AFAIK, it turned out the USA flew no strikes on anybody at all. The CENTCOM didn't release any kind of such reports, and any that were published - were published either by PKK- or IRGC-shills.
Yes, but that's related to their air strikes on the Assadist/IRGC bridgehead on the eastern side of the Euphrates river in the Dayr az-Zawr area - from yesterday.
Contrary to earlier claims, there were no US strikes on Syrian insurgents in the Aleppo Province.
Thanks Tom. While Erdogan's interests are more or less clear, it is not clear what goals Qatar is pursuing by financing large-scale military actions of anti-government forces in Syria. It is a small monarchy in the Persian Gulf. What does it care about distant "democratic" Syria?
Ehm, "democratic" ... it's what HTS is really not and Qatar neither. Qatar is very active in the international politics and I guess the main reasons is to keep out of Saudi (heavy) influence. (Beside U.S. army base in Qatar, there is Turkish army base, too.)
BTW. Saudis have expressed support to Assad, in fact going against Qatar. (Also HTS is friendly to Muslim Brotherhood, which is designed as terrorist in Saudi Arabia, but supported by Qatar and Turkey.)
Qatar tends to support quite a few Islamist groups in the world including Libya. From what I understand and I could be wrong, Saudi Arabia and UAE nearly went to war with Qatar because it supported Islamist groups that were far too extreme even for the likes of KSA and UAE.
Being concerned about Ukraine, the situation in Syria is also another motive of concern for Europe, so many thanks Tom for your efforts in making more clear a confusing hotspot.
I've head some sources claim that Erdogan is using this operation to seize control of the Kurdish dominated areas, through his proxies. How significant a factor is this? Any likelihood that they would clash with US forces? If you have dealt with this elsewhere, pls give me a link.
If so, then he MIGHT yet try to do that - but then through the Hawr Killis OR.
NOT through the CMO, though. That's one of points of this article: the CMO is NOT listening to Erdogan, and has guaranteed the safety of ALL minorities (regardless of their religion or ethnic groups). Precisely that is why the PKK/YPG in, for example, Sheikh Maqsood District of Aleppo was granted the permission to leave, while the civilians there (as far as no dependents that wanted to leave) are still where they used to be.
And even if Erdogan decides to make use of (what's left of) the insurgent forces controlled by the Hawr Killis OR, he's still going to target the PKK/YPG, not 'Kurdish civilians'.
Dear Tom, thank you! While it seems Syria is too far away, I suspect it has an impact on the UA battlefield, though not yet sure. There is a very strange pattern of KAB usage in the last 7 days. It has significantly decreased while artillery usage has increased. I was trying to attribute it to possible several factors, like improved EW, atacams avilability, even some Mirages with Meteors, but it all does not come together. So another hypothesis is the urgent need to relocate significant portion of bombs to Syrian battlefield, as the only urgent action possible.
I am skeptical that russia is able to react so fast. In UA is used glide bombs, in Syria classical because of no air defence( at least till now). So take prepaired glide bombs or kabs which converting to glide bombs has no reason. Situation is serios maybe from friday so it cannot do anything with week statistics, and russia should have enough dumb KABs.
This situation can cause lower munition supply to russia from Iran, maybe some planes will be send to Syria or maybe russia will send some PMC but most of it will have future impact.
I am also sceptical, but just could not understand it any other way. Though still maybe atacams related relocation, but then it means all the talks that they did it long ago were just hugely exaggerated. -40% on a weekly basis as of Sunday morning, and probably as much as 60+% drop in the running 7 days as of today.
And by the way I do not think they keep a lot of KABs bolted, max 1 week of usage.
There are lot of UAV attacks in russia and in most cases we don't know what was hit. So maybe something produceing glide kits was destroyed or parts delivery from china is delayed.
Other options are not very probably
Russia runs low of KABs or fuel for planes or planes. ATAMCs are used longer and no big attack on airport(s).
Some kits realated facility could be the case. But I am more thinking like, "okay let move all kits and bombs from this air base to another further away". Not that something was hit like storage.
Or in terms in Syria, "stop it all for now until we decide where and what we need".
It could be EW otherwise, likely guidance kit is similar to Shahid, which are flying all over the place recently. But then we would here about more bombs falling in their territory, which is not the case.
Kits and bombs are completesied at airports. So move on another airport can cause problems to this process. But i dont think so big and for a long time. These old airports were attacked in the past and not big problems occurs.
Excellent Tom. A complicated situation yet you've done an excellent job of both explaining and bringing me up to speed on developments. And I completely agree; the stories that Il-28R could tell 😎👍.
You have forgotten internally displaced Kurds which fled from ISIL and Türkye/Hawr Killis controlled zone, too. So, motivation of Turkey is to do some more Kurd cleansing also.
The CMO is certainly not ethnically cleansing anybody. On the contrary, the CMO has arranged for an evacuation of the PKK/YPG - both from Tel Rifaat and from Sheikh Maqsood. Civilians were left where they are (as long as they were not dependants and wanted to leave).
The Türkye-controlled Hawr Killis OR, though: that's a different story. They're already 'loudly thinking' about an assault on the PKK/YPG-controlled Manbij.
It's not ethnical cleansing like some army push out everybody from other nation. It's more like hazing and harassment so (not all) civilians better leave on their own.
I do not think so. Gauging by the slow reaction to the Fatah Mobin OR/CMO's offensive, it seems that although Erdogan must have known that the latter are 'preparing something', neither Türkye nor the Hawr Killis OR were informed about its timing.
That's why it took them two-three days to start moving (with attacks on Tel Rifaat, and from al-Bab on the Kweres AB, just for example).
(All of this is why it's so important to differentiate between Türkye-controlled Hawr Killis OR, and the Qatar-supported Fatah Mobin OR, now the CMO.)
Yes, it sounds reasonable that Türkye was not directly involved and informed, and they just exploited the situation. Maybe that's the reason they just talk about offensive to Manbij and have not started it yet.
Maybe CMO is against fighting YPG. Especially when SDF with USA fights Iranian militias in Deir Ez Zor.
I was clearly wrong about the "why would US/NATO planes machinegun the IRGC posts so deep in Syria". There are no more recognizable plane than the A-10.
But the question to me remains: why? Why there, why those positions?
That's the Khasham area: about 200km away from the nearest position of the Hawr Killis OR.
And what happened there is that the PKK/YPG/'SDF' exploited the opportunity to liquidate an IRGC-controlled bridgehead on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River (and the Americans were happy to support it in doing that).
Of course, the official excuse was, 'locals called for help because of the IS'... (which is simply nonsense: the locals are all against the PKK/YPG, and calling the 'IS' the Daesh).
So is a kind of "unrelated" event to the fights on the west? Sorry to ask dumb things, didn't follow the Syrian events in the past years and - honestly - without keen interest and local sources the keeping track on the gazillion competing-fighting-allying militant groups and following the often fluid alliances seems almost impossible.
If anything related happened in that area, then that the (Pentagon-supported) PKK/YPG/SDF let a column of the Russians fleeing from as-Safira to pass the area controlled by them, south of the Assad Dam on the Euphrates.
BTW, interestingly, while attacking the IRGC in the Khasham area, the USA didn't attack the IRGC reinforcements streaming from Iraq into Syria to reinforce the Assadists... although the USA consider the IRGC a 'terrorist organisation'.
'Instead', the Pentagon today re-announced its declaration of insurgent factions of the CMO as 'terrorist organisations'.
The explanation about Turkey and the Sunni refugees sounds good and is neatly self-contained. But (and perhaps I'm at risk of shilling for the IRGC here) if the IRGC loses its supply lines to Hezbollah, cui bono? Pretty obviously Israel. From their online supporters' presence it seems Sunni/Salafists like HTS et al strenuously want to avoid this conclusion though. But it seems pretty doubtful they can, or even would want to, step into the IRGC's strategic shoes in Lebanon.
If Israel is ah-so-hell-or-bent on destroying Hezbollah, why are then neither Israel nor the USA attacking IRGC units (including Hezbollah Iraq) streaming from Iraq into Syria to go supporting Assad...?
(Arguably, Israel did strike the IRGC HQ outside Damascus IAP, the last night, killing one of Hezbollah commanders there... but, obviously, they do not intend to get involved against the IRGC's fighting Syrian insurgents....)
Thansk Tom
Thanks! Heard any more in regards of US air strikes on any of the parties in the recent days?
Saw a video that was supposed to be a recent US airstrike on a T-72 in Syria. To whom the T-72 belonged wasn't disclosed however.
AFAIK, it turned out the USA flew no strikes on anybody at all. The CENTCOM didn't release any kind of such reports, and any that were published - were published either by PKK- or IRGC-shills.
https://x.com/CENTCOM/status/1864142271152783770
Now they did release something.
Yes, but that's related to their air strikes on the Assadist/IRGC bridgehead on the eastern side of the Euphrates river in the Dayr az-Zawr area - from yesterday.
Contrary to earlier claims, there were no US strikes on Syrian insurgents in the Aleppo Province.
That was very helpful Tom.
Fabulous :-)
But we need your insights about Ukriane, too… for EU, That’s the mother of all future battles foe at least few decades
Thanks Tom. While Erdogan's interests are more or less clear, it is not clear what goals Qatar is pursuing by financing large-scale military actions of anti-government forces in Syria. It is a small monarchy in the Persian Gulf. What does it care about distant "democratic" Syria?
Ehm, "democratic" ... it's what HTS is really not and Qatar neither. Qatar is very active in the international politics and I guess the main reasons is to keep out of Saudi (heavy) influence. (Beside U.S. army base in Qatar, there is Turkish army base, too.)
BTW. Saudis have expressed support to Assad, in fact going against Qatar. (Also HTS is friendly to Muslim Brotherhood, which is designed as terrorist in Saudi Arabia, but supported by Qatar and Turkey.)
Qatar tends to support quite a few Islamist groups in the world including Libya. From what I understand and I could be wrong, Saudi Arabia and UAE nearly went to war with Qatar because it supported Islamist groups that were far too extreme even for the likes of KSA and UAE.
Being concerned about Ukraine, the situation in Syria is also another motive of concern for Europe, so many thanks Tom for your efforts in making more clear a confusing hotspot.
Hope theIL-28 will be saved and restored some day.
Thanks
I've head some sources claim that Erdogan is using this operation to seize control of the Kurdish dominated areas, through his proxies. How significant a factor is this? Any likelihood that they would clash with US forces? If you have dealt with this elsewhere, pls give me a link.
If so, then he MIGHT yet try to do that - but then through the Hawr Killis OR.
NOT through the CMO, though. That's one of points of this article: the CMO is NOT listening to Erdogan, and has guaranteed the safety of ALL minorities (regardless of their religion or ethnic groups). Precisely that is why the PKK/YPG in, for example, Sheikh Maqsood District of Aleppo was granted the permission to leave, while the civilians there (as far as no dependents that wanted to leave) are still where they used to be.
And even if Erdogan decides to make use of (what's left of) the insurgent forces controlled by the Hawr Killis OR, he's still going to target the PKK/YPG, not 'Kurdish civilians'.
Dear Tom, thank you! While it seems Syria is too far away, I suspect it has an impact on the UA battlefield, though not yet sure. There is a very strange pattern of KAB usage in the last 7 days. It has significantly decreased while artillery usage has increased. I was trying to attribute it to possible several factors, like improved EW, atacams avilability, even some Mirages with Meteors, but it all does not come together. So another hypothesis is the urgent need to relocate significant portion of bombs to Syrian battlefield, as the only urgent action possible.
I am skeptical that russia is able to react so fast. In UA is used glide bombs, in Syria classical because of no air defence( at least till now). So take prepaired glide bombs or kabs which converting to glide bombs has no reason. Situation is serios maybe from friday so it cannot do anything with week statistics, and russia should have enough dumb KABs.
This situation can cause lower munition supply to russia from Iran, maybe some planes will be send to Syria or maybe russia will send some PMC but most of it will have future impact.
I am also sceptical, but just could not understand it any other way. Though still maybe atacams related relocation, but then it means all the talks that they did it long ago were just hugely exaggerated. -40% on a weekly basis as of Sunday morning, and probably as much as 60+% drop in the running 7 days as of today.
And by the way I do not think they keep a lot of KABs bolted, max 1 week of usage.
There are lot of UAV attacks in russia and in most cases we don't know what was hit. So maybe something produceing glide kits was destroyed or parts delivery from china is delayed.
Other options are not very probably
Russia runs low of KABs or fuel for planes or planes. ATAMCs are used longer and no big attack on airport(s).
Some kits realated facility could be the case. But I am more thinking like, "okay let move all kits and bombs from this air base to another further away". Not that something was hit like storage.
Or in terms in Syria, "stop it all for now until we decide where and what we need".
It could be EW otherwise, likely guidance kit is similar to Shahid, which are flying all over the place recently. But then we would here about more bombs falling in their territory, which is not the case.
Kits and bombs are completesied at airports. So move on another airport can cause problems to this process. But i dont think so big and for a long time. These old airports were attacked in the past and not big problems occurs.
Excellent Tom. A complicated situation yet you've done an excellent job of both explaining and bringing me up to speed on developments. And I completely agree; the stories that Il-28R could tell 😎👍.
I hope the best for syrians in this war
If you are ever in Berlin there is a great collection of Cold War aircraft, including an IL-28.
The other thing I saw there was a Patriot launcher. Surely that might be useful somewhere nearby???
You have forgotten internally displaced Kurds which fled from ISIL and Türkye/Hawr Killis controlled zone, too. So, motivation of Turkey is to do some more Kurd cleansing also.
'Internally displaced Kurds'?
The CMO is certainly not ethnically cleansing anybody. On the contrary, the CMO has arranged for an evacuation of the PKK/YPG - both from Tel Rifaat and from Sheikh Maqsood. Civilians were left where they are (as long as they were not dependants and wanted to leave).
The Türkye-controlled Hawr Killis OR, though: that's a different story. They're already 'loudly thinking' about an assault on the PKK/YPG-controlled Manbij.
Tel Rifaat has been taken by Turkish backed SNA. Of course, some civilians are leaving too, they are worried. https://x.com/NOELreports/status/1863601476586668461
It's not ethnical cleansing like some army push out everybody from other nation. It's more like hazing and harassment so (not all) civilians better leave on their own.
Yup. It was taken by the forces controlled by the Türkye-controlled Hawr Killis OR.
NOT, by the forces controlled by the CMO (which is NOT Türkye-controlled).
Yup, I am talking about Türkye/Hawr Killis. And that's the other reason Türkye support / launched this operation.
I do not think so. Gauging by the slow reaction to the Fatah Mobin OR/CMO's offensive, it seems that although Erdogan must have known that the latter are 'preparing something', neither Türkye nor the Hawr Killis OR were informed about its timing.
That's why it took them two-three days to start moving (with attacks on Tel Rifaat, and from al-Bab on the Kweres AB, just for example).
(All of this is why it's so important to differentiate between Türkye-controlled Hawr Killis OR, and the Qatar-supported Fatah Mobin OR, now the CMO.)
In that sense, please check this:
https://x.com/ragipsoylu/status/1863887372296819098
Yes, it sounds reasonable that Türkye was not directly involved and informed, and they just exploited the situation. Maybe that's the reason they just talk about offensive to Manbij and have not started it yet.
Maybe CMO is against fighting YPG. Especially when SDF with USA fights Iranian militias in Deir Ez Zor.
I was clearly wrong about the "why would US/NATO planes machinegun the IRGC posts so deep in Syria". There are no more recognizable plane than the A-10.
But the question to me remains: why? Why there, why those positions?
https://syria.liveuamap.com/en/2024/3-december-12-us-a10-over-khasham-
That's the Khasham area: about 200km away from the nearest position of the Hawr Killis OR.
And what happened there is that the PKK/YPG/'SDF' exploited the opportunity to liquidate an IRGC-controlled bridgehead on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River (and the Americans were happy to support it in doing that).
Of course, the official excuse was, 'locals called for help because of the IS'... (which is simply nonsense: the locals are all against the PKK/YPG, and calling the 'IS' the Daesh).
So is a kind of "unrelated" event to the fights on the west? Sorry to ask dumb things, didn't follow the Syrian events in the past years and - honestly - without keen interest and local sources the keeping track on the gazillion competing-fighting-allying militant groups and following the often fluid alliances seems almost impossible.
Yup, unrelated.
If anything related happened in that area, then that the (Pentagon-supported) PKK/YPG/SDF let a column of the Russians fleeing from as-Safira to pass the area controlled by them, south of the Assad Dam on the Euphrates.
BTW, interestingly, while attacking the IRGC in the Khasham area, the USA didn't attack the IRGC reinforcements streaming from Iraq into Syria to reinforce the Assadists... although the USA consider the IRGC a 'terrorist organisation'.
'Instead', the Pentagon today re-announced its declaration of insurgent factions of the CMO as 'terrorist organisations'.
The explanation about Turkey and the Sunni refugees sounds good and is neatly self-contained. But (and perhaps I'm at risk of shilling for the IRGC here) if the IRGC loses its supply lines to Hezbollah, cui bono? Pretty obviously Israel. From their online supporters' presence it seems Sunni/Salafists like HTS et al strenuously want to avoid this conclusion though. But it seems pretty doubtful they can, or even would want to, step into the IRGC's strategic shoes in Lebanon.
If Israel is ah-so-hell-or-bent on destroying Hezbollah, why are then neither Israel nor the USA attacking IRGC units (including Hezbollah Iraq) streaming from Iraq into Syria to go supporting Assad...?
(Arguably, Israel did strike the IRGC HQ outside Damascus IAP, the last night, killing one of Hezbollah commanders there... but, obviously, they do not intend to get involved against the IRGC's fighting Syrian insurgents....)