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The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) has deployed large reinforcements in the town of Ain Issa in the northern countryside of Raqqa, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported on March 12.
According to the London-based monitoring group, the reinforcements, which included heavy weapons like battle tanks and artillery, arrived at the town’s outskirts over the last three days.
Ain Issa is held by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The SAA and the Russian Military Police maintain a network of posts around the town to monitor a Russian-brokered ceasefire between the SDF and Turkish forces.
On March 11, the Hawar News Agency revealed that Turkish forces had built yet another post north of Ain Issa. Several vehicles and surveillance systems were deployed at the post, which was built near the village of Hwshan. This was the fourth post to be established in the region this year.
Tensions have been rising around Ain Issa since the summer. Russia reportedly warned the SDF of a nearing Turkish attack on the town. The Kurdish-led group was asked to handover the town to the SAA in order to foil Turkish plans. However, the request was rejected.
The recent movements by the SAA in Ain Issa may indicate that Turkey is still planning to attack the town. The SDF failure to make a compromise is endangering the town and its residents.
One of the main perhaps the most important oil-smuggling routes,Saa doesnt want to experience 37 day oil blockage again.By pressuring over Sdf,Assad regime will continue flow of oil to its cities.(Price per barrel of Sdf oil is 30 usd while Barzani sells 68 usd) .Combined with last attacks to oil rafinery,Fsa and Sdf areas will face serious problems in mid-term even Hts.Now its Sdf-Usa’s turn to make a move.
WTF does Russia want to do, let the Turks control the highway, because that’s exactly what happens if the Turks are allowed to take over Ain Issa, you can’t control Ain Issa without controlling the highway as well. But Assad doesn’t want the Turks controlling the highway, he needs it for trade, that’s why he’s sending more forces to protect the town, if he loses the town he also loses the highway as well, and that will only hurt Assad financially. What’s Russia’s end game, what benefit is it to Russia if the Turks are allowed to control the highway, it’s not like they’re taking it away from the US and hurting them, the US don’t give a flying f–k about it, but Assad does, he desperately needs to keep the highway open for business. Assad buys a lot of goods from the SDF controlled areas and he transports them to Government held areas where they’re needed, but the loss of this highway would impact that free trade. The US/SDC/SDF have been allowing Assad to use the highway with no tariffs, no roadblocks, no restrictions, and no delays, but the Turks wouldn’t be as generous, it may be Assad’s highway but they will not be as indulging as the US/SDC/SDF are, there will be tariffs, roadblocks, restrictions on goods, and long delays if the Turks take over Ain Issa and the highway. Assad seems to be taking a different path from Russia on this matter, Russia’s trying to blackmail the Kurds into leaving Ain Issa but Assad’s doing the opposite, he’s actually reinforcing them, and I think there’s only one reason for that, Assad’s scared the Russian blackmail attempt will backfire and the Turks will simply kick the SAA out of Ain Issa after the SDF leave. The US would protect the SDF in Ain Issa if the Turks attacked them but would Russia do the same and protect the SAA if the Turks attacked, mmmm, I’m glad Assad’s decided to reinforce the SDF, not help Russia blackmail them.
Your post confuses me a bit, WC. Russia already knows the U.S. will NOT directly help SDF hold Ain Issa against the Turks (just against the SAA). The U.S. could bomb Wahhabi head-chopper footsoldiers and a few gun trucks from northern Syria attacking Ain Issa, but we will not attack our NATO ally Turkey, nor any of their artillery spotting/human shield outposts. Nor would the U.S. attack a Turkish column moving even closer to or into Ain Issa during a battle (the Turks creeping LOC/human shield tactic).
The SDF can’t possibly hold Ain Issa by itself or with limited U.S. support. It’s only a matter of how much Turkish armor, artillery and air power Turkey is willing to employ to back up their head-choppers attacks. The Turks will use every opportunity to scootch up right behind any head-chopper advances with yet another ‘outpost’. That’s pretty much what they did in Idlib before Russia got pissed off again. Like them or not, Turkey has plenty of kill toys to boot the SDF from Ain Issa – something Erdogan has promised to do from the start of the invasion.
For Russia’s part, they know the SDF obeys thier U.S. master and will not share control of Ain Issa with the SAA (or Russians) one bit. The US has already partitioned Syria and we took Ain Issa for our SDF mercs/placeholders. Mostly for the reasons you mentioned. At some point, the SDF plan IS to tax the shit out of everything on that highway and treat it like a border crossing between SDFistan and Syria. And make no mistake, we’ll sacrifice as many Kurds as necessary to hold on to that town, either for the SDF or for some other U.S. land-theft proxy. A few bags of shekels to reluctant SDF commanders there now (and more TOWs and MANPADS) takes care of any hesitation on the commanders’ part to sacrifice their troops if necessary.
Russia is doing exactly what it should in this shit-show: nothing but watching. They know why the SDF won’t budge to give Ain Assad back to Syria or even share control of it (because It’s US war booty – we stole it fair and square!) So Russia sits back, enourges SAA to do the same and watches the Turks and head-choppers tear Ain Issa to pieces. Probably at great cost to the head-choppers. Turkey? Not so much.
Then Russia and the SAA roll in town to liberate the smoking ruins from head-choppers, SDF, CENTCOM/CIA and other shady types.
Russia’s trying to blackmail the Kurds into leaving Ain Issa but Assad’s doing the opposite, he’s actually reinforcing them
Russia is telling the SDF land thieves to cooperate or face the Turks alone. That’s not blackmail. Regular non-SDF Kurds are starting to get tired of SDF bullshit as well.
The SAA is reinforcing the area, but I don’t think the intent is to fight for the SDF so they can continue to occupy Ain Issa. Like Russia, Assad is hoping the SDF come to their senses and cooperate with their host country, Syria. If SDF insists on the Ain Issa is SDFistan forever! mentality, then why would (or should) the SAA stick around? Let the stubborn SDF be decimated by the head-choppers and let the poor Kurds get stabbed in the back again by the U.S. and have their city sacrificed for more flawed U.S. policy.
The Turks will not fire directly on Russian troops, so they can experience the Russian version of creeping outposts when the Russians/SAA counter-attack – right into the ruins of Ain Issa. I’m sure the SAA doesn’t want to see Ain Issa destroyed, but the SDF isn’t simply going to give it back to them. The Turks will keep a couple of outposts in or near Ain Issa for a while, but abandon them after the head-choppers have fled (just like Idlib).
He was probably stoned and or drunk when he wrote it. Confused is his middle name.
How did the search for bigfoot and the aliens go, did you find any evidence of them, did you bring back any photos? Your middle name is delusional, so go back and search for bigfoot and the aliens Richard, that’s probably the only thing you’re good at, searching for bigfoot and aliens.
Is this a delusion? https://youtu.be/Q60mSMmhTZU
It looks like a man in a gorilla suit. There’s a better video showing a hairy figure climbing a steep snow covered slope, the footage is poor but the video shows the figure scaling the slope way faster than any human could, you should’ve posted that one for more credibility. They’ve been hunting bigfoot since before I was even born and they still haven’t found him yet, and the world is no longer a big place, it’s getting smaller and smaller every day, so pretty soon there’ll be nowhere left for bigfoot to hide.
Has it occurred to you that any private sector retrieval of dead or injured bigfoots has been confiscated and or covered up by the government in the same manner as aliens and ufo crash retrievals?
Experts in special effects from the period have concluded that they couldn’t have produced it, and the film is likely genuine:
“Dale Sheets and Universal Studios. Patterson, Gimlin, and DeAtley[199] screened the film for Dale Sheets, head of the Documentary Film Department, and unnamed technicians[132] “in the special effects department at Universal Studios in Hollywood … Their conclusion was: ‘We could try (faking it), but we would have to create a completely new system of artificial muscles and find an actor who could be trained to walk like that. It might be done, but we would have to say that it would be almost impossible.’ …
Disney executive Ken Peterson. Krantz reports that in 1969, John Green (who owned a first-generation copy of the original Patterson film)[202] interviewed Disney executive Ken Peterson, who, after viewing the Patterson film, asserted “that their technicians would not be able to duplicate the film”.[132][197][203] Krantz argues that if Disney personnel were unable to duplicate the film, there is little likelihood that Patterson could have done so. Greg Long writes, “Byrne cited his trip to Walt Disney studios in 1972, where Disney’s chief of animation and four assistants viewed Patterson’s footage and praised it as a beautiful piece of work although, they said, it must have been shot in a studio. When Byrne told them it had been shot in the woods of Northern California, ‘They shook their heads and walked away.’ …
John Chambers. Academy Award–winning monster-maker John Chambers is most famous for his innovative flexible masks in Planet of the Apes (1968). In a 1997 interview, he denied rumors that he had created a costume for the Patterson subject, saying “I’m good, but not that good.””
– Patterson–Gimlin film –
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patterson%E2%80%93Gimlin_film
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0b52f37d72e8180b4d7da1e6cec3c5bcc694b5e5f34df32fb72caa0697cb57f8.png
https://www.isu.edu/media/libraries/rhi/research-papers/ANALYSIS-INTEGRITY-OF-THE-PATTERSON-GIMLIN-FILM-IMAGE_final.pdf
I’ve been told the world’s ending tomorrow so many times now I no longer listen.
Maybe you should think about using an avatar of you wearing a blindfold and dunce hat sucking your thumb sitting on a stool in the corner facing the two walls forming a 90 degree angle.
That sounds a lot more interesting than listening to you, I’ll do it right now.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bfcbb389d6c6bef04a59a4d65898db5f7e21b315cbf1879032d6140f5bc55719.png
I’m one of the most hated people who post on SF, the halfwits and bigots hate just about everything I say, LOL, and I don’t care LOL. If just one intelligent person agrees with me I’m happy, but I really don’t care if a bunch of monkeys don’t agree with me, they’re just monkeys throwing shit, and they do it because they can’t do anything else.
That wouldn’t be my take. They downvote you because of the volume of disinfo and confused stupidity that you spam these threads with.
The video is authentic but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t “fake”. It is probably a guy in a suit but hey you never know. Also, you cannot compare this to UFO phenomenon. UFOs are recorded on a daily basis and have millions upon millions of witnesses.
You’re ignoring the opinions of those who are qualified and competent. Some of the most qualified and competent on the planet. That I’ve quoted who looked at the evidence first hand. And don’t think that it was a guy in a suit.
You haven’t disproven anything that I’ve written. I’ve disproven your self admitted and other disinfo and stupidity many times.
You haven’t disproven anything that I’ve written. I’ve disproven your self admitted and other disinfo and stupidity many times.
I’m not so sure the US won’t protect the SDF in Ain Issa, they sort of protected the SDF in Tall Tamir last year on 2 separate occasions. In December last year the Turks were poised to take back Tall Tamir, they’d just destroyed an SAA checkpoint and looked like they were about to overrun the SAA/SDF positions around the town, but then 2 US warplanes suddenly arrived and the Turkish advance was stopped in it’s tracks. I’m betting there was a phone conversation just prior to the US flight and a warning the planes weren’t just for show. Earlier on in the year a similar incident provoked the US to send at least 3 choppers to loiter around Tall Tamir during a Turkish offensive, which also stopped the Turkish advance. So I’m not so sure the US won’t act to protect their interests in Syria, remember how quickly Trump slapped on sanctions as soon as Erdogan tried to take over more than their original [traitorous] agreement allowed. And I think you may be making the same mistake many others do, the SDF isn’t an exclusive Kurdish force anymore, it’s a multi ethnic force. SDF has 100,000 + troops but only 45,000 are Kurdish, the rest are made up of mostly Arabs, Turkmen, Syriac’s and other minority ethnic or religious groups. So Erdogan can’t legitimately use the excuse he’s attacking YPG forces to ensure Turkish security. And Russia’s isn’t just watching, it’s actively encouraging the SDF to vacate their positions, blackmailing them for lack of a better word, and I’m pretty sure that’s not helping instill confidence concerning Russia’s intentions, more likely the exact opposite, it probably worrying the hell out of everyone who lives in the US autonomous zone. Erdogan blew that Russian jet out of the skies way back in 2015, so he’s a proven Russian killer, and he bombs the areas around Tall rif At all the time, knowing full well Russian bases are located there and Russian personnel operate in the area. So I think the only thing mad dog Erdogan’s really afraid of is God almighty, the Russians, US, EU, NATO, and the UN are just pawns for him to use in his quest for world domination, and God’s helping Erdogan in his quest, that’s why he’s so confident in himself and is so unrelenting in his quest, just like all madmen are. I think Assad’s a pragmatist, he’s probably already envisaged a scenario where the US remain in control of the northern Governorates, and I suspect he’s already made contingency plans to accommodate that totally undesirable but possibly inevitable scenario. Judging by everything that’s taken place I have to disagree with you, I think Erdogan’s determined to take over control of the M4 highway. He tried twice at Tall Tamir and US sent aircraft as a warning to stop him, so now he’s focusing on Ain Issa and trying his luck there, and hopefully he’ll do no better. But I would be more than happy if you were right about them leaving, I wouldn’t mind being wrong about that.
I’m not so sure the US won’t protect the SDF in Ain Issa, they sort of protected the SDF in Tall Tamir last year on 2 separate occasions.
Act by show of force, bluff, negotiations, sanctions – sure. Act by killing Turkish troops? No. So why would Erdogan even waste time rounding up head-choppers and moving armor and artillery for yet another Ain Issa offensive if he expects the exact same kind of response by the U.S., and (once again) he’ll have to back down in humiliation without Ain Issa again? You may be right though – Erdogan’s ‘strategy’ escapes me here. I feel like something has changed – my guess is it’s in Erdogan’s resolve to take Ain Issa, not the U.S. resolve to bluff/negotiate or toast a few head-choppers to intimidate Turkey. Erdogan’s re-renewed resolve may be because of a negotiated exchange of Ain Issa to the Turks for a Syrian-controlled, head-chopper free Idlib. TIP Uyghur head-chopper/land thieves may want to start walking back home now – it’s a long damn way to Xinjiang.
And I think you may be making the same mistake many others do, the SDF isn’t an exclusive Kurdish force anymore, it’s a multi ethnic force.
Yeah, that’s what CNN, CENTCOM and the U.S. State Department keep telling me [wink wink]. But we all know it’s the YPG/YPJ Kurds totally controlled by Kurd commanders in Kurdish claimed areas + some rump ex-FSA Arab tribal cannon fodder with a few token command titles for tribal leaders controlling their own militias in Arab areas. Oh yeah: and the oddball localized groups like the Syriacs. Or was there some Kurd/Arab eternal love-fest that I missed? SDFistan = Rojava + mostly Arab Tribal areas with some overlap when unavoidable. The Kurds and Arab Tribes will tolerate each other for shared interests like SDFistan capital of Ain Issa.
And Russia’s isn’t just watching, it’s actively encouraging the SDF to vacate their positions, blackmailing them for lack of a better word, and I’m pretty sure that’s not helping instill confidence concerning Russia’s intentions, more likely the exact opposite
If I remember right, Russian intentions are 1) to help Syria kill all head-choppers in Syria, and 2) to maintain a unified, soverign Syria. Russia never intended to allow the U.S. partition plan (re: SDFistan) and always opposed it. Do you mean the SDF didn’t realize this and honestly expected Russian troops to die defending the SDFistan republic’s capital of Ain Issa? Ah, just… NO.
it probably worrying the hell out of everyone who lives in the US autonomous zone.
Ya think? See, the problem here is that some of us (even in the U.S.) still call that land Syria sovereign territory. The Syrians never elected the U.S. to manage Syria for them and didn’t authorize the U.S. to define autonomous safe zones for ex-CENTCOM head-choppers or seditionists. We should probably get the fuck out of Syria because we don’t belong there.
So I think the only thing mad dog Erdogan’s really afraid of is God almighty, the Russians, US, EU, NATO, and the UN are just pawns for him to use in his quest for world domination, and God’s helping Erdogan in his quest, that’s why he’s so confident in himself and is so unrelenting in his quest, just like all madmen are.
Wait – you started out by saying that Erdogan cowered down like a little obedient bitch when the U.S. showed up in Tal Tamr. And doesn’t Erdogan’s God have ANY helpful superpowers like laser eyes or thunderbolts? He sounds useless.
I think Assad’s a pragmatist, he’s probably already envisaged a scenario where the US remain in control of the northern Governorates
I think his scenario involves Syrian Kurds and Syrian Arab tribes controlling their local affairs as part of an undivided sovereign Syria. The U.S. wasn’t invited and isn’t needed anymore, and our ideas about Syria’s future are irrelevant. Same with Turkey. But to your point, a pragmatist Assad may find the (temporary) tradeoff of Ain Issa, the M4 and a demoralized, divided SDF in return for Turkey pulling out of Idlib. Once the Idlib rat’s nest is under Syrian control and cleansed of head-choppers, the Syrians can take a break and worry about repatriating the northeast and stolen Deir EzZor oilfields.
Don’t take my tone of conviction here as any assumption I have of my spew being more probable than your scenario, WC. I honestly have no f’king idea – it’s all my guess based on knowledgeable sources like Twitter and my pet monkey. This is still a worthy, intelligent discussion to have.
I enjoy an intelligent discussion too, which sadly I don’t always get from some of the other SF patrons.
I’m still not so sure the US would be totally adverse to killing Turkish troops if the situation warranted it, but I’d definitely feel more confident saying the US would protect the Kurds than I would saying the Russian will protect the SAA. With the US it’s usually shoot first and ask questions later, an accident could easily start a bloodbath battle [hopefully], and both US and Turkish soldiers have pretty big egos. I think Erdogan’s antics are designed in cooperation with Russia for one express purpose, to drive the Kurds out of Ain Issa, it’s all a bluff to scare the Kurds and if it doesn’t work I think they have a plan B. But that doesn’t mean I think Russia and Turkey have the same objectives, I think Erdogan just promises to do whatever it is Putin asks him to do, and then Erdogan reneges on the deal later on. In this situation I suspect Erdogan’s hoping the Russians can get the Kurds to move out, that way his forces can attack the SAA without any chance of US interference/intervention, he can’t do that while both the SAA and the SDF are protecting the town, but he might if it’s just Russia protecting the town, because I don’t think he’s expecting any real backlash from Russia if he does. On Putin’s part he probably hoping he can use the Turkish threats to help force the Kurds out of Ain Issa, falsely believing Erdogan won’t go any further than help him do exactly that, but as I said I think Erdogan will just stab him in the back and do whatever it is he wants to do.
As to the Kurds I can only say the same thing Assad does, ‘they’re among the most loyal Syrian citizens of all, it’s just some of their leaders that need their heads read’, that’s what Assad says. Assad’s been very careful not to distance himself from the Kurdish mainstream, he still maintains excellent relations with the Kurds and cooperates with them in many ways. And he lets the Kurdish Afrin Liberation Force [AFL] operate in Government held Tall Rif At, and that’s despite the fact the Turks are continuously bombing the AFL in retaliation for their attacks on the Turkish forces. Assad would stop the ALF attacking Turkish interests if it suited him, but he hasn’t stopped them yet, so I’d say he’s just using them to do what he can’t do himself, which is harass the enemy.
You’re not listening to what Assad says if you think he’d trade anything at all, especially trade something to suit the Turks, he’d tell you to go wash your mouth out with soap if he heard you say that. Three quarters of the Arab tribes, all the Kurds, nearly half the Turkmen, and all the minority ethnic/religious groups are all 100% behind the US, they only have to look at the Iraqi example to see what they’ll end up with, and they like it. The Arabs have the biggest political voice in the Syrian Democratic Council [SDC], the Kurds may run the SDF command but they have a smaller voice in the SDC. I’m afraid resolution 2254 will mean the autonomous zone will become a reality after the new constitution is rewritten. The Syrian National Council [SNC] which is a member of the Turkish backed Syrian Interim Government [SIG], is also a member of the US backed Syrian Democratic Council [SDC], which is the controlling body for the US autonomous zone, and there’s a good reason the Turkish backed SNC is a member of both the SIG and the SDC, can you guess what it is. How can one political group be a member of 2 separate Governments? And why would a political group be a member of 2 separate Governments? The Russians claim resolution 2254 is the only answer to Syria’s problems, and in the same breath they also say they want to preserve Syria’s territorial integrity, and so they might, but they’ll only be able to preserve Syria’s territorial integrity in the same way the US preserved Iraq’s territorial integrity. Resolution 2254 will allow for that if it’s written into the new constitution. The new constitution they’re rewriting is a manifestation of resolution 2254, it’s designed to give all parties what they want, and both the US and Turkey want autonomous zones for their constituents. With one side of his face Putin cries out retain territorial integrity, but with the other side he cries out resolution 2254, but neither are truly compatible with each other, unless of course you believe the Iraqi system is working out ok, personally I don’t.
I think the US and Turkey were both invited in, and I think Putin was the one who invited them, he let Isis run amok which became the official invitation. I’m being sarcastic with the above statement, but I sincerely believe Putin’s mismanagement of Syria’s internal and border security was the reason the US and Turkey found excuses to invade Syria, I know most people laud him for rescuing Syria but I’m one of the people who say he shouldn’t have lost it in the first place. Cheers and sorry for writing another bible.
https://twitter.com/neccamc1/status/1370481823827042305
That’s worrying news, especially with 2 carrier groups approaching the area.
No worries..Syria will soon return to the Arab fold, the Arab League, Syria has helped found in 1945.
The sooner the better I say, but sadly Assad’s dragging his feet because Iran’s trying to stop it happening.
2 Carrier groups?
The Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group entered the Mediterranean sea a few days ago and is heading in Syria’s direction, and the Makin Island Amphibious Strike group left the seas around the UAE a few days ago, and now the fleet tracker shows it approaching Iraq. Iraq and Syria are stuck right in the middle. The Makin Island Amphibious Strike group consists of a small aircraft carrier that carries between 50 to 80 aircraft [lot’s of choppers], landing craft and 1600 marines, they have at least 1 or maybe 2 missile cruisers in escort, and 2 marine transport ships with at least 600 to a max of 800 marines each, and probably a defensive submarine as well.
https://news.usni.org/2021/03/08/usni-news-fleet-and-marine-tracker-march-8-2021
https://twitter.com/neccamc1/status/1371608429928792066
Just threatening behavior I think, at least for now, but who knows what could happen next, Biden’s an old man with something to prove, so anything could be on the cards.
He’s not an old man anymore now he’s a senile hologram. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_QQ2xj-nwQ&t=5s
https://twitter.com/neccamc1/status/1371640931821228032
https://www.brighteon.com/e521ac9d-f5d7-4d8c-af32-94dd2f54c337
Thank you outsider i will read it tomorrow, good night to you.
Thank you for the link outsider, learning everyday we’re not alone… look at this https://twitter.com/neccamc1/status/1371639868321886208
Yeah, it’s coming … later than I expected but ok, never say never …
Evacuating civilians and letting the Kurds be kicked, is the only language they understand.
The Syrians should attack now once they have their people in place,i see no difference between the Quisling SDF and the Turks,but they will need Russian air cover,thats the big question.
Good hunt Comrades.