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Syria – The New South Aleppo Campaign
Yesterday the Syrian Arab Army supported by Iraqi and Iranian forces and the Russian air force launched a surprise attack to the south and east of Aleppo. Progress at the beginning was rapid but resistance has by now grown and the current progress is at a slower and more sustainable pace. As the front lines are constantly moving the the news about actual positions vary.
An excellent map of the ongoing operation via TexMapMaker1. (Again with green=insurgents, red=Syrian government and allied forces)
big version
There are three important axis. The first one (the upper left marked 1 and 2 in the map) towards the besieged cities Nubl and Al-Zahra developed when earlier this week foreign paid insurgents lost some of their positions north-east of Aleppo in fighting with the Islamic State. The SAA took the opportunity of that fighting in the area to extend its position towards the besieged cities. Extending that position to relief the cities would also cut off the supply line of the insurgents within the northern parts of Aleppo city.
Towards the east SAA troops are fighting to relief the besieged military airport of Kuweiris (on the right of the map). Coming from the south they bypassed the direct west to east road that connects Aleppo city with Kuweiris but is under insurgent control. They made decent progress and might reach the airport tomorrow or the day after.
The main surprise attack yesterday and today was southward from Aleppo city. The troops progressed some six miles south before turning right towards the west and the M5 highway (in dark yellow on the left). They will try to reach the insurgency held highway or at least the controlling range of hills directly east of it.
This operation came as a surprise for the insurgents. Operational security was obviously tight. Several hundred Iran supported fighters from Iraq under Quds force commander Suleiman were transferred overnight from Latakia to Aleppo to support the south Aleppo attack.
There has also been news of some additional 3,000 Hizbullah fighters coming in which would bring up the number of fighters on the Syrian government side from Iran, Iraq and Lebanon to 10,000 total. The Pentagon is estimating the number of Russian soldiers in Syria at 3,000, much higher than the 1,250 I am aware of.
Some months ago I estimated the Syrian army would need a division sized (15,000 men) outside support to again gain ground. The current influx of foreign government allies has nearly reached that mark. Should the rumored about new armored brigade run by Hizbullah join the current forces a sustained large attack towards Idleb and then towards the Turkish border could be sustainable. That would close the main supply lines of the insurgency and would likely be the beginning of its end.
But that attack has not started yet. Instead we are seeing several smaller operation around Rastan where Russian helicopters help (video) to slice and dice an insurgent bubble, in Latakia, in the Ghab plain and now in Aleppo. We must keep in mind that the whole campaign is now influenced by Russian operational thinking. Maskirovska, the feinting here and there before hitting somewhere else, is part of every bigger Russian military operation. What we currently know about the disposition of Syrian government and allied forces is mostly what someone wants us to know. It might or might not reflect the real dispositions and plans. Expect to see more surprises.
@B
I’ve been coming here on/off, since you began MOA. Usually, from my POV from where I’ve lived at any particular time (California/SF area and New Mexico for 10 years) when something happened that I thought could be pivotal. Russian actions in Syria is one of these times.
My experience here, from the “Georgian crisis” about 6 years ago, to much of what U.S. has done in and since Iraq, is more then any other source I’ve found, you do 2 things exceptionally well:
1) “Sniff out” major lies (especially fed to U.S. public via media and Federal government), but even more: provide excellent, verifiable information/data/links to back up what you say. This takes your statements out of the realm of “opinion”, of which there have been so many on critical issues in direct contradiction (basically opinions expressing what some “interest” wants, but has no justification for), to verifiable fact.
2) Intelligently build on (point 1), quite reliably extrapolating true motives and from that consequences… which have also proven to be remarkably prescient. More so then any other source I’m aware of.
So, as others I see this last week have expressed, I just want to “tip my hat” and acknowledge your unique contribution here. In the near (how time flies, and how much of it has been wasted) 15 years since “blogging” has taken hold, many good ones have come and gone. MOA is one of the few still standing, but even more: still doing the excellent service it began years ago.
So again, big thanks. There’s huge opportunity for people of good conscience, able to correct “perceptions” often created by dishonest sources, here. Huge value created. Excellent!
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Observations: I have no idea how things will play out, but there are big shifts seemingly occurring internationally (U.S. and Europe especially), since Putin “stepped in” to Syria. This is observable in many “slices”. Reading comments, especially on articles written expressing U.S. & British government “criticisms” of Putin’s actions, comments everywhere are overwhelmingly both supportive of Russian action and simultaneously (and many years late) expressive of U.S. policy/action fecklessness. I see this on our major media (NYT, WP, CNN, even WSJ) but also on BBC, GUARDIAN and several others. Even more striking, I see this response to articles on all these sites authored by long standing “experts” and “talking heads” regurgitating “echo chamber” talking points, for many years, relied upon by a large portion of readerships. Amazingly, I’m even seeing this on FOX’s website now… something I’ve never seen there since GWB was first elected.
A common theme in all these comments: they simply do not believe statements by leaders (especially US & British) anymore.
It’s also very interesting so see, considerable acknowledgment and respect for PUTIN across the board, despite best efforts of our leaders to demonize him with attempts at decades old “Cold War” rhetoric. I’m very cautiously optimistic U.S.’s utterly blind and myopically destructive leadership beginning wih Bush’s Iraq “liberation”, fueled by (bluntly) lies masquerading as “out interests”, have “cried wolf” (finally) one too many times.
There is significant moral substantiation underlying both Putin’s actions and well expressed motives for Syria intervention, and a lot of people outside of Russia, long “bullied” by rhetoric he’s “dangerous”, seem to be recognizing this.
Hmmm…
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Fort Russ has a partial transcript from the 7th Russia Calling! Investment Forum organised by VTB Capital on October 13. It’s chocked full of many (IMO) very well thought out, intelligent and poignant “nuggets”:
Now, we often hear that our pilots are bombing the wrong targets, not ISIS. First of all, we briefed US leadership in advance, although the United States has never done this. We were the first to do this out of respect and a desire to establish a working relationship. Now they tell us, “No, first, we are not ready to cooperate with you, and second, you are bombing the wrong targets.” We said at the military level, appealed and asked, “Give us the targets that you are 100% certain to be terrorists.” The replied, “No, we are not ready to do that.” So then, we thought about it and asked another question: “Then tell us, where shouldn’t we be bombing?” No response there either. So then, what should we be doing? This is no joke, I did not make this up, this is what happened. Just recently, we said to the Americans, “Tell us the facilities we should strike.” There was no response. How can we work jointly then? Do you have an answer? I don’t have one either, yet.
U.S. media could do us and the world a huge favor by broadcasting more of this stuff. Let our people here it from the “horses mouth”, rather then the filtered echo chamber that “translates” stuff like this into some unrecognizable, demonized caricature unrecognizable from the man’s own words. Putin said above (obviously true, but part of U.S. policy’s fundamental continuing myopia) of the inter-connectedness of… everything. True more then ever in history now. So why not give unedited coverage of some of these consequential foreign leaders here, let our people make some of these decisions themselves.
Perhaps this may produce a demand here, that instead of all this wasted time from U.S. leadership only expressing unspoken criticism and danger of Putin’s intervention, an accounting why BO’s admin was entirely unwilling to respond to his requests for U.S. cooperation. . Given what I’ve seen from commenters (as I mentioned @ the beginning), I see signs the time may be “ripe” for Americans to come to grips with some of this stuff.
Posted by: jdmckay | Oct 18 2015 12:15 utc | 45
@45
Interesting you mention that. I just turned 60. My draft # was called, I was prepared to go (utterly ignorant then what was really going on). Nixon did his thing (ended it), and I was told not to report just a couple weeks ahead of my date.
I’ve been learning Vietnamese, am moving there in March… planning to spend rest of my life there. Preparing for this & really getting to know modern VN, it’s been starkly awakening… both how much VN has changed, and how little it’s on the international “radar”. In news of SE Asia, VN is little more then an afterthought. Among other things, I’m more and more aware how many of those my age had their entire lives “colored” by the war. Even more now, however… how VN’s “maturity” since then is a reality to only a few US Vets.
Agent Orange’s footprint is still affecting health. Debilitating birth defects are still occurring, both where we stored the stuff and by people living in areas where runoff from where we dropped it infects water supplies. Vietnam has made huge progress economically, but still a poor country. They’ve made some progress on this, particularly in medical treatment, but the residue remains largely “not cleaned up”… an ongoing U.S. legacy we seem to replicate everywhere (including U.S. shores BTW).
With Syria in mind, brought to mind this Truthout OpEd several years ago:
For the past 51 years, the Vietnamese people have been attempting to address this legacy of war by trying to get the United States and the chemical companies to accept responsibility for this ongoing nightmare. An unsuccessful legal action by Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange against the chemical companies in US federal court, begun in 2004, has nonetheless spawned a movement to hold the United States accountable for using such dangerous chemicals on civilian populations. The movement has resulted in pending legislation HR 2634 hot spots, lawsuit to compensate them, as the unintended victims, for their Agent-Orange-related illnesses. But the Vietnamese continue to suffer from these violations with almost no recognition, as do the offspring of Agent-Orange-exposed US veterans and Vietnamese-Americans.
What is the difference between super powers like the United States violating the laws of war with impunity and the reports of killing of Syrian civilians by both sides in the current civil war? Does the United States have any credibility to demand governments and non-state actors end the killings of civilians, when through wars and drones and its refusal to acknowledge responsibility for the use of Agent Orange, the United States has and is engaging in the very conduct it publicly deplores?
I’m acutely aware of this, because part of what I’m going to be doing there is (improving) agriculture related. VN Universities and government are just beginning to “come of age” in understanding, planning and translating this to (a still primitive) growing sector. I’ll also point out, a large contigent of US Vets, well organized, make annual trips there and substantial contributions to this effort. It’s a wonderful thing to see them side by side with the Vietnamese they fought (literally), having become very good friends working together on this.
As long as we’re talking about this, I’ll point out we did the same thing in Iraq with depleted Uranium (with photos if people can stomach them):
The United States may be finished dropping bombs on Iraq, but Iraqi bodies will be dealing with the consequences for generations to come in the form of birth defects, mysterious illnesses and skyrocketing cancer rates.
Al Jazeera’s Dahr Jamail reports that contamination from U.S. weapons, particularly Depleted Uranium (DU) munitions, has led to an Iraqi health crisis of epic proportions. “[C]hildren being born with two heads, children born with only one eye, multiple tumours, disfiguring facial and body deformities, and complex nervous system problems,” are just some of the congenital birth defects being linked to military-related pollution.
In certain Iraqi cities, the health consequences are significantly worse than those seen in the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Japan at the end of WWII.
A decent summary also in this video @ RT. Among other things, they note DOD “denies” any connection between DU and these obvious health consequences. “Mission accomplished” indeed.
One more thing about this, as it directly ties to the non-discriminating consequences of our endless quest for more and more weapons development. I live in Albuquerque New Mexico. Los Alamos (home of Manhattan Project) is just a stone’s throw away. Both local economies, 60 years after WWII, are still utterly dependent on the Military, DOD and DOE “industrial complex”. ABQ’s Kirtland Air Force base is US’s largest host of nukes (over 2500 warheads). Sandia Labs continues development, largely classified.
Thing about this: Sandia has refused to acknowledge radio active residue on their “campus”, significant as their “waste” going back pre-50’s was dumped into unlined, open pits. We are just concluding a 10+ year fight to both get DOE and Sandia to acknowledge high level waste (they call this dump: The Mixed Waste Landfill, or MWL) which they deny, let alone excavate it. Our FOIA’ed records of what they put in the MWL show vast amounts of high level waste. It looks like we have (just as of last week) lost this fight: EPA is rubber stamping Sandia’s utter lack of anything at the MWL as “protective of public health”.
Thing is, cancer rates amongst Sandia employees are +/- 18x that of NM average.
The MWL is close to affecting our water supply. A 20 million gallon jet fuel leak from Kirtland already has: now a 1.5 mile long plume of EDB in our aquifer, which the AF is just beginning to address after 20+ years of official denial.
Los Alamos Labs has polluted the local water table significantly with both radioactive and industrial (VOC) waste, and they also have evaded responsibility. Water runoff from Los Alamos affects much of the state, making NM… looking pristine and beautiful on the surface, America’s most radioactive state. Statistics are not kept here, to monitor health affects from Los Alamos.
Worst part IMO: highest earners in these 2 areas work for the Labs and Kirtland, along with vast local businesses doing well in “support services” and very politically connected. Their is no political will to break the $$ addiction, and it’s keeping this area in the dark ages.
This DOE/DOD “pollution industrial complex” is not unique to NM BTW: similar damage well distributed around the US.
Without trying to “beat a dead horse” with this, just making the point as vividly as I can: as in my prior comment above in which Putin (in link I provided) mentions how “every thing is connected”, these mindless and unending military incursions always omit all this “connected” consequences. And they are real as rain. Health consequences (aside from suffering) are huge financial rabbit hole, not too mention all the military spending sucking every last $$ from what we should be doing on U.S. shores. With that said, one more example here: the uranium mined for the “Manhattan project” largely done on Navajo land in NM’s west. The custodianship of that mining’s waste was literally nonexistent, and the uranium “tailings” stored behind crude dirt dams broke loose and devastated Navajo water and health… on a level not unlike Iraq and Vietnam’s Agent Orange. Best known “event” was ChurchRock: never addressed, never cleaned up, and the health consequences still being felt today.
This is all the more “galling” (to put it mildly), because DOD/DOE is quietly close to getting budgeting for “refurbishment” of several hundred of U.S. B-61 nukes, now (after linked article budget has grown) up to $400b. This is a “make work” project for the labs and Kirtland: NOBODY in the know thinks we need these things. As part of this “refurbishment” budgeting, a new round of uranium mining in Navajo’s AQUIFER. They are promising “clean” mining below NAVAJO drinking water, but there is no history in the U.S. of mining Uranium in groundwater that does not leave that groundwater badly contaminated.
So anyway, this senseless wars are having huge consequences, lasting for generations, beyond just the gruesome suffering we see only on the battlefield.
Posted by: jdmckay | Oct 18 2015 16:31 utc | 55
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