Sirijske demokratske snage objavile su fotografije boraca Islamske države koji civile koriste kao ljudski štit dok napuštaju grad Manbidž u Siriji.
Snimke iz zraka pokazuju više od stotinu džihadista kako napuštaju grad u automobilima i kamionima.

Nakon što su u koloni uočili civile, vojnici Sirijskih demokratskih snaga su odustali od napada.

Behind Russia-Iran cooperation over Syria, a larger goal

A SHIFT IN THOUGHT Russia's use of a base inside Iran to launch strikes in Syria marks unprecedented cooperation between the Islamic Republic and a foreign power.
By Scott Peterson, Staff writer AUGUST 17, 2016

ISTANBUL, TURKEY — Russian strategic bombers launched from Iran struck rebel positions in Syria on Wednesday, in a second day of attacks that multiply Russian firepower in the Middle East and underscore unprecedented military cooperation between the Islamic Republic and a foreign power.

The Kremlin says the Tu-22M3 bombers attacked targets of the so-called Islamic State (IS) and other factions in Syria that oppose President Bashar al-Assad, an ally of both Moscow and Tehran.

The closer cooperation serves both to target opponents of Mr. Assad – some of them backed by the United States – while also sending a sharp message to the US as fighting over the divided city of Aleppo reaches a critical point after five years of inconclusive civil war.

Iran’s decision to openly allow foreign troops on its soil for the first time since the 1979 Islamic Revolution – and the first Russians since World War II – is testament to its desire to achieve strategic gains and ensure that the high cost of its involvement in the Syrian war, including the loss of more than 400 Revolutionary Guard troops and a number of generals, not be in vain.

For Russia’s part, its decision to use the Shahid Nojeh military airbase in western Iran underscores its calculation that bolstering its nearly year-long overt military intervention – which began dramatically with Russia airstrikes launched from a base in the Syrian coastal town of Latakia – can help tip the battlefield in Assad's favor.

Perhaps just as significantly, the high-profile move allows both nations to ease their isolation, imposed by the US and the West, while spreading their regional influence through the use of hard power.

“It means that keeping Assad in power is very important for Iran, and for Iranian hardliners too, since they are allowing an infidel military on their sacred territory,” says Pavel Felgenhauer, a defense columnist for Novaya Gazeta in Moscow.

“The Iranian and Russian strategic intent in Syria seems much closer than the Russian and American strategic intent in Syria,” says Mr. Felgenhauer, referring to an earlier agreement by the US and Russia to seek a negotiated solution. “I was a bit surprised that the Russian defense ministry so promptly [acknowledged] that we are in Iran…. The Russian military tends to be secretive, so that was a political decision to demonstrate to the world that Russia and Iran are militarily together.”

Since last November, Russia’s strategic bombers have had to fly from an old Soviet airbase at Mozdok in southern Russia. The 650-mile distance to Aleppo from Mozdok is not much shorter from the western Iranian base near Hamedan, as the crow flies. But Russian planes must skirt Turkey, and targets in eastern Syria – and also anywhere in Iraq, should Russia eventually choose to take on IS targets there – are significantly closer from Iran.

Flying out of Iran, therefore, enables Russian jets to carry full payloads of 24 metric tons – more than the maximum for the longer run from Russia, notes Mr. Felgenhauer.

“That is of course significant, because since they are carpet bombing Syria, the more bombs you take, the more land you cover,” he says. “Right now at this pivotal point in the battle for Aleppo, it is very important that Russia has drastically increased bomb-carrying capability, to bring the bombs to the Syrian opposition.”

A top Iranian official said the new arrangement was Syria-specific but also “strategic,” and a “warning to terrorist-supporting countries” – an oblique reference to the US and its allies, which want to see Mr. Assad removed from power.

While Iran- and Russia-led cooperation had already made life “very tough for terrorists,” the new expansion “will continue until they are completely wiped out,” said Ali Shamkhani, the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, on Tuesday.

Top Iranian lawmaker Alaeddin Boroujerdi noted today that Russian planes were only refueling at the base, and that “generally, there is no stationing of Russian forces” in Iran.

Washington called the move “unfortunate” and said it “pushes us farther away” from a nationwide cease-fire and the UN-sponsored political process in Geneva that includes Russia. Earlier this week, Russian defense chief Sergei Shoigu was quoted saying the US and Russia were in “a very active phase” of talks about the surge of fighting in Aleppo, “to start fighting together to bring peace.”

US officials would say only that they are in “close contact” with Russia as they push for a negotiated solution to a war that has ravaged Syria, claimed more than 400,000 lives, and produced nearly 5 million refugees. The US-led air campaign against IS in Syria and Iraq has help reduce territory of the self-declared caliphate by 30 percent, according to the Pentagon.

But while Russian airstrikes have hit IS jihadists, US officials say that many more since last year have struck anti-Assad forces backed openly or clandestinely by the US and its allies. President Vladimir Putin ordered a Russian withdrawal last March, and troops were filmed returning home. But there has been little slowdown since, and on Tuesday Russia’s defense ministry said it “eliminated” five weapons depots in the first day of new strikes.

A delicate issue

The Russian military presence is sensitive in Iran, where revolutionary ideology since 1979 opposed both US and Soviet influence during the cold war, and categorically, in rhetoric at least, rejects foreign meddling.

Ali Larijani, Iran’s speaker of parliament, reminded lawmakers on Wednesday that it was “forbidden” by the Constitution to create a foreign military base, and that Iran had not “given the base over to Russia in military terms.”

The Iran-Russia cooperation results from “the crisis of terrorism that has been created by some destructive countries in the region and America, therefore we think that Russia has found the right treatment for the region,” said Mr. Larijani. Top Iranian officials often accuse the US of creating and backing IS and other jihadists fighting Assad, claiming it is a bid to undermine their own Iran-led axis of resistance against US and Israeli influence in the region.

Indeed, the Iran-Russia cooperation is temporary, defined by mutual recognition of the threat of IS, and “is not a coalition against a third-party state [such as] the US, Saudi Arabia, or Turkey,” says Kayhan Barzegar, director of the Institute for Middle East Strategic Studies in Tehran.

It is “true that taking the lead in battling and destroying Daesh [IS] in Syria and Iraq will have broader geopolitical consequences for rival states, but Moscow and Tehran have never wanted to exclude other actors from the Syrian scene,” says Mr. Barzegar. “Their military cooperation is only aimed at accelerating the political solution and not winning the war in a zero sum manner. Therefore, Washington and its allies, if determined to defeat IS, should not feel concerned [about] possible long-term strategic consequences.”

Ups and downs

Russia-Iran relations have varied, often pragmatically but sometimes capriciously, according to broader agendas and with an eye to the US. Russia built Iran’s only nuclear power plant at Bushehr, but finished it years late and with frequent disputes over payments that at times seemed to emerge only when Russia was trying to cozy up to the US.

In the 1990s, Iran refrained from backing Islamist Chechen rebels in their fight against Moscow in the 1990s, even as it supported similar militias elsewhere. Yet Russia repeatedly voted alongside the US to impose UN Security Council sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program.

And earlier this year – as sanctions over Iran’s nuclear program eased as part of a July 2015 accord with world powers – Russia agreed to sell Iran its S-300 anti-missile system, among many other arms sales. Iranian media reports that “substantial” parts of the S-300, which is to defend Iran’s nuclear sites, have already been delivered.

But while both sides have downplayed any greater regional ambitions, others see a larger strategy at play.

“There could be more, and the possibility of spreading the Russian air campaign to Iraq," says Felgenhauer. “The thing is not about Syria per se. Syria is important, but there is more: Russia wants to spread its influence over the entire region, have bases all over, push the Americans out and become the dominant power in the region."

Rusija je se uključila u rat jer želi bazu na Mediteranu i kako bi spriječili nastojanja Katara/SA da izvezu svoje prirodne resurse u Europu. Ne ratuje Putin tamo zbog assada ili kurda.

Rusi napadaju zracnim napadima Kurde (novo saveznistvo s Turskom). Ludilo. Sukob asadovaca i Kurda na krajnjem sjeveroistoku zemlje. Temeljni turski geopoliticki interes je sprijeciti jacanje Kurda.

'I severed your son's head, you traitorous b****': Al Qaeda terrorist's sick boast to grieving mother after stealing Syrian soldier's mobile phone moments after his murder
The terrorist claimed to be a comrade of the Syrian Arab Army victim
He told the woman he had picked up the phone and wanted to return it
When the woman admitted she was the soldier's mother, the tone changed
The terrorist boasted he had beheaded her son and was coming to get her
By DARREN BOYLE FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 14:43 GMT, 26 August 2016 | UPDATED: 17:34 GMT, 26 August 2016

Twisted Al Qaeda terrorists are picking the mobile phones of fallen enemies and calling their families to boast about the killings.
One Al Qaeda killer in Aleppo rang one mother on her son's mobile phone to describe how he had beheaded the soldier.
At the start of the call, the terrorist tried to ingratiate himself with the woman on the other end, by claiming he had picked up the handset and wanted to find its owner.

But once the woman identified herself as the soldier's mother, the killer announced his true identity.
The killer claimed he was Saqr Rahman Al-Ansari, of Jabhat Al-Nusra, which is a Syrian affiliate of Al Qaeda.

Al-Ansari then told the woman that he had chopped her son's head off.
The woman asked again who was calling, to which the killer replied: 'I beheaded your son today and this is his mobile, and I wanted to call and let you know, and we're coming to get you, God willing, you dogs of Aleppo. You who betrayed the Syrian people.
'I severed your son's head, you traitorous b****. You're supporting the Syrian Army while it bobards the territories, huh?
'They're killing the children in Idlib.'

CHILLING PHONE CALL FROM AL QAEDA TERRORIST TO THE MOTHER OF A SYRIAN SOLDIER HE HAD JUST BEHEADED
Terrorist: 'Hello how are you? Hope all is well.'
Victim's mother: 'Fine, thank you. Who's callilng?'
'Listen, I found a mobile and I put the sim card in my phone and your name came up in the contacts and there's the name Asya. I want to locate the owner of the mobile so I can give it to him.
'Where did you find the mobile?'
'In the artillery college.'
'What?'
'As we were withdrawing with the brave members of the Syrian Arab Army I found the mobile and took it and those numbers came up but I don't know who its owner is.'
'May God protect you. You're a soldier, aren't you?'
'Yes, I am a soldier.'
'Yes, this is my son's number 676 I believe.'
'He's your son? Where is your son now?'
'He's at the front in Aleppo, not sure where.'
'Is that so? Where is he?'
'He's in Aleppo. I'm his mother.'
'When was the last time he contacted you?'
'Why, has something happened to him?'
'This is Saqr Rahman al-Ansari. I beheaded your son today and this is his mobile.'
'Can you repeat that?'
'This is Saqr Rahman al-Ansari from Jabhat al Nusra.'
'Yes.'
'I beheaded your son today and this is his mobile, and I wanted to call and let you know, and we're coming to get you, God willing, you dogs of Aleppo. You who betrayed the Syrian people.
'I severed your son's head, you traitorous b****. You're supporting the Syrian Army while it bombards the territories, huh?
'They're killing the children in Idlib.'
'Who's calling?'
'Saqr Rahman al-Ansari, member of Al Qaeda in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra. I severed your son's head, you b****.'
'Have you no mercy?'
'Shut up, you. You root for the Syrian Army, you dogs. The Sryian Army is bombarding Aleppo, bombing the hospitals.'

Syria's paradox: Why the war only ever seems to get worse

PUBLISHED9 HOURS AGO

WASHINGTON • There is a basic fact about Syria's civil war that never seems to change: It frustrates any attempt at resolution.

Despite many offensives, peace conferences and foreign interventions, including this week's Turkish incursion into a border town, the only needle that ever seems to move is the one measuring the suffering of Syrians - which only worsens.

Academic research on civil wars, taken together, reveals why. The average such conflict now lasts about a decade, twice as long as Syria's so far. But there are a handful of factors that can make them longer, more violent and harder to stop. Virtually all are present in Syria.

Many stem from foreign interventions that were intended to end the war, but have instead entrenched it in a stalemate in which violence is self-reinforcing and the normal avenues for peace are all closed. The fact that the underlying battle is multi-party rather than two-sided also works against resolution.

When asked what other conflicts through history had similar dynamics, Professor Barbara Walter of the University of San Diego, a leading expert on civil wars, paused, considered a few possibilities, then gave up. There were none. "This is a really, really tough case," she said.

Most civil wars end when one side loses. Either it is defeated militarily, or it exhausts its weapons or loses popular support and has to give up. About a quarter of civil wars end in a peace deal, often because both sides are exhausted.

That might have happened in Syria. The core combatants - the government and the insurgents who began fighting it in 2011 - are quite weak and, on their own, cannot sustain the fight for long.

But they are not on their own. Each side is backed by foreign powers - including the United States, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and now Turkey - whose interventions have suspended the usual laws of nature.

This is why, according to Mr James Fearon, a Stanford professor who studies civil wars, multiple studies have found that "if you have outside intervention on both sides, duration is significantly greater".

Stalemate is also driven by uncertainty. No one is sure what a postwar Syria would look like or how to get there, but everyone can imagine a worse situation. This creates a status quo bias, in which combatants are more worried about preserving what they have than risking it to pursue their broader goals.

The only certain way to break the logjam is for one side to surge beyond what the other can match. Because Syria has sucked in two of the world's leading military powers, Russia and the US, that bar most likely could only be cleared by a full-scale invasion.

Peace deals often succeed or fail on the question of who will control military and security forces. In Syria, this may be a question without an answer. After a war as brutal as Syria's, in which more than 400,000 people have been killed, the combatants reasonably fear they will be massacred if the other secures too much power.

According to a 2015 paper by Prof Walter and Professor Kenneth Pollack, a Middle East expert, "outright military victory in a civil war often comes at the price of horrific (even genocidal) levels of violence against the defeated, including their civilian populations".

This could bring entirely new conflicts to the Middle East, they found: "Victorious groups in a civil war sometimes also try to employ their newfound strength against neighbouring states, resulting in interstate wars."

This is not a drift that anyone wants, but it is the direction in which Syria's many domestic and foreign participants are pulling the country, whose darkest days may still be ahead.