Devs May 19 >Despite reports of Israeli strikes, technical failures responsible for massive explosion at Hama Airbase >Senior RU official:US,Turkey,Iran&Hezbollah should withdraw from Sy after IS defeat >IS nearly wiped out in Hajar Al-Aswad as Syrian troops intensify offensive >SAA troops in southern Damascus to head new offensive in Daraa, Quneitra >Putin meets Assad in Sochi >U.S. airstrike killed 2 Syrian soldiers in east Homs, near Tanf base >Houthi forces launch ballistic missile towards Saudi city >Saudi-led coalition resumes its advance along W emeni coast >Taliban captures several bases of afghan army, police and intelligence in central Afghanistan >Washington regime seeks global 'coalition' against Iran regime >Abu Mohammed al-Jolani; Rumors of HTS merging with any other groups are untrue >Assad; "We’d like to point out a recent increase of Russian investment...Russian companies are making in various sectors of Syrian economy” >Ergogan to host Islamic summit to back Palestinians, condemn Israel today >US lawmaker moves to block sale of 100 F-35 fighter jets to Turkey
500kg bombs =/= specifically designed "bunker busters"
Parker Allen
*looks at time* >it's 4:00AM Well, time to go to sleep. Good night, /sg/, don't feed mutts and memeflags with (you)s
Isaac Bell
gn
Jack Ramirez
Yarmouk Camp Activist : "It isn't reasonable for the army to make agreements with Daesh, world-class terrorists.However, Daesh can surrender to a third party, the Russian guarantor & exit the area. And this is what will happen."
some1 gimme tldr on royal wedding, I did not look into any news yet today and I prefer to ge tit from some1 from here than..anywhere else
Cameron Jenkins
>Reports of temporary ceasefire from 12pm until 5am Sunday in southern Damascus, will be followed with start of evacuation of IS from Hajar Aswad and Yarmouk Camp
I just made some maps of the Iraqi election, based on seat distribution. The exact vote counts are still hard to come by, but the seat distribution is available and final - at least unless a recount produces a vastly different outcome. Results from Kirkuk in particular are highly suspect. But there's some interesting things that are worth pointing out already:
Sayirun - the Sadr's coalition, despite including the Communist Party and other secular groups, and despite Sadr's own attempts to pander to non-Shia voters, still finished the election as a Shia-only movement. Although it was placed #1 nation-wide, it failed to win a single seat outside of Iraq's Shia heartland. So much for a "secular nationalist firebrand maverick buzzword buzzword" - the non-Shia Iraqis clearly didn't buy it. Good on them. Sayirun did really well in the capital though, and that gives it additional power because those who command loyalty among the male youth in the capital region can often exert undue pressure on the government through threats of unrest.
By contrast to Sayirun, the Al-Fath Coalition, supposedly "Shia" and "sectarian" according to the Anglo media consensus, actually did pretty well in some Sunni provinces. Now granted, it's possible that this success is owed to some extent to the presence of the PMF units presumably stationed in those provinces and voting overwhelmingly for Fatah, but that couldn't explain all of it. For example, Fatah won about 75,000 votes in Nineveh. The entire size of the PMF is estimated at some 150,000. To win that many votes in Nineveh, HALF of the PMF would have to be stationed at Nineveh, ALL of them would have to show up to vote and ALL of them would have to pick Fath - a rather unlikely scenario. It seems much more likely that Fath had "Conquered" some influence among the natives of those provinces, their supposed "sectarianism" notwithstanding. Another curious geographic pattern is that Fath generally did worse in the provinces which directly border Iran. I tried to see if there’s a pattern of those provinces being relatively rich or poor but found no such correlation. The poorest Shia province is Muthannah, and the richest is Kerbala – both are strong Fath voters. Also Fath did pretty shit in the capital, hence it’s overall second place result.
#Syria #Hama #Hamah - Hama Activist says Saraya Jihad the Group which Claims to have executed a operation yesterday which was the reason for the Huge 6 Explosions in Hama Airport Yesterday is consisting mostly of Fighters from the former "Jund al-Aqsa" Group.
Abadi’s coalition (Nusrah) finished third place and if we believe the results, it is trusted to some extent by both Shia and Sunni Arabs. But there's no trust or love from the Kurds though, but that’s expected especially after what happened last year lol.
It is still more of a Shia party than anything else, but it won its best relative result in Nineveh, presumably among the residents of Mosul who credit Abadi with retaking the city and trust him to be relatively neutral and non-sectarian.
I don't know much about iraq, how do you think this will change the iraqi relationship with iran?
Levi Garcia
I did my research and this bomb is overrated. in berlin there is still a ww2 bunker standing that would withhold that bomb easy. the smb has penetration pwer of a standard 1000kg bomb. and could penetrate up to 90cm of reinforced concrete. that is not much when it comes to broper bunkers in vid this might be not reinforced concrete
kek, European/German industry lobby groups are starting to put up ads about the kinda/coimng trade war with US. This will be interesting to see wether US can stand against the EU economy politically
Kayden Collins
It's not an actual "bunker buster" like the GBU-28 or GBU-37 (Penetration of more than 6 m reinforced concrete). it's a glide bomb with penetration of 0.91 m of reinforced concrete.
Former PM Maliki finished fourth place nation-wide and he is indeed only really trusted by the Shia from the looks of it - the map shows a classic Shia pattern. It is funny though that in the capital region he finished ahead of Abadi, which is just a little slap in the face to the latter. Nothing much else to say about this guy, other than the fact that he’s still around I guess. Though I would not expect him to ever return to the premiership again.
I don't expect any changes whatsoever as a result of the election itself, but over time, I personally expect Iraq to become more independent-minded and more confident in saying "No" to the Iran, and Iran is not going to like hearing that for several reasons. This may eventually lead to a conflict between the two, but that's not going to happen within the next 10 years at least.
What's happened in russia post election also, any big shake ups or anything?
Ryder Hall
The trigger in the bomb has a slight delay so rather than blowing up right on the surface of the bunker, it will blow up after the bomb has penetrated the concrete.
Jeremiah Thomas
good to know but not surprised that we do better engineering then burgers do. but still it needs to stay ruffly in shape and has a max speed of ~500km/h
Owen Stewart
The casing of the bomb is quite tough and it detonates before any serious deformation occurs.
Dominic Wilson
Like State of Law, Al-Wataniya (National Coalition) is another old movement led by another former PM - Ayad Allawi. It positions itself as a secular movement, but is supported primarily by the Sunnis. It did about as well as in the last election, which is not very well, but that in itself can be considered a triumph due to the overall declining number of Sunni Arab voters. The decline mostly hit the other Sunni movements such Nujaifi’s party, leaving Wataniya once again as the number 1 Sunni list.
You mean to suggest that anything ever changes in Russia after national elections? :D
Iraq at this point is much more democratic than Russia, which in itself is a bizarre fact to reflect upon. And if nothing really changes in Iraq after elections, it would be weird if something happened in Russia instead.
#SAA #SRG Officer who is in command of one of the Fronts : - #ISIS #Daesh to #Sukhnah - Tomorrow morning starts the clearing of the full front and the start of its handing over to the local authorities
Jihadist group bizarrely claims responsibility for explosions at Hama Airport (photos)
BEIRUT, LEBANON (9:25 P.M.) – A jihadist group issued a statement on Saturday that claimed responsibility for the explosions that took place inside the Hama Military Airport yesterday.
The jihadist group, Saraya Al-Jihad, stated that their fighters went behind enemy lines, Friday, and planted several bombs in the western part of the Hama Military Airport.
Saraya Al-Jihad’s fighters then evaded the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) troops in the area and returned to their lines, where they detonated their explosives at the Hama Military Airport.
The group published photos from the base, but no proof they were behind the explosions.
Despite these claims, the Syrian military maintains the explosions were a result of a technical issue inside the airport.
Hakim is a very old politician but his movement called Hikmah is “new”. Like Sadr, he is yet another Shia cleric who saw where the wind was blowing and decided that the right way forward is to “secularize” his agenda. Like Sadr, he largely failed in broadening his appeal to other sects, assuming that it was ever the goal in the first place.
Hakim used to be the head of an organization named none other than the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), which advocated the Khmomeinization of Iraq along Iranian model. Since that proved a tough sell, he refashioned himself as another “secular nationalist” and quit the SCIRI, taking the overwhelming majority of the organization’s assets and supporters with him. Of course, Iran can’t be too happy about the fact that the biggest Khomeinist movement in Iraq had collapsed, but at the same time, I think Iranian leaders are reasonable enough to know that Khomeinism is not really applicable to Iraq at this point in time so trying to promote it is a waste of time and resources. Maybe one day, but not today.
It is said that what remained of SCIRI ran as part of Fath instead.
#Syria #Damascus Syrian Armed Forces Soldier & Media Hero Waseem Issa has posted his first post & photo since being Injured During Heavy Battles Against #ISIS #Daesh #ISIL in #YarmoukCamp #hajar_alaswad #Tadamoun
#Syria #Aleppo Heavy clashes with various types of weapons between the Syrian Army and militants on Zahraa axis in northern Aleppo.
Ian Young
Muttahidoon is another established and explicitly-Sunni bloc led directly by the top Iraqi Sunni oligarchy represented by Khamis al-Khanjar and Osama al-Nujayfi, who happens to be Iraq’s former Speaker of Parliament. The political position of the bloc is generally aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood and of course that affiliation comes with certain preferences, for example it is said that the movement receives some support from Turkey and Qatar, but as always, that’s just a preference – Iraq’s geopolitical reality dictates its actual foreign policy, and the Sunni leaders are all too aware of that fact. For example, here’s verbatim what a representative of the Iraqi Islamic Party, one of the chief components of Muttahidoon, had to say about Iran: “Iran can become our best and closest partner in Iraq. We welcome Iranian advisors in Sunni areas to help rebuild them. We face 2 challenges - expelling militants and the US occupation.” Yep, those are the words of a representative of the Muslim Brotherhood in Iraq, no less. So yeah, there’s that. In this election, the movement did lose a whole bunch of seats, though some of it just has to do with an overall reduction in Sunni votes. But there were also defectors. I don’t know the exact story, but a bunch of parties seemingly splintered from Muttahidoon to create regional movements such as “Anbar is our identity” or “Saladin is our identity” etc.
#Syria #Aleppo Doshka machine guns and artillery are firing on militants positions in Al-Zahraa now after they bombed Al-Nile street neighborhood at the beginning of the sunset calls of prayer with 4 mortars.
Christian Brooks
>Jihadi complains about "artillery SHILLING" >tags the UN SM Libya, Human Rights Watch....and the EU LOLOLOLOLOL Weaponized shilling lads
Reported 5 MINUTES AGO : Al Hajar Al Aswad The busses are here and #ISIS #Daesh will get evacuated in two batches Tomorrow combing will begin at Dawn (Only says Hajar al Aswad nothing else)
Here's a composite map of those regional "our Identity" movements which ran exclusively in a specific province and seemingly promoted regional identity.
I really don't know much about these movements other than they are probably all Sunni and according to wikipedia they emerged as splinters from Muttahidoon. I don't know if they cooperate with each other in any way, but they are listed separately.
The most successful of them by far is the "Anbar is our Identity" list which is headed by the current governor of the Anbar, Mohammed Rikan. It won the plurality of seats in Anbar province, surpassing Wataniya and Muttahidoo taken together.
This is one of the examples of the extreme political fragmentation which characterized this election, with every other politician seemingly running his own pocket movement. Aside from the major movements already listed, there's like 15 smaller parties gaining anywhere from 1 to 5 seats.
Another way to look at these regional "identity" movements is as a result of the collapse of the overall Sunni Arab identity in the aftermath of the defeat of ISIS. Many people now presumably have a bad feeling about anything that resembles Sunni identity politics and in the absence of that they revert to more regional and clannish identities instead.
You’re using an Islamic flag so I figured you’d love these threads
Jace Perry
Syria is growing stronger every day, and Israel is half a step away from being internationally condemned as a rouge state. Before this is through you will beg Assad to only take the Golan.
