Time to close the bag's mouth at Aleppo City

ISW produced this map.  SST thanks them.

Now that the government life-line road to Aleppo City is firmly re-established the time has come to pull the drawstring shut an complete the encirclement of the city itself.

The Gap between the Kurdish held area in the mouth of the Aleppo Gap and the government held  area in Sheikh Najjar Industrial City appears to be about 2 miles across relatively easy ground.  Given the way the R+6 forces and the Russian/Syrian air have been fighting this should be a very doable thing.

The Syrian government has no incentive to starve or bombard the Syrian civilians in the rebel held part of the city.  The amnesty offer and Russian brokering mechanisms in place for post encirclement surrenders of non jihadi fighters (unicorns) have worked well in other parts of the country.  Jihadis can be escorted out of the encirclement and into IS held country near Al Bab or into the mixed lot of rebels in Idlib Province where they can await their fate and final spiritual "victory."

The peace negotiations will be re-started soon at Geneva.  The R+6 should get this done before that occurs.  pl

http://iswresearch.blogspot.com/2016/03/warning-update-pro-regime-forces.html?utm_source=Warning+Update%3A+Pro-Regime+Forces+Continue+Encirclement+of+Aleppo+Despite+Truce&utm_campaign=Warning+Update%3A+Pro-Regime+Forces+Continue+Encirclement+of+Aleppo+Despite+Truce&utm_medium=email 

Comments

[Fred]

Col.,

I expect we will see the propaganda rise domestically too, especially after seeing the puff piece on the Canadian Prime Minister on 60 minutes tonight. 25,000 Syrian "refugees" settled in Canada recently. Just how did they manage to screen them?

[elaine]

Colonel & b, I've watched man on the street interviews coming out of
Aleppo where the people would say, "There's no jihadis here, there's no
rebels here...why are we being bombed?" & the camera would pan to a broader
screen shot & you could see families casually strolling down the
avenue to a make shift market past a back drop of totally bombed out buildings. The interviews all seemed surreal with cut-aways to bombed out
elementary schools with little kids drawings & flowers painted on the
remnants of walls.

So I guess I'm suppose to believe all these thousands of people are
rebel sympathizers or rebels & upon negotiation will be welcomed back
into Syria. It's hard to imagine but I will try.

[Charles Michael]

The resurected "moderates" or FRA are said to be taking control of Raqqa neighborhoods according to almasdar:
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/civilian-uprising-isis-raqqa-continues-5-neighborhoods-liberated/

While landestroyer offers a quite different view:
March 7, 2016 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO
http://landdestroyer.blogspot.gr/2016/03/syria-phantom-rebels-return-from-dead.html

Indeed one can see on AlMasdar news a picture of the flag brandished. Do we have a case of true false-flag ?
Should we dare the connection with the seized shipment of new uniforms ?

[LondonBob]

Seems like, as forecasted by Isreal Shamir, the next target is Palmyra. Al Masdar news is now claiming this, as well as the deployment of the Tiger Forces to that front.

[Barish]

Apparently, SAA and crew are currently set on ripping the veil from MSM's eyes as to the alleged "collusion" with ISIL that they are falsely accused of by said outlet-collection:

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/breaking-syrian-army-advances-final-hilltop-overlooking-palmyra/

All the while, as per militarymaps.info, YPG/SDF are inching closer to establishing a land-link with the SAA-holdouts in Deir-Ezzor.
Tough times for the MSM-narrative that banked on ISIL being "invincible" and the "Anti-ISIL" campaign taking "years if not decades".

[turcopolier]

Elaine

I saw that reporting. It was on CNN. The reporter had been brought to government held Aleppo by the Syrian Army after having first filmed in Damascus with government approval. Those scenes were filmed in the government held parts of Aleppo. The market goods came in over the road the government holds open to the south. That is the same way the reporter got there. As b reported there are about 40,000 people in the rebel held area of Aleppo City. There about 2 million in the government held part of the city. IMO, the rest of the city is low hanging fruit. pl

[jld]

A recent map of ISIS which, however, seem to be missing a few bits of SAA progress here and there.
http://lecourrierdumaghrebetdelorient.info/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/ARAB-WORLD-MAPS-EI-F%C3%A9vrier-2016-Emmanuel-PENE.jpg

[Barish]

SAA progress against the unicorns in the uniformly white area, you mean?

Of course, one thing this map doesn't deny is that there is next to no definite unicorn stand against ISIL, it's the Syrian Arab Republic holding the line and making gains against the ISIL-lot. As well as those pesky Kurdish heretics that dare practice a modus vivendi with it.

[A]

S-300 is becoming outdated. There were voices going up to continue the law suit against Russia for breach of contract (for which they were convicted as far as I can recall) and have them repay the pre-payment and interest. The danger is lower now anyway and that would be the correct course of action.

[A]

The "problems" with Kurds is not based on ethnicity but rather "Don Corleone"-type (who is going to cash in on trans-border sniffling or "tax" their underlings) or generally disavouwed & discredited political-ideological standpoints about Marxism and Communism.

As you know, the Kurds consider themselves to be decendants of the Median Empire (just visit their capital in Hamadan). They are independent "Mountain people" as are the group, the Lur Kouchak and Lur Bozorg. In this setting, like in Afghanistan, each valley wants it's own King. This attitude is changing, partially due to the following condition ions:
The Saddam's invasion of Iran along side the Western boarder, Saddam's behavior towards his Kurdish minority, collaboration of Kurds in defense of Iran with the central government, change of structure of Iranian government from tribal (I am not talkin ethnic but tribal, E.g. Ghajar, to Pahlavis) to nationalist Irnian and later religious ISLAMIC, mainly Shiite (with obviously less emphasis on ethnicity) allowed for better integration of ethnicities.

The brake lines in Iran are drawn between Central and Peripheral, the big cities and the smaller cities and villages, Westoxicated segment of the population and traditionalists, see Babak's past posts. This is also valid for the Kurds.

[fasteddiez]

I am not aware of the screening procedures, but they have only allowed families to enter Canada. That, if anything would decrease greatly the chances of a Cologne style assault on women.

[turcopolier]

fasteddiez

One should remember that a Muslim man with one wife may still be "shopping." pl

[ambrit]

Thanks. It is one of this sites' strengths that it has comments from people 'on the ground' to educate people like me about the realities of the situations in other places.

[LeaNder]

Colonel, I am sure it was mentioned before, and if anywhere then here. but I suppose I wouldn't have recognized the acronym. Yes, since I wasn't aware of it before.

Thanks for your response to WPF III below.

I recall Arnaud de Borchgrave as among one of the few sane voices in the post 9/11 universe.

May he rest in peace:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/415080/arnaud-de-borchgrave-surprising-natural-american-john-osullivan

[LeaNder]

as far as I am concerned, we still don't know what "exactly" happened here in Cologne.

If I recall correctly by now we have beyond 1000 complaints, about half of it concerning some type of sexual harassment. Considering the fact that the police here in Cologne is updating on cameras and surveillance, I would assume that much of it cannot be proved or disproved one way or the other. ...

On February 26, there will be a new report by police. I know the station/cathedral environment quite well, and admittedly, find it hard to believe that 500+ such cases happened there. ... But I'll sure check the report.

[LeaNder]

In other words 2% of the Aleppo population. Not considering that some of them "may" be "held hostage" in their own neighborhood.

[turcopolier]

LeAnder

Arnaud was a great man and a good friend. In his office at CSIS he had a lot of photos on the wall. One of them was of him standing next to General Cogny at DBP the day the French airborne captured the place. He had been Cogny's house guest in Hanoi and the general asked if he would like to go to see the action. That is what is called ACCESS. pl

[LeaNder]

I accept that statement. I once wished I had a camera with me, encountering this proud man with his wife packed like a mule behind him. Notice, I never had a chance to see a similar image around here and I shop a lot in one of the central Turkish quarters in Cologne.

But 500 cases of sexual harassment taking place in a not too big space in front of the Cologne station next to the Cathedral in a somewhat limited time frame, I may be wrong about that - no doubt - let's see - admittedly feels somewhat odd to me.

[Fred]

fasteddiez,

That does zero to reduce the risk of another San Bernardino.

[Matthew]

LeaNder: The new story line focuses on the "spontaneous" pro-democracy and anti-Assad demonstrations in rebel areas.

My guess is the R2P crowd now will argue that this "democracy" needs safe zones. How long until these "democracy zones" claim they cannot be bound by a Syria-wide plebiscite?

[turcopolier]

Matthew

It does not matter how much self-deluded blather the Borg comes up with. The other side are not going to accept it. pl

[fasteddiez]

Thanks for the information, I hope you post the reports.