________________________________________
July 2015...
Officials: Iran nuclear deal fuels Middle East arms race, boosts Russia's influence
FoxNews ^ | July 14, 2015 | Catherine Herridge
Posted on 01/05/2016 11:36:14 AM PST by Trumpinator
According to a recent report by the Institute for the Study of War, Russia's involvement in the Syrian civil war has shifted the battlefield momentum in favor of President Bashar al-Assad. It reads, "In Aleppo province, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and associated proxy forces launched a multipronged offensive on Oct. 15 that has seized large swaths of rebel-held terrain in the southern countryside of Aleppo City."
According to the same report, pro-regime forces achieved tactical gains against the opposition in northeastern Latakia province. The FSA is currently present in northern Syria around Aleppo and Hama as well as in southern Syria.
The FSA is considered the biggest and most secular of the rebel groups currently fighting the Assad government. Its estimated 35,000 fighters are mostly defectors from the Syrian military, according to Syrian analyst Sinan Hatahet from the Istanbul-based think tank Omran Dirasat.
In an interview with Al-Monitor, Hatahet explained that the organization consists of about 27 larger factions, each comprised of an average of 1,000 fighters as well as some smaller units or localized militias, some as small as a few dozen militants. There are thousands of brigades of various sizes.
The Russian onslaught and diminishing support from the Military Operating Center in Jordan (a center allegedly staffed by Western, Gulf and Jordanian military advisers providing planning, funding and logistical support to rebels in southern Syria) is putting pressure on the fragmented organization, which is also plagued by low pay, desertions and corruption.
(Excerpt) Read more at usnews.com ...
Says it all.
Free Syrian Army
Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Syrian_Army
Allies
Islamic Front[10]
Opponents
Syrian Armed Forces
National Defense Force
al-Nusra Front[11][12][13][14]
Jund al-Aqsa[15]
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant[16]
The FSA considers ISIS to be an enemy of the revolution as it has openly criticized the group. FSA leaders accuse "ISIS of imposing its extremist ideology on areas it controls and of kidnapping and murdering other members of the opposition".[181] ISIL's expanding claims to territory gradually brought it into armed conflict with many governments, militias and other armed groups. In October 2014, battalions fighting with the Free Syrian Army joined the Kurdish militia in Kobane to battle ISIS.[182]
This a-hole is still around?
Do we, or anybody, even WANT the “Free Syrian Army” back on its feet?
They only muddy up and complicate what is going on in Syria.
Syria, like Iraq, is fracturing into two or possibly three different countries, one Kurdish, one Sunni, and a third a complex relationship of Alawite-Shi’ite alliance. The insurgent territory that claims to be “Islamic State”, formed out of Iraq and Syria provinces, is now the common enemy.
Spoils of war - give the territory now claimed by Islamic State to the Kurds as the core of the new nation of Kurdistan. All they got to do is capture it, and eliminate all remnants of the so-called Islamic State army.
Tell the IS defenders, “Run, boy. You just gonna die tired.” Makes no difference if the kill wound is in the front or the back. Rehabilitation is not an option.
Yep. Some global business concerns are somewhat principled. Others do all that they can for foreign enemies like Iran and Russia—anything for a buck. Virtually all political lobbies are corrupt.
Vaclav Havel and Lech Walesa were right.
If you want the Turks, and then NATO, to get in a major theater wide war, give the Kurd’s their own country.
Turkey would rather risk Armageddon than have that happen.
Lol! I was referring to T. Didn’t even read this article yet.
So was I, in a way. Some trade interests will betray their own nations for cheap oil, untrustworthy trading partners, and to put off inevitable wars to allow enemy nuclear buildups against us. Their blogging political dupes disseminate their propaganda for them.
So you guys support Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy of jihad?
We may well see a Kurdistan and a host of smaller nations around religions and clans arise. And in that part of the world that means a Lebanon kind of civil war but across the whole so called Middle East.
Sometimes religion masks tribalism. The Taliban is mostly a Pushtun enterprise and the anti-Taliban come from the various non Pushtun groups.
I didn’t even read the damn article yet. I’m getting ready to eat.
Russia’s intervention pretty much ended the chances of toppling Assad militarily. That removes the motivation for fighting and dying to remove Assad. US support of FSA and other groups to fight ISIS is plausible, if they will actualy fight ISIS (not FSA’s thing to my knowledge). But supporting them to continue a civil war against Assad as a bargaining chip for a negotiated change of Syrian regime seems like a cynical waste of money and lives.
________________________________________
July 2015...
Officials: Iran nuclear deal fuels Middle East arms race, boosts Russia's influence
FoxNews ^ | July 14, 2015 | Catherine Herridge
Sounds like their bank accounts in Switzerland need a top-up.
We’re for the U.S.A. - by being for Saudi Arabia?
I don't think this revolution was started from the outside - the people inside Syria are clearly dysfunctional but it does seem outside forces kept this war going longer than it would have if no outside actors were involved.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.