Syrian Situation

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Aim_Deep wrote:

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Manocean wrote:

Can someone with more knowledge on the conflict explain this to me?

If Assad has essentially won the war already, and would never want to risk US intervention, why would he use a Chemical attack? It would certainly draw international attention and could cause the downfall of his regime.

Yep does not make sense. No motive. Rebels in "last throws" so to speak. But ISIS, al-Qaeda and associated rebels are very pleased with the US retaliatory strike against Assad. They OTOH do have motive. So they probably staged it.

^
Is fecit cui prodest

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sarahaustin wrote:

It wasnt Assad, it was the US funded and armed terrorists. That didnt change under Trump, didnt change under Obama and wasnt any different Bush.

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innervation wrote:

Both assad and rebels have sarin gas, so both have the opportunity to use it.

People pull some interesting sht out of their a*** for sure. But then again threads like this are allways about what some white western Onlinegamers in front of their computers "believe" is happening...

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Aim_Deep wrote:

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Manocean wrote:

Can someone with more knowledge on the conflict explain this to me?

If Assad has essentially won the war already, and would never want to risk US intervention, why would he use a Chemical attack? It would certainly draw international attention and could cause the downfall of his regime.

Yep does not make sense. No motive. Rebels in "last throws" so to speak. But ISIS, al-Qaeda and associated rebels are very pleased with the US retaliatory strike against Assad. They OTOH do have motive. So they probably staged it.

Pretty much this. Always look at who profits from something. The Assad regime had zero reasons to use chemical weapons on some irrelevant non-strategic target and kill only civilians with it. The Syrian regime has only to loose with this attack.

OTOH, sponsors of ISIS / alQaeda, like the syrian-land-grabbing Turkey have to gain with it. Don't forget that Turkey supplies jihadists in the province where the attack occured - the whole provincial border with Turkey is under islamist rebel control. Also, Syria is supposed to NOT have any CWs left:

Syria’s Chemical Arsenal Fully Destroyed, U.S. Says

Syria has destroyed chemical weapons facilities, international inspectors say

Smells like a false flag... and Trump went full retard on it.

The conflict is close to an end, but someone doesn's want it happen (isn't happy with the end result).
FSA has shrunk to the point of extinction, IS is isolated and surrounded, with financial and military resources depleting. Asad is there to stay.

What's known for now is there was gas. It could be air delivery by the syrian army, or stored prepared chemicals. Mind that binary war gases require agent and precursor combined to work as expected, otherwise are harmless.
The gas is still unknown (eventually sarin) and was in low concentration.
Take into account that Asad is not an idiot, nor is gonna risk his political and biological existence over a small village of no strategical importance.

Morbo is right - ask yourself who benefits.
There are four parties which got any (lower or higher) interests of further destabilization of Syria, and various motives on escalating the conflict - USA, SA, Israel, Turkey.

The current consequences of the rocket strike: 9 civillians and 7 military dead, US tax payers became 100 millions poorer, russians suspended the treaty.

I was reading some articles earlier, there are claim there were russians soldiers on the bases that were bombed yesterday. Can someone else confirm?

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sarahaustin wrote:

Great win for Assad as no more US planes over Syria.

Wishful thinking. Assad has a slight upper hand currently, but the war is far from over. SAA is still overstretched and the frontline is still all over the place. Countries that support the various jihadi-terrorist groups will continue to invest into the war effort, especially Turkey (since they hope to grab some syrian land in the process) and KSA (ideological reasons, fighting against shia Islam & Iran).

This clusterfk has the potential to continue for many years more. It all depends on how much money & resources are the big players still willing to invest into it. KSA has no shortage of money and Turkey has no shortage of manpower & weapons (jihadists use Turkey as an logistical hub & entry point into Syria). Israel is nervous because Hezbollah is getting stronger and US will probably continue the same anti-Russian & pro-Gulf monarchies rhetoric that we are used to.

It's a pity, because I had some hopes that under Trump US & RU would somehow officially team up against ISIS and al-Qaeda. Maybe it was naive to expect that.

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diablofdb wrote:

I was reading some articles earlier, there are claim there were russians soldiers on the bases that were bombed yesterday. Can someone else confirm?

Russians are all over the place as advisers, logistical help, humanitarian help, etc.. But apparently US warned Russia of the attack beforehand (and you bet Russia warned Syria), so there were no Russian casualties.

RU MOD also said that only 23 missiles reached the target, out of 59, but didn't say if any of those were shot down or just fell outside the perimeter. Also the runway wasn't damaged at all, it was mostly bunkers/hangars, air defense sites & logistical infrastructure that was hit.

The damage doesn't seem that extensive (as would you expect from such a barrage), but in any case this will hinder the anti-ISIS fight around Palmyra and Deir Ezzor, since this base had a major role in it.

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morbo wrote:

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diablofdb wrote:

I was reading some articles earlier, there are claim there were russians soldiers on the bases that were bombed yesterday. Can someone else confirm?

Russians are all over the place as advisers, logistical help, humanitarian help, etc.. But apparently US warned Russia of the attack beforehand (and you bet Russia warned Syria), so there were no Russian casualties.

RU MOD also said that only 23 missiles reached the target, out of 59, but didn't say if any of those were shot down or just fell outside the perimeter. Also the runway wasn't damaged at all, it was mostly bunkers/hangars, air defense sites & logistical infrastructure that was hit.

The damage doesn't seem that extensive (as would you expect from such a barrage), but in any case this will hinder the anti-ISIS fight around Palmyra and Deir Ezzor, since this base had a major role in it.

If only military and logistical infrastructure were hit I guess that's ok. I hope there's no civilian casuality.

I also hope no war will be sparked upon that (wishful thinking), I think there is someone behind the chemical attacks that would really wants a war.

I have a bad feeling about that, we'll see how it goes as the info will pour in.

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diablofdb wrote:

I was reading some articles earlier, there are claim there were russians soldiers on the bases that were bombed yesterday. Can someone else confirm?

Well, the whole situation is kinda weird.
There are russians, and they were warned by the US military in advance. But russians are allies with Asad. So he got warned as well. They rellocated all the ground troops and strategic equipment in advance. Of course, americans also knew the attacked would get warned.

Further, less than a half of the tomahawks were confirmed to hit their targets. What happened to the rest hell knows. All the ground structures under attack were meaningless. For ex. a couple of (probably empty) buildings were hit, while the adjacent military infrastructure like the syrian aircraft runaway with all the planes left untouched.

From a military POV this strke makes no sense, so it was obviously politically motivated. The quesion is, was it about internal or external use, and depending on the answer we can track down the eventual future consequences.

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sarahaustin wrote:

Great win for Assad as no more US planes over Syria.

Unlikely. Russians broke the treaty, but that doesn't mean they are gonna chase and attack US planes. Syrians can do shit. Americans will still fly, but will experience more difficulties getting tracked more actively by the russian ground and air AA forces. Also, russians said they are gonna provide additional AA missile systems to Assad. It also means there will be provocations from both sides. Which will also affect the political relations, and they aren't in a good shape even at the moment.

I know you dislike Trump, but mind that it's not his personal war, nor he started it. The name of the president doesn't matter, as America has a consistent foreign policy. Actually it's not him who takes the decisions, but his administration, the intelligence services and agencies, and the senate.