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Posted on 10/08/2015 10:05:57 AM PDT by Sam's Army
When Russia started bombing in Syria last week, it said it was targeting ISIS — a claim it's stuck to pretty consistently in the past week. But this map of Russian airstrikes in Syria so far, put together by the Levantine Group, tells a very different story.
The Levantine Group's analysts used a proprietary network of sources, cross-checked with open-source media and information released by the Russian Ministry of Defense, to determine the locations hit by Russian planes. This map shows those strikes overlaid on territory controlled by Bashar al-Assad's regime, by anti-Assad rebels, by ISIS, and by Kurdish forces.
The results are striking — Russian strikes have overwhelmingly targeted rebel-held territory in western Syria rather than the ISIS strongholds in the north and east:
"The Russian air campaign is not geared toward the so-called Islamic State," Michael Horowitz, a Syria analyst at the Levantine Group, told me via email. "Russian airstrikes are focusing on opposition groups controlling northwestern Syria, including the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front, other Islamist groups such Ahrar al-Sham, and 'moderate' groups including the Free Syrian Army (FSA)."
Russia is targeting these rebel groups because they're the main threat to the weakening Assad regime, which lost 16 percent of its remaining territory in Syria in the first half of 2015.
The pattern of these bombings, according to Horowitz, suggests it could be a prelude to an anti-rebel ground campaign.
"The map also shows that the first week of airstrikes was meant to 'soften' opposition targets along the coast as well as inside the rebel-held enclave between Homs and Hama," he writes. "Russia is laying the groundwork for a ground offensive in these areas," likely involving Iranian and/or Hezbollah forces, given the depleted state of Assad's troop reserves.
"The Syrian regime’s most imminent threat comes from the presence of opposition forces near the Alawite heartland along the Syrian coast," Horowitz told me. "Beyond the image often depicted of a bold and assertive Russian operation that outmaneuvered the West, the intervention is meant to counterbalance recent regime losses (particularly in the Idlib province), rather than reclaiming Syria back."
Why Russia is targeting rebels rather than ISIS
From Russia's point of view, focusing on the rebels rather than on ISIS makes perfect sense. Assad's Syria remains one of Russia's few reliable allies outside of the former Soviet republics, a vestige of Moscow's former superpower status and a final military toehold in the Middle East. Russia has an important naval base on Syria's western coast, in Tartus.
"ISIS almost never fought the Assad regime," Glenn Robinson, an associate professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, told me last month. "They were much more focused on fighting other opposition groups and gaining land their opponents had already acquired."
ISIS's growth has arguably helped Assad. His forces have tacitly tolerated ISIS in northeastern Syria while focusing military efforts on the rebels. This was part of what appeared to be a deliberate strategy to encourage extremism in order to discourage foreign intervention against him.
Both Assad and Putin win, in other words, if the West is forced to choose between Assad and ISIS in Syria. Which is part of why Russian airstrikes appear to be targeting ISIS's enemies in Syria — under the pretext of targeting ISIS.
The best thing that could happen for the Syrian people is for Russia to take over their country and run it. The same for Iraq and Afghanistan. And tell Obama and Company to stay out of it.
Russians lying?? Never!!
At least not according to our little Puntinisatas. Russia can do no wrong in their eyes.
Rebels first then ISIS next?
maybe i’m reading it wrong, but it looks like the russians are attacking targets in the green areas ... areas controlled by ‘anti-regime rebels’ (bad guys, right?) good guys in the red area, right?
meanwhile, that map definitely shows ISIS is in control of syria
Let’em bomb away.
So....
Now they are mad that the Russians are not doing what they want them to do...
Pyramid in an uproar, things are way off track and nothing seems to be working anymore...
Good Times...
Love watching the beginnings of the Death Throes...
Delicious...
Thank you, I was too slow on the draw.
Unless you or someone else can tell me why the US should want another ME strongman gone in favor of some unknown ‘rebels’ or Islamists intent on re-instituting their Caliphate, and how this would work out differently than it did in Libya, or Iran, or Egypt, or Iraq, I don’t care who the Russians are bombing. As long as they’re killing muslim extremists with guns.
"a recent investigation conducted by Novaya Gazeta, one of the few independent newspapers left in Russia, complicates this cozy tale of counterterrorist cooperation. Based on extensive fieldwork in one village in the North Caucasus, reporter Elena Milashina has concluded that the “Russian special services have controlled” the flow of jihadists into Syria, where they have lately joined up not only with ISIS but other radical Islamist factions.
In other words, Russian officials are adding to the ranks of terrorists which the Russian government has deemed a collective threat to the security and longevity of its dictatorial ally on the Mediterranean, Bashar al-Assad."
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Understanding Provocation [Provokatsiya]
One of the most powerful tools the Kremlin has in its secret arsenal of Special War is provocation, what they call provokatsiya.
While Moscow cannot claim to have invented this technique, which has existed as long as there have been secret services, there’s no doubt that Russians have perfected the art and taken it to a whole new level of sophistication and deviousness. At times, it can become a strategy all on its own (not always, mind you, with edifying results).
Provokatsiya simply means taking control of your enemies in secret and encouraging them to do things that discredit them and help you. You plant your own agents provocateurs and flip legitimate activists [in this case, dupe actual Jihadis -ETL], turning them to your side.
When you’re dealing with extremists to start with, getting them to do crazy, self-defeating things isn’t often difficult. In some cases, you simply create extremists and terrorists where they don’t exist. This is causing problems in order to solve them, and since the Tsarist period, Russian intelligence has been known to do just that.
While this isn’t a particularly nice technique, it works surprisingly well, particularly if you don’t care about bloody and messy consequences. ..."
http://20committee.com/2014/03/29/understanding-provocation/
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In other words, it's like starting a fire, or pouring gasoline on a fire, in order to be the 'big hero', being first on the scene to put it out. Except in this case, you get to grab control over the buildings and town you helped 'saved' from the fire.
Russia said they would bomb these first then ISIS. It’s posted somewhere here on FR
Vox.com = joke website
I don’t see why bombing these non-ISIS rebel groups is such a bad thing. Does anyone seriously think that these groups actually believe in freedom? After all, they are still Muslims.
It’s not like they are better than Assad, plus I’d suspect a number of the ‘refugees’ have affiliations with these rebel groups. Russia killing these groups = less refugees = less of my tax dollars being wasted on people who want to kill Christians and Jews.
Also worth noting is that the Kurd controlled areas are not being targeted. If there is any group in Syria which isn’t completely worthless and degenerate, it would be the Kurds.
No such thing as US backed rebels...bomb away!
One more thing, tactically and strategically this make sense..
They want to use the ports and airfields for the rest of the forces coming in to use...
So clearing and locking down a perimeter around them as a precursor to a “stone age” rain of crap on the ISIS Rebels...
Truth is post all of this they are too hot to handle and will disappear...
Troublemakers, spouting all that Muslims ruling the world nonsense
Not at ALL what the top has planned, they are just a useful tool at the moment...
Watch and See...
PS - Israel is good for Putin, a place for his Jews to migrate as they are not real popular there as well, I have heard him use Jewish phrases in his speeches, there is more there than people realize...
He is committed and at times ruthless, but step back and sit in his seat ...
You have to kick ass sometimes when folks get a stone in their shoe, not righteous freedom, I wanna be somebody stuff (typical vehicle for CIA Government takeovers BTW)
Much of it is truly a distraction, a delaying tactic, but effectively they have been stalled and they have no plan in place to stay on this course as they had hoped
Sic Semper Tyrannis!
God Bless America!!
Yes, they are ALL Mooslums. Kill ‘em all and let Allah sort them out!
About the author:
Zack Beauchamp
Dictator-for-Life
Zack writes about all of the things that are not American things. He previously edited a section on political thought at ThinkProgress and, before that, contributed to The Dish. It’s pronounced BEE-chum.
You’re reading it correctly, although I wouldn’t call the Assad regime “good guys”.
Russia is probably lying about targeting primarily ISIS, but the people who they are primarily targeting also deserve to die.
Given the source of the claim that ISIS is being ignored (Islamophile website Vox), though, I would definitely question it.
That part I'm 100% in favor of. It's the part about them setting up base there and expanding their power afterwards.
Russia moving in under the pretense of ridding the region of ISIS is like the Mafia moving to your neighborhood under the pretense of moving out a violent street gang, then setting up a permanent base there to do Mob “business”.
Russia will grow wealthier, more powerful, more aggressive in their overall expansionist agenda (Eastern Europe, eventually elsewhere), and much more of a threat to the US and its allies throughout the region and the world.
Sure it’s great IF they actually do get rid of ISIS (we shall see). But having a country like Russia step in and gain such huge strategic advantage over the US and its allies is nothing we should be cheering about.
If Obama was serious about wanting to take out ISIS, which I don’t believe he ever was—I think him and Putin are actually in cahoots on this whole thing despite his and Kerry’s public moans and groans about it, it might not ever have come to this. But then Russia would likely have come up with some other rationale or excuse for moving into Syria and taking control of it, and ultimately the entire Middle East. Makes me wonder if ISIS was a KGB-like invention of the Russians, created to give them cover for expanding.
Putin has stated that he believes the demise of the (mass-murdering, communist [my words]) Soviet Union was the "worst geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century". He has also said he thinks Stalin deserves to have statues in his honor. He clearly seeks to restore the old Soviet Union, or something not too far different from it.
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