Syria/Iraq Diary - 21 October 2014

- I think it was the Beirut Daily Star that yesterday ran a story on its site that the US is sharing the fruits of air reconnaissance over Syria with the Syrian government.  The mechanism is supposedly through liaison contacts with the Russian and Iraqy governments.  The subject matter is IS movements and observed order of battle.  I can't find the article now.  Evidently The DS took it down, but the story makes sense to me and we know that Russia and the US are cooperating in the intelligence field.

- The US is making re-supply drop over Kobane using C-130 Hercules for the drops.  As an old paratrooper I can tell you with certainty that the drop altitude must be under 1,000 feet.  If it is above that the bundles will end up very scattered and IS is likely to recover some of them.  The danger to cargo aircraft making drops in daylight at that altitude is significant.

- Abadi, the new Shia friend of the US who is prime minister in Baghdad has now announced that he will not ask for the assistance of foreign ground troops because "no country on earth who has its forces in your territory will ever give you back your land."  Well, knothead, that is exactly what the US did and the president of the US has paid a high price for respecting your wretched sovereignty.

-  Business Insider reveals that the target intelligence on which US anti-IS strikes are based is so thin that they are largely ineffective and nobody has any real idea how much damage is being done to IS.  Is this true?

- Washpost has a story linked to below that details the level of IS massacres of Sunni Arab tribesmen who try to revolt against them  One tribal told a reporter that they saw what the US had done for the Yazidis and the Kurds and had hoped for something similar.

- "ISIS's core advantages which are strong battlefield leadership, significant tactical autonomy and aggressive tactics. Their battlefield tactics are somewhat reminiscent of the German Blitzkrieg campaigns in the early part of World War II. They use fast, well-coordinated forces with vehicle support to attack enemy weak points in strength under the cover of long range artillery and mortar fire.  A particular speciality is outflanking defensive positions and then mopping up defenders who attempt to retreat. The tactic is as much psychological as it is kinetic, and is greatly magnified by the horrendous and public brutality ISIS has systematically exhibited wherever it has gained control."  Auftragstaktik.    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission-type_tactics

- What exactly is in the weapons bundles the US is dropping on Kobane?  Steve Clemons said "heavy weapons" on the tube this AM.  I don't believe that.  What exactly?   pl 

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29698930

http://www.businessinsider.com/us-airstrikes-in-syria-are-based-on-startlingly-little-intelligence-2014-10

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/syria-tribal-revolt-against-islamic-state-ignored-fueling-resentment/2014/10/20/25401beb-8de8-49f2-8e64-c1cfbee45232_story.html

http://www.defensenews.com/article/20141020/DEFREG04/310200024/Iraq-PM-Rules-Out-Foreign-Intervention-by-Ground-Forces

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/10/17/opinion/bronk-isis-guerillas/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

Comments

[The beaver]

Colonel

Do you mean yesterday or last August?
I found this article from August 26th:

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2014/Aug-26/268553-us-gives-syria-intelligence-on-jihadists-sources.ashx#axzz3GmqHikpC

[DH]

Assault rifles, machine guns, grenade launchers, flame throwers, fluorescent paint, instructions on calling in coordinates, cell phones, radios, rations, and medical supplies.

[turcopolier]

DH

source? pl

[Matthew]

Col: I attended a speech last night with Josh Landis,
OU Prof and author of Syria comment. He argued that a new Sunni state exists in Eastern Syria and Western Iraq. The Sunnis probably are gone for good.

I wonder if Turkey's idiotic adventure in Syria has merely set in motion a full-scale Turkish-Kurdish conflict, which will stain Turkey like the Armenian Genocide.

[Sylvia]

Video shows the content of one of the captured bundles by the Islamic State:

The supplies include many fragmentation grenades, gear, and RPG rockets.

Read more: http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat-matrix/archives/2014/10/us_supply_drop_in_the_hands_of.php#ixzz3GnOkPV3e

[Aka]

dear sir,
"no country on earth who has its forces in your territory will ever give you back your land."

don't you get the feeling that Abadi was speaking to his domestic audience? After all he said that after meeting the Grand Ayatollah.

ISIS exploits reminds me of the LTTE campaigns in later half of 1990s against the Sri Lankan government forces (this provides some sketchy info about them http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unceasing_Waves). By 2000 the government soldiers simply ran away even when they had a numerical superiority (small arms wise both used the same. Government had better heavy weaponry like tanks and IFVs).

[Matthew]

Sylvia: Great link to a Zionist propaganda website. I particularly like it's connection to FDD. See http://www.defenddemocracy.org/

[DH]

No source, Colonel, I thought you were calling for a surmisal.

[turcopolier]

Aka

Yes, of course it was for a domestic audience. So what? It was still said. pl

[turcopolier]

DH

OK. CENTCOM says this stuff is all from PM stocks. pl

[makosog]

Bad news from the Yazidi front:

http://warincontext.org/2014/10/20/isis-seizes-two-yazidi-villages-as-it-advances-on-mount-sinjar/

'minority Yazidi sect pleaded for U.S.-led airstrikes to save them.'

Wonder if the Coalition partners responded to this plea...

[Babak Makkinejad]

You cannot expect US or anyone else for that matter to save this or that group of people in war.

The plight of Yazidis illustrates the hollowness of all the claims of Kurds (in Iraq, in Turkey, in Syria, in Iran) that they are a proto-state dedicated to the cause of secularism and democracy.

They could not defend themselves against a rag-tag Arab army.

And I wonder if the Kurdish leaders - all Sunnis - cared one whit about Yazidis - popularly known as "Devil Worshippers" (even by themselves).

[Allen Thomson]

> As an old paratrooper I can tell you with certainty that the drop altitude must be under 1,000 feet. If it is above that the bundles will end up very scattered and IS is likely to recover some of them.

Couldn't they be using guided parachutes(*)? When I was researching the Camp Stanley Storage Activity (which seems to exist to support discreet supply of infantry weapons to friendly foreign folks), it turned out that it has ordered small quantities of them. Google Army Contracting Command Solicitation W45PVN-11-Q3029. Presumably they're available for other missions.

(*) http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/jpads-making-precision-airdrop-a-reality-0678/
http://www.airborne-sys.com/pages/view/dragonfly
http://www.airborne-sys.com/pages/view/firefly

[turcopolier]

Allen Thompson

They could be using one of the Dragonfly systems, but if the footage shown is of actual drops those are just plain old cargo parachutes. pl

[Duncan Kinder]

It appears that airdrops are being made from above 1,000 feet:

"ISIS: We have our hands on weapons, ammo air-dropped by U.S."
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/isis-we-have-our-hands-on-weapons-ammo-air-dropped-by-u-s/

[The beaver]

Colonel

http://www.stripes.com/news/middle-east/activists-islamic-state-fighters-seize-us-weapons-cache-meant-for-kurds-1.309435

[quote] Islamic State group fighters seized at least one cache of weapons airdropped by U.S.-led coalition forces that were meant to supply Kurdish militiamen battling the extremist group in a border town, activists said Tuesday.[eoquote]

[r whitman]

Somewhat off topic but interesting comment on Yemen
http://csis.org/publication/middle-east-notes-and-comment-unhappy-yemen

[curtis]

If it was me all those items would be tagged w/micro devices that reported their position regularly. For tracking purposes of course.

I'm sure many here can use their imagination as to why.

[turcopolier]

All

Not at all unusual for bundles and indeed people to end up in enemy territory unless you use the new steerable chutes that someone mentioned earlier. pl

[different clue]

Babak Makkinejad,

Why do you keep referring to this Arab army as "rag-tag"? If the old-soldier and old-mukhabarat(?) Baathists are providing leadership and on-the-job trainership, and if the ISIS component are experienced fighters at some level, and if they have secured several billion dollars worth of weapons . . . . then how are they rag-tag?

[Fred]

Curtis,

It's a good way to target both sides, presuming that they don't remove them or use them to tag other targets.

[Babak Makkinejad]

Because they are:

untidy, disorganized, and are incongruously varied in character and competence as well as equipment.

And I wanted to emphasize the stupidity as well as the futility of these Kurdish aspirations to independence which have consumed so many lives across 4 countries for decades.

PKK, Komleh, YKP, Pjak - all with claimant to Marxist Progressivism and Socialism - all the while being misguided pre-modern paternalistic and tribal formations.

Like there are any industrial workers in all these region who are Kurds.

An in Iraqi Kurdistan you can see it with its veneer of pseudo-Western modernity stripped away - laying bare a tribal confederation of Barzani Clan with that of the rival Talibani Clan.

[curtis]

I used the term "micro" deliberately to denote small, close to invisible items that would not be removeable easily even if they were noticed. Many products for sale have such and they are hardly state of the art. Your thinking is stuck in the last century.

[curtis]

I noticed in the photo that there did not appear to be any detonators visible. In a different box perhaps or ?

[Laguerre]

"Well, knothead, that is exactly what the US did and the president of the US has paid a high price for respecting your wretched sovereignty."

I think you underestimate the degree to which the Iraqis were traumatised by the US occupation. It's a trauma they will not get over easily. I noticed this problem soon after the withdrawal, and accounts for quite a bit of Maliki's strange behaviour (though far from all).