Al-Qaeda fighters kill Syrian rebel leaders

[alp227]

Source: Al Jazeera

Fighters linked to al-Qaeda have killed two rebel leaders in bombings in Syria, in an apparent shift of tactics to target the command structures of their rivals.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that Adnan Bakour, the leader of Liwa al-Tawhid, was among 26 people killed in a double suicide bombing late on Saturday in Aleppo.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which has links with al-Qaeda, said it carried out the attack on Tawhid, a brigade aligned to the Islamic Front coalition, a group fighing the ISIL in Aleppo and beyond.

In another attack late on Saturday in Hama, the leader of the powerful Suqour al-Sham group, Abu Hussein al-Dik, was killed by the ISIL, according to sources spoken to by Al Jazeera.

Read more: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/02/al-qaeda-fighters-kill-syrian-rebel-leader-2014229511898140.html

[Bigmack]

1. Would it be perhaps possible...

... to encourage the whackjobs over there to settle these things amongst themselves?

Send note.... "Do you know what they said about your mom.?" "They think you're a wimp." "Don't let 'em get away with that!"

"Let's you and him fight."

We could solve a lot of problems without the use of our troops by encouraging them to take each other off the board.

[daleo]

2. Encouraging more war just leads to more war

Then western troops get to interfere in even worse quagmires.

[Bigmack]

3. I know... I know....I was just dreaming of assholes killing assholes. nt

[penultimate]

5. Unfortunately there are lots non-asshole regular people who get caught up in the middle of it

even if they aren't directly killed/injured, their lives are ruined because of the fighting. It sucks because even though Assad may be a dick, these Al-Qaeda types are way worse, and I doubt any non-asshole secular-ish resistance would be able to keep those types at bay if Assad ever falls. I wonder if there will ever be a solution to this violence there. Even if the US and other western countries were totally hands off, it would still be a fucked up situation....

[pampango]

4. In other Syria news: Syrian barrel bombs kill at least 36 in Aleppo, including 17 children

Syrian government helicopters and warplanes unleashed a wave of airstrikes on more than a dozen opposition-held neighborhoods in the northern city of Aleppo on Sunday, firing missiles and dropping crude barrel bombs in a ferocious attack that killed at least 36 people, including 17 children, activists said.

But during the past two months, President Bashar Assad's air force has ramped up its aerial campaign on rebel-held areas of Aleppo, pounding them with barrel bombs — containers packed with explosives, fuel and scraps of metal — that cause widespread damage on impact.

The Observatory put the day's death toll in the air raids at 36, including 17 children. Marea said that more than 50 people were killed in the airstrikes, although he did not have an exact count.

An amateur video posted online showed a helicopter circling in the blue sky, and then a barrel plummeting from the aircraft until it slams into buildings on the horizon, sending a pillar of smoke and dust into the air. The video appeared genuine and corresponded to other Associated Press reporting of the events.

http://triblive.com/usworld/world/5523925-74/aleppo-barrel-bombs#axzz2sDQPvxd6

[Igel]

6. Yeah, that's an unintended consequence.

We say "no blockades or seiges." We call immediately for sending food in--under the rather naive belief that any food we send to help women and children non-combatants will be reserved entirely for them as fighters with guns and knives starve to death. We also have this funny believe that in a corrupt state only food would be trucked in--no ammo in the bags of flour, no guns or explosives mixed in the crates of meat. Right.

What's left? Ground assaults. But nobody's going to do that these days without trying to kill as many enemy as possible. Granted, many think that just because we want to all of Assad's troops will go in and fight Islamists until there's only one soldier standing--then, regardless of which side he's on, the "good guys" (whoever those are) can come in in force and arrest him for trial. That's not going to happen.


Then we say that we don't want any munitions sent in to help Assad--just the "good guys" du jour. Then complain that the conflict keeps on going--we don't provide enough to make a decisive win for either side, which is forever foolish. Since it keeps on going that means Assad's likely to continue to fight--and if there's the choice between letting Assad have munitions that can be aimed with some sort of precision and munitions that are big, crude, and sloppy, we decide for him. Gotta be the crude ones. And then we complain that he's using crude munitions, because he didn't do as expected.


We really just want everybody to do what we want. It's irritating that they don't. And as with so many things, when you try to force somebody to do something their response may not be what you intended.