The Syria story: 2019
POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Wednesday, March 4, 2026 13:32
VIEWED: 8927
PAGE 6 of 8
It looks like Syrian, Russian, and Iranian troops are gearing up for another fight with the US
After a massive battle that saw up to 300 pro-government fighters killed at the hands of the US and its local allies, the Syrian Democratic Forces, it looks like Syrian President Bashar Assad's military will mount another offensive.
Pro-Assad Al Masdar reported on Monday that Syria's 5th Legion and several units from Hezbollah are preparing an attack on ISIS near Deir Ezzor, in the country's west. Al Masdar seemed to confirm that the Syrian troops planned to encounter US-backed forces in a subsequent story on Wednesday.
But Syria's own state-run media said in November that Deir Ezzor had been liberated from ISIS. Western assessments of Syria no longer say the terror group holds territory there.
Instead, the US and the SDF hold much of western Syria, where the Syrian Army and its Lebanese and Iranian backers will head. Al Masdar announced the offensive would begin in three weeks and move under the cover of Russian airstrikes and with Iranians, who are thought to have 70,000 fighters in Syria.
Those fighters may well meet the 2,000 or so US troops in Syria, but despite the numerical advantage, pro-regime forces have fared poorly against the US.
In a battle between pro-government forces and US-backed forces on February 7, 500 Syrian-aligned soldiers launched an attack on a well-known headquarters of the SDF with 122mm howitzers, Russian-made tanks, and multiple launch rocket systems. According to the Pentagon, they only wounded one SDF fighter.
The US-led coalition responded with "AC-130 gunships, F-15s, F-22s, Army Apache helicopter gunships and Marine Corps artillery," according to Fox News reporter Lucas Tomlinson. CNN also reported that rocket launchers and MQ-9 drones were used in the attack.
The Pentagon said it had killed 100 pro-regime fighters, but a later report from Bloomberg indicated that as many as 300 Russian military contractors had been killed in the fighting.
Days later, the Pentagon told Business Insider that a US drone destroyed a Russian-made T-72 battle tank firing towards the SDF and its coalition partners.
Oops
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Macron: 'France will strike' Syria if it's proven the Assad regime used chemical weapons
http://www.businessinsider.com/macron-france-will-strike-syria-if-prov
en-assad-used-chemical-weapons-2018-2
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Widow Of Russian Mercenary Killed In Syria: 'They Were Thrown Into Battle Like Pigs
Yelena Matveyeva was eagerly awaiting what she hoped would be her husband's return to Russia from Syria, where he had been allegedly fighting for months as a mercenary alongside forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Spirits buoyed that he could be home in weeks, she decided to buy a new dress. While in a store in Asbest, their hometown in Russia's Sverdlovsk region, east of Moscow, she got a call from a friend.
Matveyeva said her friend asked her if she had heard anything from her husband or Igor Kosoturov, another military contractor from Asbest. "I said, 'I haven't been able to call him for three days,'" Matveyeva recounts. "Literally, in a minute he calls me back and says, 'Stasa [her husband Stanislav] and Igor are dead.'"
Both are suspected of having been killed when the U.S.-led coalition targeted pro-Syrian government forces with air and artillery strikes in Syria's Deir al-Zor Province on February 7.
There are conflicting reports on the number killed, with as many as 200 cited by Bloomberg, the first agency to break the story.
What seemed clearer was that many of the fatalities were Russians, not officially in the service of the Russian armed forces, but working as military contractors.
Russian officials either refused to confirm or flatly rejected that any Russians were killed in the February 7 strikes. A Russian Foreign Ministry source said on February 14 that such reports were nothing more than "classic disinformation.
But many are skeptical -- to say the least -- of such official denials, least of all Matveyeva and other wives and relatives of Russian contract soldiers who may have been killed in Deir al-Zor.
According to Matveyeva, at least 30 others from Sverdlovsk fought alongside her husband in Syria, including nine from Asbest.
The Russian business daily Kommersant reports that 600 Russians had been contracted by the St. Petersburg-based PWC Vagner paramilitary group to fight inside Syria.
https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-syria-mercenaries-killed-widow-says-thr
own-into-battle-like-pigs/29039898.html
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US forces reportedly killed more than 100 Russian mercenaries inside Syria
https://www.vox.com/world/2018/2/13/17008446/us-troops-syria-russia-me
rcenaries-killed
Dozens of Russians Are Believed Killed in U.S.-Backed Syria Attack
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/13/world/europe/russia-syria-dead.html
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I was listening to a news report on TV I never listen to - one of those international news shows in English, with many accents. I think Christiane Amanpour was one of the newscasters/ hosts. And they brought on an Israeli investigative reporter and asked him about what was going on.
When it comes to Israel, his report was that Israel was acting out of the mindset 'if someone comes to kill you, you should rise up and kill him first'. But that Israel had planned a much more extensive mission. Only Netanyahu called Putin, and Putin told him to stand down. So Netanyahu did.
Also, I'd lost track of this, but Israeli police have opined there's enough corruption evidence against Netanyahu to bring charges. So Netanyahu seems like he's on a deadline.
HAS IT NOT OCCURRED TO YOU BY NOW THAT IF YOU HAVE TO RESORT TO LOGICAL FALLACIES AND TROLLING YOUR SO-CALLED ARGUMENTS ARE LIES?
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Quote:
Originally posted by THGRRI:
US forces reportedly killed more than 100 Russian mercenaries inside Syria
https://www.vox.com/world/2018/2/13/17008446/us-troops-syria-russia-me
rcenaries-killed
Dozens of Russians Are Believed Killed in U.S.-Backed Syria Attack
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/13/world/europe/russia-syria-dead.html
I can't imagine what it's like to be a reporter in that part of the world.
Thanks for posting this and the mercenary story above, T. I would like to know how these mercenaries get paid - when we get down to the individual, personal level, we tend to learn many things.
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Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
I was listening to a news report on TV I never listen to - one of those international news shows in English, with many accents. I think Christiane Amanpour was one of the newscasters/ hosts. And they brought on an Israeli investigative reporter and asked him about what was going on.
When it comes to Israel, his report was that Israel was acting out of the mindset 'if someone comes to kill you, you should rise up and kill him first'. But that Israel had planned a much more extensive mission. Only Netanyahu called Putin, and Putin told him to stand down. So Netanyahu did.
Also, I'd lost track of this, but Israeli police have opined there's enough corruption evidence against Netanyahu to bring charges. So Netanyahu seems like he's on a deadline.
Dribble, no cites. Someone said something to someone else and it would have been worse but Putin told the Israel leader to make the mission smaller??????Dribble
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Here's some speculation. With Iran pushing up against five of it's neighbors in the Middle East, are they ensuring better cooperation between the Sunni states and Israel? Could that lead to a peace deal?
If Israel and the Sunni states become ally's against Iran, Syria as far as Russia is concerned will become a lost cause. And what happens to Hezbollah at that point?
What will Turkey do?
Sig if you respond I can assure you I won't read it. Even when you post from an honest source, you can not be trusted not to add words that spin a truth into fiction. Besides, I don't care for a dishonest Russian opinion. Truth is always welcome but Putin's propaganda I can do without.
T
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Putin’s Pocket Army? The Rise of Russian Mercenaries in Syria
It is carrying out offensive, military operations, just like a regular military unit would. While due to their relatively small size PMCs are incapable of engaging large-scale, combined arms operations, they carry out many of the tactics and strategies akin to special operations forces.
Up until recently this kind of mercenary activity has not been an issue, at least since the now-defunct South African-based Executive Outcomes successfully fought Jonas Savimbi’s UNITA forces in Angola and forced the murderous Revolutionary United Front rebels in Sierra Leone to the negotiating table in 1995. The global PMC also worked for several multinational corporations, including De Beers, Chevron and Texaco, before it disbanded in 1998.
But since the U.S. let the genie out of the bottle with its unprecedented use of private contractors in its Iraq and Afghanistan wars, Russia has taken it to the next level and has been using Russian PMCs—off the books—to conduct serious combat missions both in the Donbass region of Ukraine and in Syria.
In both countries, the PMC de jour, Russia’s Blackwater on steroids as it were, is something called Wagner. That Wagner is an active operator is beyond dispute. In August 2017, the Saint Petersburg, Russia, publication, Fontanka, which has been reporting on Wagner since 2013, published photographs from the company’s “recruiting center,” along with the personnel records of several dozen mercenaries filed during hiring procedures.
An interview with Fontanka’s reporter, Denis Korotkov, helps explain why Wagner is qualitatively different from the PSCs we’re accustomed to hearing about in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Can private military companies be involved in military operations? Certainly. They can guard bases and communications lines, and protect key human assets in zones of active operations. However! When a private company is armed with tanks, 122-mm artillery, and armored infantry vehicles, and it’s carrying out attack missions or performing tasks better suited to the special forces, that, in my view, isn’t okay.
The history of Wagner is intriguing. According to an interview with Vasyl Hrytsak, of the SBU, Ukraine’s Security Service:
Wagner’s group’ was created in late May 2014. Wagner is former citizen [of Ukraine – ed.], born in the Kirovohrad region. Back then his group comprised 10 people… “By late August 2014 they were 300 people. In 2015, 1,350 men of Wagner were sent to Syria. Subsequently, the group grew, and more than 1,000 mercenaries were sent to Syria. They were taken back after three months. In early 2016, they were sent to Syria again…Wagner’s PMC comprises highly professional former Spetsnaz representatives who will be used primarily by the Russian military leadership in situations where they will not be able to officially use the army. At first, 10 people ran in. Now, according to our data, there are about 5,000 of them…
They’ve created a powerful pocket army operating tanks, armored personnel carriers, BM-21 Grads, and heavy artillery. What does it look like? It looks like a private army of Putin. If the situation destabilizes, God forbid, in Belarus or Baltics states or Moldova, the first to go there wearing civilian clothing will be the representatives of Wagner PMC.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/putins-pocket-army-the
-rise-of-russian-mercenaries-in-syria/
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Russian toll in Syria battle was 300 killed and wounded:
About 300 men working for a Kremlin-linked Russian private military firm were either killed or injured in Syria last week, according to three sources familiar with the matter.
A Russian military doctor said around 100 had been killed, and a source who knows several of the fighters said the death toll was in excess of 80 men.
The timing of the casualties coincided with a battle on Feb. 7 near the Syrian city of Deir al-Zor where, according to U.S. officials and associates of the fighters involved, U.S.-led coalition forces attacked forces aligned with Moscow’s ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The military doctor, who works in a Moscow military hospital and was directly involved in the treatment of wounded men evacuated from Syria, said that as of Saturday evening there were more than 50 such patients in his hospital, of which around 30 percent were seriously wounded.
The doctor, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not allowed to disclose information about casualties, said at least three planeloads of injured fighters were flown to Moscow between last Friday and Monday morning.
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