Zero Hedge: The Humiliation Is Complete: ISIS Fighters Cut Off Beards And Run Away As Russia, Iran Close In
The thing about ragtag groups of militants that display a penchant for extreme violence is that in the absence of serious opposition, they can rack up gains at an alarming pace.
Of course there are plenty of (possibly credible) theories out there, which suggest that some of what you see in the videos released by ISIS is for show and we won’t endeavor to assess the degree to which the group’s brutality is real versus staged, but one thing is clear: regardless of who is funding, training, and/or supporting them, there are obviously fighters on the ground in the Mid-East waving the ISIS flag and committing atrocities in its name.
That works well when it comes to destabilizing fragile states that are already beset with sectarian bickering on the way to claiming large swaths of territory from a defenseless citizenry.
But you can’t intimidate a modern fighter jet by waving around a sword and if you’re a newbie on the Mid-East militant scene, you can’t scare a three decade veteran by beheading a couple of people, which is why if you’re ISIS, the combination of the Russian Air Force and Hezbollah ground troops is absolutely terrifying.
WNU Editor: I do not share Zero Hedge's optimism that the Syrian civil war may end soon. The Arab Sunni states are now sending tons of military equipment to the rebels, and there are a lot of Sunni fighters willing to take on the Syrian regime and its allies. This war is going to go on a long time, as well as the conflict in Iraq.
15 comments:
WNU Editor,
In less than a month, the tiny Russian deployment to Syria has:
-changed regional alliances, (Egypt, Jordan, Iraq,)
- changed local alliances,(YPG, SDF),
- conducted more actual airstrikes and dropped more bombs, that Operation Inherent Resolve has in it's entire existence,
- allowed the SAA and allied forces to recapture more territory in two weeks than they have in 3 years of fighting.
As b. at MoA and Patrick at SicSemperTyrannis have mapped, Russia and it's allies are not following the U.S. strategy of chasing them back into the desert, but are instead, fixing them, attritioning them and destroying them when they break and run.
I think that as long as the U.S. doesn't put boots on the ground to protect Al Quida and ISIS, thus creating a stalemate, this might be over with in as little as 2 years.
http://thesaker.is/the-battles-of-and-for-idlib/
This piece tries to get to the bottom of it.
/// ------ Have to break my comment into more, because of it's lenght. ------ ///
Well, it's cannot be said that Russian intervention has no effects, but they have their own limits.
Jay Farquharson: I will not measure the exact areas, but you can trust me SAA (in my language everyone on the side of Syrian goverment in general) captured way less areas in the recent weeks than you think, and so much in the past that the two numbers cannot be compared.
In the last 2-3 weeks SAA launched many operation, in different areas, and even yesterday they just reopened quiet front. To make a summary for you on the recent SAA gains, here is a list:
- Latakia
-- Some mountain like area with small villages between the town of Salma and the Al-Ghaab plains has been captured, but fightings and SAA advance is still ongoing. Russian air support is significant here. The offensive have two direction, the left side is the town of Salma, the other is in general just toward North on the area east from Salma. This second direction is required if SAA want to continue their push toward Jish-al-Shughul in the Al-Ghaab plains, because these mountains are the support to the forces in the plains.
- Al-Ghaab (SW Idlib)
-- The direction of SAA advance is mainly North, toward Jish-al-Shughul, and their gains are limited in just about 3 small villages in the west side of the plains. SAA also made some minor advance toward east from the town of Joureen, but nothing major so far.
- North Hama
-- The offense here have three direction. In the center there is Al-Latamia pocket, hold by rebels, there is an offensive on the left side toward the town of Kafr-Nabuha and another on the right side toward Alshan (east from Morek). So far the two sides looks good, they advanced and captured the targets. But the offensive against the pocket was strange, advances here was litle, and were seen no real will to capture Latamia, it's felt more like a diversion move.
- Aleppo
-- Even if there were an article today about the battle for the city has started, the situation is not like that at all. The current South Aleppo offensive got a lot of attention, but so far it's captured two small villages in the desert, West from Mount Azaz, the gains worth almost no mention. One of the village has been captured today, and the SAA advance is expected to go on, but the direction and the area show no strategically importants.
-- Earlier an SAA offensive against ISIS got a litle attention. It was East from Aleppo, and it's goal to break the ISIS siege of the Kweres Air Base. Their advance is slow, and a recent gains show that they still far from their goal. Winning is winning, but noone is in hurry here.
-- Just like about two weeks ago it was reported that ISIS attacked Aleppo, which was a weird news, but it's meant that they captured a small part of rebel held area North from Aleppo, and SAA wanted to use the rebel retreat from here as an opportunity to advance into vacuum, and their fight was the base of the reports. No important moves were made here.
- Homs
-- The rebel pocket North from the city of Homs, got a late offensive, it's started just two days ago. So far it's seems the SAA advance focus on the road between Homs and Hama, and the rest of the pocket is untouched yet. Gains very minimal until now.
- Damascus
-- Jobar is an area of fightings again, just after one year of "quiet". Other than that SAA keep pushing back rebels who made a break out attempt toward North just 3-4 weeks ago. However as far as I know Damscus - Homs highway is still closed.
From the above list, Latakia, Al-Ghaab plains and North Hama is in the main focus of Russian air support. Strikes around Aleppo, ISIS (the real ones) and Homs were limited compared to the already mentioned ones. And in Damasdcus or Dara, Russian air present are just about to none.
To figure out the strategy behind recent offensives, will require more gains. So far SAA and Russia gone full face against the rebels, while leaving ISIS "alone", and only confront them minimally (which is exactly what ISIS need now in their bad situation). On front level, the advance in Latakia seems to be similar to the one I predicted just a month ago, and SAA advances direction is the M4/4 highway/route that connect Latakia with Jish-al-Shughul, and by that to encircle the rebels in Latakia. But all the offenses show no greater goals behind frontline levels.
Will the war be over in 2016? Very likely no, but if the SAA-Russia keep the momentum, I expect a moral break within the rebels, and even if I(unlike the UN) do not belive a democratic process, but the war could end in one front. Will the moment keep? Yes, but it's will slow down.
Russian air support is often compared to the US led coalitional air support, and highlighted that only the Russian "method" works. I may still be alone in the world, but I still think that the US led method is working well, and archived a lot, even if it's not archived it's potential maximum. But puting all your card to the table is not always the method you want to play. Russia did this, but because someone decide to go on one way, does that determine that your way is bad? I don't think so. The two methods are different, with different goal, and as long as their goals are done in the way their owners want, you cannot blame the method.
Russian Air Forces (in Syria only the ground attack part) need to improve a lot, and mostly in accuracy. The first week of their intervention was equal to a joke, and if they would pull this in a real war, they would loose right there. Since they improved a lot, but the gap is still there between them and the US, and will remain for long years.
Russia has shown the U.S campaign up for the ineffective token gesture that was obviously never meant to succeed in a way that the russian plan has.
Luckily the russians never quite figured out what a bumbling buracratic mess nato was in the 60.'s and 70's otherwise they would have had their armoured divisions across the Fulda gap i to Germany whilst the west was having its 20th meeting on what russias intentions are and how to respond.one word sums up this mess "Obama "!
Thank you as always for your input mlacix
"Russian Air Forces (in Syria only the ground attack part) need to improve a lot, and mostly in accuracy. The first week of their intervention was equal to a joke, and if they would pull this in a real war, they would loose right there. Since they improved a lot, but the gap is still there between them and the US, and will remain for long years."
The thing about the Russians is that they learn.
Bit by bit, they learn.
How can you see it was a joke? Were you there? .
It couldn't be to lousy as its had a far effective and dramatic effect on rebels and isis command and control, logistics and morale than 12 months of coalition precision strikes.
fazman: No, I was not there, but if you take attention on the video footages made in the first week of their intervention, you can see their lack of effitency, how they miss targets even by 100 meters and so on. Recent videos show better hit ratio, but the first week was nothing like that.
mlacix,
Funny thing about bombs, is close is "good enough".
FAB-100's for example have a blast radius of 75 metres, a shrapnel radius of 150 metres and a coinicdental radius of 1,000 metres.
Translated, unless properly bunkered, if it hits within 75 metres of you the blast kills you, 150 metres and the shrapnel kills you, and within a 1000 metres, you might get killed by a stray piece of shrapnel or debris.
Damn skippy.
One time the bastards dropped a big one a long ways off and the concussion almost shook me off a ladder.
It certainly made an impression! Ask a vet some time about incoming. Even "little s@@t" like katyushas make big thumps (and loaded up pants).
So true about the impact of bombs. A friend of mine who served in Afghanistan for the Canadian military told me one of his experiences where the bomb exploded a good distance away, but a very large piece of shrapnel came out of nowhere a few seconds later and it just missed his head.
Absolutely, positively for real; I had it inbedded in my truck and it aint nothin like the movies. Well, "Fury" did make me cringe a couple of times in my seat at the theatre.
it's like fuhooooooooooooooooooooooooooom! Huhwooooomp! You are never the same.
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