Hillary Clinton is making pointless propaganda:
A shipment of attack helicopters is "on the way from Russia to Syria, which will escalate the conflict quite dramatically," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Tuesday, heightening pressure on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's staunchest international backer.
Russia denies this and even the Pentagon disagrees with Clinton:
Pentagon sources suggested that Mrs. Clinton, in her remarks at a Brookings Institution event, was referring to a Russian-made attack helicopter that Syria already owns but has not yet deployed to crack down on opposition forces. While these helicopters, known as Mi-24s, are flown by Syrian pilots, Russia supplies spare parts and provides maintenance for them.
The Syrian army already has some 70 attack helicopters but has so far hardly used them.
But that will now change. The rebels are getting serious anti-tank weapons:
The fierce government assaults from the air are partly a response to improved tactics and weaponry among the opposition forces, which have recently received more powerful antitank missiles from Turkey, with the financial support of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, according to members of the Syrian National Council, the main opposition group in exile, and other activists.
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Speaking in Istanbul, council members also described efforts to supply the opposition with arms, specifically antitank weaponry delivered by Turkish Army vehicles to the Syrian border, where it was then transferred to smugglers who took it into Syria.
The use of tanks in clearing cities and villages from rebels is difficult and costly as the rebels now have serious anti-armour stuff. The Syrian army will therefore have to use other weapons, artillery and helicopters, to clear rebel positions.
Two weeks ago I wrote It Is Getting Urgent For Assad To Act:
The right time for a full onslaught on the armed opposition may come the very next days.
Waiting too long with a decisive move will only let the problem of armed rebels fester and would, in the end, likely cost much more blood on all sides of the conflict.
It seems that the Syrian government is now following that advice and taking back the initiative:
As the Assad regime’s Syrian, Arab and Western enemies prepare to usher in a new stage in the bloody confrontation, the Syrian authorities have been mulling over their own plans for a comprehensive military showdown. The aim this time will not just be to prevent the creation of armed opposition concentrations or enclaves, but to “destroy all armed groups, irrespective of their nature or identity.”
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In addition to pursuing the goal of clearing Homs and its hinterland of armed opposition enclaves and cells, action is being taken against concentrations of opposition fighters elsewhere, especially bases and training sites near the Turkish, Iraqi and Jordanian borders. The Syrian army appears to have embarked on a campaign described as “extremely harsh.” aimed at “exterminating entire groups” of rebels.
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Russia is not expected to stand in the way of the Syrian authorities as they embark on actions that could be of different order to what we have seen so far.
There are even rumors that Russia is preparing some of its own troops for an eventual deployment to Syria.
If the reports by the official Syrian news agency SANA are correct the new operations against the rebels already has some success but at relatively high costs.
Some UN people said that Syria is now in a civil war suggesting a somewhat even balance between the parties. I think that is hugely exaggerated. Western media claimed that the revolt in Syria was by all parts of the Syrian population and only now changes into a sectarian conflict. That is simply wrong. The fighting was from the very beginning sectarian with the rebels naming each Friday after this or that Sunni hero. These foreign supported, and partly foreign led, Sunni rebel groups will have huge difficulties to survive a real onslaught by the united Syrian army.
As long as Russia stands strongly behind the Syrian government, and there is no sign that the support will change, no foreign intervention will come to their help. There is simply no appetite for that. Today's bombing in Iraq with nearly a hundred people killed is a reminder of how "intervention" in such conflicts doesn't help at all.