IS holdings on the ground.

There is a dearth of reliable or even plausible information about the ground combat situation in Syria, Iraq and the greater Middle East.  Let us make a thread here that publishes such information in detail.  pl

Comments

[FB Ali]

Col Lang had posted a link to a Long War Journal piece on an earlier thread. Among the comments on that piece in the Journal was the following on the Kurdish situation. I would like to find out from someone who knows more about this aspect than I do how accurate an assessment this is:

"PUK is the only Peshmerga worth their salt, but they and their PJAK reinforcements are Iranian Puppets and Iran is the only one supplying them. Iran basically emptied its jails of PJAK fighters, handed them their entire stock of M-48s and M-60s tanks from the Shah era and sent them to join PUK. US hates Iran so we aren't supporting PUK.

KDP is useless and keeps breaking and running, hell they fell apart faster than the ISF did once IS went after them. The Iraqi Golden Division had to carry them to the Mosul Dam and PKK/YPG keeps having to shore them up. KDP is a joint US/Turkey puppet so they get NATO equipment.

PKK/YPG, considered terrorists worse than IS by Turkey and for good reason, they killed over 30,000 Turkish civilians. They are also Communists and involved in the drug business. As far as Turkey is concerned, PKK/YPG and IS can kill each other. Why break it up?"

http://tinyurl.com/l69l9uq

[turcopolier]

All
http://www.sacbee.com/2014/10/03/6759036/islamic-state-reportedly-on-baghdads.html

According to this IS now holds a dominating position in Abu Graib (ironic that). If, as the Irbil coalition diplomat says IS has a lot of 155 mm howitzers and artillerymen to man them then BIA as an airport may become untenable.

Basilisk is a true aviation expert and he says that IS is very vulnerable to various air systems in Anbar and at Kobane. Well? pl

pl

[toto]

http://pietervanostaeyen.wordpress.com/2014/09/15/mapping-syria-september-15-2014/

[Ishmael Zechariah]

Brigadier Ali,

According to Turkish news reports:

1- The PKK heroes in Kandil Mountains have declared that they are not trained to fight on the plains.

2-Turkish army has issued a "sefer gorev emri", essentially alerting newly retired or discharged armed forces personnel that they should be ready to join their units within 48 hours if notified a second time.

3-Some folks living close to the Turkish-Daash border are moving away from their homes to stay with their relatives in other provinces.

Ishmael Zechariah

[Bandolero]

toto
There are some issues with the maps of @arabthomness, mainly, that his maps are partly wishful thinking of his clearly partisan position or even designed two mislead the public to project strength of those whom he sympathizes with (he makes his position clear when he calls the Syrian army in his maps "Assad regime"), but in general, I agree, for a very rough overview of what's going on in Syria, his maps are OK. And a very big pluspoint for his maps is that he tries to dig a bit deeper in groups, eg he splits on his maps "rebels" into FSA, SRF, IF, JaN etc.

For a better and more detailed view on who has currently what in Syria and Iraq I would suggest these Wikipedia maps:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cities_and_towns_during_the_Syrian_Civil_War

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Iraqi_insurgency_detailed_map

These Wikipedia maps seem quite correct and more or less up to date to me, but of course, they don't tell how much strength a party really has in places it currently "controls".

Regarding recent news, I think most interesting is this one:

Reuters: Syrian army fights for last major rebel route into Aleppo

http://www.trust.org/item/20141003110052-dyty8/

So it looks to me like while most eyes in the world media are focused on the battle between ISIS and Kurds in a strategically rather unimportant small town called Ain Al Arab/Kobane, the Syrian army is marching forward to decide the battle of Aleppo. A couple of months ago, western media all were full of articles that deciding the battle of Aleppo would decide the war in Syria, but now, when that event is nearing, they put almost all eyes on ISIS and Kobane.

[Dubhaltach]

Colonel a news source I've found reliable in the past has been the Aswat al Iraq newsagency:

English:

http://en.aswataliraq.info/(S(1fzrtq45qnsmcv453fuinb3e))/Default.aspx

Arabic:

http://ar.aswataliraq.info/(S(c2ihq345a3jufme1gpi3op45))/Default1.asp

Dubhaltach

[Thomas]

"Iran is the only one supplying them. Iran basically emptied its jails of PJAK fighters, handed them their entire stock of M-48s and M-60s tanks from the Shah era and sent them to join PUK"

The most likely source for the M67 in the photograph down thread.

[Babak Makkinejad]

All:

Read that the city of Zalwaiyah -ضلوعیه - has been re-captured by loyalist forces yesterday (North of Baghdad).

Two foreigners from UK where among the ISIS dead.

[FB Ali]

Col Lang,

The Pakistan Taliban have declared their backing and support for the IS. They claim they have already sent 1000 to 1500 fighters to the ME to join the group, and pledge further support.

[MRW]

A little OT, Colonel, like Intermission. I think Bill Maher and Sam Harris need your Islam course:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/04/bill-maher-ben-affleck-debate_n_5931832.html

[Fred]

MRW,

Yes, from the safety of Hollywood the liberals pronounce what "we" (not them of course) must do. Yes all those panelists should spend a few hours studying the material that has been presented here though I think with BIll and Sam the first thing they need is an open mind.

[Piotr, Poland]

@ Col. Lang

Is this a graphical error on the map, or IS really attacks isolated place in Western Lebanon? I didn't notice it, but maybe I've not followed the news too carefully?