Syrian Kurdish forces said to capture most of rebel-held former military airport

[MowCowWhoHow III]

Source: Reuters

Kurdish-led fighters aided by Russian bombing captured a rebel-held former Syrian military airport near the border with Turkey, a monitor and rebels said on Thursday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said heavy fighting took place between Kurds and Syrian insurgents around Menagh airport and Russian warplanes staged at least 30 raids against the rebels holding out there.

Rebels say the Kurdish YPG militias have been taking advantage of their preoccupation with fending off a Syrian army ground offensive launched last week in the northern Aleppo countryside to gain ground in the area near a main border crossing with Turkey.

Kurdish fighters based in their stronghold in the city of Afrin, south of rebel-held Azaz, have grabbed a string of villages that rebels have been forced to evacuate to confront advancing Syrian troops coming from the south.

Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-mideast-crisis-syria-idUKKCN0VK0E7

[bemildred]

1. Kurdish Female Fighters Commandeer Tanks In Battle To Capture Aleppo Air Base

Footage emerged on Thursday of female Kurdish fighters commandeering tanks, sniper rifles and machine-gun mounted trucks in the successful offensive to capture the Mannagh air base from Islamist rebels in Syria’s Aleppo province.

The video, released by the Kurdish AHNA news agency, begins with female voices before cutting to a tank with three female Kurdish fighters sitting atop the vehicle and another in a front seat.

It is unclear if a female fighter is driving the vehicle but it demonstrates the willingness of the Kurdish female fighters to be at the heart of the People’s Protection Units’ (YPG) battle for territory in northern Syria. A second shot of the tank, towards the end of the video, shows a tank firing into the distance with female voices shouting afterwards.

http://www.newsweek.com/kurdish-female-fighters-commandeer-tanks-battle-capture-aleppo-air-base-425432?piano_t=1

[bemildred]

2. Female Kurdish fighter driving T-72 MBT w/ slate armor:

Source:

https://twitter.com/green_lemonnn/status/697719229576056832

[Akicita]

3. So our Kurdish allies are now fighting our anti-Assad allies?

What the Hell? What a mess.

[JackRiddler]

5. "our" "anti-Assad" "allies" would be...

the foreign-led jihadis financed & armed by the Saudis with U.S. help, whose interchange with Daesh/ISIS is ample.

[Akicita]

7. Like I said. What a mess.

[Joe Chi Minh]

4. How those girls must love that life, I bet,

in comparison with their erstwhile civilian life of somewhat subjugated domesticity. They look such characters in those photos, don't they ?

I've always thought that, if you scratched the surface, people of the female persuasion were wilder than us. A little bit more crazy than we normally find them. I love that Yiddish word for 'crazy' - 'meshugenah'. See that last photo ... one of them would have to be on the phone, wouldn't she !!!

[JackRiddler]

6. Please don't romanticize it.

[happyslug]

9. Probally on the phone telling her boyfriend where is her tank, all the other girls have one..

The T-72 is a three person tank. Driver, Commander and gunner. There is no loader for the Russians have been using automatic loading systems on their tanks since the 1960s.

It is clear the driver is watching where she is going. It is HARD to see where you are going from a driver's position in a tank, thus her head is up and looking. The two women on top look happy but are also looking around, which is what they are suppose to be doing when the tank is moving. Tanks move and people see them move, the Commander of the tank has to be looking to see who is doing what around them, thus even when the driver is "buttoned up" the commander is out looking for any danger.

The only woman out of place is the woman on the phone. She has no place to go if the tank comes under attack (except to slip off the tank and hit the ground). Thus she has no role in the operation of the tank (and thus my comment that she is calling her boyfriend to complain where is her tank, all of other women in her unit have been given tanks but she has NOT been given one by him and it all his fault).

In reality she may be calling for infantry support. Tanks are like Aircraft Carriers. They attract missiles and thus need infantry support (Tank's armor protect the infantry, and the infantry root out anyone with anti-tank weapons, thus they protect each other) or arranging for fuel (Tanks eat oil) or even maintenance (Tracks only lasts about 2000 miles before the tracks have to be replaced). Just a comment that it appears three of the women are doing what tankers are suppose to be doing when operating a tank, the fourth one does not, but she is also NOT is a position to do anything, she may be along for the ride.

[Joe Chi Minh]

10. Thanks for that most interesting info, Sluggy. I wondered

if the driver was inside peering through some small aperture. I know that popping their head and shoulders out, to get a good view of things is dangerous, and many who did so were killed by snipers.

Apparently, the Russians try to provide 360 degrees vision through technology, sensors of some kind, I think. Mind you, reading Rick Atkinson's trilogy on WWII, makes it clear that war really is hell, and most squaddies are lucky to get much sleep at all for days in during some battles. I think the girls, all of them can be happier than most, being part of a rout - of the enemy. A Russian lad on another blog said that DAESH/ISIS were 'being clubbed like baby seals' (!!!)

Her boyfriend ? Yep. That'd be about the strength of it...! A lovely photo, though.

[happyslug]

11. No fancy sensors on the T-72, just eyes.

The driver has a periscope to use when buttoned up, but when buttoned up relies on the commander telling her where to go. The commander on top is the best "sensor" the driver has on the T-72. On the Russian most recent tanks, released in 2015, cameras are used and from reports the gun is unmanned and the crew is low in the structure for protection, but that is brand new not a T-72. Please note the M-1 tank also relies on eyes.

Please note the M-1 has thermal night vision devices. The crew, from what I have read, are train to use them even in daylight for their enhanced definitions. I suspect the Russians have something similar but I have not read about any. Through the Russian tanks have had night vision capacity since the 1960s, but mostly Vietnam era passive night vision capacity, but like American non thermal night vision, upgraded extensively since Vietnam.

Thermal night vision is the real high tech night vision system today, I have read about it but never used it. Thermal night vision is expensive, $50,000 each. Conventional night vision can be obtained for less then $1000 each. Thus I suspect only conventional night vision on this tank, but given the search light next to ghe gun it may not even have that.

One more comment, no helmets. Tank crewmen are issued helmets with built in radios, not only for hearing commands from other tanks but each other over the noise of the tracks and engine. Thus these women are acting like troops in a safe area away from combat.

Please note they may not have the helmet, the original crew may have abandon the tank and ran off wearing the helmet. The helmets are less protective then a regular helmet but is better then no helmet. On the other hand the radio feature is useless without the tank. The helmets plug into the tanks radio system and used the system to communicate with each other and other tanks.

[Joe Chi Minh]

17. Thanks again. That was the impression I had : that

what ever action they'd been engaged in had been successfully concluded by then.

[Yupster]

13. Kurdistan is an incredible success story

Mostly Muslim, the Kurds have an economic miracle going in their lands with lots of foreign investment and a tremendous growth rate. They are also tolerant of other religions and have been a life saving safe haven for the local Christians and Yazidis.

There is also a vibrant Kurdish community in Tennessee where the people escaped death to have a proud and successful community.

[Joe Chi Minh]

16. Wow ! wonderful to hear. Thanks, Yupster. I'm particularly

glad the Russkis have allowed them an office in Moscow, now.

[Yupster]

19. Assad keeps saying he is going to bring the entire nation back under control

and with Russian help he can do it.

The two questions left for the US are.

1. Are we making some deal to protect the Kurds?

2. Can we get our rebels to safety somewhere?

I hope our diplomats are working on those two questions and not pie in the skyu ideas they don't have the power to accomplish.

[Joe Chi Minh]

20. To me, your rebels are plain 'terrorists', Yupster, out to overthrow.

the legitimately-elected government. There may be Pussy-Cat dolls, but there no 'moderate', 'pussy-cat' terrorists in Syria, though in some countries the so-called terrorists are genuine freedom-fighters.

No one denies that Assad is the only person likely to be able to unite the country. There's a lot of the usual vapidly scurrilous propaganda about him, but if his torturers*, assuming he has any, are as bad as ours (US and UK - we, the UK, tend to outsource it [same difference]).

*I believe in the ME, it's been an 'up front' part of their political culture ;we're more cute about it. But anyway, we all know it's about an oil-pipeline shortcut.

[Yupster]

21. Other than the Kurds I have no support for any other group in Syria

but there is no future for the rebels we trained in Syria. We need to get them safely out of the way.

[bemildred]

8. Russian Intervention in Syrian War Has Sharply Reduced U.S. Options

Read the comments.

MUNICH — For months now the United States has insisted there can be no military solution to the Syrian civil war, only a political accord between President Bashar al-Assad and the fractured, divided opposition groups that have been trying to topple him.

But after days of intense bombing that could soon put the critical city of Aleppo back into the hands of Mr. Assad’s forces, the Russians may be proving the United States wrong. There may be a military solution, one senior American official conceded Wednesday, “just not our solution,” but that of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

That is what Secretary of State John Kerry faces as he enters a critical negotiation over a cease-fire and the creation of a “humanitarian corridor” to relieve starving Syrians besieged in more than a dozen cities, most by Mr. Assad’s forces. The Russian military action has changed the shape of a conflict that had effectively been stalemated for years. Suddenly, Mr. Assad and his allies have momentum, and the United States-backed rebels are on the run. If a cease-fire is negotiated here, it will probably come at a moment when Mr. Assad holds more territory, and more sway, than since the outbreak of the uprisings in 2011.

Mr. Kerry enters the negotiations with very little leverage: The Russians have cut off many of the pathways the C.I.A. has been using for a not-very-secret effort to arm rebel groups, according to several current and former officials. Mr. Kerry’s supporters inside the administration say he has been increasingly frustrated by the low level of American military activity, which he views as essential to bolstering his negotiation effort.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/11/world/middleeast/russian-intervention-in-syrian-war-has-sharply-reduced-us-options.html?_r=0

[roamer65]

12. This is why Turkey and Saufi Arabia will be invading very shortly.

They are going to attempt to create a "Sunnistan" from eastern Syria and from western Iraq.

[bemildred]

15. That would be "sensible", I don't think we can necessarily expect them to be "sensible".

They talk of re-opening the "Aleppo corridor", meaning the supply route to Aleppo from Turkey.
I think at the moment they are trying to provoke a pretext for an intervention, some response they can use as justification.
Any ground force will REQUIRE air cover and air support, so shelling doesn't mean much until they start going after air defense assets.
That would be foolish indeed. If they did, they might start with that airbase, so ...

What you suggest is what I was thinking, but this is personal now, giant egos that are never wrong, really wrong, are involved, so there is no telling.

[Yupster]

14. Yes, once Russia put troops on the ground our options were reduced to

1. Making sure the Kurds are protected.

2. Getting our rebels safely out of there.

The rest of the talk just makes us look foolish and weak.

Hopefully we are paying attention to the two things we can do.

[muriel_volestrangler]

18. And so the Turks shell the Kurds at the airbase

Turkey shells Kurdish positions in northern Syria for second day, Damascus urges UN intervention

The Turkish army has shelled positions held by Kurdish-backed militia in northern Syria for a second day, state media confirms.

On Saturday, Turkey demanded the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia withdraw from areas that it had captured in northern Aleppo in recent days from insurgents in Syria, including the Menagh air base.

The shelling has targeted those areas.

Syria's Government condemned the Turkish offensive on Sunday, urging the United Nations to intervene.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-15/turkey-strikes-kurdish-fighters-in-syria-for-second-day/7167142

This has actually got the Syrian and American governments on the same side - both are condemning the shelling.