After being mostly spared from the fighting, Syria’s largest city of Aleppo is being drawn into the civil war.
Syrian President Bashar Assad had mostly had control over the city, apart from protests at the university, but this weekend several local sheikhs announced that they were backing the rebel factions, turning Aleppo into yet another “contested” city.
Rebels poured into the city, with one faction calling itself the “Brigade of Unification” sending a claimed 1,000 fighters into Aleppo, sparking major clashes with the Syrian military. The group’s leadership promised to “liberate” the city militarily.
As usual the prediction of an easy victory for the rebels didn’t pan out however, and heavy fighting is continuing into the evening. At the same time, fighting is reported in several Damascus districts.
Syrian military forces have made some inroads in retaking parts of Damascus, having captured a key suburb this evening. Such gains have often been temporary for either side, however, and the rebels are still claiming to hold the advantage in the capital.
Nonsense. the "rebels" never took Damascus, nor do they have any advantage in Damascus or any other city – which is the problem for the practitioners backing regime change by force in Syria.
Tony Cartalucci at the Land-Destroyer blog has become the most reliable & accurate source for what's been going on in Syria so far. The overblown propaganda coming from the "rebels" and their echo chambers who print their ambitious claims about "controlling" Syria's cities and borders is also wishful thinking. The reality is that the rebels are yet to establish any kind of stronghold in Syria anywhere as the THEY did in Libya's Benghazi. The foreign rebels in Syria are simply sowing chaos wherever they can throughout the country in the hope of convincing their backers in NATO and the gulf states that they're making progress so the cash and weapons will continue to flow.
I wonder how many Americans would be proud to know that their government is arming, training and supporting the same militant groups (so we're told) who were responsible for the 9/11 attacks?
about the same number that was proud we supported that same military groupe before 9 11 . Milosevic told the Hague court , when he heard of 9 11 , This was so sad " He had them in jail but you made me let them go ".. People that followed his trial knew he was telling the truth . But the world refused to believe him .
I don't think it's wise to parrot obvious self-interested propaganda talking points which are not reality based, and are obviously intended to stir up political support for "intervention" from world powers. The timing of these 'rebel' self described 'offensives' are not random. The self described 'success' 'reported' is not verifiable–and seems unlikely. A lone nutcase gunman killed JFK , and another seriously wounded Ronald Reagan…a lucky hit on Syrian officials does not automatically mean the regime itself is on the brink of collapse–nor does it mean anything really in and of itself.
All of that aside, it's not my problem if people undermine their own credibility and make asses of themselves…
Anyway…lets consider Libya:
–By its own 'report', when the "NATO operation" beginning on "31 March 2011, 06.00GMT" (which, I might add, was technically 12 days after the actual 'bombing' started) there were: "a total of 24,682 sorties, including 9,204 strike sorties" dropped on the Nation of Libya as of October 2nd, 2011–which was 18 days before Gaddafi actually died…
http://www.nato.int/nato_static/assets/pdf/pdf_20…
Gaddafi died on October 20, 2011–7 months after the actual 'bombing' started… Syria has not yet been 'bombed' in a one sided conflict where one has an air force dropping "heavy weapons" and the other does not…
Was Gaddafi's regime infinitely stronger than than Assad's regime? Is this the "consensus" here?
Libya has 5 milions of inhabitants and Syria more the 22 millions and a much larger army,
but Russia and China do not support the actual and planned killings of USA there Russia may even defend them miitarily. But obviously USA WANTS WW3 because their media does even not report this Russian support for Syria and Iraq:
Russia and China supported Yugoslavia and Libya too , But nothing turned out the way they were hoping for either of them too . sooner or later they will have to stand up unless they want to be next .
What a fact-contradicting war mongering nonsense: "Syrian President Bashar Assad had mostly had control over the city"
The people have control over Aleppo and make huge PRO-ASSAD-DEMOs:
Even in the alleged rebel twon in Homs he is loved: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSb0lxFcMn0
or here Assad and his wife in an aid center of Homs where refugees of NATO terrorist struggled district of Homs found a shelter: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middlee…
I think some of the antiwar.com editors do not want to come off as too pro-Assad. While I certainly understand this, they should also be careful in trumpting these ambitious rebel claims from sources affiliated with them. As Ben stated above, the assault against Syria's defense ministers, the likely cyber-attack which took down SANA and the border outposts came right at the time the voting was being carried out in the UN on a new resolution. The reports about Assad "fleeing damascus" (NEVER confirmed) and rebels "controlling borders" are several days old, so despite the Syrian army going in crushing them after these well-timed attacks, they are slow to report that the rebels are on the run and that the hyped forthcoming "battle for Aleppo" is a retreat fall-back position after having their rear-ends handed to them over the weekend by the Syrian army in Damascus. Cartalucci states that Aleppo has been relatively quiet throughout the conflict, but now the rebels and jihadist are going to change that – the residents are very terrified.
TRIPE