US-made TOW anti-tank missiles are seemingly becoming more common on the Syrian battlefield. IS apparently used them in its assault on Palmyra and al-Nusra has used them in various battles in Idlib province. I don't know a lot about military technology, but from the videos I've seen the TOW is a powerful weapon, which can potentially neutralize the regime's armor/vehicle advantage. From my perspective, allowing such potent anti-armor weaponry into Syria seems like a terrible idea for obvious reasons. Not sure why the KSA/Jordan/Turkey/Qatar aren't concerned by the prospect of jihadist armies that can destroy their armored vehicles.
Are TOW's that dangerous? My impression is that it functions like a souped up RPG. And I'm pretty sure those groups have been blowing up armor with IEDs for a while now.
Plus the jihadists have scavenged armored vehicles themselves (this is apparently how ISIS was able to penetrate so far into Kurdish territory and push car bombs into Ramadi).
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Andy JoeWe claim the land for the highlord!The AdirondacksRegistered Userregular
The US does collect 'tribute' through financing of its otherwise-unsustainable government budgets, with that debt in the vast majority of cases (China is the major exception) covered by countries under US military occupation.
U.S. debt is largely based on maintaining military spending; the military is sitting on these countries that then finance that debt by making these loans that they know will never be repaid. You can call that ‘protection money’ in either sense of the term, depending on your point of view. In a way it’s a mix of both, because they are getting physically protected, but it’s also a shakedown.
Saying that countries like Japan, Germany, and South Korea are currently under "military occupation" because of the presence of U.S. military bases is at best inaccurate, and at worst disingenuous and deliberately inflammatory.
Tell that to the Japanese and Koreans who constantly protest against US bases and have to deal with their women getting raped by US soldiers. (This happening when US soldiers aren't raping each other with total impunity -- internal military rape culture being a problem that had gotten a lot of coverage but has been strangely out of the news since Hagel was sacked as Defense Secretary.)
In South Korea US soldiers have been banned from many social spaces such as night-clubs because their behavior is so bad.
That doesn't have anything to do with whether or not that military presence is an occupation, as I'm sure you're well aware.
And to get back to the original point, do you have any actual evidence-other than mere correlation-that any country hosting U.S. military bases makes decisions re: buying Treasury bonds based on that military presence?
US-made TOW anti-tank missiles are seemingly becoming more common on the Syrian battlefield. IS apparently used them in its assault on Palmyra and al-Nusra has used them in various battles in Idlib province. I don't know a lot about military technology, but from the videos I've seen the TOW is a powerful weapon, which can potentially neutralize the regime's armor/vehicle advantage. From my perspective, allowing such potent anti-armor weaponry into Syria seems like a terrible idea for obvious reasons. Not sure why the KSA/Jordan/Turkey/Qatar aren't concerned by the prospect of jihadist armies that can destroy their armored vehicles.
Are TOW's that dangerous? My impression is that it functions like a souped up RPG. And I'm pretty sure those groups have been blowing up armor with IEDs for a while now.
Plus the jihadists have scavenged armored vehicles themselves (this is apparently how ISIS was able to penetrate so far into Kurdish territory and push car bombs into Ramadi).
The fact that they're guided means that they can destroy tanks and other armor from a significant range. Some examples:
Those sorts of hits are difficult/impossible to make with the more outdated/cheaper RPGs that I'm used to seeing jihadists use. As I said, I don't know a lot about modern military technology, so I might be overstating the significance of these weapons, but they seem pretty dangerous from what I've seen.
Giving TOWs to the Iraqi forces makes some sense, since the Iraqis have so far had difficulty dealing with IS's armored truck bombs, but the possibility that they'll fall into IS's hands should be kept in mind. Allowing rebels and jihadists in Syria to acquire them is even more dangerous in my opinion, but makes sense if the goal is to destroy Assad regardless of the consequences. Nonetheless, I think it's sort of ironic that these weapons are simultaneously being distributed to rebels/Sunni jihadists in Syria to aid them against the Iranian backed regime and to the Iranian-backed army/Shia militia in Iraq to aid them against the Sunni jihadists.
edit - On the topic of Shia militia in Iraq, the leader of Harakat Nujaba has threatened to attack US forces after some of the group's members were supposedly killed in a US airstrike in Anbar. The US denies responsibility for the strike.
Kabi, who is listed by the US as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist for activities in Iraq, said all Shiite militias will get “vengeance” for the purported airstrike, which was carried out by “the treacherous American aircraft.”
“All resistance movements will seek revenge in a timely manner,” Kabi stated.
Wiki says TOW's range is 2 miles, which is more than I thought but about the same as artillery. Obviously you can't steer artillery in mid-flight (or RPGs) so it has that advantage.
The definition of TOW covers a wide range of weapons, and their effectiveness also depends on what model of tank they are deployed against.
I'll defer to @synthesis as they seem to know a lot about armaments, but I believe the BGM-71 (America's latest model of TOW) can defeat the T-72 (which is Syria's top of the line battle tank). This, TOWs neutralize one of the regime's main advantages against the rebels. An RPG-7 (the most common rocket launcher in the region) would have a hard time against such a target. I think. So yes, TOWs are a big deal and give rebel forces a huge advantage.
Idk how the stripped down M1 Abrams (I believe the US removed some of the composite armor from the tanks they sold to Iraq) would fare against such weapons.
This ridiculously informative article says that they (or at least, some of them) are TOW 2A ATGWs. The weapon is US-made, but the source is unclear; however, the fighter shown is from Harakat Hazm, which, along with the Syrian Revolutionary Front, was one of the few Syrian rebel groups to receive arms directly from the US in recent times. Jaysh al-Fatah's Idlib offensive, in which the use of TOWs was witnessed in multiple battles, occurred after Jabhat al-Nusra (the leading group in the Jaysh al-Fatah coalition) destroyed Harakat Hazm and the SRF and publicized the looting of their US-supplied weapons. It may be that the US played an important role in the rebel victory in Idlib province, even if things didn't go exactly according to plan.
edit - In Libya news, IS claims to have taken full control of the city of Sirte. The Brotherhood-aligned Libyan Dawn faction and allied Misratan militia are the only ones to have brought the fight to IS so far, and they keep getting defeated. IS seems to have a larger presence in Libya than I'd have thought, probably as a result of both local recruiting and recent public statements urging adherents to go and fight in Africa. If the war between Tobruk and Tripoli continues, there may be no one to stand in IS's way as it continues its Libyan expansion.
How in the fuck does IS capture a city in Libya? I mean, who are these people? Are they members of the group that traveled to Libya from Syria/Iraq? (much of the original core of anti-Assad fighters were Libyans who fought against Gadaffi, then went to Syria to jihad out another dictator).
Or are these locals who take up the IS name as a franchise, ala the al-queda branched groups?
In either case, where do they get their funding/weapons/support etc etc.
My understanding of Libya was that many of the alliances were still largely based on tribe/clan (that's how Gadaffi ran the show, and how much of the rebellion got going). But where does a group like IS fit in there? You need some measure of local support, that and money, to get anywhere with a military campaign. I don't understand where IS gets it.
The TOW's pretty good and a staple of first world ATGM, but I'd worry more if Javelins fell into IS hands. The Javelin's CLU alone is very useful with its thermals, the entire system is man portable, and it has similar penetration capabilities to the TOW. That the TOW requires a crew and relies on the wire for guidance are pretty big marks against its usefulness.
As far as the RPG-7 and its PG-7, its effectiveness is very often and grossly exaggerated in games and movies. Its antipersonnel rounds are probably the best use of it against a modern military with armored vehicles.
How in the fuck does IS capture a city in Libya? I mean, who are these people? Are they members of the group that traveled to Libya from Syria/Iraq? (much of the original core of anti-Assad fighters were Libyans who fought against Gadaffi, then went to Syria to jihad out another dictator).
Or are these locals who take up the IS name as a franchise, ala the al-queda branched groups?
In either case, where do they get their funding/weapons/support etc etc.
My understanding of Libya was that many of the alliances were still largely based on tribe/clan (that's how Gadaffi ran the show, and how much of the rebellion got going). But where does a group like IS fit in there? You need some measure of local support, that and money, to get anywhere with a military campaign. I don't understand where IS gets it.
I don't know enough to give a detailed explanation of how they created and grew their Libyan branch, but if you want my thoughts, I'd say a combination of factors were responsible. IS has in recent months advocated that in addition to migrating ("making hijra") to Syria and Iraq, people who want to join should travel to Libya, Nigeria, and other parts of Africa and expand the franchises there. The Tobruk government claims that foreign fighters are flowing into the country, and while they aren't necessarily the most reliable source I'm inclined to believe it.
I imagine they have a degree of support among some Libyans as well. Tons of fighters from Libya traveled to Iraq to fight the American occupation (I think more than any other country, though I'd have to Google to be sure), so the idea that some returned jihadists might support Zarqawi/Baghdadi's organization isn't too hard to imagine. IS's ideology is also explicitly borderless, and Libya, like many countries in the region, has its own lowest common denominator part of the salafi-jihadist crowd who would be inclined to support them anyway.
As for weapons, the general impression I have is that since the fall of Gaddafi, Libya and to an extent North Africa as a whole has been awash in small arms, presumably with lucrative black markets. Many of the domestic supporters were probably armed to begin with. I don't really think IS could manage large scale weapons shipments from Iraq/Syria to Libya, so I imagine they're relying on arms already in the country. I suppose the possibility that some regional state is arming them exists, but I think their ultra-expansionist policy would make nearby governments wary of doing so at this point. And in regard to their funding, I imagine they rely to some extent on the same sort of shady financial transfers that some in the Middle East have used to fund groups like al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Maybe IS is even able to smuggle money to them directly; I'd think it would be easier than smuggling arms, but I don't really know.
And more broadly, the general situation in Libya, where US/NATO/rebel forces destroyed the previous government and the rebels split into multiple warring factions, is sort of the ideal situation for the growth of a group like IS. That's not too far from how it happened in the first place.
Nonetheless, I agree that their success in Libya is sort of surprising. It disturbs me greatly; an IS confined to its chunk of Iraq and Syria is far less dangerous than an IS which additionally holds territory in Libya or throughout North Africa.
It disturbs me as well. Libya is a failed state in my mind, and has been since Gadaffi fell. Who woulda thunk it right? that airstrikes and arming random or jihadist rebels would backfire. It is certainly the ideal breeding ground.
But, its already bred. By which I mean there are already several competing armed groups, some with international backing. IS is implicitly hostile to them all, even if in the short term it may be willing to work together. The only way to gain ground in this situation is by fighting, because fighters of one stripe or another control everything. You need (I hypothesize) some core of fighters around which recruits and money and support can accrete. This part maybe isn't that hard. A group of men from a neighbourhood can band together. But to take a city of tens of thousands, many of whom are armed requires both organization and support that doesn't grow organically out of a group like that.
Boy would I like to know where their money comes from.
For the record artillery range can be in excess of 14 miles even with non-exotic shells.
It's hard to overstate the difference that TOWs have made for the rebels. It gave them the ability to effectively engage regime armor and it requires very little training or organizational aptitude to put to use. Near the start of the this civil war you'd see rebels capturing artillery pieces and using them as large unwieldy, hard to transport rifles, hoping to hit something worthwhile. Now they can throw a launch system with a half dozen missiles into the back of a pickup and take out that many armored vehicles.
How in the fuck does IS capture a city in Libya? I mean, who are these people? Are they members of the group that traveled to Libya from Syria/Iraq? (much of the original core of anti-Assad fighters were Libyans who fought against Gadaffi, then went to Syria to jihad out another dictator).
Or are these locals who take up the IS name as a franchise, ala the al-queda branched groups?
In either case, where do they get their funding/weapons/support etc etc.
My understanding of Libya was that many of the alliances were still largely based on tribe/clan (that's how Gadaffi ran the show, and how much of the rebellion got going). But where does a group like IS fit in there? You need some measure of local support, that and money, to get anywhere with a military campaign. I don't understand where IS gets it.
I don't know enough to give a detailed explanation of how they created and grew their Libyan branch, but if you want my thoughts, I'd say a combination of factors were responsible. IS has in recent months advocated that in addition to migrating ("making hijra") to Syria and Iraq, people who want to join should travel to Libya, Nigeria, and other parts of Africa and expand the franchises there. The Tobruk government claims that foreign fighters are flowing into the country, and while they aren't necessarily the most reliable source I'm inclined to believe it.
I imagine they have a degree of support among some Libyans as well. Tons of fighters from Libya traveled to Iraq to fight the American occupation (I think more than any other country, though I'd have to Google to be sure), so the idea that some returned jihadists might support Zarqawi/Baghdadi's organization isn't too hard to imagine. IS's ideology is also explicitly borderless, and Libya, like many countries in the region, has its own lowest common denominator part of the salafi-jihadist crowd who would be inclined to support them anyway.
As for weapons, the general impression I have is that since the fall of Gaddafi, Libya and to an extent North Africa as a whole has been awash in small arms, presumably with lucrative black markets. Many of the domestic supporters were probably armed to begin with. I don't really think IS could manage large scale weapons shipments from Iraq/Syria to Libya, so I imagine they're relying on arms already in the country. I suppose the possibility that some regional state is arming them exists, but I think their ultra-expansionist policy would make nearby governments wary of doing so at this point. And in regard to their funding, I imagine they rely to some extent on the same sort of shady financial transfers that some in the Middle East have used to fund groups like al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Maybe IS is even able to smuggle money to them directly; I'd think it would be easier than smuggling arms, but I don't really know.
And more broadly, the general situation in Libya, where US/NATO/rebel forces destroyed the previous government and the rebels split into multiple warring factions, is sort of the ideal situation for the growth of a group like IS. That's not too far from how it happened in the first place.
Nonetheless, I agree that their success in Libya is sort of surprising. It disturbs me greatly; an IS confined to its chunk of Iraq and Syria is far less dangerous than an IS which additionally holds territory in Libya or throughout North Africa.
RE Funding: Hawala likely plays a large part in the movement of money from financier to group.
Hawala is a historical money changing system used heavily in the ME and North Africa that involves moving money without actually physically moving financial instruments. It's foundation is trust on the parts of both the money changer at the origin and the money changer at the destination. It also involves connections through family and extended family.
The issue with tracking this movement is not only that physical instruments aren't moved (at least not right away, the trust is that the original changer will settle the debt with the destination changer at a later date), but Hawala also has legitimate uses that don't involve financing groups and attacks, like Zakat and sending money to family.
It's likely that they even move large amounts through changers in say, Iraq, and Libya. And there is no real trail to follow.
NSDFRand on
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Captain Marcusnow arrives the hour of actionRegistered Userregular
You think at some point we'd just stop sending weapons to the Iraqis. It's not like they use them.
Someone needs to figure out how to attach a go-pro to a TOW's optics, that was some lousy bit of camera work.
Maybe it's a kind of cognitive bias but the more I hear out of Syria the past couple of months the more it seems like Assad is in danger of a rapid collapse in the next year.
The definition of TOW covers a wide range of weapons, and their effectiveness also depends on what model of tank they are deployed against.
I'll defer to @synthesis as they seem to know a lot about armaments, but I believe the BGM-71 (America's latest model of TOW) can defeat the T-72 (which is Syria's top of the line battle tank). This, TOWs neutralize one of the regime's main advantages against the rebels. An RPG-7 (the most common rocket launcher in the region) would have a hard time against such a target. I think. So yes, TOWs are a big deal and give rebel forces a huge advantage.
Idk how the stripped down M1 Abrams (I believe the US removed some of the composite armor from the tanks they sold to Iraq) would fare against such weapons.
I'm very surprised to see myself mentioned in this capacity, I think you probably know much more about ATGM than I do--unless they're Chinese or Soviet, I suppose!
I had heard of this as well, but personally, I was more interested in the morale and political implications of more expensive American weapons systems falling into ISIL's hands. It's not a lot, but it's another thing, on top of the tanks, and armored personnel carriers, a whole variety of small arms, etc. They are substantially more dangerous to American and Syrian armor, certainly, but I don't necessarily think that's particularly severe compared to the sheer amount of unguided anti-tank weapons, and improvised bombs, ISIL seems to possess.
It's certainly pretty disheartening to see ISIL combatants pulling doughnuts in captured Syrian BMP-1s, but it wasn't too bad--you could think that, eventually, ISIL would lack the expertise to use them effectively, even if they were able to find someone capable of, at least, driving a complex military vehicle (albeit one designed in the mid sixties) for more advanced than, say, a Humvee, and would soon run out of parts for it even if they could. What, were they going to use it for amphibious crossings, or take advantage of its NBC protection? Things like TOW missiles don't have those issues, I think--they're just very convenient tools for whoever gets them.
But that's just my two cents. I could be missing the big picture in the logistical sense.
Their power source is a turbine engine, so yeah you're local mechanic won't be able to fix that up very easily.
I see them using the tanks as turrets to defend their captured cities when the fuel runs out. I also see that plan going to shit vis a vis airstrikes- that JDAM-Twitter thing was hilarious.
The Netherlands at least has classified fighting for ISIS as fighting for a foreign army which makes it a jailable offense, first people returning are already behind bars.
That map shows that there's gonna be massive security problems in Europe when the conflict starts to die down.
Heh, I'm also sort of dubious about that graph since our own security service have estimated ~300 persons, only from my town here in Sweden, have gone or tried going down to Syria.
So sad the racism in Europe is forcing individuals to join up with jihadist movements just to create a decent living for themselves... ;___;
Their power source is a turbine engine, so yeah you're local mechanic won't be able to fix that up very easily.
If this was a strategy game the US could conquer the world by just gifting military units to every other country until they're all bankrupt from the upkeep per turn
we could give China 100 F-22's and bring them to their knees
The Netherlands at least has classified fighting for ISIS as fighting for a foreign army which makes it a jailable offense, first people returning are already behind bars.
I'm kinda skeptical over the soft approach we're using in DK, funnily enough it doesn't seem to discourage traveling to Syria and Iraq.. At least the authorities now has the option of confiscating peoples passport if they're traveling to those parts.
That map shows that there's gonna be massive security problems in Europe when the conflict starts to die down.
Heh, I'm also sort of dubious about that graph since our own security service have estimated ~300 persons, only from my town here in Sweden, have gone or tried going down to Syria.
So sad the racism in Europe is forcing individuals to join up with jihadist movements just to create a decent living for themselves... ;___;
I really, really, would love to hear your line of thought on this one.
The tone of Panda4You's post makes me suspect that he is not serious about finding racism to be the cause of European muslims joining jihadist movements. My experience suggests that in fact he may mean the exact opposite of what he says.
Irony is a form of expression I have not yet been able to master.
The Netherlands at least has classified fighting for ISIS as fighting for a foreign army which makes it a jailable offense, first people returning are already behind bars.
I'm kinda skeptical over the soft approach we're using in DK, funnily enough it doesn't seem to discourage traveling to Syria and Iraq.. At least the authorities now has the option of confiscating peoples passport if they're traveling to those parts.
I thought DK at least had a ban on going down there? And that's why those guys there is traveling to Sweden since there's no obstructions traveling to Syria or cooperating with various "NGOs" here?
The only way stopping terrorism and warfare against civilian populace is handing out free housing and jobs!
Kinda curious about how the reaction from traditional leftwing trusts would be if this was the solution to deal with right-wing extremists or perpetrators?
That map shows that there's gonna be massive security problems in Europe when the conflict starts to die down.
Heh, I'm also sort of dubious about that graph since our own security service have estimated ~300 persons, only from my town here in Sweden, have gone or tried going down to Syria.
So sad the racism in Europe is forcing individuals to join up with jihadist movements just to create a decent living for themselves... ;___;
I really, really, would love to hear your line of thought on this one.
In detail.
Not really the subject of the thread, but it's kind of simple: There is, at least here locally, a very hegemonic thinking to define refugees only as victims (not as independent actors in society). This excludes these people from any sense of individual responsibility, would cases of criminal activity occur, since a victim cannot also be the offender. Thus, any cases where a person with asylum claim in this country is found to partake in unsavory (ISIS, et al.) or criminal offenses the reason behind that must be blamed on external factors, such as systematic discrimination: The individual himself was simply driven to those actions without a conscious countenance!
But this is mainly a problem within our regional dialogue and an issue I find to be wholly distinct from the actual rightwing extremism and racism in Europe, that's been on a steady rise for the last 10-15 years...
The funny thing is, that some of the actual prejudice arises as a reaction to the perceived preferential treatment with regards to the victimhood aspect and crime. It's all a big mess, with both sides being complete idiots.
For whatever feelings you have about Israel, that seems like a pretty prudent and reasonable series of tests.
It's not like there isn't a legitimate threat of a terror attack in Israel, and an attack in the form of a dirty bomb is relatively likely at some point in the future.
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
I feel like you can probably do those tests without actually building the bomb, though.
But yeah, that's a legitimate threat to want to find ways to protect your populace from. I would be shocked if almost any other country weren't doing similar things, though probably with more computer modelling than actual explosives.
Also: Fighting between Taliban and Islamic State in Afghanistan is intensifying. It will be at least interesting to observe how this impacts the civil war there, or possibly seeing the course of other conflicts this could (eventually, in a year) become the main conflict of the Afghan civil war if/when the US-backed "government" collapses; and one can question exactly what this means in terms of the ongoing proxy war there -- Taliban are still backed by Pakistan, would anyone in particular be supporting Islamic State against them, and why?
I can think of a few (horrifying reasons) immediately--I believe it was Senator Feinstein of California who brought it to public light that women in the U.S. Armed Forces were, statistically, much more likely to be the victims of rape from their male colleagues than victims of injury or death from any sort of enemy combatant--many times more, even. That was at least five years ago, I don't know if that sort of endemic violence against enlisted women and officers has gotten better or worse. Furthermore, Feinstein also drew attention to the fact that the rate of criminal prosecution in the military for these crimes was abysmal.
As a man who served in his country's military (army in my case), as part of the normalized mobilization of male citizens, that's a thoroughly horrifying concept. Given that it accounts for nearly half the world's military spending, I've always assumed, on a fundamental level, that the U.S. Armed forces also represented if not the most professional, one of the most professional military organizations in the world. That's certainly all those ads I see on TV multiple times every day claim. But really, I haven't heard of sexual violence being anywhere near this pervasive in any other military force that regularly employs women that wasn't organized around child warfare or human slavery. Not in the crappy, largely conscript-driven morale-nonexistent ROC Army that I served in. Not in other conscript military forces with equally serious problems like that of Russia (I know multiple women who were in the AFRF--isn't Facebook grand?). Nor in the largely volunteer-driven military forces of countries like China or France. Sure, all of them have real problems with chauvinism, passing women over for promotions in rank, even inadequate medical care in some cases, but really, I haven't heard of this issue with any other modern fighting military anywhere near this scale except for the United States. Even in forces like Russia's, Ukraine's, etc. where hazing violence towards male recruits if at epidemic levels, I haven't found evidence of sexual violence towards women in the service anywhere near this (to be clear, Russia has a far smaller portion of women serving in uniform in the formal military than the US does, and they are overwhelmingly junior officers, not enlisted women--Ukraine's is even smaller).
But I have to admit, except for what I remember Feinstein explaining, it's all speculative. Maybe my own knowledge is way out of date in the last 5 years. It's not a topic that's easy to find information on, and it's a very depressing one when you do.
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Plus the jihadists have scavenged armored vehicles themselves (this is apparently how ISIS was able to penetrate so far into Kurdish territory and push car bombs into Ramadi).
That doesn't have anything to do with whether or not that military presence is an occupation, as I'm sure you're well aware.
And to get back to the original point, do you have any actual evidence-other than mere correlation-that any country hosting U.S. military bases makes decisions re: buying Treasury bonds based on that military presence?
Those sorts of hits are difficult/impossible to make with the more outdated/cheaper RPGs that I'm used to seeing jihadists use. As I said, I don't know a lot about modern military technology, so I might be overstating the significance of these weapons, but they seem pretty dangerous from what I've seen.
Giving TOWs to the Iraqi forces makes some sense, since the Iraqis have so far had difficulty dealing with IS's armored truck bombs, but the possibility that they'll fall into IS's hands should be kept in mind. Allowing rebels and jihadists in Syria to acquire them is even more dangerous in my opinion, but makes sense if the goal is to destroy Assad regardless of the consequences. Nonetheless, I think it's sort of ironic that these weapons are simultaneously being distributed to rebels/Sunni jihadists in Syria to aid them against the Iranian backed regime and to the Iranian-backed army/Shia militia in Iraq to aid them against the Sunni jihadists.
edit - On the topic of Shia militia in Iraq, the leader of Harakat Nujaba has threatened to attack US forces after some of the group's members were supposedly killed in a US airstrike in Anbar. The US denies responsibility for the strike.
I'll defer to @synthesis as they seem to know a lot about armaments, but I believe the BGM-71 (America's latest model of TOW) can defeat the T-72 (which is Syria's top of the line battle tank). This, TOWs neutralize one of the regime's main advantages against the rebels. An RPG-7 (the most common rocket launcher in the region) would have a hard time against such a target. I think. So yes, TOWs are a big deal and give rebel forces a huge advantage.
Idk how the stripped down M1 Abrams (I believe the US removed some of the composite armor from the tanks they sold to Iraq) would fare against such weapons.
They are all BGM-71's. There is an additional alpha designator which specifies the variant.
I'd be surprised if they had anything TOW 2B (71F) or newer.
edit - In Libya news, IS claims to have taken full control of the city of Sirte. The Brotherhood-aligned Libyan Dawn faction and allied Misratan militia are the only ones to have brought the fight to IS so far, and they keep getting defeated. IS seems to have a larger presence in Libya than I'd have thought, probably as a result of both local recruiting and recent public statements urging adherents to go and fight in Africa. If the war between Tobruk and Tripoli continues, there may be no one to stand in IS's way as it continues its Libyan expansion.
How in the fuck does IS capture a city in Libya? I mean, who are these people? Are they members of the group that traveled to Libya from Syria/Iraq? (much of the original core of anti-Assad fighters were Libyans who fought against Gadaffi, then went to Syria to jihad out another dictator).
Or are these locals who take up the IS name as a franchise, ala the al-queda branched groups?
In either case, where do they get their funding/weapons/support etc etc.
My understanding of Libya was that many of the alliances were still largely based on tribe/clan (that's how Gadaffi ran the show, and how much of the rebellion got going). But where does a group like IS fit in there? You need some measure of local support, that and money, to get anywhere with a military campaign. I don't understand where IS gets it.
As far as the RPG-7 and its PG-7, its effectiveness is very often and grossly exaggerated in games and movies. Its antipersonnel rounds are probably the best use of it against a modern military with armored vehicles.
I imagine they have a degree of support among some Libyans as well. Tons of fighters from Libya traveled to Iraq to fight the American occupation (I think more than any other country, though I'd have to Google to be sure), so the idea that some returned jihadists might support Zarqawi/Baghdadi's organization isn't too hard to imagine. IS's ideology is also explicitly borderless, and Libya, like many countries in the region, has its own lowest common denominator part of the salafi-jihadist crowd who would be inclined to support them anyway.
As for weapons, the general impression I have is that since the fall of Gaddafi, Libya and to an extent North Africa as a whole has been awash in small arms, presumably with lucrative black markets. Many of the domestic supporters were probably armed to begin with. I don't really think IS could manage large scale weapons shipments from Iraq/Syria to Libya, so I imagine they're relying on arms already in the country. I suppose the possibility that some regional state is arming them exists, but I think their ultra-expansionist policy would make nearby governments wary of doing so at this point. And in regard to their funding, I imagine they rely to some extent on the same sort of shady financial transfers that some in the Middle East have used to fund groups like al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Maybe IS is even able to smuggle money to them directly; I'd think it would be easier than smuggling arms, but I don't really know.
And more broadly, the general situation in Libya, where US/NATO/rebel forces destroyed the previous government and the rebels split into multiple warring factions, is sort of the ideal situation for the growth of a group like IS. That's not too far from how it happened in the first place.
Nonetheless, I agree that their success in Libya is sort of surprising. It disturbs me greatly; an IS confined to its chunk of Iraq and Syria is far less dangerous than an IS which additionally holds territory in Libya or throughout North Africa.
But, its already bred. By which I mean there are already several competing armed groups, some with international backing. IS is implicitly hostile to them all, even if in the short term it may be willing to work together. The only way to gain ground in this situation is by fighting, because fighters of one stripe or another control everything. You need (I hypothesize) some core of fighters around which recruits and money and support can accrete. This part maybe isn't that hard. A group of men from a neighbourhood can band together. But to take a city of tens of thousands, many of whom are armed requires both organization and support that doesn't grow organically out of a group like that.
Boy would I like to know where their money comes from.
It's hard to overstate the difference that TOWs have made for the rebels. It gave them the ability to effectively engage regime armor and it requires very little training or organizational aptitude to put to use. Near the start of the this civil war you'd see rebels capturing artillery pieces and using them as large unwieldy, hard to transport rifles, hoping to hit something worthwhile. Now they can throw a launch system with a half dozen missiles into the back of a pickup and take out that many armored vehicles.
RE Funding: Hawala likely plays a large part in the movement of money from financier to group.
Hawala is a historical money changing system used heavily in the ME and North Africa that involves moving money without actually physically moving financial instruments. It's foundation is trust on the parts of both the money changer at the origin and the money changer at the destination. It also involves connections through family and extended family.
The issue with tracking this movement is not only that physical instruments aren't moved (at least not right away, the trust is that the original changer will settle the debt with the destination changer at a later date), but Hawala also has legitimate uses that don't involve financing groups and attacks, like Zakat and sending money to family.
It's likely that they even move large amounts through changers in say, Iraq, and Libya. And there is no real trail to follow.
Maybe it's a kind of cognitive bias but the more I hear out of Syria the past couple of months the more it seems like Assad is in danger of a rapid collapse in the next year.
I'm very surprised to see myself mentioned in this capacity, I think you probably know much more about ATGM than I do--unless they're Chinese or Soviet, I suppose!
I had heard of this as well, but personally, I was more interested in the morale and political implications of more expensive American weapons systems falling into ISIL's hands. It's not a lot, but it's another thing, on top of the tanks, and armored personnel carriers, a whole variety of small arms, etc. They are substantially more dangerous to American and Syrian armor, certainly, but I don't necessarily think that's particularly severe compared to the sheer amount of unguided anti-tank weapons, and improvised bombs, ISIL seems to possess.
It's certainly pretty disheartening to see ISIL combatants pulling doughnuts in captured Syrian BMP-1s, but it wasn't too bad--you could think that, eventually, ISIL would lack the expertise to use them effectively, even if they were able to find someone capable of, at least, driving a complex military vehicle (albeit one designed in the mid sixties) for more advanced than, say, a Humvee, and would soon run out of parts for it even if they could. What, were they going to use it for amphibious crossings, or take advantage of its NBC protection? Things like TOW missiles don't have those issues, I think--they're just very convenient tools for whoever gets them.
But that's just my two cents. I could be missing the big picture in the logistical sense.
That map shows that there's gonna be massive security problems in Europe when the conflict starts to die down.
So sad the racism in Europe is forcing individuals to join up with jihadist movements just to create a decent living for themselves... ;___;
If this was a strategy game the US could conquer the world by just gifting military units to every other country until they're all bankrupt from the upkeep per turn
we could give China 100 F-22's and bring them to their knees
I'm kinda skeptical over the soft approach we're using in DK, funnily enough it doesn't seem to discourage traveling to Syria and Iraq.. At least the authorities now has the option of confiscating peoples passport if they're traveling to those parts.
I really, really, would love to hear your line of thought on this one.
In detail.
Irony is a form of expression I have not yet been able to master.
The only way stopping terrorism and warfare against civilian populace is handing out free housing and jobs!
Kinda curious about how the reaction from traditional leftwing trusts would be if this was the solution to deal with right-wing extremists or perpetrators?
Not really the subject of the thread, but it's kind of simple: There is, at least here locally, a very hegemonic thinking to define refugees only as victims (not as independent actors in society). This excludes these people from any sense of individual responsibility, would cases of criminal activity occur, since a victim cannot also be the offender. Thus, any cases where a person with asylum claim in this country is found to partake in unsavory (ISIS, et al.) or criminal offenses the reason behind that must be blamed on external factors, such as systematic discrimination: The individual himself was simply driven to those actions without a conscious countenance!
But this is mainly a problem within our regional dialogue and an issue I find to be wholly distinct from the actual rightwing extremism and racism in Europe, that's been on a steady rise for the last 10-15 years...
http://news.yahoo.com/report-israel-built-exploded-dirty-bomb-nuclear-test-175345314.html
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-33076238
For whatever feelings you have about Israel, that seems like a pretty prudent and reasonable series of tests.
It's not like there isn't a legitimate threat of a terror attack in Israel, and an attack in the form of a dirty bomb is relatively likely at some point in the future.
But yeah, that's a legitimate threat to want to find ways to protect your populace from. I would be shocked if almost any other country weren't doing similar things, though probably with more computer modelling than actual explosives.
A couple of interesting articles were published in recent days regarding the US military:
The suicide rate of female veterans is 6 times the national rate for women; I wonder why.
A doctor who had been "trauma training" US troops through mutilating live animals has been finally suspended; this happens after years of outcry by PETA and other groups.
he also gave them hard drugs and performed medical experiments resembling date rape.
(Interestingly, Islam condemns cruelty to animals, and explicitly forbids mutilation of live animals.)
Also:
Fighting between Taliban and Islamic State in Afghanistan is intensifying. It will be at least interesting to observe how this impacts the civil war there, or possibly seeing the course of other conflicts this could (eventually, in a year) become the main conflict of the Afghan civil war if/when the US-backed "government" collapses; and one can question exactly what this means in terms of the ongoing proxy war there -- Taliban are still backed by Pakistan, would anyone in particular be supporting Islamic State against them, and why?
Interesting overview of the proxy wars in Syria and beyond.
I can think of a few (horrifying reasons) immediately--I believe it was Senator Feinstein of California who brought it to public light that women in the U.S. Armed Forces were, statistically, much more likely to be the victims of rape from their male colleagues than victims of injury or death from any sort of enemy combatant--many times more, even. That was at least five years ago, I don't know if that sort of endemic violence against enlisted women and officers has gotten better or worse. Furthermore, Feinstein also drew attention to the fact that the rate of criminal prosecution in the military for these crimes was abysmal.
As a man who served in his country's military (army in my case), as part of the normalized mobilization of male citizens, that's a thoroughly horrifying concept. Given that it accounts for nearly half the world's military spending, I've always assumed, on a fundamental level, that the U.S. Armed forces also represented if not the most professional, one of the most professional military organizations in the world. That's certainly all those ads I see on TV multiple times every day claim. But really, I haven't heard of sexual violence being anywhere near this pervasive in any other military force that regularly employs women that wasn't organized around child warfare or human slavery. Not in the crappy, largely conscript-driven morale-nonexistent ROC Army that I served in. Not in other conscript military forces with equally serious problems like that of Russia (I know multiple women who were in the AFRF--isn't Facebook grand?). Nor in the largely volunteer-driven military forces of countries like China or France. Sure, all of them have real problems with chauvinism, passing women over for promotions in rank, even inadequate medical care in some cases, but really, I haven't heard of this issue with any other modern fighting military anywhere near this scale except for the United States. Even in forces like Russia's, Ukraine's, etc. where hazing violence towards male recruits if at epidemic levels, I haven't found evidence of sexual violence towards women in the service anywhere near this (to be clear, Russia has a far smaller portion of women serving in uniform in the formal military than the US does, and they are overwhelmingly junior officers, not enlisted women--Ukraine's is even smaller).
But I have to admit, except for what I remember Feinstein explaining, it's all speculative. Maybe my own knowledge is way out of date in the last 5 years. It's not a topic that's easy to find information on, and it's a very depressing one when you do.