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Pentagon & MAGA Dotard extremely distressed! Putin close to POW Americans in Syria

Ang4MohTrump

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There are American Special Forces military advisors Trapped in East Ghouta completely collapsing & soon be killed or POW captured by Putin.

http://www.sohu.com/a/226636759_243255

叙军将杜马口袋围成铁桶,猎人部队受命抓捕恐怖头目和外军顾问
2018-03-29 07:12
东古塔这几天的形势相对平静,叙军正在把大批投降的哈拉斯塔和阿比尔口袋里的武装分子集体转运到伊德利卜省。在收复哈拉斯塔和阿比尔口袋之后,叙军已经完全控制了东古塔地区90%的土地。仅剩的伊斯~兰军则被压缩在北部的杜马镇口袋里。由于在递解目的地上的分歧,上述武装与叙军的谈判已破裂,但正在与俄罗斯代表做最后争取。

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黎媒的分析指出,杜马口袋里的伊斯~兰军武装,不愿意被转移至北部的伊德利卜省,因为他们在伊德利卜没有影响力和势力范围,去了也很难容身。但就近转运至德拉和东卡拉蒙地区的要求,对于叙军来说仍然是“心腹之患”,很明显这两个地区对大马士革的威胁丝毫不亚于当前的东古塔。而且这六千人一旦到了德拉省,更是如鱼得水。

实际上,在哈拉斯塔和阿比尔口袋的恐怖同行投降后,杜马口袋里的伊斯~兰军手里的谈判筹码更少了。而且内部出现松动,有不少派别希望与叙军和解,甚至还有数百人准备转投到政府军麾下效力。当然死硬分子依然存在,即便是在谈判的关键时刻,杜马口袋里恐怖武装仍然再向大马士革市区发射炮弹,并造成重大的平民伤亡。

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塔斯社周二(27号)报道,来自东古塔的迫击炮袭击,导致叙利亚大马士革27人丧生,还有近60名其他平民受伤。报道称,在东古塔地区,外国支持的武装分子一直在对大马士革发动无差别迫击炮和火箭袭击,导致许多平民死亡。面对叙利亚政府军的进攻,他们也将其控制区内的平民当作人盾。 但这现在算是伊斯兰军唯一有效的威胁了。

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从兵力上来说,目前杜马包围圈内大约有六千武装分子,但需要刨除伤员和准备投降的部分。准备进攻的叙军主力大约有四万人,应该会形成10:1的力量优势。杜马镇口袋战场地域狭小,叙军可以采取车轮战的手段昼夜进攻,很快就会把恐怖武装从心理上击垮。杜马镇已经被围成铁桶一般,这些家伙等不来援军和补给,再拖下去真的就是死路一条。

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为了加大对杜马口袋的压力,同时报复恐怖武装对大马士革的炮击。27日晚些时候,叙军等不及俄罗斯代表撤出就开炮猛轰杜马口袋南部战线。看来叙军是准备把杜马口袋里伊斯兰军彻底消灭免留后患的。令IS恐怖武装闻风丧胆的叙军“猎人”部队已经抵达杜马外围,领命负责抓捕恐怖头目和其中的外军顾问,他们最新的成就是刚抓获了拉赫曼旅的最大头目。返回搜狐,查看更多

声明:本文由入驻搜狐号的作者撰写,除搜狐官方账号外,观点仅代表作者本人,不代表搜狐立场。
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抗议东古塔大屠杀?美国向安理会提交新协议,美法或直接攻击叙军
2018-03-29 09:14 安理会 /美国 /俄罗斯
除了正在东北部抵抗的伊斯兰军,实际上叙军已经控制了东古塔的大部分地区,按照俄罗斯方面发布的消息,从东古塔撤出的民众超过了13万人,相比战前这座城市的近40万人口来说,这个数字并不大。

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叙利亚官方媒体纷纷报道,叙军在东古塔战斗中得到了该地区民众的热烈支持,用中国话来说,就是“箪食壶浆,以迎王师”,叙媒体还放出了一张照片,显示其向想东古塔民众提供了一辆改装后的卡车,能够一天向民众提供5000公斤新鲜面包,不过,也有消息和图片指出,叙军以及配合其进攻的民兵在进入东古塔地区后,跟进入阿夫林市区的叙利亚自由军一样,也发生了报复性的抢劫个杀人等暴行。

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近日,据外媒报道,美国刚向联合国安理会重新提交了一份新协议,表示如果联合国不再制止阿萨德军队在东古塔的大屠杀,那美国将准备采取单边军事行动,直接攻击叙利亚政府军,随后,法国总统马克龙也表态,将跟随其亲密伙伴美国一起动武,预计英国等也会参与行动。

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土耳其军队已经停止了“橄榄枝行动”,在跟俄罗斯谈判后,顺利接管了战略要地塔尔里法特,将其支持的叙武装控制区连接起来,甚至连曼比季都放弃进攻,只是在伊德利卜等地建立了若干哨所,获得了俄罗斯和伊朗的承认。

云集在东古塔的叙军已经开始前往其他地区作战,尤其是大马士革南部,并在彻底解除大马士革威胁之后,首先进入叙利亚南部作战,而不是进入土耳其军队所在的叙北部。此外,美军正在代尔祖尔的奥马尔油田附近建设一座新的大型军事基地,外媒认为美军动手已进入倒计时阶段。

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The Syrian army encloses the Duma's pockets into iron barrels. The hunter troops are ordered to arrest terrorist leaders and foreign military advisors.

2018-03-29 07:12

In the past few days, Dongguta’s situation was relatively calm. The Syrian Army was collectively transferring the armed members of the large-scale surrendered Harlasta and Abil’s pockets to Idlib. After recovering the pockets of Kharasta and Abil, the Syrian Army has fully controlled 90% of the land in the East Ghouta area. The remaining Yiss ~ Lan Jun is compressed in the pocket of the town of Duma in the north. Due to differences in the destination of deportation, the above-mentioned negotiations between the armed forces and the Syrian Army have already broken down, but they are making a final fight with the representatives of Russia.



Li Mu’s analysis pointed out that the Ish-Lan armed forces in the Duma’s pockets did not want to be transferred to Idlib province in the north because they had no influence and sphere of influence in Idlib, and it was difficult to go. Body. However, the request for transit to Dera and East Karam地区n was still a “confidence” for the Syrian Army. It is clear that the threat to Damascus in these two regions is no less than the current Dongguta. And once the 6,000 people arrived in Dar'a, it was more like a duck.


In fact, after the horrors of Harstad and Abil’s pockets surrendered, there was even less bargaining chip in the hands of Ivan Lam in the Duma’s pocket. In addition, there have been loosening inside. Many factions hope to reconcile with the Syrian army. There are even hundreds of people who are ready to switch to the government's military. Of course, diehards still exist. Even at the crucial moment of negotiations, terrorists in the Duma’s pockets still fire shells in Damascus and cause heavy civilian casualties.



Tasman reported on Tuesday (No. 27) that a mortar attack from East Ghouta had killed 27 people in Damascus, Syria, and injured nearly 60 other civilians. According to reports, in the East Ghouta area, foreign-supported militants have been conducting undisturbed mortar attacks and rocket attacks on Damascus, causing many civilian deaths. In the face of attacks by Syrian government forces, they also used the civilians in their area of control as human shields. But this is now the only effective threat to the Islamic Army.



In terms of troop strength, there are currently about 6,000 militants in the Duma Encirclement, but they need to get rid of the wounded and prepare to surrender. The main force of the Syrian army preparing to attack is about 40,000. It should have a 10:1 power advantage. Duma's pocket battlefield is small and the Syrian army can adopt a wheel warfare as a means of day and night offensive, and it will soon demoralize terrorist armed forces. The town of Duma has been surrounded by iron barrels. These guys can't wait for reinforcements and supplies, and dragging on is really a dead end.



In order to increase the pressure on the Duma’s pockets, they also retaliated against the terrorist bombardment of Damascus. Later on the 27th, the Syrian Army could not wait until the representative of Russia withdrew to open fire on the southern side of the Duma pockets. It seems that the Syrian Army is preparing to completely eliminate the Islamic forces in the Duma’s pockets to leave behind troubles. The Syrian Army hunters who frightened the IS terrorists’ armed forces have already reached the outskirts of the Duma and are responsible for arresting terrorist leaders and foreign military advisors. Their latest achievement is the biggest leader of the Rahman Brigade. Back to Sohu, see more


Disclaimer: This article was authored by the author who settled in Sohu. In addition to the official Sohu account, the point of view only represents the author and does not represent Sohu's position.

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To protest the Eastern Ghouta Massacre? U.S. submits new agreement to the Security Council, U.S. law or direct attack on Syria

2018-03-29 09:14 Security Council / United States / Russia

In addition to the Islamic forces that are fighting in the northeast, in fact the Syrian Army has already controlled most of the East Qutata. According to the news released by the Russian side, the number of people withdrawn from East Qutanta exceeded 130,000, compared to the pre-war period. For the nearly 400,000 people in the city, this figure is not large.



Syrian official media reported that the Syrian Army received enthusiastic support from local people in the East Ghouta Fight. In Chinese dialects, it was “pulp syrup to meet Wang Shi”. Syria media also released a photo. It showed that it provided a refitted truck to the people of the East Guta Tower and was able to provide 5,000 kilograms of fresh bread to the people one day. However, there are also news and pictures indicating that the Syrian Army and the militias who cooperated with the attack were entering the East Ghouta area. Later, like the Syrian Liberals entering the city of Aflin, retaliatory acts such as robbery and murder were also carried out.



Recently, according to foreign media reports, the United States has just resubmitted a new agreement to the UN Security Council and stated that if the United Nations no longer stops the massacre of Assad’s troops in Dongguta, the United States will prepare to take unilateral military action and directly attack it. Syrian government forces, then, the French President Mark Long also stated that he will follow his closest partner, the United States, to use force. It is expected that the United Kingdom and other countries will participate in the operation.



The Turkish army has stopped the "Operation Olives". After negotiating with Russia, it successfully took control of the strategically important Tarifad, linked the Syrian-controlled Syrian-controlled area, and even Manbiji abandoned the offensive. Idlib and other places established a number of posts and received recognition from Russia and Iran.


The Syrian army gathered in the East Ghouta has begun to fight in other areas, especially in southern Damascus. After the Damascene threat was completely lifted, it first entered southern Syria rather than entering northern Syria, where Turkish troops are located. In addition, the U.S. military is building a new large-scale military base near the Omar Oil Field in Deir ez-Zor, and foreign media believes that the US military has entered a countdown phase.


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Disclaimer: This article was authored by the author who settled in Sohu. In addition to the official Sohu account, the point of view only represents the author and does not represent Sohu's position.
 

Ang4MohTrump

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US pretending only American civilians are inside. No! They are spies and special forces!

https://edition.cnn.com/videos/worl...sheh-pkg.cnn/video/playlists/crisis-in-syria/

American mother trapped in Eastern Ghouta
Despite news of civilian evacuations taking place in Eastern Ghouta, hundreds of thousands of people remain trapped and under the Russian-backed Syrian government's military campaign that has killed more than a thousand in less than three weeks. A trapped American mother of eight has a message for US President Trump and for the world. CNN's Jomana Karadsheh reports.
Source: CNN


https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/american-trapped-in-ghouta-pleads-for-help-from-home-853mjjfnk

American trapped in Ghouta pleads for help from home
Richard Spencer, Middle East Correspondent, Beirut


March 14 2018, 12:00am, The Times

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Deanna Lynn, from Michigan, has lived in Syria for 18 years. Now, as Assad’s army approaches, she fears for her life
An American grandmother living in a cellar with her family and 20 other people in the rebel enclave of eastern Ghouta says that she is “preparing for the worst” as Assad regime forces advance on her hiding place.

Deana Lynn, 44, had kept a low profile in Ghouta but came forward after the start of the latest bombardment of the suburbs northeast of Damascus to say that she was trapped with her family in the town of Douma.

Mrs Lynn was born in Michigan and moved to Syria with her Syrian-born husband in 2000 and has lived there ever since, teaching English and bringing up her eight children. She is among hundreds of thousands of civilians living under bombardment. Syria and its militia allies have…

Want to read more?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...1e4820-29c8-11e8-a227-fd2b009466bc_story.html
The Latest: Syrian troops capture major eastern Ghouta town

Syria_17862.jpg-90b01.jpg

This photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, shows Syrian civilians with their belongings as they flee from fighting between the Syrian government forces and rebels, near Hamouria in eastern Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus, Syria, Friday, March. 16, 2018. The government offensive has pushed further into eastern Ghouta, chipping away at one of the largest and most significant opposition bastions since the early days of the rebellion, communities where some 400,000 people are estimated to be holed up. (SANA via AP) (Associated Press)
By Associated Press March 17
BEIRUT — The Latest on developments related to the war in Syria (all times local):

6:20 p.m.

Syrian opposition activists say government forces have captured a major town east of the capital Damascus and taken parts of another.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Oways al-Shami of the Syrian Civil Defense say troops have taken Kafr Batna and large parts of nearby Saqba.

The new push by the government squeezes rebels in a small corner of the eastern suburbs of Damascus known as eastern Ghouta.

The capture of Kafr Batna and saqba are a major blow to the rebels since they were among their largest strongholds in the area.

___

4:10 p.m.

The head of Russia’s military general staff is saying that American instructors are training groups of Syrian rebels to carry out chemical weapons attacks.

Col. Gen. Sergei Rudskoi also said at a briefing Saturday that Russia is concerned about signs that U.S. forces could be preparing missile attacks on Syria.

“It’s reliably known to us that American instructors in the area of the city of al-Tanfa are preparing several groups of fighters for carrying out provocations with the use of chemical weapons,” he said, according to Russian news agencies.

He said poisonous substances have been delivered to southern Syria under the guise of humanitarian convoys.

In addition, he said, “We are noticing signs of preparation for possible attacks” from the sea.

“In the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea, in the Persian Gulf and in the Red Sea attack groups of carriers that carry cruise missiles have been created,” Rudskoi said.

___

2:15 p.m.

The Russian military says more than 30,000 people have fled Syria’s besieged east Ghouta and that the flow is continuing.

Maj. Gen. Vladimir Zolotukhin was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying the civilians were leaving Saturday through a government-run humanitarian corridor monitored by the Russian military.

“As of this time, more than 30,000 people have left and people are continuing to exit,” he was quoted as saying Saturday afternoon by Russian news agencies.

Zolotukhin is spokesman for the Russian center for reconciliation of the warring parties in Syria.

___

12:05 p.m.

Syrian opposition activists are reporting that dozens of people were killed and scores wounded when an airstrike hit a rebel-held town east of the capital Damascus.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 30 people were killed in Saturday’s airstrike on Zamalka that hit a group of people who were trying to flee into government-controlled areas.

The opposition’s Syrian Civil Defense said the airstrike killed dozens and wounded scores, adding that paramedics are trying to help people.

Tens of thousands of residents from the area known as eastern Ghouta have fled to government-controlled districts since Thursday.

Syrian state TV aired live footage showing hundreds of men, women and children carrying their belongings and marching from the town of Hamouria that was recently captured by Syrian troops.

___

11:45 a.m.

Turkey’s military has rejected allegations it bombed a hospital in Afrin in northwestern Syria, where it’s engaged in an offensive against Syrian Kurdish fighters.

The military tweeted aerial footage and photographs of the town’s general hospital from Saturday morning, showing it was intact. The army said in a statement the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units or YPG were trying to create a “negative perception” of the Turkish military.

On Friday, YPG official Redur Khalil and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported an airstrike on the hospital. The Observatory said 16 people were killed in the hospital including two pregnant women.

Turkey launched an offensive against the YPG on Jan. 20 to clear Afrin. The country considers the YPG a terror group and a wing of a Kurdish insurgency operating within its own border.

___

9:30 a.m.

Russia’s military says more than 11,000 people have left Syria’s besieged eastern Ghouta outside the capital Damascus in the past few hours as government forces step up an offensive on the rebel enclave.

Maj. Gen. Vladimir Zolotukhin was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying that some 3,000 people have been leaving every hour Saturday through a government-run humanitarian corridor monitored by the Russian military.

Zolotukhin is spokesman for the Russian center for reconciliation of the warring parties in Syria.

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Airstrikes in Syria killed more than 100 people on Friday as civilians fled en masse. Under cover of allied Russian air power, Syrian government forces have been on a crushing offensive for three weeks on eastern Ghouta.

The weekslong violence has left more than 1,300 civilians dead and 5,000 wounded.

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 

Ang4MohTrump

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Dotard Kicked out of Syria by Putin!

American Special Ops military advisor & Terrorist Trainers & stocks of Chemical Weapons are falling into Putin's hands soon! Evidence! East Ghouta sealed ultra tight no escape possible! Have to die or be POW!



https://www.rt.com/usa/422728-trump-syria-leave-troops/

We're coming out of Syria very soon, let others take care of it - Trump
Published time: 29 Mar, 2018 18:43 Edited time: 29 Mar, 2018 19:08
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U.S soldiers ride a military vehicle in al-Kherbeh village, northern Aleppo province, Syria October 24, 2016. ©Khalil Ashawi / Reuters
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President Donald Trump has made a surprise announcement that US forces will be withdrawing from Syria, citing the defeat of Islamic State and the need to defend US borders and rebuild “crumbling” infrastructure.
“We're coming out of Syria very soon. Let the other people take care of it now,” Trump said during a speech in Richfield, Ohio on Thursday, dedicated to his infrastructure initiative.

The US spent $7 trillion in the Middle East, Trump said, describing how the US would build schools only for insurgents to destroy them, while there was no funding to build schools in Ohio.

“We build a school, they blow it up. We rebuild the school, they haven’t blown it up yet, but they will,” he said.

The president also pointed out the “wall” and 32,000 US troops guarding the border between North and South Korea, while the US border with Mexico was not likewise protected.

“Is there something a little bit wrong with that?” he asked the crowd.

Trump’s remarks about Syria are in line with what he said last month, at a press conference in Washington with Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull.

“We're there for one reason: to get ISIS and get rid of ISIS, and to go home,” the US president had said. “We’re not there for any other reason and we’ve largely accomplished our goal.”

However, this goes against the previous pronouncements of his subordinates at the State Department and the military.

In January, then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson outlined a plan that envisioned extended US presence in Syria to ensure a peaceful transfer of power to a “post-Assad leadership.” In December last year, the Pentagon said US troops would remain in Syria for “as long as we need to, to support our partners and prevent the return of terrorist groups.”

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Syria war: Troops mass around last rebel town in Eastern Ghouta
  • 28 March 2018
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Image copyright AFP
Image caption The UN says up to 80,000 civilians are still believed to be trapped in Douma
Syrian government forces have massed around the last rebel-held town in the Eastern Ghouta area, after rebels were reportedly given a deadline to leave.

A newspaper said troops were preparing for a "huge" operation in Douma, which is controlled by Jaysh al-Islam.

The government's ally Russia is said to have told the group late on Monday it had 48 hours to agree to be evacuated to Idlib province like other factions.

But Jaysh al-Islam has said its fighters want to disarm and stay.

The United Nations is concerned about the fate of the estimated 70,000 civilians trapped in Douma, where fighting has continued despite the talks with Russia.

More than 1,700 people are reported to have been killed and thousands injured since the government and its allies launched an offensive on 18 February to retake the Eastern Ghouta, which was the last major rebel stronghold near Damascus.

The UN says 80,000 civilians have fled on foot to government-held territory on the edge of the capital, as troops made dramatic advances in recent weeks and split the region into three pockets - the largest of which was around Douma.

Almost 20,000 rebels and civilians have also been evacuated to Idlib under deals between the government and the rebel factions Ahrar al-Sham and Faylaq al-Rahman, which controlled the pockets around the towns of Harasta and Arbin.



Media captionThousands of rebels and civilians are being bussed out of the Eastern Ghouta
Jaysh al-Islam, a hardline Islamist group backed by Saudi Arabia, is believed to have as many as 10,000 heavily armed fighters inside Douma.

Over the past two weeks it has allowed civilians to leave the town on foot under an agreement with Russia that has also resulted in a reduction in hostilities. However, the group has stressed that its fighters and their families do not want to go.

"We have presented our decision to stay. This is not only a decision by Jaysh al-Islam, but by all the revolutionary institutions and figures in Douma," spokesman Hamza Bayraqdar told Reuters news agency on Tuesday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, reported that Jaysh al-Islam had offered to lay down its heavy weapons in exchange for the restoration of Douma's water and electricity supplies. Russian military police, and not Syrian soldiers, would then be deployed in the town.

But opposition sources said Russian officials had told the group's representatives at a meeting on Monday that they had two choices: "surrender or face an attack".

The pro-government al-Watan newspaper said on Wednesday morning that forces in the Eastern Ghouta were "preparing a huge military operation in Douma if the Jaysh al-Islam terrorists do not agree to hand over the town and depart".

A Syrian official told Reuters: "These two days will be decisive."

Image copyright EPA
Image caption Thousands of civilians have been allowed to flee Douma on foot in the past two weeks
Jaysh al-Islam reportedly has serious concerns about going to Idlib, where it does not have a presence and where a fierce rival - the al-Qaeda-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham alliance - holds sway. The group also does not have good relations with Turkey, which backs several rebel factions operating there.

On Tuesday, 101 buses carrying more than 6,400 rebel fighters and civilians from towns held by Faylaq al-Rahman arrived in Idlib province. It was the largest convoy yet to leave the Eastern Ghouta under Russian-mediated evacuation deals.

Faylaq al-Rahman spokesman Wael Alwan told AFP news agency that as many as 30,000 people living in Arbin, Zamalka and Jobar might be evacuated in total.

Image copyright EPA
Image caption Rebels and civilians are being evacuated from other rebel-held areas by bus
More than 4,500 people were bussed out of Harasta last week after Ahrar al-Sham fighters agreed to lay down their arms.

The displaced civilians have endured months of bombardment and limited access to food, medical care and other essential items.

A senior UN official who met some of the 50,000 people living in makeshift shelters around Damascus said they were "tired, hungry, traumatised and afraid".

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warned that the shelters were overcrowded and had no proper sanitation. Children who were already extremely weak were being exposed to further health hazards like diarrhoea, lice and skin diseases, it said.

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Ang4MohTrump

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Loyal
https://www.independent.co.uk/voice...-islamist-fighters-russia-idlib-a8279901.html

Watching on as Islamist fighters are evacuated from war-torn Eastern Ghouta
Exclusive: They had long scraggly beards, most of them uncombed, cheap track suits, dusty plastic sandals. I suppose it was a sort of political statement




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The fighters left for Idlib province with their families. Nelofer Pazira
They left by the thousand, the jihadis of Ghouta and their wives and children and parents. Many were still armed – Kalashnikovs over their shoulders, watched by the Russian soldiers in steel helmets and flak jackets – and they prayed, some of them, on waste ground, beneath leafless trees, next to the smashed metal wall of a broken factory behind which their chadored wives were waiting.

There were dozens of tourist buses waiting for these armed men, these Islamists whose faces had never appeared before us in past weeks – those of them who didn’t cover their faces with scarves. So they climbed aboard air-conditioned Pullmans with “Happy Travel” and “Express Tours” and other preposterous advertisements on the side. One of the vehicles even had “Very Important Personae” stencilled across the back window in English and Latin. Weirder, it could not have been. But sinister, too.

There were shells still thumping across the other side of Ghouta – if these Jaish al-Islam men and their families were leaving, others were not – and one of their conditions for evacuation were no photographs, no interviews with the press, no publicity, rules that were disregarded with care. The Islamists we could now see leading his very young wife and two children onto a tourist bus. And there was so many of them.

I watched them stand beneath those shattered trees to pray. They had long scraggly beards, most of them uncombed, cheap track suits, dusty plastic sandals. I suppose it was a sort of political statement. They had been directed by God to fight and thus prayed to God even when they had surrendered – up to a point – and abandoned their holy battle, and thus achieved a kind of religious victory in maintaining their faith. But really? What honour was left if you must trust yourself and your Islamist families to the godless Russians and their secular allies in Syria?

Faces from the Siege: Eastern Ghouta

For this was Moscow’s operation, be sure of that. Russian military police officers monitored every bus, every departure from two big Russian military trucks; a general and three of his officers – Russian flashes on their sleeves, big steel helmets, weapons so new they reflected the sun – moved among us and the Syrian troops and the armed evacuees. The buses had black windows and so we saw many of these Islamist men and their very young, chadored wives and their children, through a glass darkly.

They were Syrian, almost all of them, and many born in Ghouta, so they were leaving for the central province of Idlib, possibly for the first time. There they would be met by other militia who would not have much time for the resistance men of Ghouta. I stared in through the windows. There was a woman holding a little girl who broke free and leaned on the window to look at us. She could not have understood the Syrian history to which she was witness. The face at the window. That is what she was.

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But of course, we also had the old question: where did they come from, these men in black clothes and beards and rather battered-looking Kalashnikovs? Why had we not seen them before? Some of their colleagues, still amid the ruins behind us, fired off round after round of ammunition – “using up their bullets before they leave,” one Syrian soldier muttered dismissively – but these men were leaving by the thousand. By nightfall, I would count another hundred buses waiting for them.

That fearful footage we had seen on social media, night after night, circulated around the world on television news, genuine film, to be sure but – while containing the suffering civilians, the wounded children, the real civilian corpses – never showed us the men who held weapons and machine guns and mortars and who fired back into eastern Damascus and who were now parading before us, a dozen at a time, to leave the towns and villages they had helped to destroy. Were the anonymous cameramen of this hell forbidden to show its defenders? And if so, why did they not say so? And why did we not say so?

And there was that little matter of their children. All children are civilians. And all children can be refugees. But those who had configured the “deconfliction” of eastern Ghouta and divided up the buses, had also decided who would be the child refugee of the Islamist fighters – en route to Idlib with a Russian escort – and who would be the other children, equally innocent, who would go to the refugee camp near Adra. All children are equal. Are they not?

But of one thing, as I said, there could be no question. This was a Russian show. The Russian army was constructing this vital piece of theatre, walking between the refugee buses and the fighters’ buses and noting the numbers; and – who could doubt this? – a decade or two ago, these might have been UN peace-keepers, blue berets rather than Russian helmets, in eastern Ghouta. In another war – in another age – they might even have been American ‘peace-keepers’. But in the Trump-Putin era, all has changed. The Russians are now the peace-keepers, the conferences at Astana a substitute for the UN Security Council. When Russia decided to end the vicious little war in Ghouta, there would be no debates, and there were no irritating vetoes. Opponents were cajoled or bombed into agreement. Promises were made – and largely kept, it seems, at least until the Islamists reach Idlib and the Syrians decide that they must all leave again for Turkey or, via the endless reconciliation committees, for their original, smashed homes.

Thus the Russians can say they have plans for peace rather than plans for war – the result of the Trumpian Middle East non-doctrine – and observe the detritus of towns and cities blasted by their Syrian allies and the regime’s enemies. After dark, those Russian soldiers were still on duty, their computer screens glowing from inside their military lorries as the fighters who had not yet left fired more ammunition into the sky. Red and white, the tracers soared over us, the Syrian soldiers tired and sometimes exhausted but well aware that victory, here at least, would be theirs.

At one point, a Syrian truck with smoked black glass, hooting a constant wail, soared past the buses, a middle finger pointed upwards from the nearest window. The Islamist fighters ignored it. Oddly, they were prepared to talk, briefly, when a Syrian state television journalist clambered onto one of their moving buses with a video-recorder. A man with dark glasses said he and his comrades had fought for freedom. “We did have freedom,” the reporter responds (a predictable regime line) on the tape. “I could drink, I could go to the mosque, I could do whatever I wanted to do and nobody stopped me but now we have a military emergency that came about because of you and your demands for freedom.”

Another man, cowled in the background, had apparently disagreed with his comrades, saying he did not want to go to Idlib, that he had not been consulted, that the fighters had not been given the same food as its leaders, even during the battles. He was later questioned by the man who demanded “freedom”. But the propaganda war in Syria is fought as ferociously as the conflict with guns. The glass may be shattered but it is as thick as concrete.
 

Ang4MohTrump

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Loyal
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Mid...-rebel-area-falls-many-take-leap-into-unknown

Eastern Ghouta exodus: As rebel area falls, many take leap into 'unknown'
shift in thought
After more than a month of Syrian and Russian bombardment that has claimed 1,700 lives, the residents of eastern Ghouta have three stark choices: evacuate north with rebel fighters to Idlib province; fall under government control in camps near Damascus; or stay in the last opposition island of Douma, waiting for inevitable defeat.





  • Dominique Soguel
    Correspondent
March 28, 2018 BASEL, Switzerland—Three weeks ago, Amer Zeidan saw no way out of eastern Ghouta but death.

It was impossible, he said, for civilians to trust a Syrian regime that devoted so much energy to bombing and starving the opposition enclave into submission.

His grim forecast proved true for his sister, Marwa, whom he buried last week.

Barely a week after reporting this loss, Mr. Zeidan made the decision to leave. Between 3 and 7 a.m. on Tuesday, the Syrian aid worker types away at a new batch of messages documenting the start of a long-dreaded journey out of his neighborhood, Arbeen.

“All of us are entering into a dark tunnel, and we ignore what will happen to us,” he says. “We have left everything and are headed to the unknown.”


How well do you understand the conflict in Syria? Take our quiz.
After more than a month of Syrian government and Russian bombardment that has claimed 1,700 lives and seen the loss of 90 percent of the last rebel enclave in the suburbs east of Damascus, the residents of eastern Ghouta have only three stark choices.

As the noose tightens, they can either be evacuated (with defeated rebel fighters) to Syria’s rebel-held northern province of Idlib, which will almost certainly be the next regime target; or fall under government control in camps closer to Damascus; or stay in the ever-shriveling last opposition island of Douma, waiting for the results of an inevitable defeat.

While changes on the battlefield are now forcing decisions like never before, for most the carnage has been so severe that it is premature to talk of peace and reconciliation. The Monitor heard voices from inside the enclave, who in recent days explained why they chose each one of those options, and the forces at play in their decision-making.

In February, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres described eastern Ghouta as a “hell on earth.”

Despite an ensuing UN Security Council cease-fire, declared Feb. 24, relentless bombing and military advances translated into a civilian exodus and agreements to remove the anti-regime fighters who have controlled the largely Sunni enclave since 2012.

The evacuations started last week and gained momentum, with more than 101 buses leaving early Tuesday for Syrian rebel-held territory near the border with Turkey.



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SANA/AP
|
Caption
Zeidan describes his fellow passengers as civilians: activists, humanitarians, and rescue workers known as the White Helmets. All felt they would not be safe or at ease living in an area controlled by the Syrian regime. Other buses transported fighters and their families.

From siege to surrender
The mass departures are the outcome of talks with Russia, trusted marginally more than the Damascus regime, although it has provided essential firepower to keep the government of President Bashar al-Assad in place and itself has contributed to breaches of cease-fire agreements. Critics call the mass departures a forced displacement and warn that such evacuations could amount to war crimes.

“A civilian committee of four people negotiated directly with the Russians twice in the areas of Jisreen,” Zeidan writes. “Leaving was the most difficult decision to make. The choice was either live under the shadow of a criminal ruler or get out of his land.”

For many observers, the script from siege to surrender has become chillingly familiar and borderline formulaic. This latest exodus is part of a long sequence of rebel capitulations masked as local cease-fires. They ultimately bolster the Russian and Iran-backed Assad regime at the expense of an armed opposition that enjoyed enough foreign backing to keep the fight alive but not win.

Pro-Assad forces now control more than 90 percent of eastern Ghouta. The Damascus suburb served as a launching pad for rebel attacks on the Syrian capital. It also endured more than five years of air-strikes, chemical attacks, shelling, and siege that killed thousands of people and left vast areas in rubble.

Civilians stuck in the middle have paid the highest price.

“Assad and his allies have used local cease-fires, de-escalation zones and freeze zones to increase civilian suffering, perpetrate demographic re-engineering, and advance militarily,” wrote Mohammed Alaa Ghanem in an analysis for Chatham House this month, describing the “bogus” cease-fires as integral to Assad’s military strategy.

One of the major Syrian rebel groups in the area, Failak al-Rahman, an Islamist group that has taken part in UN-sponsored peace talks in Geneva, agreed to evacuate last Friday. Its fighters have been boarding the buses of defeat ever since.

Brief talks with Russian 'victors'
Abu Akram, a brigade commander who was fighting in the town of Zamalka and gives only his nom de guerre, describes talks with the Russians as little more than a one-way street.

“Everything went very fast,” writes Mr. Abu Akram, who boarded a bus with a group of his men. “The negotiating committee couldn’t get a word in. They approached it as victors and set the terms. Show up at this place, at this time, and go.”

Russian and Syrian forces launched a full-scale assault on eastern Ghouta Feb. 18, dividing and defeating one rebel pocket after the other despite the UN cease-fire. The campaign was so intense it reduced residential areas to rubble and pushed the population into basements for weeks on end to survive.

The journey out has been traumatic and humiliating for many. As part of the deal, thousands of Syrian opposition fighters and their families, as well as civilians, have been heading to Idlib, a province in the north and the largest remaining area outside government control.

“The first buses to leave endured a lot of harassment,” says Zeidan. “Today we only had to give our names. We waited on the bus for seven hours before starting. It’s been 15 hours with no one allowed off, not even the children who need to pee.”

Abu Akram says the buses to Idlib drove through the pro-Assad Alawite heartland along the coast, giving an opportunity to regime supporters to curse the vanquished fighters. The commander says he joined the revolution early, defecting from the army after his younger brother was killed by a stray bullet fired from a regime checkpoint.

With 50 of his men around him on arrival in Idlib, and nursing a serious leg wound, the commander ignored even where they would spend the night after a 23-hour-long journey. “My soul is broken because the fatigue of seven years was a lot for nothing,” he writes. “The tears won’t leave my eyes. I have lost all hope in life.”

He believes the best option for his own future is to find work, make money, and pay a smuggler fee to leave Syria and cross into Turkey. He fears Idlib, the main recipient of various vanquished elements of the Syrian armed opposition, will suffer a fate as brutal or worse than eastern Ghouta.

“Idlib will end up with a massive massacre because it is under the control of [Al Qaeda-linked] Nusra Front,” he says. “They will commit genocide with the pretext of eliminating Nusra.”

'The terror of being outside'
Others have fled to government-held territory by the thousands, making use of humanitarian corridors. Among them are Noor and Nemaat, civilian women from the neighborhoods of Douma and Sabqa, respectively, who have spoken to the Monitor regularly throughout their ordeal.

Reflecting the climate of fear synonymous with the Syrian regime even before the war, both shunned communications for days after their arrival and felt ill at ease to report much beyond their immediate survival.

“I have replaced the terror of being inside (eastern Ghouta) with the terror of being outside,” writes Noor, six days into her stay in government-controlled Damascus. “I feel completely estranged.”

Her decision to leave had been largely shaped by a sense of responsibility for her father, who needed medical treatment, and her toddler and unborn child. However, on the day of departure, Noor was separated from the men in her family and she has had no news of them since.

Syrian state TV estimates that more than 110,000 people have been absorbed into regime-held areas. More than half of them are held in temporary shelters near Ghouta, according to the UN. Writing about her first encounter with the Syrian Army and aid workers, Nemaat recalls: “I doubt they even consider us as human.”

A video circulating on YouTube showed a Syrian government minister handing out water to thirsty crowds only after they chanted pro-regime slogans. Other images on social media appeared to show Syrian soldiers taking selfies with the vanquished population, crowds of thin veiled women and children in the background.

Only one pocket in eastern Ghouta remains now outside of government control. Talks are underway with the Islamist rebel group Jaish al-Islam. A spokesman for the group, Hamza Bayraqdar, says the rebels are talking about staying put in Douma, not evacuating. Syrian troop movements suggest a fresh onslaught is in the cards in the absence of a deal.

'I would stay'
Civilians who outlasted the siege want nothing more but to stay put, but say no one is consulting them.

“The most important thing for me is to not leave my Ghouta,” says Douma resident Samira, who spoke to the Monitor over many weeks. She describes a horrifying day of bombardment in which taking advantage of an unusually calm morning to take out her 9-months-pregnant daughter for a walk ended with both of them running for their lives through rubble and into a basement. Surrounded by death, she prays for a smooth delivery of her now overdue grandson.

Samira, who has been active in the opposition and in local relief efforts, is one of tens of thousands left in Douma, unwilling or unable to abandon their land. Home has the highest value. “If there are guarantees, I can stay put and reconcile,” she says. “I would stop all work and lay low, not come and go. I would stay home.”

Young aid worker Alaa Abu Zeid in Douma fields questions from his mother and friends all day long about what to do next. He doesn’t know whether they should try to leave for Idlib like his fighter brother or stay put. To avoid overthinking, he throws himself into online English lessons at night.

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“People right now are open to the idea of reconciliation because they have lost all the things they treasure most, but people are scared,” he says.

“We are unable to make a decision because we ignore what is next,” he writes. “All the choices before us take us to hell, whether it is leaving our land or staying put with people we do not trust.”


0328%20ARBIL.jpg

BEAUTIFUL? MAY PEE SAI LOOK LIKE THIS? HUAT AH!
 

JohnTan

Alfrescian (InfP)
Generous Asset
https://www.independent.co.uk/voice...-islamist-fighters-russia-idlib-a8279901.html

Watching on as Islamist fighters are evacuated from war-torn Eastern Ghouta
Exclusive: They had long scraggly beards, most of them uncombed, cheap track suits, dusty plastic sandals. I suppose it was a sort of political statement




blank.gif

11
Click to follow
Independent Voices
fisk.jpg

The fighters left for Idlib province with their families. Nelofer Pazira
They left by the thousand, the jihadis of Ghouta and their wives and children and parents. Many were still armed – Kalashnikovs over their shoulders, watched by the Russian soldiers in steel helmets and flak jackets – and they prayed, some of them, on waste ground, beneath leafless trees, next to the smashed metal wall of a broken factory behind which their chadored wives were waiting.

There were dozens of tourist buses waiting for these armed men, these Islamists whose faces had never appeared before us in past weeks – those of them who didn’t cover their faces with scarves. So they climbed aboard air-conditioned Pullmans with “Happy Travel” and “Express Tours” and other preposterous advertisements on the side. One of the vehicles even had “Very Important Personae” stencilled across the back window in English and Latin. Weirder, it could not have been. But sinister, too.

There were shells still thumping across the other side of Ghouta – if these Jaish al-Islam men and their families were leaving, others were not – and one of their conditions for evacuation were no photographs, no interviews with the press, no publicity, rules that were disregarded with care. The Islamists we could now see leading his very young wife and two children onto a tourist bus. And there was so many of them.

I watched them stand beneath those shattered trees to pray. They had long scraggly beards, most of them uncombed, cheap track suits, dusty plastic sandals. I suppose it was a sort of political statement. They had been directed by God to fight and thus prayed to God even when they had surrendered – up to a point – and abandoned their holy battle, and thus achieved a kind of religious victory in maintaining their faith. But really? What honour was left if you must trust yourself and your Islamist families to the godless Russians and their secular allies in Syria?

Faces from the Siege: Eastern Ghouta

For this was Moscow’s operation, be sure of that. Russian military police officers monitored every bus, every departure from two big Russian military trucks; a general and three of his officers – Russian flashes on their sleeves, big steel helmets, weapons so new they reflected the sun – moved among us and the Syrian troops and the armed evacuees. The buses had black windows and so we saw many of these Islamist men and their very young, chadored wives and their children, through a glass darkly.

They were Syrian, almost all of them, and many born in Ghouta, so they were leaving for the central province of Idlib, possibly for the first time. There they would be met by other militia who would not have much time for the resistance men of Ghouta. I stared in through the windows. There was a woman holding a little girl who broke free and leaned on the window to look at us. She could not have understood the Syrian history to which she was witness. The face at the window. That is what she was.

Self-Healing Body? This Amazing Technique Reduce…Ace Profits AcademySee What 18 Stars Looked Like Before They Made It BigLivinglyHe Shares How He Always Profit From Stocks 30 Mins A …Wealth Creation Mentors

by Taboola
Sponsored Links

But of course, we also had the old question: where did they come from, these men in black clothes and beards and rather battered-looking Kalashnikovs? Why had we not seen them before? Some of their colleagues, still amid the ruins behind us, fired off round after round of ammunition – “using up their bullets before they leave,” one Syrian soldier muttered dismissively – but these men were leaving by the thousand. By nightfall, I would count another hundred buses waiting for them.

That fearful footage we had seen on social media, night after night, circulated around the world on television news, genuine film, to be sure but – while containing the suffering civilians, the wounded children, the real civilian corpses – never showed us the men who held weapons and machine guns and mortars and who fired back into eastern Damascus and who were now parading before us, a dozen at a time, to leave the towns and villages they had helped to destroy. Were the anonymous cameramen of this hell forbidden to show its defenders? And if so, why did they not say so? And why did we not say so?

And there was that little matter of their children. All children are civilians. And all children can be refugees. But those who had configured the “deconfliction” of eastern Ghouta and divided up the buses, had also decided who would be the child refugee of the Islamist fighters – en route to Idlib with a Russian escort – and who would be the other children, equally innocent, who would go to the refugee camp near Adra. All children are equal. Are they not?

But of one thing, as I said, there could be no question. This was a Russian show. The Russian army was constructing this vital piece of theatre, walking between the refugee buses and the fighters’ buses and noting the numbers; and – who could doubt this? – a decade or two ago, these might have been UN peace-keepers, blue berets rather than Russian helmets, in eastern Ghouta. In another war – in another age – they might even have been American ‘peace-keepers’. But in the Trump-Putin era, all has changed. The Russians are now the peace-keepers, the conferences at Astana a substitute for the UN Security Council. When Russia decided to end the vicious little war in Ghouta, there would be no debates, and there were no irritating vetoes. Opponents were cajoled or bombed into agreement. Promises were made – and largely kept, it seems, at least until the Islamists reach Idlib and the Syrians decide that they must all leave again for Turkey or, via the endless reconciliation committees, for their original, smashed homes.

Thus the Russians can say they have plans for peace rather than plans for war – the result of the Trumpian Middle East non-doctrine – and observe the detritus of towns and cities blasted by their Syrian allies and the regime’s enemies. After dark, those Russian soldiers were still on duty, their computer screens glowing from inside their military lorries as the fighters who had not yet left fired more ammunition into the sky. Red and white, the tracers soared over us, the Syrian soldiers tired and sometimes exhausted but well aware that victory, here at least, would be theirs.

At one point, a Syrian truck with smoked black glass, hooting a constant wail, soared past the buses, a middle finger pointed upwards from the nearest window. The Islamist fighters ignored it. Oddly, they were prepared to talk, briefly, when a Syrian state television journalist clambered onto one of their moving buses with a video-recorder. A man with dark glasses said he and his comrades had fought for freedom. “We did have freedom,” the reporter responds (a predictable regime line) on the tape. “I could drink, I could go to the mosque, I could do whatever I wanted to do and nobody stopped me but now we have a military emergency that came about because of you and your demands for freedom.”

Another man, cowled in the background, had apparently disagreed with his comrades, saying he did not want to go to Idlib, that he had not been consulted, that the fighters had not been given the same food as its leaders, even during the battles. He was later questioned by the man who demanded “freedom”. But the propaganda war in Syria is fought as ferociously as the conflict with guns. The glass may be shattered but it is as thick as concrete.

I wonder why these Islamists are allowed to leave with their families. It would be better to exterminate them all. Their kids are going to grow up to become jihadists and islamists.
 
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