IMO the Battle of East Aleppo will be over soon. R+6 is carving up what is left of the pocket like a Christmas "Turkey" (Heh! Heh!). The Sheikh Sa'eed neighborhood at the south end of the kessel fell today, and a massive drive westward is underway from the area of Aleppo International Airport toward the citadel of Aleppo. At the same time the Tiger Forces and Palestinian militia are pressing south from the lines they held yesterday along the east-west highway at the "waist" of the former East Aleppo pocket. IMO the pocket will be gone in a few days.
At the same time civilians are fleeing to government lines en masse where they are transported to reception camps and provided food, water, shelter and medical care. The Russians have been moving mobile field hospitals into the Aleppo area to provide more capacity.
The lying US and European media are, of course, portraying the situation as something very different. In Mediaworld, the people of east Aleppo are fleeing from the government. I ask you, pilgrims, to what place would civilians be fleeing in trying to escape the government? The east Aleppo pocket is entirely surrounded by government allied force. Evidently a lot of media halfwits cannot read a map. The statement is also made in Mediaworld that there is a shortage of drinking water in east Aleppo. There is no mention in Mediaworld of the rebels' use of drinking water as an instrument for reward and punishment of civilians. There is also no mention of the SAA's capture of the city water works a couple of days ago and their ongoing efforts to turn the water back on.
Someone should explain to Madeleine Albright what the actual situation is in Syria. pl
Bravo, Colonel! Bravo! I've been driven nearly clean out of my mind during the past 24 hours of following Syria war news. Never in my lifetime have I witnessed so many deranged governments, ngos, reporters converge on one little country.
Posted by: Pundita | 30 November 2016 at 10:51 AM
sir,
something tells me that reading this "map" isn't a truth that they want to understand.
You know there is a saying that you can not wake someone who is pretending to be asleep.
Posted by: Aka | 30 November 2016 at 11:15 AM
Aka
It was an ironic statement on my part but I do think that a lot of these jerks can't read a map. pl
Posted by: turcopolier | 30 November 2016 at 11:43 AM
Colonel,
As far as AFP is concerned, Aleppo is the opposition bastion near Damascus :-)
Posted by: The Beaver | 30 November 2016 at 12:07 PM
Dear Colonel,
One wonders why Kerry is wasting his remaining weeks trying to convince the Russians to withdraw in the face of victory, rather than trying to accomplish something say in Latin America that he could cash in on after January. Not sure if it is possible to explain a map to him, either. Perhaps he could become a commentator on MSNBC?
Posted by: ISL | 30 November 2016 at 12:07 PM
All
Looks like the Idlib jihadis are going to have another go at breaking the siege from the Idlib side. Good!! pl
Posted by: turcopolier | 30 November 2016 at 12:14 PM
Bibi being the opportunist bombed the outskirts of Damascus this morning:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-38155933
Posted by: The Beaver | 30 November 2016 at 12:19 PM
Mapreading skills? Surely you jest. Willful obdurate outrageous persistent evil. That is what the Borg has become. Good luck trying to cut off the head of that hydra and freeing your polity from its clutches. God knows you're gonna need it.
Nuff Sed.
Posted by: Nuff Sed | 30 November 2016 at 01:40 PM
Persisting with the false narrative even when they know that it is widely known that is false is pretty amazing. I cannot quite work out why it is being done. I can see no prospect of jihadis prevailing in this. More and more people from east Aleppo are going to be telling it how it was. If I had been weeping for Bana and the White Helmets and sending them good wishes and presents I would be really quite angry to find out that I had been totally manipulated by the UK government and BBC. This emotion would be strengthened when I found out that this had been done for no respectable reason and realised there was no UK national interest at stake.
Posted by: Dmcna | 30 November 2016 at 02:06 PM
The media and the US government would consider this post part of the False News movement.
Posted by: Antoine | 30 November 2016 at 02:12 PM
As to journalists and is it ignorance or ...
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/11/30/the-cia-and-the-press-when-the-washington-post-ran-the-cias-propaganda-network/
Posted by: fjdixon | 30 November 2016 at 02:42 PM
Going, going, gone...
See https://twitter.com/A7_Mirza/status/803999817328394241
Posted by: Matthew | 30 November 2016 at 02:49 PM
Some 500 local "rebels" went to the government side. 480 were allowed to go home after they promised to no longer fight.
In total some 15,000 people came out of half of east-Aleppo freed by the SAA. Not seen: the 270,000 the UN claimed to be there.
A new attack from outside is planned, allegedly on 7 axis! which would be the most stupid thing to do. They will be easy targets.
There are new pictures by the White Helmets of "dead people" with baggage in the street "fleeing people killed by Assad artillery" - pretty sure the pics are staged, the bags undamaged and the "dead" ready to get up again. Another fake.
Posted by: b | 30 November 2016 at 03:19 PM
I'm curious to find out how many actual civilians are still in east Aleppo. After liberating about half of the pocket it seems only around 15,000 civilians have escaped. It's clear at this point that the actual number will turn out to be only a small fraction of the 150,000 - 200,000 number that was previously discussed.
In my opinion this was another coordinated lie by the vultures circling around Syria. The same lie was pushed regarding the Darriya pocket (and others) in Damascus that was finished off a while back, when it was revealed that the number of civilians was only a tiny fraction of what was claimed.
I see a pattern here. Are they doing this to ship in extra supplies for the terrorists?
Posted by: Frank | 30 November 2016 at 03:23 PM
Nuff Said
What I am saying is that the Borgists are militarily incompetent. pl
Posted by: turcopolier | 30 November 2016 at 03:38 PM
Antoine
FWIW I am indifferent to what the US Government, its external Borgist friends or anyone else may think of SST. pl
Posted by: turcopolier | 30 November 2016 at 04:37 PM
Colonel,
A good focus on the unfolding 'reality on the ground' at Allepo. But equally relevant is the increasingly bizarre behaviour of the Borg when faced with impending defeat.
Currently, large amounts on money and psuedo technology are being thrown at the proposition that its all due to Russia propaganda.
There is a list: http://www.propornot.com/p/the-list.html.
but SST has not (yet) been accorded a place on it. ;-)
And this list does provide a starting point for POVs differing from the increasing non-sensical establishment media.
Yes. RT et al does do 'propaganda' on occasion,
but increasingly it is simply truthful.
Just like SST :-)
Posted by: DavidKNZ | 30 November 2016 at 05:17 PM
Colonel,
A good focus on the unfolding 'reality on the ground' at Allepo. But equally relevant is the increasingly bizarre behaviour of the Borg when faced with impending defeat.
Currently, large amounts on money and psuedo technology are being thrown at the proposition that its all due to Russia propaganda.
There is a list: http://www.propornot.com/p/the-list.html.
but SST has not (yet) been accorded a place on it. ;-)
And this list does provide a starting point for POVs differing from the increasing non-sensical establishment media.
Yes. RT et al does do 'propaganda' on occasion,
but increasingly it is simply truthful
Just like SST :-)
Posted by: DavidKNZ | 30 November 2016 at 05:39 PM
The "white Helmet" pictures were probably produced to provide propaganda to western MSM counteract reports of rebels shooting at fleeing civilians such as this:
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/video-civilians-hit-rebel-gunfire-fleeing-eastern-aleppo/
They needn't have bothered since I've seen no reports of this in the MSM.
Posted by: Ghostship | 30 November 2016 at 06:13 PM
DavidKNZ
I am increasingly bored with people who show up here and spout off without any knowledge of what has gone on here for 11 years. pl
Posted by: turcopolier | 30 November 2016 at 06:21 PM
Does anyone know who is behind this website:
http://www.propornot.com/p/home.html
Or has this topic already been discussed at SST? If so, where, please?
Thank you.
Posted by: Keith Harbaugh | 30 November 2016 at 06:33 PM
Couldn't agree more with the colonel. It looks like being over shortly. B's suggestion in his own blog of MoA that the jihadis could hold out in the old city doesn't sound convincing for the moment. Things are are moving too fast, according to the latest map from Masdar. Lots of civilians evacuating, and 600 jihadis surrendering. It's a movement. That kind of movement is hard to stop, though it can happen.
Posted by: Laguerre | 30 November 2016 at 06:36 PM
video of Syrian Army soldier reuniting with family
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/video-syrian-soldier-breaks-tears-upon-reunification-family-aleppo/
Posted by: walter | 30 November 2016 at 06:43 PM
http://whois.domaintools.com/propornot.com
The site is registered to an "anonamizer" Company, often involved in scams,
http://800notes.com/forum/ta-63eff336cf62903/these-are-the-people-selling-your-info-to-the-fake-debt-scammers
As Emptywheel notes, the same questionable formulae and metrics the Propornot uses, outs the WaPo as a CIA Propaganda front controlled by Langley.
http://800notes.com/forum/ta-63eff336cf62903/these-are-the-people-selling-your-info-to-the-fake-debt-scammers
Posted by: Brunswick | 30 November 2016 at 07:48 PM
The Angry Arab reports that a western correspondent in the Middle East told him that there were about 50,000 Syrian fighters of all types in Aleppo and maybe a few thousand non-Syrians alongside them, although it's not clear if that includes the SAA forces defending Aleppo to the west. Most reports suggest there are about 7,000 to 8,000 jihadists (who have now united under a single banner BTW). That's a three to one, possibly seven to one advantage for the SAA. The rebels are going to be repeatedly hammered with the SAA hopefully being able to rotate units in and out of combat.
http://angryarab.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/new-york-times-on-bashshar-al-asad.html
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/besieged-aleppo-rebels-unite-new-jaish-halab-banner/
It's not just the mainstream media that is spreading fake news, there are NGOs out there dong it as well.
http://angryarab.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/human-rights-watch-purposefully.html
And the UN seems to be supporting the use by the rebels of human shields:
"Stephen O’Brien told an emergency session of the UN security council that since Saturday 25,000 people had been forced from their homes in eastern Aleppo, more than half of them children, as the government offensive stormed into opposition districts."
Fortunately Ms Powers seems to have been absent so it was left to the British and French representatives to fulfil her usual role of havng a hissy fit, but the Russian position was made clear.
"Churkin said Russia shared concern for the fate of the civilian population but argued their plight would not be eased by ceasing “counter-terrorist operations” against “bandits” that the UK and France had “coddled and fuelled”. He called the White Helmet civil defence organisation, which digs people out of bombed buildings, a “pseudo-humanitarian” group, and said UN resolutions calling for an end to the bloodshed were “a pointless tactic”."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/30/syria-aleppo-death-toll-united-nations-statistics
Posted by: Ghostship | 30 November 2016 at 08:59 PM