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ITV UK is one of the few Western media outlets that's reporting openly on Aleppo. Some of the rebels refuse to observe the temporary ceasefire. Their snipers continue to try to prevent the other groups of fighters and civilians from leaving E. Aleppo.
“The American-led international order that has been prevalent since World War II is now under threat,” said Martin Indyk, who oversees a team of top former officials from the administrations of Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton assembled by the Brookings Institution. “The question is how to restore and renovate it.” The Brookings report — a year in the making — is due out in December.
The proposed military measures include calls for safe zones
to protect moderate rebels from *Syrian and Russian forces. Most of the studies propose limited American airstrikes with cruise missiles to punish Assad if he continues to attack civilians with barrel bombs, as is happening in besieged Aleppo. Obama has staunchly resisted any military action against the Assad regime.
...
“You can’t pretend you can go to war against Assad and not go to war against the Russians,” said a senior administration official who is involved in Middle East policy and was granted anonymity to discuss internal White House deliberations.
The disagreement over Syria policy reflects a broader rift between the Obama White House and the foreign policy establishment over how best to wield American power in a chaotic and dangerous world. The tension has been building for years, but it has spilled over publicly in the past year.
Obama has repeatedly blasted a Washington “playbook” that he complains defaults too quickly to U.S. military force, especially in the Middle East.
Foreign government forces (mainly Turks) and jihadist rebels, including Ahrar al-Sham, ZInki, Jabhat al-Shamiya, Free Idlib Army, and Fastaqm Kama Umirt, launching offensive to reopen supply lines in NW Aleppo.
20 British soldiers will deploy to Jordan and Turkey, to bolster a US mission that started in July.
They will train vetted Syrian "moderates" in infantry, medical and explosive hazard awareness skills.
But the British Government is unable to explain how the Syrians are vetted, or what constitutes a "moderate" rebel, other than to say that the recruits must have no obvious links to terror organisations.
From another article, the rebels are using truck-mounted missile launchers.
Grad rockets were launched at regime-controlled Aleppo’s Nairab air base before the assault began said Zakaria Malahifji, head of the political office of the Aleppo-based Fastaqim group, adding that it was going to be “a big battle.”
Conflicting reports on success or failure of rebel offensive which appears to be a last-ditch attempt to infiltrate mass reinforcements of 1,200 to 5,000 inside an area that's mostly surrounded by hostile forces.
Heard the head choppers allowed some people out the corridors but they had to pay huge bribes. This is such a mess. Politics ensures it will drag on for a very long time.
I've seen reports that the foreign mercenaries and advisors had left several months ago. ISIL minus the foreign mercs becomes the original Al Qaeda in Iraq insurgents who broke out of the Iraqi prisons in 2011-2013 plus the local tribal militias from the Sons of Iraq who were paid to join the uprising.
Can't get the Kurds and Turks to cooperate as proxy forces.
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