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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| ISIS counter-attack pushes Syrian forces out of Raqqa province |
| 2016-06-22 |
| [RUDAW.NET] The 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 Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... (ISIS) has reportedly pushed Syrian regime forces back out of the province of Raqqa in a large counter-offensive which has killed 40 soldiers, afflicting a serious setback on the regimes two-week old offensive against the murderous Moslems there. "ISIS [ISIS] has managed to drive out regime troops from the administrative borders of Raqqa province after a fierce counter-offensive," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor reported. ISIS launched this counter-offensive late on Sunday as the regime forces closed in on the town of Tabqa, home to a former airbase and Syria’s largest dam. Tabqa is 40 kilometers upstream, west, of the lovely provincial capital city of Raqqa, ISIS’s primary city stronghold in Syria. The Syrian Observatory reported on Monday that the regime has been forced to 40km from Tabqa airport after previously being only 7km away from it. Fearing losing Tabqa - and the regime successfully securing a foothold in Raqqa for the first time since August 2014 - ISIS poured hundreds reinforcements into that key town from Raqqa city. The Observatory estimates that 40 of the regime forces were killed, including an officer, while no fewer than 21 ISIS murderous Moslems were killed. This brings the total casualties in the regimes Raqqa offensive to 93 dead regime forces and 126 dead ISIS murderous Moslems, according to the Observatory’s estimates. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #5 I just don't get it. I was never in the military, which given my penchant for arguing with authority, is probably a good thing all around. I have all the respect in the world for you guys that have "been there, done that." That said, though, I was raised on the stories of WWII and almost wound up in Viet Nam. 40 killed seems like a minor skirmish rather that the results of a "large counter-offensive". So for all you spurts out there why am I so off the track? |
| Posted by: AlanC 2016-06-22 20:43 |
| #4 the fatalities just keep mounting ISIS has probably lost over 35,000 fighters which is greater than their current active force strength; probably at least 5-10% of these losses were due to attacks by other anti Regime forces or ISIS fighters executed by ISIS the Assad Regime military is a hollow shell of what they were in 2011; they are only kept alive because of Hezbollah, Iran and Russia |
| Posted by: lord garth 2016-06-22 18:26 |
| #3 Telephoto, else there would be much more detail than shown. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2016-06-22 16:57 |
| #2 Firebombing villages in Idlib and Aleppo, far as I can tell. Maybe some CAS east of Palmyra. There's some claiming that the Tabqa area was under a sandstorm, but the footage doesn't show anything particularly extreme. And that there is a heck of a rout. Might have been the result of withdrawals to south of Aleppo to reinforce or re-build a front behind where Hezbollah broke under the pressure of a rebel/Nusra offensive out of Idlib a couple days ago. The regime policy of "fight everybody" seems to paying anti-dividends. Meanwhile there's footage today of a B-52 over Manbij. I don't know if they were using telephoto lenses or if they're really flying BUFFs that low on CAS duty. I honestly thought they used the B-52s further out than that. |
| Posted by: Charles M. Hagmaier 2016-06-22 16:20 |
| #1 The Russian air force was busy elsewhere? |
| Posted by: Pappy 2016-06-22 14:55 |