"Syrian rebel forces in Aleppo suffer 'biggest defeat " Topic

…since 2012'.

"Rebel forces in Aleppo have lost control of a key district that threatens to split the remaining opposition-held area in two, according to activists.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said pro-government forces seized the strategic Sakhour district in a wider advance that in recent days has driven rebels from a third of the areas they held.

One rebel official denied the report that Sakhour had fallen, an advance that would cut the rebel-held eastern districts of Aleppo in two, while another said the situation was not yet clear…"
Main page
link

Amicalement
Armand

Supposedly the Kurds are also involved in the assault. They must've made some kind of back door deal with Assad.

That's actually a good thing. The sooner this is over the better.

Depends upon you point of view.

I'm more than happy to see a heavy war of attrition on most forces involved in the conflict. Win-win.

I think that the sooner the war ends the better. At the moment what I am crossing fingers for is an end state where Rojava – Syrian Kurdistan – becomes a separate entity to the rest of Syria. The existing Syrian government is hardly a paragon of free'm and libberdy but it did at least not murder people for being the wrong religion… just for not liking Assad.

Bleah. What a mess.

The map in the Guardian for the 27.11.16 was a bit misleading IMO. The real situation on that day was this:

Purple being what fell during the 26-27th and the red arrows continuing attacks.

By the end of the 28th the situation had progressed even further with about 20sqkm gained in 3 days:

Currently it looks as though the Al-Nusra Front types have been pushed back even further into the southern part of the Old City.

It looks like a precipitous collapse is nearing, if not beginning.

That's actually a good thing. The sooner this is over the better.

For better or worse … this is a true statement. The US and other's need to get the concept that Assad with Putin's support will remain the dictator of Syria. Have we, the US/West not learned, that in some places in the Mid East and Africa it is not a good idea to violently remove this type of tyrant ? We see how well Iraq and Libya have worked out.

I guarantee if Saddam and Gaddafi were still in power, Deash would not be around. In 20/20 hindsight it would have been better to not have removed either of those dictators. Yes, local people would suffer, some even die. But no were near the suffering they are undergoing now. Reality again wins over idealism and poor geopolitical decisions, etc. Realpolitik in this case unfortunately is a muth'a fr …

Sadly, Allepo was one of the last places with non-jihadi/AQ/Al Nusra/Daesh types forming the core of the reisistance. They were there but so were various moderate factions that various coalitions have been trying to support for several years.
So, no, it is not a good thing other than killing of one type will end (regime/Russian bombing of hospitals etc…) and the normal regime rounding up and killing/prolonged detention of the population will begin. Indeed, it has already begun.

The moderate rebels of the Free Syrian Army had the upper hand and nearly succeeded in toppling Assad in 2012. Then two things happened which drastically changed their fortunes:

1. Intervention by Iran and her proxy Hezbollah, later supplemented by a robust Russian air campaign brought about by what happened in Libya (After the Libya fiasco, Russia did not want to see another no-fly zone enabled regime change in Syria);

2. The emergence of ISIS in 2014 and other jihadi groups considered as terrorists like the AQ-offshoot al Nusra. As these groups became the greater threat they relegated the moderate rebel factions to irrelevance and obscurity.

So, no, it is not a good thing

Like I said for better or worse …

other than killing of one type will end (regime/Russian bombing of hospitals etc…) and the normal regime rounding up and killing/prolonged detention of the population will begin.

That's the worse part …

one type will end (regime/Russian bombing of hospitals etc…)

We so often hear from the West about all these hospitals being bombed. Almost weekly. For years. In order for so many hospitals to be bombed….hospitals must have been built in the past. So if Assad is such a dastardly villain….why did he build so many hospitals to oversee the health and wellbeing of his populace?

You are also forgetting about a second type of killing that will end: terrorist shelling of regime neighborhoods with improvised "Hell Cannons". Everyone seems to overlook that jihadi backyard-built heavy mortars aren't exactly precision weapons.

Everyone seems to overlook that jihadi backyard-built heavy mortars aren't exactly precision weapons.

Pretty much everything jihadis do is that way … Just so they are killing any one other than those that believe like them …