Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Desperate Assad conscripting 50-year-olds as beleaguered Syrian regime forces halved by deaths, defections and draft-dodging
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Interesting article. The fact that the so-called "Syrian Arab Army" (SAA) has been reduced to a skeleton, and that the armed forces that seized Aleppo were largely from the global Shiite jihad organised by Iran, which detachments from Iran, Iraq (the US-armed Iraqi army, err, Shiite militia), Lebanon, Afghanistan, Pakistan etc, is widely known by clear-sighted observers; and even they couldn't have seized Aleppo from its Syrian population without the massive terror unleashed by the invading Russian imperialist airforce. The SAA is commonly nicknamed the "Syrian Afghan Army", after the large numbers of desperate Afghan Hazara refugees in Iran forcibly conscripted by the regime. Far from heading an Arab nationalist regime, as the Baath Party may have been about half a century ago (note: living half a century in the past is, sadly, a common problem around parts of the left), the regime is a pure satrapy of Russia and Iran, while the country is divided up under the regime's watch. Russia has indicated it is staying forever, is expanding and upgrading its air and naval bases, and in exchange for saving the regime (for now) has extracted a fully colonial treaty from the regime. It's main interest is the Alawite-dominated coast, where its bases stand. Iran and its global jihad has control of Aleppo and the Qalamoun region linking Damascus with the Lebanese border, a region from which hundreds of thousands of Sunni have been ethnically cleansed by the regime and Hezbollah, as Hezbollah now believes the "road to liberating "Jerusalem" runs through Qalamoun, Damascus, Daraya, Madaya, Homs, Aleppo, and everywhere else Arab kids can be slaughtered. Turkey, with Russian support, controls a section of northern rural Aleppo along the border, which it is now filling with Turkish nationalists, Grey Wolves etc, as the AKP accepts Assad rule and wants the region, with a significant Turkmen presence, to empty many of the 3 million Syrian refugees into, the AKP's reversal of policy on both Assad and the refugees symbolised by its current alliance with the Turanian nationalist MHP. Beyond that region, from Kobane to the far north-east is run by the PYD party-state; just to remind the Arabic populations within this region who rules, giant pics of Ocalan, a Kurdish leader from Turkey, not Syria, dominate the region, including the entrance to mostly Arabic Tal Abyad. Strongly backed by the US air-force and US special forces, this PYD-run region also sports 2-3 US air-bases. In the south, the once mighty FSA Southern Front, which controls much of Daraa, has been forcibly demobilised by the US and Jordan, turned from a major anti-Assad force to a force maintaining a one-sided "ceasefire" with the regime whose role is to protect the Jordanian border from ISIS (simple: advance against Assad, arms and support cut off; advance against ISIS or attack Nusra, get weapons). Israel of course will maintain its theft of the Golan, as guaranteed by the Assad regimes the last 43 years; and now guaranteed even more by Netanyahu's two best friends, Putin and Trump. Still, I wonder why the article, and so many like it, write things like this: The opposing powers brokering peace talks later this month in Kazakhstan look set to carve Syria up into different zones of influence. Mr Assad would keep Aleppo, which is important to Iran as it serves as a supply route from Tehran to Hizbollah in Lebanon, as well as coastal regions where the Russians have bases. Aleppo cannot serve as a supply route from Iran to Hezbollah, any more than all the other volumes of fiction about Iran trying to maintain its "land connection" to Hezbollah, via an Assad-ruled Syria, make sense. Geographically, it is pure nonsense. The Syria-Iraq border is controlled by Kurdish forces, on both sides, in the north, and by the Islamic State further down. Even if IS were completely destroyed - an unlikely short-term scenario - the Syria-Iraq border on both sides is solidly Sunni and hostile to the Syrian, Iraqi and Iranian sectarian regimes. Iranian weapons get to Hezbollah via Damascus airport, via Iraqi airports (which the US supervises). Until 2011, they were flown to Damascus via Turkish airports. -Original Message- From: Louis Proyect via Marxism Sent: Monday, January 16, 2017 10:04 AM To: Michael Karadjis Subject: Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Desperate Assad conscripting 50-year-olds as beleaguered Syrian regime forces halved by deaths, defections and draft-dodging __
Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Desperate Assad conscripting 50-year-olds as beleaguered Syrian regime forces halved by deaths, defections and draft-dodging
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Desperate Assad conscripting 50-year-olds as beleaguered Syrian regime forces halved by deaths, defections and draft-dodging 13 JANUARY 2017 • 6:51PM Karim Habib never imagined he would join the millions of refugees fleeing his country, but on Monday he got a call he had long been dreading. A friend in the Syrian army informed him that he would soon be called up for military service, which the 48-year-old oil worker believed was long behind him. He decided to pack his bags and head for the border. “I did not think they would come for me,” he says from a relative’s house in Beirut, the capital of neighbouring Lebanon. “But they are recruiting more men now than at any other time during the war. “The regime is so desperate they are coming for anyone that can carry a weapon. The age limit is supposed to be 42, but now even those in their 50s and those with health problems are having to fight. "They are being stationed around the country - manning checkpoints in Aleppo and even on the frontlines around Damascus,” he said. Reservists in Bashar al-Assad’s coastal heartland of Latakia also received orders late last month to immediately report for duty with the newly formed 5th Corps. President Assad’s regime may appear stronger than ever, propped up by its Russian and Iranian allies and fresh from victory in Aleppo, but its beleaguered army is struggling. The 300,000-strong pre-war force has been halved by deaths, defections and draft-dodging. “There are no longer any men between 18-50 on the streets any more,” Mr Habib - using a pseudonym to protect his family still in Syria - told the Telegraph. “Those who try to avoid the call are imprisoned and tortured, so I felt I had no option but to leave.” Mr Habib had a good job working as a manager at an oil company in the capital - making him one of the middle class Syria will desperately need when the conflict is over and the country tries to get back on its feet. For now he waits in Beirut for his wife and three young children to be granted visas for Germany, where he holds citizenship and hopes to start a new life. But many others in Mr Habib’s position did not have the option of fleeing. Syrian army burn revolutionary flag in Aleppo Syrian army burn revolutionary flag in Aleppo CREDIT: REUTERS Under the cover of the regime’s offensive on Aleppo, thousands of civilians were captured and forcibly conscripted. The United Nations has raised concerns that as many as 6,000 men of military age are missing after heading from east Aleppo into government-controlled areas. “The regime has a serious manpower problem, which has so far been compensated by tens of thousands of foreign fighters and loyalist militias along with the Russian air force and Iranian advisers,” Faysal Itani, a resident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council's Rafik Hariri Centre for the Middle East, told the Telegraph. “How it will control the territory it captures if the foreigners get bored and leave is an important question.” With the Russians announcing a military scale-back and its most battle-hardy ally Hizbollah suffering huge casualties, the regime is having to dig deep. Despite the ceasefire, brokered by Moscow and Ankara, government forces have continued offensives on strategic areas and are in need of troops to help reclaim them. The regime is keen to regain control of the outskirts of Damascus, the capital and seat of power in Syria. The town of Wadi Barada is of greatest importance as the valley is the primary source of water for five million people. Government forces have in recent days been pummelling the besieged town with air strkes and artillery fire on the ground. “Damascus and the surrounding suburbs are at the top of Assad’s bucket list,” said Mr Itani. “Once that’s in hand, he will turn his attention to holdout pockets in Homs and Hama, and then Idlib.” Idlib, which is controlled by a messy alliance of rebel groups dominated by the Islamist Jaish Fateh al-Sham, is now the largest opposition stronghold. The government has been using it as a holding pen, sending rebel fighters from east Aleppo and other areas which have surrendered under so-called reconciliation deals. Watch | Rockets hit military airport west of Damascus 00:41 Ali Haidar, Syria’s national reconciliation minister, said last week that he expected more accords in coming months to send thousands of fighters to Idlib from areas near Damascus and south of it, as the army advances. But he said that the state could not allow Idlib to remain in insurgent hands indefinitely. Unless there was an international deal that
[Marxism] Fwd: Desperate Assad conscripting 50-year-olds as beleaguered Syrian regime forces halved by deaths, defections and draft-dodging
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/13/desperate-assad-conscripting-50-year-olds-beleaguered-syrian/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
