Syrian Armenian

[Vrej1915]

Re: Syrian Armenian

Syria's Armenians look to ancient homeland for safety
BBC

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34210854

As Europe's refugee crisis unfolds, Armenia says it has hosted thousands of Syrians, particularly those from the Christian-Armenian community.

Since the start of the conflict, at least 15,000 Syrians have found refuge in Armenia, according to UNHCR figures.
The majority of these are descendents of Armenians who escaped the mass killings and deportations by the Ottoman Turks in 1915, and were given refuge in Syria.
At the time, Syria's Deir Ezzor region became a major destination for Armenians subjected to death marches through the desert. But a century later, increasing numbers of Syrian Armenians are now driving to Beirut, where they board flights to Yerevan.

"Mother Community"

Before the conflict, the estimated number of ethnic Armenians in Syria was about 100,000. More than 60,000 of them settled in Aleppo, with smaller communities in Kessab, Qamishli, Yacubiyah, Kobane and Damascus.

Many in the Armenian diaspora consider Syrian-Armenians as their "mother community".

The influx of Syrian refugees into Armenia started in 2012, when over 6,500 people fled. In 2013, the number of Syrian Armenians fleeing reached 11,000 and by August 2015, over 15,000 Armenians had been reported to be seeking asylum in Armenia.
For Syria's ethnic Armenians, Armenia represents a safe choice - not only as an ancient homeland and predominantly Christian country - but also one with migration policies and repatriation programme that make it easy for them to settle.

Economic woes

The Armenian government has adopted "special measures" to help Syrian Armenians. It authorised consular offices in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon to issue citizenship and passports to Syrian Armenians free of charge.

But Armenia's own economic woes mean that it struggles to provide accommodation and jobs for the newly-arrived Syrians. State assistance for Syrian Armenians covers mainly education, medical care and the provision of documents.

"We are concerned about the rental of accommodation; this is already a challenge to us. We have to turn to international and benevolent organisations for help because we will face a problem. The flow is too big, we cannot cope," Firdus Zakaryan, an official from Armenia's Ministry of Diaspora, said recently.

Armenian state officials insist that the plight of even the most impoverished refugees in Armenia pales in comparison with the four million displaced Syrians, many of whom struggle for life in camps and rundown urban areas of Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.

Many who have not made it to Armenian cities have now settled in the disputed Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan.
Robert Matevosyan, head of the district's resettlement department, says more Syrian Armenians are expressing an interest in settling in the area.

[Vrej1915]

Re: Syrian Armenian

ATTENTION:
This is from a regime sponsored source in Syria.
While there is no question most Armenians, as all other minorities, Christian, Druze, or yazidi are more sympathetic to the regime, rather than the barbarian islamists, sponsored by Turkey, the aim of this article is to manipulate the Armenians, making them in turn specific targets for the same islamists, if need there was...
Nevertheless, let me say that a lot of Armenians enrolled in the Syrian Army are in fact hostages themselves, and not at all volonteers. I know of many families from Haleb, having taken refuge in Yerevan since 3-4 years by now, who's son was serving in the Army before the war break out. Their sons have not been demobilised since then, and are in a hostage situation, often in isolated posts all around the Syrian desert, from Deir Zor to Jazire, or Idleb.....
Their plight, and that of their families in Yerevan, having no news from their son's fate, often for months, is a national tragedy for us, even if its is a taboo .....

Second, the same regime, just before stabbed by Turkey in its back, was in full honeymood with "anti-israeli Erdogan', and was on the verge of forbidding main April 24 events in Deir Zor, or elsewhere... you might have found turkish flags all over Syria and Lebanon by those, short, but nevertheless significant years...

This war is not ours. Every drop of Armenian blood, wasted no matter on which spot of the globe, outside our homeland, and under our flag, is a shame....
So reed this reports keeping that in mind.
==========


Syrian-Armenians Refuse to Back Down to Al-Qaeda and Sectarian Rebels in Aleppo
BY LEITH FADEL
SEPTEMBER 13, 2015

http://www.almasdarnews.com/article/syrian-armenians-refuse-to-back-down-to-al-qaeda-and-sectarian-rebels-in-aleppo/

The Armenians have a long history in the Syrian economic capital of Aleppo, dating back to the 11th Century A.D. when the Seljuk Turks captured Byzantine controlled Armenia, creating the first known diaspora of Armenians from their ancestral homeland in the East Anatolia of present-day Turkey.

Following the Armenian Genocide of 1915, hundreds of thousands of Armenian civilians poured into northern Syria, settling in the provinces of Aleppo, Al-Hasakah, Al-Raqqa, Latakia, and the Homs.

However, the largest community of Armenians in the Middle East (1915-present) still resides in historical Aleppo City, despite the founding of present day Armenia in 1918.

Syrian-Armenians in Present-Day Syria:

Syrian-Armenians have remained an integral part of Syrian society, with many civilians enjoying Syrian citizenship, while also being allowed to maintain their ethnic and cultural identity amid the rise of Arab Nationalism in the 1950s.

It should come as no surprise that Syrian-Armenians have a long storied history in the Syrian Arab Army (SAA), as tens of thousands of Armenian men have served on the frontlines of every 20th Century Syrian war; in fact, one of the founding fathers of the aforementioned army was a Syrian-Armenian man, ‘Aram Karamanoukian (1910-1996) – he remains beloved in his adopted home of Aleppo.

Armenians in the Syrian Army:

Since the inception of the Syrian Conflict (2011-present), the Syrian-Armenian community has remained ardently loyal to the Syrian Arab Army and Syrian Government, serving on the frontlines of every major battle against the Syrian Opposition forces.

Known as fierce fighters, many Syrian-Armenian men conscripted in the Syrian Arab Army tend to serve in the 106th Brigade of the Republican Guard – a predominately Christian contingent of the Special Forces that is predominately made-up of Syrian Armenians from Aleppo and Syrian Christians from the northern Hama city of Mhardeh.

When Aleppo came under attack by the Free Syrian Army (FSA) in Summer of 2012; it was the Syrian-Armenians that took up arms to protect their districts inside the city.



Without the fierce resistance from the Syrian-Armenians in Aleppo City, the future Islamist rebel fighters would have overrun the historical districts of the provincial capital.

Induction into the National Defense Forces (NDF):

In early 2014, the Syrian Arab Army’s Central Command – under the guidance of Iranian military advisors – formed the civilian-led “National Defense Forces” to protect areas where the Syrian Arab Army is absent.

Within weeks, the NDF was flooded with recruits from all over Syria; however, following the Al-Qaeda, FSA, and Harakat Ahrar Al-Sham’s offensive at the predominately Armenian town of Kassab, this civilian-led militia received a significant boost of 17,000 Armenian volunteers from Aleppo City in order to protect their land.

When the Syrian Arab Army recaptured the town of Kassab in late 2014, they were assisted by hundreds of Syrian-Armenian volunteers from Aleppo, who viewed this battle as a moral imperative against the Islamist forces attempting to force another diaspora.

Defense of Aleppo:

Save the Palestinians of Nayrab Refugee Camp, Al-Ba’ath Brigades, NDF, and the Syrian Arab Army, there has been no other force inside of Aleppo City that has helped defend the provincial capital from Islamist rebel militants like the Armenian militias.

In June 2015, the newly formed conglomerate of Al-Qaeda groups “Ansar Al-Halab” launched a large-scale offensive in west and north Aleppo, capturing territory in the Al-Rashideen District after fierce clashes with the Syrian Armed Forces.

Where the Islamist rebels couldn’t advance at were the Al-Khalidiyah, Al-‘Azizah, and Suleimaniyah Districts, as the Syrian-Armenian NDF soldiers were unwilling to concede an inch of ground to the Al-Qaeda forces.

The Syrian-Armenians of Aleppo label the Islamist rebel fighters as “Ottoman terrorists”, motivating their people to defend their land from – who they believe to be – the same forces that committed the 1915 Genocide.

[Eddo211]

Re: Syrian Armenian

We need peacekeepers in Syria.....you want valuable lessons then there you go.

[Vrej1915]

Re: Syrian Armenian

We need peacekeepers in Syria.....you want valuable lessons then there you go.

There is a war going on.
Where do you imagine peacekeepers should stand, if no one asks them?
On what mandate?
On who's payroll?
Whit what logistics?

We should certainly not engage.
If ever Russia does, it will be a trap, but that's their problem.... they can afford to loose 10.000 guys, like they did in Grozny.

Now consider any hypotetical engagement of us.
We sent 150 guys.
They represent nothing as a such, they will have to obey orders from a moron..
We sent 1500? We may perhaps defend the Kessab sector.
What will happen next in your opinion?
Turkey will do everything to bleed us.
What should we do next? Sent more troops? With what kind of equipment, logistics??
Expeditionary corpses are something only empires can afford.
Certainly not small states themselves in state of war.

The experience of that war is not worth the blood it will cost.

The most we can imagine, would be mobile troops, to help evacuate our people, if we had the logistics, and if we had that kind of plan...

So forget it, that war is not ours.
Our communities are unfortunately in a desperate situation, if can, we must think of saving them.
Nothing more is possible.

[Eddo211]

Re: Syrian Armenian

The most we can imagine, would be mobile troops, to help evacuate our people, if we had the logistics, and if we had that kind of plan...

So forget it, that war is not ours.
Our communities are unfortunately in a desperate situation, if can, we must think of saving them.
Nothing more is possible.

Yes, evacuate the needed and protect Armenian buildings, schools, churches. We are not to get involved in the war, this will be anounced by our government. Our mission will be strictly humanitarian and possible saving the Armenian heritage in Syria. We are not to engage the enmy. You fire if fired upon only. Just like Artsakh

[Vrej1915]

Re: Syrian Armenian

Yes, evacuate the needed and protect Armenian buildings, schools, churches. We are not to get involved in the war, this will be anounced by our government. Our mission will be strictly humanitarian and possible saving the Armenian heritage in Syria. We are not to engage the enmy. You fire if fired upon only. Just like Artsakh

Ok.
How many soldiers are you going to sent? How many losses are you ready to accept?

The day you guard one one building, the minute it follows, you will have 200 turkish mercenaries firing on it, with everything you may imagine... even turkish jets now are in the air. They will bomb, saying they were trying to protect us from jihadis..
What will you do??

[Haykakan]

Re: Syrian Armenian

Ok.
How many soldiers are you going to sent? How many losses are you ready to accept?

The day you guard one one building, the minute it follows, you will have 200 turkish mercenaries firing on it, with everything you may imagine... even turkish jets now are in the air. They will bomb, saying they were trying to protect us from jihadis..
What will you do??

I think it is quite telling how you want us to fight the Russians tooth and nail yet at the same time roll over and die vs Turks.

[Vrej1915]

Re: Syrian Armenian

I think it is quite telling how you want us to fight the Russians tooth and nail yet at the same time roll over and die vs Turks.

Dumdum !

[Eddo211]

Re: Syrian Armenian

Ok.
How many soldiers are you going to sent? How many losses are you ready to accept?

The day you guard one one building, the minute it follows, you will have 200 turkish mercenaries firing on it, with everything you may imagine... even turkish jets now are in the air. They will bomb, saying they were trying to protect us from jihadis.
What will you do??

Boy those are tough questions and I am not qualified to answer them but if you want to know my opinion

Send at least 300 peacekeepers.......any losses is unacceptable however no more than 5 percent.

We must coordinate with Syrian army in case of shelling.....some MANPADs will be good for F-4s

[Vrej1915]

Re: Syrian Armenian

Boy those are tough questions and I am not qualified to answer them but if you want to know my opinion

Send at least 300 peacekeepers.......any losses is unacceptable however no more than 5 percent.

We must coordinate with Syrian army in case of shelling.....some MANPADs will be good for F-4s

To have peacekeepers, you first need peace, at least truce.
There is, nor will be none, in near future.
So you may think of only a fighting force.
300 will be enough to protect a small district, where at best you will have 25% Armenians in Haleb. Any of the remaining 75% might be a jihadi kamikaze in your back.... ours do not speak, nor can understand the arabic language...
Our boys need to be equipped by at least some light armor, plus at least a field hospital with 2 surgeons, two narco/anesthesists, 4 nurses, the mobile equipment that will imply...., genrators, fuel reserve. We will need at least a Heli to evacuate heavy wounds to where??
We need food, at least twice a day, for our boys, water ... (there are sharp shortages in Haleb), and the civilians we are risking our lives for...
Then you will need to think of the coffins. I suppose you will not abandon our corpses in a foreign soil for eternity....
Haleb is already in virtual state of siege.

Now, if the huge Russia, with all its ressources, managed to sent something of that size, in acrobatic difficulties over the caspian, just to reach Latakya or Tartous, where they are well deep in friendly territory, out of reach of the jihadis, and deep sea ports, with a combat capable fleet at their disposal, just explain me how will you organise your logistics?
You will need at least 4 cargo flights to begin with, to sent your expeditionary corps.
They will land in Damaskos, or Latakiya.
At any moment from there to Haleb, they may come under fire, passing central Syria.., to enter the besieged Haleb nest.
Plus the war there is a street war, we are not experieced for, nor do need that experience.
If ever we are planning the capture of Baku, it will be an empty town... so no need of that experience.
As soon as you will be in town, the syrian army, in full shortage of manpower, will do everything to propagand the event, finally finding morons ready to die for them.
The same day, if not not much before the first plane would have landed, Turkey and Azerbaijan will order concentration of fire on our troops...
At best, while fighting and bleeding, you will protect the 2-5000 Armenians of the given district you had chosed. But at the same moment, the other 35-40.000 Armenians remaining in Syria, disseminated all over the country in small numbers + the entire Armenian community in Lebanon and the rest of the arab worls, will turn into live targets for the jihadis.. that is, potentially any inhabitant of those countries.
And the day 2, you will think of one question: for how long?
Do I need to detail more?

And now, let me remind you the cruel fact of the beginning 2011-12.
At that time, the Haleb airport was open.
Our state could not organise free evacuation flights for our children.
Armavia was only interested in plundering the people, by doubling the ticket prices. Then it did not fly at all.
Only syrian planes did Haleb-Yerevan...

Then we had a chance to do simple evacuation for refugees, and we could not.
Do you imagine we will find the resources to sent this kind of force, while our borders are on fire?
And what for exactly?