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[Merged] Syrian Civil War heats up again/Damascus about to fall

Remember Iraq in both the first and second Gulf Wars?

When it comes to the crunch your conscripts are going to do a runner.
 
The Russians invested billions and billions and billions of roubles on the Khmeimim Air Base in Syria.
It looks like they are getting ready to evacuate.
Video appearing online seems to show they are ready to 'bug out' as they used to call it.
Multiple airlifters have arrived at the base. 3 IL-76s an AN-124 and an An-72. There also appears to be a Su-24 on the runway.
 
Andy_Ross said:
Remember Iraq in both the first and second Gulf Wars?

When it comes to the crunch your conscripts are going to do a runner.
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Conscripts are an offensive tool. They are no good as a defensive weapon, especially against professional solders (or even well-trained volunteers). This has been shown many times. I am thinking about the Falklands war in 1982. And as you said Iraq when they were fighting the Americans.

[/derail]
 
It's pretty well over now. Opposition troops are in the Republican Palace in Damascus. Sednaya prison (the location of 13,000 executions of political prisoners over the course of the Assad dynasty) has surrendered and the prisoners are being released. Damascus seems to be in chaos but with little fighting, it's just because the Assad government just melted away without any formal surrender or parting instructions for it's troops. It's up to the various lower-level officers to decide whether to surrender, desert, or try to get away. There is video of them changing out of military uniforms into civilian clothes (looks like Saigon circa 1975).

No sign of Assad anywhere, inside nor outside Syria.

Russia may be evacuating the Latakia airbase: https://syria.liveuamap.com/en/2024/7-december-20-signs-of-possible-evacuation-at-russias-khmeimim. There is still some nominal level of Assad government control in Tartus and Latakia governates, but that seems to be partly because the HTS just hasn't gotten there yet.
 
Wonder if Assad will pop up in Moscow in the next day or two.

That said, it might be out of the frying pan into the fire for Syria. As ruthless as Assad was, I doubt that what will end up there will be better. Instead I expect some flavour of Islamism.
 
Damascus has fallen, and Assad has fled on a plane, so he will not be dragged out from some humiliating hiding place and be executed like Gaddafi, or Saddam.
The new leader Abu Muhammad Al-Jawlani has declared that he has broken with Al-Qaida because he is no longer ein his twenties, and the follies of his youth is behind him. His organisation HTS (The Organisation for the Freedom of Syria) is only interested in ruling Syria, and is not a threat to other countries.
It is clear, however, that they’ll rule Syria with a heavy extremist hand, and the claims of moderation remind me of the “moderate” Talibans who promised that there would be no suppression of women in Afghanistan.
 
Andy_Ross said:
Trump posted
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There’s no way he wrote that all by himself, except inserting his childish comments about how the Russians got to make Obama look stupid. Obviously the Russians have a big interest in Syria, but here he is making all about his own petty grievances. Well done, America, you have a new president trying to spin Russia’s abject defeats into some kind of troll victory.
 
The House of al-Assad has fallen. The Butcher of Syria has fled. May the rest of his life be miserable and short.
 
Ryokan said:
The House of al-Assad has fallen. The Butcher of Syria has fled. May the rest of his life be miserable and short.
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Unfortunately, much the same may now apply to the ordinary citizens of Syria, especially the women (not that it was particularly great for all under Assad).
 
zooterkin said:
Unfortunately, much the same may now apply to the ordinary citizens of Syria, especially the women (not that it was particularly great for all under Assad).
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Yes.

While it is very good news that the Assad regime appears to have fallen, what looks likely to replace it (ISIS 2.0) isn't an improvement for those of us who consider a secular democracy to be the preferred system of government.

Syria will also be fertile ground for an ongoing proxy war between Hezbollah (representing Russia and Iran), ISIS 2.0 and the various groups supported by Turkey and the west. IMO it doesn't look good for the Syrian people.
 
On the one had it's nice to see that a dictator has fallen and I also do not mind the fact that Putin has shown his inability to actually support his puppets when push comes to shove.
On the other hand, the country is in ruin, the population has no experience with actual democracy and separation of powers and none of the rebel groups agree with one another, not to mention most are not paragons of personal freedoms either. I suspect another Iraq or Afghanistan.
 
Assads plane (if he was on it) definitely crashed.


The ADS-B data shows the plane flying along normally then suddenly going into a gradual descent and turn that gets steeper. Looks like he won't need that Airbnb he booked in Russia after all.
 
Syrian president leaves Damascus on plane as army says his rule ends

President Bashar al Assad has fled the capital Damascus on a plane for an unknown destination, according to two senior Syrian army officers speaking to the Reuters news agency, and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
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So much for the cordon.
 
That flight path had the aircraft descending and travelling at very low speeds, well under 100 kts, as it approached the end of its flight path. It then levelled out, sped up to 120 kts at about 1600 feet, then the data cut out. I would suggest a likely scenario is the pilots simply turned off the tracking systems so as to "disappear", as most military flights do on Flightradar24, and darkened the plane. This happened in the middle of the night. So it could have flown on unseen to just about anywhere. There's a military airfield just to the south of that point. The Mediterranean coast is easily within reach. Or, indeed, it could have crashed, although I would have expected a confirming report of that within minutes of it happening. People in crowded cities don't often miss seeing crashing aircraft...
 
"To the displaced all over the world, free Syria awaits you."

"The new Syria will be a place where everyone coexists in peace, justice prevails and rights are established, where every Syrian is honored and his dignity is preserved, we turn the page on the dark past and open a new horizon for the future." -HTS

And there you have it.
Peace.
 
It remains to be seen how many will take them up on the offer, especially if they've already built a new life since they fled Syria.

I'd find it much more likely they're going to return to visit friends and family. I have a coworker who fled Syria some 10 years ago, and he has a home, a family, a job here, but he has been relatively open about wanting to be able to return to Syria to visit his family there.
 
Syrian rebels have entered the city of Tartus where the Russian Navy has its naval base.

The frigate Admiral Grigorovich and cargo ship Engineer Trubin have sailed in to the Mediterranean.
 
I watched a news program about this. I think that Isreal is cautious but liking how this is going. It's kind of the enemy of my enemy is my friend kind of thing sounds like
 
webfusion said:
"To the displaced all over the world, free Syria awaits you."
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KDLarsen said:
It remains to be seen how many will take them up on the offer, especially if they've already built a new life since they fled Syria.
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I imagine many will stay wherever they currently are. But many of the refugees and living in pretty poor conditions in Turkey or in other middle-eastern nations. They might go back. But I agree that a family living a nice new life in Germany (for example) isn't very likely to want to return.

Assuming it stabilizes into something livable and doesn't just devolve into a new phase of civil war. Call me naive, but I'm actually feeling pretty optimistic about the outcome of this, at least in western Syria where the great majority of the population lives. The various groups there have made clear effort to communicate with each other and there don't seem to have been any sort of bloody revenge/vendetta type reprisals.

I'm less optimistic about the fate of the Kurds in the northeast. They are Erdogan's favorite bogeyman and he's got little incentive to not go full genocide on them.

ETA: Israel is also a wildcard. They've bombed a number of sites in Syria over the past few days. If the new government can't find a way to deal with that then they may lose the confidence they just won from everyone.
 
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Russian state media is reporting Assad has been granted asylum in Moscow.
And if there's one thing we know about Russian State Media, is that they always tell the truth, and nothing but the truth.
Of course, I guess granting him asylum, and him reaching there to take advantage of the offer are two very different things.
 
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well the latest rumor is that Russia staged a plane crash to cover for Assad. Which is why they are called rumors...
 
The mighty Bashar al-Assad has been granted political asylum in Russia.

Now it's his turn to be a refugee.
 
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