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The Syrian Arab Army (SAA), Hezbollah, the Iraqi Army and the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) are preparing for a joint advance on the ISIS border strongholds of al-Bukamal and al-Qaim.
On Saturday, the Iraqi Army and the PMU launched an anti-ISIS operation in the border area, liberated the border town Akashat, the H-3 station, Akashat factory and the Akashat housing complex, and secured a road linking it with the Damascus-Baghdad highway.
At the same day, the SAA and Hezbollah, supported by Liwa Fatemiyoun, Liwa Haydaryoun, Liwa al-Zainabyoun and the National Defense Forces (NDF), captured al-Rutimah, Ghizlaniah and the desert area north of Sharat al-Wa’ar.
On Sunday, Syrian and Iraqi forces officially met on the border near Akashat. The SAA and Hezbollah deployed several special force and armoured units right on the border line. According to the UK-based Al-Araby Al-Jadeed newspaper, the sides had agreed to establish three joint positions there.
Damascus gave Iraqi forces a permission to enter 10km deep inside the Syrian territory if needed. Iraqi sources claimed that some Syrian battle tanks and armoured vehicles of entered the Iraqi territory and joined Iraqi units.
The expected joint push towards al-Bukamal and al-Qaim will ease a battle against ISIS in the border area. Furthermore, many PMU factions particiapte in an anti-ISIS campaign of the Syrian government inside Syria. Units of these factions could cross the border and to assist the SAA in its advance towards al-Bukamal.
On Saturday, the US-led coalition officially accused Russian forces of striking a position on the eastern bank of the Euphrates near the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and coalition troops. Six SDF members were injured, according to the SDF statement. The alleged strike came after SDF representatives had repeatedly threatened to strike Syrian government forces if they attempt to cross the Euphrates in the Deir Ezzor countryside.
On Sunday, the Russian Defense Ministry rejected these claims adding that Russian forces strike only ISIS positions and the US had received a notice about this in advance. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Major-General Igor Konashenkov added that the Russian military has not observed any fighting between ISIS and SDF in the northern countryside of Deir Ezzor over the past few days. “Therefore, only representatives of the international coalition can answer the question as to how ‘opposition members’ or ‘military advisers of the international coalition’ managed to get to the IS-held areas in the eastern part of Deir Ezzor without striking a blow.”
The SAA and its allies have liberated Jafrah, Ayyash, the Hujeif mount, Muraieiah, Hawayej, Hawayej Abu Arab, Ain Abu Jumah and Hajj Hammoud as well as some nearby points on the both northwestern and southeastern flanks of the city.
On Monday, Syrian forces crossed the Euphrates east of Deir Ezzor. Since start of September, the SDF and pro-SDF sources have repeatedly claimed that they will not allow the SAA to cross the Euphrates. So what now?
SDF need to back down or they will receive the same treatment as ISIS does. https://youtu.be/87dJTTQgTq4
I believe it.
I believe this situation is far more dangerous than North Korean missiles.
Yes, but a possible war or hit on N. Korea could be better selled to the US inhabitants. The N. Korea item helps Syria and allies to get on with no greater reaction of the USAF so far…
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You have well explained.
Yes what happens now?
Swiftly liberate the oilfields and the roads to Iraq ? :)
The Empire of Chaos lurks over the hill, hope they are watching their backs.
I agree. The US has demonstrated many times that their military is no better than the terror groups they are involved with. The US military and sadly the British military have no shame in their support of terrorism and barbarism for their own selfish Geo Political aims.
It was only today that the UK Government was lauding the latest export deal of Typhoon Jets to QATAR.
It was only ‘yesterday’ that the UK Government was Tut Tutting when Trump and the Saudi’s were declaring QATAR to be a financier of terrorism . :)
Have they all gone totally insane ?
i think they were trying to get qatar back on their side with the fighter jet deal, but they didnt fall for it, they were probably just like “im not gonna budge, but thanks for the jets anyway!” lol
Its about defeating ISIS not some for the moment unprodutive oilfields. Its also about land after ISIS isnt there.
They are fast, excellent.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e5723eeb1e3170235fb93eec50d255ea973b76af7e6b9ef23e497c8e11f6afbc.jpg
Be careful !!
Yep
Great move. It shows that the US dogs only bark but don’t bite. Now give the IS rats the final blow together with the Iraqi friends
You can never know for sure what a criminal mind is thinking of and what is capable to do all of a sudden. Better to be prepare for the worst case scenario.
First time I agree insomething You write…
Very cheep writing like that. If You fx compare Assads with SDF Assads started with a whole country and kurds had 0.
Assads wasnt even in Syria unlees they were dead with no help from many others incl. SDF.
After having assisted in the genocide or ethnic cleansing of Armenians, Aramaic Assyrians and Chaldeans, and even fellow Kurdophone Yazidis, and having already made enemies of Arabs, Turks and Iranians, the Kurds might just end up with nothing, even that tiny little POS the KRG.
Russia will ask Assad to federalize them into Syria, that is the most they can get to lay down arms and stop their bullshit.
Federalization is too much the camel’s nose and would lead to partition. Kurds should be allowed to preserve their culture by sending their children to Kurdish schools in areas where the demand is big enough, the various Kurdish languages should be officially recognized where they are spoken and there should be no discrimination against them. The same goes for others who are minorities in Kurdish majority or Kurdish plurality areas.
Individuals have rights. Groups of people do not. Groups have no collective “right” to a state where they lord it over others. Why do people fuss about a state for Kurds? There is no state for Aramaic people, either. No state for Alawites. No state for Druse. No state for Shia. One Syria.
Russia is a federation, yet deeply united , it is even in our national anthem, a union of brotherly peoples, all with the same motherland. That is why Russia proposed this model and it was rejected by Syrians, it might not work for them.
Russia is a federation, yet deeply united
Yes, the unity of the people is key. Most of Syria is united, but the Kurdish leadership has repeatedly allowed itself to be used by the FUKZUS divide and rule tactics, even being complicit in atrocities and ethnic cleansing. Assad made it clear in his latest speech that non-Arabs will be citizens when the war is over. Indigenous Kurds must have full rights to vote and equal protection under the law. It will be wise for the government to respect their language and culture, and to give them some control over purely local issues like schools. But issues that affect other populations (such as property registration and ownership, signage and even schools) must be strictly supervised by Damascus to make sure they do not discriminate against others. Syria, Turkey, Iran and Iraq must work together to disarm all Kurd militias including KRG, root out any hidden weapons caches and seal all borders against infiltration and the smuggling of weapons, explosives and precursors.
Kurd militias used to be more cooperative with government forces and allies, but US involvement has encouraged their greed. This in turn has opened my eyes to their long history of violence against other groups. Kurds must learn to act non-violently and democratically to achieve their legitimate aims within the boundaries of existing states.
Deeply united, because if one of them want to step out, it will be bloodshed. In 12 of the 22 republics, the mayority of the population are russians and or orthodox christians by the way, so they pull all the strings.
I would like to say you are right……if you would mention all people on the planet! whuy should americans have a country?, why syrians?, why russians?, why indians?, why indonesians?, why brazilians? just to name a few. just because they allready have a country???? That does not make sense. There was a time all of these countries did not exist. Borders change all the time, now it is time to change some borders again!!
As Peter Lavelle said the other day on CGTN, “The dogs bark, and the caravan moves along.”
It is time to integrate the Syrian and Iraqi armies. They don’t have to share command, but they should utilize the same command centers and begin training together in the future.
A nightmare for USA, it will use all the means to stop that possible cooperation.
too late for USA lol
Its an ongoing process going in at least 4 dimesions. This is a little down for sure.
Its no nightmare for only USA. Only corners are. You write it as You region is most of the world. Its only for your locals.
Very well for SAA. Western are the main traineers for the iraqi army as well as airforce. I dont know if they have any fleet.
For sure. To protect the old Mesopotamia.
Now that the Deir Ezzor airport is up and running; Russia/Iran/Syria and Hezbollah will press on; Even the foreign paid mercenaries are wanting to join the government forces so, what will happen to all the Pentagun weapons? They gave them so much weapons, all for nothing? USA spent 17 years in Afghanistan and more War; Russia/Syria/Hezbollah/Iran took 2 years and, they are nearly done!
hopefully SAA can get them :))
Congratulation to aerospace Russia force and Syria-Hezbolah-Iran-Russia ground forces. We hope that this air protection and support continue and, even, increases along all this war at to the end. You never know what kurds (USA- puppets) can do. They could become very well the new ISIS-Daesh force in Syria. I propose the Negev desert as the new land for Kurdistan since Israel love kurds.
??
Stoltenberg, why the double question marks?? It is quite clear that Israel is the only ME country supporting Kurds, so why not give them their fucking state in their robbed lands?
Certanly, it would be a nightmare for USA to see that PMU is cooperating and coordinated with Syria army.
Yes! I was hoping against hope that Putin and Assad would cross the Euphrates and make for the Iraqi border. It only makes sense. The SDF cannot hold what lands they can take from ISIS so it serves to reason that any land tha5t the SAA occupies cannot be contested by a weak and already overstretched SDF. Daesh is finished but the Kurds are the next organized group of foreign backed interlopers trying to create their own state out of Syria. That’ll be impossible since the West will not support that state’s existence against Turkey’s internal security, i.e. Kurdish nationalists within Turkey itself. The Kurds are being played, but they are too far into the deception to back out now. All they can do is play along until they can negotiate their demise in Syria; right after they are compromised into no other end by the Western Coalition. I’m elated for the SAA but it’s a shame to watch as the Kurds are used and then discarded in Syria, like they have been in Iraq.
Several good oppinions. But I dont think SDF are overstreched. More like they are bigger and better then ever, but still is the small one.
I do pray for the tiny minority of Kurds who are loyal citizens of Syria, Iraq, Iran and Turkey, but why should Kurds have their own state? Why does nobody have the same sympathy for Aramaic Assyrians, Chaldeans and Syriacs? They don’t have their own state, either. But then, they are loyal citizens of Syria and Iraq and the West and Israel haven’t been able to stir them up yet.
25 milion people is a lot of people…. All the other groups you mention have been decimated because of genocide and mass emigration
Yes, and Kurds have been complicit in much of that genocide and ethnic cleansing. The pre-war Kurdish population of Syria was only about 2 million, around 10% of the population. The pre-war Aramaic populations of Syria and Iraq were 700,000 and 1.5 million, respectively. Of course the populations are lower after Kurdish authorities disarmed them and abandoned them to ISIS.
And the arabs and turks were innocent in these matters?
You’re the one who brought up ethnic cleansing while failing to mention Kurdish complicity. Of course, Turkey enlisted the Kurds to help implement its cleansing of Christians. That’s all quite well documented, but Turkish instigation of the Armenian genocide doesn’t absolve the Kurds. Assad has said non-Arabs will have full citizenship after the war. I presume that applies to all Kurds with legitimate roots in Syria, but the Asayish thugs need to go back to Iraq where hopefully the Baghdad government will insure they are disarmed.
Failing to mention? It was irrelevant to mention. The Kurds are a huge group of people without a country, not comparable with a few 1000 christian minorities. That is the situation today. The armenians got a country, by the way. Unfortunatly a very small one. But it would not make sense to try to reverse the past. For the future: There will be a Kurdish state, i think.
Let me be sure I got this straight. You’re saying that a leadership’s criminal behavior toward others is irrelevant to the question of whether that leadership should be granted power of the minorities it has already abused? You are also dismissing hundreds of thousands, even millions of people as merely a few 1000? You’d best not respond, as you have defeated your own arguments.
A Kurdish state will serve nobody but the FUKZUS Empire. In the long run, it will not even serve the Kurdish people. It will disintegrate under the rivalries of Barzani, Talabani and Ocalan and their inability to address the problems of isolation and hostility they have engendered in their neighbors.
You misunderstand my words completely and make it into another story. By the way, the minorities in Iraq have a better life under kurdish rule today. The criminal behaviour in the past (i believe you refer to the attrocities i mentioned that involved kurds) was under the rule of the turks. I do not understand your agenda…..
I now understand you are only willing to concede the self-admitted Kurdish collaboration with the Turks against Armenians and Assyrians, which you believe is irrelevant because it was 100 years ago. However, Kurdish facilitation of ISIS attacks on other minorities in 2014 shows this mistreatment of other groups to be an ingrained pattern of behavior, making the genocides of 100 years ago relevant as well.
today, there are about 10.000 aramaic speakers in Syria. If you consider all christians aramaic, 700.000 is about right. The big question ik if THEY consider themselves aramaic, or YOU consider them aramaic But they do not all live in the kurdisch area, now occupied by the ypg. Apart from that, the ypg protect christians and some fighters are also christians.
The numbers were taken from a population table in Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assyrian_people. If you’ve got documented proof those numbers are wrong or inflated, show them. They are pre-ISIS numbers.
Of course, almost half the Syrians are now displaced. It’s even worse in Iraq, where Both Assyrians and Yazidi reported that the peshmerga forcibly disarmed them, promising to protect them from ISIS, but then abandoned them when ISIS arrived.
A mayority of countries pay tribute to the US empire, France and the UK are less powerfull then Germany and Japan, wich are also in this system. OK, the FUK still have nukes, but money rules in the end. Also the Z is not as powerfull as most people on this website believe.
Z is every bit as powerful as people believe. AIPAC brags that it is the most effective lobby in the US.
There are at least 70.000.000 fundamentalist christians in the us that support israel. Not because they like jews but because they want to fullfil the prophecy of the bible.
We were discussing “Z,” not Jews or Judaism. Not all Jews are Zionists, and not all Zionists are Jews. In fact, the movement for “restoration” of Jews to Palestine originated with British Anglicans, as did the pre-tribulation rapture doctrine. The former was the brainchild of Anthony Ashley Cooper, the seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, while the latter was the invention of John Nelson Darby. I don’t know that they knew of or influenced one another, but it’s possible, as they were contemporaries in England in the 1830s when both movements began. The idea of “restoration” was soon adopted by Lord Palmerston, the British Foreign Secretary, as a means of establishing a pro-British “buffer” state in the Levant.
Jews were initially skeptical of “restoration,” as “next year in Jerusalem” was metaphorical rather than an actual call to aliyah. As you know, it didn’t gain any real momentum until Herzl was motivated by Dreyfus (and supported by the Round Table in Britain) and pogroms drove many Jews out of Russia and Eastern Europe in the late 19th, early 20th Centuries.
Meanwhile, the followers of Darby grew into the current fundamentalist movement you spoke of, which sees the in-gathering of Jews as a necessary precursor to the end times. They are thus dedicated Zionists and supporters of everything AIPAC demands, though they fully expect non-repentant Jews to be condemned to Hell after the Final Judgement.
The power of Z, whether Jewish or Christian, is every bit as great as people here believe, probably greater. What they are confused about is the difference between “Jew” with “Zionist,” a conflation you and Israel do all in your power to foster.
praying never solved anything, just a bizare ritual talking to a fantasy
Prayer does not require a belief in God. I use “pray” and its derivatives symbolically/metaphorically. I don’t “pray” to some mythological being or spirit in the sky. I pray to myself and other human beings.
“Hope” is an inadequate term for what I’m doing when I say I pray for this or that. Hope is a passive concept that requires no commitment or action on the part of the hopeful. One can hope without even requesting anything. Prayer, on the other hand, is the act of requesting or committing oneself in some sense to a particular outcome. The commitment need not be immense. It may be as small as simply voicing support publicly for a particular outcome, thereby asking others to support that outcome as well.
When I said I pray for the minority of Kurds who are loyal citizens of their larger communities, I was asking myself and others to recognize that not all Kurds are violent thugs who want to drive non-Kurds from areas where Kurds live. I also pray that the many Kurds who are extreme nationalists willing to resort to violence will come to their senses, stop listening to outside agitators and realize they are sowing the seeds of their own potential destruction.
Ok, nice explanation!
if SAA has really crossed the euphrates, then SDF is just all talk and a bunch of pussies!!!
I dont see that. They gambled.
In my oppinion they made a not well plan. 1) They could have starte that offensive at least 14 days before they did and have taking most of their side some time before SAA arrived. That would have helped SAA too. or 2) They could have limited their advance away from SAA taking Markada from north in the Kabur river valley as well as having a slow advance from the Raqqa side towards Deir El Zor. Both could get sensible terrain and the last one take some heat as well spreading ISIS even more.
Yes COULD, COULD, COULD.
They are currently not in the position of strength. Their actions have already caused huge animosity towards them by all other ethnicities. Open hostility may risk others to join forces against them.
Their role is more likely to be that of a future destabilizing factor, with primary focus on Iran. Giving up a part of Syria, or pressuring against independence in Iraq may just be short term investments towards a potential Persian spring, looking at it mathematically.
Asayish (PKK “police”) have caused all sorts of trouble and committed atrocities in NE Syria, and the PKK has already been conducting cross-border raids into Iran, using the KRG area as sanctuary. Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey need to lance that boil and totally disarm all Kurdish factions to prevent the disease from constantly infecting the body politic. Give them democratic rights as equal citizens, but no state. Any state for Kurdish nomads, smugglers and terrorists immediately causes trouble for their neighbors. Like Israel, they know no borders and claim all territory where there’s a plurality or even a minority of Kurds.
They could have been real allies of the people of Deir Ez Zor and done it a year ago, breaking the siege and bringing with them humanitarian supplies. Instead, they waited until the battle was already won and waltzed in without opposition. Actually, the US just re-flagged some ISIS units into SDF, which they’ve done previously renaming them to FSA.
ONE WAR CAN HIDE ANOTHER
After the Caliphate, Rojava
by Thierry Meyssan
While the Syrian Arab Army, the Russian aviation and Hezbollah are preparing to finish off Daesh, the Pentagon is planning a new war against Syria, this time with Kurdish troops. Just as the mission of the Caliphate was to create a Sunnistan straddling Iraq and Syria, so the mission of « Rojava » is to create a Kurdistan straddling the two states, as the Pentagon has been publicly stating for the last four years.
This map was published by Robin Wright nine months before the offensive by Daesh into Iraq and Syria. According to this Pentagon researcher, it rectifies the map published in 2005 by Ralf Peters for the reshaping of the Greater Middle East.
According to US grand strategy, as defined by Admiral Cebrowski in 2001, and published in 2004 by his assistant Thomas Barnett, all of the Greater Middle East must be destroyed except for Israël, Jordan and Lebanon.
Consequently, the imminent victory against Daesh will change nothing of the Pentagon’s intentions.
President Trump is against the manipulation of the jihadists. He has stopped the financial and military support that his country was giving them, and has managed to convince Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to do the same. He has modified NATO policies in the matter. However, nothing yet hints as to whether or not he will also oppose the Pentagon’s grand strategy. As far as the US Interior is concerned, the whole of Congress is in league against him, and he has no possibility of preventing a procedure for destitution other than negotiating with the Democratic Party.
Donald Trump has composed his administration of ex-senior civil servants from the Obama administration, a number of opportunistic politicians, many improvised representatives, and very very few trustworthy personalities.
His special representative against Daesh, Brett McGurk, is an ex-collaborator of President Obama, and is supposed to serve Trump’s new policy. On 18 August, he organised a meeting with the tribal leaders to « fight Daesh ». However, the photographs he published attest to the fact that, on the contrary, several of Daesh’s leaders also participated in the meeting.
In the same vein, helicopters of the US Special Forces exfiltrated two European leaders of Daesh and their families from the outskirts of Deiz ez-Zor, before they could be taken prisoner by the Syrian Arab Army on 26 August. Two days later, they also exfiltrated about twenty more Daesh officers.
Everything looks as though the Pentagon were storing away its jihadist structure and conserving it for other operations elsewhere. Simultaneously, it is preparing a new episode against Syria with a new army, which, this time, will be composed around Kurdish forces.
This war, like the war against the Caliphate,was announced four years ago in the New York Times, by Robin Wright, a researcher at the US Institute of Peace (equivalent to the NED for the Pentagon). It also planned to divide the Yemen into two states, potentially shared between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi – and finally, last but not least, to dismember Saudi Arabia.
Meanwhile, the « Rojava » project corresponds to Israëli strategy, which, since the end of the 1990’s and the development of missiles, is no longer concentrated on controlling its border regions (the Sinaï, the Golan and South Lebanon), but on taking its neighbours from behind (hence the creation of South Sudan and eventually, Greater Kurdistan).
The recruiting drive for European soldiers for the « Rojava » project has only just begun. A priori, it could assemble as many combatants as there were for the jihad, insofar as the members of the anarchist groups which provide manpower are as numerous in Europe as common law prisoners.
Indeed, the jihadist network began in French prisons before becoming a generalised « crusade ». It is probable that the recruitment within the anarchist movement will also spread as the conflict goes on. Washington, London, Paris and Berlin, who organised this recruitment, planned in the long term. I use the word « crusade » deliberately, because these wars in the Middle Ages, like the one we have just experienced, were in fact European imperialist operations against the people of the Greater Middle East. It is just as grotesque to claim that there is a link between the message of Christ and the crusades as to claim a link between the Prophet and jihadism. In both cases, the commanders were « Westerners » [1], and these conflicts exclusively served Western imperialism. The successive crusades bled across two centuries, and the majority of Chrisitians in the Levant fought alongside their Muslim compatriots against the invaders.
Not long ago, the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, Laurent Fabius, publicly declared that President Assad « did not deserve to be on Earth », and confirmed that the jihadists were doing a « good job ». Many young people answered his call by joining Al-Nusra (Al-Qaïda), then Daesh. Today, the French ex-Minister for Foreign Affairs, Bernard Kouchner, publicly announced that France would support the creation of state which would include Iraqi Kurdistan and the corridor to the Mediterranean via Syria. A few young Europeans have already answered this call, and many others will follow.
Today, as in 2011-12, the Western Press has taken the side of this new anti-Syrian army, supported by their governments. It will never question the treachery of Abdullah Öcalan, who renounced Marxist-Leninism for anarchy. It will repeat that Kurdistan has already been recognised by the Sèvres Conference, in 1920, but it will avoid looking at the documents which specify its boundaries. It will believe it to be legitimate in Iraq and Syria, although it is currently situated in Turkey. It will ignore the fact that the frontiers in fact correspond to nothing other than the plans developed by the Pentagon.
The referendum for the independence of the Iraqi region of Kurdistan and the territories annexed with the help of Daesh will launch the beginning of this operation, on 25 September. As in 2014, it will be intended to simultaneously destroy Iraq and Syria, this time without creating a « Sunnistan » from Rakka to Mossul, but a « Kurdistan », on a territory linking Erbil and Kirkuk to the Mediterranean.
Thierry Meyssan http://www.voltairenet.org/article197938.html Source
Al-Watan (Syria)
[1] This term is poorly chosen insofar as « Westerner » is not opposed to « Oriental », but to « Soviet ». I could find no other term to describe collectively the Europeans, the North-Americans and the Israelis. Author’s note.
What SAA did in one day,
the Army Force Philippines Scoundrels in Marawi can’t do it in few months !
“A media wing of the SAA 5th Assault Corps’ I. S. I. S Hunters released a video showing the crossing of the Euphrates on September 18 morning. According to the media outlet, government forces liberated Marrat, Sbahah and Mazlum and killed about 40 ISIS members”
https://southfront.org/overview-of-battle-for-deir-ezzor-on-september-19-2017-maps-video/
Could have been an entrapment. KiraSeer