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March 13, 2017
Open Thread 2017-11
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The developments in eastern Damascus and northern Hama where Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda) and its allies had launched wide-scale operations against government forces clearly showed that the militants and their foreign sponsors were not interested in a peace process in Syria and used the time of the nationwide ceasefire to regroup and resupply its forces and prepare for further operations across Syria.
al-cia-duh … the ksa’s army … will never stop it’s war of attrition in syria until saudi arabia and its allied gcc are themselves made to feel the painful consequences of their endless terrorism, in concert with and ‘under cover as’ the global war of terror of the usa.
Posted by: jfl | Mar 22 2017 23:14 utc | 101
– The US is deploying US troops with howitzers in Syria:
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2017/03/08/us-marines-move-syria-howitzers.html
Posted by: Willy2 | Mar 23 2017 0:28 utc | 102
– Interesting website: Special Operations News
http://www.sof.news/
One of those operations is going on in Helmand province, Afghanistan:
http://www.sof.news/afghanistan/task-force-south-west/
Posted by: Willy2 | Mar 23 2017 0:47 utc | 103
Mrs. Hope Hodge Seck gave an interview to Scott Horton on the topic US military deployments in Syria & Afghanistan:
https://www.libertarianinstitute.org/scotthortonshow/31317-hope-hodge-seck-howitzer-armed-us-marines-syria-preparing-fight-isis
– Stryker vehicles are spotted in Manbij, in (the kurdish controlled part of) Syria.
https://www.funker530.com/us-army-rangers-strykers-syria/
– US marines are setting up artillery in Syria.
– Some 2500 troops of the 82nd airborne division are standing on alert in Kuwayt.
Posted by: Willy2 | Mar 23 2017 1:03 utc | 104
@ Posted by: Peter AU | Mar 22, 2017 8:55:50 PM | 55 – Fool me once thread …
Re Syrian owned operated S-300
Concur. Was reading an account claiming the Syrian AD complexes, S200, and all SAA short/medium range myriad AD systems had been intentionally sought out, targeted and disabled/sabotaged to a significant degree starting in 2012 by the moderate-headchopper ‘Rebels’ … supposedly, the AD crews were majority transferred to SAA combat roles as individual reinforcements given critical manpower shortages … cannot verify the accounts, but this would be reasonable with 2012 to now ineffective Syrian AD, if the RU provided upgrades over the last 12 months or so, that would also align with training/drilling/exercising new crews, perhaps … hence the IAF being, ‘surprised’, speculative …
Posted by: Outraged | Mar 23 2017 1:05 utc | 105
@100 jfl. This troop airdrop in concerning though Al-Masdar speculates when saying this is to prevent the SAA from reaching the riverbank further southwest-even if a corollary. We still dont know whats to happen once the “Torgau” moment comes to pass (SAA/US meets at the Euphrates) but a clear indication will be if “in panic ISIS detonates dam charges while fleeing before US troops”..
Posted by: Lozion | Mar 23 2017 1:24 utc | 106
@ Outraged
Fueling was interesting. I was unsure about that. I had thought maybe the Israeli’s had only penetrated 20/50k into Syrian airspace to to get within range of standoff weapons turning for home on releasing their missiles.
A number of accounts, I think including Syrian government, were saying a direct attack at Palmyra/T4. Not sure how long it takes to fuel S-200’s, but with that the various accounts are starting to fit together.
Re the wreckage in Jordan. http://x-true.info/uploads/posts/2017-03/1489783029_765621212890789801248no.jpg Looks to be wound composite. Not sure if filament winding was around when S-200’s were designed/built. Also from what I can see in pics of the S-200, fins run a fair way along the length of the body, so I am thinking this is the debris or first stage of the Arrow.
Posted by: Peter AU | Mar 23 2017 1:47 utc | 107
@106 lozion
yeah, it’s speculative. southfront speculates the same as well. the idea of a ‘torgau’ moment seems more speculative to me though. any rapprochement between the us forces and the russians seems very unlikely to me. the russians … ok … the us … view the russians – along with all the middle easterners – as the ‘indians’. and the home audience has been primed via frequent two-minute hates for nearly a year now. they’ll be disappointed if ‘our guys’ don’t kick some syrian-russian-iranian ass. at least that’s my guess, from here. it may well be that americans don’t pay any attention to syria at all any longer … if they ever did. just another ‘police action’ in the new american century. the police and military have merged in the us imagination, at home and abroad. kill ’em all, let god sort ’em out later.
Posted by: jfl | Mar 23 2017 2:09 utc | 108
@ Posted by: Peter AU | Mar 22, 2017 9:47:59 PM | 107
The s200 has four solid fuel launch booster rockets that fall away post-launch, but, the second stage is liquid fuel in the main body, a definite disadvantage re readiness …
Given that the integrated AD systems Syria had were shattered shortly after the Civil War began, the country fragmented, control of borders lost, no ‘real’ frontlines, as such, then all detection (radars) would become localized to each individual battery, S200 & myriad of other Short/medium AD systems, most being obsolete & EW/ECM defeatable local to each complex/battery.
That means no advance warning of inbound aggressors at a national or even regional level, further limiting effectiveness re detection, reaction & response time of S200 …
From the photo the diameter appears to exclude S200 body, too large ?, and there is no indication of the fins being sheared away from the body, so probably an Arrow body ? … an S200
Wouldn’t normally look at Wikipedia re this topic, notoriously demonstrably biased re Israel, however, just checked by chance & noticed the following is posted there on the S200 page, for what its worth, re Syria:
Starting with the Russian intervention in the civil war in late 2015, there were new efforts to restore some Syrian S-200 systems, indeed on 15 November 2016, Russian defence minister confirmed that Russian forces repaired Syrian S-200 to operational status.[26] For example, in July 2016, the Syrian Army, with Russian assistance rebuilt a S-200 site at Kweires airport, near Aleppo.[27][28] On September 12, 2016, Israel Defense Forces confirmed that two Syrian S-200 missiles were fired at Israeli attack planes while they were on a mission inside the Syrian airspace. The Syrian Defense Ministry claimed that an Israeli jet and drone were shot down. According to IDF spokesman’s office, the claims are “total lies,” and “at no point was the safety of IDF aircraft compromised.” [29]
On 17 March 17 2017, the Israeli Air Force attacked a number of Syrian armed forces targets near Palmyria in Syria.[30] Israeli Air Force (IAF) send a group of 4 Aircrafts, which flew through Lebanon Territory and in the border village of Bureij, Syria, launched Popeye (missile) (AGM-142 Have Nap) stand off misslies with range of 78 km[31] toward Syrian territory. Syrian Air defence force (SyADF) after some time alerted one S-200V (SA-5) Missile battery and retaliate towards Intruders, 2 Out of 4 attacking jets are illuminated with two Fire Control Radars 5N62, and fired missiles on 2 Targets, which are in that moment in the South Lebanon Territory.[32] During the action a number of Syrian S-200 missiles were fired at the Israeli aircraft.[33] One of the Syrian missiles, going ballistic after losing its target was inbound to a populated area in Israel. The Israeli missile defense fired at least an Arrow missile which intercepted the incoming rocket.[34] Indeed two other S-200 missiles landed in other parts of Israel, having lost their target. Acording to Syrian (SyADF) Claims based on what S-200 Radar opperators seen, Israeli Air Force Lost one aircraft, while other One is Heavily damaged.[35][36] while the Syrian Defense Ministry claimed that an Israeli fighter jet was shot down, which was denied by Israel, Israeli defence minister Avigdor Lieberman threatened to destroy Syrian air defence systems after they fired ground-to-air missiles at Israeli warplanes carrying out strikes.[37] One of Arrow 3 Missiles crashed in Irbid, Jordan.[38] The Jordanian armed forces reported that parts of a missile fell in its territory. There were no casualties in Jordan.[39][40]
Posted by: Outraged | Mar 23 2017 2:34 utc | 109
jfl 98
*i can imagine the us played a strong role in hong kong. but not in tian’anmen square. if you have some actual evidence … let’s have it.*
the evidence has been available for at least two decades and i’ve posted dozens of them here already.
Whats the point of posting them again if you still choose to believe in bbc./state dept version ?
Posted by: denk | Mar 23 2017 2:40 utc | 110
I’m not much into the histrionicly charged nostalgia that has developed since the inevitable has reached the boomer & pre-boomer generation but some people transcend generational fads & marketing. Chuck Berry is an excellent example of such a human; a man who refused to be enslaved, stuck under contract, or otherwise exploited.
CP has an amazing Chuck Berry link but since Counterpunch is considered so reprehensible by some MoA-ites, here is the link from socially aware & caring googlecorp
Posted by: Debsisdead | Mar 23 2017 3:48 utc | 111
@108 Some twitter chatter that the dam may already be liberated so things are going fast. Otherwise, I’m sure you’ve noticed how the anti Assad rethoric has toned down since inauguration from both State and WH? All indicates the Pentagon is running the show now with Russo/US cooperation in the Manbij area post chief of staffs meeting in Turkey a possible example of things to come for Raqqah. One can hope..
Posted by: Lozion | Mar 23 2017 4:26 utc | 112
JFL 98
Authoritarian … I received a shock when I went to China. Much less government rules and regs in their everyday lives than what we have here in Australia. The part of Guangzhou where I stayed, away from the international scene, the few police I saw did not carry guns like the police here in Australia. The other thing that stood out in the areas that I went to was the sheer number of very small family businesses. working for nobody but themselves. Counterfeit money was an issue. I got caught there.
Until a couple of years ago, I had only heard the US version of Tiananmen. In the last couple of years, I have run onto a couple of articles on the Chinese version.
Out of curiosity because of our exchange, a run an image search on both yandex and google (duckduckgo). There are several images of separate individuals killed or wounded. There is only two image showing a number of people killed at one image of a small number of people killed in one spot. It is taken at what appears to be a pedestrian crossing on a road (I take it the white lines painted on the road mark a pedestrian crossing). There are six dead people there. (another photo shows anther two at the same location)
This scene has been cut, chopped, taken from different angles to make it appear different scenes. http://i.imgur.com/FEkx8XJ.jpg
What did turn up in the image searches was a very large number of burning and burnt out military vehicles. Peaceful protestors did all this?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-04/beijing-residents-survey-the-aftermath-of-the-unrest/5497372
Take a look at the pair of Chinese in the pic on the right.http://i.imgur.com/czJCOd9.jpg
Although the majority may have been just peaceful students wanting US democracy, going by the shear numbers of burnt out APC’s and military vehicles, many – or a large group went ready and prepared for violence.
Posted by: Peter AU | Mar 23 2017 5:49 utc | 114
Tillerson pledges long-term US military role in Iraq and Syria
“The military power of the coalition will remain where this fraudulent caliphate has existed in order to set the conditions for a full recovery from the tyranny of ISIS,” he told an audience that included Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi. He gave no indication of when, if ever, US troops could be withdrawn from a war zone extending across Iraq and Syria, where there has been fighting of greater or lesser intensity throughout the 14 years since the US first invaded Iraq.
Tillerson also called for the establishment of “interim zones of stability” in Syria to which refugees from the US-instigated civil war that has raged throughout that country for the past six years could be forcibly returned. Areas will be deemed “safe” if they have been initially cleared of ISIS, an absurdly low standard given the deadly conflicts which continue to rage between different factions in the Syrian civil war.
Tillerson emphasized that US troops would effectively be engaged in a permanent occupation of neighboring Iraq. Even after ISIS is defeated in Mosul, where hundreds of civilians have been killed by the US-backed offensive on the Iraq’s second-largest city, the US military would remain there, Tillerson insisted.
… not a dime’s worth of difference.
Posted by: jfl | Mar 23 2017 9:06 utc | 115
@114 p au, ‘Although the majority may have been just peaceful students wanting US democracy …’
i think a majority wanted chinese democracy, nothing to do with the usa. i think you’re pushing today’s circumstances back into the past. not worth arguing about from my point of view. neither one of us has the facts. i do believe that more than a half-dozen chinese were slaughtered by the peoples’ revolutionary army.
Posted by: jfl | Mar 23 2017 9:09 utc | 116
@114 p au
i do have three articles, one by William Hinton, Tiananmen Massacre: June 1989; one from wsws.org, Twenty-five years since the Tiananmen Square massacre; and one from Alexander Cockburn, The Meaning of Tiananmen Square … for whatever they’re worth. i like William Hinton. i have a copy of Fanshen, if you’re interested. he was there at ‘tian’anmen’, and has a strong background in revolutionary china, and so i value his words highly.
Posted by: jfl | Mar 23 2017 10:05 utc | 117
How surprised aren’t we that the perpetrator of the Westminster Ter’rist attack was known to the ever-so-vigilant UK “security” services?
Maybe the Brits should TELL their government to stop co-sponsoring Ter’rism and violent extremism, with AmeriKKKa & Israel, all over the world?
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Mar 23 2017 14:19 utc | 118
Israeli Suspect Arrested Over Spate Of Bomb Threats To US Jewish Centres
http://www.mintpressnews.com/israeli-suspect-arrested-over-spate-of-bomb-threats-to-us-jewish-centres/226214/
Posted by: Anonymous | Mar 23 2017 19:22 utc | 119
@ jfl
Read through your links and found a few more.
From what I can make of it, the crowd mobilised on the evening of the 3rd to keep the army out of Beijing. Most of the fighting away from Tiananmen square as the army tried to move into the city in the early hours of the morning.
How did the Violence start? The picture of the burnt military vehicles I found earlier were a military convoy that the soldiers had left to make their way through the crowds on foot. As they started making their way on foot, the crowds burnt the convoy. I believe this happened to several convoys. When did the Shooting start? Other soldiers perhaps hearing about this try and force their way through the crowds in APC’s ect? From what I can make of it, tanks did not come in until much later, around daylight perhaps. Only APC’s and trucks at the start.
This link is interesting. Declassified US documents on Tiananmen.
It is a long page but the link should open up at document 15.
Paragraph 17 of document 15 titled “The Tiananmen Square Spark?”
http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB16/#d15
pdf of scanned document 15 here…
http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB16/docs/doc15.pdf
Posted by: Peter AU | Mar 23 2017 20:55 utc | 120
New WikiLeaks dump: The CIA built Thunderbolt exploit, implants to target Macs – Ars Technica
Lots of other info in the latest dump, Vault 7 ‘Dark Matter’, such as Apple Iphones being hacked by CIA/NSA/etc starting in 2008.
Posted by: Outraged | Mar 23 2017 21:18 utc | 121
Ukie’s have a great show going on now. 140,000? tons of ammo at an ammo dump on fire. Been burning for hours now and still great fireworks.
https://twitter.com/Conflicts/status/845014053688893440
Ammo dump here http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=49.482178&lon=36.883335&z=14&m=b
And some pics at this site of the storage facilities at the dump.
http://fish12a.livejournal.com/1873580.html
Posted by: Peter AU | Mar 24 2017 0:12 utc | 122
finally got around to ‘writing my congressman’ …
Dear Blake Farenthold, John Cornyn, Ted Cruz, and Donald Trump,
I write because Rand Paul has introduced S. 532, a Senate version of H.R. 608: Stop Arming Terrorists Act, to insist that you pass it.
We the people are amazed and chagrined that a bill must be introduced into ‘our’ congress in order to stop you all from continuously arming terrorists – al Qaeda in Syria, for instance – but that is what’s required and I, of course, demand that you all give it your strong support in your respective ‘bodies’.
The bill wisely requires you all to stop supporting countries – selling arms to countries – which support terrorism as well, such as Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and others among the GCC who are funding and arming al Qaeda and ISIS in Syria and elsewhere – Yemen! – in the Middle East and North Africa.
I actually have very little hope that any of you will do the right thing. I expect that you all will continue to support terrorism around the world, wherever it seems to be of benefit to the Trans-National Corporations who pull your strings.
Yet I think it is important that you know you are fooling no one with your posturing, that all of us can see through all of you.
We the people know who are the authors of the precipitant decline of our nation since the dawn of the New American Century in 2000.
I do hope that at some point the weight of your crimes together with the pain and suffering you all are causing all of us will stir us finally to take back our government and to shoulder the burden of cleaning up the mess you all have made.
Sincerely,
John Francis Lee
… expect it to bear no fruit in terms of the legislation, but if i have to listen to their narrative drummed through the tnc msm everyday i want them to know that its like water off this duck’s back … and off most of our backs, i hope.
Posted by: jfl | Mar 24 2017 5:33 utc | 123
Well, if this report is accurate then things DC are likely going to ‘pop’ sometime soon.
47-cia-hard-drives-600-million-pages-info-among-whistleblower-contents
Posted by: x | Mar 24 2017 11:20 utc | 124
Posted by: jfl | Mar 24, 2017 1:33:01 AM | 123
As usual, Jfl confuses verbosity with communication.
You could and should have written…
Dear Blake Farenthold, John Cornyn, Ted Cruz, and Donald Trump,
I write because Rand Paul has introduced S. 532, a Senate version of H.R. 608: Stop Arming Terrorists Act, to insist that you pass it.
Sincerely,
John Francis Lee
Then you could have APPENDED all the other self-indulgence you wanted to get off your chest as a list BELOW your signature.
You’re a notional Boss, not some helpless, whining victim…
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Mar 25 2017 15:07 utc | 125