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More videos from a fresh chlorine barrel bomb attack on Kafr Zita https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzsG402nnPQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EI5LnArDo0s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdxduPj9XeE
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Apr 16, 2014 21:41
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Warbadger posted:I think you greatly underestimate the agency of the Saudis (and Jordanians for that matter) with regards to needing US approval to do things with the weapons they own. Here are a couple takes on the Saudi intelligence chief quitting: http://www.voanews.com/content/saudi-intelligence-chief-resigns/1894735.html http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-27047856 Key line from the BBC article: 'Largely in protest over Washington's reluctance to get involved militarily in Syria, he reportedly told European diplomats in October that Saudi Arabia would be scaling back its co-operation with the CIA over arming and training rebel groups seeking to topple President Bashar al-Assad.' So maybe this was a unilateral decision by KSA.
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Apr 16, 2014 22:29
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McDowell posted:Here are a couple takes on the Saudi intelligence chief quitting: Fairly unlikely in my mind. Contractually third party transfers are illegal without US approval, and as we can see it's hard to disguise the providence of weapons when the rebels are so happy to video everything. Responsibility would be traced almost immediately. It would also be odd that they were only willing to start right after the declaration that the US was easing up their restrictions. The training (alleged) and southern supply route is also reminiscent of the Croatian weapon shipment which I recall was pretty obviously Saudi transported with serious allegations of US involvement. One could easily see the step down of the Saudi chief who is felt to be too willing to supply to AQ elements as part of a bargain with the US to increase supply of weapons on a selective basis. As BM has shown the weapons will definitely slip outside of the select groups receiving them, but with ISIS faction fighting the rebels as well, one could make a reasonable argument for covert support for rebels who are positioned both in opposition to ISIS and the regime. An idea on who is handing out the weapons can probably reverse engineered when we see whose hands US origin weapons start out in when/if we start seeing them pop up in the east and the north.
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Apr 16, 2014 23:31
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Speaking of the Croatian weapons, I know they started off in the south and eventually were documented in the hands of jihadists in the north and east, but I'm wondering- how did they get there? Did the insurgency control enough of a contiguous swath of land to have a pipeline between their respective areas?
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Apr 17, 2014 00:24
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Can anyone approximate how big of an explosion we're looking at here? Purportedly a massive explosion at the regime-held Hanano barracks in Aleppo currently under assault. Armory explosion scale?
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Apr 17, 2014 07:43
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Probably a truck bomb similar to those from earlier in the conflict (For example). I really hope the area has been cleared of civilians cause I shudder thinking of the collateral damage that caused.
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Apr 17, 2014 08:52
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suboptimal posted:Speaking of the Croatian weapons, I know they started off in the south and eventually were documented in the hands of jihadists in the north and east, but I'm wondering- how did they get there? Did the insurgency control enough of a contiguous swath of land to have a pipeline between their respective areas? I suspect it's more likely the groups who originally had the weapons sharing them with Islamist groups they fought alongside, who shared them with groups they fought alongside, and so on. Then when the infighting started they spread through being captured. I've even seen government stockpiles with Croatian weapons.
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Apr 17, 2014 08:57
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Interesting video of a DIY barrel bomb, this one has a long and thin design, something I've not seen before https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7_B7bnpe1A
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Apr 17, 2014 10:25
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MothraAttack posted:Can anyone approximate how big of an explosion we're looking at here? Purportedly a massive explosion at the regime-held Hanano barracks in Aleppo currently under assault. Armory explosion scale? It's quite impossible to assess this based on one still image. Dust can carry long ways over time if the conditions are right, so it could be anything from a medium sized explosion to a much bigger happening. Still, I'd wager that the dust cloud has expanded very rapidly to very tall altitude as it still has so defined outline and hasn't diffused much. That would place it in the larger end of spectrum. Nenonen fucked around with this message at 11:11 on Apr 17, 2014 |
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Apr 17, 2014 11:05
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farraday posted:One could easily see the step down of the Saudi chief who is felt to be too willing to supply to AQ elements as part of a bargain with the US to increase supply of weapons on a selective basis. As BM has shown the weapons will definitely slip outside of the select groups receiving them, but with ISIS faction fighting the rebels as well, one could make a reasonable argument for covert support for rebels who are positioned both in opposition to ISIS and the regime. The guy was the Saudi Ambassador to the US for decades. He is as close to the US as any man can get, and was instrumental in counter-terrorism coordination between Saudi and the US. As bad as Bandar may be, an Al-Qaeda sympathizer he is not. An offensive that isn't getting much coverage is the Homs Offensive by the regime. Just to show that this is a war that ebbs and flows, this is the third or fourth time the Regime has gone into the same areas of Homs over the last three years. In 2012 after the regime retook the areas of old Homs, Bashar Al Assad himself went ou and waltzed along the streets, claiming that the war would be over in a few months. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?
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Apr 17, 2014 14:36
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I've been following Homs some, and my lay impression is that the threat of it falling is more pronounced this time around. Supplies to the few hundred remaining rebels are choked and the regime is hitting hard. It seems like the old city really could fall in the next few weeks.
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Apr 17, 2014 15:02
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MothraAttack posted:I've been following Homs some, and my lay impression is that the threat of it falling is more pronounced this time around. Supplies to the few hundred remaining rebels are choked and the regime is hitting hard. It seems like the old city really could fall in the next few weeks. What I'm saying is this will be the third or fourth time it has really fallen. Nothing has really changed since the last few times.
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Apr 17, 2014 15:07
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So I think we can all agree that the insurgents have better propaganda videos than the pro-Assad side. This is a Shoa' song depicting Hizballah and Iraqi fighters guarding the Sayyida Zeinab shrine in Damascus, and it's awful. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hv5BzovaaHo
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Apr 17, 2014 16:33
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suboptimal posted:So I think we can all agree that the insurgents have better propaganda videos than the pro-Assad side. This is a Shoa' song depicting Hizballah and Iraqi fighters guarding the Sayyida Zeinab shrine in Damascus, and it's awful. Pretty sure there's a Hadith against excessive auto tuning.
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Apr 17, 2014 17:07
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Brown Moses posted:Interesting video of a DIY barrel bomb, this one has a long and thin design, something I've not seen before Weren't the ones in that leaked vid from inside one of the bomb-copters forever ago long and thin (like acetylene canisters)?
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Apr 17, 2014 17:50
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Radio Prune posted:Weren't the ones in that leaked vid from inside one of the bomb-copters forever ago long and thin (like acetylene canisters)? Yes, but there's a number of similarities in these bombs and the newest DIY barrel bombs, which I've detailed here. They appear to have the same three tail fins, a slot cut between the tail fins (not sure what that's for), and det cord. It seems like these are based off the same design improvements, but for whatever reason they are smaller.
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Apr 17, 2014 18:03
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MothraAttack posted:Can anyone approximate how big of an explosion we're looking at here? Purportedly a massive explosion at the regime-held Hanano barracks in Aleppo currently under assault. Armory explosion scale? I believe this is it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hf8kgEpDB40 What's the deal with these barracks anyway? I thought they had been captured like almost 2 years ago. I remember the videos. Were they taken back in the meantime?
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Apr 17, 2014 21:56
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Yeah, the SAA has held them for a while now, I believe. It looks like the opposition might have taken them, though. The air force intelligence building is also under very direct siege now, so a couple of the regime's main bases in the city are at risk of falling.
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Apr 18, 2014 04:13
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What evidence is there that the rebels captured the barracks? Simply the fact that there was a large explosion there, and the regime has a monopoly on explosives? It seems much more likely that it's the rebels bombed the barracks.
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Apr 18, 2014 09:22
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Yeah, of course it was likely an opposition attack. It's unclear who holds the barracks at the moment, though. This video purports to show rebels entering the barracks, which was backed by activist claims, but as of this morning pro-regime media are showing pictures of what they claim are dead attackers around the barracks. That video was uploaded before regime groups started distributing photos of dead guys with yellow armbands, so, uh, we'll have to wait until the dust settles.
MothraAttack fucked around with this message at 09:53 on Apr 18, 2014 |
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Apr 18, 2014 09:50
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Brown Moses posted:Yes, but there's a number of similarities in these bombs and the newest DIY barrel bombs, which I've detailed here. They appear to have the same three tail fins, a slot cut between the tail fins (not sure what that's for), and det cord. It seems like these are based off the same design improvements, but for whatever reason they are smaller.  This is some Poe's Law poo poo, man.
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Apr 18, 2014 18:29
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It looks like a section of piping that was cut up. Someone is going to be unhappy when they find that their municipal water system doesn't work anymore. Or oil well.
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Apr 18, 2014 21:18
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Torpor posted:It looks like a section of piping that was cut up. Someone is going to be unhappy when they find that their municipal water system doesn't work anymore. Or oil well. I think we can guarantee a whole lot of unhappy people no matter what.
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Apr 18, 2014 21:28
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PleasingFungus posted:
I should start a Tumblr account for this stuff, I get so much of it. There's been another alleged chemical attack tonight, this time in Al Tamanah about 13km away from Kafr Zita. I've been creating playlists for videos of alleged chemical attacks, and this year I've already made playlists for 13 separate reported attacks, and that's not a complete count of these alleged attacks. [edit] And literally the second I post this there's report of a new attack in Kafr Zita https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jfTpsyTFig These alleged attacks in Kafr Zita have been a near daily occurrence since April 11th. Brown Moses fucked around with this message at 22:11 on Apr 18, 2014 |
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Apr 18, 2014 22:06
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Are these chemical attacks at all effective? I can't see them being worth the risks. I mean maybe they're not worried about any international response at this point. Even still it doesn't seem to help much strategically.
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Apr 18, 2014 22:14
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Maybe it's like the Iraq chlorine VBIEDs, much better at spreading terror than chlorine.
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Apr 18, 2014 22:17
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The Ape of Naples posted:Are these chemical attacks at all effective? I can't see them being worth the risks. I mean maybe they're not worried about any international response at this point. Even still it doesn't seem to help much strategically. The strategy is to break the opposition imo, so it works in that regard. The sarin attack for instance didn't provide much military gain, but it killed a fuckload of people who would have otherwise been somewhat safe from conventional artillery attacks where they were sheltered. CW definitely aid in spreading fear. And obviously they're not worried about an international response at this point. Assad was spreading word that any intervention after the ghouta bombings would be purely cosmetic on the US' part, so they weren't even worried then. Now it's probably laughable.
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Apr 19, 2014 04:11
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PleasingFungus posted:This is some Poe's Law poo poo, man. Can we put Brown Moses' nothing but predictable on the blog or something? That would probably shut him up.
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Apr 19, 2014 06:44
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JT Jag posted:It was apparent that the administration was bound by the statements it had made regarding Syria, but Obama was obviously looking for an out the entire time. Putin provided that out, and Obama accepted graciously. This is back a bit, but technically, it wasn't. The US had started giving the FSA weapons in response to a smaller scale CW attack prior to Ghouta. If they wanted to, they could've focused on that as the "red line" threat being fulfilled, and it's not like there would have been public outcry about it from anything other than a handful of activists, and some Syrian Americans. I doubt even conservatives would have ripped on him much because WE GOTS PROBLEMS HERE AT HOME. But the Obama administration almost never even brought up the funding to the rebels. The way I saw it, Obama was the lone man stopping intervention from Syria in happening. There was at least one major meeting even before the Ghouta attack where literally all his advisors were in favor of some form of strikes, but Obama overrode them. Ghouta changed all that. At that point, Obama supported strikes on Syria, but after the national response to the suggestion, decided it was dependent on Congressional approval, which echoed the approval of the American people. He went on national television to give a speech essentially pleading the case of these strikes to try and gain support, and had the state department release videos of the chemical weapons attack that seemed hand picked for maximum emotional value, but it went nowhere. It still would have been the most unpopular war in the last 20 years. I don't think the offer from Putin had anywhere near as much to do with the lack of intervention as the tremendous outcry against the AUMF that was sent to Congress, and it's near certainty to fail. Libya was on a small scale, but Syria would've required a commitment from the entire country that we weren't anywhere near prepared for, regardless of how much blood had been spilled or how many atrocities had been committed. I know people like to act like the government is a separate entity that has its own agenda, and at times that's true, but the American people clearly wrote the policy on this one. The deal with Putin was mandated by the public, not by some backroom politicking. He went over his whole stance on this in detail. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbIrm42zYTU
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Apr 19, 2014 07:04
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Here's a shot of the barrel bomb reportedly used in last night's chemical attack on Kafr Zita http://youtu.be/bx9ebxU38YA Yellow is used to mark industrial chlorine cylinders.
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Apr 19, 2014 07:41
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Four French journalists, Nicolas Henin, Pierre Torres, Edouard Elias and Didier Francois, kidnapped last June have been reportedly released and are in Turkey.
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Apr 19, 2014 10:17
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Great news. Wonder if a rival group freed them, or if this is how ISIS is doing ransoms.
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Apr 19, 2014 10:46
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Brown Moses posted:Here's a shot of the barrel bomb reportedly used in last night's chemical attack on Kafr Zita It seems that in every single one of these videos theres a bunch of guys more than eager to get at these things with screwdrivers and pliers. I'd like to see just one were they rope off the area 
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Apr 19, 2014 12:13
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It's interesting the det cord appears to have been wrapped around the neck of the cylinder and glued into place. I guess the idea was it would be blasted off, releasing the gas, when the cord detonated.
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Apr 19, 2014 12:22
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quote:Egyptian satirist Bassem Youssef will stay off the air until after next month’s presidential election to avoid influencing voters, his television network said on Saturday. http://www.thenational.ae/world/egypt/egypt-comedian-bassem-youssef-off-air-ahead-of-elections
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Apr 19, 2014 16:12
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God forbid that a public discourse were to interfere with the democratic process.
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Apr 19, 2014 16:24
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MothraAttack posted:I've been following Homs some, and my lay impression is that the threat of it falling is more pronounced this time around. Supplies to the few hundred remaining rebels are choked and the regime is hitting hard. It seems like the old city really could fall in the next few weeks. How it's still a point of contention is shocking. There's probably nothing of worth there other than endless piles of rubble and corpses.
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Apr 19, 2014 16:30
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A new shot of the Volcano rocket's launcher, this time from Kasseb Interestingly, that's the Syrian Social Nationalist Party flag being flown next to it. It seems to be the launcher is identical to other examples seen elsewhere, but on a slightly different truck   The above photos from Hezbollah fighters, it even featured on Hezbollah propaganda after the Yabroud Offensive 
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Apr 19, 2014 17:36
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Maliha, Damascus got hit by the government tonight, some of the injuries are very much of the "how did they survive that" type injury, especially the first guy in this video. Very 
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Apr 19, 2014 20:38
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More horrible from Syria, it appears the trapped fighters in Homs broke out of their area, then captured and slaughtered some Assad "militias". Videos and pictures have been posted, showing decapitated heads, rows of corpses with their hands tied, a head on a pole, and various other horrible stuff.
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Apr 19, 2014 21:50
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