Posted on 06/22/2015 8:18:53 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
Last week, the pro-regime forces in Hasakah city, northeastern Syria, stormed houses and arrested dozens of young men under the pretext of driving them to compulsory military service, local sources reported.
This comes after the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad issued a decision demanding Syrian youth to perform military service, and allowing them to serve in their own provinces. In the pre-war phase, Syrian young men were obliged to serve in other provinces away from their hometowns.
“The pro-regime militia of the National Defense Army formed a group entrusted with a mission of arresting the young people who are wanted to perform military service,” locals from Nashwa Gharbiya district of Hasakah told ARA News on Sunday.
“Pro-Assad forces are stemming houses in the midnight to capture as many young men as possible and transfer them to military camps,” father of an arrestee told ARA News (under the condition of anonymity).
(Excerpt) Read more at aranews.net ...
I haven’t seen much discussion here of what is going on in Northern Syria.
The Kurds (YPG) have been sweeping across the North, driving ISIS away from the Turkish Border, shutting off their supply lines into Turkey.
They cleared the area North of Hasakah City, and on the 15th of June, they liberated the border crossing town of Tel Abyad, which was the main route from the ISIS Capital at Raqaa directly North into Turkey. That takes the Kurds about halfway from Iraq to the sea, across Syria’s Northern border.
Now they are heading South and are attacking the big military base on the outskirts of Raqaa itself (the former Brigade 93 base). Refugees have been flooding into Raqaa for the last couple of days.
It is a pretty rapid, and quite significant development.
If the Assad regime is press-ganging these young men into military service, he may unwittingly be training future rebels. These people are bound to desert once they get a chance, and if they’re not able to leave Syria, they’ll have to join up with Sunni fundamentalists (what some folks annoyingly refer to as “Islamists”) to survive. But they’ll have at least the rudiments of military training, which will make them all the more useful.
It could be the collapse of ISIS in Syria. Then Assad takes on remaining rebels in a war of attrition through his air force.
“It could be the collapse of ISIS in Syria.”
Things have changed sharply in the last couple of months. The Iranians have started flowing their regular military units into Syria for the first time. The election in Turkey, where Erdogan’s Party lost full control, could force a change in Turkish covert support of ISIS, and might lead to a sell out/set up. And now the ISIS direct route to Turkey - a main entry point for recruits - is lost to them.
It seems that the earlier plan to retake Mosul this Summer has changed after the experience in Tikrit and Ramadi, and now ISIS must fight on a different front, not so well prepared.
Cutting off main supply lines, eliminating the safe haven for retreat, and the high profile psychological impact of losing Raqaa, could better set the conditions for the ISIS forces in Mosul to collapse. Maybe they can achieve some decapitation and intelligence exploitation in Raqaa as well.
I was all stocked up on popcorn to watch the battle of Mosul this Summer, but I guess that no plan survives first contact with the enemy. Maybe they will get around to it in the Fall, but the tempo of events in Syria has definitely picked up.
...stormed houses and arrested dozens of young men under the pretext of driving them to compulsory military service...
The Iranians have started flowing their regular military units into Syria for the first time.
“I wouldn’t put too much hope in Iranian regulars.”
I hear you - they are not Israelis - not even Kurds in combat equivalents. And they will probably be reenforcing critical facilities and the Capitol, more than sweeping across the desert or going door to door.
But, they probably will conduct some attacks on ISIS, and they bring heavy weapons. They can put in 10,000 already trained and equipped soldiers, formed into existing units, in a month - rather than the 1,000 unarmed raw new recruits that ISIS brings in in a month. So it will force ISIS to make a significant shift as these guys are now flowing into their rear area. If Iran does go for them in Syria, ISIS could be facing a significant new front.
Assad has pretty much focused on other rebel groups so far, but Iran itself is more strongly engaged against ISIS in Iraq. Also, ISIS has made a point of committing atrocities and desecration against the Shia more than any other group. Their Arabic language propaganda is mainly targeted against the “Safavids”, and a half dozen other derogatory terms they have for Persians and Shia. So even if Iran plans to focus on other missions in Syria, they could get drawn into more of a fight with ISIS due to ISIS provocations. Even if Iran doesn’t directly engage, they could throttle supply (and retreat) on the Western routes to Raqaa.
So the Iranians may not be a silver bullet, but they are a big threat to ISIS, at a time when other threats are also coming on line.
The Iranians are talking about sending in a division or two during June/July (more like Soviet Divisions, closer in size to American Brigades). That commitment would probably be matched with more materiel to the Syrian regime, to help protect those Iranian troops.
The battlefield is being (has been) shaped with Iranian units positioning in ISIS’ rear, the Kurds closing the border to Turkey, and American/Coalition air superiority established. Big change in the last few weeks.
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