Syrian Proxy War - situation thread

[Sampan]

The attention is now switching to the rebel held areas of Daraa, along the Jordanian border and the occupied Golan Heights.
The Syrian Army is nearly finished building up its forces, including elite assault units for the forthcoming offensive, which may be the last major offensive of the war.
The enemy are a patchwork of groups, ranging from local militias through the Jihad groups and with a small territory near the Golan occupied by ISIS.
The Russian Center for Reconciliation has been very busy over the last few months and many of the local groups seem likely to reconcile.
Other more militant groups will no doubt fight to the very end.

Noteworthy in the build up, is the undertaken from Damascus, that after this offensive, that many of the Syrian pro Govt militias, that are not the army will be incorporated into the army or disbanded. Also noteworthy is the widespread report that Russia has negotiated with Israel to ensure that no Iranian or other none Syrian forces are involved in the offensive. This has left these forces to move to the East of the Country to take on ISIS groups hidden in the deserts of West Deir Ezzor province.

Needless to say, a lot of stories emerge, circulate and disappear and many are deliberate misinformation stories usually to muddy the waters about major deployments or surprise offensives around the country. Some stories do stand out and this one is no exception
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article...orthern-syria/

It follows on a lot of stories/accounts of increasing levels of strife between Syrian Arabs and Kurdish forces that now occupy formally ISIS controlled territories East of the Euphrates. If this story is true, a major insurgency against pro US forces could be about to kick off.

[Sampan]

With the end of Ramadan, military operations have resumed with a vengance

There was not much let up in the Deserts of West Deir Ezzor, where Syrian security forces have been conducting sweeps looking for ISIS sleeper cells, arms dumps and other facilities. The SAA have announced today that they have swept an area of about 6000sqkm and have eradicated or pushed away ISIS from the Iraqi Border and the West bank towns of the Euphrates in Deir Ezzor province.
The sweeps are expected to continue for an indefinite period.
There is a persistent accusation that many ISIS fighters have been allowed to cross the border into Jordan and slip back into Syria within the boundaries of the US controlled Al-Tanf De-escalation Zone and then slip back the same way into Deir Ezzor, once Government forces have moved away again.

The biggest offensive though is the new campaign in Daraa province, against rebel held areas that run along along the Jordanian border and Israeli occupied Golan Heights.
This area falls into two distinct territories. A Westmost strip that runs North/South along the Golan borders and an Eastern Strip that runs East/West along the Jordanian border with a long narrow extrusion the runs North. Between them is a Government etrusion that heads South and which ends at the split city of Dara, which is virtually on the border and which acts as a pivot for both rebel regions.

In the last couple of days, the SAA have recaptured the Eastern protusion and look also to retake all of Dara City and secure the border and therefore split the rebel held area in half.

It seems likely that the Strategy is to retake the full Eastern area first and secure the Jordanian border, which would leave Syrian forces able to approach the Western area adjacent to Israeli forces without having to worry about an enemy action to their rear.

[Sampan]

The Syrian Arab Army is now building its forces to start its Idlib campaign.
Against this both Middle East and Russian media are carrying a story warning of the US and proxies looking to stage another Chemical Weapons attack and threatening massive attacks on the strength of it.
Links to story on both RT and AMN below

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article...b-russian-mod/
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article...t-syrian-govt/
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article...ons-bloomberg/
https://www.rt.com/news/436812-syria...s-provocation/

Have yet to see this story reported in MSM yet

[Sheepy]

The Syrian Arab Army is now building its forces to start its Idlib campaign.
Against this both Middle East and Russian media are carrying a story warning of the US and proxies looking to stage another Chemical Weapons attack and threatening massive attacks on the strength of it.
Links to story on both RT and AMN below

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article...b-russian-mod/
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article...t-syrian-govt/
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article...ons-bloomberg/
https://www.rt.com/news/436812-syria...s-provocation/

Have yet to see this story reported in MSM yet

Oh you thought the goalposts had moved,nope Benny wants Assad gone.As well as the Iranians.

[Sampan]

Russian and Pro Syrian Govt sources are releasing more details for the alleged plans to fake a new Chemical Attack in Idlib

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article...ahrar-al-sham/
https://www.rt.com/news/437091-milit...s-provocation/

Serious accusations, but not even a mention from the MSM.

[Patman Post]

Russian and Pro Syrian Govt sources are releasing more details for the alleged plans to fake a new Chemical Attack in Idlib

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article...ahrar-al-sham/
https://www.rt.com/news/437091-milit...s-provocation/

Serious accusations, but not even a mention from the MSM.

One gets to wonder whether even accusations of fake news are faked so that reports of faked events can even be taken seriously...

[Sampan]

One gets to wonder whether even accusations of fake news are faked so that reports of faked events can even be taken seriously...

For this to be fake news, it would need for no such statements to have been released by the Russian Ministry of Defense. Is this what you are claiming/insinuating?

I think that whenever the leadership of one of the worlds most powerful military's makes a statement, it needs to be taken seriously irrespective. Bear in mind that when such a statement is made in public, orders that reflect elements of the statement will be issued to the Operational Branches.

So irrespective of genuine intentions of one side or the other, we have the leadership of one of the worlds two most powerful nuclear forces declare a warning of dire consequences for the use of Chemical Weapons by the Syrian Govt and undoubtedly issue orders to its forces to prepare for such an eventuality, while the worlds other major nuclear power has just warned of a staged or false flag attack and will also doubtlessly have issued orders to its forces to prepare accordingly.

So this is the worlds two largest nuclear powers preparing for an event that both will blame on each other.
How potentially dangerous do you think this could be?

Yet, somehow, this is not deemed newsworthy over here??!!

[Patman Post]

For this to be fake news, it would need for no such statements to have been released by the Russian Ministry of Defense. Is this what you are claiming/insinuating?

I think that whenever the leadership of one of the worlds most powerful military's makes a statement, it needs to be taken seriously irrespective. Bear in mind that when such a statement is made in public, orders that reflect elements of the statement will be issued to the Operational Branches.

So irrespective of genuine intentions of one side or the other, we have the leadership of one of the worlds two most powerful nuclear forces declare a warning of dire consequences for the use of Chemical Weapons by the Syrian Govt and undoubtedly issue orders to its forces to prepare for such an eventuality, while the worlds other major nuclear power has just warned of a staged or false flag attack and will also doubtlessly have issued orders to its forces to prepare accordingly.

So this is the worlds two largest nuclear powers preparing for an event that both will blame on each other.
How potentially dangerous do you think this could be?

Yet, somehow, this is not deemed newsworthy over here??!!

“Yet, somehow, this is not deemed newsworthy over here” — exactly right war fatigue has set in enough for it no longer to matter to the bulk of the UK population, and possibly most of Europe’s.
There are too many government-installed trolls and scammers on the internet these days from a host of countries to believe most of what’s posted...

[lankou]

There are too many government-installed trolls and scammers on the internet these days from a host of countries to believe most of what’s posted...

It is the British government-installed trolls that are the problem.

[grumzed]

For this to be fake news, it would need for no such statements to have been released by the Russian Ministry of Defense. Is this what you are claiming/insinuating?

I think that whenever the leadership of one of the worlds most powerful military's makes a statement, it needs to be taken seriously irrespective. Bear in mind that when such a statement is made in public, orders that reflect elements of the statement will be issued to the Operational Branches.

So irrespective of genuine intentions of one side or the other, we have the leadership of one of the worlds two most powerful nuclear forces declare a warning of dire consequences for the use of Chemical Weapons by the Syrian Govt and undoubtedly issue orders to its forces to prepare for such an eventuality, while the worlds other major nuclear power has just warned of a staged or false flag attack and will also doubtlessly have issued orders to its forces to prepare accordingly.

So this is the worlds two largest nuclear powers preparing for an event that both will blame on each other.
How potentially dangerous do you think this could be?

Yet, somehow, this is not deemed newsworthy over here??!!

I don't keep count of the number of fake-news sites which seem to spring up all the time and get high hits on Google - takes a bit of skill to do that. And I only sometimes take a look at clearly politically motivated news reports or ones that absolutely toe a government line (ours or foreign governments like RT). However it seems clear that RT and a number of sites have been briefed to make an issue of this bellicose statement by Bolton (a man I find totally despicable BTW and have done so since well before the Gulf war - not surprisingly employed by Trump). I think it is actually taken for granted that if there were another chemical attack there may well be action taken by the USA (at least) and saying that this is the case is indeed being provocative although probably primarily intended for domestic consumption. His speech was widely reported and pointed out as a possible provocation for some Islamists to use to their own advantage by the FSB and Putin's supporting groups. In fact many of these fake news sites also even use the same phrase that Bolton "calls for Al-Qaeda to stage more chemical attacks". I think Bolton (and the response) is part of the general "my missile is bigger than yours" routine that gets played out ad-nauseum. In fact I think Russia and the USA (inc NATO) already accept this situation and would take steps to avoid any direct confrontation. So I think this war of rhetoric has generally been accepted for what it is and is no escalation of actual threat levels despite movements and redeployments of forces which are continuing as usual. Basically it isn't any significant change of circumstance but something to stir up people - both Bolton's action and the undoubtably Russian government led response. A dangerous game of trolling at a high level.