Russia’s eight hour ceasefire in Aleppo came and went, and was extended to an 11 hour truce. Russian President Vladimir Putin said he was open to an even longer ceasefire, so long as the rebels inside eastern Aleppo don’t attack the Syrian government installations around the area.
The comments came after meetings in Berlin with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande, who weren’t in a compromising mood, and instead condemned Putin out of hand, and demanded unconditional and total suspension of airstrikes against Aleppo.
The current Russian ceasefire is a unilateral one, aimed at allowing civilians to leave Aleppo, and was initially also hoped to allow some aid into the city, though the UN has since dismissed that idea, saying that the Russian ceasefire wasn’t particularly useful for aid deliveries since they didn’t have guarantees from the rebels.
Aleppo has been contested militarily by several factions since 2012, and is now held by the Syrian military and the al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front. The two sides have been fighting over the city for months, and the military has been in the advantage recently, aiming to take more territory.
I don’t get the compromise thing. Why do EU heads-of-decaying-states get to say something? Is Syria now in Europe???
And why are they defending Al-Qaeda so much? What has Al-Qaeda got on them, and why are they so not interested in trying to get out of Aleppo, unless somebody promised them protection? And how is it that the entire media on both sides of the Atlantic is not interested one bit about how Al-Qaeda treats civilians in Aleppo. There heart breaking stories in New York Times on the brutal life of people in Mosul under ISIS rule. Why so much secrecy about Al-Qaeda? Trump looked foolish as he asked Hillary about if she knew what groups are in Aleppo, hinting that they may not be nice people. But, for all that is sane in us, how is it possible that they all have been muzzled, not to say the name? Even though in a whole slew of documents that Kerry signed with Russia on previous deals — it is consistently defined that Al-Qaeda (Al-Nusra) and ISIS are not included into the cease fire, and can be attacked. The whole drama started only after East Aleppo was actually cut off from their suppliers — and I am not sure any more that Kurds are not the ones doing the supplying. The panic button was hit once Turkey went in, Kurds pinned down, and Syrian army cut off roads. Suddenly, we cannot talk any more — as this is a Holocaust!
The net result is the pointless loss of our prestige — or what is left of it ever since Bill Clinton decided to go into empire building business. Now, they are back. Happy Halloween.
They are tough talkers. Nobody is taking them seriously any more in the world. And when a White Helmet has been caught preparing a terrorist act in Berlin — not a peep about his “humanitarian” work in Syria before getting back to Germany only two months before the planned terror attack.
It is quite possible that the reason US and EU do not want to touch Al-Qaeda, as the groups is really the most diverse of them all — there are over 100 nationalities among them — and possibly some of them went through our “wetting” process, train and equip process, etc,
Now the way I look at it, it seem that US and EU believe that in Syria there is a strangest war going on. According to this narrative, everyone is killing Syrian people. Assad Army is killing Syrian people, ISIS is killing Syrian people, Al-Qaeda is killing Syrian people, Russians are killing Syrian people, Kurds are killing Syrian people, Assyrians are killing Syrian people, Turkmen are killing Syrian people, now Turkey is also killing Syrian people, Free Syrian Army is killing Syrian people, Democratic Forces are killing Syrian people, Army of Conquest is killing Syrian people, as well as about half a dozen of other groups that keep changing names, to make sure they are unpronounceable. Now other then Syrian Army, Russian forces and Turkish forces — others I gather are the “opposition. As far as I know, ISIS and all other groups are Islamists, and share the same idea of caliphate based, borderless feudal entities, with one and only Sharia being in place is Sharia laid down by Mecca and its ruling Wahhabi cult.
Let’s compare platforms — Assad’s secular republic, or ISIS Wahhabi Caliphate?
It all looked like Maidan at first, including firing on protesters and police — except that it did not go according to the plan. For Maidan style of toppling the regime, one needs to have in a hurry some folks dressed in a suit, to represent the opposition. Hillary tried to remedy that by appointing a body full of Chalabis, But the problem is — no rank and file accept them.
The key problem with the “opposition” is the end-game. How do you get to the table killers that have killed innocents in the most imaginable manner, competing with each other in cruelty. In fact, being beheaded was a sign of mercy — there were many ways of killing they practiced that a victim lingered in pain for days. So, what is the end-game? There is none — the killers cannot be reintegrated with the society.
I recommend sending them to EU. They have shown a great deal of sympathy for their cause, defending Al-Qaeda to dear end. And as far as ISIS goes, all these years they are living entirely protected from Syrian strikes, and that part of sky is under “Coalition” control. They lived in Raqqa for years, completely unmolested by airstrikes in or in the immediate vicinity of the city. It is all an open, desert terrain. Trucks come and go across the border to Iraq. From there, they come and go via major highways to Saudi Arabia, as Iraq lost the control of those borders long time ago.
Hard to see an end-game there, as ISIS is apparently just a place holder for more important things. In Europe, they are today discussing the political solution to Mosul. Darling European states — what will the world do without them telling them what to do and how to do it. One solution is to insure that no foreign bases are left for any purpose — no training, no equipping. This is how it all started by Peteraues arming Sunni to fight Al-Qaeda. He founded Iraqi Awakening. It was downhill since.