READER COMMENTS: "Al Nusrah Front overruns Syrian Army tank position"

Posted by gb at April 4, 2013 3:55 PM ET:

Man, reservists or not these Syrians are the worst soldiers in the world. No security, no coordinated defensive perimeter, no visible weapons, and certainly no discipline ... over run by a bunch of scrubs...

Posted by Tom at April 4, 2013 6:41 PM ET:

This video is a clear evidence that the Assad's regime is collapsing...
The lonely tank platoon, without the infantry, in the remoted area, deliberetly located in the frontline zone. It's a hot target for every rebel formation!

Posted by Stephen Hughes at April 4, 2013 11:32 PM ET:

This April 2013 video is interesting in that the Syrian soldiers are not carrying any weapons , nor wearing any helmets , no one is on guard duty .. even the dead Syrian troops on the ground have no weapons .

Posted by SlayerMill at April 5, 2013 9:33 PM ET:

While there are many signs the Assad regime is falling apart, the success of this attack isn't necessarily one of them. Guerilla warfare 101 is attacking soft targets (i.e. lone undisciplined tank platoon lacking any type of outward facing security), like the platoon in this video. While the success of this attack could be seen as a metaphor for what the Assad regimes military has become, or maybe always has been, I personally wouldn’t make this assumption strictly based off the success of a single attack. This unit was a direct reflection of their immediate command who were obviously incompetent and undisciplined, which seem to be endemic traits of all standing Middle Eastern military’s anyways I suppose (IDF excluded). Rebel fighters seizing the Taftanaz Airbase in January of this year is a much more telling sign of the state of Assad’s regime. U.S. aid is going to help speed along the process of ousting Assad also, so more of these types of videos should be expected in the near future. The U.S. government is so eager to undermine Iran and Russia they’re going to throw an undetermined amount of U.S. tax payer dollars at transforming Syria into what should ultimately be called Al Qaeda’s Salafist Islamic Republic of the Levant. The Syrian people’s elation of ousting a repressive, murdering dictator will be short lived once thrust into the middle ages of the Islamic theocratic autocracy awaiting them. Get ready for the “Islamic moral police” trolling the streets to publicly flog any woman brazen enough to leave her home without a man in tow, or heaven forbid, without donning the hijab. I’ve written this before, but to all non-Sunnis in Syria, get out now while you still can.

Posted by SlayerMill at April 5, 2013 9:35 PM ET:

While there are many signs the Assad regime is falling apart, the success of this attack isn't necessarily one of them. Guerilla warfare 101 is attacking soft targets (i.e. lone undisciplined tank platoon lacking any type of outward facing security), like the platoon in this video. While the success of this attack could be seen as a metaphor for what the Assad regimes military has become, or maybe always has been, I personally wouldn’t make this assumption strictly based off the success of a single attack. This unit was a direct reflection of their immediate command who were obviously incompetent and undisciplined, which seem to be endemic traits of all standing Middle Eastern military’s anyways I suppose (IDF excluded). Rebel fighters seizing the Taftanaz Airbase in January of this year is a much more telling sign of the state of Assad’s regime. U.S. aid is going to help speed along the process of ousting Assad also, so more of these types of videos should be expected in the near future. The U.S. government is so eager to undermine Iran and Russia they’re going to throw an undetermined amount of U.S. tax payer dollars at transforming Syria into what should ultimately be called Al Qaeda’s Salafist Islamic Republic of the Levant. The Syrian people’s elation of ousting a repressive, murdering dictator will be short lived once thrust into the middle ages of the Islamic theocratic autocracy awaiting them. Get ready for the “Islamic moral police” trolling the streets to publicly flog any woman brazen enough to leave her home without a man in tow, or heaven forbid, without donning the hijab. I’ve written this before, but to all non-Sunnis in Syria, get out now while you still can.

Posted by jimbob at April 6, 2013 9:37 AM ET:

This looks staged to me. I don't believe that Assad's forces would be this bad. The "dead" soldiers are either not dead or are executed
prisoners.
I think this is just propaganda and not an actual attack.

Posted by blert at April 8, 2013 12:27 AM ET:

The single most likely outcome of this Syrian civil war is rupture.

In antiquity, Syria was unified with Iraq much more often than not.

If Assad's crew displaces to the coast -- to survive as an Alawite enclave -- then everyone else will want an 'oceanic patron.' Both Jordan and Iraq have ports -- an attribute I would deem essential for Syrian economics.

Such a re-balancing of the tribes would permit long term stability for Iraq. A stool needs three legs. The Shia would still have the upper hand, but they could no longer run entirely roughshod over the Kurds and Sunni.

Interestingly enough, the Ba'ath Party has always taken this view: unification. (Hence their near identical national flags.)

The border between Syria and Jordan has no Arab resonance, whatsoever. It's a European creation, entirely. (Sykes - Picot) Lacking any 'line in the sand' they actually used the Haifa - Dara'a railway line as the division point between the British Zones and the French Zones.

(In all of this division, the British focused on keeping the French as far away from the oil discoveries in Iran as possible. Even though French interests in the Middle East were almost exclusively limited to the Levant, the British felt compelled to split off a lot of desert in their favor. Today, we know that hunk as Syria and Lebanon.)

Lastly, the Syrians never really accepted the idea that Lebanon ought to have ever been split off of Greater Syria. It's a European construct, as well. As for the Lebanese, they've always been under the shadow of the great powers around them -- ever since the Phoenicians/ Canaanites lost dominance/ independence.

For DNA buffs, the last genetic hold-out for Phoenician DNA is the population of Malta. They're the descendants of Carthaginians that didn't get snuffed by the Romans during the Punic Wars.

Posted by gb at April 8, 2013 4:24 PM ET:

@Jimbob

After thinking about i tend to agree with you. There should be no way that while in a combat zone, a tank platoon is left completely defenseless. Where are the weapons, return fire, attacking force casualties? There are none...

Posted by Will Fenwick at April 9, 2013 3:35 AM ET:

It will be interesting to see if Al-Nusrah has the logistical capability for operating the heavy weaponry it has seized. If they have enough ex-syrian military among their ranks they should have few problems, but Syrian air supremacy should make work of any rebel controlled armoured vehicles just as Yemeni/US forces specifically targeted AQAP armoured vehicles.

Posted by davidp at April 20, 2013 7:45 AM ET:

I agree with Bill - It looks like a re-enactment to me.