Iraq & Syrian Civil Wars - Page 194

On July 18 2014 08:23 oneofthem wrote:
what is turkey gonna do when the kurds declare for independence.

BEIRUT: President Bashar Assad’s inauguration speech heralding victory against Syrian rebels and their backers Wednesday was belied by fierce fighting and violence on half a dozen fronts in the country’s raging, multifront war. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an anti-regime group based in Britain, said that over 3,000 people had been killed or wounded since the “farcical” presidential election took place on June 4. It said 743 civilians had been killed, among them 197 minors and 108 women, in the 43 days since Assad’s easy election victory over two little-known contenders.

Just under half of the fatalities were recorded in Aleppo province, which continues to be subjected to daily airstrikes and other attacks by regime troops and paramilitary allies, the Observatory said.

Regime warplanes Wednesday targeted ISIS militants at a training camp near the city of Raqqa, the Observatory said, in one of the deadliest such actions of the war. At least 15 ISIS militants were killed or wounded in the strike, which struck a facility referred to as the “Osama bin Laden training camp,” it added.

HERMEL, Lebanon: Hezbollah fighters, under cover of Syrian aerial and ground bombardment, fought doggedly all night to cut off rebels’ supply lines along the border with Lebanon.

Security sources told The Daily Star that heavy fighting raged through the night between Hezbollah fighters and Nusra Front gunmen along the northeastern border.

They said the clashes with automatic machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and Grad rockets dwindled in the early hours of the morning Friday.

The Syrian army unleashed rocket salvos on rebel pockets as warplanes provided aerial cover for Hezbollah fighters working to cut off logistics routes from the northeastern Lebanese town of Arsal, the sources added.

On July 19 2014 02:50 Sub40APM wrote:
It is interesting to me how Hezbellah seems much more willing to commit ground troops than the Syrian Army is. On paper Hizballah is much smaller but I guess they have more experience in these kinds of dirty wars.

On July 19 2014 04:23 Incognoto wrote:


There is no such thing as a clean war. Just had to throw that out there, though I'm not going to argue with semantics. ^^

I came to the thread for opinions / insight on the escalating conflict, it seems that the bitter war that is taking place now is the result of an actual hate between two nations. I don't think either of them don't want to fight, that's what I'm getting at. I'm puzzled as to what could make you hate a fellow human being so much.

Jihadists have killed 270 Syrian regime fighters, civilian security guards and employees since seizing a gas field in Homs province, a monitoring group has said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Friday described Thursday’s takeover of the Shaar field as “the biggest” anti-regime operation by the Islamic State (IS) since it emerged in the Syrian conflict last year.

The watchdog, updating an earlier toll of 115, said it had documented “the death of 270 people killed in the fighting or executed” since Thursday.

“A large majority of the men killed were executed at gunpoint after being taken prisoner following the takeover of the camp,” said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.

“Eleven of the dead were civilian employees, while the rest were security guards and National Defence Forces members,” he added.

Abdel Rahman said a counter-attack by regime forces on Friday left 40 IS militants dead.
The fate of nearly 100 people who worked at the site remained unknown, according to earlier figures released by the Observatory.

Syrian government forces have launched a counterattack to recapture a gas field seized by the Islamic State group, activists say, even as the death toll from three days of fighting there rises to 270.

The intense fighting in the Shaer field, which lies in the desert region of Palmyra in the central province of Homs, has been among the deadliest battles between government forces and the Islamic State group since the start of the Syrian uprising more than three years ago.

Al Jazeera cannot independently verify the Syrian Observatory's statement due to reporting restrictions inside Syria.

Fighters from the Sunni-led rebel group have in the past few weeks seized a huge chunk of territory straddling the Iraq-Syria border, where they declared a self-styled caliphate. They also have captured much of Syria's oil-rich eastern province of Deir Az Zor.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Syrian special forces launched an attack late on Friday on the Shaer field and have regained parts of it.

A Homs-based activist who goes by the name of Beibares Tellawi confirmed that troops attacked fighters from the group.

"The fighting today is mostly hit-and-run attacks," Tellawi said via Skype. "Large numbers of [President Bashar] Assad's forces are attacking the field."

At least 60 soldiers have died as the army battles to retake a gas field in central Syria where jihadists killed 270 people, a pro-regime newspaper reported today.

Al-Watan, citing a military source, give a toll of "60 martyrs" for a counter-offensive against the Islamic State (IS) group around Shaar gas field that a security official said was launched Friday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported "violent clashes... In and around the gas field".

On July 21 2014 12:02 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Rebels are making gains, so far, in Damascus:

https://twitter.com/archicivilians/status/490533230110449664/photo/1

DAMASCUS, Syria—More than 100 people were killed in two days in a continuing fight between government forces and militants for control of a gas-production facility east of Homs, according to opposition activists and media outlets aligned with the regime.

Among the casualties as of Sunday evening were at least 65 members of the regime's forces, according to Syrian opposition activists, while the rest were fighters from the extremist group Islamic State.

The fighting erupted after gunmen from Islamic State mounted an attack late Wednesday on the Al-Shaer gas field and production facility, located in the desert about 150 miles northeast of the capital Damascus.

Over 270 guards, workers and members of a pro-regime paramilitary group known as the National Defense Force were killed in the initial attack and subsequent executions carried out by Islamic State militants, according to the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition group tracking the conflict through a network of activists on the ground.

Rebels have issued a statement declaring that they have regained full control of the key town of Morek in Hama Province.

Syrian forces launched their latest offensive this week in months of attacks on Morek, located on the main highway from Hama to Idlib Province.

The insurgents said the Syrian military, Hezbollah, and militias were able to enter the town but were repelled after three days of fighting. They claim that the regime lost more than 100 personnel and a number of armored vehicles.

ISTANBUL -- Syrian government troops failed on two fronts Monday to reverse gains by fighters loyal to the Islamic State, a sign that the insurgents who’ve captured half of Iraq are capable of battling Syria’s government as well.

Anti-government activists said 14 government troops were killed in battles for two villages outside the east Syrian city of Deir el Zour. The Syrian army fared no better in an attempt to recapture the Shaer gas field near in the ancient city of Palmyra, losing six soldiers and failing to dislodge the Islamic State fighters.

The clash in Deir el Zour was the latest sign that the Islamic State, which had frontally attacked the regime only once before _ in the desert near Homs _ is prepared to fight it as the opportunity arises. A member of the Islamist movement told McClatchy that it intends to remove the regime of President Bashar Assad from Deir el Zour province altogether.

On July 23 2014 15:39 PiPoGevy wrote:
I wonder why Turkey doesn't get involved to help

WASHINGTON — Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has been bolstered by the seizure of a fleet of U.S.-origin artillery batteries.

Officials said ISIL has captured a huge amount of U.S. combat platforms and equipment deployed in military bases in northern Iraq.

They said ISIL was already using combat ground vehicles and artillery acquired during the advance by the Al Qaida force in June.

“The booty could help ISIL transform into a military,” an official said.

The extent of ISIL’s new U.S.-origin arsenal was determined by the U.S. military’s Central Command in early July. The 120-page review, already submitted to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, cited the loss of more than 50 155mm artillery batteries sold to the Iraq Army. The M-198 artillery was said to have a range of nearly 35 kilometers.

“The assessment is that ISIL has also taken plenty of shells for the howitzers,” the official said.

An aid worker who travels to Raqqa said the ranks of ISIS were filled with volatile young men, many of them foreigners more interested in violence than governance. To keep things running, it has paid or threatened skilled workers to remain in their posts while putting loyalist supervisors over them to ensure compliance with Islamic rules.

“They can’t fire all the staff and bring new people to run a hospital, so they change the manager to someone who will enforce their rules and regulations,” the aid worker said, speaking the on condition of anonymity so as not to endanger his work.

Raqqa’s three churches, once home to an active Christian minority, have all been shuttered. After capturing the largest, the Armenian Catholic Martyrs Church, ISIS removed its crosses, hung black flags from its facade and converted it into an Islamic center that screens videos of battles and suicide operations to recruit new fighters.