800 IS KIA at Ghanem Ali, Syria

 

" ...According to the statement, over 800 ISIS members, 13 battle tanks, 39 pickup trucks armed with large-caliber machine guns and 9 mortars and artillery guns have been destroyed during the clashes in the Ghanem al-Ali village area near the Euphrates River."  SF

------------

Ghanem ali means Ali's sheep.  Ghanem al-ali would mean sheep belonging to the Ali.  This probably means that the people of that village are known as The Ali.  Pedantic detail?  Sure.  Enjoy.

As we expected the ineptitude of IS in positioning themelves in a concentration mass in a penetrating salient has cost them dearly.  Oh well, another day, another 800 men.

This must have been a tough day for the sheep and their owners.

I listened to Rex Tillerson talk about Syria and Iraq today on Fox New Sunday.  He did not say a word about what Russia or Syria are doing in Syria.  Nevertheless, coordination between the US and Russia continues.  pl

https://southfront.org/govt-forces-russian-warplanes-eliminate-800-isis-fighters-and-high-number-of-equipment-in-euphrates-river-valley/

Comments

[Dmcna]

This is a significant proportion of ISIS fighters. As well as being reckless in creating the salient, the offensive also seemed a little pointless. It has been suggested they just wanted a victory no matter where. Or did they really think it would be successful enough to relieve the siege of Raqqa? I would have guessed that under increased attack from the air and pressure on the ground at all borders that ISIS are moving their troops around the area under their control less than they did a couple of years ago. Then this 800 killed represents a really high proportion of their fighters north of Deir Ezzor along the Euphrates. What bad timing when SAA is able to reinforce with troops from the Homs pockets. I think the road down the south bank of the Euphrates just got a lot easier.

[steve]

Is it too soon to start talking about what happens after IS no longer holds territory?

Steve

[Henshaw]

800 fewer reinforcements for the end-game in Deir Ezzor. Also raises the question of the destination of IS forces retreating from Tel Afar. Will they head for DZ, and if they do, will Coalition air forces attack them as relentlessly as the Russians and Syrians have attacked retreating IS forces on the western side of the Euphrates?

[turcopolier]

steve

I would think a countrywide search for IS supporters and a drive to liberate Idlib Province. pl

[blowback]

I suspect they were hoping to prove that God is on their side by creating a miracle. Otherwise, the supply of virgins might dry up.

[Lemur]

More good news:

The Qalamoun offensive has ended in success. What's left of ISIS there have agreed to evacuation to Deir Ez Zor. This resolves the last pocket left on the Lebanese border. It releases Republican Guard troops for other fronts.

[Lemur]

A major push to end the jihadi infestation in East Ghouta could be on the cards. Right next to the Syrian capital, that pocket is a real pain, enabling the terrorists to disrupt life in Damascus on a whim (shelling trade fairs, embassies, etc). It also ties down many crack units from the Republican Guard and the 4th Mechanized Division who would be then freed up for future major operations in Idlib.

[turcopolier]

Lemur
Idlib should be a higher priority. pl

[eakens]

This is great news, however now that IS is doomed to failure, I'm afraid the war talk is going to be ratcheted up significantly vis-a-vis Iran in Syria.

[b]

I doubt the 800 killed that the SAA claims.

I don't doubt that it was a great success.

The Russians report 52 destroyed vehicles. Usual during this conflict was (except for inner cities) a 1-to-4 up to 1-to-6 relation between the number of vehicles destroyed and the number of combatants killed. That 502 vehicles were destroyed would thereby point to some 200-300 ISIS killed.

That is still a quite high number but one must keep in mind that 1,800 ISIS only recently fled from Tal Afar and went towards east-Syria. 200 are now additionally coming from the Lebanese-Syrian border.

There are still enough ISIS left to give a quite bloody fight around their remaining Euphrates enclaves or to temporarily "vanish" into desert hamlets or caves.

[PVP]

Idlib has become more self-contained over time given every time the forces there launch any offensive action they get firmly put back in their box. It does give Turkey a route for causing mischief though.

[Old Microbiologist]

They were literally decimated. Add in the demoralization and it is going to collapse into a fight to escape death. I saw somewhere yesterday that the US evacuated by helicopter some of the ISIS leadership out of Deir Ezzor. It is hard to say what is truthful but it is certainly believable. I think the proxy fighters will be moved to a new gambit. Maybe Pakistan or Turkmenistan?

[elaine]

Colonel, Channel surfing on tv I discovered RT has a station. The video
they showed about Idlib went into more detail than their website

"New 25,000-strong Syrian terrorist force unites 70 gangs-Russian General Staff"

https://www.rt.com/search?q=idlib

[johnf]

Things are happening very fast:

"Two top US-backed SDF commanders defect to Syrian Army

BEIRUT, LEBANON (11:45 A.M.) – Two top commanders from the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have defected to the Syrian Arab Army (SAA).

The defectors are from the SDF’s Jund al-Haramayn Brigade – an Arab formation within the Kurdish-led alliance – and include the top commander of the formation, Ibrahim al-Banawi, and fellow officer Fayad al-Ghanem.

The Jund al-Haramayn Brigade is, according to reports, located in the area of Manbij, suggesting that the SDF commanders defected to the Syrian Army via co-joining lines in north Aleppo or possibly southern Raqqa.
Advertisement

Both defected officers have since met with top commander of the SAA’s elite Tiger Forces Division Suheil al-Hassan."

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/breaking-two-top-us-backed-sdf-commanders-defect-syrian-army-photo/

[turcopolier]

OMB

I do not think IS is a proxy for the US. Where did you see this? pl

[turcopolier]

b

"I doubt the 800 killed that the SAA claims." Russian MOD stated these losses not the SAA. pl

[SteveK]

Journalist Interrogated, Fired For Story Linking CIA And Syria Weapons Flights

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-28/journalist-interrogated-fired-story-linking-cia-and-syria-weapons-flights

A months-long investigation which tracked and exposed a massive covert weapons shipment network to terror groups in Syria via diplomatic flights originating in the Caucuses and Eastern Europe under the watch of the CIA and other intelligence agencies has resulted in the interrogation and firing of the Bulgarian journalist who first broke the story. This comes as the original report is finally breaking into mainstream international coverage.

Investigative reporter Dilyana Gaytandzhieva authored a bombshell report for Trud Newspaper, based in Sofia, Bulgaria, which found that an Azerbaijan state airline company was regularly transporting tons of weaponry to Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Turkey under diplomatic cover as part of the CIA covert program to supply anti-Assad fighters in Syria. Those weapons, Gaytandzhieva found, ended up in the hands of ISIS and al-Qaeda terrorists in Iraq and Syria.

The Bulgaria-based journalist obtained and published dozens of secret internal memos which were leaked to her by an anonymous source as part of the report. The leaked documents appear to be internal communications between the Bulgarian government and Azerbaijan's Embassy in Sofia detailing flight plans for Silk Way Airlines, which was essentially operating an "off the books" weapons transport service (not subject to inspections or tax under diplomatic cover) for the US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), Saudi Arabia, Israel, Germany, Denmark, and Sweden. Silk Way Airlines has been the subject of other recent investigations involving weapons supplies for the Saudi war on Yemen. In addition, the military monitoring site Balkan Insight has exposed similar weapons cargo flights in and out of neighboring Serbia...

[turcopolier]

OMB

You think it is believable that the US secretly runs IS? If that is so why did we react to their conquest of Iraq by re-introducing our forces and greatly assisting the Iraqi government's re-conquest of Mosul? Why have we been bombing the s--t out of IS? Why are we helping the SDF take Raqqa from IS? I have a lot of information on the air effort and it is massive. pl

[turcopolier]

Stevek

It is long established that the CIA (and earlier DoD)carried out Obama Administration policy of supporting snti-Syrian government forces including people who were either openly or covertly Al-Qa'ida associated. We never supported IS (Daesh). pl

[Anna]

Inconvenient truths

[Anna]

Here is more on the CIA and the SOCOM (Pentagon Special Operations Command) material support for the jihadists: http://www.voltairenet.org/article197144.html
"Since the beginning of the Arab Springs, a gigantic arms traffic was organised by the CIA and the Pentagon in violation of a number of resolutions by the UNO Security Council. All the operations that we will be mentioning here are illegal under international law, including those organised publicly by the Pentagon.
In 2012, when Hezbollah attempted to unearth the CIA / SOCOM network, an attack was perpetrated against a number of Israëli tourists at Burgas airport, the nerve centre of the traffic. Ignoring the Bulgarian police enquiry and the report of the medical examiner, the Borissov government blamed the crime on Hezbollah, and the European Union labelled the Lebanese Resistance as a «terrorist organization.»
According to Jeremy Binnie and Neil Gibson of the professional arms magazine Jane’s, the US Navy Military Sealift Command launched two tenders in 2015 for the transport of arms from the Romanian port of Constanta to the Jordanian port of Aqaba. The contract was won by Transatlantic Lines [6]. It was implemented on 12 February 2016, just after the signature of the cease-fire by Washington, in violation of its engagement. ...
The total of these operations represent hundreds of tonnes of weapons and ammunition, perhaps even thousands, mainly paid for by the absolute monarchies of the Gulf, allegedly to support a «democratic revolution». In reality, these petro-dictatorships only intervened to dispense the Obama administration with having to explain themselves to the US Congress (Operation Timber Sycamore) and cement their belief that the moon is made of green cheese [10]. All of this traffic was under the personal control of General David Petraeus, first of all via the CIA, of which he was the director, then via the financial investment company KKR, for which he worked thereafter. He benefited from the assistance of senior civil servants, sometimes under the presidency of Barack Obama, and then – massively – under that of Donald Trump. ...
The Hebrew state, which pretended to be neutral during the whole of the Syrian conflict, nonetheless bombed the Syrian Arab Army on many occasions. Each time Tel-Aviv recognised the facts, it pretended that it had destroyed the arms destined for the Lebanese Hezbollah. In reality, all these operations, with perhaps a single exception, were coordinated with the jihadists. So today we learn that Tel-Aviv supervised the deliveries of arms to these same jihadists, so that although Israël limited itself to the use of its air force to support them, it did in fact play a central rôle in the war.
According to the international conventions, the falsification of certificates of final delivery, and the supply of weapons to mercenary groups who overthrow legitimate governments, or destroy recognised states, are considered to be international crimes."

[mike]

Colonel -

It is not true. But the propaganda that US is supporting Daesh is everywhere. It was started by Assad. But it has spread a thousandfold. Russian twitter bots maybe?

[Farmer Don]

"I listened to Rex Tillerson talk about Syria and Iraq today on Fox New Sunday. He did not say a word about what Russia or Syria are doing in Syria. Nevertheless, coordination between the US and Russia continues. pl"

Also a few posts ago 600,000 Syrians are returning to their homes.

Isn't it amazing that this one part of presidential policy is running w/o leaks, and seemingly with a secure communication channel to Russia. Also Pres. Trump I assume knows what is going on as well as the people who post on this blog, but he is able to resist tweeting about it, or speaking about it at his rallies.

Does this indicate that Pres Trump is playing a much deeper game than appears on the surface, or am I reading more into it than exists?

Even his bombing of an empty Syrian runway a couple months ago makes more sense in this context.

Sorry to ramble on, but up here north of North Dakota almost everyone believes Trump is nuts. I say he has done some good things, and mention 600,000 people being able to return home.

Now, I'm afraid they think I'm nuts too!

[Lemur]

check out Bitchute:

https://www.bitchute.com/

It's recently emerged harnessing web-torrenting technology as a free speech alternative to youtube.

[Lemur]

SAA is making gains at an increasing rate. Tiger Forces are now within 50 - 60 kms of Deir Ez Zor City on the As Sukhnah axis of advance.

In open desert with no air force and limited armour, ISIS can't be having much fun.