Middle East and North Africa Unrest

So it's not exclusively the UK and France that are carrying out air to ground attacks. I think they might be the only ones with dedicated ground attack planes.

It's partly a question of load, a UK tornado can carry 12 Brimstone as well as 2 Paveway on a single sortie. 14 bangs per flight kills a lot of stuff.
 
From the numbers I saw come back from Gioia yesterday, our hit/success rate is significantly higher than that of our allies.
 
Syria vacation promotional clip. What a nice place.

 
BBC News - British military officers to be sent to Libya

"Mission creep" or escalation anyway?
This had better be worth the political risk and to be honest I'm not sure twelve "logistics and intelligence" soldiers is going to make that much difference.

Also, Aljazeera showed an exclusive video of the Rebels fighting and re-taking a hospital in Misrata. (Not online yet.)
The "plucky little bastards" showed some fighting spirit and did great. Well done boys, salute.

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Syria vacation promotional clip. What a nice place.

* video *

More from Syria:

BBC News - Assad lifts state of emergency law

This is the good news, apparently. If the security forces stop shooting people during protests, then I will believe Assad. Until then, not as this law change looks like window dressing for the Media and "world opinion".

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BBC News - Yemen: Security forces open fire on protesters in Sanaa

Another dictator using the Gadaffi Model of crowd control, this guy is not going to win this way.
 
I haven't heard anything about Bahrain in a while, is there anything going on there, or did Saudi Arabia just use the invite for help to take over?
 
I haven't heard anything about Bahrain in a while, is there anything going on there, or did Saudi Arabia just use the invite for help to take over?

Dunno about that, will await local members to post any events, as BBC and Aljazeera were not being impartial or accurate in previous reports.
 
Maybe Blayde can pitch in and update us? I take Aljazeera with a large spoonful of salt these days.
 
BBC News - British journalist Tim Hetherington dies in Libya
BBC News said:
A British photographer has been killed while covering the conflict in the besieged Libyan city of Misrata.

Liverpool-born Tim Hetherington, who had dual UK and US nationality, is said to have died in a mortar attack.

The 41-year-old, who co-directed the Oscar-nominated documentary Restrepo, about US troops in Afghanistan, was working for Vanity Fair magazine.


more

Ah crap, not the first journalist to die there, but sad news. Without the journalists on the ground in risky areas, we don't get the story.

:(


Also, the French and Italians are also thinking about sending "military advisors" to TNC in Benghazi. :rolleyes:
 
Sorry about the double post, but if these reports are confirmed then this is a very bad move.

Reuters - Syria sends tanks into Deraa, where uprising began

Reuters News said:
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis and Suleiman al-Khalidi

AMMAN | Mon Apr 25, 2011 3:30pm BST

AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian troops and tanks poured into Deraa on Monday, seeking to crush resistance in the city where a month-long uprising against the autocratic 11-year rule of President Bashar al-Assad first erupted.

Activists said at least five people were killed in the first reported use of tanks inside a population centre since peaceful pro-democracy demonstrations began in the southern town, close to the border with Jordan, on March 18.

One witness told Reuters he saw bodies in the street near the main mosque after hundreds of soldiers poured into Deraa.

A leading human rights campaigner said security forces, which also swept into the restive Damascus suburb of Douma, were waging "a savage war designed to annihilate Syria's democrats."

continues on link

BBC News - Syrian army 'attacks protest city of Deraa'

Aljazeera News - Syria sends tanks onto streets

Tanks on the streets firing on civilians? Sounds familiar.

This was the guy who ended the fifty years of the "Emergency Laws" last week and wanted to engage in political dialog for change.

Maybe he has totally lost his shit? :sad:
 
A real tragedy. Restrepo was expertly done; a documentary that even the Airborne guys I know will tear up at.

Also, the French and Italians are also thinking about sending "military advisors" to TNC in Benghazi. :rolleyes:
Just ten men each. Though you can be sure that they're probably the baddest ten men that either nation has to offer. Probably some real life Dirty Dozen shit going on there. :p

Tanks on the streets firing on civilians? Sounds familiar.

This was the guy who ended the fifty years of the "Emergency Laws" last week and wanted to engage in political dialog for change.

Maybe he has totally lost his shit? :sad:
Doubt it will get seriously confirmed, given how strong the Syrian response has been. Assad obviously thinks he can just pay this Arab revolutionary push a little lip service, while in fact changing nothing, and things will continue on smoothly. His brutal response isn't terribly surprising though. His father did much the same when dealing with uprisings 30 years ago. And Bashar himself has always been much more interested in economic reform than actual democratic reform (he's even stated that the former necessarily precedes the latter).
 
From the numbers I saw come back from Gioia yesterday, our hit/success rate is significantly higher than that of our allies.

You guys have a large Air Force, and you've been heavily involved in active warfare for better part of two full decades. We can't match that, even if we were over Serbia and Kosovo and have been over Afghanistan for a long time.

Still, kudos to Norway, we bombed Gadaffi. His compound, at least. It sort of boggles the mind to think how much things have changed, if someone were to tell Norwegians in the 1960s, that we'd be bombing dictators in the Middle East in 50 years, they'd call you bonkers (or as the locals would say it, splitter pine galen). Modern warfare is impressive, but quite frightening at the same time.
 
You guys have a large Air Force, and you've been heavily involved in active warfare for better part of two full decades. We can't match that, even if we were over Serbia and Kosovo and have been over Afghanistan for a long time.

You're right, and we've pushed our Typhoon programme forward by almost a decade in the space of weeks thanks to this conflict. By "allies" though I was largely referring to the US who haven't had quite the same success we've been sharing with their own technology. Credit to the US though, that Brimstone is an incredible bit of kit.

I noticed on the news yesterday that a British residence in Tripoli had been hit, is there any more news on this?
 
I noticed on the news yesterday that a British residence in Tripoli had been hit, is there any more news on this?
NATO bombed a bunker system that they suspected was being used to coordinate military operations. Turned out some of Gaddafi's sons were there and supposedly the attack killed Gaddafi's youngest son and two of his grandchildren.

In response, pro-Gaddafi forces torched the British embassy and bombed the UN mission. All the UN staff in Tripoli have fled to Tunisia.
 
NATO bombed a bunker system that they suspected was being used to coordinate military operations. Turned out some of Gaddafi's sons were there and supposedly the attack killed Gaddafi's youngest son and two of his grandchildren.

In response, pro-Gaddafi forces torched the British embassy and bombed the UN mission. All the UN staff in Tripoli have fled to Tunisia.

Ooooooh, that was not a good idea. Not even Stalin was crazy enough to mess with the German embassy during WWII.

Libya is now in for some serious shit.
 
Libya is now in for some serious shit.
They're certainly not making any friends. IIRC Tripoli apologized to the UN, but not not to the UK. Respect for diplomats, for keeping lines of political discourse open, should always be a top priority. Cutting communications (nevermind torching embassies, even empty ones) is just idiotic and shortsighted. And yes, I feel the same way when the US does it.
 
They're certainly not making any friends. IIRC Tripoli apologized to the UN, but not not to the UK. Respect for diplomats, for keeping lines of political discourse open, should always be a top priority. Cutting communications (nevermind torching embassies, even empty ones) is just idiotic and shortsighted. And yes, I feel the same way when the US does it.

...We've purposefully torched Embassies before?
 
...We've purposefully torched Embassies before?
:lol: Not that I'm aware of. But we've got a long history of cutting off diplomatic ties with nations we don't like. It's just bullshit politicking. North Korea is and Iran are prime, current examples. China before them.
 
Libya

BBC News - ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo seeks warrants
BBC News said:
The International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor is seeking three arrest warrants in his investigation into crimes against humanity in Libya.

Luis Moreno-Ocampo did not give any names but told the UN Security Council that crimes were continuing.

more on link

UNSC 1970 reffered the Libyan Govt. actions to the ICC, this is the first step in gaing indictments for war crimes. So progress which may take years, but a first step nonetheless.

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Syria
BBC News - Tanks 'heading for Homs' days after Deraa siege

BBC News said:
Tanks are heading for the central Syrian city of Homs, local activists say, after anti-government protests were held there last night.

Some 1,000 people chanted slogans in support of the southern city of Deraa, where troops are rounding up hundreds of men in house-to-house raids.

Around the country, 2,843 people are confirmed as detained. Campaigners say the total could be 8,000 and that some have been subjected to torture.

The US calls the crackdown "barbaric".

Rights groups say about 560 people have been killed across the country in protests against the repressive rule of President Bashar al-Assad.

more on link

The protests are growing by sources inside the country, the death toll will continue to rise and I cannot see a good end in sight. Brave people of Syria, hope they win.

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Aljazeera News - Syria confirms journalist detained

Aljazeera News said:
Al Jazeera English has called for the immediate release of one of its journalists after Syrian officials confirmed to the channel that they are holding her.

Dorothy Parvaz was detained upon arrival in Damascus six days ago. She has had no contact with the outside world since.

Parvaz, who holds American, Canadian and Iranian citizenship, is an experienced journalist who joined Al Jazeera in 2010 and recently reported on the Japanese earthquake and tsunami for the network.

She graduated from the University of British Columbia, obtained a master's degree from Arizona University, and held journalism fellowships at both Harvard and Cambridge. She previously worked as a columnist and feature writer for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in the US.

Along with all the other heinous stuff the Syrians are doing, detaining a journalist may seem small thing.

However, this is symbolic of suppression of free speech and the more people know about it the quicker she will be released unharmed.
 
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