Syria Superthread [merged]

[George Wallace]

Not to downplay the threat, but I thought I read elsewhere that all flyable aircraft departed before the air base was seized. Judging by the photos of the remaining aircraft, I'm not too sure we have to worry about them getting airborne anytime soon.

>

It would be interesting if they did try to fly those aircraft and sped up their 'trip to meet Allah'.

 

[CougarKing]

WHAT? We've seen this "movie" before. He's gonna ask Congress again like he did over Syria last year...to hide his indecisiveness...

Defense News

Obama Feels Pressure to Get Congressional OK Before Ordering Strikes Inside Syria
Aug. 27, 2014 - 03:51PM  |  By JOHN T. BENNETT

WASHINGTON — Pressure from the opposite end of Pennsylvania Avenue is mounting on President Barack Obama to seek congressional approval before launching military strikes inside Syria.

White House and Pentagon officials reportedly are mulling how and what the US military could hit in Syria to weaken the Islamic State, a violent extremist group that has seized much of northern Iraq and slaughtered minorities.

The debate around striking on Syrian soil comes almost exactly one year after lawmakers returned early from an August recess to craft a use-of-force resolution aimed at helping rebel forces there in a years-long fight against President Bashar al-Assad’s forces.

That late-summer 2014 debate became a brouhaha over whether Obama should even green-light strikes.

A year later, however, and the debate is mostly about whether Obama should first get Congress to sign off on any plans to hit Islamic State targets in Syria — not whether he should order air strikes.

(...EDITED)

 

[Colin Parkinson]

ISIS captured 40 filipona Peacekeepers, considering the anti-Muslim campaign ongoing down there, they may be used as hostages to force release of Muslim leaders down there.

 

[CougarKing]

ISIS captured 40 filipona Peacekeepers, considering the anti-Muslim campaign ongoing down there, they may be used as hostages to force release of Muslim leaders down there.

From what I read on other sources, it was 43 UN peacekeepers from Fiji that were kidnapped, while the other 83 UN peacekeepers from the Philippines are reportedly trapped but holding their ground in the Golan Heights.

GMA News (Philippines news site)

81 PHL troops trapped, 43 UN peacekeepers seized in Golan Heights
August 29, 2014 12:20am

UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations said that an armed group captured 43 UN peacekeepers on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights on Thursday and that an additional 81 Filipino troops were trapped.

The 43 detained peacekeepers were from Fiji and while the 81 others were from the Philippine contingent, a diplomatic source told AFP.

Syrian rebels, including fighters from the Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra front, stormed the crossing at Quneitra on Wednesday, sparking an exchange of gunfire with Israeli troops.

"Forty-three peacekeepers from the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) were detained early this morning by an armed group in the vicinity of Quneitra," a UN statement said.

An additional 81 peacekeepers were "currently being restricted to their positions in the vicinity of Ar Ruwayhinah and Burayqah," it added.

UN officials noted that the peacekeepers monitoring the armistice line between Israel and Syria were detained twice last year and released safely.

(...EDITED)

 

[Transporter]

ISIS captured 40 filipona Peacekeepers, considering the anti-Muslim campaign ongoing down there, they may be used as hostages to force release of Muslim leaders down there.

I don't think they're ISIS forces, but another anti-Assad group, or groups, in the region. ISIS on the Israeli border would be a very, very bad thing.

 

[CougarKing]

No air strikes against ISIL in Syria...for now.

Military.com

Obama Says No Airstrikes Against ISIL in Syria

Aug 28, 2014 | by Richard Sisk
President Obama said Thursday that he has yet to develop a strategy for combating the threat from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant that could include expanding the current air campaign into Syria.

"We don't have a strategy yet on a response to ISIS," Obama said, using another acronym for ISIL. Obama said he had directed Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to give him a set of options, but there were no immediate plans to go beyond the current "limited" air campaign in Iraq.

For weeks, Republican critics led by Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, have called for an expanded air campaign and charged that Obama lacked a strategy for confronting ISIL.

(...EDITED)

 

[CougarKing]

The standoff on the Golan Heights continues:

Israel owes its very existence to the Philippines, because in 1948 during the UN partition of Israel, the Philippines was the one deciding vote that allowed it to happen. It was nearly a tie back then with all the western nations/US allies voting for it and the Arab nations against it etc.

At the very least, the IDF should come to the rescue of those Filipino peacekeepers.

Anyways, here's some updates and a pic from facebook:

 

[CougarKing]

Syrian rebels and UN peacekeepers at another outpost in the Golan Heights were just engaged in a firefight.

Aug 30, 2014
Syrian rebels attack UN peacekeepers in Golan

[aljazeera]

Philippine peacekeepers at one UN encampment were attacked, but those at another were "extricated," Defence Secretary Voltaire Gazmin told reporters in a series of text messages, adding that the attack started early on Saturday Syrian time.

Philippine military spokesman Ramon Zagala told reporters, "there is an ongoing firefight, but all Filipinos are safe."

There were 40 Filipino troops in the encampment that came under attack, and 35 in the second, according to the Philippine military.

The Syrian rebels seized 44 Fijian peacekeepers on Thursday.

The rebels then demanded that the 75 Filipinos manning two separate UN encampments 4 km apart surrender their weapons, but they refused.

A further 35 Philippines troops were at another site, known as camp 69, about 4 km (2.5 km) away but were not engaged in the firefight.

The troops are part of UNDOF, a U.N. force that has monitored the disengagement zone between Israel and Syria since 1974 in the wake of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.

source: reuters

 

[CougarKing]

The besieged peacekeepers were rescued:

Haaretz

Nearly three dozen UN peacekeepers from the Philippines who had been surrounded for days by Islamist militants on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights were rescued during a firefight on Saturday, UN officials said.

"They were safely extracted, nearly three dozen of them," a UN official told Reuters on condition of anonymity. Other UN officials confirmed it. Officials in the Philippines have said all 72 of the trapped Filipino peacekeepers were safe.

The UN officials said the other Philippine peacekeepers remained trapped by the militants, who have been battling the Syrian army on the Golan Heights. Another 44 Fijian peacekeepers have been detained by militants nearby since Thursday.

(...EDITED)

 

[tomahawk6]

Great response from the Irish battalion to extricate the PI troops.It must have been the bagpipes that enabled a successful operation without a shot being fired. ;D

 

[CougarKing]

The Indian UN commander of the UNDOF forces in the Golan Heights wasn't thinking when he ordered those Filipino peacekeepers to surrender. Fortunately they didn't listen.

PH peacekeepers ignored UN commander's order to yield

September 1, 2014

Armed Forces Chief of Staff General Gregorio Pio Catapang on Monday revealed - and called for an investigation of the matter - the order from the commander of the United Nations Disengagement Force for the Filipino peacekeepers to surrender if attacked by the Syrian rebels. The surrender order for Filipinos was apparently meant to spare the lives of UN Fijian peacekeepers, who earlier surrendered to the Syrians but were taken hostage. They remain missing until now.

However, the UN Filipino peacekeepers’ commanders on Positions 68 and 69 stood their ground and silently invoked their right to defend themselves rather than be taken hostage and remain unaccounted for for an indefinite period.

“The order of the UNDOF commander kept changing. First of all, there's nothing in the terms of reference that says we can be ordered to surrender our firearms. It's because the UNDOF commander wanted to save the Fijians at the expense of the Philippines. It's not our fault that they were taken hostage," Catapang said.  He said he stressed to the UNDOF commander that it made more sense for him to "save first the Filipinos and then we will help the Fijians later."

He did not name the UNDOF commander, who was described as from the Indian military. Military officials later named him as Major General Iqbal Sing Singha.

Interaksyon (Philippines news site)

 

[tomahawk6]

The UNDOF commander needs to be removed from command and sent packing.
I have the utmost respect for the Filipino commanders and their troops.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Basically offering up the PI troops to try to get a deal on the Fijians, good luck with that. Considering the Philippines is fighting a Muslim insurgency, I can imagine what the ISIS/AQ might do to them or demand for their release.

 

[tomahawk6]

The Fijians are going to be held for ransom IMO.

 

[CougarKing]

Speaking of which...

The nerve of those Syrian rebels to ask "compensation" for 3 of their number killed in the shootout with Filipino and Irish peacekeepers earlier.  :

Military.com

Syrian Rebels Issue Demands for Captive UN Troops

Associated Press | Sep 02, 2014

BEIRUT — Al-Qaida-linked Syrian rebels holding 45 Fijian peacekeepers hostage have issued a set of demands for their release, including the extremist group's removal from a U.N. terrorist list and compensation for the killing of three of its fighters in a shootout with international troops, an official said Tuesday.

The Nusra Front seized the Fijians on Thursday in the Golan Heights, where a 1,200-strong U.N. force monitors the buffer zone between Syria and Israel. The rebels also surrounded two Filipino units, but those U.N. troops escaped over the weekend.

Speaking in the Fijian capital of Suva, military commander Brig. Gen. Mosese Tikoitoga said the Nusra Front has made three demands for the peacekeepers' release: to be taken off the U.N. terrorist list; the delivery of humanitarian aid to parts of the Syrian capital of Damascus; and payment for three of its fighters it says were killed in a shootout with U.N. officers.

(...EDITED)

 

[Colin Parkinson]

So can the UN legally mount a military mission to rescue it's soldiers? I suspect it would take a UNSC resolution to do so? If this goes on, it will seriously reduce the number of countries with professional or semi-professional militaries from offering up anymore troops. At the very least I suspect ROE, combat loads and in theater heavy weapons will increase.

 

[CougarKing]

At least one account of the battle states that UN forces were able to call on Assad forces for artillery support during the firefight when the Filipino peacekeepers escaped the encirclement by the Syrian rebels.

Reuters India

(...EDITED)

Late on Saturday, U.N. diplomatic sources said militants had reinforced their siege of the 40 peacekeepers trapped at Position 68.

Colonel Roberto Ancan, head of the Philippine military’s peacekeeping operations centre, said Syrian government forces fired artillery at the rebels, weakening their positions surrounding the peacekeepers. None of the peacekeepers were wounded, he said.

(...END EXCERPT)

 

[CougarKing]

A terrorist Kangaroo court will try the Fijian UN peacekeepers still being held hostage by the Al Nusra rebel group. 

Israel National News

From Israel National News
AL QAEDA REBELS TO TRY UN PEACEKEEPERS UNDER 'DIVINE LAW'
by Ari Yashar

The 45 UN peacekeepers from Fiji who were abducted by Al Qaeda-linked Al-Nusra Front rebel forces on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights last Wednesday are to "stand trial" under sharia (Islamic law), according to a Britain-based monitoring group.

Rami Abdul Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said that the commander of Al-Nusra Front has declared that the 45 peacekeepers will be tried under "divine law," according to Asharq Al-Aswat as cited by Yedioth Aharonoth.

It was revealed on Monday that the rebels issued three demands for the release of the peacekeepers: to be taken off the UN terrorist list, delivery of humanitarian aid to parts of the Syrian capital Damascus, and compensation for three of its fighters it says were killed in a shootout with UN officers.

In response, the 15 members of the UN Security Council on Wednesday demanded the "immediate and unconditional release" of the Fijians, denouncing their abduction "in the strongest terms."

The statement added that "there can never be any justification for attacks on or the detention of UN peacekeepers." Fiji has issued a similar statement calling for the release of its soldiers.

In addition to the 45 Fijian troops, 72 Filipino troops were surrounded by the rebel forces; however, the two units of soldiers from the Philippines managed to escaped over the weekend into Israel.

The Fijians and Filipinos are part of the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) established in 1974 to maintain the ceasefire between Syria and Israel forces in the Golan, and oversee the implementation of a disengagement agreement.

The Israeli-Syrian border has been growing increasingly tense, as fighting between Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces and rebel forces has occasionally spilled over.

Just on Thursday afternoon the IDF returned fire on a Syrian army position after a mortar shell struck Israeli territory. Several mortar shells have hit Israeli territory in recent weeks, and the IDF shot down a Syrian drone last week after it strayed into Israeli airspace.

(...EDITED)

 

[CougarKing]

A photo of the Fijian peacekeepers currently being held hostage by the Syrian Al Nusra rebel group:

From: http://www.timesofisrael.com/al-nusra-front-threatens-to-try-un-fijian-peacekeepers/#ixzz3CTmYas6D

Undated image, attached in a statement released on August 30, 2014, on the Hanin Network website, a militant website, shows Fijian UN peacekeepers who were seized by the Nusra Front on August 28, 2014, in the Golan Heights buffer zone between Syria and Israel. (photo credit: AP/Hanin Network Website, File)

 

[Jungle]

A terrorist Kangaroo court will try the Fijian UN peacekeepers still being held hostage by the Al Nusra rebel group. 

The UN, as the self-licking ice-cream cone that it is, can strongly condemn, reaffirm, urge and request all it wants, it has neither the will nor the means to do anything about this situation. It is, as we speak, holding emergency meetings consisting of endless blah-blah, to be followed by cocktails and photo ops.

I wish a quick and peaceful resolution to the Fiji Soldiers involved.