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Syria Superthread [merged]

Far more effective than schools or hospitals.

Schools and hospitals aren't nuclear powers with the military ability to strike back.
 
Altair said:
They relocated all their air assets to bases with Russian planes and personnel.
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Al-Shayrat Air Base was already hosting joint Syrian-Russian operations. Having moved their assets to another base with Russian presence is no change.
 
Journeyman said:
Al-Shayrat Air Base was already hosting joint Syrian-Russian operations. Having moved their assets to another base with Russian presence is no change.
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it sort of is if trump is in another tomahawk launching mood
 
Pretty ballsy move by President Trump, launching those 59 Tomahawks @ the base.  If a single Russian aircraft were destroyed by mistake, or Russian serviceman was injured or killed, the political repercussions would be absolutely enormous.

By moving their air assets to a base that has a larger Russian presence, they effectively protect themselves from further American attacks.  And we all know the geopolitical situation in regards to the Russian's long term goals -- they aren't going anywhere.
 
CBH99 said:
Pretty ballsy move by President Trump, launching those 59 Tomahawks @ the base.  If a single Russian aircraft were destroyed by mistake, or Russian serviceman was injured or killed, the political repercussions would be absolutely enormous.

By moving their air assets to a base that has a larger Russian presence, they effectively protect themselves from further American attacks.  And we all know the geopolitical situation in regards to the Russian's long term goals -- they aren't going anywhere.
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Russia did not go to war over one of it's fighters being shot down by Turkey.
 
I think if the US wants to reach out and touch a specific 10 figure grid square in the region, they have the ability.  With rather good precision.  Tomahawks aren't the only thing in the toolbelt.
 
Colin P said:
Russia did not go to war over one of it's fighters being shot down by Turkey.
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Russia would have a hard time winning a conventional war against Turkey, let alone the US.  They don't have the economic power for any kind of sustained conflict.
 
jmt18325 said:
Russia would have a hard time winning a conventional war against Turkey, let alone the US.  They don't have the economic power for any kind of sustained conflict.
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From Sweden's FOI assessment the Russian Airforce is as follows: (Effectives rated as 63% of fleet by Russians per FOI)

~277  Effective Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (Fighters) MiG-25/29/31/35; Su-27/30/35 (Mixed Bag spread across 5 Joint Service Commands)
~180  Effective Fighter Bombers Su-24/34
~100  Effective Attack Aircraft Su-25 (Frogfoots predominantly assigned to the Ukrainian and North Korean Fronts)
~557 Effective All Fighter/Attack

~176  Effective Attack Helicopters Mi-24/28/35; Ka-52

https://www.foi.se/en/pressroom/news/news-archive/2016-12-08-russian-military-capability-is-strengthened-and-increasing.html

USAF Strength  (Effectives rated as 50% of fleet per USAF)
~  84 Effective F22
~431 Effective F16
~112 Effective F15
~105 Effective F15E
~133 Effective A10
~  12 Effective F35
~877 Effective All Fighter/Attack

USN Strength (Assumes same effective ratio as USAF)
~515 Effective All Fighter/Attack

USMC Strength (Assumes same effective ratio as USAF)
~101 Effective F18
~ 52 Effective AV-8B
~ 24 Effective F35
~177 Effective All Fighter/Attack

US Strength
~1569 Effective All Fighter/Attack



US Marine Helos
~136 Effective UH/AH

US Army Helos
~312 Effective AH-64

US Attack Helo Strength
~448 Effectives all types


http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/heres-your-go-to-graphic-to-understand-the-u-s-armys-m-1752205463
http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/heres-your-go-to-graphic-to-understand-the-usmcs-aircra-1707011460
http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/heres-your-go-to-graphic-to-understand-the-navys-aircra-1705434161
http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a16727/air-force-in-one-chart/?zoomable
http://index.heritage.org/military/2017/assessments/us-military-power/u-s-air-force/

Even with a very low effectives rate (50% vs 63%) the tactical air advantage is 3:1 US:Russia.

This is emblematic of all fields.

 
A bit of an update ...
And, just in case you missed this from Iranian media:  "NATO funds terrorism by harvesting organs in Syria"
 
The greater, grander, scheme of things:

US. Saudi Arabia. Jordan. Gulf Arabs. Israel. Syria.  Hezbollah.  Iran.  Russia.  ISIS. Kurds.

Is Trump holding a Russian card in the Middle East?

The choreography of the first day of US President Donald Trump’s visit probably exceeded even Saudi Arabia's expectations. The United States and the kingdom on May 20 concluded a $110 billion arms deal ($350 billion over the coming decade), the announcement of $40 billion of Saudi investments in US infrastructure projects and pronouncements of a new US-Saudi partnership in the region. Trump will give a speech May 21 that he said will address the “growing concern about terrorism, the spread of radicalization and Iran's role in funding both.” In addition, Trump is calling for US regional partners “to take more responsibility and a much bigger role in fighting terrorism in their region.”

Summary⎙ Print Trump visit launches new US-Saudi partnership, but the endgame in the Middle East still depends on Moscow and Tehran.
Author Week in ReviewPosted May 20, 2017
In a news conference, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir seemed in lockstep in their approach to Iran. Tillerson described the arms package as a means to deal with “malign Iranian influence.” Although the US secretary of state gave priority to a political solution in Yemen, he supported additional Saudi military pressure on Houthi armed groups, which are backed by Iran. According to the World Health Organization, Yemen is suffering from an unprecedentedly rapid spread of cholera and “massive damage to the country’s sewage and electricity infrastructure, which have left the water supply contaminated.”

In Jerusalem, Trump will build on the shared concerns among the Gulf States and Israel about Iran. Ben Caspit wrote here in March that “Israel is determined to maintain its red lines on Hezbollah with the utmost meticulousness. It will do whatever it takes to prevent the transfer of any weapons to Hezbollah that could upset the balance of power.”

There may be a question as to whether Trump is quietly holding, or should be holding, a Russian card in his plans for the region. The Trump visit could, or should, be the sign of a trend in which the US strengthens its commitments and relationships with Israel and America’s traditional Sunni allies, such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as a means of putting pressure on Iran and providing support for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, while letting Russia take the lead with the Shiite “resistance axis” — including Iran, Syria and Hezbollah — in seeking a diplomatic process to address the region’s conflicts.

Iran is unlikely to be cowed by the spectacle in Riyadh, and there will of course be no deal with Iran or Syria without the good offices of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has a direct line to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The decisive re-election of Hassan Rouhani as president of Iran on May 19 is a win for the so-called moderate trend, which will now have Khamenei’s support. In the absence of a diplomatic process, the people of Yemen and Syria can expect even more misery in the coming years.

And this brings us back to the White House meeting May 10 between Trump and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Most of the media attention focused on what Trump may have said to the Russian envoy about former FBI director James Comey and on the appropriateness of Trump’s sharing of sensitive Israeli intelligence information about Islamic State’s terrorist plotting. US national security adviser H.R. McMaster, who attended the meeting, characterized the exchange between Trump and Lavrov as “wholly appropriate.” Ben Caspit writes this week about how the United States and Israel acted quickly to mitigate any disruption in intelligence cooperation.

But Syria and Iran were also on the Trump-Lavrov agenda. The White House said, “Trump emphasized the need to work together to end the conflict in Syria, in particular, underscoring the need for Russia to rein in the Assad regime, Iran and Iranian proxies. … He also raised the possibility of broader cooperation on resolving conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere. The president further emphasized his desire to build a better relationship between the United States and Russia.”

On May 19, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph Dunford, hinted at a possible division of labor with the Russians in Syria, while noting the expansion of reducing the possibility of conflict between the US and Russian militaries. “We are looking for the Russians to — to work with the regime, to deconflict our operations. I think what you're highlighting is absolutely a fair point, which is the ground is becoming increasingly complex and constrained. But to date, we have — we have been able to deconflict operations. … We had a proposal that we're working on with the Russians right now. I won't share the details. But — but my sense is that the Russians are as enthusiastic as we are to deconflict operations and ensure that we can continue to take the campaign to ISIS [Islamic State] and ensure the safety of our personnel,” Dunford said.

Laura Rozen reports that just five days after the Trump-Lavrov meeting, in a little-noticed shift, “The Trump White House suggested it was willing to work not only with Russia but also with Iran to try to end the killing in Syria and advance a political transition if they helped bring an end to Assad’s atrocities. Trump has previously lambasted the nuclear deal with Iran and supported calls for additional sanctions over the country's ballistic missile program. ‘The United States remains open to working together with both Russia and Iran to find a solution that leads to a stable and united Syria,' Spicer said [on May 15]. But in order for us to work together to bring an end to the violence in Syria, Russia and Iran need to acknowledge the atrocities of the Assad regime and use their influence to stop them.”

Although Tillerson’s remarks in Saudi Arabia could hardly be characterized as a gesture for dialogue, the US secretary of state added, “In terms of whether I'd ever pick the phone up, I've never shut off the phone to anyone that wants to talk or have a productive conversation. … In all likelihood, we [Iran and the US] will talk, at the right time.”

As we wrote in this column in November 2013, a shift in Israel-Iran ties “is not so far-fetched when one considers the role that Russia can play as a broker in this exchange. … The United States alone does not yet have all the keys to close a deal between Israel and Hezbollah, but the pieces are coming together. Any negotiation on Hezbollah will run through Damascus as well as Tehran, and here again we get to Moscow’s role, with its newfound credibility in Damascus, Tehran, Jerusalem and Washington.” Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman told Caspit in February that he was unsure of Russia’s support for Israel’s objectives of a withdrawal of Iranian and Hezbollah forces from Syria, while acknowledging the need for US-Russian coordination. Israel, Liberman said, is in “a complex and complicated dialogue” with Russia.

These trends toward a fresh start are often fragile and ultimately depend on the courage and convictions of leaders willing to take risks and chart a new course. US-Russian collaboration is essential to the endgame in Syria, as we wrote in our second column in December 2012. As Akiva Eldar wrote last month, “If there’s a common denominator that transcends all the disputes between the United States and Russia, it is the belief in the need to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict that was fanned by their Cold War. For a change, Israel can show these two powers the road to peace.”



Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/05/trump-russia-middle-east-saudi-arabia-visit-israel-iran.html#ixzz4hjJOK4ih
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Technoviking said:
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/11/24/turkish-f-16-shoots-down-russian-fighter-jet-near-syria-border/

Sorry for the poor formatting: I'm on my mobile device.

In short: a Russian SU-24 has been shot down in Syria (that it crashed in Syria is not in dispute)
Whether it was in Turkish or Syrian airspace is being disputed, and whether a Turk F-16 brought it down, or ground fire.

Either way, not good...
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Bringing this one all the way back around to an ending of sorts ...
Alparslan Celik, who confessed to killing Russian pilot Oleg Peshkov, has been sentenced today to five years in prison for illegal firearms possession, Celik’s lawyer Taskin Kangal told TASS.

"I confirm that Alparslan Celik has been sentenced to five years of imprisonment for carrying a weapon. We haven’t received the written court judgement, but I confirm the sentence," he said.

Celik, being a Grey Wolves leader, took the blame for the pilot’s death upon himself, as his fighters did not follow his order and continued firing, although he personally did not kill the pilot. The incident occurred in Syria on November 24, 2015, when the Turkish air force shot down a Russian Su-24, killing its pilot Oleg Peshkov.
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And a segue from one shoot-down to another ...
The U.S. military on Sunday shot down a Syrian Air Force fighter jet that bombed local forces aligned with the Americans in the fight against Islamic State militants, an action that appeared to mark a new escalation of the conflict.

The U.S.-led coalition headquarters in Iraq said in a written statement that a U.S. F-18 Super Hornet shot down a Syrian government SU-22 after it dropped bombs near the U.S. partner forces, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces. The shootdown was near the Syrian town of Tabqa.

The U.S. military statement said it acted in "collective self defense" of its partner forces and that the U.S. did not seek a fight with the Syrian government or its Russian supporters ...
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More via Google News here.
 
This, from the CENTCOM info-machine ...
At approximately 4:30 p.m. Syria time, June 18, Pro-Syrian regime forces attacked the Syrian Democratic Forces-held town of Ja'Din, South of Tabqah, wounding a number of SDF fighters and driving the SDF from the town.

Coalition aircraft conducted a show of force and stopped the initial pro-regime advance toward the SDF-controlled town.

Following the Pro-Syrian forces attack, the Coalition contacted its Russian counterparts by telephone via an established 'de-confliction line' to de-escalate the situation and stop the firing.

At 6:43 p.m., a Syrian regime SU-22 dropped bombs near SDF fighters south of Tabqah and, in accordance with rules of engagement and in collective self-defense of Coalition partnered forces, was immediately shot down by a U.S. F/A-18E Super Hornet.

Ja'Din sits approximately two kilometers north of an established East-West SDF-Syrian Regime de-confliction area.

The Coalition's mission is to defeat ISIS in Iraq and Syria.  The Coalition does not seek to fight Syrian regime, Russian, or pro-regime forces partnered with them, but will not hesitate to defend Coalition or partner forces from any threat.

The Coalition presence in Syria addresses the imminent threat ISIS in Syria poses globally. The demonstrated hostile intent and actions of pro-regime forces toward Coalition and partner forces in Syria conducting legitimate counter-ISIS operations will not be tolerated.

The Coalition calls on all parties to focus their efforts on the defeat of ISIS, which is our common enemy and the greatest threat to regional and worldwide peace and security.

-30-​
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And this from Russia's DefMin info-machine (via FB)...
Statement of the Russian Defence Ministry concerning downing of the Syrian Su-22 near the town of Resafa

On June 18, 2017 the American fighter F-18A belonging to the international coalition shot down the Su-22 aircraft of the Syrian Air Force, which was performing a combat mission supporting the government troops, which were conducting the offensive against the ISIS terrorists near the town of Resafa (40 km to the south-west of the city of Raqqa).

As a result of the attack, the Syrian aircraft was destroyed. The pilot baled out over an ISIS-controlled area, his status is unknown.

The destruction of the aircraft of the Syrian Air Force by the American aviation in the air space of Syria – is a cynical violation of the sovereignty of the Syrian Arab Republic.

Numerous combat activities of the US aviation carried out under the cover of “fight against terrorism” aimed against the legitimate Armed Forces of a UN-member is a blatant breach of the international law and is in fact an act of military aggression against the Syrian Arab Republic.

Moreover, at that time the aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces were also performing combat missions in the air space of Syria. However, the Command of the coalition forces did not use the existing channels of communication between the Command of the Al Udeid Air Base (Qatar) and the Hmeymim Air Base Command to prevent air incidents in the air space of Syria.

The Russian party considers those actions of the US Command as an intentional failure to fulfill its obligations within the Memorandum on prevention of incidents and providing of flight security during the operations in Syria dated October 20, 2015.

Since June 19, 2017, the Russian Defence Ministry has stopped the cooperation with the American party within the Memorandum on prevention of incidents and providing of flight security during the operations in Syria and demands a thorough investigation of the incident by the US Command with further providing of information on its results and the taken measures.

In the combat mission zones of the Russian aviation in the air space of Syria, all kinds of airborne vehicles, including aircraft and UAVs of the international coalition detected to the west of the Euphrates River will be tracked by the Russian SAM systems as air targets.
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... and this from MSM:
 
Slightly different version of events than what the US released.

Based on historical precedents, I'm at the point where I assume the Russians are lying about everything, until proven otherwise....
 
Cdn Blackshirt said:
Slightly different version of events than what the US released.

Based on historical precedents, I'm at the point where I assume the Russians are lying about everything, until proven otherwise....
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I remember Obama making his line in the sand, and then .......nothing....this time, with a new President, they are immediately pushing back. What happens now determines how he is received by the adversarial part of the world.
 
GAP said:
What happens now determines how he is received by the adversarial part of the world.
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Franz+Ferdinand+01.JPG

 
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