Iraq >Albu Suwet village captured by Iraq's armed forces, south of Fallujah >ISF & 17th Division liberate al-Kuwaiti neighbourhood and 40th street, Fallujah
>GMT+8 Man that must be fucked, all the battles in Syria happen while youre sleeping
Mason Reyes
>13 years
What math are you using to calculate that Brazil? The civil war began in 2011, that was 5 years ago.
Owen Gutierrez
Also same time with aussies means worse.
Ian Watson
dun goofed and posted in the old thread desert hawks are privately funded and well paid. but i agree that the only half decent troops are the tigers, the marines, the revolutionary guard (not doing offensives though), desert hawks and hezbollah. The problem is that all these amount to probably less than 20-30k men. and with all these open fronts and all the places they need to be, that leaves very few adequate troops for offensives.
also everything that comes from the east (iran afghanistan iraq etc) is absolute shiite tier.
one offensive thats going silentrly well is the advances around and north-northwest of palmyra. granted thats mostly empty desert and probably the absolute last front for isis in terms of importance, but gains are gains
Caleb Scott
...
Leo Jackson
You wish , roach
Adrian Morris
>replying to Otto in a serious manner pearls before swine
Matthew Gonzalez
Oh shit yeah. Now I can see why you got up early!
>one offensive thats going silentrly well is the advances around and north-northwest of palmyra Absolutely true, that front seems to have a slow but very stable advance. Sha'er fields not fully taken yet but quite a few areas west of it
Its SAA 11th Tank Div., NDF and SSNP there I think mostly. seen some reports also of Arab National Guard
Ian Martin
>Implying it will ever look like that Is this supposed to show off the Kurds as having aligned with the FSA or as the FSA having crushed the Kurds?
Andrew Morales
Oh boy, have they finally stopped ISIS killing civilians back at fallujah?
Nah, usually I wake up 10 or 11. Just had something to do
Xavier Hernandez
Fsa crushed kurds
Colton Miller
>newfriends
Parker Gray
iydds a meem, u dip
Camden Wood
>not having roach flags filtered
Aiden Peterson
We will see the use of tactical nukes in Syria before it is all over.
The main force doing the spearhead to Ar Raqqa is a couple of regiments from the 4th Mechanised Division which is the backbone of the Syrian Republican Guard, which is 90% career soldiers and 80% Alawite. Its the regime's mailed fist.
But you are correct though in that the SAA has manpower problems and needs to rely on ethnic militias, hezbollah, and the remnants of the republican guard. But, luckily for the regime, the situation is the same for the rest of the factions, with the exception of the K*rds who enjoy unconditional support from the US and French special forces, while in the South the SAS runs around with the FSA fighting """"isis""""
I personally think that the main reason why the republican guard and the regime's most loyal troops are spearheading the bumrush to raqqa is the fact that it is very possible that if they beat the K*rds there (which is likely) they may have to start fighting them, and because the K*rd forces are mainly burgers anyway, they'll need their best.
As someone who comes from a mixed Alawi-Christian family, I can tell you that Alawis will gladly bend over backwards and run into the depths of hell and bayonet the devil for the lion of Damascus
Easton Sanders
...
John Robinson
>regime Its the Syrian Government. I know mainstream media pushes "regime" hard, but dont mimic it pls
Carson Williams
regime, government, whatever, they're still fucking based and I cannot wait until the lion of damascus puts all those wahhab goatfuckers to the sword and gases the k*rds
Christian + Alawi + Shia = kill wahhab
Joseph Gutierrez
Gov/IRGC forces got BTFO again by Jaish Fatah in South Aleppo. AGAIN. Lost Qarasi and Khalsa.
Kayden Cox
Attacking the Kurds is impossible right now. Attacking an US ally at this point? Suicide. But I doubt the Kurds even want Raqqa. It's full of arabs who hate them, why would they throw their lives away?
Tyler Ward
Well amen to that.
And thanks for your post, insightful comments are always good
So its true theres a lot of Syrians in Australia?
They didnt lose Khalasah.
Jonathan Ward
>As someone who comes from a mixed Alawi-Christian family, I can tell you that Alawis will gladly bend over backwards and run into the depths of hell and bayonet the devil for the lion of Damascus
>gladly bend over backwards and run into the depths of hell to australia
Pretty sure the K*rds want to take Ar Raqqa so that they have leverage over the regime since it is a strategically significant city
There are a pretty sizeable amount though not where I live. The leb and syrian communities are larger in Sydney and Melbourne, though most came here during the 80s or earlier. My family came here because my Syrian grandmother married a bong army officer.
There are of course more lebs and syrians et al coming since the happenings there, but they're mostly all sunni shitters looking to dodge the draft or carry out terrorist attacks. They're generally pisspoor migrants. Kind of like the yugoslavs that came here after ww2 are pretty based but the ones who came in the 90s fucking suck.
my kebab family came here in the 60s senpai, I have been back, and while I wish I could go back now and remove wahhabs I unfortunately suck ass at Arabic. My government would also shoah me since I'd apparently be off to join ISIS or some shit. But yeah, nah, I wish I was there desu senpai
Jack Cook
I was thinking the bridge might have been the one over that canal just after the green zone. al tabqah soon, maybe?
Joshua Flores
thoughts?
Kevin Richardson
gn
Levi Foster
lel, this. Also, one alawi said once that the relationship between Assad and the Alawis is more of a hostage situation: They know it's genocide time if the islamist goatfuckers prevail. Hafez Assad started to strenghen this hostage relationship. If there were atrocities to commit, the alawites were sent. Also, alawis, other than the other religious groups (being a secret religion and all), have no representation in the state. Alawis depend on the regime - and yes, I use "regime", because it's far more than the "syrian government", which are largely powerless clowns, anyway.
Dylan Bell
I don't think the SAA has the capacity for more than one offensive at a time.
Connor Adams
not to argue semantics but ive never seen anything that suggests that the 4th mech is organized as part of the republican guard. the rest you write about them being carreer soldiers and alawites are correct. the republican guard is mainly around damascus and in deir ezzor at this point as far as we know.
Russians bombed the bridge near Tabqah so it's already cut off.
SAA to Al Bab won't happen, and Khanasar to north east neither. Doesn't make sense to attack from both sides and they don't have enough troops anyway
Bentley Jackson
>one alawi said once Sounds legit.
Jeremiah Edwards
there are alternate routes though.
Luke Walker
>launching an offensive from khanaser exposing your rear to FSA shitters >doing the dying for the k*rds >not just bumrushing Tabqah and then Ar Raqqa and Deir Ezzor
Tbh once Ar Raqqa falls it will be negotiations with whoever holding it having the most leverage, and really, it will be negotiations between the K*rds and govenrment since the FSA is fucking irrelevant
I made a mistake its actually the 4th Armoured but, even from wiki:
The Division is regarded by some as the best trained and best equipped of the Syrian Army.[11] The 4th Armoured Division, the Republican Guard, and Syria's secret police form the heart of the country's security forces. As a result, the Division is drawn mostly from members of the same Alawite group as the Assad family.[12] About 80 percent of the division's soldiers and officers are Alawites and nearly 90 percent of them are career soldiers, in contrast to the conscripts who comprise most of the army's other units.[13]
The alawis are basically the state, they make up the vast majority of the career officers as well as the secret police service. Sunnis are the majority of conscripts and the airforce, but really, without the alawis the state would disintegrate. That was primarily as a result of the French mandate, since it was how they ruled by inciting ethnic tensions and empowering minorities to lord it over the sunnis, they did the same in Lebanon
Why hasn't anyone made a better image than that low res shit yet
Landon Turner
Are there any reliable estimates as to what their actual strength is and what kind of armor/equipment they have left?
Julian Bailey
He wrote an article, I'll search it. He surely as legit as some diaspora alawi.
Kevin Torres
Its not a problem to use an alternative route for a man or even a group of men. But it might get problematic to move 10~ loaded ammo/fuel trucks through there. You need a road, or atleast something "roadlike"
Jayden Campbell
okay, more modest guess:
Nathan Moore
its the same one, the 4th armoured is mistakenly referred to as 4th mechanised, they are the ones going to raqqa. there is no 4th mechanized division, only 4th armoured. still in the wiki article it references that they are not a part of republican guard as organization, just very similar in composition and purpose.
you can also see here that they are different organizations nice infographic btw. i wonder out of these 65000 in 2013 how many will be left now, even with the new recruits. an estimate of 20-30k maximum seems reasonable.
Matthew Reyes
SAA's advancements towards Rakka province seems weird to me. I think that they're not actually aiming for Tabqah, but are trying to encircle ISIS in the Hama province and repeat the Kuweyris scenario where ISIS had to pull out of a dozen village before they got sieged.
Gavin Reyes
>an estimate of 20-30k maximum seems reasonable
How much lifting is the IRG and hezbollah doing then, not to mention NDF?
Lincoln Johnson
They will need to secure Aleppo before making any major advances toward Rakka, I think.
Ryder Russell
the syrian republican guard doesn't work in the same way asthe iraqi one did, but the 4th is basically the same thing since it is/was the only military unit that was allowed to serve in Damascus.
I mean this is mainly just semantics at this point, but the fact of the matter is is that they are the most elite and loyal fighting force of the regime's regular army. Save for like, the Tiger Forces and NDF I suppose
Julian Johnson
No that doesn't seem reasonable.
Alexander Ramirez
Haven't checked the Civil war in a while
Assads doing well against the unwashed hordes.
David Flores
They need to secure the roads leading the Tabqah, though I wouldn't be surprised if they try to cut Tabqah off from the northeast an hit it from the south and west, since apparently ISIS is throwing everything they have into fortifying it.
THough they absolutely need to stabilise the situation in Aleppo, I think within the next 24 hours we'll have a better idea as to what is happening. Really though, Aleppo is a stalemate, they just need to stop that ISIS-lite advance in the south
Josiah Howard
The SAA core troops, maybe. But you have also take the "militiazation" of the conflict into account, which heavily boosted the capabilities of the regime and ensured it's survival (and made it impossible to win in my opinion, since it completely escalated the sectarian war). Loyal, cheap alawi militias can get thrown into the meatgrinders of Aleppo now. The full power of the regular (sunni) SAA troops could never be exhausted, anyway: Large scale defections like in Lybia had to be avoided. That's why loyal units from the 4th had to accompany them, almost like politcomissars.
