Iraq & Syrian Civil Wars - Page 244

On October 08 2014 23:45 Mensol wrote:

He was saying "free Kurdistan" "free Kurds" and now he is asking for help from Turkey, It's ironic isnt it? Not the mention that they were doing propoganda againts Turkey everyday, killing innocent Turkish teachers in villages etc. im glad they are finally dealing with terrorism.

There wasnt any peace anyway.

Iraqi forces started an offensive today to retake an area held by Islamic State west of the city of Ramadi in Anbar province.

The army is trying to oust the militants from a road with residential compounds and open the way to an army base that they have encircled, Faleh al-Issawi, the deputy chairman of the Anbar provincial council, said by telephone. The U.S.-led coalition is providing air support, he said.

Ramadi has been contested since January when Islamic State militants overran the nearby town of Fallujah. Its capture by militants would leave them in control of most major cities stretching along a highway running west from Baghdad to the Jordanian and Syrian border, and enable them to choke off supplies to the capital of OPEC’s second-largest oil producer.

Iraqi soldiers and police, backed by some tribal fighters, regrouped on Oct. 6 around the town of Hit in western Iraq after it was seized by the militants last week. Hit, a few hours drive from Baghdad along the Euphrates river between Ramadi and Haditha, fell to Islamic State on Oct. 3, after a battle that left the streets strewn with bodies and local police and government buildings destroyed.

The jihadist group is in control of about 15 percent of Ramadi, according to Anbar province police chief Ahmed al-Dulaimi.

On October 08 2014 19:52 frontliner2 wrote:


Hi

I know TR army is very powerful and ISIS would be fools to open a front with TR.

Anyway they are decentralized militias. Urban/guerilla style. That is HIGHLY effective vs conventional armies (infantry, armor, airforce), that's why they are so efficient/successful.

If IS would form army units like countries do they would lose every battle. Being ragtag militias specialized in sniping and guerilla, and antiarmor/antiair, is exactly the HARD counter against conventional.

The only way to crush such units is Total War, that means brutal sieges and carpet bombing.

I'm in no way underestamating TR army, TR army is very very powerful, but also very conventional, just like all the EU armies. So it's not that I'm underestamating TR army, it's that I think we underestimate IS.

We need to relearn total war in order to defeat ISIS. The problem is that it's so atrocious and mostly civilians will die.

IS control major cities and thousands of villages. This means they will produce fighters, every month there will be legions of boys/men ready to pick up arms. That plus their guerilla tactics make them a recurring threat, every time.

Are there muslims here? I'm wondering do you meet fellow muslims that to a degree support IS? What is the common consensus. I'm interested. thx

On October 09 2014 07:22 koreasilver wrote:

You have a serious military misunderstanding of asymmetric warfare. While it may be true that conventional armies have a difficulty in achieving decisive victories against guerrillas because of their lack of centrality, particularly because they lack the need to absolutely defend certain geographical locations, this doesn't mean that conventional armies are "weak" against guerrilla warfare (they certainly are not "hard countered" - this isn't a bloody rpg game). Even in the terminology itself, as "asymmetric warfare" it is the conventional army that has the weight and even if the conventional army may be unable to decisively root out the guerrillas, there is no illusion to the fact that the guerrillas will never defeat the conventional army. In the history of modern warfare there has only been two occasions where the guerrillas were ever able to actually defeat their enemies decisively, and such a decisive victory can only come from an open battle where the conventional armies are defeated on their own ground - that is, guerrillas can only defeat the conventional army by only becoming a conventional army themselves that can wage war on open field (Castro, Mao).

You're also completely misunderstanding the concept of total war too. There is never a time where a state will have to commit itself to total war in asymmetric warfare because their conventional army can't be defeated by guerrillas as is. Total war only occurs in wars between states because it is only when there is a war of such a scale that necessitates that the entire economy of the state be used preferentially into the mechanics of war, and that the governing body as a whole be put into an extended state of a state of exception. Total war in the proper sense has never and likely will never occur against guerrilla entities because there just isn't any reason to. Total war only occurs when there is a real existential threat to the state, and while asymmetric warfare is waged against real threats, these threats do not threaten the existence and continuance of the state as such. Brutal sieges and carpet bombing does not make total war.

Given that IS has (or wishes to) establised a state and has established (wishes to establish) a governing body with particular juridical exigency over a particular geographical area, IS now cannot simply avoid engaging direct battle. They must defend critical areas for if they do not their claims (aspirations) to sovereignty within their borders is destroyed. If we are to accept that IS truly is a state, then currently, in this war, it is IS that is in the state of total war.

On October 09 2014 06:42 WhiteDog wrote:

So you thank daash for the music ? Really ?
I've heard a french philosopher who says fighters who fighting for ISIL are more educated by highlander (explaining the beheading) and video games than islam. They catched two guy in england going to turkey for the "holy war" with "islam for dummies" in their bags.

Meanwhile when you actually reach there, you watch people executing innocent. Reality.

I'm using that advise, and it doesn't help me form an opinion anymore... Now it all makes me wanna go "AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH !!!!" grabbing my head. And I realize how horribly mindf**king the situation is. So I'm trying to summarize to myself in simple words :

*KOBANE BATTLE AND TURKEY*
- IS (terrorists) is attacking Kobane
- Kobane is defended by YPG (terrorists) and some militias of locals that may or may not be related to YPG
- For Turkey, it's terro vs terro, so entering would favour one terro side.
- But both terros hate Turkey already.
- So Turkey stays out of the fight
- Plus, The YPG, Assad, and IS tell Turkey to stay out or face attacks for meddling into Syria
- So Turkey replies "Well, it's not like I wanted help any of you, f**ktards"

*TURKEY AND THE HUMAN MANAGEMENT*
- Meanwhile, Turkey lets tens of thousands civilians pass the border and got to safety.
- Those refugees are Kurds
- So yeah, it's kinda dumb to say "OMG, Turks let people die !!11"
- Yet Turkey doesn't appear very warm to the refugees
- Or it's the refugees behaving like ungrateful brats => tear gas
- Care packages and medical help to refugees : on the radio, the french reporters went to a Turkish hospital, full of refugees AND of YPG wounded fighters that the Turkish border guards let pass
- Doctors are turks and kurds
- But one doctor mentions that ISIS wounded fighters are also being treated in "different hospitals"... Why ? IMHO, IS wounded should be arrested on the spot. yet I doubt Turkish authorities are doing that... IS supporters clashing with Kurds, INSIDE Turkish cities

*TURKEY AND THE "WORLD" (AKA "THE WEST", AKA "THE EU AND USA")*
- Erdogan says a ground operation is needed
- Yet he poses conditions such as "everyone with us" and "Main target is Assad, not ISIS"
- But the "West" wants Turkey to be against ISIS first, Assad later
- Conflict of goals and opinions, Turkey's goals are different from the coalition goals => Locked situation

*ISIS*
- Worldwide recognized threat
- No one's friend
- Strong and steady
- Gaining ground
- Beheading people
- Slaughtering
- Laughing at the Coalition
- May not have short-term goals inside Turkey, ATM wants to carve a state in Syria and Iraq
- Genocidal horde on religious grounds
- Want to impose oppressive archaic society first in muslims countries, then, the whole world
- Erdogan's role shady (Islamist party = same goals as ISIS or rivals ? Conflicting informations switching between support and opposition)

*THE YPG*
- Also known as a side of PKK
- PKK is terrorists
- PKK warned Turkey not to intervene
- Yet MPs of the party protest Turkey's inaction (and violence in Turkish cities)
- Certainly a divided party between "Turkey stay out" and "We should maybe consider a deal and renounce violence against Turkey, they are not insane genocidal as we try to portray them to the world"
- They lie a lot (I've spotted many contradictions and agendas). While I value Kurds in Iraq and think they are important allies and assets and are morally "better" than the IS, I feel that their bros in Syria try to manipulate outside powers into supporting them...

*CONCLUSIONS*
- Everyone pisses me off
- ISIS are the most evil pieces of sh-it I've ever seen
- Turkey has good reasons not to move yet
- But Erdogan also sounding like a troll, putting tanks on the border for show, calling for a ground operation while sounding like "anybody but us"
- Kurds are trying to get support, that's understandable, but threatening Turkey
- Threatening and requesting help at the same time, talk about split personality
- Kurds playing victim card while majority of Kobane civilians are on the Turkish side of the border
- "World" coalition look like confused idiots, dropping bombs (GOOD) but not enough (BAD) and not very wisely choosing objectives (BAD)

*MAIN CONCLUSION*

The IS is winning strategical, tactical and PR (as in, media visibility, "We're coming for you, noone can stop us !") points (and could gain ressources, assets and depth to mount attacks inside Iraq), and the "coalition" (put Turkey and the kurds in it too) are wasting time bickering around.

Hum... What to do, what to do ?

On October 09 2014 07:34 Millitron wrote:

Guerrillas beat the soviets in Afghanistan in the 80's. Guerrillas won in Vietnam. Guerrillas were not defeated after 10 years of fighting the US in Iraq. I'd actually say guerrillas can't lose because every one you kill pisses off 10 civilians who then join up. So unless you want to glass the whole country, there's not much a conventional army can do.

Yet Turkey has been conspicuously absent from the battle for Kobane and is shying away from confronting ISIS at the moment. This is because Turkey's Syria policy has one key objective that takes priority over others: ousting the Assad regime. To this end, Ankara wants to use the battle for Kobane to make the PKK/PYD recognize that they need Turkey to survive in Syria, thus folding the Kurds under its strategic vision for Syria's future.

Prior to entering peace talks with Ankara this year, the PKK fought Turkey for decades. And during the Syrian war, the PKK/PYD have noticeably avoided fighting Assad, choosing to wrest control of Kurdish areas and stay out of the war until ISIS targeted Kobane. Ankara now appears bent on making the Kurds request Turkish security assistance on its terms -- namely, it wants the PKK/PYD to forgo autonomy plans in Syria and join the anti-Assad coalition. Additionally, it wants to see the PYD weakened in Syria so that the PKK comes to the ongoing peace talks with Turkey in a position of desperation. In short, Ankara seeks to reshape the PKK/PYD into a client of Turkish security interests in Syria.

Yet this strategy may have adverse implications for Kobane. To be sure, a Turkish deal with the PKK/PYD would alleviate some pressure on the canton, since Ankara would presumably allow PKK sympathizers to cross the border and enter the fight. Yet in order to fully defeat ISIS, the PKK/PYD would need heavy weapons currently missing from their arsenal. Short of a comprehensive, final settlement with the PKK at home, Ankara is unlikely to allow such weapons to pass into the PKK/PYD's hands, even if the Kurds agree to act as Turkey's proxy in Syria.

Islamic State has been forcing reluctant militants to fight by executing deserters and even physically tying them to tanks and machinery, according to a member of the British parliament.

Nadhim Zahawi, who is Britain’s first and only Kurdish MP, travelled to Erbil, the capital of the Kurdish region of Iraq at the end of August, and met Masoud Barzani, the Kurdish president and members of his cabinet and security forces.

Zahawi says that several of the Kurdish soldiers he encountered during his visit recalled finding ISIS fighters physically tied to the gun turrets of tanks and Humvees captured in the conflicts, suggesting that many of them had been forced to remain in their positions.

....

Iraq's only ethnic Yazidi member of parliament says that the human rights situation in her country is "deteriorating," with Islamic State (IS) militants kidnapping, raping, and selling Yazidi women.

"They are still without any shelter. They are sleeping on the streets. The situation is not good and the winter is [advancing], and it's raining, actually, in Iraq [now]. So the situation is deteriorating," legislator Vian Dakhil told RFE/RL in an October 8 telephone interview from Iraq's Kurdish region.

Dakhil, who has been cited by U.S. President Barack Obama, was named the winner of the 2014 Anna Politkovskaya Award on October 6 by the organization Reach All Women in War. The award, named after the murdered Russian journalist, honors women working to help those trapped in conflict.

On October 10 2014 03:57 heliusx wrote:
What an embarrassment Turkey is... a NATO country...