CNN: Dozens of fighters trained by U.S.-led coalition reportedly enter Syria
At least 75 fighters trained by U.S., British and Turkish forces have entered northern Syria, a monitoring group said.
The fighters crossed over from Turkey on Friday and Saturday and are now located in areas north of the city of Aleppo, said the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Their arrival comes shortly after U.S. officials acknowledged that the Pentagon's program to train and equip moderate Syrian rebels to help fight ISIS had fallen far short of its original aims.
A top U.S. general told the Senate last week that of the thousands of fighters the U.S. military was supposed to train in the first year, only four or five remained in place on the battlefield.
WNU Editor: 75 fighters in a war zone as large as Syria .... here is an easy prediction .... they are going to have zero impact on this war.
9 comments:
Their deployment was obviously expedited.
The situation north of Aleppo (Azaz area) is very difficult, and it was in the past 2 month. IS is very good at advertising how much they conquer, but silent when they are defeated. Hasakia got some media coverage when IS were defeated, but north of Aleppo got nothing, or maybe I'm the only who see the rebel defence as a moderate success. This frontline is 30-35 km long, rebel hold only, stated to be weak, but yet they (with coalitional airstrikes) were able to halt IS's summer offensive, and stabilised a vertical line with the town Mare' in it's center. Rebels archived this without Al-Nushra, whos fighter retreated toward south around early August.
75 soldier is not a great number, it's will not fix the seemingly failed recent rebel arming/training program, nor will fix the frontline ,but even those fighters will be very usefull in the fight against IS. Last week SAA launched an operation to reach the perimeter of Kweres Air base, east of Aleppo, I not expect them to succed, but probably will take some IS troop from the northern part, but it's expected that IS will make another offense soon. If rebels fail, the rebel support route from Azaz will be closen forever.
mlacix,
Who, with exception of the Russians, do you think in this area has the most operational energy and the most operational depth? The area I speak of Iran to the east, Syria to the west, the Golan to the south (maybe included the Sinai, and Turkey to the North. I have my own ideas, but I'm curious of what you think.
James
Sorry, but I do not really get your question, could you please be more specific about the operationa level?
Sorry mlacix, that was a muddle. Let me see if I can come up with something clearer....something along the lines of say Iran. Iran you could say has a lot of operational depth, facilities, people, etc, but has always seemed strangely listless in application. Then take ISIS, very energetic on the periphery of it's territory, but very silent in the interior, like a hollow shell. Aaah, I don't know if that's any better, I'll think on it.
James
To be honest noone in your marked area is good enough for me. If we see the whole ME and listing which army has any potential, we have no luck to find any.
After I started to write down what I think, I just recognised it's basically the same for almost all the country in the whole area. In general almost everyone lack of depth, while most of them has high energy, resources, menpower. No matter that a country is rich like Saudi Arabia or poor like Yemen rebels, at the end they are equally have energy, and lack on depth. The recent result of fighting in Yemen showed how Saudi Arabia (and in general the Gulf states like UAE) have ground forces wich has minimal combat value, sometimes stunningly bad.
If I exclude Israel from the area, it's really Turkey or Iran. They are the only nations in the area which has not been weakened in the last 5-10 years. I'm not impressed by the Turkish Army, but it would be foolish to say they are bad. Both in equipments, menpower they are good, plus they seems to have a quiet modern military thinking, which is rare not only in ME but internationally. Turkey's is trending to the western overspending/overexpensive militaries (which I do not like), but they are not yet there, and this make them seems to be a good combination for now. So if I sould choose someone for your question, today it may be would Turkey.
Iran on the other hand living in 1990 with military thinking. Their equipments, weaponry are not as good, not because those are old, simple just unfit for many situations. They have menpower, and more importantly will to fight, however they lack on modern military thinking, they just now try to step over the 80's warfares like Iraq-Iran or Lebanees-Israel wars. In military aspect they slowly cut the gap, thanks to cooperation with Russia and China, and in this speed they could be on an international level within 15-20 years. For example Iran hs a good ground-to-ground rocket program (this originated back to 1991, a cooperation with Syria) and they are the one of the few countries/corporations which develop new, usefull and working vehicles/weapons/methods without spening billions of dollars (to cancelled projects). Volcano, Falagh, smaller and larger variants of them show great efficiency on the ground in Syria. It's just the small thing of how to boost the fight and combat efficiency in heavy combat environment like the urban ones, that makes me like their way the doing things better. On the ground they learning a lot, the whole IRGC and the Army learn a lot without too much casualties. But for them it's will be years to say they are ready to anything.
I left IS to the end. I do not really find them over energetic nor depth in any way. They started with a solid energy, mostly menpower and a solid depth, which is based on experiance of the recent 10 years and willinges to die. But above that I do not see that they could get any better, only worst. Their menpower rely mainly on extremists and foreight fighters, and there is a point when the numbers just not going to higher. Experiance can be gained, but it's alone cannot win a battle. They cannot buy new vehicles, operate aircrafts, any weapon system, they have the same suppliers/supporters as in the past and no new sponsors are about to come. In general I see their position and future bad.
Hope I got the meaning of your question. If not, ask it again please, English is not my native language, I still need to learn a lot.
mlacix,
Well you certainly answered better than I asked. As far as your English is concerned you're another on this site that has a pretty good grasp of it.
Back to what your appreciation of the local forces this has been my impression also for quite awhile. I will add that most of the area's countries emphasize the propaganda and political sides of the conflicts to the detriment of the actual waging of the conflict. Of course this has been successful against say the US and Israel who are vulnerable to this approach. Also most of the countries there have lived under the military umbrellas of the US and Russia since the 1950's rarely waging large scale conventional warfare, consequently never really developing that ability on their own.
I have the feeling that the environment conducive to the political/propaganda angle is about to evaporate forcing everyone to win on the battle field or lose it all.
Now we're about to see how the Russians do, I for one am intensely curious.
Thanks forthe answer
You are welcome James. About Russia, everyone expect them to be efficient, safe and deadly, but there is no way they could get over this without loosing soldiers, lifes. And I expect these losses will being way out highlighted by the media, than it's actual value is. Russian Army improved a lot, but they are still humans, and even if the Syrian rebels or IS cannot be compared to them, but they have some advanced weapons, like TOWs and other ATGMs, which against not really much can protect.
Laszlo,
"About Russia, everyone expect them to be efficient, safe and deadly, but there is no way they could get over this without loosing soldiers, lifes", a lot of people seem to forget that wars are not fought by gods and angels, but humans. Though I will say that the Romans were on to something by stressing the importance of the Goddess Fortuna in outcome of conflicts.
Always enjoy your comments.
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