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IS group seizes part of ancient town of Palmyra in Syria
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BEIRUT (AP) — Islamic State militants seized parts of the ancient town of Palmyra in central Syria on Wednesday after fierce clashes with government troops, renewing fears the extremist group would destroy the priceless archaeological site if it reaches the ruins. -
@Alienoz_TR, didn't the Turks blow up the Parthenon?
 
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@Al-Kurdi

With all due respect the Kurdish sources that post those numbers of killed ISIS are as usual heavily inflated and likely not to be true at all. There is no way that YPG would have such a kill ratio versus ISIS compared to past confrontations between those two.

Without Western/Arab aid (read air bombardments) ISIS would run all over the tiny Kurdish areas of Northern Syria.

Simply speaking ISIS is the most effective group in Syria based on pure numbers alone (pound for pound) and equipment and that's simply due to their motivation and fanaticism. Their fighters are simply put not afraid of dying. They would love to die. All others, not so much.

Is SOHR a Kurdish source? YPG does not possess the manpower and weaponry ISIS got, that's true and if not for coalition the situation would be very very different. Most kills are by them which is natural. The situation would also be different if Iraq and Assad wouldn't literally donate so much arms to them. The situation would also be different if YPG would recieve the same kind of weaponry the FSA do. But I agree that many times, the numbers are inflated but I always check SOHR for confirmation. Now they are yet to report on the progress on the mountain.

To be honest, based on the limits of YPG, I do find them to be one of the most effective forces on the ground. Now it also depends in which way you look at it. I mean using suicide bombers before launching an offensive has proved to be very effective aswell.

ISIS can afford sending hundreds of men at a time, YPG can not. It's a difference in wanting to die and wanting to stay alive. I watch ISIS vids and pics closely, trying to get their side of war. Yesterday was the first time I actually saw them showing of dead YPG fighters during an ambush, otherwise these couple of weeks it's been pics of firing mortars and rockets.
 
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IS group seizes part of ancient town of Palmyra in Syria
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BEIRUT (AP) — Islamic State militants seized parts of the ancient town of Palmyra in central Syria on Wednesday after fierce clashes with government troops, renewing fears the extremist group would destroy the priceless archaeological site if it reaches the ruins.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the militants gained control of as much as a third of the town in heavy clashes during the day. Palmyra is home to a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is famous for its 2,000-year-old majestic Roman colonnades.

The majority of the ruins are located in Palmyra's south, and the militants entered Wednesday from the north after seizing the state security building from government forces. But their presence has sparked concerns they would destroy the ruins as they have done with major archaeological sites in neighboring Iraq.

Following setbacks in both Syria and Iraq, Islamic State fighters appear to have gotten a second wind in recent days, capturing Ramadi, capital of Iraq's largest Sunni province, and advancing in central Syria to the outskirts of Palmyra.

In Iraq, thousands of displaced people fleeing from Ramadi and the violence in the western Anbar province poured into Baghdad Wednesday after the central government waived restrictions and granted them conditional entry, a provincial official said.

The exodus is the latest in the aftermath of the fall of the city of Ramadi — the Anbar provincial capital — to the Islamic State over the weekend. The Shiite-led government in Baghdad is struggling to come up with a plan to reverse the stunning loss of the city, pledging a counter-offensive and relying on Iranian-backed Shiite militiamen to join the battle for Ramadi.

Athal al-Fahdawi, an Anbar councilman, said that thousands of civilians from Ramadi who were stranded on open land for days, are now being allowed to cross a bridge spanning the Euphrates River and enter Baghdad province.

On Tuesday, Anbar local officials said five of the displaced residents died from exhaustion in Bzebiz area, where the displaced had been forced to stay as they were kept away from Baghdad.

According to the International Organization for Migration, more than 40,000 people have been displaced from Anbar province since Friday, when IS conquered Ramadi. In the past, people fleeing Anbar have been prevented from entering Baghdad due to fear that militants might mingle in with the crowds and sneak into the Iraqi capital.

Meanwhile, residents still left in Ramadi told The Associated Press over the phone on Wednesday that Islamic State militants were urging them over loudspeakers not to be afraid and to stay in the city, already suffering from acute shortages of food and medicines. However, IS fighters were not preventing those wanting to leave the city to go, the residents said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear for their own safety.

It is still unknown when the expected wide-scale operation to recapture Ramadi and other cities will start.

Baghdad officials and leaders of the so-called Popular Mobilization Units, which consists of a number of Shiite militias who are fighting on the side of the Iraqi military and security forces, have repeatedly said they need time for a military buildup and reconnaissance.

When the Islamic State launched its blitz last year and entire cities and towns fell into the hands of the militants, the Iraqi government at first took only defensive measures and in many cases, soldiers and Iraqi forces abandoned their posts and fled in the face of the IS assault.

Military operations to retake entire swaths of Iraq that had fallen to IS began only months later. The U.S. launched its airstrikes campaign in August.

IS group seizes part of ancient town of Palmyra in Syria



Most of the IS forces are located in Homs and Aleppo, meanwhile leading an offensive in Anbar, Iraq.

Kurds try to relieve Assad troops by provoking IS in the north. After Palmyra, and Deir ez-Zor, Kurds have to face Arab tribesmen alone in the north and northeast.

Just hours ago, a suicide bomber blew up several members of YPG in the Hasaka City, btw.

meanwhile

 
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I got no bone in this fight guys:offpost:

Good thinking. But 'your' country is destroyed already. So a bunch of takfiris celebrating on rubble:D Ya akhi akhi1!11!!111!! eleven!
How base of you, taking pride in destroying a Muslim country that has never done anything to you. This is your true face. And yet you cry over Saudi Arabia whose citizens' ancestors put an end to Persia 1400 years ago in the most humiliating way conceivable. So it isn't Syrians who did that. Syrians didn't give Saddam 60$ bn to slaughter 1 million Iranians and destroy their country. Syrians didn't heavily took part in sanctioning Iran and Iranians causing so much harm to it's economy and all Iranian aspects of life.

It's not Syrians, nor Yemenis, nor Lebanese, nor Iraqis who have been humiliating you. The thing that is so much despicable and disgusting about Iran and Iranians is that they take pride in destroying war-torn countries. So it's not like they invaded a country and won, no. They infiltrated Lebanon after it's civil war. Infiltrated Iraq after American invasion. Infiltrated Syria after the revolution, the same for Yemen.

Nevertheless, Iranians are losing in all the aforementioned countries, again, despite the fact that they are war-torn countries.
 
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The Kurds should just know that their place is the tiny Kurdish majority areas of Northern Syria and nowhere else. The Arab tribes will deal with them if they try anything unnecessary.

Or FSA, or ISIS or even the Syrian regime.

the Arab tribes are already fighting for them and with them, check my earlier post, 70 new recurited Arab tribesmen. The others are either with ISIS or Assad.

Kurds take support from jews and westerners. Every kind of support whether Weapons, mercenaries, or air cover goes to Kurds.

Westerners and Jews will leave Middleast, but we will be staying.

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you know you're from Turkey right? You guys the last ones to talk about support from Jews and the West.
 
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the Arab tribes are already fighting for them and with them, check my earlier post, 70 new recurited Arab tribesmen. The others are either with ISIS or Assad.

I have no problem with Kurds at all. Only those that are hostile to Arabs.

Is this YPG not a Kurdish socialist/communist/nationalistic militant group that aims to grab as much land as possible in Syria and incorporate it into a "Greater Kurdistan"?

Kurds would do wise not to create animosity with Arabs or it will end very wrong for them once again.

Such behavior won't get you many fans among Iraqis, Syrians or other Arabs.

 
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I have no problem with Kurds at all. Only does that are hostile to Arabs.

Is this YPG not a Kurdish socialist/communist/nationalistic militant group that aims to grab as much land as possible in Syria and incorporate it into a "Greater Kurdistan"?

Kurds would do wise not to create animosity with Arabs.

Such behavior won't get you many fans among Iraqis, Syrians or other Arabs.


Kurds can't afford being hostile to their neighbours. But Turks, Arabs and Iranians can afford being hostile to Kurds. Pretty basic really.

There is not "Greater Kurdistan" my friend, just Kurdistan. We don't want claim others people's land but you do also have to be strategic which is the case with the mountain. And, no they have some kind of democratic federalism, and seats and positions are all based on the numbers of different ethnic groups. Everyone is involved in the system whether Kurds, Assyrian, Arab or who else lives there. Much more than that I do not know. Personally, I'd want Kurds to unite and head for the MED. But we're our own greatest enemy.

Also, you wanna compare how Kurds deal with Arab refugees compared to the Arab government in Baghdad? Where even Palestinians fled to Kurdistan? Where during the first days of protest Anbaris headed to South Kurdistan rather than Baghdad? Kurds in South Kurdistan have a great reason to show "animosity" towards Arabs based on their horrible history. But instead, despite being embargoed by Iraq, with not budget sent or anything, the Kurdish government took them in, Kurdish families opened their homes, paying out of their own pockets etc. Without any kind of aid or anything coming from the government that is responsible for this people.

There will always be wrongdoers amongst all people. Shall we compare how Arabs are treated in Turkey aswell?
 
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Ex-Lebanese minister Michelle Samaha confess and says he has orders from Assad to take out everyone from Lebanese religious leaders mainly SUNNI, and any other official in the meetings including politicians using TNT.anyone BUT Allewites


The deal came directly implicating ASSAD and Mamluk. Samaha close to Assad is telling the Agent exactly his orders and how he got the TNT and who he should target. He is assigned to target everyone but Allewites .. including SHIITES! who are strong supporters of Assad .. being that hezbollah is shiite. This is a major blow...
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Written by : Eyad Abu Shakra
on : Wednesday, 20 May, 2015
Opinion: No More Illusions about an “Occupied Lebanon”

If the sentence passed by Lebanon’s Military Court against former Lebanese MP and cabinet minister Michel Samaha is to stand, he will be set free within just seven months. This is all he will serve of the official four and a half year “prison sentence” that was initially issued against him.

For those interested, “one year imprisonment” in Lebanon means nine, not 12 months, and Samaha (who has already been in custody for a couple of years) admitted, in live testimony, that he brought explosives into Lebanon with the specific aim of targeting rallies and iftar celebrations and murdering prominent Muslim and Christian politicians and religious leaders, not to mention any innocent individual who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Samaha also admitted, again live on camera, that he collaborated with General Ali Mamlouk, one of Syria’s top security chiefs, in this murder conspiracy.

Furthermore, the evidence showed that the Samaha-Mamlouk conspiracy aimed at inciting sectarian strife and bloodshed in Lebanon. This would have allowed the well-known Iranian-backed Syrian–Lebanese security apparatus to reclaim control of Lebanon after President Bashar Al-Assad was forced to withdraw Syrian troops from the country in 2005 in the aftermath of the assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri, and the popular uprising the crime provoked.

The Military Court’s “too lenient” sentence has understandably shocked many Lebanese who are aware that Samaha’s crime was much more sinister than merely “transporting explosives.” There is the issue of attempted mass murder and the incitement of devastating sectarian strife with untold repercussions. There is also a travesty of justice, bearing in mind that many people have been held in Lebanon’s infamous Roumieh prison for years without being accused of any specific crime.

However, without over-elaborating on technical legal matters, it has to be said that Samaha would not have been able to partake in this conspiracy—alone or in collaboration with Gen. Mamlouk—were it not for the fact that Lebanon is truly an occupied country.

No understatement or polite allusion can change anything about the reality of this occupation. Indeed, while most Lebanese were pointing the finger of accusation at the Syrian regime after the Hariri assassination, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah was presenting gifts to senior Syrian officers at a mass rally in the heart of Beirut under banners proclaiming “Thank You, Syria.” The security and intelligence apparatus these officers represented controlled the lives of the Lebanese for three decades, and under the orders and directives of Iran, contributed to creating the de facto Hezbollah statelet, whose true size, role and allegiance were not clear at the time.

The symbolism of that Beirut rally on March 8, 2005, goes beyond words. Sure enough the “Thank You, Syria” rally stirred up a spontaneous massive popular response on March 14 which filled the same Beirut squares with flag-waving men, women and children who re-discovered themselves and stood up for their dignity. The March 14 mass rally provided the momentum that forced the Syrian regime’s troops out, and produced the eponymous independent, cross-sectarian, non-partisan March 14 Alliance.

Unfortunately, as would later become clear, the Tehran–Damascus axis had only lost a battle, not the war. In fact, it turned out that this was a minor “battle” that did not exceed the true nature of Hezbollah being brought out into the open after it had been well concealed by the shadow of the Syrian–Lebanese security apparatus. Hezbollah was openly handed the task it had previously been accorded in secret, after it had spent several years silently working, recruiting, building and expanding across Lebanon.

Following the withdrawal of Syrian troops, Hezbollah had no choice but to unmask and reveal its animosity to a sector of the Lebanese people, after this section of society had long believed its slogans of “resistance” (against Israel), and had not even been perturbed by its reservations regarding the Taif Accords.

Soon afterwards, the Tehran–Damascus axis, through its Christian functionaries, began its attempts to infiltrate the Christian bloc inside the March 14 Alliance with the intention of destroying its unity. It succeeded spectacularly with Michel Aoun, whose followers had always taken to heart his grand slogans of “sovereignty” and “independence,” as well as his feigned deep hatred of the Syrian regime and his assertions of being the “father” of the US Congress’s Syria Accountability Act (2003) and UN Security Council Resolution 1559 (2004).

With Aoun joining the Hezbollah camp, the Tehran-Damascus axis gained the Christian cover it always needed to give it a false consensual façade. This has become even more important after questions began to emerge about Hezbollah’s involvement in the assassination of Hariri, as well as the subsequent assassinations targeting March 14 figures.

Now benefitting from its newly acquired Christian fig leaf, Hezbollah refused to cooperate with the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (set up to investigate the Hariri assassination) and launched a vicious counter-attack against its political adversaries. True to form, Hezbollah began to behave like a state within a state. In the summer of 2006, and without the knowledge of its government, in which it was represented, Hezbollah attacked an Israeli detachment across the UN blue line with the aim of kidnapping Israeli soldiers. Israel responded to this with a massive war that caused great destruction to Lebanon’s infrastructure, damaging its economy and pushing many Lebanese to seek their livelihood abroad.

Hezbollah’s reaction to Israel’s massive military response was further agitation, occupying Beirut’s city center with the backing of its allies and demanding the resignation of the legitimate cabinet after it refused to give them one third of all cabinet posts. This, in effect, would enable Hezbollah and its allies to bring down any government if its ministers resigned en masse.

Political assassinations continued amid doubts about the role some security agencies were playing, particularly at the Beirut-Rafik Hariri International Airport. The government ultimately took the decision to dismantle Hezbollah’s private communication network and suspend the Beirut airport security chief, a Shi’ite with pro-Hezbollah leanings. Hezbollah responded on May 7, 2008, by sweeping through predominantly Sunni West Beirut and attacking the Druze strongholds in Mount Lebanon. It also continued to occupy central Beirut and block the election of a new president, until an agreement was finally reached thanks to Arab mediation in the Qatari capital Doha, and army chief Michel Suleiman was elected president.

Still, Hezbollah’s open warfare against the legitimate Lebanese state was not over yet. Under the excuse of dealing with what it described as “false witnesses” testifying at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, Hezbollah and allied ministers resigned en masse, bringing down the “national unity” cabinet of Prime Minister Saad Hariri which has been formed after the Doha Agreement.

It is also worth mentioning here that Hezbollah alone, among all Lebanese parties and militias, was exempted from surrendering its arms to the state under the pretext that it was a “resistance” movement fighting continued Israeli occupation. Yet even after the Israeli withdrawal from south Lebanon in 2000, Hezbollah insisted that it should keep its arms since—as it claimed—the withdrawal was incomplete; Israel still occupied the Sheba farms and Kfar Shouba heights.

It also kept its arms, under the same claim of “resistance,” after the 2006 war even though the UN Security Council resolution 1701, which ended the Israeli war, stipulated that Hezbollah must have no armed presence south of the Litani River in order to negate any chance of military confrontation with Israel.

Despite this, and even after using its war machine against its fellow Lebanese in Beirut and Mount Lebanon, and later against the uprising of the Syrian people in opposition to Bashar Al-Assad, Hezbollah continued to claim its arms were the arms of “resistance” against Israel.

As such it becomes obvious that Hezbollah’s occupation of Lebanon does not differ much from the occupation of Syria by the militias’ of Bashar Al-Assad and Iranian general Qassim Suleimani.

In both the cases of Syria and Lebanon, it is impossible to have a proper legal system, achieve justice, compensate victims, or punish criminals under such circumstances.
 
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Yes, I have posted a map here how Palmyra is a strategic importance to get into Homs which is a door to capturing West Syria and a key route to Lebanon. This will be their first presence if this happens, this is why I believe capturing Palmyra will gear them up for an offensive to Homs.

The problem is the Western media are not telling this, instead they shed some crocodile tears over some useless ruins. Do they even know in this city, Assad has the most deadliest prison?
 
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