Aleppo and beyond.

"Syria’s army has “purged” Aleppo’s Salaheddine district of armed groups and is pursuing others in several neighborhoods as it tries to regain control of the city, state television said.

 

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition group, reported heavy shelling in Salaheddine today, suggesting the district or parts of it are still under rebel control. An officer interviewed by the state-run TV channel said“mercenaries” from other countries, including Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, were helping the rebels in Aleppo.

 

Troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have been battling rebels who seized several neighborhoods in Aleppo, Syria’s most populous city and its commercial hub, since last week. The army pounded the city with heavy artillery and helicopter gunships, opposition groups say"  Bloomberg

 

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IMO, the rebels have miscalculated.  Their force has not "evolved" enough to confront significant conventional forces in an urban environment or anywhere else that the conventional forces can "pin" them in place against terrain or some other obstacle.

 

They will pay heavily for this error.  They will lose a lot of men, and be driven from the city.   Following that defeat IMO the Syrian millitary will move further north and northwest to regain control og the "sanctuaries" on the Syrian side of the border with Turkey.  They will succeed in doing this unless Turkey intervenes directly in the fighting.

 

This would not mean the end of the war.  Following such a defeat the rebels are likely to spend an extended period re-building their force in Turkey and launching a long term campaign of revolutionary warfare based on guerrillas.  They may eventually succeed in bringing down the present government if they take a long view of the need to wear the regime down one "mouse" bite at a time.

 

There is a rumor circulating that there has been an attempt on the life of the Saudi minister of intelligence, Bandar bin Sultan.  Does anyone knw anything of this?  pl

 

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-07-30/syria-troops-overrun-rebel-areas-in-aleppo-state-tv-says

 

Comments

[eakens]

Funny thing about Bandar. On PressTV, on July 21st or so I read an article about a bomb going off resulting in the death of Bandar. Then the article disappeared.

Now the story is reappearing. I checked other places online and the article ONLY appeared on PressTV at the time, which may point to who was behind the bombing.

Here's an article back from 7/22/2012, but I remember seeing one from the day before this also.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/07/22/252166/blast-hits-saudi-intelligence-building/

[turcopolier]

eakens

Yes, in re Bandar, I do not yet understand what has happened. pl