JustPaste.it - Share Text & Images the Easy Way

/u/LiesAboutKnowingYou / www.Type63.com

A Year of Observations and Thoughts About the Wars in Iraq and Syria: Oct 2014 - Nov 2015

(Arranged in no particular order, at the request of some good friends. Hope this is of some use to someone)

Oct 2014 - Jan 2015: Weapons Captured from ISIL by YPG in Kobane City

In a conflict like the SCW and ongoing Iraq crisis, there is very little data available and most warring factions do not make neat little videos detailing what they've captured (although it occasionally occurs with the FSA, it's usually just a wild camera panning around a storeroom full of stuff and someone yelling Takbirs). The two organizations who make a habit of documenting and spreading that documentation, of weapons and munitions capture, is the YPG and Da3sh (with occasionally Iraqi Security Forces doing it).

Over the past month or so, there has been a real uptick in the number of videos from the YPG in Kobani, and a near complete stoppage of Da3sh videos from the same front. As anyone following the Kobani conflict would attest, the overwhelming invasion that was thought imminent in capturing Kobani and pushing out the Kurds is not the threat it once was. The YPG, coupled with FSA (Liwwa Thuwwar Raqqa, and a Dawn of Freedom brigade) and a small continent (160 men) of Peshmerga with heavy weapons (in the way of heavy mortars, light towed artillery, rocket launchers [unspecified], and recoilless rifles like the SPG-9 [1] ) have pushed Da3sh back to previous battelines, captured both Tell Shaer (a hill) to the West and more importantly Misthenour Hill to the South East. The YPG and Da3sh are on pretty static battlelines with roughly 50-60% of the city under YPG control and 30-40% under Da3sh control, with the difference split in contested zones. The continuing existence of US airstrikes has limited and all but destroyed Da3sh's armor and artillery advantages (I say "all but" because only yesterday[2] YPG posted video of destroying a Da3sh tank in southern Kobani) and continues to degrade logistics nodes around Kobani and kill fighters in the city. It is fairly clear the fight is not going well for Da3sh anymore.

So on to the meat and potatoes. For the past month (and longer than that) I've been recording the contents of each video posted by YPG where they display captured Da3sh goodies. I'll list links to each video I use, but below I'm going to list the combined weapons and material supported captured by YPG and then discuss what I think is happening.

Beginning at the end of October, here are the latest videos detailing captured weapons by YPG/YPJ.

2015

2014 - Dec. 30th [8]

Dec. 28th[9]
Dec. 21st [10]
Dec. 20th (NSFL) [11]
Dec. 7th- (NSFL) [12]
Dec. 6th[13] and second dump[14]
Nov 27 [15]
Nov 25 [16]
Nov 19 [17]
Nov 12 [18]
Nov 8 [19]
Nov 6 [20]
Nov 1 [21]
Late Oct [22]

Videos go back further, but these are the only ones in my user history that I haven't deleted (I purge most of my posts).

The breakdown of combined combat equipment (only including, firearms, munitions, or implements directly necessary for their use equipment from all videos is as follows:

146 AKM pattern rifles of the following manufactures: underfolding, sidefolding, straight stocked, no-stock (home-job) from

Romania
China
Russia
Yugoslavia
Poland

628 AK magazines, usable in all the above listed rifles

14,950 rounds of 7.62x39 ammunition for the above weapons

1 SKS semi-auto rifle

19 PKM medium machine guns, all Russian variant with several spare barrels

1 PSL-54, Romanian 7.62x54R sniper rifle

9,540 rounds of linked and unlinked 7.62x54R ammunition

17 RPG-7 launchers

95 PG-7 anti-armor and OG-7v anti-personnel warheads for RPG-7

70 RPG boosters

13 shotguns (6 pump action, 2 break action), presumably 12GA

**83 shells of 12GA ammo

13 pistols of unknown type, likely 9x19mm NATO firing variants made in Turkey (5 positively identified as Turkish Caniks)

1 M38/42 Beretta submachinegun (9MM)

100 rounds of 9MM ammunition

7 Bolt action rifles (possible Turkish Mausers)

3 DShK 12.7x108mm (.50 cal) Russian heavy machine gun

550 rounds of linked 12.7x107mm ammunition

1 KPV 14.5mm Russian heavy machine gun

3 57mm anti-aircraft rounds

2 M-16-A2

6 magazines for M-16

280 rounds of 5.56x45 ammunition

80 RGD-5 Soviet fragmentation grenades

107 F-1 Soviet fragmentation grenades

40 improvised "ball" grenades

33 unidentified type grenades

12 82MM Soviet mortar shells

1 Heavy mortar system (type unidentified)

14 Heavy mortar shells (type unidentified)

3 81MM mortar shells

39 various IEDs and IRAMs (Improvised Rocket Assisted Munition)

65 backpacks, uniforms, chest rigs, magazine carriers or battle rattle

1 F+ Series quad copter

9 sets of binoculars

So what does that translate to? Bearing in mind that this is only what was captured and then immediately lined up and neatly photographed, discarding what was completely destroyed or what Da3sh fighters managed to drag with them, this equipment is enough to outfit 80-120 fighters depending on how you assign weapons.

If nothing else, it tells us that Da3sh fighters are less likely to withdraw then to fight and die in place, otherwise when they began to be overwhelmed, their buddies could grab their guns and flee. Instead, they seem to prefer to die in place, leaving no room for their weapons and gear to be repurposed by their own side as it immediately changes ownership.

Quite a few of the weapons in the videos, perhaps as much as 1/10th, are covered in dust and concrete, leading me to believe these were retrieved from Da3sh fighters who were killed in airstrikes when their buildings collapsed on them. Also interesting is the amount of improvised explosives discovered, something that had gone away for a bit as Da3sh had the conventional weaponry to use commercially produced explosives and grenades. A return to IEDs and IRAMs indicates that Da3sh is either running out of those supplies, or has its supply lines to Kobani cut and cannot consistently deliver the supply of war materiel necessary.

So what is this all worth? Using open source materials and information, we can get a pretty decent idea how much all this equipment is worth and I'll break it down as follows, in US dollars, based on publicly available data on the price of weapons and munitions in Syria. These are my source materials:

PDF warning: Small Arm Survey[23] Nicholas Blanford, “As Syria unravels, prices soar for guns, grenades, and RPGs,” Christian Science Monitor, January 9, 2012.

Using $2,100 as the baseline price for an AKM in Syria, $2K for an RPG, $500 for a grenade, and $2 per round of 7.62x39, let's be slightly more conservative and change it to $1500/$1500/$400 and $1.50 per round. Given that metric, this cache is worth: $817,065 (as of 2015/01/21)

Commonplace Weapons of the Syrian Civil War

So, the purpose of this post is not to give any sort of analysis or insight into the why or how of the weapons used in this conflict, but rather to give a basic understanding of the what. What is used, what it is, and what it's capabilities and limitations are. This isn't intended to be all inclusive, nor will it cover who has what. The idea is just to be a quick reference if you see a weapon name and your unfamiliar with it or want to know slightly more about it. For the sake of continuity I will provide a Wiki link for each if you want more information.This post will cover infantry small arms, artillery, anti tank weapons, anti-air, and non-conventional weapons and will hit the high frequency items but will skip over items only rarely observed (Mosin Nagants, STG-44s) or of little consequence. I will leave the aircraft and armor of the conflict to people better versed on this topic as though I have a decent understanding of armor employment and some understanding of their strengths and weaknesses, but there are others much better acquainted.

ASSAULT RIFLES (defined as a lightweight military rifle capable of select fire that shoots an intermediate caliber round) M-16[2] - the second most recognizable firearm on earth (after the AK47) the M-16 is foreign to Syria but appears by way of captured supplies from Iraq, private donors, Kurdish smugglers, and a host of other means. While not entirely commonplace throughout the conflict, it is widespread enough that it deserves coverage. Heavily featured among ISIL fighters and the Kurdish groups (YPG and Peshmerga), the M-16 is an American designed assault rifle that fires the high velocity but small caliber 5.56x45mm round. Commonplace is many Western militaries, the rifle has gone through numerous upgrades and advances and is produced by a host of companies and under license by other countries. It boasts a longer range than the AK-47, better armor penetration than 7.62x39, light ammunition (so more can be carried) and substantially more accurate out of the box than most of it's Eastern competitors. It is produced in multiple variants including a carbine (M-4) full length rifle (M-16A1 through M-16A4), a designated marksman rifle (DMR) with a heavier free floating barrel, aftermarket scope, and upgraded bolt carrier group, and a mechanically different variant produced by Hechler and Koch called the M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle is intended to be used in full auto much like the Soviet RPK (more on that later). It is fed by a 30 round magazine although 60 round magazines and 100 round drums are available.

AK47[3] The AK47 is regarded as the first full production assault rifle, borrowing heavily from the design and function of the German STG-44, it fires the intermediate caliber 7.62x39 round. Where 5.56x45 is the caliber of the Western world, 7.62x39 is the more recognizable caliber of the Eastern and developing world. The AK47 is heavier than the M-16 and fires a heavier round. It is less accurate and has a shorter range (300m effective verse the M-16s 500). It is the most common weapon of the entire Syrian Civil War and is fielded by ALL sides. It's key selling point is that it requires very little maintenance, is very rugged, and can be cleaned with the bare minimum of tools. Very few actualAK47s exist as this was the name of the first prototypes and was only in production for a few years. The more widely fielded variants of the AK47 would be modified slightly for weight and aesthetics and go by the name AKM, made from stamped metal instead of milled. The AKM has many variants, nearly all of which can be found in Syria, including the underfolding and sidefolding stock variants, Chinese Type 56s with attached spike bayonet, and numerous more modern variants. AKs can be found in Syria from Russia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, China, Bulgaria, Egypt, and the occasional Iraqi "Tabuk" variant. It is fed by a 30 or 40 round magazine, although 75 round drums are commonplace.

AK74/AK74SU[4] The AK-74 is the Russian response to the M-16. Chambered in 5.45x39 it is a high velocity small caliber round that has devastating effects on human tissue and decent penetration of armor. While most of the Eastern bloc either replaced or supplemented their AKMs with the AK74 this caliber never really caught on in the Middle East. It is fairly rare to see it in Syria, though it does come up occasionally. Most frequently it's observed with the Syrian Army where general's bodyguards carry the famed "Bin Laden gun", the carbine variant AK-74SU (my personal favorite firearm of all time- just got one last month in semi-auto). The AK-74 features greater accuracy and longer range, while mechanically and aesthetically it is almost identical to the AKM. The recoil is negligible allowing quicker follow on shots and the lighter ammunition coupled with exclusively plastic/bakelite magazines means much more ammunition can be carried.

MACHINE GUNS

RPK[5] the RPK is essentially an AK on steroids, and functions as a light machine gun. Firing the same 7.62x39mm round it is mechanically the same, but is beefed up to stand up to sustained automatic fire with a heavier and longer barrel, thicker receiver, club foot stock (easier to grip for automatic fire), bipods, and on some variants a carrying handle. It is intended to be fed by 40 round magazine or 75 round drum, though it will also take the AK 30 round magazine. It is slightly more accurate and has slightly longer range than the AKM.

PK/PKM[6] The PK medium machine gun (also called a general purpose machine gun or GPMG) was developed to be a lightweight replacement for heavier WWII era machine guns. It is man portable though often is crewed by an assistant gunner. It fires the heavier 7.62x54R round used in the Mosin Nagant rifle and Dragunov/PSL marksman rifles. At just under 20 lbs unloaded it is actually very light for a medium machine gun (the Western M240/FN MAG weighs 27 lbs) and is the most commonly seen dedicated machine gun in Syria and again is used by ALL groups. It has a relatively low rate of fire compared to many other MMGs at roughly 650-700 rounds per minute. This has the benefit though of allowing a seasoned operator to squeeze off individual shots once they become accustomed to the trigger where a gun with a higher rate of fire cannot do this.

DShK[7] the Soviet answer to the American M2 .50 cal (12.7x99mm) is the very similar DShK (pronounced- Doosh Kuh or Dooshk) in 12.7x108mm. This heavy machine gun functions as an anti-aircraft gun when mounted on a tripod, general purpose heavy machine gun against troops or light armored vehicles, and is often featured atop armored vehicles in the commanders cupola or coaxially mounted with the main gun (meaning it fires wherever the main gun is aimed). Far and away the most common heavy machine gun of the conflict, the DShK is commonly seen mounted in the back of pickup trucks and bongo trucks in an armored gun mount, in a setup commonly referred to as a "technical" (commercial pickup truck and heavy gun). This gun is incredibly powerful and has a range of up to 2000m. The penetrating power of this round makes it ideally for firing at troops behind cover and it is routinely observed being used to punch holes in the brick structures Syrian fighters use as firing points. It's ability to punch through light armor and down aircraft (particularly helicopters) makes it a very useful weapon for insurgencies to level the playing field.

KPV 14.5[8] there is no American analog to this weapon, it is a Soviet heavy machine gun slightly heavier than the DShK, calibed in 14.5x114mm. Initially offered as an infantry weapon it was pulled from infantry service due to weight and repurposed as an anti-aircraft weapon and a tankers gun. In the Syrian conflict it fulfills the exact same role as the DShK, though less common. It is also found in double and quad mounts in which configuration it belongs to the ZPU[9] family of anti-aircraft weapons (both towed and self-propelled).

MARKSMAN RIFLE

Dragunov/[10] and PSL[11] While different weapons mechanically, they serve the same purpose, fire the same round, and function similarly. Due to constant misidentification I'm lumping them together. A purist would be irritated, but if you're reading this, you're not a purist. The Dragunov was the rifle that won a Soviet competition for a new highly accurate heavy caliber rifle. Often referred to as a "sniper" rifle, this nomenclature varies by nature. The West would consider the Dragunov a designated marksman rifle as it doesn't fit the range and accuracy requirements of the West, but Eastern bloc nations consider it both a DM rifle and a sniper rifle (the official name even includes the word Снайперская or Sniper) depending on the role it is filling. Aesthetically similar to the AK, the Dragunov is mechanically different (while the PSL is essentially an AK on steroids chambered for a different caliber), firing the 7.62x54R round from a 10 round box magazine. It comes equipped with various types of optics, most notable the 4x PSO-1 scope. While not as accurate as Western DM or Sniper rifles, the Dragunov is the most commonly fielded marksman rifle in the Syrian conflict and in the hands of a skilled operator can be devastating at up to 700-800m.

GRENADES

F-1[12] Far and away the most commonly seen grenades in Syria (and much of the Middle East) the F-1 is a WWII era fragmentation grenade based loosely off the French grenade of the same name. Unlike in the movies, while grenades are incredibly lethal, fragmentation grenades do not cause massive flames and gaseous explosions, but rather a relatively minor explosion that sends shards of metal in all directions. Anyone unprotected within roughly 5m of the grenade is likely to die and anyone within 15m is likely to be wounded (fatal and wounding zones respectively). This grenade has the stereotypical/cartoon body style with pre-segmented metal to increase fragmentation.

RGD-5[13] the replacement for the F-1, the RGD-5 is more or less just a modernized F-1, adopting a smooth outer shell and a different (greater) explosive composition, it offers roughly the same degree of lethality and wounding as the F-1 while utilizing the same fuze. Very common among all parties in the conflict.

ARTILLERY/MORTARS (note- there are MANY types of artillery used in Syria. I will only address the five I think are most common)

D-30[14] Probably the most commonly used non-Western artillery piece in the world, the D-30 is found in arsenals from North Korea to African rebels to both the Syrian army and opposition. A 122mm towed howitzer it is capable of firing accurately (with a trained crew) over 15 kilometers. It can accept a variety of ammunition and is relatively easy to use, with instructions for use available in both English and Russian with a simple google search. An untrained crew can get decent enough to shell an area (say several hundred meters square) and a trained crew could put rounds within 10m of their target. While normally it would be crewed by 5-7 people, in a pinch a single user can operate it (very slowly), useful for reducing the number of people to be killed in case of counter-battery fire. In Syria, it is quite often used by the opposition as a line of site weapon, dropping the elevation and firing rounds directly at a building or fortification.

D-74[15] similar to the D-30 in that it fires a 122mm projectile, the D-74 is a field gun instead of a howitzer and fires a heavier projectile a further distance (up to 23km). No longer produced, it was the mainstay of Soviet artillery corps for year (as well as heavier 152mm guns). Similar to the D-30 it requires roughly the same crew but can be operated (slowly by one). It is employed the same as the D-30 and is found in the hands of both government and opposition forces.

BM-37 82mm mortar[16] the types of mortars in use in Syria are too many to enumerate but the most commonly found are variants of the Soviet 82mm mortar. Much like the D-30, variations of 82mm mortar systems and their ammunition can be found all over world. Where artillery relies on other direct fire, at close range, or long distance by firing at a relatively low arcing trajectory, mortar fire is intended for much closer targets and fires at an extremely high trajectory (this diagram should help explain [17] ). This makes mortars ideal for dealing with targets that are in "dead" space, or area that cannot be hit by direct fire or the lower arc of artillery. Mortars are also generally light and easy to emplace making them ideal for urban warfare where they can be quickly moved.

BM-30 Smerch[18] The Smerch (Russian: Смерч or "Whirlwind) is rocket artillery known as MLRS (Multiple Rocket Launcher System). What makes the Smerch noteworthy is for one, only government forces have them in any great number and for two, they are widely used to fire cluster munitions of anti-personnel or anti-tank mines. The SAA will use these systems when they have opposition groups about to break and retreat to fire minefields as an area denial weapon[19] forcing the routed troops to either turn and fight at a disadvantageous position or risk death through the minefield. Unlike conventional minefields, there is no ability to map where these mines fall so collection of the munitions is risky and many unintentional deaths will occur afterwards. The Smerch is vehicle mounted and has a maximum range of 70km but accuracy peters off as range increases. It fires twelve 300mm rockets.

BM-21 Grad[20] similar to the Smerch in function, the Grad is a smaller (122mm) truck mounted MRLS but by far the most common in the Syrian conflict. It is a 40 barrel launcher that can be salvoed at 2 rockets per second (20 seconds for all 40) or fired individually. Range is roughly 20km. Those familiar with WWII may compare these to Soviet Katyusha's or German Nebelwerfer. Essentially, it is a (usually) truck drawn system with racks of rockets on back that are volley fired at a target (using a relatively low arcing trajectory like conventional artillery).

ANTI AIRCRAFT ARTILLERY

ZU-23-2[1] widely fielded as both an anti-aircraft gun and a direct fire weapon mounted on the back of heavier trucks, this double barreled 23mm autocannon fires an incredibly heavy round that is devesating to low flying aircraft, helicopters, medium skinned armored vehicles, dismounted infantry, and even troops behind thick cover like concrete apartment blocks. Intended for use as an AA gun, it quickly found dual use in a ground roll and that is where it is most commonly observed in Syria. 23 refers to the caliber and 2 refers to the number of barrels. Most useful in single shot where the heavy round can put to good use chipping away at defensive positions, in full auto it can fire as fast as 2000 rounds per minute (though in reality it cannot be loaded that fast). It's effective firing range is over 2500 meters making it an ideal standoff weapon when your enemy only has small arms available, allowing for support by fire positions to suppress enemy infantry as your own infantry maneuvers on the enemy. It is common practice for this weapon to come with spare barrel to replace after heavy firing. After 100 rounds each barrel is considered too hot for further firing and is generally replaced to avoid cookoffs. The barrels are rated at between 8,000-10,000 rounds a piece before needing to be discarded. It is unlikely that this actually occurs in Syria and the barrels are probably in continuous use well after their service life.

ZSU-23-4 Shilka[2] Much like the ZU-23-2, the Shilka utilizes the same 23mm autocannos, but mounts four instead of two and is self-propelled in a turret on a nondescript tank hull. Combined with a small radar set, the Shilka is absolutely devastating to low flying aircraft, with double the rate of fire of the ZU-23-2 (double the guns) coming in at nearly 4,000 rounds per minute. As with most other anti-air artillery however, it finds it's biggest use against other medium skinned armored targets, infantry, and of course in the urban setting destroying fortifications and the cover infantry use to hide behind. The knowledge of this weapons existence in a given environment is enough to ensure that SyAAF helicopters will not come in range, and it's armored hull means it can be used much closer to enemy forces with protection against small arms fire, though is still vulnerable to anti-tank weapons.

ZPU[3] As referenced earlier, the ZPU family of weapons consists of towed and self-propelled double and quad mounted KPV 14.7mm heavy machine guns. Their functionality is the same as that of the ZU and ZSU family but with a smaller caliber.

MANPADS (Man Portable Air Defense Systems)

SA-7 Grail[4] The Grail is one of the first Soviet produced MANPADS to gain widespread acceptance and is among the most common such weapon in the world. Utilizing a rudimentary passive infrared tracking system, the Grail has a range of 4,200m and a maximum altitude of 2,300m making it primarily useful against helicopters or low flying aircraft. The SAA owns an substantial number of these weapons but exact numbers are unknown. An unknown quantity are believed to have been captured by opposition members, but I could not find definitive proof on that.

[SA-16/18/24 Igla] A more advanced form of MANPADS the Igla is in use by the SAA and is rumored to have been captured by opposition groups. With a longer range and altitude, (5,200m range and 3,500m altitude) the Igla is useful against a wider array of aerial threats including drones, jets, and nearly all helicopters as well as faster than previous MANPADS at roughly Mach 2. Some versions have significant resistance to countermeasures including flares and jamming. Other improvements include a secondary charge to set off any remaining fuel and a vastly improved infrared seeker.

FN-6[5] the Flying Crossbow is a Chinese MANPADS intended for use against helicopters (or the rare low flying jet) with a range of 6,000m and a maxium altitude of 3,500 meters. These weapons are believed to have fallen into the hands of ISIL by way of Sudan who sold them to opposition groups in Syria. At least two Iraqi helicopters are believed to have been downed by the FN-6. This weapon utilizes infrared homing to find and hit its target and is designed to ignore flares, though heavy flare employment may defeat it.

ANTI TANK WEAPONS (covering ATGM, recoilless rifles, and dumb rockets)

SPG-9[1] The SPG-9 is a Soviet man portable, tripod or vehicle mounted 73mm recoilless rifle. A recoilless rifle is essentially a heavy caliber weapon that fires a large round long distance utilizing a long barreled tube that negates recoil by dumping the hot gasses out the back (making behind the gun a deadly place to be). In Syria, this weapon is used to fire high explosive rounds at armored vehicles and punch holes in covered positions. Substantially more accurate and with a longer range (800m) than handheld anti-tank weapons like the RPG-7, the SPG-9 is commonly mounted on the back of pickup trucks in the "techincal" manner described with heavy machine guns. The SPG-9 is the replacement for the older B-10 recoilless rifle

B-10[2] Less common than the SPG-9 the B-10 is the older recoilless rifle in use with Soviet forces following the Second World War. It is functionally the same as the SPG-9 although the range is substantially less (400m) and the caliber is different (82mm). Ammunition for this weapon is much harder to source than the more plentiful 73mm ammunition for the SPG-9.

RPG-7[3] Arguably the most widely used anti-tank weapon in the world, the RPG-7 was designed to be incredibly easy to operate and maintain, is available in a wide range of munitions, and can be found in the arsenals of nation states, insurgencies, and even criminal gangs. The RPG-7 functions similar to a recoilless rifle, in that it funnels much of the explosive gases out the back of the weapon, but unlike the SPG-9 and B-10, the RPG-7 utilizes a "booster" to punch the warhead out of the barrel and slightly away from the operator before the main motor kicks in and speeds the weapon up to it's maxium speed (roughly 300m a second) far enough away from the operator that it doesn't incinerate them ( here is a diagram that shows the pieces[4] ). Available in numerous anti-armor variations including tandem charge to defeat reactive are slat armor, the most common warheads are the very recognizable PG-7 anti-armor and the OG-7V anti-personnel (fragmentation) warhead. The weapon is highly susceptible to cross winds and has a very limited effective range (200m). It is occasionally given greater range when meant to be used for harassing fire where accuracy is less important than constant barrage, by elevating the muzzle and arcing the round, function as a (wildly inaccurate) man portable artillery piece). The RPG-7 is most commonly found with either a 2.7x telescopic site or a night vision device. The most common anti-armor weapon in Syria.

RPG-18[5] Nearly a direct copy of the US M72 LAW, the RPG-18 in a single shot 62mm disposable anti-tank weapon. It is substantially lighter (4 lbs to the RPG-7's 15 lbs) and less unwieldly than the RPG-7, which allows it to be carried by numerous members of a squad instead of having a single dedicated RPG-7 gunner who may be killed or have his weapon disabled. This weapon is less common in Syria but still occasionally observed. It's maximum range is 200m with a timed self-destruct mechanism that prevents it being fired being this distance. It is substantially slower then the RPG-7 (110m per second) but fills the operational needs in terms of armor penetration. It cannot be reloaded.

RPG-29[6] One of the most modern Eastern bloc man portable anti-armor weapons, the RPG-29 is probably the most lethal man-portable system commonly used in Syria. Longer and heavier than the RPG-7, it is reloadable, and fires a variety of 105mm munitions including anti-armor tandem warheads and thermobaric rounds for anti-personnel use. It can be fired from the shoulder with an effective range of 500m (2.5x that of the RPG-7) or from a tripod assembly (less common in Syria) for 800m. A wide variety of optics are available for it and it is among one of the most highly prized weapons in the Syrian conflict, capable of single shot mobility or catastrophic kills on more advanced tanks like the T-72.

M-79[7] The M79 is a Yugoslav made 90mm anti-tank weapon, provided to opposition members by third party groups. Unlike the front-loading RPG-7, the Osa is loaded by screwing a warhead into the back of the weapon. It is functional very similar to the RPG-29, has a 350m effective range, can accept a variety of warheads, and commonly comes equipped with a 3.5x telescopic site.

9k111 Fagot[8] The Soviet Fagot (English: Bassoon) is a wire guided anti-tank missile, effective up to 2,500m with a 3.5lb warhead. After firing, the user guides the weapon to it's target by a series of commands sent via electricity through the wire, allowing the user to correct moving and follow a moving target. This weapon exists in Syrian arsenals but is not as commonly seen in this conflict.

9m113 Konkurs[9] The Konkurs was developed alongside the Fagot as a heavier warhead wire guided missile with a longer range (roughly 4,000m). It has a slightly faster speed (200m per second) and is comparable in many regards to the US TOW missile system. This weapon system is fairly common among all actors in the Syrian Civil War.

9m133 Kornet[10] The heaviest of all Soviet crew served anti tank guided missiles, the Konkurs is not wire guided but rather laser guided. The user simply keeps the target visually sighted and the Konkurs flies along a laser pathway to the target, in a similar manner to the Fagot and Konkurs. With a 15lb warhead and a range of 5,000m the Kornet is one of the most lethal anti-tank weapons available in Syria.

TOW[11] and Toophan[12] The American TOW missile (and Iranian copy the Toophan, field by Hezbollah and known to have been captured by Jabhat al Nusra) is regarded as the most accurate wire guided missile fielded today. In use by numerous militaries around the world, both from a static position, from a helicopter and mounted on armored vehicle, the TOW missile launcher pushes a 13 lb warhead up to 4,200 meters and is capable of taking out the heaviest armored threats in Syria. The TOW and it's Iranian copy the Toophan are often confused for each other as they are aesthetically nearly identical and often only identifiable on close inspection.

Unconventional Weapons of the Syrian Civil War

This post is not intended to be all inclusive but rather to provide a general overview of the most commonly employed unconventional weapons found in Syria. By the very nature of unconventional weapons, there is little public data to be found on them, so some of the analysis contained herein will be rooted in visual observation, information given by regime sources on captured equipment, information given by opposition members on their specific equipment, and the open source analysis of Western governments. By their very nature, unconventional weapons are a moving target and constantly evolving to get around the countermeasures taken to foil them. Countermeasures to such weapons would take up a whole extra post, so I will leave that to someone who is both more experienced with employing and more knowledgeable on the history of countering unconventional weapons. For the sake of continuity, where available I will use wikipedia for a more advanced definition of each item. It is important to note that while unconventional weapons are primarily a function of insurgencies and non-state actors like ISIL and Jabhat al-Nusra, as logistical concerns make the procurement of new weapons difficult, the Syrian government has turned to such methods as well. In order, this post will cover:

IEDs including VBIEDs and Barrel Bombs
Chemical Weapons
Improvised Armored Vehicles
Technicals
IRAMs
Hell Cannons
Improvised Mortar Firing
Disabled Armored Vehicles as Bunkers
Sabotaged Munitions

IEDS Booby traps, improsived weapons, and the like have been an aspect of armed warfare for as long as their has been non-state actors and governments without access to large weapons industry. But the rise of the insurgency as the greatest challenge to state power has brought with it the rise of cottage industries dedicated to the production of weapons or components necessary to build weapons. The most visible of these weapons is the Improvised Explosive Device, but this term covers a broad range of weapons. We’ll cover them in greater detail here.

What’s an IED? What is HME?[2] An IED, loosely defined, is an explosive device made from scavenged or homemade material, designed to be employed to caused damage or death to enemy equipment or personnel. They come in a wide range of sizes and types. In a munition rich environment like Iraq or Syria they will often wind up being comprised of bombs and ordnance that failed to explode, harvesting the explosives or components to repurpose them for new weapons. When there is less available explosive material, producers will turn to making Homemade Explosives or HME. This can be accomplished with commonplace agricultural or industrial chemicals and makes the denial of a source of material very difficult. An IED generally consists of four main components: case or shell to hold the explosive material, a source of fragmentation (often the shell, or metal strapped inside/outside the shell), the explosive material, and a means of detonation. Methods of employment will be listed below.
VBIEDs and SVBIED[3] The carbomb or Vehicle Borne IED and its even more fearsome variant, the Suicide Vehicle Borne IED, comprise some of the most dangerous weapons in modern warfare. The civilian population has to be able to continue their daily lives and this means a continuing presence of vehicles in and around military operations. The ability of the insurgency to blend in with the population makes the VBIED an ideal weapon. Difficult to detect, and with a determined operator, even more difficult to counteract, the VBIED can pack several thousand pounds of explosives and cause tremendous damage on the scale of conventionally produced large scale bombs. While insurgencies lack precision munitions like GPS guided artillery shells or drone fired missiles, the SVBIED is the ultimate smart-munition, as its operator guides it towards its target, electing to try and blend in with his surroundings until the last minute or drive as fast as he can to avoid being prematurely detonated by gunfire or rockets. In the words of Reddit user /u/Ian_W [4] “The critical bit about artillery isn’t the artillery but the shell factory standing behind it. One of the advantages of ISIL have is they do have the ability to manufacture their most-used assault artillery, the VBIED.” In an environment where conventional munitions are still a product of the nation state, being able to churn out highly damaging weapons is quite the boon. The SVBIED can be triggered by the operator, or remotely by a second party to ensure the operator doesn’t lose their nerve and flee.
S-Vests[5] Essentially a compact version of the SVBIED, the s-vest or suicide vest, is essentially a vest or a belt of explosives, shrapnel, and a detonator. With a much smaller impact than the VBIED, the S-Vest is best suited to lower threat environments, so outside of active combat zones where a stranger approaching would be treated hostilely. These weapons are ideal for checkpoint operations where soldiers/police must get in close proximity with the individual, or crowded meeting places, to maximize damage to personnel.
Pressure Plate IED: The pressure plate IED is a pre-wired IED that require no one but the victim to detonate it. It comes in a variety of forms, some designed to defeat metal detectors[6] and ground penetrating radar[7] by use of non-metallic components, while others are simply repurposed conventional mines. The pressure plate IED works by separating the electrical components that would detonate the IED by either space or a small non-conductive piece of material. When the right amount pressure is applied (varying by IED to account for vehicle or personnel) the electrical components connect and the IED detonates. As there is no way to defeat this IED short of finding it, this is one of the most commonly found IEDs, both in Syria, and elsewhere in the world.
Command Wire IED: The command wire IED is an emplaced IED with a wire running from the device to the triggerman. It can be operated by electrical impulse, or by the trigger man yanking the wire. These IEDs are slightly more easy to detect as there will be a length of wire leading to a triggerman.
Remote Control IED: Remote control (or RC) IEDs are employed the same as command wire and pressure plate IEDs, but utilize a remote detonator. This can be accomplished by two transmitting devices, like those found in the base station and mobile set of a cordless phone, cell phones, car starters, and other such everyday items. This IED gives the detonator greater stand-off distance to avoid capture but control over detonation, to maximize the potential damage and avoid harming innocents or friendlies. However the RC IED is one of the most easily countered IEDs, by way of jamming devices which prevent the signal to detonate from being received as well as other electronic warfare devices that broadcast the signal to detonate in an attempt to detonate it before friendlies pass by.
Daisy Chain: One of the most feared IED attacks is the Daisy Chain. Not referring to any specific type of IED, it is rather a system of IEDs placed apart from each other on a stretch of road or trail, wired together for simultaneous detonation. The goal behind such an attack is to strike an entire convoy of troops or vehicles and cause total chaos and destruction. Where a single IED might take out one vehicle or a group of troops, a daisy chained IED network is capable of destroying an entire convoy or making a troop column combat ineffective. This tactic has been used extensively by both the government forces[8] as well as the opposition [9] to wreck enemy troop and equipment columns.
EFPs[10] : Conventional IEDs come in all shapes and sizes with varying degrees of effectiveness against armored targets. Generally, to better target an armored vehicle, increasing the explosive yield of the IED is the best way to do so. But IED manufacturers with a high degree of skill and access to machine shops and high quality components have been manufacturing purpose built directional IEDs known as Explosively Formed Penetrators (EFP). Similar in purpose but different in design to a conventional shaped charge, an EFP is essentially a concave metal dish with an explosive charge behind it. When the weapon is detonated the metal dish is explosively cut free and forms into high velocity heavy metal slug. Almost useless against dismounted troops, the metal slug, if aimed properly is travelling at such speed and with such kinetic force that it can punch straight through armored targets like main battle tanks[11] , making short work of lesser armored vehicles. The US Government[12] along with Syrian conflict expert Eliot Higgins[13] believe EFPs to be among the armaments the opposition in Syria.
Improvised Grenades: While numerous examples of the improvised grenades used in Syria exist in pictorial or video form, there is next to no data from the Syrian conflict on their makeup. But looking at their employment (using a lighter to ignite the fuse then throwing it as far as possible) and captured examples like these ball grenades [14] Kurdish fighters captured from ISIL in Kobani, give us a good idea of their composition. In this particular example, a tape wrapped ball with a fuse and carrying/throwing handle, the most likely configuration would be an explosive core, harvested from undetonated ordnance or using HME, surrounded by shrapnel, wrapped in a covering (tape), with a quick burning fuse inserted. Video footage of these particular grenades in use has not surfaced yet, but it’s almost certain that is how they’re employed.
Barrel Bombs[15] : Highly controversial, but nothing more than an IED rolled out the back of a helicopter or transport plane, the barrel bomb is almost exactly what it sounds like: a barrel filled with explosives, capped with detonator . Pioneered by Sudanese air forces, the barrel bomb has seen limited use in Sudan[16] and Iraq[17]with extensive use in Syria[18] . The nature of such weapons means that they cannot be precisely targeted and instead rely on saturation to destroy enemy targets. Unfortunately this results in significant civilian death and destruction as these weapons land in residential areas (NSFW) [19] .

Chemical Weapons

Chlorine gas:[20] The presence of chemical weapons in Syria is known and has been the point of considerable controversy as each side accuses the other of chemical weapon attacks. While the Syrian government has had limited cooperation in disposing of part of its chemical weapons stockpile, some chemical weapons are either too difficult to remove or too plentiful in non-weaponized form. Of these, chlorine gas, which has many civil and industrial purposes, can be very easily converted to use as a chemical weapon. Western governments have accused the Syrian military[21] of employing chlorine gas multiple times, and the Syrian and Iraqi governments make claims that ISIL is employing it[22] as well. The validity of such claims is disputed, but what is for sure is that the ability to manufacture such weapons exists in Syria. Typically this would be seen in the form of dumb bombs equipped with chlorine gas canisters, or artillery shells outfitted the same way. Chlorine gas causes irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat and high enough concentration or long enough exposure can cause asphyxiation. Unlike many tailor made chemical weapons, chlorine doesn’t hang in the air but settles rather quickly and dissipates in a short period of time, making it less than ideal as an area denial weapon[23] .

TECHNICALS AND IMPROVISED ARMORED VEHICLES

Improvised Armored Vehicles[1] More or less since armored vehicles first appeared on the battlefield, groups have been slapping metal armor onto tractors and trucks, calling them tanks and armored vehicles and driving into combat with them. The Syrian conflict is no different and there has been no shortage of homemade armored vehicles, from the 2012 Al-Ansar Brigade Playstation controller operated[2] armored car to the Kurdish YPG’scomical looking[3] armored personnel carries and ambulances. Essentially stripped vehicles or farm equipment with metal slabs bolted on, these ad hoc measures offer very little in the way of actual protection in a combat environment that is rife with anti-tank weapons. While such vehicle may provide limited cover from small arms fire, even heavy machine gun fire might be enough to actually cause more damage than if there was no armor at all. Any anti-armor rocket can cause a catastrophic kill on one of these vehicles and with enough velocity and kinetic power, heavy caliber rounds such as the commonplace DShk 12.7mm machine gun round can causespalling[4] where the impact of the round cause metal to flake off on the opposite side, spraying shrapnel inside. In an unarmored vehicle, the round would likely just pass through, connecting with whatever was inside and passing out the other side. In combat environments these vehicles have not stood up to the test of combat and are probably not worth the time, cost, or material put into them.
Technical[5] While the improvised armored vehicle hasn’t proven to be an effective weapon in the Syrian conflict, the much written about “technical” has shown itself to be the preferred “cavalry” mount of both government and opposition forces. The only two real components of a technical is that it is a standard off the shelf vehicle that has been modified to accept heavy weaponry and a gunner. While the most commonly seen variant is the Hilux pickup truck[6] or Bongo truck/van[7] jeeps and sedans with the roof cut off off have also been seen. Generally they are equipped with a tripod or homemade weapon mount, meant to be fired from the standing position. The DShK and other heavy caliber machine guns like the KPV or converted tank/aerial machine guns are most commonly mounted, often fitted with a thin metal shield to protect the gunner from small arms fire, but offering the same spalling issues as improvised armored vehicles. Less frequently seen, recoilless rifles and anti tank weapons like the controversial TOW missile are mounted in the back to give a rapid reaction anti-armor capability. The technical is probably one of the most effective weapon systems of the Syrian conflict for its ability to combine high speed and mobility with heavy weaponry, and gives a rapid assault capability to anyone capable of gathering a few trucks and guns and welding some together some weapons mounts.

IMPROVISED ROCKET ASSISTED MUNITIONS

IRAMs (PDF)[8] The Improvised Rocket Assisted Munition (IRAM) is little more than an IED strapped a to a rocket. Most commonly in the way of cooking gas cylinders filled with explosive welded to a metal pipe full of propellant, these munitions are generally fired from metal sleds slanted in the direction they want to fire them and aimed by guesstimating the distance they will go and adjusting the angle of the sled. Without a steady source of the same kind of propellent, the ability to aim such devices is impossible to do with any form of consistency and can be likened to the game Pocket Tanks[9] where corrections are made by guessing the right angle and power mixture. Slightly more advanced IRAMs[10] have come from machine shops in ISIL territory, though their function and accuracy is just as questionable. These IRAMs have been captured by the Kurdish YPG in Kobani, Syria[11] .
Hell Cannons: Little more than an improvised mortar tube for IRAMs, Hell Cannons have come into heavy usage by the opposition as more of a fear tactic than anything else. Much like the governments barrel bombs, the Hell Cannons are not accurate enough to hit a point target but rather are used for area bombardment. Slightly more accurate than just firing from a sled, IRAMs launched from a Hell Cannon have a greater degree of control over trajectory, but suffer from the same issue as traditional IRAMs in terms of a lack of consistency in both availability of propellant and design. Operated exclusively by the opposition, a wide variety of Hell Cannons have surfaced and have been covered extensively by conflict reporters[12] . As with barrel bombs the lack of accuracy from flinging IRAMs along a rough trajectory often into residential neighborhoods. Attributed as a leading cause civilian death and wounding, the (often questionable) Syrian Observatory for Human Rights[13] attributes over 300 deaths to the use of the Hell Cannons.
Improvised Mortar Firing: As the war progresses and equipment becomes more and more worn out, measures are being taken to avoid death by equipment failure, as has been the case in numerous conflicts where improper or overuse of military equipment results in its destruction and often the death of the user[14] . As a result, innovative ways to continue to fire these systems without the risk of spontaneous combustion have come about. One of the more common has been remotely firing rockets by way of electrical signal instead of manually, giving some standoff distance both to avoid counter-battery fire, and to ensure a detonation in the tube does not kill the firer. As with the example of the over-heated mortar detonating rounds in the tube provided in the video, mortar systems with the shell in suspended at the threat of the mortar tube and attached to a string or cord, allows the operator standoff distance to pull the cord and drop the round.

REPURPOSED ARMOR

Repurposing Disabled Armor: One of the hallmarks of this conflict is the oppositions quick adoption of captured armor, both tanks and otherwise. Recently in Deir Ezzor, ISIL forces are reported to have used a T-55 tank as a SVBIED[15] indicating they either lacked parts for repair, fuel for use, or ammunition to shoot with. Rather than abandon it, its repurposing as an armored bomb may not have been the most ideal construction for a SVBIED, but it certainly increased the chances of it making it to its target without prematurely detonating from enemy fire. Similarly, the opposition outside of Damascus removed and repurposed the cannon from a disabled Russian BMP[16] to fire it manually from inside a building[17] . Finally, when an armored vehicle is disabled or in need of repair, both the government and the opposition have taken to towing the armored vehicle to a strategic point and emplacing it as a hardened bunker, utilizing the main gun as fixed artillery.

SABOTAGED MUNITIONS

Salted/Sabotaged Munitions: The Syrian army has reportedly been leaving caches of “salted” munitions for opposition groups to capture per reporting by the NY Times[18] and other organizations. Such a tactic involves producing or manipulating bullets, shells, or other explosive weapons to explode upon use. Things like cutting short the fuze on a grenade, adding too much powder in a bullet (causing overpressure and explosion of the chamber), or mixing the wrong type of propellant in large rounds can both destroy the weapon system it is used in and seriously injure the combatant using it. The catch is that if both sides are using the same kind of weapons, there is the risk that they capture these weapons from the very people they planted them for and wind up using them in their own weapons.

There are more improvised weapons coming up in Syria every month, some incredibly creative and innovative, others crude and rudimentary. While there are plenty more worth mentioning and we could fill pages more with examples, I’m going to end it here. Worth looking at, is the DIY Weapons of the Syrian Rebels[19] photo essay by The Atlantic.

Commonplace Armored Vehicles and Airpower of the Syrian Civil War Part 3 in 3 part series on weapons of Syrian Civil War. Part 2 on Unconventional Weapons is here[1] and Part 1 on Infantry, Anti-Armor, Anti-Air, and Artillery is here[2]

Modern conflict as Western audiences are familiar with it has been marked by well marked and uniformed modern military forces, operating instruments of war traditionally reserved for nation states, such as tanks, armored personnel carriers, and air forces. More and more these warfighting capacities are co-opted by non-state actors, increasingly through capture from state actors, purchase from third parties, or as covered in a previous post[3] by creating homegrown alternatives such as the Kurdish tanks, Hell Cannons of the Islamic Front, or the off the shelf ISR[4]capabilities acquired from a simple quad rotor drone equipped with a camera. At the outset of the Syrian Civil War, only the government had armored capabilities, an air force, and the means to project power beyond short lived ambushes of police and soldiers by poorly equipped opposition fighters. As the conflict approaches its fourth year of conflict, a very different state of affairs exists. Today, nearly every faction in the Syrian Civil War possesses some form of armored capacity, ISIL captured, and for a short time operated, Syrian government MiGs[5] representing one of the few times in history that a non-state group has operated any semblance of an air force. As the capacity to wage warfare becomes less and less the purview of only the Syrian government, the monopoly on use of force erodes more and more as government weaponry is captured.

As with the first and second guides to weapons of the Syrian conflict, this one does not attempt to cover all vehicles operated in Syria, but rather aims to touch on the most commonly seen and most influential to the conflict. For more in depth reading about the armored vehicles common to this conflict, please check out the Oryx Blog[6] series on the tanks of Syria. For the sake of continuity, as with past articles, a Wikipedia link will be attached for each entry. It is worth mentioning that a majority of Soviet armored vehicles purchased by the Syrian government are what are known as monkey models[7] , where some of the design elements featured on the domestic versions of the vehicle have been removed for export models. This was multipurpose, both to prevent more complicated military equipment from being captured by enemies of the Soviet Union and revealing the true capabilities of their armor to the West, to save on expense, and to prevent fickle foreign governments from attaining full strength Soviet weaponry.

Main Battle Tanks

T-55/T-54[8] the workhorse of the of every group that has armored capabilities in Syria, the Syrian Arab Army began the conflict with roughly 2,000[9] of these vehicles, and it has been the most widely fielded, as well as most widely destroyed and captured, armored vehicle in Syria. Many variants of this Russian tank exist and numerous countries have offered upgrade packages to make this 60+ year old tank more survivable on the modern battlefield, but the tank itself, in stock forms, offers a 100mm rifled cannon, armor varying in thickness from 30mm to 205mm, and calls for a crew of four (driver, gunner, loader, commander). The T-55 is an exceedingly simple vehicle to operate and maintain, which gives it staying power in the conscript armies of nations who cannot afford the expensive maintenance infrastructure of more modern designs. Similarly, it makes the T-55 an ideal vehicle for insurgencies to capture, as only a rudimentary knowledge of heavy equipment repair and maintenance is necessary to keep it running. The T-55 is no contender for combat against modern main battle tanks, but it offers significant advantages when employed against lighter vehicles, entrenched infantry, or fighters behind cover offered in an urban landscape such as buildings. However, the T-55 suffers from armor that is not able to withstand even dated anti-tank weapons like the RPG-7 's most basic warheads, and especially more powerful munitions such as the controversial TOW missile[10] or Konkurs ATGM[11] . As a result, traditional methods of ‘plussing up’ tank armor have been employed in the form of reactive armor[12] which explodes away from the tank when struck or the much more low tech (and inexpensive) chain armor[13]or slat armor[14] both designed to detonate incoming anti-tank rockets and missiles prior to actual impact on the tank. Such methods are employed on nearly all armored vehicles in Syria, and are believed to have made a real difference in survivability of low tech vehicles like the T-55. The T-55 is notable for its heavy usage by ISIL forces to spearhead assaults through massed armor supporting heavy infantry forces. This ability has been degraded by the presence of coalition airstrikes, but helped catapult ISIL to prominence in 2013 and 2014.

T-62[15] Developed as replacement for hte T-55, the T-62 features a larger, 115mm, smoothbore cannon, heavier armor all around, and a larger vehicle. The heavier cannon was required for field new ammunition capable of defeating modern (for the time) Western tanks. The smaller T-55 could not handle a turret large enough to field the new cannon, and thus the T-62 was born. Employed in the same manner as the T-55, and also appearing in opposition arsenals all over the country, the T-62 is similarly upgraded in various fashions to help defeat anti-tank munitions. As will be repeated theme, as with most Soviet era armored vehicles, maintenance and repair of the T-62 is relatively low level and can be conducted under austere conditions without long supply trains and logistical hubs, making the T-62 another excellent vehicle for opposition groups to field. The SAA was believed to have 1,000[16] at the outset of hostilities.

T-72[17] Arguably, the most powerful tank in the Syrian arsenal, and the most widely fielded modern Main Battle Tank in the world, the T-72 improves on previous tank generations with a larger 125mm smoothbore cannon, thicker armor than the T-62, slightly better operational range, and significantly faster. The T-72 makes extensive use of reactive armor, and is far better adapted to shrug off lighter anti-tank weapons such as the RPG-7, though still very vulnerable to ATGMs and more modern RPG variants like the [RPG-29]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RPG-29[18] ). The introduction of an autoloader removes the necessity for a crewmember dedicated to loading the main gun. Not much heavier than the previous T-62, the T-72 has the ability to operate in a variety of environments that heavier Western tanks would become bogged down in or incapable of traversing, such as light bridges. However a more complex fire control system, autoloader, and more modern powerplant make the T-72 more difficult for non-state actors to keep it maintained in functioning order. The SAA was believed to have 1.600 at the outset of hostilities

Armored Fighting Vehicles (tracked)

PTR-76[19] Although only lightly fielded in Syria with some 80 units in service prior to the war, the unique nature of this vehicle bears mentioning. An amphibious reconnaissance vehicle, the PT-76 would serve as the chassis basis for a number of more advanced Soviet armored vehicles. While lightly armored, relative to a main battle tank, with a 76mm cannon, the PT-76 has the ability to ford bodies of water, and functions as a light tank. Not heavily armored enough to go toe to toe with other armored vehicles or even light anti-armor weapons, the PT-76 is best used as a standoff weapon capable of delivering aimed cannon fire over a long distance. The PT-76 is an early example of a gap that existed in many armies, for a lightweight armored and tracked vehicle, with a lighter cannon, not intended for frontline combat service, but rather to ferry troops and conduct reconnaissance. Its use in Syria has not been very widespread.

BMP-1[20] The BMP-1, much like the PT-76, offers a stop-gap between unarmored gun-trucks and heavily armored main battle tanks. Armed with a 73mm cannon for lightly armored vehicles and troops, and a launching rail for the9M14 Malyutka ATGM[21] to deal with more heavily armored threats, the BMP-1 is a fast moving infantry fighting vehicle (BMP standing for Boyevaya Mashina Pekhoty, Russian for: infantry fighting vehicle), thinly armored, just enough to protect the three man crew and up to eight infantry passengers from small arms and shrapnel. Not intended to go toe to toe with more heavily armored foes but rather function as a “battle taxi” shifting troops where they’re needed on the battlefield. With over 2,000 believed to be in the Syrian arsenal at the outset of hostilities, the BMP-1 constitutes the most commonly found non-tank armored vehicle and shows up in the hands of opposition groups all over the country. Earlier this month, al-Qaeda linked Jabhat al-Nusra utilized a number of BMP-1s in conjunction with a few T-72s and T-55s to overwhelm the SAA defenders of Wadi al-Daif military installation [22] in Western Syria, signalling a shift towards heavy armored operations by opposition groups to spearhead assaults and overwhelm entrenched defenders who would be difficult to otherwise defeat.

BTR-50[23] Similar to the PT-76, and built on the same chassis, the BTR-50 is an amphibious armored personnel carrier designed to carry large numbers of troops to and from the battlefield. Lightly armored to withstand small arms and shrapnel, the BTR-50 lacks a heavy weapon at all, either going unarmed, or with some combination of medium and heavy machine guns manned by the crew. In Syria, some BTR-50s have been modified to accept a ZU-23-2 anti-aircraft gun on top of the hull, but this arrangement is not a common modification. The vehicle can carry up to 20 combat troops, both over water and on land, and is often reinforced by sandbags and bolt on metal armor for additional protection. In service primarily by the SAA, BTR-50s have shown up in various opposition groups. The SAA was believed to have 550 at the outset of hostilities.

Armored Fighting Vehicles (wheeled)

BTR-60[24] Where previous vehicles discussed have all been tracked, the next three are notable for being wheeled. Where tracks offer many advantages especially in terms of cross country ability, if a single track is disabled a vehicle is dead in the water and unable to continue moving. In contrast, the eight wheels of a BTR-60 allow the vehicle to continue moving even if several tires or deflated or destroyed. The BTR-60 is a lightly armored vehicle intended to ferry troops to and from the battlefield, much like the BTR-50. In contrast, the BTR-60 fits fewer troops (up to 14), moves much faster than tracked vehicles, and has a 14.5mm heavy machine gun turret mounted on the roof. Armor is minimal and only frontal armor will stop small arms fire at all rights, with the thinner side and rear armor being susceptible to penetration by small arms fire at close range. As such, the BTR-60 is best employed shuttling troops to the battlefield, then quickly withdrawing before attracting heavy fire. The SAA was believed to have 650 of these at the outset of hostilities.

BTR-152[25] Essentially the predecessor to the BTR-60, the BTR-152 borrows heavily from Second World War designs, and was the brainchild of Soviet analysts who concluded the reason they suffered such disproportionately high rates of infantry casualties was a result of a lack of armored personnel carry to move troops to the battlefield. The result was the BTR-152, a very thinly armored, open top, six wheeled vehicle, equipped with a single machine gun, requiring only a crew of two, and capable of moving 18 passengers. Numerous variants of this vehicle were produced, including command and communications, anti-aircraft with quad machine gun mounts, and mine-laying variants, and most of these variants have been seen in Syria. A major vulnerability is the open top, leading to extreme threat to those inside from grenades, or gunfire from an elevated position. Home-brewed fixes such as bolt on armor and angled canvas siding to cause grenades to roll off have met with some success, but this dated platform is not much more efficient than the technicals and armor plated trucks of the opposition. The SAA was believed to have 300 of these at the outset of hostilities.

BRDM-2[26] Separate from the aforementioned armored personnel carriers, the BRDM lacks any troop transport capability and is instead essentially a lightly car with turret for 14.5mm heavy machine gun on top. With a crew of four, the BRDM-2 is meant to provide reconnaissance on battlefield condition, too lightly armed and armored to do much on the battlefield as even the lightest anti-armor weapons will destroy it. It’s employment in Syria is analogous to the “technicals” employed by the opposition: fast moving, all terrain, capable of moving a heavy machine gun to a position of tactical advantage while offering slightly more protection than a dismounted infantryman. The SAA was believed to have 700 of these at the outset of hostilities.

AIRPOWER

The presence of the Syrian Arab Airforce (SyAAF) has long been attributed to the staying power of the SAA as opposition forces lacked the means to challenge SyAAF airpower initially, and even now only possess minimal anti-air capabilities, which the SyAAF has responded to be altering its operations in favor of higher flight altitudes (resulting in lower accuracy). As the war wears on, more and more Syrian aircraft have been down by anti-aircraft artillery like the ZU-23-2, captured MANPADS[1] , and using ATGMs like the TOW missile to strike parked aircraft[2] at government installations. Pre-war figures of 555 combat airplanes and 36 attack helicopters are decimated and it was reported in September of this year that those numbers had sunk to 295 and 25[3] respectively, although with no official word from Syria, it is difficult to confirm such numbers. It is likely that Russian and Iranian sources have been slowly replenishing destroyed aircraft stocks, but the SyAAF cannot continue to sustain such losses. A Syrian government victory is predicated on continued mastery of the air and the ability to reinforce and provide support for troops on the ground when besieged by opposition groups. This section will focus on Syrian government aircraft only, and will not attempt to delve into the aircraft used by coalition partners in airstrikes against ISIL.

Drones

Mohajer 4[4] The rise of drones in use by military forces generally covers their use in combat firing Hellfires and other guided missiles at insurgent targets in Iraq and Afghanistan. What is rarely covered is their extensive use by nearly every modern military force to gather real time intelligence via direct video feeds, and to give commanders strategic flexibility by being able to observe their forces in totality and gain better insight on what to do and where to move. In Syria, Iranian supplied Mohajer 4 drones deliver a reconnaissance capability the government previously did not have short of using valuable combat aircraft to perform time and manpower consuming reconnaissance missions. The Mohajer 4 is capable of 7 hours continuous flight time and can reach a flight ceiling of 15,000 feet, with a range of 150km, giving significant coverage, and able to reach well above anti-aircraft fire range, though at unknown cost to visibility and optics. Several have been downed in Syria, though whether by enemy fire or technical mishap is unknown.

Yasir[5] Very little hard data is known about the Yasir drone, but it is reputed to be a reverse engineered copy of the US “Scan Eagle” reconnaissance drone, boasting loner range (200km) and greater flight time (8 hours) than the Mohajer 4, with a similar flight ceiling. It’s presence in Syria has not been confirmed, but with the uptick in Iranian military involvement, it is believed to be operated within Syria, possibly by Iranian controllers.

Non-Military Drones: While the Syrian government and its allies hold a monopoly of on military airpower in Syria, that has not stopped opposition groups from purchasing off the shelf “drones” in the form of remotely controlled quadcopters. Equipping them with GoPros and other off the shelf camera equipment, one can spend less than $800 on Amazon[6] and acquire their own ISR capability in the form of products listed as “toys” like the DJI Phantom 2 quadcopter. Thirty minutes of flight time and able to reach several hundred feet up, such “drones” have been employed by numerous factions in the conflict, most notably by ISIL, featured in their propaganda videos[7] over the Kurdish city of Kobani. As non-state actors co-opt this technology, the monopoly on standoff reconnaissance begins to shift in favor of smaller groups operating cheap, easy to acquire, civilian legal “drones”.

Fixed Wing Combat Aircraft

MiG-21[8] In conjunction with the MiG-23, the MiG-21 forms the bulk of the Syrian Arab Airforce, with over one hundred in service. A fighter plane, the MiG-21 has been repurposed as a ground attack, close air support, and reconnaissance platform, operating in support of SAA offensives, to bomb opposition strong points, and to relieve pressure on besieged SAA bases. As a need for fighter craft in Syria has dwindled, and with neighboring Israel conducting airstrikes[9] in Syria almost unopposed, the bulk of Syrian combat aircraft have been adapted into a support role for the SAA. The MiG-21 carries a 23mm cannon for strafing ground targets, and can employ slightly over 2,000 lbs in bombs, rockets, or a combination of both. The rarity of smart munitions means that the bulk of air support relies on pilot skill and accuracy, both of which are severely limited by the high altitudes pilots must fly at to avoid anti-aircraft fire and MANPADS. The MiG-21 was first rolled out in combat operations during the Syrian Civil War in July of 2012. August 21st of the same year marked the first SyAAF combat loss as a MiG-21 was shot down on takeoff by enemy anti-aircraft fire. Another MiG-21 was shot down two weeks later[10] , by heavy machine gun fire.

MiG-23[11] Representing the second most plentiful combat aircraft in the Syrian air force (95 pre-war), the MiG-23 is utilized in a similar fashion to the MiG-21, fulfilling a ground attack role to support SAA offensives and relieve beleagured SAA troops. It features a 23mm cannon for strafing and can carry nearly three times the ordnance of the MiG-21, with 6500 lbs of mixed bombs, rockets, and anti-air weapons. It’s unknown if any have been shot down by the opposition, but one MiG-23 was shot down by Turkish F-16s[12] when it strayed near Turkish airspace.

MiG-25[13] A high speed reconnaissance and interceptor aircraft, the MiG-25 is used by the Syrian government as an ISR asset to gather imagery of enemy formations, and forms the bulk of the remaining SyAAF capability to counter any aerial assault by another country, combining extremely high speed with anti-air missiles.

Su-24[14] The SyAAF possesses a limited number of true ground attack aircraft, believed to be roughly twenty by pre-war estimates[15] supplementing its aging fleet of some fifty Su-22 fighter bombers. The Su-24 is a two man aircraft with a pilot and weapons officer, supersonic capable. that carries a 23mm cannon and up to nearly 18,000 pounds of ordnance, making it the aircraft most capable of providing sustained support to troops on the ground, through a variety of munitions, guided and unguided, with a mixture of rockets, bombs, and missiles. The limited number of Su-24 makes their employment a strategic consideration that likely requires senior SyAAF approval to be saved for named operations or to prevent bases from being overrun.

L-39 (trainer)[16] As the Syrian war has shown, necessity is the mother of invention, or in the case of the SyAAF, the mother of adaption. The L-39 is a jet trainer aircraft that has been repurposed as a light ground attack aircraft, capable of hosting a 23mm cannon and close to 3,000 lbs of ordnance. Designed to teach pilots to fly, smaller air forces have adopted the aircraft for this purpose and then retrofitted it to host anti-aircraft missiles, bomb pylons, and cannons. Syria is believed to have 40 of these aircraft, though at least two have been destroyed by ATGM attacks on Syrian airports by opposition groups.

Combat Helicopters

Gazelle[1] The French production Gazelle is a light helicopter adapted to scouting and light attack roles, sometime operating as a host for the remaining stores of smart munitions for targeted operations against key targets, transport officials, and provide a light attack capability in support of SAA offensives. Originally intended to be armed with anti-armor missiles and employed against Israeli tanks in the event of an invasion, the Gazelle can carry medium machine guns, guided missiles or dumb rockets, and can carry three passengers. The SyAAF is believed to have 30 of these craft.

Mi-8/Mi-17[2] The Mi-17 Hip is a variant of the Mi-8 transport helicopter. Syria is known to possess both, and while exact figures are not clear, it’s believed to be between 80 and 130 combined. Designed as a transport helicopter it is often repurposed as a gunship, but it is infamous in the Syrian Civil War as the primary host of improvised “barrel bombs”, discussed previously our guide to unconventional weapons[3] . Flying above conventional anti-aircraft fire range, the Mi-17 opens its rear cargo door and simply rolls the barrel bombs out the back when approximately over the target area, leading to an incredible lack of control over where the several hundred pound crude bombs explode. Capable of carrying up to 30 troops, 12 stretchers, or nearly 9,000 lbs of cargo, the Mi-17 sees work as a troop shuttle, air ambulance, and rapid resupply capability in addition to being adapted as an impromptu bomber.

Mi-25[4] The export variant of the Soviet Mi-24 Hind, the Mi-25 is perhaps most famous for its role in Soviet-Afghan war where it was the chariot of the Soviet infantry and functioned as heavily armored and armed air support. The Mi-25 hosts an enormous amount of weaponry, including a mixture of 12.7mm, 23mm, and 30mm cannons in single and dual configurations, winged mounted rocket and bomb pods, and window mounted machine guns, with in excess of 3,000 lbs of ordnance that can be carried on external hardpoints. Due to the nature of this aircraft’s mission and the need to be at relatively low altitude for gun strikes it is vulnerable to anti-aircraft fire, though unique in that the fuselage is armored enough to withstand 12.7mm heavy machine gun fire. The Mi-25 is capable of hauling 8 soldiers, can travel 280 miles and has a top speed of 208 miles per hour. Syria is believed to have just over 30 of these gunships.

BGM-71 TOW Missile

What is it?

The BGM-71 TOW[1] is a Tube launched Optically Wire guided missile system that falls into the category of Anti-Tank Guided Missile (ATGM). Identical to the TOW missile system is the Iranian Toophan[2] missile, a reverse engineered TOW missile.

What are the parts?

The TOW missile launcher is a sled, that holds the inserted missile cartridge, the tripod that supports the sled, a guidance/power unit, and a set of 1-3 different optics used to watched the missile as it fires.

How does it work?

When the user inserts a missile into the sled, they then search for their target. Once a target is found and the missile launched, the missile trails a wire connected to the launcher behind the flight of the missile. The user is able to send commands to the missile over this wire, which gives the user the ability to adjust the missile for a moving target or to fly a more random path to avoid countermeasures. If this wire is severed the missile goes erratic and flies off in a random direction.

Why is it special?

As a dated platform that has faced being pulled from US arsenals many times, the TOW is not particularly special. It's just hardy, we have lots of them, and many countries buy them from the US. There are quite a few variants of the missile, and the current version the US uses is mostly the "E" and "F" variants (capable of top down attacks, and designed to defeat reactive armor), while the rebels are receiving the "A" and "B" variants (plain warhead). The TOW missile has exceptional range, roughly 4200 meters, and the optics allow it to be tracked all the way to the this range.

Recently declassified CIA reports show that penetration is roughly 430mm of armor for the basic TOW (what the rebels have) and 630mm for the improved TOW. It's not a particularly fast weapon, at roughly 300m per second, and can be visually tracked.

What else is like it in Syria?

Syria is one of the most anti-tank weapon rich environments on the face of the earth right now. In addition to the TOW, the Syrian Arab Army stocked massive supplies of similar wire-guided systems like the Konkurs[3] or the smallerFagot[4] .

Bigger and more powerful systems like the Kornet[5] have ranges up to 5,500m and carry a large warhead than either the Konkurs or the TOW, accounting for one of the only Russian bloc ATGMs that can routinely knock out an M-1 Abrams tank.

Similarly, the Chinese HJ-8[6] "Red Arrow" surfaces in Syria quite regularly and boasts a similar performance to the TOW.

Conclusion

The TOW missile system is a devastating anti-tank missile system, and the complicity of the US in supplying it from Saudi arsenals to "vetted" rebel groups is well known. But the TOW missile system is hardly any more of a "game-changer" than the existing (and far more plentiful) anti-tank weapon systems in Syria at present.

It's worth noting that the primary armor of the Syrian Arab Army is 1950s era T-55 "monkey model" tanks that have received some upgrades. These tanks are routinely destroyed or made immobile by weapons as simple as RPG-7s and IEDs. What makes the ATGM (all variants) so important is the standoff distance it gives. Being able to hit a tank or artillery piece (or aircraft as recently shown) at several kilometers away greatly increases your chances of surviving the encounter.

How Does a US Airstrike Work? A Simplified Answer

I'll touch one three separate kind of strikes: (1) with a trained observer on the ground, (2) with no observer on the ground and a planned target, and (3) no observer on the ground and targets of opportunity. We'll use Raqqa as an example of planned and Kobanî as an example of targets of opportunity. I will use a personal example from my time overseas as an example where there's an observer on the ground.

In a planned strike, you build a target package via various intelligence assets. The rule of thumb is two different forms of intelligence that can be independently confirmed. Say there's a warehouse in Raqqa where munitions are stored. An informant passes on information, either directly to the US or to an intermediary who passes it on. The US then takes other forms of intelligence to confirm the information; signals intercepts about that warehouse holding munitions, or satellite/drone imagery of the location and weapons going in or out, or drone overwatch providing pattern of life analysis showing no humans are in or around the facility (for concerns of civilian loss of life). Once all this is done a target package is built. Then multiple packages are presented to an authorizing agent, who will prioritize what needs destroying the most. Prior to the strike in an area where civilians or friendlies are located, 12-24 overwatch by drones ensures no one innocents move into the target location. This is a MAJOR step in getting authority to strike as if some large body of civilians show up the strike is aborted. There is literally an analyst sitting in some watch floor watching the drone feed for hours at a time, probably doing other work at the same time, but looking for movement or changes in the target behavior.

Once prioritized, they get brought to another authorizing agent who takes responsibility and says: "Yes, destroy 1, 2, and 3. No, do not attack 4 and 5, because not enough information or collateral damage estimates (potential innocent death) are too high." The target data including a description and coordinates is passed the military who briefs their pilots or drone handlers. A flight launches. The combat operation center then begins to monitor the flight but has no interaction until it reaches the destination. Depending on whether it's a drone or pilot, they may have pre-authorization or wait for authorization from another command. They arrive on target, get visual confirmation that there are no innocents in the vicinity (via Sniper/Pod- a super good camera). Then there's a handoff of visual on the target (from the drone to pilot). The drone then lazes the target if necessary and the pilot begins his approach. If pre-authorized, once he has a good line up he releases munitions. Bombs away, target is struck, either the pilot sticks around to get footage of the damage or a drone/other aircraft takes over and the plane returns to base. Following the strike reassessment is done by imagery, local sources, and radio traffic discussing the strike.

For a target of opportunity strike, you build a very loose target package: "there are lots of tanks and fighters in this grid zone, a known enemy strong point. Allied forces on the ground confirm they have no presence there." Data is given to pilots informing them the zone in which they can strike and where the limits are. For Kobanî this means the border with Turkey and certain north south lines that divide control from YPG and ISIL. Pilot heads out and begins identifying combatants on the ground. When he believes he has a target he communicates his intent to a mission commander. They confirm or deny that friendlies are located in this target zone or within danger close. If the target is free of friendly forces approval is giving and pilot attacks. He waits for dust to clear, observes effects on target. If target is destroyed he moves to a new target. If not he may line up for reattack if asked to. When fuel is low, there are no more targets, or ammo is expended he returns to base. A drone resumes overwatch of targets and helps determine effects on target.

The interesting one, is when there is an observer on the ground, who can verify a target, and needs to walk the pilot (or drone) onto target, and avoid both friendly casualties, firing at nothing, or killing innocents. In this scenario, other than accuracy, trust is the single most important aspect. If a unit has a history of feeding bad target data, or worse, exaggerating a threat to get quicker support (aircraft are prioritized by who needs them most- if you are suffering casualties and there's an ongoing threat, you will get precedence over the unit that's just getting pot shots) aircraft will hesitate to drop bombs for them without independent confirmation of enemy presence. Something to bear in mind is that the rules for close air support change DRASTICALLY based on the Rules of Engagement for the a) troops on the ground, b) theater they're in c) pilots commanding authority (his boss). So my example may be VERY different in another environment or with different troops (special forces will have a lot more liberty because they're a much better trained asset and they can be 100% trusted to give a perfectly accurate picture to the best of their ability. So let's begin.

I am Squad Leader So-and-so, a run of the mill Marine infantryman. I am on patrol with my 12 other Marines and a few host nation soldiers. We are several kilometers away from our support base and there are no friendly forces without a reasonable distance of us that can get to us within 20-30 minutes. We cross a poppy field heading towards a small village to check in with the local elder when an IED goes off slightly wounding my point man. I set my Marines into a defensive posture facing outwards and the Corpsman and I rush forward to the wounded Marine. Doc assesses him and says its non-life threatening, but he's not going to be able to continue to patrol to get back home. We get on the radio and both inform the command of the attack and spin up a medevac report. Command sends both the IED report and Medevac report to our supporting base and a helicopter is dispatched. During this time a machine gun opens up on us from a few hundred meters away. We can tell where the fire is coming from, but because of the rate of fire and defensive posture we're in, we can't directly return fire. We request artillery, but it's unavailable (because reasons). We request immediate ground support but it's unavailable. The medevac helicopter informs us it cannot land unless the threat is neutralized. Higher command authorizes an air strike. This is when I, the squad leader, have to perform. A certain number of leaders will be sent to a course specifically to become experts at this, but most Marine (and Army) will at least have basic familiarity with the process, and carry a "cheat sheet" of the CAS (Close Air Support) 9-Line brief. Essentially, once I've made contact with the pilot, I have a fill in the blank card that I plug in the appropriate data. I read this information to him, he confirms what he heard, and we move from there. The process goes like this (slightly simplified):

Line 1: IP/BP (Initial Point/Battle Point)___________________ here I tell the pilot the point from which they should begin their attack path if it's a plane. If it's a helicopter, this is the point from which to align themselves to fire at the target

Line 2: HEADING: given in magnetic degrees this is the direction of their attack path to the target (or the direction to aim towards if a helicopter)

Line 3: DISTANCE: this is the distance from the IP/BP to the target. For a plane this is given accurate to 1/10th of a nautical mile. For a helicopter it should be accurate to within 5 meters (if possible). This tells the plane how far to fly before releasing munitions, and the helicopter how to aim.

Line 4: TARGET ELEVATION: expressed in feat above sea level. I quite honestly forget why this is important.

Line 5: TARGET DESCRIPTION: this part is incredibly vital so that the pilot can confirm they say what you're talking about. If there's confusion about what the target looks like they will abort the attack and depending on time/fuel constraints may or may not make a second attempt. If a drone is available, higher command may help build a better picture of the target to feed to the pilot.

Line 6: TARGET LOCATION: there are numerous ways to express this. I believe pilots prefer longitude and latitude, but 10 digit grids from an Military Grid Reference System map [1] (a 1km square broken down by north/south east/west axis, accurate down to 1 meter), Grid Reference Graphs (a satellite map divided into grids with each building or landmark assigned a specific number, VERY easy for ground troops to figure out what the target is. So like this [2] but each building has a number). Finally, probably the least preferred method, the squad leader can givehis grid, then a direction towards the target, and a distance. The pilot then plots the squad leaders position, puts in the distance and direction and finds the grid of the target itself.

Line 7: MARK TYPE: this is where the way the target will be marked (if possible) is explained. Possible marking could be colored smoke (via grenade launcher), a flare fired at the target, illumination round (possibly fired by mortars), or the most preferable: laser designated (either by the troops on the ground using a high powered and purpose built laser illuminator, or by a nearby plane or drone)

Line 8: FRIENDLIES: this line is SUPER important, as it gives the pilot distance from the target to other friendly forces so they know how much room for error they have and helps them determine if they can safely drop ordnance or if they need to switch to another weapon (a gun run or maybe a smaller bomb).

Line 9: EGRESS: this is the direction the aircraft should turn at the completion of the attack to leave the attack area. This helps ensure they don't fly into the flight path of another aircraft.

Once this information is transmitted, the pilot confirms what he's heard. If the squad leader doesn't have a particular weapon request in mind (say an airburst bomb because the enemy is out in the open and he believes this will effect the target best) the pilot will recommend (or decide) what weapon to use. From this point, the pilot is more or less on his own, though he will continue to communicate his actions with the troops on the ground. This is particularly important if he's going to be dropping bombs anywhere close to friendly troops so everyone knows when to take cover.

The 9-Line will sound something like this:

Squad Leader callsign= "Danger 3-1" Pilot callsign = "Hawk 5"

SL: "Hawk 5 this is Danger 3-1. Standby for CAS 9 Line."
P: "Danger 3-1, Hawk 5. Standing by."
SL: "Hawk 5, Danger 3-1.
Line 1: 41RPQ 12345 67890
Line 2: ZERO NINER FIVE (95) DEGREES
Line 3: ZERO POINT EIGHT NAUTICAL MILES
Line 4: ONE ONE FIVE ZERO FEET (1,150)
Line 5: TWO MAM (military aged males) MACHINE GUN POSITION, ENTRENCHED IN TREE LINE.
Line 6: 41RPQ 09876 54321
Line 7: LASER
Line 8: ONE FIVE ZERO ZERO METERS NORTHWEST OF TARGET
Line 9: SOUTH WEST TO AVOID ARTILLERY SUPPRESSION. How copy on all? (requesting to know if the pilot understood everything)"
P "Danger 3-1, Hawk 5. Good copy on all." (confirming he understood it all).

It can get a LOT more complex, but that's a basic picture of what goes on for an observer on the ground to get an airstrike on target. Hopefully this post cleared up some misconceptions about airstrikes.

Mortars: How they work and what a trained mortar crew looks like

It's been asked a couple of time recently how mortars work, how effective they are, and why they are used the way they are in Syria. So I thought I'd give a general breakdown of how mortars work, from a US perspective, and how I've observed them being used in Syria. This will be a very general overview and an actual mortarman might find some glaring deficiencies (if we have any mortarmen here please speak up, I've got tons of projects you could help me with). Hopefully this will help explain why mortars are of such limited effect in Syria by demonstrating just how complicated the process of calling for and using mortars is. I'll try and limit it to two (lengthy) parts:

(1) Use, Nomenclature, and parts of the mortar system.
(2) How US troops call for a mortar mission

(1) Use, Nomenclature, and Parts of the Mortar System

For the sake of personal familiarity I'll be using the US M252 81mm [1] medium mortar, because it's the closest US counterpart to the Soviet/ComBloc 82mm mortar systems in use in Syria (and prior Soviet client states). 81mm and 82mm occupy the category of "medium" mortar relative to "light" mortars like the US M224 60mm[2] mortar, or "heavy" mortars like the Soviet M1943 160mm[3] mortar or the US Soltam K6 120mm[4] mortar. The varying sizes correspond not only to the size of the warhead that can be fired, but also (usually) to the range of the weapon. A mortar is different from other artillery weapons because of how it's employed. A howitzer or field gun will have (generally speaking) a lower angle trajectory and go a much further distance where a mortar has a very high angle trajectory and is much shorter range. (this diagram is useful to show the difference [5] . The first one of the left is a mortar, the rest are howitzers and field guns). As a result of their trajectory and range, as well as their size and portability of ammunition, mortars are incredibly useful to the infantryman and give heavy firepower to the dismounted ground troop without being tied to a specific spot as is the case with traditional (larger) artillery. The high trajectory of a mortar means you can drop rounds INCREDIBLY close to yourself and perhaps even more importantly you can hit targets behind defilade[6] (visit that page- really good explanation of defilade and enfilade) also known asdeadspace[7] . In this diagram [8] you can see how this works. This diagram is actually showing the reverse of what I'm talking about, the mortar itself is in defilade. But if the mortar was at the spot where the round impacts, it could fire into that covered position in a way that more direct fire weapons or lower angle artiller could not. With all that in mind...

The basic parts of the mortar are the tube, bipods, baseplate, and aiming device. There is more equipment available (targeting boards, maps, communication equipment to talk to troops who need the support, targeting computers for newer systems), but those are all that is absolutely necessary to make a mortar work. The firing tube is literally that: a heavy metal tube, sometimes with cooling fins (metal fins along the bottom that dissipate heat and prevent a cook off, they look like this [9] ), a firing pin at the bottom, around which the other parts of the mortar are connected. The tube is held upright by the bipods which also carry the sighting unit (used to figure out the correct angle for the gun), and hooks into the baseplate. The bipods are used to make adjustments to the angle of the weapon. In general the higher the angle the shorter the distance it will fire (though not always, I'll explain in a second). The baseplate helps secure the mortar in place so that the recoil of the round going off doesn't shift the point of aim and ruin follow on shot's accuracy. Ideally, the weapon doesn't move and each impact is within a few meters of each other. To ensure the baseplate is secured, an experienced crew will "sink" the base plate by placing a lot of weight on the baseplate (usually standing on it) and firing a few rounds through it (usually flares or smoke rounds since their impact isn't really aimed). It looks like this [10] . The "teeth" of the baseplate will catch in the ground from the impact and until removed the mortar is now securely anchored in place.

(2) How US troops call for a mortar mission

On TV or movies you'll often see someone rattle off a list of coordinates into a radio and seconds later a mortar team drops rounds on that location. While technically you could fire a mission using nothing but (accurate) coordinates, a well trained mortar team needs more than that and unless an absolute emergency will demand a lot more information from troops on the gruond. The process of communicating the data to the gun-team from the guys on the ground who need the support is called a "Call for Fire" mission. We'll discuss two types of these; grid missions and polar missions. In a grid mission it works kind of like our initial scenario but with more data, giving the exact coordinates (10 digit, or accurate to within 1 meter is the preferred method) of the target. In a polar mission you don't know the exact grid of the enemy but you know your grid. So you give your grid, the direction of the enemy (in mils) and the distance to the enemy. The gun crew plots your position, plots the direction and distance from you to the target and comes up with a grid to fire at.

The process is pretty complex at first, but it quickly becomes second nation. When calling a mission the following data has to be transmitted from the unit requesting fire to the gun crew. In order: Observer ID telling who needs support, a Warning Order type of mission (Adjusting Fire, Suppressing Fire, Fire For Effect) and the method of target location (Grid, Polar, or Shift From a Known Point). Next Target Location is given, supplying the grids, polar information, or shift from a known point. In the last instance, a target that has already been hit or is already planned (known as a Pre-Planned Target and assigned a target number) is used as a reference point, and the observer tells the gun crew how far to the right or left to shift the gun and how far forward or backward. Next is Method of Engagement. Only a really trained individual will use this because in the Method of Engagement you're dictating things that the gun crew will normally decide for you like the angle or elevation of attack, ammunition used, the fuse used, distribution of the rounds (i.e. one round every 5 meters or one round ever 25 meters) or to indicate the rounds will be very close to friendlies (called Danger Close). An instance where you might use this would be to indicate you want smoke rounds or illumination rounds. Otherwise, usually the gun crew will choose the appropriate round and fuse based on your target description. Finally, Method of Fire and Control is how the observer will communicate the effectiveness of the rounds and how he will make corrections. Generally this will be left to the discretion of the gun crew, but if a specific pattern of shots is wanted, i.e a few rounds of High Explosive, followed by smoke or White Phosphorous, the observer will indicate this. Another common one would be to say you want the rounds At My Command which means the gun crew has the mission planned, the gun aimed, ammunition ready and are waiting for the word to fire. This is useful if want the rounds to go off at the same time you're moving or when you pass a specific objective.

Confused yet? I am. Anyway, here's what that all looks like together. For this example, we will assume I am the squad leader on the ground and I'm taking fire from entrenched machine gunners 900m away and I have their grid because they're next to a building that is marked on my satellite map. Because they're entrenched, I want to use air-burst fuse to blow up over top of their position. In this scenario I'm not super experienced at calling for fire so I'll leave most of the decisions up to the gun crew. For this example, my call sign is Khe Sanh 3-1 (actual call sign). The gun battery is Steel Rain 2 (actual call sign as well).

Me: Steel Rain 2 this is Khe Sahn 3-1, Adjust Fire Grid Over. (Observer ID)

Gun Crew: Khe Sahn 3-1, this is Steel Rain 2, Adjust Fire Grid Out.

Me Steel Rain 2, Khe Sahn 3-1, GRID 41R PQ 45676 01875, over.

Gun Crew: Khe Sahn 3-1, Steel Rain 2. 41R PQ 45676 01875 out.

Me: Steel Rain 2, Khe Sahn 3-1, Machine gun crew, in cover, fuze proximity, over.

Gun Crew: Khe Sahn 3-1, machine gun crew, in cover, fuze proximity, over.

At this point the the gun crew does their math and adjustments to the gun. They will eventually come back and tell me "Shot over" to let me know the round has left the tube. I'll reply back "Shot out". They'll know the length of flight and will tell me a few seconds before impact "Splash over" and when the round impacts (whether I observe it or hear it) I reply back "Splash out". I now have to figure out if the round was effective on the first round or if corrections need to be made. If corrections need to be made, I'll tell them to adjust left or write, forward or backwards (relative to me). They'll fire another round, and if this one is on still not on target we'll make more adjustments. The method of adjustment is called bracketing and it's useful to make REALLY bold adjustments on either side of the target, reducing them slightly each time until you land on the target. This diagram [11] shows how bracketing works.

When I'm finally satisfied with the impacts, I will communicate the words every mortar crew wants to hear: Fire For Effect. This means the rounds impacting where it should and they are clear to fire either a set number of rounds, as many rounds as they have, or until I tell them to stop. Generally, Fire For Effect will have a set definition to that gun crew as being X number of rounds (5-6 seems common). If the target is destroyed I will indicate "Good effects on target, end mission, over". If I need more rounds, I will use the words "Repeat mission, over" (because of the association with fire missions, you are NEVER allowed to say repeat on the radio unless you're talking about fire missions. Instead if you need to indicate 'repeat' you'd transmit "SAY AGAIN, OVER?"). They will then fire another Fire For Effect and we'll repeat this process. If I ask them to, they'll mark the target and assign it a name and number ("Target Number AA123"). This is useful if it's a spot I usually get attacked at. I can now skip all the steps before and just tell them the target number and they'll fire on that location.

To wrap up, I figure I'll hit up preparation of the mortar position. Generally you would dig a pit to provide you protection from counter-fire, but in the non-conventional war's we've fought our enemy rarely has counter fire ability. So instead the mortar "pit" consists of sandbag or barrier walls forming an enclosed area. Inside the "pit" will be the mortar system, with the baseplate already sunk, ammunition, fuzes, and increments stored safely and separately to prevent it all blowing up at once if the mortar pit is hit. Increments are little crescent shaped propellants attached to the tail of the round to determine how high or how far the round goes. I personally have no idea how the math for this is done but a mortar crew will know it like the back of their hand. They look like this [12] . The crew will have their personal weapons stacked off to the side and likely have very little extra gear on to enhance mobility.

Here is a video [13] of Marines firing (very slowly for the camera) illumination missions in Helmand Valley, Afghanistan (these guys fired in support of my deployment).

Here is a video [14] of Marines on a range in Hawaii, preparing, aiming, and firing the weapon. These are mostly new gunners learning how to shoot. Shooting begins at about 1:20. Notice that most everyone has nothing on their body armor. At 2:00 the Fire Direction Center is giving instructions to the gun crew on how and where to fire.

Here is a video [15] of Marines on a training range in Camp Lejeune (I believe). Thre are four guns and each has five rounds prepared. They conduct a fire for effect each firing 5 rounds each (20 rounds total). Now imagine you are an enemy that has these guns dialed in on you. Twenty rounds of precise fire would be enough to change my will to stay put.

ROUNDS:

High explosive is the most commonly used round and it does exactly what you would think it does. This is the round used to kill the enemy. Useful against light armor, infantry, buildings (depending on the size of the round- 81mm would definitely work, 60mm mortar might not do so well against a hardened structure), and with the right fuze, entrenched troops.

Smoke This round is used to obscure the enemies vision, either to keep them from seeing your movement or to obscure their vision of what's happening around them. Smoke missions are fired into landing zones before MEDEVAC helicopters arrive to provide cover to run the casualty out to the helicopter (since landing zones have to be very large open areas, transporting the casualty is incredibly dangerous) both to protect the casualty and the helicopter.

White Phosphorous Also known as WP or Willy Pete (Willy Pete especially), this is a multiple purpose round. It can be used to catch things on fire an incendiary purpose, as a marking round (it burns VERY hot and fast with tons and tons of smoke, very visible) to let others know where the target is, especially aircraft looking for the target, or for the same purpose as a smoke round: obscuring enemy vision. Personally, I would choose Willy Pete rounds every time over smoke because they offer me other options as well.

Illumination. Basically flares on parachutes. These rounds pop at a certain altitude over a target and illuminate a huge area of land until they touch the ground. Incredibly useful for night operations, also a useful round to help sink the baseplate since there is no lethal function to it.

FUZES:

Impact Impact fuses do exactly what it sounds like. They explode when they hit the ground. These are the most common kind of fuse.

Delay A delay fuse will be programmed to detonate a fraction of a second after impact which is useful for light skinned buildings where the round can punch a hole in it and explode inside.

Proximity Used for airburst to explode above the target (VERY useful for entrenched troops) proximity fuses use a radio signal to detect when the ground (or another object) is nearby and detonate at a set distance above the ground. This is a terrifying round to be hit with (It was used against us in Iraq at least twice and the aftermath in terms of shrapnel is terrifying).

Variable Time Similar to proximity, you can set a fuse to explode after a certain time. Ideally right before it hits the ground or right after.

SVBIEDS (Suicide Car Bombers): A Primer on the Poor Mans Guided Munition

The emergence of modern militaries as technological superpowers has dramatically shifted the way in which non-state actors conduct their attacks. No insurgency can hope to defeat them militarily in a conventional fight, which has meant that even traditional guerrilla movements tactics of attrition warfare, booby traps, and hit-and-fade-away assaults, are no longer the guarantor of casualties that they used to be. The introduction of drones, both armed and unarmed, has made it much harder for insurgents to simply blend back into the population. The perfection of the precision guided missile and smart bombs means that one doesn’t have to make the choice between killing the “bad guy” and droves of civilians in the process or letting the “bad guy” escape. Small diamater bombs[1] , Hellfire[2] , and GPS guided artillery rounds[3] harness the destruction power of massive bomber and artillery platforms, into the accuracy and confined lethality of a much smaller weapon system, giving commanders the ability to hit precisely what they mean to, without causing massive collateral damage.

In such an age, where IED emplacers can be spotted and killed by drones before they have the chance to set their IED, where aircraft outside of visual range, can locate and destroy fleeing combatants before they have a chance to evade capture or re-engagement, what is a determined and ideologically driven insurgent commander to do? The answer is quite simple, and has been on the rise ever since its initial pioneering in the 1980s: suicide bombing. Either in it’s insurgency form as a regular civilian or commercial vehicle loaded with explosives but appearing aesthetically as though it’s just another vehicle in the checkpoint line, or in active warfare the way Syrian al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra or ISIL utilize them, the suicide bomber is one of the most effective and cheapest manners of delivering precision munitions to your target.

While suicide bomber encompasses both the man-carried and the vehicle borne, the primary focus here will be the suicide vehicle borne IED (SVBIED). A short summary of SVBIEDs can be found in the previous Guide to Unconventional Weapons of the Syrian Civil War[4] , but to recap, the SVBIED is a vehicle loaded with explosives, intended to be driven directly to its target and detonated by either the driver or a trigger man at a remote location. The explosive yield varies by vehicle and by bomb builder, but a four door sedan can pack several hundred pounds of explosives, and on the larger end, commercial trucks and construction equipment packed with thousands of pounds of explosives. Detonation can be accomplished by a variety of methods to include dead man switch which ensures detonation even if the driver is killed, remote detonation to ensure the driver does not have a change of conscience, operator activated (often achieved by turning off the vehicle to arm it, then re-starting it to detonate), and a host of other means. The explosive force of the bomb coupled with the frame of the vehicle and any loose debris or or hard objects within the immediate vicinity of the vehicle magnify the effects of the explosion by adding tremendous shrapnel to the mix, adding even more lethality.

In insurgency operations, SVBIEDs are particularly effective at disrupting military operations by shutting down checkpoints, disrupting military convoys, and targeting key infrastructure or personnel, as well as their ability to terrorize a civilian populace by targeting busy places of business or recreation. Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), the initial form of what would go on to become ISIL, made extensive use of SVBIEDs both in their attacks on coalition forces, and more notably in their sectarian assaults on Shi’a strongholds[5] , attacking shrines, mosques, and crowded marketplaces, in waves of violence so extreme even Bin Laden and the al-Qaeda leadership would distance themselves from it (for greater background, please reference The Soufan Group[6] report on this topic.)

As the insurgency of Iraq went relatively dormant and AQI was largely pushed underground when US troops left in 2011, SVBIED attacks took a new form, one that would go on to become the hallmark of ISIL attacks in Iraq and Syria. Lacking modern weapons of war with which to attack Iraqi (and later Syrian) security forces, the SVBIED returned not just as a weapon of terror, but as a strategic instrument that could rapidly destroy defensive will and cause retreat and chaos. Employed in conjunction with blitzkrieg infantry assaults via pickup truck loaded fighters, multiple SVBIEDs would be employed to capture Iraq’s second largest city of Mosul[7] where small numbers of SVBIEDs followed by fast moving technical gun trucks, slaughtered not only the defenders, but the fleeing Iraqi Army soldiers. In a defensive posture, troops are prepared for chaos and for losses. A bomb disguised as a passing vehicle lulls troops into complacency as they treat it as just another vehicle passing through. When detonated the ensuing chaos creates a weak point in a defense and when concentrated upon with follow on SVBIEDs and massed infantry, has been the death of many defensives.

Where Western military forces have factories to manufacture modern artillery, aircraft, and the precision munitions they use to deliver accurate strikes on enemy forces, groups like Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIL lack these facilities. What they don’t lack, however, is vehicles, homemade explosives, and a pool of fighters willing to sacrifice themselves for a cause. These three components are all that is necessary for these groups to assemble a “factory” to produce their most effective shock artillery. As the Syrian Civil War and Iraq conflict have progressed, the complexity of SVBIEDs has increased, with recent usage of repurposed tanks[8] and armored personnel carriers (video) [9] to protect the payload from premature detonation. In both Kobani, Syria as well as near Sinjar, Iraq, Kurdish fighters have encountered a new style of SVBIED where a common place truck is completely plated in thick metal with a thin viewport for the driver. A metal box is constructed on the box to protect the explosive payload and angled metal plating is placed on the front in an attempt to deflect incoming gunfire. Kurdish Peshmerga captured an example of this several months ago when ISIL abandoned an Iraqi police car repurposed as a VBIED[10] .

The SVBIED gives a determined opponent the perfect answer to a lack of technologically advanced weapons of warfare, and in conjunction with other unconventional weapons like the emplaced IED and improvised rocket munitions, allows for non-state entities to replenish their arsenals and maintain the kind of shock weapons necessary to break the monopoly on violence usually reserved to state actors. Where a state actor requires complex logistical chains to acquire and maintain their advanced weapons of war as well as keep them supplied with munitions, a non-state actor need only have access to a willing attacker, a vehicle, and rudimentary explosives. The cheapness and effectiveness of this weapon ensures it will not disappear from the battlefield anytime soon.

How to Stop an Urban SVBIED or Why ATGMs Aren't Always the Answer

The topic of how to stop SVBIEDs in Iraqi cities has come up quite frequently recently, especially with the fall of Ramadi to a relatively small number of ISIL fighters. Cited as a key cause of the collapse of the defense, was the overwhelming use of SVBIEDs in Ramadi. As previously discussed in my post on SVBIEDs as a force multiplier[1] the SVBIED takes a force without an air force or guided munition capability and gives them the ability to launch pinpoint strike on a given position using the firepower of several artillery batteries (depending on the size of the blast) in a single detonation. Applied precisely and without proper safeguards, the SVBIED creates a gap in defenses where inghimasyeen (shock troops- more on that in another post) can pour through and take maximum advantage of the chaos to exploit the weakness and punch further into enemy lines. A single SVBIED can cause tremendous chaos. When used in conjunction with other SVBIEDs, they can totally overwhelm defenders and help establish a defeatist mindset that leads to the perfect conditions for the kind of rout that occurred in Ramadi.

The primary defense againt the SVBIED is the checkpoint. Checkpoints allow military control of an area while still permitting vehicle traffic (civilians coming and going or military traffic). Checkpoints are the lifeblood of the Iraqi militaries defensive and offensive operations in cities. Securing new checkpoints (or creating new checkpoints) allows them to move forward and hold new territory. The checkpoint functions as a flood gate, preventing bad guys from getting in and allowing friendlies to move forward. In the reverse, in a defensive role, the checkpoint prevents enemy troops and SVBIEDs from reaching more sensitive targets (barracks, supply, communications, even operations centers). The checkpoint can vary incredibly. Often seen are simply sandbags and barbed wire with a few troops manning it [2] to the elaborate US employed doctrinal vehicle search points [3] with serpentine obstacles to slow vehicles and funnel them [4] towards a search zone, heavily armed overwatch towers [5] to provide standoff early warning and reaction time, and act as concentration point for troops who control the local area ( image of an ideal checkpoint setup[6] ). Additionally, a squad of troops with two armed vehicles, some concertina wire (to funnel vehicles forward in a serpentine manner- running over metal wire will stop most any vehicle), a spike strip (to shred tires), an armed vehicle at each end and significant distance. These "snap vehicle checkpoints " (snap VCP) are useful when advancing and lacking either the time to setup a permanent checkpoint or the manpower to stay behind with it. These snap VCPs allow the military force to use them to create rolling checkpoints, picking up the wire and and spike strips each time they advance and resetting when they stop. Here are a few examples (textbook) of snap VCPs. Admittedly these are for rural operation, but envision if you will, that instead of fields and trees, the side of the roads are filled with buildings and urban landscape.

Now that an understanding of what the checkpoint is and how it works is out of the way, it is important to establish why the ATGM (anti-tank guided missile) is not the ideal weapon of choice to defend these. (As a brief recap, an ATGM is [almost always] a missile that is guided by the user from a tripod based heavy weapon platform, using SACLOS [Semi-automatic command line of sight] to reach it's target, either riding a laser beam or via direct wire from the missile to launcher sending commands. Not to be confused with unguided rockets like the RPG or AT4). The Iraqi military possesses a great quantity of ATGMs though significantly less variety than the SAA: Kornet 9M133[10] ,Konkurs 9M113[11] , and MILAN[12] . These missiles are useful at engaging armored targets at distances between a few hundred meters and a few thousand meters (Konkurs and Kornet reach out to 4-5kms while the Milan has about 2.3 km range). The correctable nature of their flight allows for corrections to be made as vehicles change course, slow down, or speed up. As such, ATGMs have made an impressive showing in Iraq against advancing SVBIEDs when distance and time allow. Open country tends to lend itself to both of these factors as line of sight gives advance warning of incoming vehicles, and heavily armored trucks and military vehicles are easily picked out from among civilian vehicle traffic. The follow videos demonstrate ATGM use against such targets in Iraq:

Given appropriate space and time, the ATGM becomes a tremendous asset as disabling or (ideally) destroying the SVBIED. Tending towards heavy armor to prevent premature detonation by small arms or even heavy machine gun fire, the SVBIED is often low to the ground, experiences a weight that slows it tremendously and many times with a transmission that is overtaxed by the weight. Even strikes that don't detonate the payload, but manage to hit the engine or a wheel can limit or completely stop the SVBIED's forward movement, as demonstrated in the third video. This is all well and good for static positions and battlelines where there is distance and visibility between opponent. In these instances there is time to locate a target, ensure the ATGM is up and running with a trained user, and fire a missile before the SVBIED has a chance to close the distance. This changes drastically when we're discussing urban warfare.

In the urban setting the line of sight can often be limited to 100m or less. The imprecise and messy manner in which many cities are built and the lack of a completely level street surface means that buildings, gradual inclines or declines, and the curving nature of roads create natural obstacles to sight. The ATGM is not meant to be left exposed for long periods of time, nor can it be left powered on at all times. The optics and electronics of these weapons are vulnerabl to exposure, sand and grit, and require constant maintenance. As such, ATGMs tend to be assembled and powered on (requiring special batteries) only at the time of use. This severely limits their ability to be used at a checkpoint where it's a matter of seconds between sighting and detonating of an SVBIED. Not to mention their usage requires specialized training. In the United States, a Marine infantry anti-tank missileman receives 5 weeks of training after his regular infantry training. This training can be condensed, but for accurate and effective use, trained and familiar crewmen are to be used. What this boils down to is that you cannot just grab Militiaman A or Jundi B give him an ATGM and expect him to have any success with it. At the outskirts of cities, in conjunction with forward battlelines and berms to slow down an enemy approach, the ATGM might have merit (as used by ISF and Peshmerga), but within city limits, the effectiveness of such a weapon drops to impractical at best and useless at worst.

So what can be done in a city to prevent the SVBIED? The checkpoint remains the number one obstacle to this form of assault, but it is only as effective as the crew manning it and the design of the checkpoint. Greater reliance on spike strips in front of the checkpoint (several hundred meters) can severely reduce an incoming SVBIED's speed and possible completely halt it. Taken in conjunction with a serpentine obstacle to force vehicle speed down to a few miles an hours, precious seconds are bought for the defenders. If total immobilization can't be found through these means (perhaps with a larger vehicle that can power through), the positions of overwatch should (and have) make use of the tremendous variety of anti-armor rockets in the Iraqi military. Be it the RPG variants, American AT-4's ( 2,000 of which are being delivered now[16] , German Panzerfaust 3[17] delivered to the Peshmerga, or others, explosive charges delivered in volley fire, can tremendously aid checkpoints in detonating SVBIEDs before they reach their targets. There is no lack of material necessary to build appropriate force protection for Iraqi military and Iraqi militia fighters, nor is there a shortage of munitions to stop the threat of the SVBIED. What is missing is the connection between the knowledge of how to build and employ these tactics and the coordination of ensuring there are appropriate munitions at each of these checkpoints to deter or degrade the impact of ISIL's number one offensive weapon.

Hell Cannons: From Minor Nuisance to Major Threat - the Evolution of Syrian Opposition's Siege Artillery

In a conventional war between two major powers each power will have either domestic arms manufacturing or secured the services of another nation or nations to do most of the heavy lifting for their defense needs. In Syria, it's a mix of the two, with most ammunition being domestically produced by EID (Etablissement Industrial de la Defence) in Domestic, and nearly everything else supplied by Russia or former Soviet bloc countries, with increasing reliance on Iran as an arms supplier. In contrast the opposition lacks a formal arms supplier nor domestic conventional arms manufacturing capabilities, making them reliant on what benefactors deliver to them, what they can purchase on black market, and what they can manufacture themselves. In past civil wars this has led to all sorts of domestic cottage industries, (steel mills making cannon balls, foundries turned into cannon producing plants, chemical industries repurposed to make gun powder etc etc). In the 21st century the overwhelming use of modern weaponry and methods of warfare has meant that an opposition force without a major sponsor is at a decided disadvantage. The result is a turn towards home brewed weapons that are not as effective as factory produced ones but that can still pack a punch.

The molotov cocktail is capable of causing serious damage to armored vehicles but requires the user be incredibly close to the vehicle, risking life and limb to get a lucky bottle or two onto the vehicle. IEDs and double stacked mines provide a powerful anti-vehicle and anti-personnel weapon but are only as useful as the emplacers ability to get near routes of transport for the enemy force. In the often times static combat lines of Syrian cities the opportunity for emplacing such weapons is less and less practical, particularly with the two-way threat posed by victim operated IEDs (that is that enemy, friendly, and civilians are all equally threatened by a victim operated IED or mine). It is a direct response to this more siege oriented style of warfare, punctuated with brief surges of intense violence, that has led to the reemergence of siege warfare methods that are often absent from modern combat. Between the widespread use of bulldozers and earth moving equipment to establish redundant berms and trenches around hundreds, if not thousands, of defensive positions around the country, to tunnels both for resupply/transport of troops and for sappers to emplace explosives, to the serious fortification of apartment blocks into veritable concrete and sandbag fortresses. But perhaps nothing embodies this siege environment better than the advent of homebrewed shock artillery produced by opposition groups in Syria. The Hell Cannon of 2012/2013, initially a weapon of desperation, has become and remains, a mainstay of opposition arsenals and an increasingly lethal threat in Syrian opposition military offensives. Ideally in the next few hundred words we'll cover down on what exactly the Hell Cannons, how they're produced, and what they're capable of.

Appearing initially in Idlib province, as early as 2012 (disputable- the first reports don't appear about it until 2013) with the group Liwa Ahrar al-Shamal part of Liwa al-Tawhid (itself a part of the FSA and the SRCC). The group released a basic infographic [1] on the design of the initial weapon (translation available here[2] ). The basic design involves heavy vehicle tires for transport/shock absorption, "feet" to plant the weapon in place and prevent it from recoiling backwards violently when firing, a pipe/barrel upon which the projectile is placed with the rod through which the propellant is expelled being inserted directly into the barrel to propel the round forward. This differentiates it from the more common Hell Cannons seen today where the entire projectile is inserted into the barrel. After ignition the round is propelled forward with distance being determined by how much propellant (and what kind of propellant) is supplied. Range correction is made by altering the angle of the cannon and changing the amount of propellant. Ignition can be either manually by lighting a fuse or from a standoff distance with electronic ignition [3] by way of car battery and wires.

After catching on in Idlib, Hell Cannon design spread to Aleppo when (the now defunct) Katai'b Shuhada Badr (Martyrs of Badr Brigades - no relation to Iraqi Shi'a militia the Badr Brigades) picked up the design and began to produce it locally. Gradually the initial design spread and regional restraints or improvisation led to significant variety of Hell Cannons, some very complex with complicated aiming and firing mechanisms [4] , others literally just tubes think enough to absorb the recoil of the firing aimed crudely in the direction of the area intended for bombardment, like this quad-barreled hell cannon mounted on a bulldozer [5] by al-Jabhat al-Shamiyah (adopted elsewhere in aslightly more refined bulldozer design [6] ).

Footage of the manufacture of either the cannons or the projectiles is fairly limited but at least a few videos and still photos have come out. The best example comes from the inventors of the Hell Cannon, detailing most steps of the process to build theirs in a seven minute promotional video[7] . Produced in several shops with a plethora of machine tools and pre-existing parts, this is one of the best examples of non-conventional weapons being produced by non-state actors in Syria. In areas where less expertise or less equipment is available cruder examples tend to emerge and conversely more complex models have shown up elsewhere in Syria (additional construction photo here [8] ). All a basic hell cannon needs is a tube larger than the munition and some means of angling towards its target. More complex models have legs [9] to stabilize the cannon for greater accuracy (and prevent it from jumping out of place [10] , recoil springs for the same purpose, traverse and elevation mechanisms for aiming, a platform for the gunner to stand on [11] to load larger cannons, and a variety of other improvements. Projectiles themselves are produced, usually, by taking an empty metal canister (most commonly a propane canister), welding together the canister and the guidance assembly, filling the canister with explosives, and attaching a fuse (detailed more below). Explosives can be homemade by way of common chemicals used to build explosive material, harvested from unexploded barrel bombs [12] , land mines, or other unfired explosives, or even be repurposed intact explosives[13] themselves (also detailed more below).

The variety in launcher design is matched equally by the variety in munitions themselves, but the vast majority of munitions appear to be built using the very common propane cylinders used for heating and cooking, with propulsion, detonation, and guidance varying from round to round. Among the most common are those placed atop the barrel like the initial design [14] with stabilizing fins on the warhead itself, more modern variants of the same design with stabilizing fins placed closer to the base of the weapon along narrow vanes [15] , and perhaps most common today is the kind inserted completely inside the Hell Cannon with a single rod centered on the bottom of the canister and stabilizing fins located at the bottom [16] , helping keep the round oriented in the same direction upon firing and preventing tumbling. Other varieties include larger oxygen cylinders with fins welded to them [17] and "Thunder Cannon" shells which are once-fired tank shells with the mouth of the casings welded shut/ filled with explosives and a rocket motor placed on the base of the shell (video available here[18] ). Sometimes existing explosive munitions such two stage artillery rounds (those lacking their own propellant) are repurposed to become projectiles again as hell cannon rounds [19] . Undoubtedly as the war continues on and new ideas are thought up there will be even more varieties of Hell Cannons and their munitions.

Having covered a number of different cannons and their projectiles, it's perhaps important to discuss how these munitions are detonated. One of the first things one notices when watching Hell Cannon strikes is that quite a few of them do not explode immediately after landing [20] taking as long as 15-20 seconds after landing before exploding. Initial confusion about what was causing this led to competing theories of what led to the delay before explosion. Further video and pictorial evidence [21] (follow on image here [22] indicates these homemade delayed action fuses are really just a timed fuse, that is lit prior to launch, burning down. Depending on the length of the fuse and the time of flight the fuse will have so many seconds left before exploding. In a 200 Hell Cannon strike compilation provided by /u/purpleolive[23] , dozens of examples of these delayed action fuses can be observed as Hell Cannon rounds slam into building walls and rooftops, penetrating and exploding inside to much greater effect. The delayed impact fuses are desirable for static targets where the aim is to destroy a structure, but when immediate detonation is required impact fuses are required. To this end a variety of innovative means have been employed in Syria from repurposing conventional mortar or rocket impact fuses and attaching them to Hell Cannon projectiles. Initial rounds used a single impact fuse [24] but gradually began switching to two fuse [25] like these from Jabhat al-Nusra and (video of them being installed here [26] ) and occasionally three fused variants appear. While not certain, it is likely that the shift to multiple impact fuses is to ensure that the round does not strike at an angle (either because of tumbling or simple a bad strike trajectory) and fail to detonate. Each style of fuse serves a function though it is likely that the availability of material to produce one fuse or another is the driving factor behind the selection for each rounds.

The munition is ignited by three different methods known thusfar: 1) ignition at the base or "breach" of the barrel, 2) prior to insertion into the barrel, 3) or most rarely by electronic ignition. A Southern Storm unit in Daraa, Katai'b al-Handasiyah wa al-Sawareekh demonstrates an oversized Hell Cannon that is ignited from the breach [27] while an unknown FSA group displays their Hell Cannon variant ignited by [car battery and wires](electronic ignition [RES ignored duplicate link][28] . The volatile nature of handling explosives leaves little margin for error with the manually ignited methods means that accidents occur [29] when the munition doesn't go off when expected.

Accuracy and range will be different for cannon, munition type, consistency of propellant type, and the crew gunning it. Numbers as high as 1500 meters have been quoted and rough distance estimation from videos confirms this as feasible. When low charges are provided hell cannons can hit targets only a few hundred meters away with significant accuracy, like this shot of a Hell Cannon round being fired through a window in close proximity to the gunners [30](also a good example of delayed fuse). Like the game Pocket Tanks [31] accuracy and range with Hell Cannons comes down to two major considerations: the angle of fire and the amount of propellant provided. An experienced gunner will have a rough idea what angle and how much propellant to use to get it to a general area, modifying those variables after observing the impact to make follow on shots more accurate. Use of levels, topographic/satellite maps, calculators and computer mathematical programs significantly improves this accuracy if precision fire is desired. A common critique of Hell Cannons is their use in indiscriminate shelling of a given area and the civilian casualties that occur. This is largely dependent on the end user and their purpose in shelling as it has been repeatedly demonstrated that rough estimates of trajectory and range can be calculated, so repeated shelling of civilian areas is largely the choice of the operator, particularly when the impacts can be observed. At closer range accuracy is often quite achievable with repeatable only meters apart from each other, giving some Hell Cannons similar accuracy to infantry mortars and allowing for the suppression of very close range targets. Volley fired batteries of Hell Cannons recently achieved a 100-150m lateral suppression with impacts only meters apart with near simultaneous firing of Hell Cannons [32] on ISIL positions in Aleppo demonstrating the relative accuracy at close range even when fired in groups.

In conclusion, Hell Cannons are not the first nor the last variant jury-rigged or non-conventional weapons of war, but in a conflict where progress is often measured in meters not miles, the proliferation of homemade siege artillery by non-state actors has grown from laughably crude and ineffective to massively widespread and capable of massive destruction. Lacking an air force to deliver the raw destructive power of the government's barrel bombs, the opposition has reacted by inventing it's own weapons of terror, albeit smaller and far more controllable, spreading quickly throughout opposition arsenals.

February 2015 Conjecture On the Amount of Armor Jabhat al-Nusra Possesses

As a preface, I will be using the term "armor" to include tanks, armored personnel carriers, and infantry fighting vehicles.

Discussing yesterday why al-Nusra's loss of a T-72 and BMP-1 [1] in their assault on al-Zahra was a big deal, but not as big of deal as people were making it out to be, several people disputed my numbers on JaN armor. So I wanted to highlight why I believe them to have as much as I said. From the get go, I want to say, I believe JaN has between 20-40 actual tanks and 50-60 armored and tracked vehicles of other types (BMP, BTRD, etc etc). If any of the terms are confusing, I did up a short guide on armored vehicles of the conflict located here[2] .

JaN has made a habit of capturing and restoring armored vehicles, even going as far as coordinating with the Islamic Front to use their vehicle repair shops to bring combat vehicles back to life, and allegedly sending their fighters to thearmor school operated by Jaish al Islam [3] . Additionally, they've maintained an armored presence for a significant portion of the war, notably fleeing Deir Ezzor when Da3sh took over, with a long column of armored vehicles (my estimate is 30-40 vehicles of all types). Combined with their cooperation with FSA and IF in operations like Nawa[4]where the following equipment was captured (as documented by Oryx Blog):

Captured equipment includes two T-54s, one T-55, ten BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicles, a BMP-1 training facility, three BRDM-2s armoured fighting vehicles, one BTR-152 and two BTR-60s armoured personnel carrier , two VT-55KS armoured recovery vehicles, one AMB-S armoured ambulance, three 122mm D-30 howitzers, one 130mm M-46 field gun, several 9M14 Malyutka, 9K111 Fagot and 9K115-2 Metis-M anti-tank missile systems, one ZSU-23 self-propelled anti-aircraft gun, four 14.5mm ZPU-4, one 23mm ZU-23, one 37mm M-1939 and two 57mm AZP S-60 anti-aircraft guns. The associated munitions to use all of this equipment was also captured.

Unknown how much of that actually went to JaN and how much FSA units kept, but given previous loot sharing, JaN most definitely came away with a fair amount of equipment from this.

So why do I think the numbers are so high, despite JaN numbers only being 6,000-9,000 (per Elijah Magnier, 4,000-6,000[5] ? Because they've held onto their armor and placed higher value on retaining it than other groups for one. They also know how to employ it better than Da3sh, and along with Islamic Front are among the only groups to use armor as more than just a piecemeal supplement to attacks, especially recently with the Wadi al-Daif assault where 13vehicles were employed, including 5 tanks and 8 BMP-1s. I'm still looking for the video of the actual assault, but when the initial video was pushed out it demonstrated JaN armor rolling up to a break in the berm, firing a round or two, then immediately withdrawing to avoid counter fire. Tanks were massed in such a way as to provide a constant barrage of high caliber (73mm for BMP-1, 100mm and 125mm for T-55 and T-72 respectively) rounds on the SAA positions, supplemented heavily by ATGMs (Kornet, Konkurs, and at least one TOW missile launcher), and a significant number of recoilless rifles like the SPG-9 and RPGs, making any sort of return fire by SAA tanks incredibly dangerous.

The JaN video released days after the assault covers a few minutes of pre-assault preparation and actual combat footage (video here [6] ). In this video there are 5 separate BMP-1s (one might be a BTRD) and 2 T-72s (wasn't sure on the first one, but count the road wheels, there's 6).

Video released from the same day, and possibly with overlap, though I believe each vehicle to be independent from the other video (based on markings) shows 3 JaN T-72s, 3 JaN BMP-1s, a BMP-1 captured from SAA (stuck in mud), and a T-55 captured from SAA motor pool (possibly damaged) (video here [7] ).

A final video from that day showing captured vehicles in one of two military bases they assaulted, shows two D-30 artillery pieces, a ZSU-23-4, a BMP-1, either a second BMP-1 or a BTRD, and at the end at least 3 (maybe 4) tanks that I can't identify (it's like 100m away and a shitty camera zoom). (video here [8] .

There are two more videos I'm having trouble locating but they were posted here in the days following Wadi al-Daif, that show JaN and IF members in the motor pools at Wadi al-Daif, and depict between 15-20 more vehicles, in various states of repair, along with several tanks, a BMP-1, and a ZSU-23-4, that were abandoned by the SAA while retreating (they appear stuck in the mud). In the absence of those videos (and while I continue to look for them) an article by Middle East Eye from that day asserts that JaN captured 35 tanks and 20 armored personnel carriers[9] . These numbers are almost certainly inflated as it's unlikely there was even 55 armored vehicles in totality at Wadi al-Daif and Hamidiyye, but it definitely highlights that significant armored forces were captured that day.

All of this is to say, Jabhat al-Nusra enjoys considerable armored forces and should not be discounted as only having a few tanks to employ. If Wadi al-Daif is any representation of the strategic planning that goes into JaN/IF operations, expect more armored fist style assaults where massed armor provides the punch necessary to open a gap in SAA lines and then heavily supported infantry flow through the gap and force an SAA retreat.

Spring 2015: Summary of Weapons Captured By Opposition With the Fall of Brigade 82

The fall of Brigade 82 a few days ago has led to videos surfacing of some of what was captured by opposition forces. I'm gonna try and briefly list some of that here in case it reappears elsewhere in the conflict and people want to know where it came from. I'll be referencing three videos: - one Jabhat al-Nusra [1] - one Islamic Front [2] - one FSA [3]

Observed in these three videos (and follow on still footage) are:

(1) BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicle (intact)
(1) ZSU-23-4 "Shilka" anti-aircraft vehicle (intact)
(2) 2K12 Kub launchers with 12 missiles, reputed to be a radar set as well - working condition unknown
(65) crates of 7.62x54R (Russian or Bulgarian manufacture) ammunition, totally 57,200 rounds of ammunition (2 cans per crate, 440 rounds per can)
3,000 - 4,000 rounds of belted 12.7mm and 14.5mm heavy machine gun ammo, unpackaged
(15) 100mm T-55 tank shells of varying types
(100) crates of (3) cans each holding 90 rounds of 14.5mm for a total 27,000 rounds of 14.5mm heavy machine gun ammo (likely unlinked)
(184) loose cans of 23x115mm anti-aircraft ammo holding 44 rounds each for 8,096 rounds of ammo
(35-40) anti-tank mines of unidentified type
(4) possible anti-armor munitions of unidentified type
(35) crates of unidentified small arms ammunition, holding between 9,450 rounds if heavy machine gun ammo to 61,600 if medium machine gun ammo, to 92,400 rounds if 7.62x39 AKM ammuntion

The amount of ammunition captured is astronomical and will help feed further opposition offensives including, probably, the continued push eastward from Sheikh Miskeen towards larger SAA and SyAAF bases. Will be interesting to say the least to see if SAA adapts to the continued capture of their bases with entire arsenals intact, or if this pattern of base capture will spur them into contingency plans that involve the destruction of arms and munitions caches.

45 Days in Northern Syria: A Comprehensive List of "Spoils" Captured by Syrian Rebels in the 2015 Idlib/Hama Campaign

April 22 to the Present: A summary of opposition materiel gains from the Battle for Victory and Battle for al-Ghab

Beginning April 22, between 9,000 - 13,000 opposition fighters from a variety of groups (including the dominant faction, Jaish al-Fateh) descended onto a multi-front assault on the Idlib salient (both eastern and western sides) and a host of cities, towns, and villages along the Sahal al-Ghab in Hama, forming a 100km + front line of constant pressure along SAA and government positions. Over the course of the past month and a half, the battle map for Idlib province has shifted tremendously (as this animated map from PetoLucem demonstrates [1] ) as the salient contracted and collapsed with the simultaneous attacks.

A defining feature of this battle, in comparison to others where SAA strength of arms and application of limited combined arms assaults has been able to compensate for other failings, is the unity of command among the opposition and perhaps most importantly, the specialization of attacks. Groups with a track record of ATGM strikes have been tasked with harassing and destroying reinforcement columns and logistical lines, holding positions of overwatch on key intersections and roads. Artillery batteries appear to be organized and utilize the full width and breadth of mortars, hell cannons, rocket artillery, and actual artillery possessed and captured, with each assault featuring a heavy indirect fire barrage along the entire front ( 18 gun battery seen here operated by Ajnad al-Sham [2] ). Armor and armored personnel carriers are being marshalled into platoons and sections, and used both to punch holes in assaults and to rapidly rush troops forward (particularly by Ahrar al-Sham and Faylaq al-Sham), while the precise application of SVBIEDs and non-suicide VBIEDs at critical junctures in government defensives, has allowed infantry heavy groups, supported by heavy weapons, to wreck the defenses and overwhelm the defenders (Qarmeed camp being the most relevant example of this). Additionally, the use of tunneling "kits" where experts and equipment are re-packaged and moved to the next "site" where tunneling/demolition is needed suggests that tunneling has become an integral part of operational planning and not just an afterthought.

All of these groups lack traditional logistics lines, aside for what support can be trucked in surreptitiously from Turkey, and the specialization of these groups means that a Kornet missile captured by a group without an Kornet launcher, or tank ammo captured by a group without a tank, is next to useless. The Islamic system of "ghanima" (booty/war loot), proscribes for the sharing of spoils, with 1/5th of spoils set aside for the treasury (intended to be the state or caliphate treasury). What's been seen in this campaign, has been the sharing of munitions along the lines of what the group needs. When 1st Coastal Division captured a significant cache of 125mm tank ammunition, within a short period of time, there were Ahar al-Sham T-72s operating in the same area, providing fire support again. Numerous Konkurs missiles captured in the Idlib salient have wound up in al-Ghab with Suqor al-Ghab, 1st Coastal Division, and even one with Firqa 13. While the "smoking gun" has yet to emerge, this suggests considerable cooperation in terms of splitting ghanima down logistical lines.

I had intended to do a writeup on the number of vehicles and equipment destroyed during this campaign, but instead I wound up recording and catalogueing videos and images of captured weapons, munitions, and materiel. Here is my conclusion for what was captured in the Idlib salient and northern Sahal al-Ghab. Numbers are all fuzzy and plus or minus a few, but I feel fairly confident in these numbers and will provide the videos I pulled this images from afterwards:

GHANIMA CAPTURED FROM IDLIB SALIENT AND SAHAL AL-GHAB FROM APRIL 22 TO PRESENT

Tanks: 33
BMP-1: 40+
Other armored vehicles: 15+
Self-propelled artillery: 3
Army logistics trucks: 15+
Technicals (with DShK or greater): 25+
Artillery (including mortars and rocket artillery): 30 pieces
Heavy machine gun and AA autocannon (up to 23mm): 100+
Heavy AA cannon: 25+
Self propelled AA vehicles (ZSU-23-4 Shilka): 3
Small arms: 1,250
ATGM Launchers: 10
ATGM missiles: 40+
Small Arms Ammunition: 8-10 million rounds (this figure is very hard to quantify, due to a lack of zoomed in images, but I had reached 3 million rounds [assuming 7.62x39 in crates of 1320] by early May and captures have only intensified since)
Rocket/Artillery/Mortar/Tank Ammunition: 10-20K rounds
Heavy Machine Gun and AA Cannon ammunition: 30-40K rounds
Communications and Command Outposts or Mobile Outposts: 3

The amount of war material captured has brought the Jaish al-Fateh coalition and other groups in Idlib into first parity of arms with the SAA as tanks and armored vehicles began to fall and eventually superiority of arms in all categories besides airpower. While the Syrian government maintains a monopoly on the use of air power in the Idlib salient, the opposition forces have gained the equipment, experience, and momentum necessary to overpower remaining government positions and forces without a drastic change in the combat environment. Furthermore, the amount of material captured, particularly the logistical abilities and tremendous amount of munitions, equate to enough material to sustain an understrength SAA tank battalion, understrength SAA mechanized regiment, several artillery batteries, tremendous anti-tank assets, and small arms to equip a tremendous amount of new defectors/foreign fighters/local recruits. The balance of power in north west Syria has shifted tremendously and the coming months are likely to see offensives commensurate with this shift.

VIDEOS OF GHANIMA SEIZED

(Apologies in advance, some of these links may be dead or video removed, when possible I get a mirror, but I don't always have one)

1st Coastal Div captures BMP-1 [3]
1st Coastal Div Captures DShK, ammo, AA gun [4]
Ahrar al-Sham capture automatic grenade launcher, ammunition, Konkurs, and AA gun [5]
Ahrar al-Sham capture BMP-1 and T-62 [6]
1st Coastal Div capture BMP-1, T-55, ammunition [7]
1st Coastal Div captures ZSU-23-4 [8]
1st Coastal Div capture BMP-1, tank, and 6 Konkurs missiles [9]
2 captured BMPs [10]
1st Coastal Div captures Konkurs missiles, T-72, automatic grenade launcher and ammunition [RES ignored duplicate link][11]
Ansar al-Sham captures automatic grenade launcher, ammunition, anti-tank mines [RES ignored duplicate link][12]
Jaish al-Fateh captures Qarmeed military camp (list below) [13] (from this [14] release plus pictures): (6) T-72, (6) 130mm artillery pieces, Kornet/Konkurs/Metis-M launchers with many missiles, many 23mm cannons with much ammunition, much artillery ammunition, (4) grad launchers, a tremendous amount of small arms and ammunition for them
Thuwar al-Sham captures Konkurs launcher with missiles, BMP-1, ammunition, and grenades [15]
Tank ammo/grenades captured [16]
1st Coastal Div captures tank, BMP, ammunition, anti-tank mines [17]
1st Coastal Div captures ammunition storehouse [18]
Suqor al-Ghab capture ZSU-23-4 Shilka [19]
Ahrar al-Sham captures tank [20]
2 T-55 and BMP-1 [21]
Faylaq al-Sham captures tank ammo and ammunition storehouse [22]
Faylaq al-Sham captures tank ammo, BMP ammo, Konkurs launcher with Fagot missiles, RPGs, small arms [23]
3 tanks, 1 BMP-1, 1 mineclearing vehicle [24]
Giant ammunition warehouse with 3 supply trucks [25]
Jabhat al-Nusra captures 2 BMP-1 [26]
Jabhat al-Nusra 70+ AK74M, AKMs, RPGs, PKMs [27]
90,000 rounds of SA ammunition in Jisr al-Shughour hospital [28]
Ajnad al-Qawqaz capture 5000,000 rounds of small arms ammunition [29]
Ahrar al-Sham captures RPGs, small arms, amo, and HMGs [30]
Jabhat al-Nusra captures large ammunition cache[31]
Jaish al-Fateh captures ammunition warehouse [32]
Ammunition warehouses and 7 supply trucks [33]
Firqa 111 captures T-62 [34]
Ahrar al-Sham captures weapons depot [35]
Jaish al-Fateh captures two T-62s, one BMP-1, one BMP ambulance, one BRDM, two technicals, one 57mm cannon [36]
Jabhat al-Nusra captures two tanks plus ammo[37]
Jabhat al-Nusra captures three tanks and a heavy mortar[38]

How Barrel Bombs Work and Are Employed

In the interest of full disclosure, this is the video [1] that convinced me this practice is 100% unsupportable. From this point forward, I will strive to present this information is cleanly and unbiased as I can.

The term "barrel bomb" carries with it a certain connotation and is often used to demonize an opponent. So for the sake of discussion and to avoid being accused of lacking impartiality, I will use a more topical name for them: airborne IEDs (AIEDs). I think this is a more clinical description as they're not always built around a barrel, which has been the point of contention in recent threads, they are improvised, and they're not intended for use from an airborne vehicle. That said, nomenclature is important, so before I completely drop the name, let's delve into why they're called what they are.

"Barrel bomb" comes from the initial use of unguided improvised munitions in the Sudanese civil war [1] when Northern Sudanese An-24 and An-26 transport aircraft [2](link)[2] rolled metal barrels filled with explosives and capped with a detonator out the rear cargo doors of their airplanes (picture of An-26 cargo door) [3] . These initial bombs were literally oil barrels or other similar receptacles and are where the term "barrel bomb" comes from. Though it is worth noting that at the outset of their use in Syria, they were in fact made of actual barrels[4] . When being used to describe the weapons impartially, it should be noted that this term refers to the weapons origin and usage itself, and not the shape of the bomb. As we all know, words evolve over time, and even if a barrel is not infact used in the construction of this weapon, it is still infact a "barrel bomb" by the nature of what it is. But we'll set aside that name and stick with AIEDs.

Why are they produced? The reason generally given for the production of AIEDs is the lack of access by the Syrian government to more effective guided munitions that could be more effectively employed against individual enemy combatants and their supporting arms and logistics. Prior to the war beginning, the vast bulk of Syrian guided weapons were intended to deal with the threat of an Israeli invasion. A large bulk of these were anti tank guided missiles (Soviet counterparts to the US TOW like the Kornet, Konkurs, METIS-M), Surface to Air missiles like the Pantsir, BUK, Kub, and S-200, and air-to-air missiles meant to be fired by Syrian aircraft at Israeli aircraft. Little in the way of Close Air Support[5] , and the SyAAF was not structured or trained for in depth use of close air support. Their job was to neutralize Israeli air power and harass Israeli air fields and military facilities. The result is that when the Syrian Civil War began and in July 2012 when Assad first authorized the use of airpower against the rebels, there was little in the way of guided munitions to be employed against them. There is evidence to suggest that SyAAF Gazelle helicopters still maintain a limited arsenal of French HOT missiles[6] to be employed against enemy armor in extreme circumstances of need Oryx blog:[7] . But by and large, guided air to ground munitions did not feature prominently in the pre-war Syrian arsenal, and Syria has shown difficulty in acquiring them since the war began.

With that in mind, and as the SyAAF began to suffer incredible losses from lower altitude bombing necessary to gain accuracy with gravity bombs[8] (unguided bombs which are aimed by being linked to the pilots Heads Up Display giving an indication of where to point the plane and at what point to release the bomb for them to hit a given target-here is a crude diagram [9] . Such weapons are relatively inexpensive, (a few thousand dollars) and are useful in getting bombs onto or near a specific target. But they require significant danger on the part of the pilot in lining up for the strike and coming down to an altitude where MANPADS and anti-aircraft artillery like the ZU-23-2 or ZSU-23-4 are very capable of shooting them down. An estimated half of SyAAF have been shot down, destroyed on the runway, captured, or lost through maintenance/mechanical issues. This has significantly reduced the number of available aircraft to conduct aerial strikes. First appearing in 2012, AIEDs began to fill the gap, as a cheaply produced alternative to a waning supply of gravity bombs and a means to supplement the bombing fleet with largely unused Mil MI-8 and Mil MI-17 transport helicopters. AIEDs can be produced for as little as a few hundred dollars. All you need is a supply of metal containers, explosive material, shrapnel (though not required) and some sort of crude detonator. The tubes/containers are filled with explosive material, fins or other devices to keep the device from tumbling are welded on (it needs to land detonator pointed down), a cap with detonator is placed on the end. Early versions lacked the detonator and were instead hand lit as referenced in the Brown Moses posting[10] from 2013. The lit AIEDs are then rolled out the back of the helicopter, generally from a height of roughly 10,000 feet or higher (outside of anti-aircraft artillery and most MANPADS range).

How are they employed? As referenced, AIEDs are improvised devices employed in an ad hoc manner. Specifically, a helicopter will approach its target area (area being important to note as a broad term- there are no aiming devices to assist in the accurate delivery, and from 10,000 feet the ability to pick out a specific building or even city block is impossible), and either roll the AIEDs out on the move for general strategic bombardment or come to a hover over a specific neighborhood or area of a city and roll them out for a slightly more confined target area. This is where the condemnation for their use comes in. As they are used in areas where there is no Syrian government troop presence (because of the risk of friendly fire casualties) there is no way to confirm the presence or lack of presence of rebel troops. Similarly this means the helicopter pilot has no way to determine if there are civilians present in the (broad) bombing area. The Syrian government maintains that warnings are given in advance but it is unknown how widespread this is or if a warning is issued everytime.

Are they a viable weapon? AIEDs can be employed to great effect as a military weapon, but not by targeting military forces. Their use is in destroying civilian areas of habitation, and either intentionally or unintentionally killing the civilians who live their. This strategic bombing is not unheard of and was a hallmark of world air forces during World War II. It's intended purpose is to deprive the enemy of safe harbor, kill his will to fight and his supporters will to support him, and to give the enemy population the incentive to leave enemy territory for safer territory, making it even easier to root out the enemy when no civilians are around. Their lack of precise targeting makes them next to useless as a means of hitting combatants on the battlefield, by the very nature of the battlefield. Opposition forces do not congregate in known military bases the way conventional government troops do. They are dispersed among the population or the ruins of cities, coming together only for major assaults and not occupying the large footprint of a modern military force, making them especially difficult to target. Even if their position could be discovered, the only aircraft capable of responding to such intelligence quickly enough are the fast moving jets, not slow and ungainly transport helicopters. The AIEDs has no place on the "front lines" and has not been used in such a fashion.

How does the barrel bomb vary from a Hell Cannon? While both weapons can be and air responsible for significant civilian death through their misuse, the Hell Cannon varies in two ways. 1) it can be aimed (and recent videos show a significant uptick in accuracy) and 2) it can only hold perhaps 20-30lbs of explosives, while an AIED can hold several hundred pounds of explosives. An AIED has enough weight to crush through the roof of a building before detonating, often bringing down the entire structure in one go, while a Hell Cannon, being much smaller, is far less likely to penetrate a roof, and the explosive yield is far more likely to scorch or crack a roof than collapse it. Make no mistake, Hell CAnnons are a nasty and dangerous tool as well, but their impact would require dozens to make up the explosive power of an AIED.

What does it look like? I could show you aftermath videos all day long but many of you would claim it was from something else or demand proof it came from AIEDs etc etc. So instead, I'll just post a bunch of videos that show AIEDs being dropped. Taken from a 9 minute video of AIEDs being dropped this clip is time stamped [11] and shows the Mi-8 helicopter flying above the city, the bombs being rolled out the back, and follows them all the way to their target. Despite the fins, the bombs still tumble through the air aimlessly towards the ground. The unaerodynamic shape of the bomb makes a low pitched whine very different from the high pitched whine of conventional (aerodynamic) gravity bombs or artillery shells. This video [12] is similarly time stamped to the exact moment the bombs are released from the helicopter following them towards their targets.

For the sake of being thorough, here are a few more videos:

Video of early AIED being lit and pushed out the back of a Syrian helicopter [13]
11 minute compilation [14] women and children can be heard in many of the strikes
37 minute compilation [15] (will include some repeats from others posted)
View from inside Syrian helicopter after releasing AIEDs [16]

[1] "Country reports on human rights practices for 1998". United States. Congress. House. Committee on International Relations. 1999. Retrieved June 7, 2014. they are dropping cluster bombs and barrel bombs, which are intended to do maximum damage to civilians.

[2] Lee Crawfurd (25 April 2012). "How Sudanese Bombers Work". rovingbandit.com. Retrieved June 10, 2014.

Why Barrel Bombs Are Simply Incomparable to "Regular" Gravity Bombs

This has come up quite frequently recently, trying to compare "barrel bombs" to regular unguided "gravity bombs". I've written a lot about this topic and tend to get very passionate about this, perhaps more so than any other single issue in Syria (equal in my condemnation, though smaller in scope, is ANY SIDE shelling residential areas, be it actual artillery, opposition Hell Cannons, government "Elephant" rockets, Iraqi militia IRAMs, or Da3sh homemade rockets). I think a huge part of the issue is that people don't understand how a "barrel bomb" (and using a specific term to differentiate between other forms of munitions is necessary) is different from an unguided "gravity bomb". As I don't have a background in aerial munitions, I'll make this one briefer than usual, but there are some things that absolutely need to be pointed out.

So what's a barrel bomb? It's a tube full of explosives, sometimes with a detonator on the nose and fins to stabilize it (and keep it pointing down), and sometimes lacking fins or a detonator (early barrel bombs had actual fuses that had to be lit by hand, shown here [2] ). A barrel bomb is manufactured in ad hoc shops, not on a factory floor, and varies in type and size. The basic setup is metal tub, full of explosives, with method of detonation. They vary in weight from 300 lbs to 1000 + lbs (undetonated examples have been found all over). Their weight allows them to punch through the roof of buildings prior to explosion causing more damage (a trait shared with many conventional bombs as well) and their deadliness is in their massive explosion yield, not necessarily the shrapnel they spread.

Because of their unorthodox design and the fact that they don't have an existing platform designed around delivering them, they cannot be attached to an aircraft's pylon like a traditional bomb, and instead are delivered by shoving them out the cargo doors of transport helicopters (namely Mi-8/Mi-17 and occasionally the naval variant Mi-14). Moving at between 150-200 miles per hour, at altitudes above 10,000 feet (to stay above AA gun and MANPADS range), such a method of employment means that there is zero control over the intended point of impact beyond "general area bombing". Specific buildings cannot be targeted. Tanks on the ground cannot be targeted. Specific fortifications cannot be targeted. Rather, large areas (such as a neighborhood, or military base) are targeted and saturated with barrel bombs. The end result is that when used in an urban environment, the primary target winds up being buidings, be it residential, commercial, or otherwise. Extensive video in Daraa, Aleppo, Jobar, Hama, Homs, demonstrate barrel bombs being dropped in residential neighborhoods where their impact with apartment buildings, markets, hospitals, schools, businesses, cannot even be remotely avoided as zero control on the point of impact is available.

So how do gravity bombs differ? Initially, gravity bombs began not much differently than barrel bombs. In World War I, pilots would literally throw grenades or explosive shells from their biplanes. Gradually they moved to purpose built bombs hanging in racks that a pilot could line his plane up and have some semblance of control over their impact on the ground. By WWII pilots had heads up displays that helped them line up their sights and know what angle they needed to dive at to have the bomb land in a certain spot. Gravity bombs are designed with aerodynamics in mind and are intended to be able to aimed. Detonation is via a fuse that can be changed out or varied depending on the target (near surface burst blows up slightly over the target, delayed fuse lets it punch through a target before exploding, contact means it blows up when it impacts anything). Fins on the rear of the bomb help stabilize it and keep it pointed towards the intended point of impact (POI).

In the modern age, jets have electronic Heads Up Displays that feed them data on altitude, speed, munition selected, etc etc. Shifting from cannon or missile reticles to unguided bombs, the reticle changes to alert the pilot, based on his speed and angle of attack, where exactly the bomb will land under ideal conditions. In this video [3] of a Dutch F-16 on a bombing run, you can watch the reticle (about halfway through) as a stick with two circles on it. The bottom circle is the projected POI for his bomb. All modern modern aircraft have these kind of HUD targeting abilities if they have the capability to carry bombs. For bombing runs to be the most accurate, steep angle of attack and low altitude are keys. The higher your altitude and the flatter your attack angle, by and large, results in a less accurate run. However, this accuracy means you shift from hitting a specific road junction or AA gun system, to hitting within 50-100 feet of it. (so you drop several). In Desert Storm, the vast majority of US munitions were unguided, which wasn't viewed as an issue until Iraqi AA defenses proved to be far more of a problem than was previously thought. In Gulf War Air Power Survey: Summary Report, 16 it is reported that release altitudes of 14,000 to 17,000 feet were frequent to stay above AA guns, MANPADS, and SAM missile range. From that text: "For these release parameters the slant range to the aim point at bomb release around 20,000 feet, and the *combined system error could be 120 feet even if the pilot did everything right and the system worked perfectly."* What this means is that even at altitudes significantly higher than what most of the SyAAF and Syrian Army Aviation operate at (roughly 10,000 or higher), gravity bombs were considered to be inaccurate when they were only 120 feet from their intended targets. Contrasting this with the city-block sized combined system error of barrel bombs and the difference becomes very clear.

February 2015: At Current Attrition Rates The SAA Has Between 2-4 Years of Armored Forces Left

As the most tank-heavy military in the Middle East, by a heavy percentage, the SAA entered the Syrian Civil War with a tremendous amount of armor. Open source numbers put their pre-war numbers at roughly 4,500 Main Battle Tanks (2,000 T-55, 1,000 T-62, 1,500 T-72), 2,000 BMPs (almost entirely BMP-1s, though the Republican Guard boasted some 100 BMP-2s), 4,731 other armored vehicles (including self propelled AA, self propelled, artillery, armored cars, APCs, and armored AA missile platforms), along with 2,518 transport and logistics trucks, and unknown thousands of jeeps and small vehicles. Of these, a large number of vehicles are either mothballed, broken down for parts, or simply inoperable, with many conflict experts saying the real number of MBTs at the outset of the conflict was 2,500, BMPs at roughly 1,000, and the remainder an unknown entity. Even still, this number of armored vehicles is an enormous amount that outpaces most other military forces in the world (at the start of the conflict, Syria had the 5th largest tank army in the world).

In four years of war, most notably the last three, the number of main battle tanks has shrunk by nearly half with conflict blogger Oryx claiming that of 2,500 MBTs,roughly 1,500 remain[1] as of November 2014 and of the estimated 1,000 BMP-1s in service, Oryx claims that 350 have been destroyed[2] and approximately 175 captured by the opposition, as of January 2015. With over half of the BMP fleet, a mainstay of SAA battle doctrine, destroyed or captured, and approaching half of all MBTs destroyed or captured, how much longer can the SAA sustain these losses before the armored strength of the SAA is depleted and more tanks and armored vehicles exist in opposition hands than the government? My rough estimate: 2 years.

In 2015 alone, there have been roughly 100 ATGM strikes on Syrian armor (spread between tanks, APCs, and heavy equipment like bulldozers). From posts on this subreddit alone, I've counted 65 ATGM (all types) strikes since February just here on the forums, but that doesn't account for how many of those strikes weren't catastrophic hits. Here is a post with 32 strikes from between Feb 10 and Mar 19[3] . Roughly 100 tanks and BMPs have been struck by an ATGM. An untold number have been destroyed by another tank, or destroyed by other AT means (RPGs, AT cannon, mines, IEDs, SVBIED. If I had to guess I would add 20+ to that number of tanks damaged or destroyed since January, based solely on recollection of video and photos of tanks being destroyed by other means. As far as captured...

Several BMP-1s were captured at Brigade 82 in late January, along with a ZSU-23-4 quad barreled 23mm AA vehicle, and two AA missile vehicles. In Feburary, a T-72 and two BMP-1s were captured in Daraa area during the offensive. In Aleppo, a BMP-1 and a T-72, and two T-55s were captured by Islamic Front during that counter attacks, (Bashkuy specifically). In March, I didn't keep good track of what has been captured, although I know in Idlib at least two BMP-1s, two armored cars (BRDM-2 I think), and a small number of logistics trucks were captured. Most recently (a few days ago), a T-72 and three BMP-1s were captured from Hezbollah/SAA forces in the Qalamoun (might have that wrong, it might be Qunaitirah).

The SAA has been losing vehicles at an alarming rate, with approximately 138 vehicles captured, destroyed, or damaged by opposition offensives, ATGM strikes, tank on tank, or other AT weapons. Given the combined 2,000 tanks + BMPs remaining in the Syrian inventory, if losses were to continue at this rate, the SAA can sustain approximately four more years of fighting before the entire tank inventory is used up (without massive replenishment). Of course in reality, if tank losses continue at this rate, replacing them on the battlefield will become a question of retaining enough for defense in secured areas, or continuing to atrophy over the long term through destruction and capture. It is likely that two more years of this rate of destruction would reduce Syrian tank inventory by at least half, and require massive rearmament by an outside power (such as a former Soviet state which has not made the same agreements as Russia with regards to not supplying Syria with more tanks).

ATGMs in Syria: Five Months of Strike Data with Analysis

THE INTRODUCTION

On February 8th, beginning with the Syrian government offensive into Daraa/Quneitirah and then the offensive into Aleppo, I began recording the use of ATGMs by opposition forces[1] (defined here as all forces arrayed against the Syrian government with the exception of Da3sh. I wanted to only focus on Syria and not touch Iraq) when their use could be confirmed by video and there was a preponderance of evidence that the strike actually hit the target. Late March, as those offensives petered off, I stopped recording (finals were approaching/ no one seemed interested) until April 20th when the government launched an aborted offensive to capture Busra al-Harir. From April 20th to June 26th I resumed recording. I promised I'd eventually do a writeup about the results of my findings, so that's what I'm doing here. First off, big thanks to /u/naenil [2] for making the graphics for this writeup and plotting the strikes on a map. Huge thanks to /u/swordofpontus [3] for coming over and physically helping me count the length of flight for 187 separate youtube videos. And then /u/phil_sayers [4] , /u/purpleolive [5] , and all the others who sent me videos and details.

To be added to my list, I had to be able to determine group name, location of strike, date of strike, type of missile used, and target being struck. Additionally the missile had to actually strike the target in the video or there needed to be supporting evidence that it did (like pictures of the destroyed target). I removed some 20-30 videos because they either missed or you couldn't tell if they hit. There are still a few iffy videos, but to the best of my knowledge all of the videos we analyzed are actual hits. Most of the removed videos were Jabhat al-Nusra or Ahrar al-Sham videos where they do not film the launcher so I can't tell exactly what they're using (usually you can figure it out from the missile flight pattern, they were mostly Konkurs/Kornet) and they cut film right at time of impact so you can effectively judge the damage or accuracy.

A few initial notes. The excessive number of TOW strikes is definitely an indicator of their widescale proliferation in Syria, but it doesn't tell the whole story. There are roughly 15 different ATGMs being used in Syria (Konkurs, Kornet, Metis, Bastion, Malyutka, Metis-M, Fagot, HJ-8, TOW, Toophan, Falanja, Svir, Shmel, etc). But only one of those systems MUST have a video every time it is fired. The TOW missile is provided to vetted Syrian groups[6] (Credit/u/grandmuftiofreddit [7] ). These groups head to a training center in Turkey, Jordan, or allegedly one of the Gulf monarchies. They receive roughly 2 weeks of training on the BGM-71 TOW missile[8] . When they finish, they are furnished with a launcher and approximately 5 missiles (the most given at one time is believed to be 8). To remain in the program and receive missile replacements the group must video each and every strike including the following information: startup calibration sequence (necessary for accurate firing and shows the weapon is in working order), the serial number of the TOW missile being fired, a spoken declaration of the group firing it, the date, location, and target. These videos are then furnished to the program handlers along with the expended missile tubes to get new missiles. This is to prevent the launchers/missiles from being sold/traded to other groups and helps keep close tabs on what exactly is going on with missile strikes provided by Western sources. With this in mind, one should understand that 100% of TOW strikes will be recorded and so they'll be disproportionately represented in the videos that make it to the internet. The actual breakdown of missiles will be a lot more skewed in favor of Soviet bloc ATGMs, however exact numbers are impossible to determine.

As an additional caveat, in the Syrian conflict all ATGMs being used are, for all intents and purposes, equally lethal to nearly all armor on the Syrian battlefield, especially the most common variants: Kornkurs, Kornet, METIS-M, TOW, and Milan. The major differences are relatively unimportant in the context of 40-60 year old Syrian tanks, with the greatest differences being the range of the weapons with Kornet's on the high end capable of 5,000m strikes and Milan's on the low end limited to 2,000m. Given the poor state of Syrian armored forces all of these ATGMs provide enough "umph" to penetrate and destroy any tank or armored vehicle on the battlefield. None of them offers any sort of supreme advantage over the others other than range.

A final note. The time of flight was averaged across all weapons systems because the majority of the data was for TOW systems. Each system is moderately slower or faster than the other, but they all have relatively similar average speeds. We used the TOW missile's average time of flight of 187.5 meters per second across the board, but it will technically be slightly faster or slower when looking at non-TOW missiles.

THE DATA

I have all the strikes broken down as I described above in an excel doc (not sure how to host), as well as posted here[9]. /u/naenil [10] provided some nifty infographics including a breakdown of strikes by province and by target, locatedhere[11] (PDF warning).

Strikes by month and Time of Flight

Feb: 21 11.7 seconds / 2193m
March: 8 14.4 seconds / 2700m
April: 38 13.3 seconds / 2493m
May: 63 13.4 seconds / 2512m
June: 57 12.8 seconds / 2400m
Total: 187 13.1 seconds / 2456m

Strikes by month

Feb: 21
March: 8
April: 38
May: 63
June: 57
Total: 187

Strikes by Governorate:

Aleppo: 45
Idlib: 54
Quneitirah: 6
Daraa: 28
Rif Dimashq: 8
Suweida: 1
Hama: 37
Latakia: 6

Strikes by targets hit:

Tank: 66
BMP: 10
ZSU-23-4 “Shilka”: 10
Other Armored Vehicles: 6
Fuel/Ammunition/Supply/Command Trucks: 12
Bulldozer: 11
Artillery piece: 9
Anti-Aircraft Cannon: 32
Heavy Machine Guns: 10
Technicals: 6
Rocket Launchers: 4
ATGM Launcher: 2
Bunker/Checkpoint: 8
Unknown: 1

Strikes by missile type:

US BGM-71 TOW: 150
Russian 9M113 Konkurs: 15
Russian 9M133 Kornet: 7
Russian 9K111 Fagot: 1
Russian 9M14 Malyutka: 2
Russian 9K115-2 Metis-M: 7
French MILAN: 2
Chinese HJ-8 Red Arrow: 3

THE ANALYSIS

The proliferation of ATGMs in Syria has hit critical mass. In the early years of the war missiles would be captured piece meal, five here, five there. Gradually larger quantities got captured, with approximately 1,000 missiles captured atMahin in 2013 [12] , another 250 captured later that summer [13] , and other caches found elsewhere. Gradually ATGM strikes became more and more a reality of war and less a rare occurrence with unskilled operators. More missiles meant more shots and more shots meant greater experience with the system and more hits. In 2014 the introduction of the TOW missile program meant trained operators were firing missiles and scoring more and more hits. But ATGM strikes remained most heavily utilized in a harassing manner. Seeking targets of opportunity, groups would setup their system, fire at a resting tank or BMP, pack up shop and flee before a response could be formed. A gradual shift away from this began just prior to the recording of this data. The assault on Wadi al-Daif/Hamidiyye that resulted in a collapse of government forces, the loss of two well equipped military bases, and tremendous quantities of military equipment and supplies, saw a very close integration of ATGM teams (including a TOW missile fired right next to a Jabhat al-Nusra position, for the first time) working in tandem with recoilless rifle teams and tanks to rapidly and systematically shred all government armored forces on the defensive lines before tank supported infantry assaults began.

Looking over the data from February onward, we see a repeating of this. Strikes spike during periods of major cross-group defensives (notably Aleppo and Daraa) and are used particularly effectively in support of major offensives (especially Hama and Idlib, with notable presence in the assault on Brigade 52 in Daraa). This should not be surprising as any major military operation is going to furnish a greater number of targets for both defenders and attackers then in the static battlelines elsewhere. However, it is a relatively new phenomenon to see ATGMs so closely integrated into the opposition doctrine. Armor has long been the greatest strength of the government (along with airpower) and the raw application of massed armor has been a key tenet of government doctrine, making positions that would be otherwise difficult to defend by traditional infantry into veritable mobile fortresses with tanks acting as bunkers, artillery, hardened machine gun posts, and observation/listening posts. The ability to place a tank or two on a hill and have "Fire control" over several thousand meters around that hill dominated government doctrine for much of the early war. ATGM proliferation became a gradual problem for this, but never to the point that it's at now.

Any major offensive in Syria conducted by the Syrian opposition will have ATGM integrated at the front lines to hunt down and destroy exposed armor that would otherwise stall out or repel traditional offensive forces. With a high concentration of ATGM gunners, Syrian government forces are stuck between remaining in place and being softer targets but providing the deterence necessary to prevent ground assault, or in moving to tertiary positions and essentially surrendering those initial defensive positions. What winds up happening is that the armor continues to move backwards into positions of greater defensive strength but in the process that new position becomes compromised when ATGM gunners and opposition forces take up position in the previous strongpoints. A chain reaction of retreats to new positions weakens the non-armored defenders and leads to routs like seen in the Idlib salient. As the armor is destroyed or withdraws the major firepower advantage is lost and opposition armor and infantry can often overwhelm individual checkpoints until nothing is left.

The consolidation of ATGM forces into broader coalitions like Jaish al-Fateh, Fateh Haleb, Southern Front, etc etc shows an adaptation to battlefield conditions that has previously evaded opposition forces. Jaish al-Fateh[14] is one of the best examples of this, crossing ideological borders for common goals, incorporating less-extreme factions into their overall battle plans. Utilizing ATGM teams as active initiator's of offensive action instead of only as a reaction to targets of opportunities allows Jaish al-Fateh to deprive SAA defenses of their greatest land combat advantage, which facilitates the manpower infantry assaults that have overrun so many government positions in the past half a year.

Ultimately, ATGM proliferation cannot and will not win or lose the war. But it can absolutely set the conditions for a loss or win. By depriving the Syrian military of their greatest combat strength (on the ground) in conjunction with coordinated assault the armed opposition in Syria has adopted tactics that allow them to circumvent the numerical strength of the SAA and counteract their firepower advantages. If the Syrian military does not adapt to the current threat environment and either seek to counter anti-armor weapons teams, or reduce their armored footprint in favor of alternate styles of warfare, they will soon find themselves at a point where they can no longer replace their armored losses without dipping into reserves and weakening the heartland's defensive posture.

Summer 2015: What the Implementation of ZSU-57-2 Says About the State of SAA Armor

With recent news[1] (unconfirmed as of yet) that the Syrian government is bringing the ZSU-57-2 Self Propelled AA Gun (SPAAG) [2] out of retirement, one has to question what state the SAA armored forces are in that such an old and antiquated weapon is brought back to fight. Unlike the similarly aging T-55 and other vehicles, the ZSU-57-2 was retired decades ago when it was realized that it's AA use is next to none. ZSU-57-2 were used to minimal effect against Israeli planes in 1967 and 1973 (with many being captured by Israel and winding up in their museums) all the way through the disaster of the Suppression of Enemy Air Defense campaign conducted against the SyAAF and air defenses during Operation Mole Cricket 19[3] in the 1980s.

The slow firing speed, manual entry sights not linked to a radar, and turret unable to turn quickly enough to track a fast moving jet, made the the ZSU-57-2 next to useless in an anti-aircraft artillery capacity, a role that was rapidly being replaced by smaller, much faster firing cannon, and even then, reaching a point of obsolescence against modern air forces except in limited circumstances (takeoff and landing or low level operations). Most western militaries have already retired the vast majority of their anti-aircraft artillery or have made plans to do so. But Syria has long prepared for a cross border war with Israel where the greatest threat to Syrian tanks (besides Israeli tanks) is Israeli airpower. Part of this preparation has been the long time acquisition of anti-aircraft artillery even well beyond the point where Israeli airpower was largely unthreatened by by anti-aircraft artillery. Syria's anti-aircraft artillery arsenal is some 3300 towed anti-aircraft cannons and machine guns, including 650 23mm dual cannon ZU-23-2 [4] , along with a tremendous number of anti-aircraft machine guns in dual and quad mounts (usually 14.5mm ZPUs) and a limited number of 37mm, 85mm, and 100mm "flak" style AA cannons. These platforms were meant to be clustered in batteries and placed in positions to defend strategic infrastructure (Especially air bases). Their counterpart is the mobile ZSU (SPAAG) series of the ZSU-57-2 and it's successor the ZSU-23-4. Tracked vehicles built on a tank chassis, Syria acquired roughly 250-300 of the ZSU-57-2 from the Soviet Union and gradually replaced them with 400-500 of the more modern (and effective) ZSU-23-4.

While western military ideology has always seen AA guns as strictly that, with use against ground forces strictly an emergency measure, Soviet planners have always built AA cannons with the ability to be turned against ground targets a serious consideration. AA use is still their primary function, but more so than most western AA assets (with the LAV-AD [5] an exception) Soviet AA cannons make excellent assets at medium to long range ground combat. So the use of such platforms in anti-infantry and anti-vehicle operations is hardly surprising. The Idlib salient offensive showed just how effective AA cannons in elevated positions could be against a routed force that is out of the range of small arms and heavy machine guns, and the city of Aleppo and Damascus suburbs have been a testament to the fact that snipers nests on top of buildings or machine gun bunkers dug into buildings that are resistant to machine gun fire can easily be destroyed or force to retreat by the tactical application of AA cannon bursts. Significantly more valuable in open terrain where their extreme range can be put to use and their highly visible tracer can be used to walk rounds onto targets, all parties of the conflict have made great use stationing SPAAGs outside of small arms range and using them to soften entrenched positions leading into a city or strongpoint before the infantry assault.

Urban combat however has been a dual edged sword as the vulnerability as thin skilled vehicles is significantly increased when traversing the narrow corridors of urban combat environments where a single RPG-7, IED, AT mine, or even another AA cannon, can shred and destroy or disable a SPAAG. For this reason, as the war progressed SPAAGs were more commonly found at checkpoints and villages not surrounded by heights and tall buildings or in positions of overwatch like in the Qalamoun mountains.

Through a combination of urban combat dangers, major ATGM proliferation, and mismanagement by SAA forces during rout, a tremendous amount of ZSU-23-4 "Shilkas" have been destroyed or captured in Syria. Exact numbers would be difficult to know at this point, but given trends in other armored categories (MBT reduces by over half of pre-war levels, BMP-1s, reduced by over 2/3, etc etc) it is safe to assume that less than half of pre-war levels remain in government control. As Syrian main battle tanks continue to take tremendous casualties, the ability to replace front line tanks, often used as mobile pillboxes in defensive positions, has become less and less. The position these tanks fill in the defensive role is essentially that mobile artillery piece that backs up a specific checkpoint or hardened defensive structure. For all intents and purposes, any armored vehicle with a decent sized cannon can fill this role, freeing up the tank for more traditional (and effective) roles. The implementation of SPAAGs to fill this role would appear to be an indication that attrition is beginning to wear on the SAA armored corps. A certain level of armor must be maintained and kept secure to both protect the capital and for emergency offensive operations necessary to prevent encirclement or to break sieges. The previous strategy has seemed to be reliant on overwhelming numbers of tanks and armored vehicles. As attrition of SAA armor increases, without an international sponsor willing to replace these losses, stopgap measures must be taken to continue to keep these positions manned to avoid gaps in the line. It's my estimation that we'll continue to see the SAA resorting to replacing front line losses with antiquated armor and vehicles that have long been mothballed to allow for current armor to be utilized in a more efficient manner. Syria has no shortage of older vehicles, vehicles that would be absolutely obsolescent in an offensive role (and limited value in the defense) that are still capable of slinging mid to large caliber projectiles, such as the T-34/D-30 and 2S3 Akatsiya self propelled howitzers, hundreds if not thousands of towed artillery in storage, PT-76 light tanks, and hundreds upon hundreds of lightly armored wheeled and tracks scout vehicles and armored cars that can be made to carry a heavier cannon.

The introduction of the ZSU-57-2 is hardly a last ditch effort to save the Syrian government, but it is definitely a sign of the strain that Syrian armed forces are under and speaks to the devastatingly effective rate of attrition endured when combatant forces (the opposition including Da3sh) move away from simply being insurgents with small arms, IEDs, and rockets, and gain battlefield parity of arms, as we are seeing in much of Syria. The pre-war Syrian military was the most tank and armored vehicle heavy military in the entire Middle East and one of the heaviest in the world. But four years of war is beginning to crack even that large of an advantage, particularly when these heavy arms are captured intact and turned against their former operators. It will be interesting to see what other developments occur as Syria reaches for more antiquated weapons to serve as stopgaps until the conflict can be resolved, a new supplier of arms found, or the government collapses.

Jaish al-Fateh: Unity and Specialization as Weapons of War

Much has been written about the phenomenon of the Islamist dominated coalition, Jaish al-Fateh (Army of Conquest), and it's wave of success in northern Syria. Coalitions are hardly a new feature of the opposition battlespace in Syria, but effective coalitions have largely been the exception rather than the rule. Often functioning more as an umbrella organization that lends credibility by the existence of the largest members (like Jaish al-Islam or Ahrar al-Sham in Islamic Front), coalitions in Syria tend to emerge to great fanfare with huge media displays, glamorous names, and a few short weeks of cooperation before fading back into their respective groups and failing to cooperate in future operations. Smaller coalitions like the Burkan al-Firat (Euphrates Volcano) in northern Syria, consisting of YPG, Arab militias, and FSA groups have had significant success but the vast bulk of this coalition is the organic Kurdish fighting forces of the YPG. A rising star in terms of a united coalition has been the Southern Front in Syria's Daraa province, but their progression has been slow and varied. The singular coalition that has emerged as a major threat to Syrian government control has been the Jaish al-Fateh coalition in conjunction with the groups that it draws into its orbit in a non-member but cooperating manner.

Officially formed on 24 March 2015 and put to work immediately culminating with the fall of Idlib four days later, the groundwork for Jaish al-Fateh was laid months earlier. In mid December of 2014 a group of opposition factions, chaired primarily by Ahrar al-Sham with Jabhat al-Nusra in support assaulted and overwhelmed both the Wadi al-Daif and Hamadiyah military installations in a rapid assault utilizing as many as 3,000 fighters[1] , dozens of armored vehicles, and significant heavy weaponry. A telling event in this assault was the inclusion of non-Salafist aligned groups like US vetted TOW recipient FSA groups. Where previously open hostility existed between the groups and a lack of cooperation and defined separate areas of influence were hallmarks of their relationship, Wadi al-Deif saw more extreme Islamist groups tender an olive branch to FSA groups. The net result was that the specialty weapons like TOW missiles and heavy artillery possessed by some of the FSA groups (notably, Firqa 13, Firqa 101, and Liwa Fursan al-Haq) allowed the assaulting forces to specialize in a manner previously unseen.

Wadi al-Deif and Hamadiyah oversaw a rapid collapse of government defenses through combined arms effort and specialization of purpose. FSA groups manning anti-tank weapons and batteries of mortars, hell cannons, and artillery provided the weaponry to open gaps government defensive works through which Ahrar al-Sham and Suqor al-Sham tanks and heavy vehicles could act as an armored fist, punching a hole through which Jabhat al-Nusra and the remaining groups infantry forces could push through. The assault on these bases consisted of a multi-pronged attack that left a corridor open for government forces to retreat through. The net result of this cooperation was an assault that was relatively short, expending minimal ammunition, and costing significantly less lives (on both sides) than a protracted siege. The aftermath saw as many as 200 government troops captured[2] and tremendous amounts of war material captured (including significant numbers of artillery and anti-aircraft [3] , 20+ armored vehicles, hundreds of small arms and ammunition, as well as 2 million liters of vehicle fuel[4] ). The driving factor for success in this operation was neither supremacy of arms nor facing an inferior foe, but rather the centralization of command, specialization of purpose, and the prioritization of tasking according to the abilities and strengths of each group. Setting aside ideological differences and past feuds, Wadi al-Deif saw hardliner Islamic extremists, moderate Islamists, and outright secular idealist working hand in hand for a common purpose. This would be the model around which the Jaish al-Fateh concept would be based, with a core group of major power groups more or less aligned with Salafist Islam, and a large number of non-aligned groups outside of the coalition itself but coopted for a common goal in exchange for shares of ghanima[5] , strategic goals, and the chance to be a part of a much larger offensive than any single group could manage on it's own.

Fast forward four months to late March when Jaish al-Fateh was declared. The fall of Idlib city was rather unceremonious with the assault lasting only 4 days and total casualties for both sides reported as less than 200 total killed[6] . An orderly government withdrawal south to al-Mastoumeh and it's associated military camp is largely credited with avoiding a protracted and bloody fight for the provincial capital of Idlib. Significant debate has been raised as to the worth of this move, but the repeat of tactics from Wadi al-Deif where checkpoints around the city were seized surrounding the city on all sides other than the road heading south allowed the government a corridor through which to retreat. This tactic has become the hallmark of Jaish al-Fateh assaults, with the escape corridor often lined with heavy weapon units to harass and exploit the retreat but not enough troops to prevent the retreat from occurring or forcing heavy confrontation. Hailed as the first example of unity of arms and the first battle test of Jaish al-Fateh their advance then stalled out as they continued to push south to take on the remainder of retreated government troops. For the next few weeks government troops repulsed opposition assaults and even made incremental gains northward back towards Idlib city. The strength of Jaish al-Fateh came into question and much debate centered around whether it was an actual viable faction or simply a one time marriage of convenience.

On 22 April almost completely unannounced (to the point that US defense and intelligence communities were caught completely off guard[7] ) a force of between 9-13,000 opposition fighters rapidly descended from all over Syria (Jaish al-Islam from Rif Dimashq, al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham in Idlib, 1st Coastal Division in Latakia, Suqor al-Ghab from Hama, Faylaq al-Sham and Firqa 13 from Aleppo, totalling some 25+ different groups) to form a front line roughly 100km long from the border with Turkey to the width and breadth of the Idlib Salient, penetrating deep (initially) into the Sahal al-Ghab (a large plain in northern Hama bordering Idlib province). Initial successes saw tremendous gains as Jisr al-Shughour, Qarmeed (Brick Factory), al-Qahira, Sirmaniyah, Ghaniya, and Musaybin fell in the first couple week of the offensive and the overwhelming amount of ammunition, weapons, and equipment captured helped to replace losses and expended munitions providing continued fuel for the offensive momentum that would go on to completely eradicate Syrian government presence in the Idlib salient in a roughly 50 day offensive ending in mid-June.

What made the battle for Idlib salient and Sahal al-Ghab different from previous opposition offensives is what differentiated the attack on Wadi al-Deif and Hamadiyah, but severely intensified. Specialization of unit by strength of arms and expertise combined with relative unity of command provided Jaish al-Fateh with a combined arms force capable of dealing multi-faceted offensives in depth. A strong infantry corps, backed by fanatical elements like Jabhat al-Nusra's SVBIED operators and various Islamist factions inghimasiyeen shock troops gave the ability cause chaos in defensive lines preceding a major infantry and armored assault. Massed artillery batteries consisting of dozens of mortars, Hell cannons, artillery cannon, and rocket artillery were employed as softening measures to drive defenders from first line defenses. The massed proliferation of ATGMs, both US provided TOW missiles and captured Syrian military missiles, meant that armored vehicles rushed forward to fill gaps in the defenses could be taken out from a distance without risking Jaish al-Fateh in tank-on-tank conflict. Ad hoc 'engineer' units used tunneling 'kits' to direct tunneling efforts against several different hardened points allowing for rapid tunnel bomb construction and detonation. But perhaps most important and least understood, is how quickly Jaish al-Fateh units acquired and then dispersed captured munitions and weapons, operating a complicated logistics network to provide missiles to anti-tank units, artillery ammunition to battery units, and small arms ammunition to infantry. Previous offensives have largely been marked by fast progress in the first few days and weeks marked by long pauses for resupply and refit. The ability to resupply on the move and provide appropriate munitions where they are needed indicates a significant evolution in opposition command and control and logistics capabilities.

The success of Jaish al-Fateh in Idlib appears to be the model upon which other regional coalitions are trying to base their organizations on. The announcement of further Jaish al-Fateh franchises in Qalamoun, Daraa, Aleppo showcases the ambition of the initial Jaish al-Fateh organization to expand and coopt the existing machinations elsewhere in the country into more centralized models based around extremist core groups with specialty groups of all different ideologies acting as the support assets. It remains to be see if these factions will meet the same success as the Idlib and Hama campaigns, but if the unity of command and shared end goals can overweigh internecine rivalry and turf wars over influence, then the tide of the Syrian Civil War may have shifted tremendously back in favor of the non-ISIL opposition. Throughout the history of the conflict the greatest gains were made by the opposition when varying factions could come together towards a common goal. It is not unrealistic to believe that regional battlegroups like Jaish al-Fateh, Southern Front, and Burkan al-Firat are the future of successful opposition warfare in Syria.

But Why Bulldozers? - The Impact of Destroying Logistics

A defining feature of the Syrian conflict, and to a lesser extent the Iraq conflict, has been the extreme proliferation of ATGMs A repeated question that arises when a relatively expensive ATGM is pictured striking a non-armored vehicle is invariably "Why are they wasting a missile designed to destroy tanks on a <insert non-tank item>?". The answer to this is multi-part. It's perhaps important to note that every insurgent with an ATGM designed with the Fulda Gap in mind isn't necessarily the world's most brilliant tactician deliberately picking out his targets to make the most impact felt. Beyond that, the target that you DO hit is immeasurably more felt than the target you DON'T hit. But that doesn't really answer the question. Why are so many bulldozers, ammo/supply trucks, troop carriers, and similar equipment targeted by these relatively important weapons?

"Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics." - Gen. Robert H. Barrow, USMC (Commandant of the Marine Corps)

"The line between disorder and order lies in logistics…" - Sun Tzu

"Logistics ... as vital to military success as daily food is to daily work." - Capt. Alfred Thayer Mahan, Armaments and Arbitration, 1912

The success of the Syrian military at continuing to keep their far flung outposts supplied, even at the risk of airdrops that carry with them some inherent risk of being captured by enemy forces, is one of the most uncelebrated victories of the Syrian civil war. The constant effort, even when reinforced by Russian and Iranian airpower and largesse, to keep Hasakah, Deir Ezzor, Kuweires airbase, until recently Abu Dhuhor, the cities and villages of Fuah, Kafraya, Zahra, Nubl along with the major military arteries of SAA control is nothing short of miraculous. Without constant convoys through enemy territory, costly operations to keep highways open, and non-stop resupply flights, it is conceivable that the far reaches of the Syrian government's control would have collapsed long ago.

While much has been written about attriting the Syrian government to death by killing off tanks and armored vehicles faster than new crews can be replaced or perhaps more definitively destroying their armored force in totality, and there is certainly something to this strategy, such a strategy could go on for several more years before all armor is finally destroyed, and this presumes that a nation like Russia doesn't just 1 for 1 replace those losses. On a tactical level those vehicles have to be destroyed as rapidly as possible to prevent either a loss of momentum in opposition offensives or a regaining of momentum by the government when enough armor (and armored crews) can be amassed for an offensive operation. And to that extent, it would be absolutely foolish for the opposition to discontinue it's continual use of ATGMs as a standoff weapon to denude government forces of their armored advantages and to help force collapse of positions so that the oppositions more lightly armed infantry can overwhelm positions.

But strategically, the opposition has little ability to threaten total armored strength of the Syrian military in the short term, having to rely on the stress ball approach of squeezing one area which allows other areas to swell from the lack of pressure there. And this is where the assault on logistics becomes so vital. While it is inconceivable that a group like Jaish al-Fateh can completely stop massive armored convoys from continuing to push forward into Aleppo, Daraa, Hama, or whever the current battle lines may be, by striking these convoys and destroying/capturing supplies intended for the given front it is weakening the level of support that can be provided to that front. Each truck of ammunition that is destroyed is that many fewer bullets fired at opposition forces during their next offensive. When a truck loaded with fuel is blown up the intended target for the fuel is now forced to move less frequently and spend more time in defensive arrangements so familiar to watchers of ATGM videos, where they're exposed far more than while on the move patrolling their battle space as a hard target. Each bus or truck full of troops struck is that many fewer reinforcements headed to the front lines.

As an organization that does not pay for (generally speaking) its ATGMs but rather relies on their capture when they overrun bases and supply columns, or in the cases of US vetted TOW supplied groups in having access to a common border where they can receive resupply, the value placed on each ATGM is different than if there was a financial cost attached. Which frees them up use in roles beyond what they were conceived for, particularly in areas where it has ceased to be a tank-rich environment. Non-armored targets come to include a wide host of heavy machine guns and anti-aircraft cannons on technicals, Soviet era multi-barreled rocket launchers, artillery pieces, the aforementioned logistical vehicles, perhaps most ironically other ATGM teams, and then the target that gets the most questions: bulldozers.

Bulldozers use in a combat environment is unbelievably diverse and important. Every modern military has some form of armored bulldozer [1] and earth-moving equipment for front line use in addition to regular civilian grade models painted olive drab or tan. Used by combat engineers under active combat conditions to breach obstacles, clear a path through a minefield (using the massive blade to absorb blasts of smaller mines), help dislodge stuck armored vehicles too heavy to push or pull free, and to rapidly create defensive works in captured positions, the bulldozer is one of the most overlooked but heavily important items of modern warfare. In preparing new positions, earth-moving equipment can be used to rapidly create trenches [2] necessary for infantry to repel assaults, building berms [3] (notably, this is a US Marine bulldozer working on the Iraq/Syria border berm that Da3sh would later partially destroy) that serve both as firing parapets for infantry and as natural obstacles to vehicles, and in filling earthenworks like HESCO barriers [4] (pictured are Iraqi troops building chest height HESCO barriers) or basket-defenses.

All sides in the Syrian conflict make use of earth moving equipment for the construction of defensive positions. It stands to reason then that the use of ATGMs to strike these vehicles helps to soften the adversaries ability to entrench and prepare/repair defensive positions prior to an assault. When an area is lost and bulldozers are brought in with the attacking force, quickly destroying them helps to buy time so that a counter-attack can be assembled before the enemy has time to strengthen their positions. In this manner destroying earth moving equipment helps to keep losses as temporary and when sufficient force is gathered counter-attacks have the advantage of of, ideally, facing an opponent on the wrong side of the defensive works not having had time to adequately prepare new ones. The rapid destruction of earth moving equipment is therefore highly desirable and perhaps from a strategic point of view as important as destroying enemy armor.

While the possibility of strategic resupply of bulldozers exists if supplies reach a breaking point and Russian assistance is willing, the continued destruction of Syrian military earth moving equipment weakens the ability of the Syrian ground forces to conduct successful operations both defensive and offensive. Similarly, it should be of extreme importance and target prioritization that the Syrian military target and destroy opposition earth moving equipment to prevent them from consolidating gains and entrenching themselves ot the point of making the recapture of lost ground too costly to be worth the effort. Just as the anti-Da3sh coalition has made continual strikes on Da3sh earth moving equipment in northern Syria and all over Iraq, ideally the Russian involvement in Syria would seek to do the same and treat opposition earth moving equipment as much as a weapon of war as the tanks and rocket launchers they've captured from the Syrian government.

Russian Intervention in Syria Requires Groundtroops

While the provision of what is essentially a doubling of Syrian military airpower (though only 34 planes, they are 34 planes equipped with the most modern avionics and weapons and crewed by one of the upper tier air forces in the world, their impact is far more reaching than 100+ Syrian combat aircraft) is a tremendous game changer in the Syrian conflict, it is not a game winner. Russian aid to Syria has been a constant throughout the life of the conflict, a lifeline in times of great distress, a moral backer during times of international criticism, and a legitimizing agent when the Syrian government is desperately hurting for friends on the world stage that aren't semi-pariah states like Iran. The special relationship between Russia and Syria is, arguably, the principal reason the Syrian government has not collapsed as of yet. The continued credit lines, training and equipping of Syrian air force pilots and air craft, shipments of ammunition, and diplomatic capital to continue the conflict has given great bargaining power to a government which may have otherwise had to seek settlement sooner if not risk greater incursion into government areas of strength or even overthrow. But it is only within the past few months that Russian aid has reached it's high water mark (thus far). Support has gone from subtle and understated, to blatant, overt, and public. Russian troops, Russian aircraft, Russian armor, and Russian bases now dot Latakia, Tartous, and Hama, to say the least. This level of support is beyond anything the Syrian opposition can dream of receiving, even if the entire host of foreign backers were to pool their resources (short of outright fighting the SAA by foreign powers). But is it enough?

I'd argue that the SAA was reaching a breaking point after the losses of 2015 and short of massive intervention (be it Suleimani's surprise, or something that could actually happen like Russian aircraft) further losses were to be expected. Something had to change. December 2014 through June 2015 saw the government lose Wadi al-Daif, Hamidiyye, Brigade 82, Busra al-Sham, Idlib, Jisr al-Shughour, Palmyra, Brigade 52, Mastoumeh, Ariha, Muhambal, most of northern Sahal al-Ghab, portions of eastern and northern Latakia, pieces of Aleppo, and losses elsewhere in the continually shrinking government areas. Such losses were accompanied by tremendous loss of life and equipment, with large elements of SAA heavy weaponry not only being destroyed but being captured by opposition forces, tremendously boosting their fighting abilities. During this time there were very few government victories to speak of, largely limited to Hezbollah assisted operations in the Qalamoun mountains. Left unchanged, there is little doubt that the SAA would reach a breaking point no matter how many foreign militiamen were injected, the lines would simply no longer be able to be held.

That metric of course began to shift as Russian naval and air lift agencies began transporting huge quantities of supplies, equipment, and now men to Syria. The defeatism of the last 9 months and the narrative in pro-Syrian media looking for people to blame for Syrian military failures has shifted towards a tone of excitement about the future and an idea that the Russian patronage will be the savior of the Syrian state. And this could certainly be true. But the question that remains to be seen is whether Russian intervention will be styled along US anti-ISIL lines, as solely an air power and a logistical and training support asset, or whether Russian ground forces will be placed on the front lines. And that will be the determining factor between Syrian military success in ending the war, or simply retaining their current battle lines, preventing further loss, and building favorable conditions for a negotiated settlement.

Despite status as the most powerful and advanced air force on earth, the US and it's coalition against ISIL has seen time and again in Iraq and Syria that airpower alone is simply not enough to defeat an insurgency. It can denude them of armor, make troop concentration more costly, disrupt supply and logistics, and generally make life difficult. But airpower alone does not rid the ridges of ATGMs, nor prevent the assembly of IEDs and VBIEDs. Airpower does not control the ground necessary to impose security on a given area. Airpower is not a panacea, it's a piece of the puzzle at defeating an insurgency. It must be skillfully combined with a well planned and executed ground campaign, be it the Russian total-war model ala Chechnya round two, or the Western "hearts and minds" centric counter-insurgency model. Control of the ground requires the local population to give up support for the elements fighting against the central government. This can be achieved through fear and coercion, or incentivization, but you cannot bomb support away. Air strikes offer an effective method of weakening enemy forces, but this is only useful if there is a ground force that can exploit that weakness or else it is for naught and these groups simply lick their wounds, regroup, and reemerge.

Total victory on the ground in Syria, in favor of the Syrian government, will require substantial deployment of Russian troops and equipment, either as direct combatants, or in heavy advisory roles. The SAA and it's assorted militias and supporting agents have shown themselves incapable of achieving dominance of the battlefield and retaining that advantage, with captured areas remaining targets of heavy weapons assaults, be it artillery, IED, Hell Cannon, ATGM, etc etc. With proper fielding of forces, training, and logistical support, these areas of Syrian military presence can be strengthened to push opposition forces that immediately threaten those positions beyond reach. Active patrolling, show of force operations, humanitarian aid efforts, and smarter marshaling of forces, particularly when backed by Russian crewed armor and artillery, if not outright infantry, is necessary for their to be a rebound of Syrian military success. Without these measures, airstrikes are simply stemming the tide and holding the status quo.

Despite being overwhelmingly better equipped and supported, with active coalition air support, the Iraqi military has shown that, despite some successes, air support alone does not provide the necessary ingredients for victory over non-state actors operating massive military apparatuses. Similarly, the even more fractured, less well equipped, and significantly less supported Syrian military cannot suddenly reverse course in Syria solely with the help of airstrikes and some logistical aid. These items will surely help the Syrian government prevent further losses, particularly in areas firmly within the governments control. But without the significant entrance of Russian ground troops, stopping the bleeding is the best case scenario, not the total victory that eager arm-chair analysts are proclaiming.

Black and White Flags: Salafist flags and their meanings beyond al-Nusra and the Islamic State

The topic of Islamic flags has come up quite a few times recently, with many poor assumptions regarding what they mean and who carries them. Understanding the flags of Islam, jihadist culture, and Islamic militants of all creeds and flavors, is an important facet to understanding who's-who-in-the-zoo. With the increasing presence of video and photo media all over the place for us to observe the various groups of the various conflicts many of us follow, it is critical that one understands the difference between the Shahada, the Black Standard, the green flag, the seal of Mohammed (PBUH), etc etc. As a preface, unless otherwise indicated, all resources are pulled from my personal bookshelf, JSTOR or similar academic reading sources and I'll throw up a short bio for each (generated by the internet, not me, so don't yell at me for not using the same citation style). I do not intend to cover all flags associated with Islamism, but rather to focus on a few flags that are important with regard to Salafist Islamism in the context of Syria and Iraq. Due to a lack of personal knowledge on Shi'a (and other Islamic groups) flags I will leave that topic to another person so as not to misrepresent something.

Perhaps the most well known Islamic flags, and those most associated with Islamic extremism (notably Salafist variety) are the many varieties of the Black Standard. Known in Arabic as راية السوداء (English: Black Standard, Arabic:Rayah al-Sawdah) this flag is literally just a black flag devoid of any markings or symbols. This flag hails back to Abu Muslim in his uprising against the Ummayads leading to the Abbasid revolution, and is hence characterized as belonging to the Abbasid caliphate. Abbasid partisans who carried the Rayat al-Sawdah were known as Musawwids(loosely: those who wear/carry black) [1]. Islamic eschatology holds that the Mohammed (PBUH) is said to have claimed that the Mahdi's arrival would be known by the arrival of Black Standards from Khorasan, as the flag of the army that will fight the Dajjal (sort of like the anti-Christ) [2].

Since then various different groups and nations have used the black standard, in it's plainest form, throughout history. It is most well known however for it's modern day varieties, often called "the jihad flag", "the black flag of jihad" [3], these are actually several different flags. The fancy calligraphy script shahadah (Muslim declaration of faith. English: "There is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is his messenger." Arabic: لا إله إلا الله محمد رسول الله / la ilah li-Allah, Mohammed rasoul-Allah) , the seal of Mohammed (PBUH) with shahadah above, and many variations of these with group names or movement ideology below them.

The most prolific in the past year has been the flag most commonly associated with Da3sh: the black standard with the shahadah and seal of Mohammed on it (image here [1] ). On this flag, the first four words of the shahada (La ilaha illah-llah) are shown in white in what is believed to be the handwriting style similar to what Mohammed (PBUH) would have written in. Below this, a round white circle with the last three words of the shahada (Mohammed rasoul-Allah) shown in black. Arabic reads from right to left top to bottom, but in this instance, the Arabic is written from bottom to top, so that "Allah" is the top word. It is believed that this image comes from the signet ring that Mohammed (PBUH) wore and used to impart his seal on letters [4] to others ( image here [2] ). Not exclusive to Da3sh, this flag has been used by al-Qaeda linked al-Shabaab in Somalia (white on black as their war banner and black on white as their "administrative banner), Boko Haram in Nigeria, and several other Islamist groups including the Syrian coalition the Islamic Front [3] on their war flag.

Prior to the media coverage of this past year, the most well known Islamist flag is the one still associated with most al-Qaeda linked groups, the black standard with a shahada [4] written in Arabic Thuluth script[5] not that dissimilar from the green flag of Saudi Arabia [6] (notably different by a slightly different script and the addition of Mamaluk saber at the bottom). This particular flag is what most people familiar with the past fifteen years of conflict in the Middle East associate with Salafist Islamist groups. While al-Qaeda is perhaps the best known group to use this flag, it's origin and popularity predates it's use by the al-Qaeda group. Pashtun warlords and empires in 17th and 18th century Afghanistan would carry black standard with white shahada into battle until the fall of Hotak dynasty [5]. When the Pashtun supremacist movement of the Taliban emerged in the mid 1990s, they revived this flag by way of awhite flag with black shahadah [7] as their national flag and battleflag. It was their adoption of this flag that led to al-Qaeda (under bin-Laden) to choose the black standard with white shahada as their flag.

While the shahadah is important to both Sunni and Shi'a Muslims, it is most prominently featured on the battleflags of Sunni groups. Which is not to say it does not appear on Shi'a militant groups flags as well, as it has often been seen in Iraq on either a yellow or green background, but this departs from my area of personal knowledge and hopefully someone else can pick up where I left off on this topic to discuss the symbolism of Shi'a (and other Islamic groups) flags and banners. I am more than open to corrections, as a non-Muslim I'm aware I might be misreading or misinterpreting things. If you've read this far, I appreciate any and all criticisms or critiques.

RESOURCES USED

[1] Tabari (1995), Jane McAuliffe, ed., Abbāsid Authority Affirmed 28, SUNY, p. 124

[2] David Cook (2002). Studies in Muslim Apocalyptic. Darwin Press. p. 153. from the Fitan of Nu`aym and the Ahwal of Safarini.

[3] (2014) The Economist Link[8]

[4] Tavernier, Jean-Baptiste. "Nouvelle Relation de l'Intérieur du Sérail du Grand Seigneur", 1675.

[5] Malleson, George Bruce (1878). History of Afghanistan, from the Earliest Period to the Outbreak of the War of 1878

Green and Yellow Flags: the Symbolism Behind Shi'a Islamist Flags

For the sake of clarity and in the interest of, hopefully, reestablishing the actual meaning of "Islamist" I want to preface this write-up with the definition that I will be using for that term, and I certainly hope you'll take the time to determine if you're using that term correctly or just as a blanket term for Sunni militant groups. I will principally be focusing on groups in Syria and Iraq, but within that context are groups that originate outside of those nations, including Yemen, Iran, and Lebanon (all nations with large Shi'a populations).

Islamism is: "doctrines, beliefs and values as the foundation of a political structure that supporters of that ideology have called 'the Islamic State.' "[1]. Islamism, also called Political Islam, is the belief that Islam should, in either part or total, guide the political system and help to remove non-Islamic influences that are incompatible with Islam. Within this definition fits a tremendous host of groups: Hezbollah, the Islamic State, the Houthi movement, al-Qaeda, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Wefaq (in Bahrain), Hamas and a host of others. It is not a byword for "Muslim terror group" and should not be used as such. Many Muslim terror groups are Islamist, but most Islamists are not Muslim terrorists.

Just as my previous write-up acknowledged that white and black banners are not the exclusive domain of Sunni Islam, neither are green and yellow flags the exclusive domain of Shi'a Islam. All four of those colors have their roots in mainstream Islam and can be traced back to the time of the Prophet (PBUH). In addition to white and black, green and yellow are referenced numerous times in the Qu'ran and in the hadiths. The Prophet's (PBUH) personal banners have included the white and black previously referenced, but it appears he also occasionally used a yellow banner, represented by both a weak (da'if) hadith:

Uqbah bin Mukram narrated: I saw “the flag of Prophet Mohammad sallalahu alaihi wassalam yellow.” [2]

and another hadith:

“The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم has knotted the flags of al-Ansar and made them yellow.” [3]

Whether the hadith are correct or not, the inclusion of yellow as an Islamic color has been a mainstay of color choices for depicting Islam and the design of Islamic banners for centuries. Similarly, while the Prophet (PBUH) is not recorded to have ever carried a green flag, there are several Qu'ranic references to it as a favored color. It is the opinion of many Islamic scholars that green was the favorite color of the Prophet (PBUH) and its use would become associated with Islam at large. Describing the inhabitants of paradise the Qu'ran says:

"Reclining on green Cushions and rich Carpets of beauty" - Surah 55, verse 76

and

"Upon them will be green garments of fine silk and heavy brocade, and they will be adorned with bracelets of silver; and their Lord will give to them to drink of a Water Pure and Holy." Surah 76, verse 21

The Fatamid caliphate would use an empty green banner [2] as the flag of the caliphate, which began a long chain of using green in flags to represent their Islamic roots, including a tremendous number of modern nations, both Sunni and Shi'a majority nations, either as part of the flag like in Iran [3] (upper bar), Iraq [4] (both the stars/takbir and then only the takbir), Syria [5] (stars), Afghanistan [6] (right bar), or the background of the flag like Saudi Arabia [7] , Pakistan [8] , or Libya [9] (until Gaddafi's overthrow). An overwhelming number of predominantly Muslim nations' flag bears green in some manner or another.

Having established that green is a predominant color in the vexillology of Islamic nations, but before moving into the purview of its use by Shi'a Islamists, it should be understood that green is also featured prominently in Sunni Islamist imagery as well. Palestinian group Hamas uses a green background with a white shahadah [10] for their party flag. The Muslim Brotherhood uses a variety of symbol including an emblem of crossed Mamaluke sabers beneath a Qu'ran on a green field [11] , or a similar image on a green background flag [12] . In Syria, the Sunni Islamist group Jabhat al-Islamiyah uses green imagery in both their parent flag[13] .svg/2000px-Logoof_the_Islamic_Front(Syria).svg.png) and in the emblems of their member groups like Jaish al-Islam [14] or Ahrar al-Sham. The color green is certainly not exclusive to either Sunni or Shi'a Islamist groups.

With all that in mind and knowing that green and yellow imagery and flags do not immediately indicate a Shi'a Islamist group, it is primarily these groups who combine the two in their flags and imagery. Perhaps the best known of the Shi'a Islamist flags is the Iranian sponsored Lebanese Hezbollah[15] whose flag sports a yellow background, green Kufic script, and red text [16] (red is also an important color in Islam, present on many flags as well). This design has spawned quite a few imitators as well as affiliated groups like the Iraqi militia Kata'ib Hezbollah (Hezbollah Brigades) who use (among other designs) a yellow background with green pendant and an arm grasping an AK [17]similar to the Lebanese Hezbollah design. The Hezbollah style flag appears in the emblems of several dozen Iraq based Shi'a militias, many of which are depicted in this infographic of fifty Iraqi militia emblems[18] .

Beyond the Hezbollah style yellow/green imagery, the Iraqi Shi'a Islamist political party the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq uses green imagery on a yellow flag[19] . A previous part of the aforementioned group before breaking off into it's own independent organization, the Badr Brigades eschews the green in their battle flag but retains the Hezbollah style outstretched hand clutching an AK on a yellow background[20] . Not limited to Syria and Iraq, the Iranian funded and organized Liwa al-Fatemiyoun [4], an Afghan Shi'a militia fighting in Syria using a banner that depicts a green and yellow globe with "Hezbollah" in green script and red script below that[21] . Similarly, the logo of the Houthi movement in Yemen (and reputed to have limited numbers in Syria) is a white banner with green and red text [22](reading from top to bottom: "God is the Greatest/ Death to America/ Death to Israel/ A Curse on the Jews/ Victory to Islam").

As with most things, there are exceptions. The Syrian Shi'a militia and (believed to be) Lebanese Hezbollah proxy in Syria, Liwa al-Sayyida al-Ruqayya [5] uses a black banner featuring yellow text and an image of Sayyida Ruqayya shrine. However this group routinely uses the flags and imagery of both Lebanese Hezbollah and Damascus based Iraqi militia Kata'ib Sayyid al-Shuhada, whose yellow and green[23] flags bring it full circle.

As established earlier, be it green, red, black, yellow, or white, no color is exclusive to one group or another. And yet we come to associate black and white with Salafi Islamist groups, purely green with Sunni Islamist political movements, and yellow and green together with Shi'a Islamist groups. Whether intentional to differentiate from other strains of Islamist movements, as a means of highlighting one denomination over another, or an unintentional gravitation towards community colors, a definite branding by way of the color and imagery of the flags, banners, and emblems of Islamist groups has occurred. One should certainly not hope to glean political or sectarian allegiance from flag colors alone, but to the student of Islamic conflict, the colors of the flags give a unique insight into probable ideological beliefs of the group.

RESOURCES USED:

[1] Soage, Ana Belén. "Introduction to Political Islam." Religion Compass 3.5 (2009): 887-896.
[2] Hadith of Abu Dawud and al-Baihaqi
[3] Hadith of al-Tabarani al-Muʿjam al-Kabīr
[4] Institute for the Study of War
[5] Joshua Landis, "Liwa al-Sayyida al-Ruqayya: Recruiting the Shi'a of Damascus", Syria Comment.[24]

The Khawarij/Kharajites and How They Relate to ISIL

Considerable troves of information has been written about Da3sh (the Islamic State) regarding their ideology, their interpretation of Islam, their methodology, and how they came into existence. And while understanding Da3sh is certainly key to knowing how to move forward, how to defeat them, and how to avoid the rise of such a group in the future, understanding the theological opposition to their firebrand puritanical Islam is every bit as important. Da3sh can be defeated militarily, but so long as they have a base of Muslim men willing to accept radicalization, their existence cannot be quashed. Within that context, it is important to understand the Islamic arguments against the organization, and why they hold power. To preface, I am neither a Muslim nor a true scholar of Islam, and my understanding is limited in scope, so I will be focusing on one issue only: the assignment of the title khawarij to Da3sh, and how this narrative dissuades Muslims from joining them and helps cast theological doubt on their version of Islam. It's my belief that through a more thorough knowledge of both the culture and the language of Islam those seeking to understand the motivating forces of extremist Islam can gain insight. Knowing contextually what theKhawarij are and why it matters helps inform our knowledge of other Islamic groups opinions on Da3sh.

As an aside, and for clarity sake, I will be Muslim honorifics in the following fashion out of a desire to be respectful: the Prophet (SAW), his companions and the first three rightly guided caliphs (RA), and in deference to Shi'a who have told me that it is preferable, for Ali (AS). I'm aware that some find such abbreviations to be disrespectful or even mukhrooh ( "It is Makrooh to abbreviate when writing . Write it in full." [Hashiyat al-Tahtawi, Dar al-Ma'rifah (Berut - Lebanon), Vol. 1, Page 6]), but as a non-Muslim I think this is the most direct means of being respectful without cluttering up the text that is, in all likelihood, going to be read by other non-Muslims like myself.

To give some background the word khawarij (pl), خوارج or kharijites comes from the Arabic for "those who went out". Who they are and why they did will the primary focus of this writing. Following the death of Mohammed (SAW), his companions Abu Bakr (RA) and then Omar (RA), succeeded him as the first two rightly guided caliphs. Upon their death, despite being an obvious contender for third caliph, Ali (AS) was passed over and Uthman Ibn Affan (RA) was elected. Under his rule, the Rashidun caliphate continued the conquests of Omar (RA) and expanded into North Africa, the Iberian Peninsula, and much of the Mediterranean. An armed rebellion, known as the First Fitna or the first Islamic civil war[2] eventually resulted in Uthman's (RA) assassination. After great pressure from within the Islamic community in Medina and from notables among Mohammed's compansions (RA), Ali ibn Abi Talib (SA) become the fourth (and final) Rashidun caliph, and is venerated as the first Shi'a Imam.

The assassination of Uthman (RA) was the beginning of the end of the Rashidun caliphate, rise of the Umayyad caliphate, and ultimately the first step in the Sunni-Shi'a split, climaxing in 680 when Umayyad soldiers killed Ali's (AS) son Hussein (AS) in Karbala. But prior to this ultimate division, was a major battle between Ali (AS) and another contender for the caliphate, Muawiyah I, governor of Syria, and cousin of the slain Uthman (RA). As the battle soured in favor of Ali (AS) Muawiyah I called for arbitration which Ali (AS) accepted. The Khawarij opposed this arbitration on the basis that Ali (AS) was subjecting his rule, and thus Allah's rule, to the arbitration of those rebelling against the rightful caliph, quoting the Quran: The decision is only for Allah (Qur'an 6:57).The Khawarij rebelled against Ali (AS), resulting in a series of battles against them. A majority of the khawarij were destroyed, and many were convinced to return to Ali (AS) by deft theological discourse on the errors of the Khawarij in quoting the Qu'ran.

Fleeing to Mecca, and opposed by all major factions within Islam, the Khawarij plotted the assassination of Muawiyah I, 'Amr ibn al-'As who had called for the removal of Ali (AS) as caliph, and perhaps most ironically, Ali (AS) himself. While the attempts on the first two failed, the assassination of Ali (AS) in 661 was achieved by the Khawarij, and is arguably their greatest "claim to fame", second to being regard as the first 'sect' in Islam. They would go on to form various subgroups and sects of Islam, but never achieved mainstream acceptance, earning the extreme condemnation of the Shi'a, and the warnings of the Sunni not to become like them.

So where does this fit within the context of Da3sh? By tying Da3sh to the Khawarij they can be, and are, theologically discredited and lose stature among potential violent Sunni Islamists. Various hadiths and passages from the Qu'ran refer to the Prophet's (SAW) warnings about the khawarij. Anas ibn Malik reported: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “There will be dissension and division in my nation and a people will come with beautiful words but evil deeds. They recite the Quran but it will not pass beyond their throats. They will leave the religion as an arrow leaves its target and they will not return until the arrow returns to its notch. They are the worst of the creation. Blessed are those who fight them and are killed by them. They call to the Book of Allah but they have nothing to do with it. Whoever fights them is better to Allah than them.” (Sunan Abu Dawud 4765, Grade: Sahih according to Al-Albani).

A principal belief of the Khawarij was that all acts of sin are equal to kufr (disbelief) and all sinners are kuffar(disbelievers) unless they repent. With this broad stroke of the sword, the Khawarij can declare ANY Muslim a kuffarand thus excuse killing of Muslims. This resonates strongly with the rationale given by Da3sh for their killing of Sunni Muslims serving in the armies of the Syrian or Iraqi military, declaring (not unlike al-Qaeda and it's offshoots) that such Muslims cease to be Muslim when they serve taghut (tyrant, anti-Islamic) governments.

Perhaps chief among the qualities of the Khawarij that Da3sh shares, although not unique to Da3sh and common amongst many radical Sunni Islamist groups is their tremendous use of takfir, the act by which a Muslim declares another kuffar and thus eligible for death. As spoken of above, this takfirism enables Da3sh to categorize anyone who doesn't fall in line with their ideology or exist as a protected people (the Ahl al-Kitaab, people of the book- Jews, Christians, and Sabeans) as a recipient of takfir. (For more information on takfir, read The Hermenutics of Takfir[3] ).

Unlike many Sunni Muslims, the Khawarij believed that the caliph need not be from the tribe of the Quraysh[4] , but that any pious Muslim could be caliph (“Khilafat-o-Malookeyat” [Caliphate and kingship], p. 214). Without proper accountability and proof of genealogy, there is little proof that Da3sh's Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi can truly claim his lineage to the Quraysh, something al-Qaeda has changed opinion on, first claiming Baghdadi is of the Quraysh[5] and then following the Da3sh - al-Qaeda split, claiming he is not. A lack of Qurayshi lineage is a strong case among portions of the Muslim community that a caliph cannot be legitimate, further tying Da3sh to the Khawarij.

Analogous with puritanical or legalistic Christian literalists, the Khawarij believe the Qu'ran to be literal in every sense and that interpeting the Qu'ran is an act of kufr. The puritanical stance of Da3shi Islamism is very much reminiscent of the strict and dogged theology of the original Khawarij. This goes against a millennium plus of Muslim jurisprudence, scholars, hadith collectors, and the like, who have made an art form and a science of interpreting both the Qu'ran and the hadiths. Imam Ali (AS) had this to say about the Qu'ran:

"The Qur'an is a book, covered, between two flaps, and it does not speak. It should therefore necessarily have an interpreter. People alone can be such interpreters....." (Khutba 124, Nahjul Balagha) [The imam then goes on to point out that the most knowledgeable and trustworthy concerning the Qur'an and the sunnah and their interpretation are the Ahl-al-Bayt].

Muslim scholar Ihsan Abbas, noted that one of the qualities of the Khawarij is a strong desire for martyrdom and death for the sake of Allah (Hussam S. Timani, Modern Intellectual Readings of the Kharijites, pgs. 84-85). This is hardly unique to one Islamic group and martyrdom is a central theme of many if not most Islamist militant and military groups from Hamas to Hezbollah, Saddam Hussein's Iraqi military to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Martyrdom is a powerful motivator in Islam, but few groups, even modern al-Qaeda cells like Jabhat al-Nusra or AQAP, have taken to amaliyat istushuhadiyah (martyrdom operations - suicide bombing) the way Da3sh has, developing the cult of the suicide bomber and generating more suicide bombers than all other groups combined. Between 2003 and 2010, there were 1,003 suicide bombings[6] in Iraq, the vast majority of which were carried out by the pre-Da3sh organization AQI (and subsequently ISI). More than the entirety of the 1980s (when suicide bombing among Islamic groups was popularized) and the 1990s. Between 2013 and the present, there has been in excess of 1,500 suicide bombings in Iraq and Syria, overwhelmingly the fruits of Da3sh operations. This gusto for martyrdom and attacks against the kuffar is yet another linkage that Muslim clerics and theologians use to link Da3sh with the Khawarij.

Ultimately, it is up to individual Muslims to weigh and assess the theology of Da3sh. Simply castigating them and calling them un-Islamic, Khawarij, or anything else holds no weight if the impressionable masses don't buy into it. But by observing the language with which Islamic groups and militant factions address Da3sh, helps us to understand their own positions towards the group and builds a better picture of how they view the ideology of the world's premier Islamic extremist group.

A Quick Reference Guide to Arabic Language Terminology of the Syrian/Iraqi Conflict

High Frequency Arabic Words Relevant to the Current Conflict:

This has been done in the past here, so I'm going to directly rip the last iteration of this as a template (credit to/u/kebabji [1] for the last time this was created). Our population of Arabic speakers has grown significantly since last year, with quite a few of you listed in our Official Translators list[2] and many more adhoc helpers. Additionally, we have more than a few people like me who are not native speakers but studying the language, and reference guides like these certainly help me. So please feel free to give examples of relevant Arabic terminology not already found on the list. If you're going to give a word, please be sure to give the Arabic text as well, not just the transliteration, for ease of adding it to the list.

Additionally, feel free to help out with the short answer definitions of high frequency terms used fairly frequently in English (martyrdom operation, fire control, etc etc) that are unique to this conflict or this style of conflict. The below is a mix of the original post[3] and what I've added to it. I have about 3,000 more characters, but I hit the text limit, so I'll mess with this later when I have the time, and add ones you guys think of!

Contributors: /u/directaction [4] , /u/stray-stride [5] , /u/iComeWithBadNews [6] , /u/skoal_bro [7] ,/u/GoldenMew [8] , /u/runningthrumountains [9]

Sectarian Terminology

تكفيري "Takfiri" is a neologism for someone who engages in takfir, the act of determining who is and who is not a believer. The word shares the same consonant root as kafir ("nonbeliever" rather than "apostate"). There is a proscription against takfir in Islamic scholarship and jurisprudence generally, as it's not really supposed to be up to a human being to decide whether or not another person claiming to be a Muslim is in fact a Muslim, a determination that should be left up to Allah. There is no consensus whatsoever among the ulema' (scholars) and fuqaha (jurisprudents) that "kafir" includes all non-Muslims, and many consider "the believers" to include Muslims, Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians. In short, "takfir" isn't a determination of one's apostasy, which specifically means someone who found the correct guidance and became a Muslim, and then turned away from Islam. Sometimes used as a slur to discredit Sunni groups.

السلفية Salafism - comes from the arabic word Salaf. A Salafi (سلفي) is the word Wahabi's use to describe themselves, the root of the word is Salaf or predecessor, and Salafi's contend that they are following in the foot-steps of the the righteous predessors. these predessors are the early muslims who did not have their Islam 'tainted' by foreign influences. Their scholars rejected perceived "modernization" in islamic thinking, primary among these scholars is Ibn Tamiya and Mohammed Ibn Abdulwahhab. Sometimes used as a slur, ascribing all Salafis as cut from the same clothe, i.e. violent extremists.

علوي Alawite - the Alawites claim to follow the twelver school of Shiism, but still remain a distinct group. It is believed that this distinction came about due to the geographic isolation of the group during Ottoman rule. In more recent history, Lebanese Shia scholars have led attempts to reconcile the Alawites to the Shia twelvers school, but its not clear how successful this was. It appears that the Syrian regime did not look favorably on these efforts - secular baathists have always looked on the religious activity with suspicion.

بيعة Bay'aa - means oath or oath of allegiance, basically throughout islamic history, the great and the good were expected to give their loyalty to the new leader. This term will be more common among the Islamists, refusing to give a new leader your oath is viewed as serious.

صحوة Sahwa - means awakening. It refers to the Sunni tribes of Anbar rising up against Alqaeda in Iraq and kicking them out of their area's. Basically, the Americans paid them to do this and they were quite successful/effective in removing the foreign element of Alqaeda and subduing the local element. Tribal affiliation still plays a big role in almost every Arab country.

حزبالات Hezbollat- A play on the name of the party/armed group "Hezbollah" (Party of God), Hezbollat is a combination of "Hezb" (party) and al-Lat, a pre-Islamic god that many in Saudi Arabia worshiped (the three main gods being al-Uzza, al-Lat, and al-Manat). Can also be interpreted as a crude pluralization of "god" to make Hezbollah appear polytheistic (Party of gods).

مرتد Murtad - Apostate - used liberally by extremists against any who disagree with the teachings that particular groups uses. ISIL uses it liberally when denouncing Sunnis arrayed against them.

منهج Manhaj - Ideology/Methodology through which 'truth' is reached.

رافضي/روافض Rafidi/Rawafid(pl.) - Literally rejectors A derogatory pejorative used when referring to Shi'a, Shi'as have turned the term around and use it as "rejectors of falsehood", through wordplay.

مجوس Majoos - A reference to the magi, Zoroastrianism, and fire-worship, this is a slur used against Shi'a (especially Iranians) to slight their religion as being un-Islamic.

خارجي/خوارج Khariji/Khwarij - One who rebels against a Muslim leader, emerged first time when they defected from Ali ibn Abi Talib's army during the Battle of Siffin, and later sent Ibn Muljim to assassinate him, who was the son-in- law and first cousin of the Prophet. The term has a modern day approach where this is used to fight anyone and everyone who doesn't see an eye to their beliefs, and they declare them worthy of death. The definition of Khawarij is best translated as "Extremist". The Khawarij were known in the past for basically killing anyone who did anything haram, anyone who sinned. They were unanimously denounced as extremists, who took a dogmatic and twisted interpretation of the religion and were denounced by the Sahaba, and Imam Ali (as), so this holds considerable weight in both Sunni and Shi'a circles.

ياهود/ ياهودي Yahudi/Yahud - Jew/(pl.)

نصيري Nusayri - derogatory term for Alawite

ناصبي Nusabi - slur used against Sunni by Shi'a. Relatively low frequency word.

صليبي Salibi (plural: Salibiyun) - Crusader- Used as a slur against Christians (especially western Christians).

الصفوية al-Safawiyah - Safavid - reference to the Safavid empire in Persian, this is a slur used against not only Iranians but those in the Shi'a axis at large.

Religious

فتنة Fitnah - Sedition - used quite frequently to accuse another of causing dissension/division in the ranks (especially of the broader Islamic community or community of jihad)

دين Deen - religion

الطائفة / الطائفية al-ta'afah / al-ta'afiyah - sect / sectarianism

شهادة Shahadah - The Muslim declaration of faith. Literally, "the testimony/testimonial". لا إله إلا الله محمد رسول الله - La illaha illa Allah Mohammedun rasool allah - "there is no God but Allah, Mohammed is the messenger of God."

توحيد Tawheed - The Belief in the Oneness of God

طاغوت Taghut - Tyrant - Usually means "dictator" or "tyrant". Used against the governments in the various states they fight against.

أهل السنة Ahl al-Sunnah - Sunni Islam and it's adherents

شيعة / شيعة علي Shi'a - Shi'atu Ali - Shi'a Islam / Followers of Ali

أمة Ummah - the group/community of religious believers

شرك‎ shirk - idolatry/polytheism

مُشْرِك Mushrik - idolater/polytheist (same root as Shirk)

الموحدين al-Muwahiddin - "monotheists." I've seen various jihadi/salafist people refer to themselves as monotheists to distinguish themselves from secular governments and tawagheet (idolaters/secular non-shariah governments/tyrants'')

الأنصار‎ - Ansar - "helpers" - Often seen in conjunction with "Muhajireen" (travellers, those who make hajj). Comes from the people of Medina who welcomed Mohammed and his followers (see, e.g., Jaish al Muhajireen wal Ansar)

ولاية الفقيه Wilayat al-Faqih - Guardianship of the Jurist - a prevailing theory in Shi'a Islam that Islam should have custodianship over it's adherents. This varies in degree from partial to total, and is not accepted by all Shi'a as correct. Often referenced when discussing Iran/Hezbollah and the Iran/Iraq axes.

سبحانه و تعالى Subhannu wa t"ala - May He Be Glorified and Exalted - an Islamic honorific that is often added after saying "Allah" either in text (abbreviated SWT) or in speaking. Many videos/interviews will begin with a series of Islamic honorifics, with this ofen being one of them.

بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ / بسم الله Bismillah / Bismillah al-rahman al-raheem - "In the name of God" / "In the name of God, the most Gracious, the most Merciful"- cited before every Sura in the Qu'ran (except the 9th), Bismillah is almost ALWAYS seen in jihadi official videos before anything else (against a black screen in white letters). During interviews before anything else is said, many interviews will begin with the full "Bismillah al-rahman al-raheem" as a preface to other Islamic honorifics and to preset the tone of the conversation. Bismillah has all sorts of Qu'ranic and Hadith based support for repeating it aloud during different scenarios.

إِنَّا للهِ وَإِنَّـا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعونَ Inna Lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un - "Surely we belong to God, and to him we shall return"- most commonly heard as a condolence when someone dies.

والله Wa-Allah - And God/By God: often run together almost as one word (W'allah) this expression has incredibly varied usage from the religious "By God, I will do this" to the shocked "W'allah!" to the casual. It is intended to give a promise that something will be done or to give significance to a statement.

يا الله Ya Allah - Oh God- a statement of exclamation, not unlike W'allah.

يا رب Ya Rub - Oh Lord - Often uttered while awaiting something to occur (a missile to strike, a truck to reach it's destination, etc etc) as if seeking encouragement from God that something will happen.

إن شاء الله In Shaa Allah - If God Wills It/God Willing- when asked a question about something that will or may occur in the future, if the answer is yes/maybe/hopefully the reply will often be "If God Wills It" instead of "Yes". It is an acknowledgement of submission to Allah, as most Muslims believe everything is muktub (written) and things will only occur if Allah has willed it to happen.

ما شاء الله Ma Shaa Allah - God has willed it

جزاك الله Jazak Allah - May God Reward You

أستغفر الله Istaghfirullah - I seek the forgiveness of God - an expression of repentence.

كافر/ الكفار Kafir / Kuffar - Infidel / Infidels. Varying levels of agreement on who this encompasses. Much of Islam believes this is those who disbelieve in Islam, but does not encompass Ahl al-Kitab (people of the book): Jews and Christians. Other segments of Islam believe it encompasses all non-Muslims.

اهل الكتاب Ahl al-Kitaab - People of the book - Jews, Christians, Muslims (the Abrahamic faiths)

Military/Social

عسكري Askari - Military

عسكر/عساكر Askar/Asakir (Both pl.) - conscripts

شبيحة Shabiha - pro government militia (From the root word ghost) *this word carries a negative connotation and is (almost) never used by pro-government outlets as it bears with it an association with thuggery and torture. It is often used as a slur or a means of demeaning government forces).

الانغماسيين Al-Inghimasiyeen - the plural of Inghimasi, the word carries the meaning "those who plunge deeply into the enemy" descending from root غمس (to dip/submerge). These are the shock troops of ISIL, Jabhat al-Nusra, and some of the Caucus/Central Asia based groups. These troops are help in similar reverence as suicide bombers, often wear a suicide bolt/vest, but are not dedicated suicide bombers. They are heavily armed, eschew crew served weapons, and are used to soften a target before regular troops and support can arrive. Used in a similar fashion as SVBIEDs, these troops will attack a target furiously, expending grenades, RPGs, and heavy volumes of machine gun fire, with a very high chance of death, but suicide is not their purpose. Usually equipped with a suicide belt in the event of capture but they regularly survive their missions. Once they've created a hole in enemy lines, regular troops will pour through the hole and reinforce them.

عملية استشهادية Amaliyat Istashuhadiyah - Matrydom Operations - this is Jihadi lingo for suicide bombing. It could be by car (بسيارة - b'sayarah) or by person, but when spoken about from the perspective of those supporting the suicide bombing, it is never referred to as suicide bombing, always as martyrdom operations.

تفجير انتحاري Tafjeer intihari - suicide bombing - generally used by the recipients of or those reporting on suicide bombing, this literally translates to "Suicide bombing". When (most) Arabic news stations report on a suicide bombing, this is the term they use.

سيارة مفخخة Sayarah Mufakhakha - a car bomb. Either SVBIED (Suicide Vehicle Borne IED) driven by an individual or a VBIED that is parked near the target and then blown up, however both terms are used fairly interchangeably.

سلاح / الأسلحة Silah / Aslihah - Weapon/Weapons

23 مدفع Madfa" 23 - 23mm auto-cannon. Usually refers to ZU-23-2 dual barrelled anti-aircraft, but can also be a reference to the four barrel ZSU-23-4 "Shilka".

B-9 - In writing it almost always appears in English as B-9, pronounced either "Bee Nine" or "Bee Tisah". Refers to the SPG-9 73mm recoilless gun.

قنبلة يدوية / رمان Raman / Qunbilah Yedowiyah- Literally "Pomegranate" (the word from which Grenade originates in English) and "Hand Bomb", both have the meaning of "grenade."

هاون Hawin - mortar, especially the military variant, although sometimes homemade ones.

غراد Grad - BM-21 Grad rocket launchers or sometimes just the individual rockets fired from custom built tubes. Sometimes similar looking rockets (long rockets roughly 122mm in width) will also be called this.

كاتيوشا Katyusha - sometimes also spelled "Katoosha" this refers to the Soviet style Multiple Launch Rocket Systems. Originally the name was for WWII era rocket trucks. In Syria and Iraq, it is often used to refer to ANY multiple launch rocket system (although most commonly Type 63 107mm and BM-21 Grad 122mm systems).

دوشكا Dooshka/Dishka/Dooshk/Dishk - DShK - while there is a specific 12.7mm heavy machine gun that correlates to the label DShK, many combatants call any heavy machine gun or even anti-aircraft autocannon by this name. Only by looking at the actual weapon can you determine exactly what it is.

رشاش Rashash - machine gun- sometimes used for actual machine guns, many time used to describe even AKMs or M-16s.

بندقية Bundiqiyah - Rifle

قناص Qanas - Sniper

دبابة Dababah - tank

بي ام بي BMB - A literal spelling of BMP (there is no P in most Arabic dialects), sometimes seen prefaced with "عربة" ("arbah") "vehicle/wagon".

شيلكة Sheelka- ZSU-23-4 "Shilka" self propelled anti-aircraft vehicle.

صاروخ / صواريخ Saroukh/ Sawareekh (pl) - missile or missiles. Used for both guided missiles and unguided rockets, Saroukh is kind of a catch all term for a projectile powered by fuel with an explosive warhead.

الدفاع / الدفاعات al-Difa" / al-Difa"at - defense / defenses

خندق Khundaq - trench

نقطة تفتيش Nuqtah tafteesh - inspection checkpoint

تدمير Tadmeer - Destruction

طائرات حربية Ta'irat Harbeeah - War planes

تحرير Tahreer - to liberate

عبوة ناسفة "abuwah nasifah - IED

قنبلة برميل - Qunbilah Bermeel - Barrel bombs - unguided tubs of explosives dropped from helicopters for area bombardment

لغم Lugham - mine - any form of explosive mine. Sometime used to describe IEDs.

مسلحون Musalihoon - armed men. Can be used to indicate the difference between civilians and combatants.

ميليشيا / الميليشيات Meeleesha / Meeleeshiyat - Militia / Militias

مدفع جهنم Madfa" Jahenam - Hell cannon- used almost exclusively by opposition forces (especially in Syria, far less in Iraq) Hell Cannons are a style of homemade indirect (and occasionally direct) fire weapons that host a variety of homemade projectiles. The most common variant fires shells made from empty propane canisters with fins attached, filled with explosives. They vary in accuracy, range, method of detonation, and reliability.

الفيل الصواريخ al-Feel al-Suwareekh - Elephant Rockets - A particular design of Improvised Rocket Assisted Munition (IRAM) used especially by government forces, but with similar designs by opposition. Makes a sound not unlike an elephants cry when fired.

أم Umm - mother- often paired with the name of a child (Umm Khalid, Umm Maryam, etc etc) this is often used in place of the actual name, much the way "Abu <child's name>" is. It might also be used to describe a trait of this person.

شيخ Sheik - Elder

أمير Emir - Commander

ابن Ibn - Son of

ابو Abu - Father of

شهيد Shaheed - Martyr

شهادة Shahada - Martyrdom

(Note on Arabic military unit names: not especially particular to Syria, but very public in this conflict, the name of a group often includes Brigade/Division/Battalion/Company. These very rarely correspond to the actual number of troops that such a name suggests, but rather the naming style of the group. Even the Syrian military often operates units that are far understrength for what their name suggests).

جيش Jaesh/Jaish/Jaysh--Army

فوج Fowj - Regiment

فرقة Firqa - band/squad/command/brigade

كتيبة Kateeba/Kata'ib - Battalion/pl.

لواء Liwa - Brigade

جماعة Jama'a - Group/Squad

جند Jundi - Soldier

غرباء Ghuraba - Foreigners (Literally strangers)

مهاجرين Muhajireen - Foreigners (Literally immigrants)

مقاومة Muqāwama - Resistance

جبهة Jabhat - Front

غنيمة Ghanima - Boot/Spoils/Plunder - Islam has specific rules about the sharing of war spoils, and jihadi circles go to great lengths to distinguish captured items as ghanima instead of just "loot", as it is justifiable in Islam. Generally speaking, this is military goods.

al-Britanny/al-Amriki/al-Hindi/al-Iraqi/al-Shishani/al-Turki etc - means where the fighter is from, and would translate to: the British/American/Indian/Iraqi/Chechen/Turkish.

Geographic

تل Tal - Hill

جسر Jisr - Bridge

ريف Rif/Reef - Countyside

بستان/بساتين Bustan - Orchards

جبل Jabal - Mountain

قمة Qima - Peak

جنوب Janoob - South

شمال Shamal - North

شرق Sharq - East

غرب Gharb - West

ولاية Wilayat - Province/State- What ISIL calls both its territorial subdivisions in Sham (Syria) and Iraq as well as the areas elsewhere in the Islamic World where they have received Bay'ah from local militant groups.

Political/ Legal

القاضي al-Qadi - Judge - both secular and religious judges.

فقيه Faqih - Jurist - an interpreter of Islamic jurisprudence.

دولة Dawla - State (Usually refers to ISIS)

ائتلاف Etilaf - Coalition

حزب Hizb - Party

تنظيم Tanzim - Organization

ارهاب Irhab - Terrorism

نظام Nizam - Regime - depending on the context it can be used to simple mean "system of government" or to carry the darker connotations as in a "totalitarian or despotic regime". In Syria, it is most frequently used by opponents of the Syrian government.

The 14 Governorates, 65 Districts, and 281 Subdistricts of Syria

Syria is divided into various administrative units, with the three most prominent being governorates (muhafazat),districts (manatiq), and subdistricts (nawahi). With governorates being the largest administrative units, each with a capital city (much the way US states do), districts being the next largest filling in each government the way counties or parishes do in many western countries, and subdistricts holding the role of clumping several towns or villages together for administrative purpose, several of this subdistricts combining to equal a district. There are 14 governorates, 65 districts, and 281 subdistricts. The goverornates themselves are a useful measure in determining control in Syria as governorate capitals (such as Idlib city in Idlib governorate, Raqqah city in Raqqah governorate, etc etc) tend to be among the most heavily guarded cities in the governorate. The control of a governorate capital helps define who controls the rest or most of the governorate.

The following list is as complete as I could make it and I will try and go back and add alternate spellings and the Arabic spelling for each. I will break it down by governorate and district first, and if I find the full list, I will add the subdistricts.

Edit: Arabic spellings for 95% added Edit 2: all governorate maps added

Here is a map of the governorates in Syria [1]

ALEPPO GOVERNORATE

Map of the governorate [2]
Capital city: Aleppo (Arabic: ﺣﻠﺐ‎ / Halab)

DISTRICTS OF ALEPPO:

Mount Simeon (Arabic: منطقة جبل سمعان‎ / Muntiqah Jabl Simeon)

Subdistricts:

Mount Simeon (منطقة جبل سمعان‎)
Huraytan (حريتان)
- al-Zirbah (الزربة)
- Darrat Izzah (دارة عزة)
- al-Hadr ( الحاضر)
- Tell al-Daman (تل الضمان)
- Zammar ( زمّار)

Afrin (Arabic: عفرين‎ Kurdish: Efrîn)

Subdistricts

Afrin (عفرين)
Bulbul ( بلبل)
Jindires (جنديرس)
Rajo (راجو)
Sharan (شرّان)
Sheikh al-Hadeed ( شيخ الحديد)
Maabatli (معبطلي)

Azaz (Arabic: منطقة أعزاز / Muntiqah A'zaz)

Subdistricts

Azaz (اعزاز)
Akhtarin ( أخترين)
Tell Rfiat ( تل رفعت)
Mare' ( مارع)
Nubl ( نبّل)
Sawran (صوران)

al-Safira (Arabic: السفيرة‎ / as-Safirah)

Subdistricts

al-Safira (السفيرة)
Khanasir (خناصر)
Banan ( بنان)
al-Hajib (الحاجب)
Tell Arn (تلعرن)

al-Bab (Arabic: الباب‎)

Subdistricts

al-Bab (الباب)
Tedef ( تادف)
al-Rayi (الراعي)
Arima (عريمة)

Manbij (Arabic: منبج‎)

Subdistricts

Manbij (منبج)
Abu Qilqil ( أبو قلقل)
Khafsaf (خفسة)
Maskanah (مسكنة)
Abu Kahf (أبو كهف)

Jarabulus (Arabic: جرابلس‎ / Turkish: Cerablus)

Subdistricts

Jarabulus (جرابلس)
Ghandoura (غندورة)

Ayn al-Arab / Kobani (Arabic: عين العرب‎ Kurdish: Kobanê)

Subdistricts

Ayn al-Arab (عين العرب)
Shuyukh Tahtani ( شيوخ تحتاني)
Sarrin ( صرّين)
al-Jalabiyah (الجلبية)

Atarib

Subdistricts

Atarib (الأتارب)
Ibbin Samaan (أبين سمعان)
Urum al-Kubrah ( أورم الكبرى)

Deirr Hafir

Subdistricts

Deir Hafir (دير حافر)
Rasm Harmil al-Imam ( رسم حرمل الإمام)
Kuwayris Sharqi ( كويرس شرقي)

DAMASCUS GOVERNORATE

(Note: Damascus is the only governorate that is essentially only one city with Damascus and it's immediate metropolitan area comprising the entire governorate) - Map of the Governorate [3] - Capital city: Damascus (Arabic: دمشق / Dimashq)

DISTRICTS OF DAMASCUS:

Dummar
Mazzeh
Kafr Souseh
al-Kadam
al-Yarmouk
al-Maydan
al-Shaghour
al-Qanawat
Muhajreen
Jobar
al-Kaboun
Barzeh
Rukn Eldin
al-Salheya
Saroujah
Old City

DARAA GOVERNORATE

Map of the governorate [4]
Capital City: Daraa (Arabic: درعا)

DISTRICTS OF DARAA:

al-Sanamayn (الصنمين)

Subdistricts

al-Sanamayn (الصنمين)
al-Masmiyah ( المسمية)
Ghabaghib ( المسمية)

Daraa (درعا)

Subdistricts

Daraa (درعا)
Bosra (بصرى)
Khirbet Ghazaleh (خربة غزالة)
al-Shajareh ( الشجرة)
Da'el (داعل)
Muzayrib (مزيريب)
al-Jiza ( الجيزة)
al-Musayfirah (المسيفرة)

Izra ( ازرع)

Subdistricts

Izra ( ازرع)
Jasim (جاسم)
al-Hirak ( الحراك)
Nawa ( نوى)
al-Sheikh Miskeen (الشيخ مسكين)
Tasil (تسيل)

DEIR EZZOR/ DAYR AL ZOR/ DEIR AZ ZOR GOVERNORATE

Map of the Governorate [5] Capital City: Deir ez-Zor (Arabic: دير الزور)

DISTRICTS OF DEIR EZ-ZOR

al-Bukamal (البوكمال)

Subdistricts

al-Bukamal (البوكمال)
Hajin (هجين)
al-Jalaa (الجلاء)
al-Susah ( السوسة)

Mayadin ( الميادين)

Subdistricts

Mayadin ( الميادين)
Diban ( ذيبان)
Asharah (عشارة)

Deir ez-Zor (دير الزور)

Subdistricts

Deir ez-Zor (دير الزور)
al-Kasrah (الكسرة)
al-Busayrah (البصيرة)
al-Muhasan (الموحسن)
al-Tabni (التبني)
Khasham ( خشام)
al-Sur (الصور)

HAMA GOVERNORATE

Map of the governorate [6] Capital City: Hama (Arabic: حماه)

DISTRICTS OF HAMA

al-Suqaylabiyah (السقيلبية)

Subdistricts

al-Suqaylabiyah (السقيلبية)
Tell Salhab ( تلسلحب)
al-Ziyarah (الزيارة)
Shathah (شطحة)
Qalaat al-Madiq (قلعة المضيق)

Hama (حماة)

Subdistricts

Hama (حماة)
Suran (صوران)
Hirbnafsah (حربنفسه)
al-Hamraa (الحمراء)

Masyaf (مصياف‎ )

Subdistricts

Masyaf (مصياف‎ )
Jub Ramlah (جب رملة)
Awj (عوج)
Ayn Halaqim (عين حلاقيم)
Wadi al-Uyun (وادي العيون)

Mahardeh (محردة)

Subdistricts

Mahardeh (محردة)
Kafr Zita ( كفر زيتا)
Karnez (كرناز)

Salamiyah (سلمية‎)

Subdistricts

Salamiyah (سلمية‎ )
Barri Sharqi (بري الشرقي)
al-Saan ( السعن)
Sabburah (صبورة)
Uqayribat (عقيربات)

AL-HASAKAH GOVERNORATE

Map of the Governorate [7]
Capital City: al-Hasakah (Arabic: الحسكة / Kurdish: حەسیچە)

DISTRICTS OF AL-HASKAH

al-Hasakah (الحسكة)

Subdistricts

al-Hasakah (الحسكة)
Tell Tamr (تل تمر)
Markadah ( مركدة)
Bir al-Helu (بئر الحلو)
al-Arisheh ( العريشة)
al-Hawl ( الهول)

al-Qamishli (القامشلي)

Subdistricts

al-Qamishli (القامشلي)
Tell Hamis (تل حميس)
Amuda ( عامودا)
al-Qahtaniyah (القحطانية)
al-Yarmouk (اليرموك)

al-Malikiyah (المالكية)

Subdistricts

al-Malikiyah (المالكية)
al-Jawadiyah (الجوادية)
al-Yarubiyah ( اليعربية)
Ma'badah (معبدة)

Ras al-Ayn (رأس العين)

Subdistricts

Ras al-Ayn (رأس العين)
al-Darbasiyah (الدرباسية)
Abu Rasain (أبو راسين)

HOMS GOVERNORATE

Map of the Governorate [8]
Capital City: Homs (Arabic: حمص)

DISTRICTS OF HOMS

al-Mukharam (المخرم)

Subdistricts

al-Mukharam (المخرم)
Jub al-Jarrah (جب الجراح)

al-Qusayr (القصير)

Subdistricts

al-Qusayr (القصير)
al-Hoz ( الحوز)

ar-Rastan (الرستن)

Subdistricts

ar-Rastan (الرستن)
al-Talbiseh ( تلبيسة)

Homs (حمص)

Subdistricts

Homs (حمص)
Khirbet Tin Nur (خربة تين نور)
Ayn al-Nisr ( عين النسر)
Furqlus (الفرقلس)
Riqama (رقاما)
al-Qaryatayn (القريتين)
Mahin (مهين)
Hisyah ( حسياء)
Sadad (صدد)
Shin (شين)

Tadmur (تدمر)

Subdistricts

Tadmur (تدمر)
al-Sukhnah (السخنة)

Taldou (تلدو)

Subdistricts

Taldou (تلدو)
Kafr Laha ( كفرلاها)
al-Qalbu (القبو)

Talkalakh ( تلكلخ)

Subdistricts

Talkalakh ( تلكلخ)
Hadidah (حديدة)
al-Nasirah ( الناصرة)
al-Huwash (الحواش)

IDLIB GOVERNORATE

Map of the governorate [9]
Capital City: Idlib (Arabic: ادلب)

DISTRICTS OF IDLIB:

Ariha (أريحا)

Subdistricts

Ariha (أريحا)
Ihsim (احسم)
Muhambal ( محمبل)

Harem (حارم)

Subdistricts

Harem (حارم)
al-Dana (الدانا)
Salqin ( سلقين)
Kafr Takharim (كفر تخاريم)
Qurqina (قورقينا)
Armanaz (أرمناز)

Idlib (ادلب)

Subdistricts

Idlib (ادلب)
Abu al-Duhur (أبو الظهور)
Binnish (بنش)
Saraqib (سراقب)
Taftanaz ( تفتناز)
Maarat Misrin (معرتمصرين)
Sarmin ( سرمين)

Jisr al-Shugur (جسر الشغور)

Subdistricts

Jisr al-Shugur (جسر الشغور)
Bidama (بداما)
Darkush (دركوش)
al-Janudiyah (الجانودية)

Ma'arrat al-Nu'man (معرة النعمان)

Subdistricts

Ma'arrat al-Nu'man (معرة النعمان)
Khan Shaykun (خان شيخون)
Sinjar ( سنجار)
al-Tamanah (التمانعة)
Hish (حيش)

LATAKIA GOVERNORATE

Map of the governorate [10]
Capital City: Latakia (Arabic: اللاذقية / al-Ladthiqiyah)

DISTRICTS OF LATAKIA

al-Haffah (الحفة)

Subdistricts

al-Haffah (الحفة)
Slinfah (صلنفة)
Ayn al-Tinneh (عين التينة)
Kinsabba (كنسبّا)
Muzayaraa (مزيرعة)

Jableh ( جبلة)

Subdistricts

Jableh ( جبلة)
Ayn al-Sharqiyah (عين الشرقية)
al-Qutailibiyah (القطيلبية)
Ayn Shiqaq (عين شقاق)
Daliyeh (دالية)
Beit Yashout (بيت ياشوط)

al-Latakia ( اللاذقية)

Subdistricts

al-Latakia ( اللاذقية)
al-Bahluliyah (البهلولية)
Rabia ( ربيعة)
Ayn al-Baydah (عين البيضة)
Qastal Ma'af (قسطل معاف)
Kessab ( كسب)
Hanadi (هنادي)

Qardaha ( القرداحة)

Subdistricts

Qardaha ( القرداحة)
Harf al-Musaytirah (حرف المسيترة)
al-Fakhurah (الفاخورة)
Jawbat Burghal ( جوبة برغال)

QUNEITIRAH GOVERNORATE

Map of the governorate [11]
Capital City: Quneitirah (Arabic: القنيطرة)

DISTRICTS OF QUNEITIRAH

Fiq ( فيق)

Quneitirah ( القنيطرة)

AR-RAQQAH GOVERNORATE

Map of the governorate [12]
Capital City: ar-Raqqah (Arabic: الرقة)

DISTRICTS OF AR-RAQQAH

ar-Raqqah (الرقة)

Subdistricts

ar-Raqqah (الرقة)
al-Sabkhah ( السبخة)
al-Karamah (الكرامة)
Maadan (معدان)

al-Thowrah ( الثورة‎)

Subdistricts

al-Thowrah ( الثورة‎)
al-Mansurah (المنصورة)
al-Jarniyah (الجرنية)

Tell Abyad (تل أبيض‎ )

Subdistricts

Tell Abyad (تل أبيض‎ )
Suluk (سلوك)
- Ayn Issa (عين عيسى)

RIF DIMASHQ GOVERNORATE

Map of the governorate [13]
Capital City: (none- administrative center Markaz Rif Dimashq (مركز ريف دمشق‎))

DISTRICTS OF RIF DIMASHQ

al-Qutayfah (القطيفة)

Subdistricts

al-Qutayfah (القطيفة)
Jayroud ( جيرود)
Ma'loula (معلولا)
al-Ruhaybah (الرحيبة)

al-Nabk (النبك)

Subdistricts

al-Nabk ( النبك)
Deir Atiyah (دير عطية)
Qara (قارة)

al-Tall (التل)

Subdistricts

al-Tall (التل)
Saidnaya (صيدنايا)
Rankous ( رنكوس)

Darayya (داريا)

Subdistricts

Darayya (داريا)
Sahnaya ( صحنايا)
al-Hajar al-Aswad (الحجر الأسود)

Markaz Rif Dimashq (مركز ريف دمشق‎)

Subdistricts

al-Kiswah ( الكسوة)
Babila (ببيلا)
Jaramana ( جرمانا)
al-Maliha ( المليحة)
Kafr Batna (كفر بطنا)
Arbin (كفر بطنا)

Douma (دوما)

Subdistricts

Douma (دوما)
Harasta (حرستا)
al-Sabe' Biyar (السبع بيار)
al-Dumayr (الضمير)
al-Nashabiyah (النشابية)
al-Ghizlaniyah (ناحية)
Harran al-Awamid (حران العواميد)

Qatana ( قطنا)

Subdistricts

Qatana ( قطنا)
Beit Jen (بيت جن)
Sa'sa'a (سعسع)

Qudsaya ( قدسيا)

Subdistricts

Qudsaya ( قدسيا)
Ayn al-Fijah (عين الفيجة)
al-Dimas ( الديماس)

Yabroud (يبرود)

Subdistricts

Yabroud (يبرود)
Asal al-Ward (عسال الورد)

al-Zabadani ( الزبداني)

Subdistricts

al-Zabadani (الزبداني)
Madaya (مضايا)
Serghaya (سرغايا)

AS-SUWAYDA GOVERNORATE

Map of the Governorate [14]
Capital City: as-Suwayda (Arabic: السويداء)

DISTRICTS OF AS-SUWAYDA

as-Suwayda ( السويداء)

Subdistricts

as-Suwayda ( السويداء)
al-Mazraa (المزرعة)
al-Mushannaf (المشنف)

Salkhad (صلخد)

Subdistricts

Salkhad (صلخد)
al-Qrayya (القريا)
al-Ghariyah (الغارية)
Thaybin (ذيبين)
Malah (ملح)

Shahba (شهبا)

Subdistrict

Shabha (شهبا)
Shaqqa (شقا)
al-Ariqah (العريقة)
al-Surah al-Saghirah (الصورة الصغيرة)

TARTUS GOVERNORATE

Map of the Governorate [15]
Capital City: Tartus (طرطوس)

DISTRICTS OF TARTUS:

al-Sheikh Badr (الشيخ بدر)

Subdistrict

al-Sheikh Badr (الشيخ بدر)
Brummanet al-Masheyekh ( برمانة المشايخ)
al-Qamsiyah (القمصية)

Baniyas ( بانياس)

Subdistricts

Baniyas ( بانياس)
al-Rawda (الروضة)
al-Annazah (العنازة)
al-Qadmus (القدموس)
Hammam Wassel (حمّام واصل)
al-Tawahin (الطواحين)
Talin (تالين)

Duraykish (دريكيش)

Subdistricts

Duraykish (دريكيش)
Junaynet Ruslan (جنينة رسلان)
Hamin (حمين)
Dweir Ruslan (دوير رسلان)

Safita (صافيتا)

Subdistricts

Safita (صافيتا)
Mashta al-Helu (مشتى الحلو)
al-Bariqiyah (البارقية)
Sebah ( سبة)
al-Sisiniyah (السيسنية)
Ras al-Khashufah (رأس الخشوفة)

Tartus (طرطوس)

Subdistricts

Tartus (طرطوس)
Arwad ( أرواد)
al-Hamidiyah (الحميدية)
Khirbet al-Maazeh (خربة المعزة)
al-Sawda ( السودا)
al-Karimah (الكريمة)
Safsafah ( صفصافة)