repeatedly told the West and especially the US...help us defeat Assad and THEN we will defeat IS.....
The attacks were sudden and took the Assad Regime, Hezbollah and Iranian troops completely by surprise and has now effectively cut the only resupply line into the Regime controlled western part of Aleppo...
Kind of a reverse seige....is now in progress and just a few kms short of actually entering eastern Aleppo.
While the 20 plus combat groups conducted their ground war..civilians including women and children inside Aleppo set tires on fire bascially creating a heavy smoke filled environment hindering air strikes.....showing detailed planning between those attacking to relieve them and the civilians inside eastern Aleppo
Must watch: assault by Jaish Sunnah #JaF casused mass escape from pro-Regime forces, #Aleppo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gspvq2J67GU …
Ahrar al-Sham commander in Shurfa announces beginning of "second phase" of battle to liberate Aleppo
https://youtu.be/dXp6er_3XzE
Drone footage when JaF stormed barrier of Shiite militias in southern #Aleppo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gspvq2J67GU …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=36...95680&z=14&m=b …
THIS is a joint named operation in progress....."Revenge 4 Aleppo".....
Sudden and massive Rebel offensive along an entire 20km front pushing towards Aleppo.....
20 km battle line according to Ahrar al-Sham spox SW #Aleppo from Sabqiyah to al-Hikmah area
https://youtu.be/ji4YRHpHN3Y
US would be wise to keep IS from attacking them as they attack Assad...especially since both IS and Assad work together....
If JFS/ex-Nusra helps break Aleppo's siege while the West twiddles its thumbs it is a propaganda disaster for the US https://twitter.com/marwanhishampen/status/759772486787436544 …
Syrians together with the Syrian moderate anti Assad FSA and even the Syrian home grown jihadists have largely written off the US......does not bode well for the so called Obama fight against IS.....
Jaish al-Fath & FSA launch offensive to break the siege of #Aleppo from the southern side.
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=36.084899&lon=37.104263&z=13&m=b …
FINALLY Obama must stand up and actually do something...anything is better than words and or silence right now......
NINTH hospital hit by Russia and or Assad AF in the last THREE days.....
BREAKINGNEWS
I just got confirmation that the surrogate hospital, @UOSSM moved to from #Anadan - in #Howar - was ALSO bombed minutes ago!!
AND this is not a deliberate series of war crimes..most certainly these strikes are war crimes...
Some say I am bashing this WH all to often but when in the face of genocide that we stated to the world we would never allow to happen again after Ruanda WE are indeed allowing it to happen in front of our faces every single day for over five years and over 500,000 killed.....later up from 70,000 WHEN the Obama WH stated their so called "red line".....
BUT I ain't the only one bashing this WH.....
Gen. John Allen: "The Russians haven't helped us at all in the fight against ISIS." cc: @JohnKerry
Gen. Allen calls out Russia in Syria: "They drop cluster munitions which have created huge numbers of civilian casualties." @ThisWeekABC
The Obama/Rhodes/Kerry WH has repeatedly tried to get the average reader via spin and more spin to believe they are not supporting the Kurdish terro group PKK...BUt in fact they are.
SDF is in fact part and parcel of YPG and YPG is tied to YPJ and the PKK.
Thus the use is training and arming a SDF Kurdish faction tied directly to PKK regadless what this WH states and that should in fact be known to both CENTCOM and the CIA.......
YPG/YPJ leadership in Aleppo: We will not abandon our positions which were liberated with the blood of our martyrs.
YPG/YPJ is now coming under very quiet pressure to abandon their portion of the encirclement of Aleppo from other Kurdish groups....AS it appears they are tied to closely now with Assad and Putin....against Sunni Arab Syrians
THIS is exactly the example of just how closely YPG is tied to the rest of the Kurdish movements.....THUS the US is in fact supporting and arming a Kurdish group fighting now for Assad against the limited supported US proxy FSA....
SDF Spokesman Talal Silo confirms tensions in Aleppo between YPG and Assad troops and warns them not to provoke YPG.
YPG refuse pro Assad troops demand to withdraw from positions inside Beni Zeid which were liberated by YPG. Tensions rising & YPG on alert.
THIS is some of the YPG propaganda that they state daily as their reasons for attacking FSA in Aleppo.....
BUT WAIT they seem to apparently totally forget they have been attacking FSA almost daily with Russian and Assad air strikes and then demand FSA is to not reply?????
Especially in the battle for Beni Zeid.....
Compilation of some of the shelling on civilians areas of Şx Meqsud by Turkish backed Jihadists in recent months.
JUST from today...direct results of the "do nothing stupid" Syrian FP of this Obama/Rhodes/Kerry WH supported by their echo chamber NSC.....
BreakingReports
ALL Syrian rebel groups are preparing the "final battle" for #AleppoUnderSiege.
"Break the siege or die" is the credo.
Just spoke to a person in the area
Confirmed #Russian air strikes on #Rastan,#Talbisah& #market in between.
You think no one lives in these destroyed buildings?
You are wrong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1OlMpv_VRA …
#Waer, hit last night.
Intense #Russian bombing raids on #KafrZita and neighbouring towns in #Hama.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEiBMBoKrmY …
Resistance to the genocide: Rebels destroy #Assad tank in #Hama province with the TOW
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDtFibyVVrY …
Children in #Lataminah, trying to find food, run away as #Russia bombs the fields.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdDzcYQMSoc …
REMEMBER it does not take a genius to realize what the solution is..it just takes moral courage and true leadership based on one's own moral convictions of what is right in order to save human life especially women and children....
Many analysts say Nusra's move won't change much but in connection with Aleppo siege it will be a catalyst as we are now seeing in statements coming from virtually the whole spectrum of the anti Assad forces.
Obama has done something that on one else has been able to do...UNIFY all anti Assad forces under the banner of FSA......Obama and Kerry have now created a large and wide Syrian jihadi force.....
Second and third order of effects when you do nothing....
The West, UNSC and especially the Obama by not doing anything to lift the siege of Aleppo is driving the moderate anti Assad groups straight into the arms of FSA formally JaN......
From a FSA group yesterday......
Nobody responded to the siege of Aleppo. The mujahidin however are ready to give their lives to save those people. This is Jihad.
Read multiple statements of factions praising Nusra's move in leaving AQ. Will a US-RU intervention create an Islamist uprising in Syria?
THIS simply cannot be the true desire of the lack of no Syrian FP and lack of non action by the Obama WH over Aleppo and the sheer destruction of all hospitals in Free Syria ....maybe it actually is and they just do not want us to fully understand that?????
THE current Obama Syrian FP remains me greatly of the great oldie.......
"Sounds of Silence"........has now Obama/Rhodes/Kerry caused the US to lose it "moral leadership" around the question of war crimes and genocide....sadly it has....
WHO is going to anywhere in the world now "truly trust the US".....as the leader of western democratic values???
The last time I checked JaN now FaS is not based anywhere near this Assad targeted location....this was strictly a war crime and nothing more nor less than a war crime....direct result of the do nothing approach to Syria by this WH....
BUT WAIT THREE more are hit yesterday or today by either Assad and or the Russian AF .....
Again: #Putin and #Assad destroyed THREE hospitals in 2 days.
In #Idlib,#Saraqib,#Anadan
REMEMBER......
Admin's Russia policy is rotating around the false hope that they might be able to "work" together in Syria..
TO work now with Putin inherently makes the US complicit in these war crimes...IS that the Obama FP goal...if so he is well on the way to losing his "Nobel Peace Prize".....
EIGTH Syrian hospitals, ONE maternity hospital for 400 babies and ONE blood bank....ALL destroyed by Russian air strikes in one week.
BREAKINGFOOTAGE
The #Jasim hospital got entirely destroyed in a massive air strike.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEMW66vWTOg …
ALL supported by the non actions of the Obama/Rhodes/Kerry WH and their NSC that did not want to "do anything stupid" in Syria....AND thought they had some kind of influence on Putin after so many failed conversations....
BREAKING: Syrian hospital, 10 km away from Israeli border, bombed in regime airstrike
REMEMBER AFTER repeated UNSC warnings and Resolutions not to strike hospitals Assad and Putin just keep on doing it....UNTIL at least the Assad AF is fully and completely grounded THIS will just keep on....AND BTW this clearly now places Putin in full support of war crimes and genocide....
YET not a single action from this WH....just words and historically speaking WORDS have never a single conflict....when blood and iron are hard at work.....
As you can see, several big craters are around the hospital. One bomb hit the 3rd floor of the building itself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2OP87p9_Ck …
The air strike was performed by an #Assad air force MiG-23 fighter jet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5yiJPaFkO4
Unguided free fall bombs on densely inhabited areas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEhKQBSKhFs …
AND that does no fall under the international law definition of a war crime against humanity....THEN nothing does....
Social media open source analysts have done far more to counter Russian/Assad info warfare focused on eastern Ukraine, Syria and NOW even into the US THAN the entire efforts of the Obama WH and 700 personnel of the NSC over the last two years. AND still we see no deliberate attempts by the Obama WH to push back on Russian info warfare when their info warfare is designed to alter and change the minds of an entire civil society.
Anyone at SWJ want to take a shot at just why that is when info warfare is one of the two critical cornerstones of Russian non linear warfare next to cyber warfare which we are now seeing play out in the US.
The work of several leading social media open source analysts drove the nail into the Russian lies on their involvement in the shot down of MH17 down to identifying the Russian unit involved and their personnel.
WHEN at the same time we heard nothing from the entire US Intelligence Community....why is that?
80 percent of all critical intelligence so say it might be as much as 90% when one takes in the power of the internet is in fact open source intelligence...if that is the case THEN why does the Us remain totally silent in calling out Russia on the shot down of 300 passengers on MH17 and the constant use of cluster, incendiary and thermobaric weapons on civilians and their deliberate targeting of civilians, hospitals, schools and marketplaces.....when so much "evidence sits on the net"?????
Let's not even get into the use of starvation and besieging of civilians which is a war crime.
WHY the silence out of this WH????
Yesterday Assad got a taste of the speed of social media open source analysis.....
AFTER getting caught badly yesterday by social media open source analysts "faking" both videos and still photos of so call "cheering eastern Aleppo residents crossing over to the Assad regime controlled western side of Aleppo"....
THEY decided to cut themselves off from the rest of the internet world......
QUOTE
Assad's state news SANA has shuttered itself from US users as well as also from Germany
...waiting for other countries to report the same.....
Their attempts at "faking" reports through their pro trolls and Russian trolls had picked up in the last month or two.....so while it appears they are "winning great victories" they are taking large really large losses....
...especially in AFG and Hezbollah forces and armor....this is leading to far more Iraqi shia militia arriving as backup.... and with the Iraqi's FAR more sectarian atrocities....
BTW right now social media open source analysts have gone back to now available 2014 satellite imagery largely Google Earth and have basically recreated step by step per day the Russian buildup and actual invasion down to the number of armored vehicles that were used in the Russian invasion of eastern Ukraine AND FAR MORE IMPORTANTLY the ongoing Russian cross border artillery attacks that led up to the Russian invasion of eastern Ukraine.
AND posted it on the net....ZERO reaction from the Obama WN and more especially western MSM....WHY is that??
Actually with that confirmed evidence a UN member state could now go to the UNSC under UN Articles and fully charge Russia as an "aggressor state" using the UN Articles to achieve this.....and Obama/Rhodes/Kerry keep looking for leverage on Russia when it is literally in their faces???
Just as they have solid evidence on Russian war crimes and genocide in Syrian BUT fail to leverage it.....WHY??
Abu Hashem Taftanaz, Political head of Liwa Al Haq, says the "regional states and donors" have warned the groups ++ http://twitter.com/Z_sham20/status/7...com/EwJR9HMLIO
From uniting with Jabhat Fateh Al Sham warning them with US airstrikes! He curses them and says essentially go to hell ++||
How is that US Kurdish proxy working out for the US lately.......
Kurdish Forces Bolster #Assad in #Aleppo
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/kurdish-forces-… …
For their assistance in helping Assad encircle eastern Aleppo Assad is going to train 90 YPG at his airborne school....announced today.....
Charles Lister @Charles_Lister
Jabhat al-Nusra’s re-branding has been misunderstood by some observers, who are interpreting the move through a Western-centric CT lens
At its core, Nusra’s re-naming seeks to suggest *to Syrians* that it is organizationally disconnecting from AQ’s *international* brand.
Jolani’s statement declared it'd have "no affiliation to any external body.”
And this was preceded by AQ core justifying exactly this.
Nusra *has* broken these non-Syrian ties, but only now that AQ core has established itself locally w’in #Syria’s revolutionary context.
Those who say Nusra has *not* broken from AQ misunderstand the objective:
It’s not to ‘moderate’ - it’s to localize further in #Syria
As with its previous messaging, Nusra is aiming only to appease/strengthen its standing *locally,* in order to undermine geopolitically
Notice the first two comments...APPARENTLY the Assad AF is not flying at all...all current air strikes including cluster strikes are being flown by the RuAF....alone....
Not a single Mi-8 or Mi-24 dropping barrel bombs, not a single Su-22, MiG-21 or 23 of the Assad air force.
This is the Russian "influence".
Fact
ALL jets, bombing civilians, filmed over #Aleppo over the last week were #RUSSIAN-operated.
Su24/34/35
Evidence
#RUSSIAN Su-35 bomb #Aleppo today.
No chance to shoot them down of course.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZVNWwDSSEg …
Watch & listen!
Area bombardment on civilians areas ("Asean industrial zone") N-W of #Aleppo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjgxFgBoZrg …
Also nearby #Anadan is under suspected #Russian air strikes since one hour.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGxqRTLnpP8 …
Footage
(Probably Russian) air strikes on #Huraytan N-W of #Aleppo city 50 mins ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKSUh0Jl0-0 …
Footage
#ClusterBomb attacks on civilians in #KafrHamra near #Aleppo shortly ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpaSUDKlGFc …
Listen in!
Heavy #Russian air strikes on #Aleppo suburbs frighten children & make them cry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wAqOn72QGo …
Syrian rebels west of #Aleppo try to guard civilians from #Russian jets.
No chance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ism_P7SMMM …
This is a(nother) terrible day for #Syria.
More than 100 air strikes since midnight from Daraya over Homs to Aleppo.
Footage
Russian air strikes on #KafrNaha west of #Aleppo now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SNRKVBVZYM …
WarCrimes
Besieged #Homs province this morning.
Numerous air strikes on civilians.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29Xui1n4A2o …
Faces of sorrow.
#Child victims of #Russia's terrorist night time air strikes on #Talbisah, 9 hours ago
Talbisah this morning.
Children got killed and wounded in heavy #Assad regime artillery shelling.
Russia's killers are circling over #AleppoUnderSiege now, looking for new targets.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwptA7q1OHQ …
The Russian air force targeted several cities west of #Aleppo during the last hours.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndJnKytchjc …
Wow..what makes the Obama/Rhodes/Kerry WH think this...maybe two solid years of Putin lying to the US about eastern Ukraine and now Syria.......
U.S. worries Russian humanitarian operation in Syria may be 'ruse'
http://reut.rs/2awRK6L
Social media analysts have been only saying this for over two years and no response from US MSM nor the WH.....
REMEMBER they took Obama's 2014 statement to heart as their core reporting guideline........
"we will judge Putin by his actions not his words"......
Civilians and fighters from east Aleppo know that surrendering to regime forces might make them subject to silent terror in Assad's jails
Currently over 150,000 Syrian Sunni's are being held in Assad prisons being tortured, raped and "disappeared"......
Does anyone remember 2013 when dozens of regime detainees resurfaced dead in east Aleppo's Queiq river?
"In 2013, dead bodies began floating through the Queiq River in Aleppo. At least 140 of them had gunshot wounds..."
http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/02/08/...syria-torture/
How Assad’s Prisoners Die
By Siobhán O'Grady
February 8, 2016 - 1:03 pm
Quote:
Since civil unrest broke out in Syria in 2011, some 9.5 million people have fled their homes. But tens of thousands of others detained by Syrian government forces didn’t have the chance to run.
More than 500 survivors of those prisons were interviewed in a new report released Monday by United Nations investigators. Almost all were tortured or witnessed torture while in detention, and more than 200 of them saw a fellow prisoner die in jail, often directly at the hands of security forces. According to the report, the treatment of civilians in these prisons amounts to a government policy of extermination — a crime against humanity.
“Based on the same conduct, war crimes have also been committed,” the investigators said in their report, which did not name specific suspects but said the U.N. Security Council should impose sanctions on high-ranking Syrian officials.
Various armed groups, including the Islamic State and al-Nusra Front, have also tortured prisoners in their detention centers. But some of the most damning evidence presented in Monday’s report, which documents atrocities allegedly carried out in government detention centers between March 10, 2011, and Nov. 30, 2015, were the methods of torture used by Syrian security forces.
Children as young as 7 years old were among those who died in state custody. The parents of a 13-year-old boy arrested during a 2011 protest in Sayda next saw his body when it was returned to them dead and mutilated. Prison guards often tortured and killed detainees in front of fellow prison mates.
In 2014, prisoners in Damascus were forced to face a wall while prison guards kicked a cellmate in the head and all over his body. Vomiting blood, he asked the other detainees to tell his family what happened to him. “He died,” a survivor told the independent U.N. researchers. “We closed his eyes, wrapped him in a military blanket, and read the Quran in our hearts.”
A survivor who was detained in Homs recalled watching an elderly man die after prison guards burned his eyes with a cigarette, stabbed him with burning metal, and hung him from his wrists. It took three hours to kill him.
In other instances, the deaths were not so quick. In 2014, a prisoner’s genitals were mutilated and the man, who held in a prison run by the Syrian army’s 4th Division, survived for three days afterwards.
Those who were tortured often developed infections from their wounds, and were left with no medical treatment. One prisoner held in a Syrian Air Force intelligence prison in Aleppo was left in the hallway when guards saw he could no longer stand on an injured leg. It took days for anyone to realize he was dead, and when his family collected his body they could not even recognize him.
According to those interviewed for Monday’s report, the prison conditions were consistent across the country. Cells were jam-packed, often forcing men to take shifts sitting down or standing up. With limited access to toilets, prisoners often had to use the cell to relieve themselves, even if it was already crowded. Lice and scabies were reported as some of the most common infestations.
Many prisoners were underfed to the point of starvation, or given food that was rotten and caused vomiting and diarrhea. A handful of detainees mentioned in Monday’s report died due to pre-existing conditions that guards did not address, including diabetes, asthma, and heart failure.
Prisoner-patients who were allowed access to hospitals knew such medical care would not ensure survival. They were often asked to help wrap dead bodies of detainees who were taken to the hospital too late.
Others succumbed to psychological disorders after being held in torturous conditions or isolation. Survivors reported that many of their fellow detainees stopped eating or drinking, and later died in their cells.
According to the report, there is also reason to believe that many prisoners were extrajudicially killed by security forces. In 2013, dead bodies began floating through the Queiq River in Aleppo. At least 140 of them had gunshot wounds, and their hands were tied behind their backs. Witnesses claimed they originated in government-controlled areas.
Families that attempted to collect death certificates for their loved ones were repeatedly told prisoners had died from heart attacks.
But one father told the investigators he refused to accept a certificate with that description of his son’s death. “It would be like giving them permission to kill him,” he said.
Syria No Russia'n humanitarian corridor in Aleppo's Bustan al-Qaser district
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EF0Cxvc13fM …
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=36.194988&lon=37.146428&z=16&m=b …
Putin propaganda
AND the Obama WH wanted to "trust" Putin ........??
Charles Lister @Charles_Lister
My latest, in @ForeignPolicy:
"The Nusra Front Is Dead & Stronger Than Ever Before”
http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/07/28/the-nusra-front-is-dead-and-stronge……
Kyle W. Orton
@KyleWOrton
Al-Qaeda placed better than ever and still "insufficient appreciation for…Syria’s broader dynamics" from western leaders .....
The White House is as complicit as the criminals in Kremlin & Damascus
http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...-in-syria.html …
WHY does the Obama WH give the Russians a "pass" when they commit war crimes and contribute to Assad's genocide......????
1. the US could not figure out who conducted accurate and precise night time air strikes on hospitals and IDP camps
2. the US could not figure out who was dropping cluster, incendiary and thermobaric munitions on civilians OR if it cluster munitions were being used at all....
3. the US could not figure out who was bombing market places and bakeries....
For those in the Obama/Rhodes/Kerry WH who somehow have yet to figure out that there is a five year long genocide occurring in Syria being driven by Assad and now by Russia......who BTW this WH still wants to work with as they "trust" what Putin has been telling them......
ITV News
✔ @itvnews 'I'm pulling dead children from rubble': British volunteer's insight into besieged Aleppo
http://www.itv.com/news/2016-07-28/british-rescue-worker-describes-havi… …
Reference the split of the AQ proxy in Syria JaN from AQ and it's renaming to JFS.
Voice of America
✔ @VOANews Syrian Rebel Realignment Likely as al-Qaida Leader Blesses Split
http://bit.ly/2ar3KII
Extensively carried on the Syrian thread......five days ago when it appears western MSM knew nothing about it as did not apparently the Obama WH....
Taken from the Syrian thread....
OUTLAW 09
ISIS broke ties with Al Qaeda years ago. In my opinion, the new move will complicate the situation for the rebels & help Nusra. Here's how:
Nusra's move won't make it easier for countries like Qatar & Turkey to support it. No, it'll make it harder for them to support other groups
The US will go ahead to uproot Nusra. It's now easier, not more difficult, to lump like-minded groups with it. Those that cooperate with it.
Before, it was easier to say: Ahrar is Syrian not AQ like Nusra. Now it's about Syria's jihadis, none is foreign (ISIS, Fath al-Sham, Ahrar)
CrowBat response
I disagree here.
Surely, at the first look, it does look that way. Then, hand at heart, whether it's 'Jabhat an-Nusra' or 'Jabhat Fateh ash-Sham', it's a 'wolf in sheepskin' at best.
But, that's not important. Important is the following:
1.) The West has completely abandoned not only the Syrian insurgents, but Syria as a country and a nation, and especially any sort of Syrians in general (especially those wishing to live in a pluralist and peaceful country).
2.) People in the West - in general, but politicians, intel etc. too - actually barely pay attention at the war in Syria. Plus, all think that all Syrian insurgents are 'al-Qaida any way'. So, please: who to hell shall care?
Something like 'transformation of the JAN into the JFS' is just 'nothing special' for majority of people here.
3.) The JFS is now free to complete the take-over of the insurgency in Aleppo and Idlib Governorates. Clearly, this is going to mean that (at least this part of) the revolution is stolen by the worst sort of a mix of local Wahhabists and foreign Jihadists.
But, as said above: who cares? Everybody thinks that's the way this revolution developed right from the start. So, why think anything changed now...?
4.) And finally... Turkey and Qatar can say, 'stupid Westerners: you can't blame them they're al-Qaida; they officially distanced themselves from your enemies; so shut the f..k up.'
And the West will have to shut the f..k up, like it already shut the f..k up about such things like Qatar supporting the JAN, or the regime being supported by at least four major groups considered terrorist organizations in the West (namely the IRGC, Hezbollah, PFLP-GC and the PLA).
BTW this completely checkmates the US...as JaN with it's formal ties to AQ was declared a "terrorist grouping".
BUT behold they split from AQ and formed a new group....BTW neither the older name JaN nor the new name JFS HAVE ever declared the West their enemy nor have they ever attacked the US nor have they killed a single US citizen AND now they have declared war on Assad, Iran and IS.
What more can the US want????
A number of ME SMEs largely ignored in the US MSM and the Obama WH have been predicting this move for months and that the non action by the
Obama WH will in the end drive Syrians straight into the arms of jihadists that are not moderates such as the FSA.
THAT is exactly what happens when there is a FP of "doing nothing stupid"......
Least we forget.......
17 years ago, the same Sergei Shoigu opened a "humanitarian corridor" out of Grozny. It went as well as you'd expect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Grozny_refugee_convoy_shooting …
MSF International
✔ @MSF #Syria “If the attacks on health facilities do not stop, soon there will be no more medical services available in east Aleppo”
AND there are currently an estimated 350,000 inside East Aleppo...
CENTCOM commander Votel calls siege of Aleppo a "human disaster." 350,000 stuck in city under Syrian and Russian bombardments
CURRENTLY 1M besieged Syrians ...besieged by Assad regimes, Hezbollah and Iranian IRGC and Shia militias....
How come, two decades after we promised "never again", we allow a new Srebrenica every six months in Aleppo?
Russia systematically strikes & destroys Aleppo bakeries, markets & hospitals then drop this small amount of food with a flyer saying "surrender".
Even in the face of constant ground fighting and constant Russian/Assad air strikes a highly successful withdrawal of fighters and civilians was conducted......
Assad forces in Bani_Zayd district
NOT A SINGLE civilian of the formerly 10.000+ left to greet the "liberators"...
Russia Offers 'Humanitarian Corridors' Out Of Besieged Aleppo. History Warns Of A Trap
http://www.interpretermag.com/russia...rns-of-a-trap/ …
Syria amb to @UN warns Syrians to leave E Aleppo & entrust lives to gov that's bombed, starved, tortured them for five years.
Currently an estimated 150,000 Syrian Sunni's are in Assad prisons which the UN Ambassador does not talk about does he??????
AND counting Aleppo over 1M Syrians are being besieged and starved to death....nor does he say anything about that?
AND the response from the West......?
The Obama/Rhodes and Kerry WH truly appear to believe they can actually "trust" Putin.....which he has repeatedly shown he cannot be trusted.....
REMEMBER in 2014 this following Obama public statement...
"we will judge Putin on his actions not his words".....?????
REMEMBER when Assad gave an interview and stated he would recapture Aleppo and the West together with Putin indicated he was crazy for saying it...THEN recently the Syrian Russian Ambassador stated Assad is not interested in capturing Aleppo.....???????
Pictures
#Russia dropped some Russian food over #AleppoUnderSiege today.
The operation & closure was LONG-PLANNED.
BUT BOMBS five hospitals and a blood bank and destroys the UN Food Warehouse...that is the Putin Obama/Kerry want to "trust".....
BreakingReport
After dropping leaflets, #Assad soldiers shoot at civilians, trying to leave
Here is one source, I can reveal, saying despite text messages and leaflets, not a single exit for civilians opened.
To be crystal clear:
#Russia signed the CoH on Feb26
#Russia fully ignored it since then
#Russia enabled Assad to besiege Aleppo
Kyle W. Orton @KyleWOrton ·
Syria's rebellion formed a united diplomatic team and largely stuck to the ceasefire. Outcome was the near-extermination of the revolution.
ALL the Obama/Rhodes/Kerry WH did was talk....that is all they have done as well in eastern Ukraine.....
AND when talking did not work...they basically sold out US FP to Putin in both countries......
Should ask Ukrainians about "Humanitarian corridors" Ilovaisk and Debaltseve
Where the Russians overran Debaltseve EVEN after they signed Minsk 2.....
AND this is the Russia Obama/Kerry wants the US to work with??????
We now see just how the Obama/Rhodes/Kerry WH has actually supported the Putin/Assad genocide and war crimes and basically destroyed 70 years of US FP in the ME........and that is really doing something totally "stupid"....
RUS defence minister's "humanitarian operation" / exit from rebel districts in #Aleppo coincides w/#Assad's amnesty. https://twitter.com/ArtWendeley/stat...81023168921601 …
THE last time Russia offered a so call "safe corridor" in eastern Ukraine they slaughtered hundreds of unarmed UAF personnel and took tens of prisoners.....
"HumOp" started this morning
They opened a street in the center.
People have the choice: Flee or die.
And if they leave rebel districts, their fate is more than uncertain.
#Assad has 150.000 in prisons.
Charles Lister @Charles_Lister
Make no mistake, #Russia played key role in closing the siege on #Aleppo.
Now at advantage, it offers a way out that few will take.
Assad's “amnesty” reflects the same strategy: offer a way out, but when 90% rebels refuse, justify “terrorist” label & continued war.
Russia playing it smart in #Syria:
Depopulate #Aleppo, leaving only armed groups - who will not surrender - & then justify future siege.
This Obama/Rhodes/Kerry WH truly do need to revisit their concept of FP..."not to do stupid shit" UNQUOTE...as it is failing badly contributing to the US being openly and clearly complicit in Assad and Putin's genocide and war crimes.....
Awesome, powerful & shocking article by Samer Attar, after 2 weeks in #Aleppo...
The US Govt *must* do more, now.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...583_story.html
A doctor’s plea to President Obama: Please act to save civilians in Syria
Quote:
Samer Attar, a surgeon with Northwestern Medicine in Chicago, is a volunteer with the Syrian American Medical Society and the Aleppo City Medical Council.
“Please don’t cut off my leg,” a Syrian man pleaded. He had been shopping when a missile hit a crowded market. The blast seared off his hair and charred his face. He could not see that his leg was hanging by a thread of flesh and could not be saved. His screams were amplified by the echoes of the dozens just as horrifically injured around him.
I am an American surgeon who recently spent two weeks working in an underground hospital in eastern Aleppo, Syria. I have been there a few times, and each time I go, I descend into lower depths of hell. It’s shocking how the very same inhuman conditions have been allowed to continue for years.
The path to this hell is Castello Road — which was the last remaining road leading into rebel-held Aleppo when I was there. The road smells of burned metal and rotten flesh, and it is littered with charred vehicles. Plumes of smoke scatter the horizon. Gutted homes with pancaked roofs, exposed wires and twisted rebar line the sides. At every moment, you feel you may be hit by a bomb or a rocket.
Inside the city, the screech of jets, the whirring of helicopters, the vibrating blasts of mortar shells and barrel bombs, the incessant ricochet of bullets — these sounds and sensations rarely stop. Civilians still manage to live there. They would rather die at home than live in a tent or drown in a boat, or they are simply too poor, too crippled, too sick or too defiant to leave their homes.
The hospital where I worked has been attacked so many times by airstrikes that it has been driven literally underground — with a ramp leading into the basement. Scalpels are dull, anesthesia is a luxury, sterility is an approximation.
Inside, the scenes are grim.
On July 1, a rocket hit a nearby marketplace. The hospital shook from the blast. The victims were not terrorists or soldiers. They were civilians shopping for the upcoming Eid celebration. Twenty-five people were killed. Dozens more were injured. There were not enough beds, so patients were placed on floors smeared with blood and body parts, with barely a place to step. Dead bodies were piled into the street to make room for incoming wounded.
The screaming never let up. Children covered in blood and dust and pockmarked with shrapnel screamed for their parents and siblings. Some would be reunited whole; others would learn whom they had lost, or which of their children’s limbs were missing or mutilated. Some had the bone shards of disintegrated bystanders embedded in their skin — routine findings after such attacks.
I saw a child, breathing but silent, with severe burns and his intestines protruding from his belly. His skin and hair were burned off. He died a couple of days later. A 5-year-old had just died before him due to respiratory failure — shrapnel from a bomb cut his spinal cord and paralyzed him from the chest down. One surgeon cut open a man’s chest in a last-ditch effort to clamp a bleeding vessel near the heart. It worked temporarily, but the man had lost too much blood, and there was no more blood to give him. Two children would later bleed to death in the operating room for similar reasons. I did an above-knee amputation on a stretcher in a hallway because all the operating rooms were full. Others whose limbs were traumatically amputated in the attack had to sit with tourniquets until an operating room opened. We later learned that a child had been decapitated by the blast.
Such slaughter occurred daily. Here, innocent civilians being blinded, amputated, burned, paralyzed, crushed and mutilated by bombs is the routine. Here, the world has shown little solidarity with innocents being massacred. This was not the work of the Islamic State. The terrorism I saw in Aleppo came from helicopters and jets in the sky.
I asked one nurse if he ever gets scared and how he manages the exhaustion. He replied, “This is Aleppo. We don’t have time to be scared. We are being crushed like bugs daily, and the world has abandoned us. Pretty soon we may be permanently sieged, cut off. But it is our duty to be here, and who will help these people if we leave them?”
A few days after I left, the Castello Road was cut. Russian jets and Syrian government soldiers bomb and shoot anything that moves. Before, passage was a roll of the dice. Now it is a death sentence.
I had to say goodbye to my Syrian friends and colleagues knowing that soon they would be cut off from the outside world, left to suffer and starve. I have no other words to describe the fear, the horror and the urgency of what I witnessed there.
I plead with the Obama administration to act. It must boldly confront Russia to halt the bombardment of Aleppo and Castello Road, the only humanitarian supply line to hundreds of thousands of people in eastern Aleppo. It must pressure and threaten the Syrian government to do the same. It must enforce a no-fly zone, using coalition air power already in place and in force against the Islamic State. All sieges must be lifted in accordance with U.N. Security Council resolutions. The Castello Road must remain open.
Innocent people are dying on all sides in Syria, but it is time to let the Syrian government know that the world will act upon a red line against its disproportionate crimes and atrocities.