Let's look at the word "bomb". If you mean bombing from airplanes, then no one, since since October 18, 2016, there has been a moratorium on the use of aircraft in Aleppo, which is adhered to by both the Russian Aerospace Forces and the Syrian Air Force. However, the bombings are present in the virtual space: in terrorist propaganda (which is logical), in reports of a dubious organization called the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (consisting of a Syrian dissident living in the UK), as well as in reports from Al TV channels. -Arabia" and "Al-Jazeera".
- The latter should be discussed in more detail. The pro-Saudi Al-Arabiya channel and the Qatari Al-Jazeera are media outlets that Always protect Islamic fanatics and Always“convict” those who fight terrorism not in words, but in deeds. For example, Israel, which is fighting for its right to survive, receives exactlythe same the accusations against Russia about “Jews being the killers of thousands of Palestinian women and children” are dropped exactly the same stories as about the Russians allegedly “committing outrages in Syria.” To the extent that support for international terrorism and radical Islam, the export of Islamic revolutions and the forced imposition of Sharia law is an integral part of the state policy of Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Skillful, extremely professional “fakes”, forgeries, false filming and pseudo-documentary films created by employees of Al-Arabiya and Al-Jazeera - these most influential television channels - played almost a decisive role during the so-called “Arab Spring”. Unfortunately, at the moment, the Western media draw information precisely from these sources of information, which are deliberately designed to justify true radicals - fanatics and thugs.
Now for the second part of the question. Russian negotiators from the Center for the Reconciliation of Warring Parties, at the time of writing these lines, were able to persuade armed groups from approximately 800 settlements to peace. We are talking here not about incompetent radical Islamists, but about those who, in conditions of general chaos, took up arms in their hands in the position of a “besieged fortress.” Under Russian patronage, such local militia groups agree to swear allegiance to Bashar al-Assad in exchange for all the necessary guarantees, food, medicine and electricity connections. A special term has even been invented for them in Russia: “patriotic opposition” - as a counterbalance to the Western concept of “moderate opposition”, under which only Muslim fanatics are hidden. In total, at the moment, more than 1,000 settlements in Syria have been liberated from terrorists or have independently joined the ceasefire.
As for military successes, Aleppo has become, in every sense, the “Syrian Stalingrad.” The victory in Aleppo, alas, overshadowed and shaded by the loss of Palmyra, is, nevertheless, a turning point in the entire war. Then the road opens to the province of Idlib - the last outpost of al-Qaeda and its allies in Syria. After the defeat of the al-Qaedaists, it will be possible to throw all resources into the war against the “Islamic State” (banned in the Russian Federation). It should be noted that even a day before Russia entered the war, the collapse of the secular regime and the catastrophic “Libyan scenario” in Syria seemed to be a matter of time—a couple of months, to be precise. So the result is obvious.
The war against the Islamic State terrorist organization, which is essentially an army, is banned in many countries, and is being waged by two main forces operating in two states. At the same time, there are contradictions between the main opponents of extremists, expressed in goals that are significantly different, and methods that are in many ways similar, but also different. Now there are two battles going on simultaneously, the victorious completion of which should lead to a turning point in the course of the war and the almost complete defeat of armed organized extremist detachments. After the capture of Aleppo, IS will have no major strongholds in northern Syria. When Mosul falls, much the same will happen in Iraq. Comparing these two not yet completed operations seems to be an interesting task.
Should we wait for humanism?
On the one hand, the Syrian regular army is fighting against ISIS with the support of the Russian aviation group and other fire weapons, including missiles. In Iraq, the same enemy is trying to crush a rather complex combination of armed forces from different countries, the backbone of which is Iraqi units, and the overall command is exercised by American generals and officers.
Russia has repeatedly been accused of inhumane methods, “barbaric bombings,” etc. It would be logical to assume that the coalition led by the United States will show an example of philanthropy, that is, it will liberate Mosul using some special method that involves minimizing losses of civilians, Iraqi Army personnel and other participants in the operation. There really is a difference, and not just one. It is not possible to determine the number of possible casualties now, but the intensity of airstrikes and their tactical methods clearly set a large figure. Coalition artillery is also hitting neighborhoods indiscriminately. The street fighting that has begun promises a lot of blood. But first things first.
Who is fighting against the Syrians in Aleppo?
So, near Aleppo, everything is basically clear. It is mainly Syrians who are fighting on the ground; according to some sources, Iranian and Lebanese special forces are taking part in the battles, and all of them are being assisted from the sky by Russian aviation. Fighting against them are militants from many countries dug in around the city and firmly entrenched in it, hiding behind local residents (also Syrians) as a human shield. The task was very difficult, and therefore the assault was delayed. The command of the SAR army repeatedly offered resistance participants to leave the city (even with weapons), corridors were allocated for this, but this option was obviously considered unacceptable by them. The logic of the terrorists is clear: as soon as they are left alone in the middle of the sandy desert, without hostages surrounding them, they will most likely be dealt a crushing blow. It is much more profitable for them to remain under the cover of ruins and residential buildings inhabited by townspeople. Formally, they call themselves the “Free Syrian Army,” but in essence this “moderate opposition” army is no different from ISIS.
Situation in Mosul
The picture surrounding the surrounded and besieged Iraqi city is complex in its own way. Representatives of only one force are defending themselves - the “Islamic State”, but a coalition assembled from many countries is attacking them. For example, artillery fire is carried out by French, Canadian, Turkish and American crews. Bomb and missile strikes are carried out by air forces of six dozen countries. The manpower is mainly Iraqi, which, in fact, is logical, but it is also heterogeneous - units of not only the regular army, but also the police, militia, special forces and some other unknown units are involved. They also trained using different methods - mainly American, Turkish and Iranian, and combat regulations in these countries vary greatly. There are also Kurds, but they were not sent for the assault, since there are nuances in relations with Turkey, such that a conflict with the allies is not far away. Therefore, these participants are located near Mosul, observing the events through binoculars and waiting to be asked for help. Fighting on the outskirts of the city has already begun.
Insult to America
According to John Kirby, head of the State Department press service, the very comparison of the assaults on Aleppo and Mosul is offensive to the American ear. These are completely (“radically”) different operations; there is nothing in common between them. This was said in response to the words of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who did not see the difference, but on the contrary, found many similarities. Firstly, storming a city is always difficult. Secondly, civilians are experiencing great difficulties (to put it very mildly). What exactly it was about these words that offended Kirby is not entirely clear. But since he was offended, it would be very nice of him to explain why. In the meantime, we can analyze the work of coalition aviation.
How Mosul is bombed
It is really difficult to bomb residential areas so as to hit only terrorists, especially if they do everything to provide themselves with a “human shield.” For these purposes, Russian aviation used attack aircraft equipped with high-precision sights, which, of course, did not exclude accidental innocent victims, but at least reduced their number. Recently, it was decided to abandon air raids on Aleppo altogether for humanitarian reasons. As for Mosul, in addition to the F/A-18 Hornets based on the Eisenhower aircraft carrier and the Rafales from the Charles de Gaulle, it will be ironed by the strategic B-52s, which, as everyone knows, are not suitable for targeted strikes. intended. After them, only a “carpet” of stone chips remains. There are dozens of flights a day. There are no reports of civilian casualties.
Media
There are no reports of civilians killed by bombs in Mosul, not because the Americans, French and other coalition members have some very smart bombs that kill only terrorists. The reason is different, there are simply no reporters in this besieged city. Here in Aleppo they exist, and a variety of media outlets talk in detail about the misfortunes of the population. Moreover, any destruction is immediately passed off as the consequences of air strikes by the Aerospace Forces, regardless of the true cause. In reality, the work of correspondents in the vicinity of Mosul consists of filming some columns of equipment, often driven specifically to create the desired screen “picture”.
Real success
The tasks of the military in the two cases are very different. The Syrian army strives to get by with small losses and adheres to the tactic of gradually displacing the militants, creating opportunities for them to leave the city in combination with the difficult conditions of being in it. This method is difficult, long and generally tedious, but it is difficult to find another method under these conditions. Syria's actions are monitored by international organizations, including the UN, the Red Crescent and others. Civilians can leave Aleppo through humanitarian corridors, although militants are preventing them from doing so.
There is none of this in Mosul. No one is watching the operation. The Americans are pushing the stormers, trying to “make a victory” before the elections and add additional points to the Democratic Party. The media reports on the difficulties associated with civilians being in a war zone (who would have thought?). There have been no significant successes yet. Or rather, they exist, but they are very modest.
What's ahead?
It is already clear that both cities will be taken, and the Islamists entrenched in them will be destroyed or forced to retreat into the desert. The destruction in Aleppo is great, but judging by the intensity of the bombing, after the assault Mosul may cease to exist altogether, although it is possible that Iraqi troops will even take it before the Syrian ones complete their task. There is no doubt that, if successful, the Americans will reap the laurels of the winners to the fullest, but if the losses turn out to be monstrous (and this is very likely), then the culprits will be the performers, that is, the coalition participants, who will be held responsible for everything.
A demonstration assault is unlikely to succeed.
Yulia Latynina
Columnist for Novaya
Russia blocked a draft resolution on Syria proposed by France in the UN Security Council. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the bombing of Aleppo “a new level of barbarity,” and French President Francois Hollande said it should be tried as a war crime.
“Russia is demolishing Aleppo, along with civilians and the democratic opposition opposing the tyrant Assad,” is the approximate message of most Western media.
I am not a fan of the Kremlin’s policies, but let me tell you that in this case they are telling us a complete lie.
For starters: the Kremlin is not bombing Aleppo.
Moscow and Damascus are bombing eastern Aleppo, which is under rebel control.
There are now 250-300 thousand people in eastern Aleppo (according to the rebels). Do you know how many are in western Aleppo under the control of government forces? One million four hundred thousand.
Four hundred million is not a government figure. This is the figure reported by Rami Abdul Rahman, head of the pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has just accused Russian troops of killing 3,804 Syrian civilians.
You may ask: where did so many come from in the front-line city into which shells are flying? Answer: They fled rebel-held areas. Residents of western Aleppo are now primarily internal refugees. These refugees fled from liberators. There are no refugees in Syria who fled to the liberators.
Even before Putin and Assad began their assault on eastern Aleppo, the opposition was continuously shelling its western part. According to the same Rami Abdul Rahman, in August hundreds of homemade howitzer shells were fired at the civilian population of western Aleppo. They killed 178 civilians, 52 of them children.
How does such a fantastic mortality rate come about? Why do homemade shells kill more than advanced Russian bombs? The answer is given by the same Rami Abdul Rahman. According to him, this is due to the higher population density in western Aleppo.
Question: if Moscow and Damascus stop shelling eastern Aleppo, will peace reign in Syria? Or will homemade bombs explode again in western Aleppo?
The West claims that Moscow is destroying the moderate Muslim opposition in Aleppo, and the Kremlin claims that it is destroying Islamic terrorists in Aleppo.
I dare to suggest that Putin and Assad are much closer to the truth than the West. I have no doubt that there are peaceful Muslims and even supporters of democracy in Syria: after all, the country was until recently a secular dictatorship. It’s just that the existence of a “moderate opposition” in Aleppo is not supported by experimental data.
The arrival of the “moderate opposition” in Aleppo began with terrorist attacks. On February 10, 2012, two suicide bombers exploded near the military intelligence and security service buildings. Western media reaction has largely been that the Syrian regime blew itself up in order to compromise the peaceful opposition.
In July 2012, the opposition captured Aleppo as a result of an armed assault. Despite all his sympathy for the rebels, Guardian journalist Martin Chulov, who was with them, was forced to note that the militants who captured Aleppo numbered only three thousand, and that many of them were professional jihadists from all over the world. Residents fled the city, and even among those who remained, "only a few" openly welcomed the militants. “70% of the residents of liberated Aleppo are still on the side of the regime,” Chulov reported with regret.
The reason why the inhabitants of liberated Aleppo showed such political irresponsibility, which upset the Guardian journalist, is very simple. Imagine that you are an opponent of the Kremlin regime. And then one day, looking out the window, you discover that Moscow has been captured by foreign jihadists; that in the name of Allah they break into apartments, rob stores, put infidels against the wall, eat body parts of government soldiers on video, traffic in captured girls and turn them into sex slaves. Oh, yes - and they are against the Kremlin too. And who will you be for in this situation?
As you know, a humanitarian convoy of the UN and the Syrian Red Crescent Society (SRCS) was destroyed in the west of Aleppo. The research team Conflict Intelligence Team analyzed
situation with the destruction of this convoy in western Aleppo and came to the conclusion that the humanitarian convoy was destroyed as a result of airstrikes by both the Assad Air Force and the Russian Aerospace Forces.
I suggest you take a look at this research:
More than 24 hours have passed since the destruction of a joint humanitarian convoy of the UN and the Syrian Red Crescent Society (SRCS) in western Aleppo, during which 20 people were killed, including the head of the local branch of the SRC Omar Barakat.
A convoy of 31 trucks left the Syrian-controlled part of the city of Aleppo on the morning of September 19, crossed the front line in the first half of the day and proceeded to the settlement of Urum al-Kubra, controlled by Assad’s opponents, approximately 10 km west of the city limits, where it was subsequently attacked.
In the video in question, the convoy stands at the side of the Idlib-Aleppo highway, and a pickup truck with a trailer that looks like a mortar passes to its left.
Twitter user @obretix determined that this video was filmed near the village of Khan al-Asal, at a distance of more than 6 kilometers from the place where the airstrike was carried out on the convoy.
In addition, analysis of the shadows in the video shows that it taken no later than 14:00, since the marked area of the fence is not in the shade.
Above: video frame from the Russian Ministry of Defense; the red arrow marks the approximate direction of the shadow; below: screenshot from SunCalc.org service
2) The same statement from the Ministry of Defense indicated that after 13:40 the Russian military did not monitor the convoy. However, analysis of shadows in the frames of the broadcast recording from the Ministry of Defense drone indicates that this drone was observing the convoy’s parking area at least later than 17:00, that is less than 2 hours before the airstrike.
The red arrow marks the direction of the shadows.
Assad's forces continue their offensive on the main Syrian rebel city of Aleppo. The western part of the city is already occupied by government forces, the eastern areas are surrounded and cut off from the main territories of the Syrian opposition. Hundreds of thousands of city residents found themselves hostage to the situation. What is the significance of Aleppo, and how will its possible capture affect the course of the civil war in Syria?
Aleppo, once the economic capital and second most populous city in Syria, has become the site of fierce fighting between government troops and ragtag opposition forces. From the pro-democratic Free Syrian Army to terrorist groups banned in Russia like al-Nusra. Almost immediately after leaving the truce regime, Assad announced his intention to take the center of the Syrian resistance. The fall of Aleppo could eliminate the rebels from the big Syrian game, giving Damascus a free hand to attack ISIS, comments Alexander Konovalov, president of the Institute for Strategic Assessments.
Alexander KonovalovPresident of the Institute for Strategic Assessments“Aleppo is considered a key point, one of the largest Syrian cities. Beyond Aleppo, prospects for a march on Raqqa open up; it’s not very far away. Aleppo was once almost entirely under Islamist control. Pro-government forces had serious difficulty attacking Aleppo. Reinforcements went there regularly, equipment went there regularly. The rebels, or, as we call them, the “radical Islamist opposition,” have held on to Aleppo and are holding on, resisting fiercely. There are a lot of different forces and groups. The forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad, in my opinion, believed that now is the moment when they must push it to the end. This does not mean that the war in Syria will instantly end, but it will create a much more suitable platform for Bashar al-Assad, which can already be used for the final stage of resolving the conflict in Syria.”
There is no talk of a ground offensive yet, but observers are reporting an air campaign unprecedented even for dilapidated Aleppo. After the failure of the truce, Damascus clearly stated its intention to achieve a military solution to the conflict and called on civilians to leave the city or at least not to approach “terrorist gathering places.” Will this minimize civilian casualties? Unfortunately, hundreds of thousands of Aleppo residents are trapped by circumstances, says Alexander Shumilin, director of the Center for the Analysis of Middle Eastern Conflicts at the US-Canada Institute.
Alexander ShumilinDirector of the Center for the Analysis of Middle East Conflicts at the US-Canada Institute“We are talking about blockading the city and exposing it to air bombardment. What we are seeing now is Assad’s army acting, this is its strategy, which is difficult to understand in the 21st century. Unfortunately, it is fully supported by the Russian side. The size of the civilian population in the eastern quarters is known - it is from a quarter to a third of a million civilians. And, as a rule, most of the losses fall on them, they are less protected, and Assad’s army operates mainly with the help of aviation, dropping these barrel bombs that do not selectively hit targets. So that’s why I’m saying, we’re talking about some kind of soft genocide with the complicity and calm observation of the world community.”
This is the horror of war. It is clear that the Syrian army cannot help but respond to attacks by terrorist groups that ignore the truce. And it is clear that the capture of Aleppo is strategically necessary to resolve the Syrian conflict in favor of Assad, who is supported by Russia. But in the age of the Internet, the joy of glorious victories is lost when you see another video on Facebook in which the body of another child is pulled out from under the ruins of Aleppo, who was too close to “terrorist gathering places.”