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Some Syria Links
Sharmine Narwani on Questions Plague UN Report on Syria with some bits also from this.
There seems to be little news of Syrian army action against the foreign sponsored insurgents but there is lots of action between some foreign Al-Qaeda bandits and the Syrian ones. One wonders how much of this is real. Could this be a spoof to make the Syrian bandits look more "secular"? Al Qaeda in Syria: We Fought FSA Because It Conspired With John McCain Against Us
There is also ongoing fighting between the Kurds and Al-Qaeda groups sponsored by Turkey: Turkey Stands With al-Qaeda Against the Kurds
The U.S. sponsored exiles are worthless: Rebels View Coalition Leadership Outside Syria as Detached From the Suffering
The Washington Post had a piece on "private" financing for Al-Qaeda in Syria. I regard this as propaganda that gives some plausible deniability to Saudi Arabia and Qatar who are state financing the terrorists and at the same time gives an argument to the "we must finance the good 'secular' terrorists to give them the edge" lunatics in the Senate. Private donations give edge to Islamists in Syria, officials say
On the CW stuff Syria is sticking to its words U.S. official: Syrian CW list more complete than anticipated
Please add other news on Syria in the comments.
Commenter ‘Crest’ #11 claimed: “Losses to government forces have slowed sharply in 2013.” We don’t have actual knowledge of whether that’s true or not, because the Syrian army is not releasing figures, but still I’m going to argue that Crest is wrong about that. Furthermore and worse, the army in 2013 has been picking its fights selectively and limitedly, and as a result it has allowed much larger areas of the country to be under uncontested rebel control today compared to a year ago. The areas under rebel control in September 2013 that were not under rebel control in October 2012 include: large tracts of Aleppo city and Aleppo province, Raqqa city and Raqqa province, and Deir Ezzor city and Deir Ezzor province, and some parts of Deraa province. (In case I’d be misunderstood, the turn of phrase “rebel control” means the absence of government-enforced elementary law and order, which, as has been said many times, is not the same thing as true control or governance by rebels). The situation in Idlib province is as out-of-control now as a year ago, on the whole. In most towns in Idlib, the army has not even tried to restore security. The army has a number of fortified bases in Idlib province, and also in all the other provinces I just mentioned, but the soldiers have been staying at base, in general. Defenders have less casualties than attackers (as ‘b’ said a while ago). So, if it were the truth that the army had been having less casualties in 2013, this could be attributed to the army’s decision to stay mostly in defensive positions.
In some places, eastern Damascus (Ghouta) is a well-known example, the situation can be said to be worse today because the rebels have been in basically uncontested control there for a year, with civilians still living there, a circumstance which increases recruits for the rebels.
Meanwhile, in the places where the government has picked its contests and gone in with infantry, the outcome has been, in general (with rare exceptions): no genuine army victory, no return of elementary security, no return of civilians, and — yes — high army casualties. Those places include northwestern and southwestern Damascus, Homs city, northwestern Homs province, and some parts of Deraa province.
Anyway, here’s the summary of why I don’t believe the army’s casualties have been lower in 2013. We know the exact daily losses every day up until 25 Jun 2012, which was the day the army decided to stop releasing information about its losses. (For the army’s monthly casualty numbers through the end of April 2012, see ref. The army’s daily losses went up sharply in June 2012, as the rebels became better armed at that point). Subtracting those early known losses from today’s total figure of “more than 15,000”, and knowing that the rebels have been at least as well or better armed in 2013 than in the second half of 2012, and knowing that the army’s defensive tack has been in place for about 12 months now, and knowing the overall broad picture of what fighting has been happening in each month since 25 Jun 2012, it is clear to me that army losses must be running at more than 20 soldiers a day in 2013.
As I see the war, the army has not yet found a successful way to fight and kill rebels. In the few places where the army declared a victory this year (Al-Quseir was the most visible), the rebels decided to withdraw and were able to escape the army’s cordon and they lived to fight another day. Repeating what I’ve said on this board before, the army must figure out how to establish effective cordons, then tighten the cordons, then tighten the cordons more, then open fire will large caliber weapons. The army has not successfully conducted even one major cordon operation during the last two years of fighting. The army has used large-caliber artillery and airplanes at various places to keep the rebels from establishing control in those places, but the army has not followed this with infantry to establish army control in those places — and in most such places the army hasn’t even tried to. The army has major advantages in weaponry and human coordination potential which it is not leveraging well.
Posted by: Parviziyi | Sep 24 2013 11:16 utc | 22
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