By Wassim Essa, click to see the full-size image
On March 7, Head of the Russian Center for Reconciliation of the Warring Parties in Syria Major General Yuri Yevtushenko offered militants and a safe way out of the East Ghouta pocket in an official statement.
According to Maj. Gen. Yevtushenko, the Russian Reconciliation Center is even ready to provide the vehicles needed for the evacuation, and to fully secure the road.
“The Russian Reconciliation Centre guarantees the immunity of all rebel fighters who take the decision to leave Eastern Ghouta with personal weapons and together with their families,” said the Maj. Gen. Yevtushenko, according to the Russian RT TV.
Militants in the city of Aleppo agreed on a similar evacuation plan on December 15, 2016. This allowed them to withdraw towards Idlib governorate. However, they accepted the plan after they had lost more than 90% of their area inside the city.
In his official statement, Maj. Gen. Yevtushenko also said that militants in East Ghouta are still banning civilians there from leaving the pocket and using them as human shields.
“The militants act arbitrarily against civilians in Eastern Ghouta up to public executions, prohibiting them to leave the area under the threat of death. They seize food, medicines, drinking water and private vehicles from people. Senior citizens, women and children are forcibly held hostage and used as a human shield,” Yevtushenko said, according to the Russian state-run news agency TASS.
Militants even hindered a plan of the UN and the Russian Reconciliation Center to evacuate more than thousand sick and wounded civilians, according to Maj. Gen. Yevtushenko. Only thirteen wounded civilians including five children were able to leave the pocket eventually.
The militants in the East Ghouta pocket will not likely accept any peaceful solution before losing most of their areas, just like in Aleppo. However, with the rapid advance of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA), this could happen soon.
What a complicated dance we have to dance. The Russians have to offer this for the world forum of public opinion. The West continues to insist on ceasefires and humanitarian pauzes. This only emboldens the Jihadis, who are in that final stage of desperation where they know they will most likely going to lose, but still cling fanatically to the hope that somehow a miracle will come in the shape of Western cruise missiles and air strikes that will magically turn the tide in their favor. Like an Adolf Hitler in his Berlin bunker who gives orders to imaginary armies in the hope that it will somehow defeat the Red Army. Until that day comes where they finally lose all hope and realize the inevitable. And unlike Hitler, who ate a bullet, accept that green bus ride.
The only reason that the Russians dance this dance of course is to stave off the US from intervening. Every day that the US is dissuaded from military action is one where the Jihadi situation becomes more hopeless and such an intervention would prove more and more pointless.
Actually they are trying to save civilian lives too. They did it in Aleppo and it’s a good thing.
Of course they are trying to save civilians. If only be trying to get the fighting over as quickly as possible. Better for the fighting to be brutal but short, then to be with kid gloves on but drawn out for long.
I suppose you should go discuss it with Shoigu. I’m sure you are much more situation aware than he is.
Still trying to negociate with terrorists. Still believing in UN. Putin is deceptive.
The last time it worked and the terrorists of Aleppo unleashed a “civil” war in Idlib, making SAA managed to capture Abu-duhur. There is no faith in UN here, only the calculation that terrorists will kill as many troops as possible each other
If you always give them an exit pass, they will always make the more damage as possible before surrending.
They don’t negotiate with terrorists. They conduct psychological war on their behinds. Offering a way out is bad for their resolve and will lead to internal struggle and resentment between the moderate loonies with families and the real hardcore loonies that just want to die. And if they do move then they will fight Turkey, the US puppets, other terrorists factions or the SAA next. So the chances they fight the SAA goes from 1 to less than 1/3rd. A smart move that costs almost nothing. And as an extra plus it looks nice in international politics, very peace loving.
I think it’s the opposite. If you don’t negociate, those who don’t want to die for nothing will force the extremists to surrender.
That’s not how it works in ideological movements, sects and groups like these. It’s always the most dedicated that are on top in positions of power. What will happen is that the hardcore members will force those willing to surrender to the death and since there are no other options, they will.
The extremists can kill the surrenders. It will just make their situation worst : internal issues and less manpower.
They don’t need to kill them. They just need to make some speeches and point out how hopeless the situation is and how wonderful it will be to be a martyr. They will rekindle the flames of their religious beliefs and they will fight twice as hard. Just look at Waco for an example.
“It’s always the most dedicated that are on top in positions of power”
in this instance, I don’t agree mostly. Those who are in power positions are the ones with the outside (israel, west, saudia..) relationships “that matter”.
These people are under clear orders to utilize the civilian population as human shields, and possibly to kill them directly to blame Assad and Russia, just like they did in Aleppo.
If the Syrian population voice could be heard, we’d be hearing hair rising stories on this point – regretfully, the internet and the medias in general are saturated by zionist or US opportunistic masses of shit who preach about the “brutality of the Assad regime” to their own populations.
Can’t hardly shoot those if you are in Ghouta. I was obviously talking about the people there. The reporting here in the Netherlands is so sickening. Always bloody kids to go with the article and the false equivalency between the SAA and the terrorists. But at least they aren’t painted as freedom fighters and open minded people that want peace for all anymore.
“I was obviously talking about the people there”
You said those in top position of power.
If you think that those jihadists commanding in Ghouta are lowere echelon and don’t have relations with foreign countries it’s your opinion, but i suggest you to reconsider it.
There’s plenty of them, both from Nusra and Jaish al Islam. Otherwise they would not be able to independently take any kind of decision. In addition, Jobar is considered the hystorical nevralgic center of the entire Syrian “revolution”.
Also, what you think, that the westerners would be whining so much about the pocket being overrun? It’s likely they have some of their own inside. The way I see it, it’s not much different than Aleppo under many aspects.
The discussion was about those that want to surrender and those that didn’t. It’s called context.
then it evolved towards how high the profile of jihadist commanders in ghouta is.
strange that you now don’t wish to discuss this context anymore, since you got there first and i replied, not the other way around.
It didn’t evolve. You took something out of context to refute a point. “The biggest horses in a pack are the stallions, they lead the herd.” “Cowboys lead the pack.” What you say it true. It just has no bearing on a conversation about herd dynamics.
LOOOLOLOLOLOL.
even if people knew the meaning of what you wrote, they’ll just take you for a zionist lawyer who doesn’t want talks on how Jobar is an HQ of the jihadists in Syria as much as Aleppo was.
Scumbags.
Fine by me. You win. :)
look, i don’t like pleads to context, it’s like talking to people who’s under directives on which subjects are talkable and which aren’t.
deductions do not change the context of a discussion, at the most they enlarge it, by definition.
I’m not looking for “wins”, it’s just discussion, not a game with rules set especially by one player.
Whitenoise exists to bend anything you say back on you …and appear Sage of Wisdom.
Only thing worse is having Google AI cypher stalk you online.
Oh but I’m sorry.
I’ll be more attentive to the rules of discussion set by …, set by whoever makes those rules, next time.
“And as an extra plus it looks nice in international politics, very peace loving”
the point isn’t to jewishly “look good” in politics, but to care for the wellbeing of the civilian population.
I agree its about civilians. Just like guys that complain SAA nevee went for the oil. Its because the go for people first.
Like i said to a guy yesterday. Why have oil and gas if everybody is dead?
I don’t think theres oil or gas in East Ghouta?
It seems pretty much urban terrain with some farms in the eastern part.
There it’s to stop attacks on Damascus over 11,000 dead and over 30,000 crippled or seriously injured since the beginning. Just kill any Alloush’s that should be an imperative objective.
I’ve already prepared a clip where a jihadist boss was stating that “if Jobar falls the revolution is over”.
will put it here when time comes.
it’s the exact contrary.
“negotiating with terrorists” is done in the same way as when civilians hostages are taken in some place and the SWAT teams try to talk with the perpetrators, only for the sake of civilians lives.
Of course you zionazis prefer to see a Russian leadership hellbent on flattening everything that gets in their way, because you are desperately looking to appear morally superior to them.
All your card castles of lies are coming down with only a light breeze.
When the real wind will blow, you’ll be wiped out alongside all your lies.
Of course, it’s not. I have never heard about the SWAT giving a free pass to leave the scene and let him go !!!!
If the SWAT always acted like this, be prepared to a rise of crimes !!!
“I have never heard about the SWAT giving a free pass to leave the scene and let him go !!!!”
it’s an intellectually corrupt interpretation, because in the end SWAT teams kill the terrorists, and save the most civilians they can.
The plan of moving terrorists to a single confined area and limit urban fights to the minimum is good for everybody involved, except the terrorists and their supporters.
Which is why you constantly whine about it.
Yeah, trying to uphold that “moral high ground” is becoming harder even in MSM :)
and the best part is that they don’t even fully realize it.
we’ll see what kind of point this will reach, but i’m pretty sure that in certain circles they are already talking about how can they abolish democracy in order to save democracy.
it’s what they did in the latest 70 years, the only reason they got away with it is that they were able to keep it hidden enough.
The zionists never negotiated with anyone in RAQQA,civilians or terrorists,,all they wanted to do was destroy the city to ensure that the survivors would never return.And they have the arrogance to criticise the humanitarian efforts of Syrias government to save their people from the zionist terrorists.All of Syria should be cleansed of the scourge of zionist terrorism once and for all.
of course they did.
Raqqa is an arab majority city at the borders with kurdish areas.
the USAF has put up a literal depopulation operation because those arabs would had been a major pain for the SDF and the US plan to rob the syrian population of its strategic resources.
now the kurds are being overrun by turkey and they are leaving their posts in the east to get to defend afrin.
who knows if finally these people has understood what they got themselves into? Who are going to defend them from turkey? the US? Israel?
nice job kurds.
It’s a wast of time. Time has pass for negisiation
i dont know why the rebels insist stay in that pocket, they know they wont be able to defend the pocket for long, most likely they will leave when everything is pile of rubble in the ghouta.
The terrorists (so called militants) knows already that they are lost, but they want to make the highest damage as possible to Syria people and government, because they were paid (USA-Israel) for doing that.