READER COMMENTS: "February battle lines in Syria"

Posted by blert at March 4, 2013 2:35 PM ET:

http://ap.stripes.com/dynamic/stories/M/ML_SYRIA?SITE=DCSAS&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-03-04-05-05-04

^^^^Ar Raqqa is now asserted to be in rebel control.

Assad now only has a few hold-out bastions in the east and north.

======

While the SAA has blasted through to relieve their surrounded buddies in Aleppo...

'Fortress Aleppo' would appear to be hopeless for Assad.

Ever more ManPADS are in the hands of the rebels. Consequently, helicopters are being shot down; with their flaming ends being uploaded to the Internet.

Without helicopters, it's impossible to suppress anti-logistical attacks/ IED emplacements.

This is not a war of tanks -- it's a war of trucks, supply trucks.

Posted by blert at March 7, 2013 4:19 AM ET:

We're now reading reports that Assad's crew has so abandoned the Golan that UN observers there have been captured by the rebels...

Rebels who are demanding that Assad be pressured out of southern Syria -- by the West -- as they claim the UN observers as a 'bargaining chip.'

While that 'dog won't hunt' -- it's plain that Assad is now praying that somehow Israel will be drawn into his stew.

======

What everyone wants to know is where Assad is going to find helicopter pilots. Based upon rebel uploads, such pilots are a 'forlorn hope.'

Lacking smart bombs, Assad's air force can hardly be expected to do much better than area bombing. That infuriates the civilians -- but rarely hits the rebels where it hurts.

Other than his very best tanks, everything Assad has is vulnerable to RPGs. If Afghanistan is any guide, such ordnance is coming in by the ton.