Article

2016-08-07 Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Syrian opposition: rebels break Aleppo siege

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by Fred 2016-08-07 00:00|| || Front Page|| [12 views ] Top
File under: Govt of Syria

#1 Not sure if the siege is broken, still 2 km away?

Posted by Shipman 2016-08-07 01:50|| 2016-08-07 01:50|| Front Page Top

#2 Poorly phrased line in the article. The rebels inside east Aleppo also attacked southwestwards at the same time, and took a district to the southeast of the artillery college. It looks to be a legitimate defeat, there are tons of images of entire parks of captured artillery from the Idlib rebels. It'd take another major offensive to break back through and re-establish the supply route and the siege line. Theoretically the SAA and Hezbollah forces now stuck in west Aleppo along with god knows how many civilians could be supplied via the corridor blown through the rebel lines in the north last month, but that was just heavily fought over, and probably isn't clear enough to make a decent line of communication, not to mention it's mostly an isolated Kurdish enclave tentatively allied with the Syrians out of survival concerns.

The infuriating thing from a regime point of view is that the air force and the Russians were used throughout the breakout battle in bombing interior Idlib crossroads and civilian areas rather than any sort of serious CAS in support of the siege. Of course, there is a question about whether either the regime or the Russian air arms are *capable* of effective CAS, it requires forward air controllers, proper communication assets and training. Meanwhile, the Manbij siege is wrapping up, which saw effective CAS cooperation between a coalition air-force and mostly untrained Kurdish militia, probably with a strong leavening of American special forces on the ground.

Now, Manbij and Aleppo are an order of magnitude different from each other - the forces on both sides were much smaller, the urban areas aren't in the least comparable, so take that for what it's worth.

Posted by Charles M. Hagmaier 2016-08-07 05:50|| http://blogfonte.blogspot.com/ 2016-08-07 05:50|| Front Page Top

#3 Thanks Charles, comment more.

Posted by Shipman 2016-08-07 07:56|| 2016-08-07 07:56|| Front Page Top

#4 Welcome indeed. Don't be a stranger.

Posted by Besoeker 2016-08-07 08:02|| 2016-08-07 08:02|| Front Page Top

#5 Perhaps the Russians aren't used to CAS in urban terrain.

Posted by Pappy 2016-08-07 13:31|| 2016-08-07 13:31|| Front Page Top

#6 Russian have experience in urban CAS

Posted by badanov 2016-08-07 15:18|| http://www.chriscovert.net 2016-08-07 15:18|| Front Page Top

23:24 Alaska Paul
22:57 Zenobia Floger6220
22:45 Shipman
22:33 Shipman
21:41 newc
21:27 Unelet Protector of the Sith2424
21:19 swksvolFF
21:19 swksvolFF
21:14 Shipman
21:07 Thing From Snowy Mountain
20:31 CrazyFool
20:30 trailing wife
20:21 trailing wife
19:59 regular joe
19:24 Rob Crawford
18:25 Raj
17:51 Besoeker
17:40 Bangkok Billy
17:27 swksvolFF
17:23 Zenobia Floger6220
17:22 Herman Snease8631
17:11 Besoeker
17:03 Iblis
16:51 Shipman