Paphitis:
look, there is NOTHING the Russians can do and Pootin knows this very well. he knows that the rebels can't be defeated in Aleppo. they are all crawling underground and they have the support of local Sunnis.
You forget (
conveniently) that these terrorists have massive support from the US coalition (supplying known terrorists is a crime). In the last few days these terrorists have killed many Syrians in Western Aleppo, using the 40-50 tonnes of arms supplied by the US. The terrorists are coming from the west side of government held Aleppo, not from the Eastern Aleppo.
Now I do realise that you will not have been aware of this as it has not been a headline in the Press, but it has been condemned by the UN. The gains the terrorists made initially have now been mainly retaken by government forces and the terrorists have lost hundreds of fighters and virtually all the armour and rocket launchers they had.
Today Assad/Russia are observing another cessation of hostilities, a humanitarian break to allow both terrorists and civilians to leave Easter Aleppo. I think you will then find that Government forces and their allies will, with assistance from the Syrian and Russian air forces, enter eastern Aleppo in force and exterminate what terrorists there are left.
Russia had more than 12 months to deal with it and failed and still the Syrians are too scared to enter East Aleppo and the Rebels have even taken territory lately.
It has taken them a long time for two reasons. a) a conscious effort to avoid as many civilian casualties as possible and b) because the terrorists have been resupplied with weapons by the US, every time a cease fire is put in place by Assad/Russia. The latest resupply a couple of weeks ago included TOW and MANPADS which are US made and supplied via Saudi Arabia.
And the clock is ticking. My advice to pootin is to get out while he can, to avoid further embarrassment. If he goes to the negotiating table, he can get what he wants (Syria) but we get what we want (assad).
In case you missed the news; Russia has just boosted its presence in the Eastern Med with their only air craft carrier and several support vessels. It would be pointless to do this if they were about to pull out .... be realistic! Russia may well accept some compromises as the US already have, but Assad will remain because there is no other alternative that the Syrian people will accept. He may not be a Mother Teresa figure but the Syrian people recognise he is a hell of a lot more preferable than the head chopping terrorists the US coalition supports and is trying to impose on the Syrian people. They wish to impose Sharia Law in what is a secular society.
otherwise, we are still gonna be talking about Aleppo long after Mosul is liberated which I believe will be much quicker than most people think.
Mosul has just started ..... Aleppo is just about to end and in a victory for Presidents Assad and Putin. In Mosul all you have achieved so far is to flatten many villages and probe into the outskirts of the city ..... in tanks, armoured cars, Humvees and APC’s with coalition air support in abundance.
The BBC are showing their correspondent daily ......... mostly filmed from a distance and from inside an armoured vehicle. The only time he got out .... he got shot at!
As for how long it will take for the Iraqi Army to retake Mosul ......... you obviously have access to information the Iraqi Army and their allies don’t have ..... they believe it will be many months before they could declare it ‘
free’.
Some reality for you .....
A common sense interview with President Assad given to a Serbian Newspaper.......
An interview completely lacking in common sense ......... SKY with former NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen
