And the latest long-simmering hotspot to flare up overnight is (spins wheel) SYRIA!
Who had their chips on Syria?
The Syria civil war has more or less been frozen for the last, what, two years? That’s not the case anymore, as the anti-Assad forces just launched as massive attack that has Assad’s forces on their heels.
All those green flags are anti-Assad attacks. More from JihadWatch.
Syrian Islamist rebels appear to have made stunning territorial advances against the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad on Friday, re-entering the city of Aleppo for the first time in eight years amid the apparent collapse of government defenses in the area.
Unconfirmed videos on social media suggest that rebel fighters from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and other groups captured parts of western Aleppo, which was Syria’s most populous city prior to the country’s ongoing civil war, which broke out in 2011.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) emerged as an al-Qaeda splinter faction, although it now rejects affiliation with the terror group. The United States designated HTS as a foreign terrorist organization in 2018.
The offensive marks the rebels’ most significant advance, following years of stalemate in northwest Syria, with Turkish-backed rebels and HTS holding a narrow strip of territory around the provinces of Idlib and Afrin.
Turkey and Russia signed a ceasefire in 2020 after agreeing to turn Idlib into a “de-escalation zone” in 2018.
There are supposedly some pro-Assad holdouts in Aleppo.
The interesting thing about Syria is a that it’s a back-burner conflict that ties into all the other conflicts in the region. Iran backs Syria, as well as Hamas and Hezbollah, against Egypt. Syria also backs Hezbollah, both against Israel and to maintain a level of control over neighboring Lebanon. Turkey backs some of the jihadist forces fighting against Syria, while others are backed by, I don’t know, pick a random Sunni dynastic petrostate and you’ve probably got fair odds of being right. Russia also backs Syria, and is also its number one arms supplier.
And what do Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and Russia all have in common? They’ve all been getting heir asses kicked in regional conflicts, either by Israel or by Ukraine, both of which are backed by the United States.
Now must have seemed like the right time to settle Assad’s hash, with his catspaw Hezbollah absolutely wrecked by Israel and Russia too busy with their own conflict(s) to offer much if anything in the way of aid.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) split off from al Qaeda and has evidently ruthless destroyed any al Qaeda fighters it can find, so…yay? They’re still jihadist scumbags, and have split/merged/changed acronyms five or six times since I last looked at the Syrian Civil War.
A Hayat Tahrir al-Sham-led Syria would probably be just as hostile to Israel…but not aligned with Iran.
Half a yay?
Russia responded to the collapse of Assad forces in Aleppo by…buggering out of Hama.
Is the Assad regime about to fall? Maybe, as military collapse can become contagious, but Aleppo is a long way from Damascus. Remember, the Islamic State was racking up victory after victory right up until it wasn’t.
I imagine Assad’s forces will be able to hold the capital, where resistance will stiffen up. Even before then, Homs probably won’t be a cake-walk either, but there’s also speculation that anti-Assad forces will try to take various Syrian post cities, which would put considerable economic pressure on Assad.
Assad looks to be in deep trouble, but he’s slithered out of sticky predicaments before. Odds are he’ll survive this time as well, though no doubt seriously weakened.
Tags: Afrin, al Qaeda, Aleppo, Bashar Assad, Damascus, Hama, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), Homs, Idlib, Iran, Israel, Jihad, Jihad Watch, Military, Russia, Russo-Ukrainian War, Suchomimus, Syria, Turkey, video
“And what do Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and Russia all have in common? They’ve all been getting heir asses kicked in regional conflicts, either by Israel or by Ukraine,..”
The Israeli Air Force has successfully bombed the Russian military base at Hmeimim airport in Syria twice this year.
This may have encouraged Hayat Tahrir al Sham to close the distance to this weakened asset, where their short-range (40 mile) drones can lay siege to Assad loyalists and Russian air crews.
This base is indispensable to the defense of Damascus and is being used to support a counterattack, from which Syrian jets bomb Turkish-backed rebels in the city of Idlib in northern Syria.
If Hmeimim is captured or destroyed, the Assad regime will undoubtedly fall.
1) As always, the Kurds will be the losers because … Turkey
2) HTS is not that big – maybe 10K max.
3) Israel might help make a Druze state to insulate Golan from HTS.
4) Never forget: Every jihadi – no matter how extreme – is piously following #InTheWayOfMohammed.
Growing up in Saudia, I follow this closely.
You are ignoring the ethnic and religious segregation which exists by geographic region in Syria. HTS – a Sunni Arab terrorist organization – just succeeded in a Sunni Arab area. Sunni Arabs are only 30% of Syria’s population.
HTS will have to advance through Christian, Alawite, Kurd, Druze, and Shia areas to drive Assad out. They are 70% of the Syrian population and despise the Sunnis and their Turkish puppet masters with a white hot hatred.
A partition of Syria could happen, but Assad will probably lead one of those partitions.
“HTS will have to advance through Christian, Alawite, Kurd, Druze, and Shia areas to drive Assad out.”
Nope, they only have to extend Turkey’s reach in the Northeast down the coast to the airfield in Hmeimim. Among Assad’s allies, Hezbollah is tied down in Lebanon and Russia is otherwise engaged in Ukraine. As recent events demonstrate, Assad’s Palace Guards flee when HTS approaches.
Iran is sending Shia reinforcements, perhaps 2-300, who are proceeding slowly west to the line of contact. They will likely be intercepted by Israeli air strikes unless the Druze set upon them first.
errata: *Iraq* has sent a Shia contingent…& etc.
“Nope, they only have to extend Turkey’s reach in the Northeast down the coast to the airfield in Hmeimim.”
You might want to get out your demographic map of Syria. To reach Hmeimim, HTS will have to march through rugged mountains occupied by extremely hostile Christians and Alawites. They would still be 300 miles north of Damascus, the real power center.
This conflict is a great example of why America should disengage wherever possible. We don’t know enough and should let them sort it out.
God help the Druze and those who want to be left alone, may they someday have their fill.
“You might want to get out your demographic map of Syria.”
Okay, let’s reference the Encyclopedia Brittanica’s appraisal of the significance of Homs: city, central Syria. The city is situated near the Orontes River at the eastern end of Syria’s only natural gateway from the Mediterranean coast to the interior.
If Homs is no better defended than Aleppo, the situation is about to get desperate for Assad.
So yeah, the Russian naval base and airfield get flanked and turned, cutting off Damascus from its principal benefactor.
You are right about the map, though. HTS will have to extend Turkey’s reach from the North *west*.
“We don’t know enough and should let them sort it out.”
“Them” are Iranians and Russians, who will be only too happy “sorting” out the dead and the dying.
Making four “Protectorates” within Syrian would do a lot to mitigate the conflict: Turkey oversees the area north and west of Homs, Israel gets jurisdiction over the Druze in Syria’s Southeast, the Kurds get protection from USA in the Northeast and Assad & Co. manage the rump state of Damascus with Russian aid.
This arrangement was useful in pacifying post-war Germany. In time, the country may be reunified as was Germany if all parties agree. Admittedly, Iran and Russia come up short here but this simply reflects their present weaknesses, which is what the successful attack on Aleppo signifies.
I spent two tours in Kuwait/Iraq, dealing with the Syrian “influence” on the Sunni tribes, providing Saddam’s legion of evil with shelter, funding, and outright military support.
Observing the effects on Assad’s regime when the people he sheltered turned on him? Oh, the lovely, lovely schadenfreude that provided…
There are decent people in Syria. Well, were… Most of them are either dead or fled. I’m sorry for their fate, but when they made the choice to tolerate the Assad regime back when, they sealed their fate and now Syria is a desert. I am hard put to really give a damn… People who’ve actually paid attention know damn good and well what “Hama Rules” are, and those date back to this Assad’s daddy. He was a bloody-handed killer, and so too is his son. Their departure from the vale of tears they created is to be acclaimed and appreciated; whatever Syria turns into in the future will almost certainly be better.
Most Americans have no idea how many of their sons and daughters died in Iraq because of Syrian support of the “insurgents” that were actually former regime members. Just like they’ve no damn idea at all how many died thanks to the Iranians… The fact that Trump finally put Soleimani down like a mad dog is something I’ll forever appreciate, no matter what they manage to pin on him otherwise. No other US leader before or since would have touched that asshole or brought him to justice.
I really don’t think the world is going to like the next four years. Trump isn’t going to have the typical “lame duck” second administration; it’s far more likely that he’s going to be disrupting a lot of the bullshit that’s been going on since WWII, and a lot of the “status quo” types are going to hate what comes…
This conflict? No idea what’s going to happen, but the de facto cooperation between the Democrats and the Russians is over. Russia only did what it did in Eastern Europe and the Middle East because they were allowed to interfere in the name of “stability”, and they proved to be more destabilizing than anything else. What you see in Syria today is the result of feckless Clinton/Obama interference in Syrian affairs, and that’s about to come to a screeching halt. For good or ill…
I look forward to the investigations and tribunals; most of the State Department deserves to be prosecuted for malfeasance and corruption in office. We’d do a lot better to shut it down and replace the majority of their personnel with randomly selected Rotary Club members from the Midwest. At least those parties would most likely act in the American interest most of the time…
“Their departure from the vale of tears they created is to be acclaimed and appreciated;..”
You may bet the 3.5 million displaced Syrians in Turkey are not well appreciated by Erdogan. The Greeks are equally unhappy about vast numbers of Lebanese-based Syrians getting shipped to their islands by opportunistic smugglers. Their Immigration Minister held talks last month with 5-6 European countries who are eager to see Syrians voluntarily return to their native land.
You have membership in a very small appreciation club. Most of the world wants Syrians to be repatriated.
We’d have done better to have performed a “hot pursuit” of “former regime” forces into Syria and then wiped them all out during the opening phases of OIF. What you’re seeing in Turkey today with regards to the refugees is precisely what Turkey earned for itself when it chose to block the northern flank of the US invasion.
Too bad, too sad, f*ck Turkey and the Turks. The Iraqi situation was a mess largely because we were forced to do everything from the south, through Kuwait. Had we done what we planned and wanted, then the regime forces wouldn’t have been squeezed like toothpaste out of the tube into Syria, and that whole situation wouldn’t have developed as it did. Can’t say it would have been better, but the idea had been to place the northern forces in such a way that they blocked the escape of Iraqi elements out of Iraq. Turkey being Erdogan’s bitch there at the time, they refused to allow that at the last minute, after all the planning and permissions had been in place already.
So, boo-hoo for Erdogan and his legions of admirers. Screwing your ally over has a price.
The Assad family and their clan of Alawites has been a blight on the world since the day they took over in Syria. Their abuses, going back to the beginning of their reign, were what triggered all the chaos during the early Obama era, and that was what Obama and Clinton took advantage of. Yes, it was idiotic, but… That was whose fault? Yeah; the absolute cretinous dumbf*cks that elected and empowered those two dolts in the first place. Everything the American soldier in Iraq fought for and died for, they pissed away during their utter mismanagement of the “Arab Spring” opportunity. When it was over, instead of the recasting of the Arab world that Bush II was trying to set up, we got even more despotism and death… While the pair of them, Obama and Clinton, crowed atop the resultant heaps of bodies about their achievements.
Today’s world has its roots in what successive Democratic administrations deliberately created, starting with Carter. Carter sanctimoniously converted a stable US ally into a violent, vicious theocracy that’s been a thorn in our side ever since. Bill Clinton, as opposed to his immaculately incompetent wife Peter-Principled into the State Department, managed to piss away the Sudanese handing us bin Laden, and a general increase in unrest and terrorism across the Middle East. Obama took all that, turned up the dial, and we have what we have today in large respect due to stupidities like supporting the European project to oust Khadafy. How’s that working out for you, Europe…?
None of these people should have ever been put in charge of anything. I doubt they could run a daycare, without managing to create a situation where half the toddlers turned on the other half and then wiped them out some morning…
“What you’re seeing in Turkey today with regards to the refugees is precisely what Turkey earned for itself when it chose to block the northern flank of the US invasion.”
There are one million displaced Syrians in Lebanon. They should not be made to suffer for Erdogan’s treachery.
Malthus… What, precisely, do you think should happen? Those Syrians stood by while the Assad family turned Syria into a totalitarian personality cult, and did nothing while other Syrians were massacred. In fact, the Assad crew kept a whole bunch of Syrians alive by keeping a boot on the neck of other Syrians, and killing them, instead.
You really ought to inform yourself about the history of that “nation”: It’s ugly and tragic, and almost entirely self-inflicted. Nobody did to Syria what the Syrians did to themselves; it’s all on them, now that it’s fallen apart.
Ever heard of “Hama Rules”? That’s a reference to what Daddy Assad did to Hama, back in the day, which was surround it with troops and bomb the place into rubble. Why’d he do that? Oh, a little thing called the Muslim Brotherhood, who decided one fine day to revolt, back in 1982. Didn’t work out well, for them or the citizens of Hama: Casualties are still unknown, but range between 7,000 and 40,000 for the civilians alone.
That’s the Syria those “refugees” made for themselves; I’d say that they’re less objects of pity and a lot more “cancer cells doing metastasis”. They’re anything but victims; they made the beds they’re laying in and allowing them to spread their poisonous culture any further is rank and errant stupidity.
Syria was always an ally of Saddam’s; the Ba’aath Party was once a two-nation affair, and has been running both Syria and Iraq into the ground since the end of WWII and colonialism. The results are before you; take note. The people are essentially f*cked in the head, to be blunt, and they’re incapable of self-reform. Most of those “refugees” were blithely killing each other in Syria, supporting the regime, and happily aiding the slaughter in Iraq while also supporting worldwide Arab Islamic terrorism. They had no problem lining up for freebies from the Soviets, no problem killing Jews when the opportunity arose, and now that they’ve so thoroughly fouled their own nest, they ought to be forced to clean it all up on their own. Assad didn’t get into power because “accident”, the people of Syria chose his father’s ass, and him.
You need to learn the lesson that pity and sympathy were embraced and turned into weapons by your enemies decades ago; your good intentions are turned against you, enabling your own destruction at the hands of the people behind all this crap, who do not mean you well. Feel sorrow that this all has happened, but do not allow that “feelz” to cloud your eyes or judgment: Syria is a shithole, pestilential disaster not because someone waved a magic wand and made it one, but because it’s filled with those Syrians you feel so sorry for. They’re the authors of their own disaster, no one else.
“Malthus… What, precisely, do you think should happen?”
See above: Syria is partitioned and outside parties given control of the situation until such time as the civil war ends. This is realpolitik, not starry-eyed idealism.
“Syria is partitioned and outside parties given control of the situation until such time as the civil war ends. This is realpolitik, not starry-eyed idealism.”
It’s nice that you want to do nice things for assholes, but who the f*ck are you to put anyone else’s lives on the line to actually, y’know… Make this shit happen?
Frankly, you want to “take control of the situation”? Go do it yourself, thankyouverymuch. I’ve lost good friends and a bunch of men I trained and worked hard with, on the premise that the cause we sacrificed for was worthwhile, only to have some smarmy wannabe dogooder git like yourself commit all of us to essentially futile efforts on behalf of people who’d done nothing worth a single American life, and whose contributions to the world did nothing to benefit or even be vaguely neutral to the American interest.
Afghanistan/Pakistan should have been turned into an international range area, for weapons testing. Not a single life expended there from 2001 forward was worth what we or anyone else got out of it. Same thing should have happened with Iraq; both nations should have just been written off, and turned into live-fire weapons-testing areas. The locals didn’t want us there, preferred their grabtastic brutal overlords, and did nothing to secure their own safety or freedom once we showed up, with very few exceptions.
So, f*ck them, and f*ck all the bleeding-heart jackasses here in the West who thought it a good idea to send their soldiers there to “fix” things. It’s not fixable; it is the way it is because the people who live there are primitive shitheads that want it that way, and you’re not fixing that. Period.
I’d also like to point out that it’s the height of feckless immorality to even advocate for the involvement of “others” in these situations. You want someone to go risk their lives on behalf of people that aren’t even their fellow citizens? French Foreign Legion has recruiting offices all over Metropolitan France; go have a taste of what it’s really like for yourself.
As Bismark said about the Balkans, the whole place isn’t worth a single set of bones from a Pomeranian Grenadier.
The Iraqi parliament voted yesterday to allow Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ Al Sudani to deploy the Iraqi military into Syria. Tens of thousands of Iraqi Army troops will enter the Deir Ez-Zor region of Syria tomorrow morning.
They will immediately come into conflict with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), supported by the US-led Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF–OIR) forces. SDF launched an offensive on pro-Assad forces in this eastern region on December 3rd.
“[T]roops will enter the Deir Ez-Zor region of Syria tomorrow morning.”
This area was once a Roman outpost. More recently, Wagner mercenaries were intercepted here by a welcoming committee consisting of A-10 Warthogs. If any mercenaries survived the encounter, I’ve yet to hear about it.
The Warthog still patrols these skies and engaged an Iranian detachment that endeavored to relieve the beleaguered Assad regime. Many jihadi got their 72 virgins as a result.