Syria Disintegrating: Part 2

[CountDeMoney]

Funny how those two dudes felt like they couldn't go to a safe place until the big wig asked them too, 20 seconds after gunfire starts.  The civilized world would be in trouble when Russian military learns how to empower its soldiers with common sense.

I remember attending a presentation on Soviet military doctrine back in the 1980s, I think it was at Origins, even...presenter said the first order of business is to take out the Soviet APC with the most antennas, and the rest of the column will freeze like baby deer.   

[Ed Anger]

Although, I might get a giant war boner if the joint US/Russian airstrikes actually happen against ISIS.

Warthogs and Frogfoots? I need clean pants.

They pulled out all of the Frogfeet awhile ago.

I like Frogfeet. And Fencers.

[Razgovory]

Video of Russia troops on the ground in Syria, nr the Castello road, coming under fire as they give a live briefing to their boss in Moscow:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-37357955

"If you can't talk, son, just key your handset twice. Over."

Funny how those two dudes felt like they couldn't go to a safe place until the big wig asked them too, 20 seconds after gunfire starts.  The civilized world would be in trouble when Russian military learns how to empower its soldiers with common sense.

The last time that happened was a hundred years ago.  And they all just walked home.

[Valmy]

I read that the Germans and Austro-Hungarians observed that the Russians would fight with super-human fanaticism right up until their officers were all dead. Then they would all surrender en masse. Definitely a different military culture.

[derspiess]

Although, I might get a giant war boner if the joint US/Russian airstrikes actually happen against ISIS.

Warthogs and Frogfoots? I need clean pants.

They pulled out all of the Frogfeet awhile ago.

I swear I saw a Frogfoot on the news the other day bombing rebel positions in Aleppo.

[11B4V]

Although, I might get a giant war boner if the joint US/Russian airstrikes actually happen against ISIS.

Warthogs and Frogfoots? I need clean pants.

They pulled out all of the Frogfeet awhile ago.

I swear I saw a Frogfoot on the news the other day bombing rebel positions in Aleppo.

https://sputniknews.com/military/20160504/1039084641/russian-jets-return.html

[Tonitrus]

I swear I saw a Frogfoot on the news the other day bombing rebel positions in Aleppo.

Syrians probably have some.

[mongers]

Oops, US giving close air support to ISIS:

Syria conflict: US air strikes 'kill dozens of government troops'
17 September 2016

The US-led coalition has admitted its planes carried out an attack in eastern Syria that the Russian army says killed at least 62 Syrian troops fighting IS.

The US said its planes had halted the attack in Deir al-Zour when informed of the Syrian presence.

The strikes allowed IS to advance, said Russia, which called an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council.

The Russians earlier said the current ceasefire in Syria was in danger of collapse and the US would be to blame.

The cessation of hostilities does not include attacks by the US on
The US Central Command statement said the coalition believed it was attacking positions of so-called Islamic State and the raids were "halted immediately when coalition officials were informed by Russian officials that it was possible the personnel and vehicles targeted were part of the Syrian military".

It said the "Combined Air Operations Center had earlier informed Russian counterparts of the upcoming strike".

It added: "Syria is a complex situation with various military forces and militias in close proximity, but coalition forces would not intentionally strike a known Syrian military unit. The coalition will review this strike and the circumstances surrounding it to see if any lessons can be learned."

Russia's defence ministry earlier said that if the US air strikes did turn out to be an error, it would be because of Washington's refusal to co-ordinate military action with Moscow.

Only if the current ceasefire - which began on Monday - holds for seven days, will the US and Russia begin co-ordinated action against the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham group, which was previously known as the al-Nusra Front, and IS.

The Russian defence ministry quoted a statement by Syrian army general command as saying that the four coalition air strikes on Syrian troops had allowed IS to advance.

Full article here:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-37398721

[Syt]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/25/russia-accused-war-crimes-syria-un-security-council-aleppo

Russia accused of war crimes in Syria at UN security council session

Russia has been directly and repeatedly accused of war crimes at the UN security council in an unusually blunt session, as hopes of any form of ceasefire were flattened by the scale and ferocity of the Syrian regime's assault on eastern Aleppo.

The war crimes accusations centred on the widespread use of bunker-busting and incendiary bombs on the 275,000 civilians living in the rebel-held east of the city, weapons that Moscow's accusers say were dropped by Russian aircraft.

"Bunker-busting bombs, more suited to destroying military installations, are now destroying homes, decimating bomb shelters, crippling, maiming, killing dozens, if not hundreds," Matthew Rycroft, the UK ambassador to the UN said during the emergency security council session on Syria.

"Incendiary munitions, indiscriminate in their reach, are being dropped on to civilian areas so that, yet again, Aleppo is burning. And to cap it all, water supplies, so vital to millions, are now being targeted, depriving water to those most in need. In short, it is difficult to deny that Russia is partnering with the Syrian regime to carry out war crimes."

Earlier in the day, the UK foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, said: "Putin's regime is not just handing Assad the revolver; he is in some instances firing the revolver. The Russians themselves are actually engaged."

Save the Children quoted doctors in Aleppo on Sunday as saying that about half the casualties in the city were children.

At the security council meeting, Rycroft's French counterpart, François Delattre, agreed the use of bunker-busters and incendiaries on urban residential areas were war crimes and insisted "these crimes must not go unpunished". Delattre said Aleppo was becoming another Srebrenica or Guernica and that if nothing was done to stop the assault "this week will go down in history as the one in which diplomacy failed and barbarism triumphed".

The US ambassador, Samantha Power, highlighted the targeting of three out of four centres in eastern Aleppo used by the volunteer emergency services – the White Helmets – with the consequence that lifesaving equipment had been destroyed and "those buried in rubble in Aleppo are much more likely to die in the rubble".

She said while Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, had been talking about restoring peace in Syria at council meetings last week, incendiary bombs were being loaded on to Russian planes in preparation for the new offensive.

"What Russia is sponsoring and doing is not counter-terrorism. It is barbarism," Power said, urging other national representatives to speak out. "History will not look kindly on security council members who stay silent in the face of this carnage," she said, adding that it was also not the time to use the passive voice and observe that Aleppo was being bombed. It was time, she said, to say who was doing the bombing.

In response, the Russian envoy, Vitaly Churkin, blamed the breakdown of a week-long, US-Russia-brokered ceasefire on rebels, including the "moderate opposition" backed by the west. Extremist groups in eastern Aleppo were holding its population hostage, Churkin claimed, stopping them from leaving and using them as human shields.

He praised the Assad regime in Damascus for its "admirable restraint", claiming it was in fact Syrian government forces that were surrounded and were only firing on eastern Aleppo when they had been fired upon. "The Syrian regime only uses air power to get terrorists out of the city with minimal civilian casualties," Churkin said, as he dismissed reports of mass killing in eastern Aleppo as fake, using footage from government-held western Aleppo.

The UN special envoy on Syria, Staffan de Mistura, said the ceasefire had significantly reduced the level of fighting, allowing Aleppo residents to "come out of their shelters and houses to celebrate Eid on the streets".

He said: "People started to become cautiously optimistic," but added the ceasefire was broken by bombing a day before the end of its first week "when five districts were hit reportedly with five severe airstrikes" following the Syrian government's unilateral declaration of an end to the truce.

"Since that fateful day, we have seen the situation in eastern Aleppo deteriorate to new heights of horror," de Mistura said. He said the airstrikes were reported to have killed 213 people in Aleppo province, 139 of them in eastern Aleppo.

De Mistura said: "We heard the word 'unprecedented' – in quantity and also in scale and type – in [descriptions of] the types of bombing. We have seen reports, videos and pictures of reported use of incendiary bombs that create fireballs of such intensity that they light up the pitch darkness in eastern Aleppo, as though it was actually daylight. We now hear of bunker-busting bombs being used and see pictures of large craters in the earth much larger than in previous aerial bombings.

"If it is confirmed, the systematic indiscriminate use of such weapons in areas where civilians and civilian infrastructure are present may amount to war crimes."

De Mistura said he had been asked why, in the face of such an onslaught and failure of diplomacy, he did not resign. He said he would not do so "because any sign of me resigning would be a signal that the international community is abandoning the Syrians, and we will not abandon the Syrians, and neither will you".

Tom Fletcher, the UK's former ambassador to Lebanon, said the change in tone used at the security council on Sunday marked a new phase in the west's response to the conflict, jettisoning residual hopes of making a deal with Russia.

"Normally diplomatic language is cautious: even the Syria contact group's statement yesterday only spoke of patience with Russia being 'not unlimited'. But today's statements in the security council from France, the US and UK are more raw, and more angry. They show that the recent policy – admittedly more in hope than expectation – of trusting Russia to restrain Assad is now buried in the rubble of Aleppo. This signals a new phase. Assad has calculated that US elections give him a free hand to massacre. We will now see whether or not he has underestimated US readiness to protect the most vulnerable."

[Tamas]

How is there no bigger concern about this whole thing?

the US and Russia may not be shooting directly at each other, but I don't recall them every be so close doing so during the Cold War - their own airforces are in the same conflict, supporting opposing sides. Technically, they are at war.

[Berkut]

Technically, they are at war.

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

[Tamas]

Technically, they are at war.

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

Yeah, I meant practically

[Berkut]

Technically, they are at war.

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

Yeah, I meant practically

I don't think that word means what you think it means either...

[Syt]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-37473098

Syria conflict: US and UK rhetoric 'unacceptable' - Russia

Russia has criticised the US and UK for using "unacceptable" tone and rhetoric in speeches on Syria at the UN, after being accused of "barbarism".

On Sunday, US permanent representative Samantha Power said Russian and Syrian forces were "laying waste" to besieged rebel-held areas of the city of Aleppo.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned that such language might damage efforts to end the five-year civil war.

Activists meanwhile reported dozens of fresh air strikes on Aleppo overnight.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least two civilians had been killed, while a rescue worker accused the Syrian and Russian air forces of using munitions containing phosphorus and napalm, and cluster bombs.

At least 124 people are believed to have been killed in rebel-held Aleppo since last week, when a truce brokered by the US and Russia collapsed and the Syrian military announced the start of an operation to take full control of the city.

He alleged that they were committing war crimes by using "bunker-busting bombs to destroy underground shelters, dropping incendiary weapons indiscriminately on civilian areas, and targeting the city's water supplies.

Ms Power told the meeting: "Instead of pursuing peace, Russia and Assad make war. Instead of helping get life-saving aid to civilians, Russia and Assad are bombing the humanitarian convoys, hospitals, and first responders who are trying desperately to keep people alive."

"What Russia is sponsoring and doing is not counterterrorism; it is barbarism," she added.

Pro-Kremlin media in Russia have been gripped by the discussions on Syria at the UN Security Council, but they offered little comment on the accusations levelled against Moscow.

Instead, they dismissed the charges as "groundless" and hailed the response of Russian envoy Vitaly Churkin. "Both US and UK permanent representatives were lavish in criticising Moscow and Damascus, but received a firm response," said Gazprom-owned NTV.

State-owned newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta accused the US and its allies of trying to "exert pressure on Damascus and Moscow, while doing nothing to meet their own obligations".

Russian ambassador Vitaly Churkin blamed the unravelling of the truce deal on the US, saying it had failed to convince mainstream rebels to distance themselves from "terrorist" groups, especially the al-Qaeda-linked Jabhat Fatah al-Sham.

Mr Peskov also rejected the Western criticism at a news conference on Monday.

"We note that the tone and rhetoric used by official representatives from the UK and US is generally unacceptable and it can seriously damage the settlement process and our bilateral relations, but in the interests of the higher ideas of settlement we are minded to detach ourselves from unnecessary emotion," he said.

The Kremlin spokesman acknowledged that the truce deal had been "not very effective", but insisted that Moscow "definitely remains hopeful, and most importantly it
retains the political will to apply as much effort as possible to find a steady path for political settlement in Syria".

But he also warned that "terrorists" had used the truce to "regroup, replenish their arsenals and obviously prepare for offensive actions".

[CountDeMoney]

Anybody catch King Abdullah II on 60 Minutes last night?

"Doesn't it frustrate you that US presidents seem to think they know more about your region than you do?"
*shrug* "You see the train wreck coming...can only express your views so much."