E-MAIL THIS LINK
To: 

Syrian army sees Aleppo encircled soon; rebels hope for more weapons
[REUTERS] A Syrian army source said the city of Aleppo would soon be encircled by government forces as rebels pounded by Russian air strikes expressed hope that the failure of Geneva peace talks would encourage their foreign backers to send better weapons.

The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
, a major sponsor of the insurgency against Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators...
, said there was no point to peace talks while Russia carried out attacks in Syria. Moscow confirmed a Russian military trainer was killed in Syria this week, but denied that Russian servicemen were fighting on the ground.

The United Nations
...an idea whose time has gone...
 on Wednesday suspended the first peace talks in two years, halting an effort that seemed doomed from the start as the war raged unabated on the ground and government forces severed a major rebel supply route into strategically-important Aleppo, Syria's biggest city before the war began.

Turkey said on Thursday that tens of thousands of refugees from Aleppo were moving towards the border due to air strikes.

Four months of Russian air strikes have tipped the momentum Assad's way after rebel advances earlier in 2015 that posed a growing threat to his control of crucial areas of western Syria.

With the help of Russian air power and allies including Leb's Hezbollah and Iranian fighters on the ground, the overstretched Syrian army is regaining ground on key fronts in the west, where Syria's most important cities are located.

But vast swathes of the country are in the hands of armed rebels, including a mosaic of groups in the west, Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
 in the east, and Kurdish militia in the north.

The refugee crisis created by the five-year-long war moved back into focus as donors convened in London on Thursday, with U.N. agencies seeking billions in aid to help the victims of a conflict that has forced millions from their homes.
Posted by: Fred 2016-02-05
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=444338