If anyone wants Syria maps, I’ve got loads on hand.
– How the Syrian picture looks overall. This Map shows SAA control (red), FSA/IF control (Green) and ISIS control (Black) of the country. As you can see the South is almost cleared. The green rebel pocket above Damascus, on the Lebanon border, is the Qalamoun mountain range, where a few thousand rebel fighters retreated to after leaving Damascus. There is a large offensive planned there, centering on the city of Yabrud. Homs province looks almost fully secured with the exception of Rastan town and few villages around it. Aleppo/Idleb is where the rebels are strongest but luckily the fighting with ISIS is dividing them.
– In Aleppo city if anyone wants to see the progress made in the last 6 months, they only need to compare this Map from June 2013 with this Map from November.
– Homs City has somehow remained unchanged for the last 6 months. This map shows how bad the rebels are doing in the city. In short completely surrounded in the centre of the city but the SAA has been moving slowly due to not wanting to cause damage and deaths amoung the civilians trapped in the city centre.

Posted by: Colm O’ Toole | Feb 5 2014 21:10 utc | 3

Posted by: Colm O’ Toole | Feb 5, 2014 4:10:52 PM | 3
Thanks for the maps. The tale they tell is reinforced, somewhat, by the deluge of hokum gushing out of the BBC. According to the Beeb’s reptiles, Assad’s crimes and sexual perversions against ‘his own people’ are similar to those of which Gaddafi was accused by the same reptiles; and equally counter-intuitive, false and infantile. This is panic-stricken desperation writ large. If the Beeb had a sense of the history of sexual perversions and atrocities, they’d remember what’s been going on in Exclusive Upper Crust UK schools, since Time Immemorial, and what the ‘graduates’ did to the natives in countries they were subjugating and plundering.
A question for the BBC’s reptiles…
“How many half-caste Indians were there on the sub-continent 30 years after the East India Company’s Public School Perverts and Rapists arrived?”
C’mon reptiles. Don’t be coy…

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Feb 6 2014 0:11 utc | 5

Clinton added, “If we can prove that a biological attack originated in a country that attacked us, then all bets are off.”
Posted by: ProPeace | Feb 5, 2014 4:19:03 PM | 4
Here’s a bet that’s nor going to be off any time soon…
I bet the Yankees won’t even dream about military intervention in a pissy little country (like Syria) with friends like Russia and China, ever again. They’ve invested so many lies and so much wishful thinking on their Superpower and Impunity myths that they can’t afford to have them slam-dunked (within 24 hours).

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Feb 6 2014 0:41 utc | 7

Colm those maps are certainly interesting and show that the SAA is making some progress. But what they do not show is the effectiveness of guerilla operations behind the “front” lines shown on maps.
I recall from my youth looking at lines on maps the US was winning the war in Vietnam in 1967. Turns out those lines were not fabrications but simply did not reflect the reality on the ground, especially on the ground behind the lines.
I realize that Vietnam is not a good comparison since the US never won the ‘hearts and minds’ of the Vietnamese people. But it does look bad for the SAA if they cannot destroy rebel fixed positions inside Syria. In 1967 the US had no problem destroying any fixed position the Vietcong tried to set up. In those terms the US “won” the great Tet offensive since we completely destroyed every position the Vietcong captured. The Tet offensive was a victory for the Vietcong because it undermined the will of the American people to continue to support the war.

Posted by: ToivoS | Feb 6 2014 1:13 utc | 9

Colm those maps are certainly interesting and show that the SAA is making some progress. But what they do not show is the effectiveness of guerilla operations behind the “front” lines shown on maps.
Posted by: ToivoS | Feb 5, 2014 8:13:05 PM | 9
Surely you jest?
The Syrian ‘guerillas’ are just as cowardly and fake as their sponsors.
Only REAL guerillas (in the classic sense of opposing military might by carrying out high-risk raids behind enemy lines) embark on such missions. These “guerillas” are there to terrorise civilians and AVOID confrontations with the SAA. In case you haven’t noticed, they’re so cowardly that they would prefer to kill other (greenhorn, incompetent) “guerillas” like themselves than risk their sorry asses in skirmishes with the SAA.
There won’t be any maps of “guerilla successes” behind the frontlines because the number of such “successes” could be counted on the fingers of one hand … since the beginning of the Fake Civil War.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Feb 6 2014 1:41 utc | 11

@ Toivos

I recall from my youth looking at lines on maps the US was winning the war in Vietnam in 1967. Turns out those lines were not fabrications but simply did not reflect the reality on the ground, especially on the ground behind the lines.

That is very true. If the Syrian rebels had studied North Vietnamese guerrilla warfare they would have won already. The fact is they haven’t been following guerrilla tactics from what I can see, instead choosing to engage in pitched battles, something which will always favor the Syrian army. In the 2012 Damascus offensive alone 5,000 rebels marched on the capital in convoys.
It’s like they viewed themselves more as an invading army than a guerilla force that should hide amoung the people. Another thing you don’t hear much reports of is IED’s and roadside bombs. That is a perfect guerrilla weapon since it allows them to “hit and run” especially on supply lines. I haven’t read a single article about Syrian army troubles with IED’s something that should be basic for these rebels after the experience of Iraq.
Things like winning the hearts of the people, and maintaining order amoung the various factions also seems to have collapsed or not even been attempted. They are certainly an unconventional force, but I honestly haven’t seen much clues that they practice guerrilla warfare.

Posted by: Colm O’ Toole | Feb 6 2014 2:56 utc | 13

Thanks for the maps, it is hard to follow progress. One thing that isn’t apparent from the maps and allows for quite a lot of misrepresentation is the terrain. It’s an obvious statement really, but large areas of Syria are desert or otherwise worthless. So the large black swathe of ISIS “controlled” territory may in fact represent nothing more than control of a couple of cities, a highway and a border crossing. But the presentation of the map suggests they actually ‘hold’ a quarter of the country. One solid defeat in Raqqa and the whole ISIS front may collapse.
There are plenty of historical precedents for this throughout Syria’s history. Look at the lightning collapse of the Byzantine Empire in Syria against little more than Arab raiders. It only took one or two key cities to fall for the entire façade to collapse. Obviously this is what the NATO forces expected to occur in Syria, but the truth is the terrorists / mercenaries position in Syria is much weaker than the rebels were in Vietnam or Algeria because they do not have underlying popular support in Syria. This means they can’t rely on the ‘country’ and need to hold actual towns and cities, which in turn puts them out in the open and vulnerable to conventional armed forces. That the Syrian Army hasn’t simply vaporised their positions (which it probably could do quite easily) is understandable, given the negative propaganda effect that action would have in the Western media, and because of the massive damage it would do to Syria’s infrastructure. I’m sure the Syrian’s are quite confident now that the slow and steady grinding down of the terrorist forces is sufficient.

Posted by: Pauly | Feb 6 2014 5:05 utc | 15

what is it about the media esp the brits that make them so impervious to the facts: that syrians support their army….
here a british journo(you can tell by the accent!) questions a local who thanks the SAA for their help and when the rattled and increduloua british journo asks :But look at your city! …says : this is the work of the ‘rebels’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Pj_CT51DbM
this shows in a nutshell the problem: the foreign(ff’N)media is fixed on one story: that SAA is destroying syria…not the insurgency…syrians know better

Posted by: brian | Feb 6 2014 8:44 utc | 17

When countries go to war, the outcome usually depends on the amount of loss one side can inflict on the other, when one side decides it cannot sustain those losses, it sues for peace, in the Syrian situation, Syria is being destroyed by terrorists from around the world, paid for by Saudi Arabia, who have not had so much as 1 pain of glass broken, yes it has cost them money, but since they have just bought 60 billion dollars worth of US arms [to rot away in the desert] money is no object [they have so much of it they have to put it on microdots]. Until the Saudis perverts start to feel some heat and those costs are more evenly distributed between the antagonists, the Saudis will continue bankrolling the conflict.

Posted by: harrylaw | Feb 6 2014 11:29 utc | 19

The armed gangs in Syria can only dream of ever taking power in the country. Their main objective, directed by their handlers in Istanbul, Riyadh, Doha, Dubai, London, Paris, Berlin, Washington, Tel Aviv etc etc, is the infrastructural destruction of Syria..
We’ve seen many time how these “freedom fighters” attack factories, hospitals, schools etc etc – Basically the same things NATO(US) attacks anytime they attack a country. Things that make life a little easier for the local population is deliberately destroyed and blamed on the “evil Assad”.
After weeks, months, years of “Assad must go”, nobody takes them seriously anymore..Their only hope now if for the opposition(whatever they are), be given some role(whatever role) in government in some sort of power-sharing deal (Geneva 2.0). Even that, is looking more and more like a pipe dream…
How the mighty have fallen…

Posted by: Zico | Feb 6 2014 12:23 utc | 21

The sad thing is Assad was willing to make reforms. These he agreed to early on in the conflict. When the press asked Western leaders like SecState Hillary or English Foreign Minister Hague what they thought about these offers from Assad they publicly scoffed and derided them. When powerful world leaders like these make such public rejections they influence what people on the ground do. So, those Syrians committed to an armed deposition of Assad had their hand strengthened enormously by this and those Syrians willing to compromise and give the government a chance to reform and avoid more violence were undermined.
Posted by: J. Bradley | Feb 6, 2014 12:35:18 AM | 16
With due respect, and as I explained to HnH, a few threads ago, that is simply wrong.
You’re doing exactly what HnH was trying to do … concocting a narrative which supports the narrative of the Western scum that the Syrian “uprising” was largely driven by disgruntled Syrian nationals. The only real difference between your claim and HnH’s is that you’re making the fictional Syrian “revolutionaries” seem as stupid and gullible as “Israelis” or Yankees.
Just to re-iterate: the West’s role was to have foreign mercenaries in place BEFORE the “uprising” began in order to create the ILLUSION of local support for the fake rebellion.
All this creative trolling is becoming boring – no matter how cleverly it’s presented. Obama, Bandar and BBC’s “rebels” have lost and Assad is well on the way to an ultimate if not speedy victory.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Feb 6 2014 17:37 utc | 23

http://angryarab.net/2014/02/06/kerrys-plan/
“The talks will be crowned with a historic agreement at the end of the mentioned timetable as was the case in Olso, in which a final end to the historical conflict between the two sides is declared, along with full normalization with all Arab countries in a festive meeting attended by the Arab League and all Arab states where an Israeli acceptance of the formation of the Palestinian state within the borders mentioned in the aforementioned article 4 is declared, according to the consensus agreement that the two sides will reach at the end of the negotiations in return for a similar Palestinian recognition of Israel as a state for the Jewish people.
An agreement will be reached at the end of the negotiations to permit some Palestinian families to undertake family reunion in West Bank and Gaza, while others will be awarded the right to compensation or immigration, where Arab states especially Gulf states with a Palestinian presence will open their doors to facilitate that and to rehabilitate them or naturalize them with a plea to a number of Gulf states like Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, and Qatar to fund the fund of “the right of return” for that.”

Posted by: Mina | Feb 6 2014 18:22 utc | 25

Whoops. Here it is.

Posted by: J. Bradley | Feb 6 2014 19:23 utc | 27

Posted by: J. Bradley | Feb 6, 2014 2:21:02 PM | 26
see #28.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Feb 7 2014 2:26 utc | 29

Re #30: First, it would be nice to see some independent confirmation of the assertion that Bandar has been, effectively, sacked. Second, talk about Kerry’s proposals to Abbas is idle because Israel quite simply will not agree to the redivision of Jerusalem. Third, I always feel that Saudi is above all a cut-out for CIA’s deniable support of al-Qaeda. The CIA is well-known for conducting private wars using deniable assets, and I have never believed that Saudi was rebelling against the US; I feel that Saudi has been carrying out the covert role assigned to it by the CIA, of financing and to some extent directing al-Qaeda, while maintaining the fiction that the money was coming from private donors over which they had no control.

Posted by: Rowan Berkeley | Feb 7 2014 21:24 utc | 31

@ 28 29
Maybe you and Hoarsewhisperer are right to criticize me for focusing too much on the diplomatic and political efforts the FUKUS have been making to regime-change Syria at the expense of the more directly subversive activities they have been targeting Syria with. I guess I’ve been hanging out in mainstream media land too much recently.
However I still think it’s a mistake to just dismiss the whole uprising as a foreign plot. There are too many Syrians involved and willing to testify against that assertion for it to be an effective argument. And any authoritarian gov like Syria’s will generate opposition. Syria experienced a violent insurrection in the 80s so unrest there is not unprecedented. The Syrian government sucks and neither you or I would care to live under it. Therefore I cannot categorically dismiss a legitimate desire for freedom and political reform by real Syrians as an American plot.
I really don’t disagree with you guys that much. Only in the fact that I will not completely delegitimize those Syrians who might be sincerely seeking a better form of government. But this does not mean I am any more inclined to send them weapons or intervene on their behalf.
I like to stick to facts and covert activities are hard to pinpoint in terms of facts. I need to go back and start over learning about the activities of the US bloc of countries in regard to Syria. I know the Bush administration began regime-change geared operations and the Obama likely continued them. I read the Hersh article years ago and need to go back and read it again. I know a lot of people consider it very important.

Posted by: J. Bradley | Feb 8 2014 21:29 utc | 33