File talk:Battle of Adra.jpg

ISIS Involvement?
This whole area has been sort of a blind spot, but I'm revisiting it some. This map seems to show FSA flags (inactive), and al-Nusra and ISIS teaming up on the offensive. Right? Similar to the formula in the Latakia Massacres a few months earlier (my external piece on the possible FSA-ISIS teamwork there). Things is, the reports I'm seeing don't mention ISIS. The locals thought the black flags were JaN and Jaish al-Islam. Captives were taken back towards Douma, etc. I think JaI and JaN are well-established in the frame, but not Islamic State. But it makes sense - form a grand coalition, etc. Saudis would fund that shit. Maybe someone gets inspired to dig deeper to see if this conquest-massacre came before or after the official Islamist alternatives started treating ISIS like a "bad cop." I suspect it's before. Later, Alloush's JaI would call ISIS rival and use them as the boogeyman threat, the blanket excuse for arresting anyone who criticizes them, according to reports (Syria Deeply anyway). And noting here - Adra massacre was launched the morning after VDC founder Razan Zaituneh was kidnapped in Douma, never to re-surface, after she had criticized ISIS, and Alloush knows nothing ... etc. --Caustic Logic (talk) 08:40, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
 * May be a good point to make if others did not (but how, just based on flags on the graphics?). Gives some points on scorecard, don't think it's a policy changer though, as the latter is really driven by geopolitics (controlling Irano-Russia and their co-satellite regimes, + oil and so on...). Putin got out (they say) to put all this back on US plate, so now what? (Apart from tangos in Argentinas) --Resup (talk) 11:26, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
 * This is just a month after Uncle Zawahiri in the mountains decided that ISI should stay in Iraq and Nusra in Syria, saying leaders of both groups made mistakes. As we know Daeshbagdaddy then rejected the order and was thrown out of the happy Al-Qaeda family, and in January 2014 Moon of Alabama reported Nusra/ISIS infighting as news. So it's not very remarkable that in December 2013 they would fight together on the ground, or maybe that Leith Fadel/Peto Lucem just routinely used both flags in that region. --CE (talk) 12:03, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks ... it's not a major point, FWIW, just one worth considering - related to JaI member and Alloush (brother-in-law/cousin?) Mohammed being currently the Western-Saudi-backed "high negotiator" in Geneva. --Caustic Logic (talk) 14:27, 24 March 2016 (UTC)