Talk:2018 Southern Syria offensive

Alleged US involvement
I've removed this edit per WP:PUS and this article. Wingwraith (talk) 05:30, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Vandalism by 93.142.131.70
For some reason this user keeps on removing "On the same day Youth of Sunna Forces disabled a Syrian Army tank with a BGM-71 TOW" even though it is sourced and confirmed, this is vandalism and unwarranted.

Title change (date)
June 2018 has already ended few days ago. Shouldn't title be changed to reflect the fact that the offensive is still ongoing? 193.198.162.14 (talk) 10:45, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Situational source
Currently there is a line in the article about rebels defecting to the ISIS, citing the Al-Masdar news outlet. Given that this is a Syrian government controlled outlet, I think it's fair to argue that this source, while normally fine for reporting on the actions of the Syrian government, is not good here because the claim that is being pushed -- That the rebels are joining an ISIS affiliate, has been a long-repeated propaganda talking point from the Syrian government; The rebels are Al-Qaeda, ISIS, etc, so I think this source should be replaced by one that does not have a reason to make such self-serving claims. I'm gonna look for sources, but the Al-Masdar article itself cites social media as its own source of the rumors, so I don't think I will find anything that qualifies. To me it seems like a case of WP:QS; A site pushing unsubstantiated rumors it has obtained from social media, coincidentally ones that coincide with the beliefs of its owners. Eik Corell (talk) 22:08, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree. I looked when it agreed and could find no source corroborating this. BobFromBrockley (talk) 22:23, 6 July 2018
 * Most media outlets use social media to find out information even the big ones like CNN and Fox.
 * --Takinginterest01 (talk) 20:32, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, but this is a government news source pushing a piece of news that aligns with official propaganda; that of conflating the various opposition groups with ISIS. 400 insurgents defecting to ISIS is a spectacular, self-serving claim. For such claims, the guidelines call for "multiple high-quality sources.". Al-Masdar is to some degree an acceptable as a source on the goings-on within the Syrian government and military; claims about itself, all that stuff, but that changes when such exceptional claims are made by it. Eik Corell (talk) 19:50, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
 * That's an understandable perspective but in reality in Syria joining ISIS isn't always because X indivudals are Islamists or even if they are they are not always the same kind as ISIS, and many indivduals join out of pragmatic reasons and it makes sense that rebels fustrated with the lack of motivation from their commanders to fight the Government would defect to ISIS which has shown a history of rejecting negotiations and fighting to the very end, and on that same note even though Russia has offered to transport rebels who wish to keep fighting in Idlib it's obvious that a lot of indivduals who are opposition/rebel fighters don't want to leave their home areas, I know the Government uses the whole "Rebels are all ISIS" argument but in this case it isn't too detatched from reality.
 * --Takinginterest01 (talk)

I see this is back in the article but nobody has given the argument for inclusion. It's a borderline pro-government source reporting that something has been alleged on social media, and no other source has reported this. How is it encyclopedic to include it in our article? BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:04, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Syria War Daily
Someone removed all refrences using this site claiming it is a self-publishing source when it isn't it is an ibjective source that posts claims from pro-government, pro-opposition, and pro-isil sources such as Amaq Agency, SANA, and the various pro-opposition sources, for example it posts claims made by the central operations room this doesn't confirm it, it only says what they claim and tbis in reality just gives a better understanding of the situation on the ground, it is no different than using Almasdar or Enab Baladi which do the same thing by posting either pro-government articles or pro-opposition, I think Syria War Daily should be allowed, it has been used on other articles without any objections, I don't see the issue here in using it.
 * I'm the one who removed it, and I think I put it well in the edit summary: It's a self-published source. As the guideline says: For a self-published source to be acceptable, it must have been "published by reliable third-party publications.", which to my knowledge this source has not. If this source is to be re-added, that's what needs to be shown here -- Independant, third-party sources using or acknowledging its legitimacy. On a related topic, you were right to keep this source; I confused it with "Gulf Daily", which I've seen pushing some terrible misinformation. Eik Corell (talk) 20:50, 8 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Syrian War Daily is reliable and is generally considered a sound source by many who follow the conflict. Takinginterest01 (talk) 22:42, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
 * The problem is that these people who follow a conflict do not constitute the independent, third-party source coverage/use of the source that WP:SPS mentions as a necessity for said source to be acceptable. Eik Corell (talk) 07:37, 10 July 2018 (UTC)


 * That's just your opinion and your interpretation of the policy no one elses. Takinginterest01 (talk) 22:02, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
 * WP policy is pretty clear on self-published sources, and SWD is definitely a self-published source, a blog. Although it may be helpful for those who watch the war, it cannot be used a source for a claim on WP, except perhaps with clear attribution and a better source tag until its claims are triangulated. It also often doesn't give its sources, so hard to verify, which is a problem. BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:07, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Takinginterest01 revert
Takinginterest01, regarding your full revert of me here, I would ask that you cancel your revert since its your fourth one in less than 24 hours (two of which were of logged-in users), which violates the general 1RR policy applied to all Syrian war-related articles. Violation of 1RR can get you banned. Now, to explain my actions... First, opposition is generally the term for the political wing of the government's opponents, see Syrian opposition. Opposition fighters is rarely used and rebels is the more common term for the military wing of the government's opponents, which have been confirmed to be only loosely connected to the opposition. Thus, throughout this war's battle articles for the past seven years we have been using the terms "rebels" or "rebel fighters", not "opposition". However, if you an insistent we call them the "opposition" in this paragraph I won't try to argue further. Second, Wikipedia's policy states to avoid using the wording such as alleged, see WP: ALLEGED. Third, the source at no point says that the airstrikes violated a cease-fire agreement or that they were what postponed the evacuation. In fact, the source mentions the strikes were in retaliation for a rebel attack on a military convoy (mention removed by your revert). And a rebel official said the general fighting, not the airstrikes exclusively, were what postponed the evacuation. So lets please stick to whats in the cited sources, anything else is considered unsourced Original Research per Wiki policy. Finally, it was unnecessary for you to do a full revert of my edits, which also reduced properly linked references back to bare references (no citation names), which Wiki policy requires us to properly cite, see Bare URLs. If you still got problems with the wording, I would ask you that state your problems here so we can find a way to resolving the issue through discussion and finding a compromise. Hope this clears it all up. I have high hopes we can resolve the problem since we have had a good working relationship so far. EkoGraf (talk) 17:26, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

These are understandable requests and I do apologies for violations, as for the allegations, there is no other way to state it, it is what it is an allegation the rebels never confirmed it or denied it and it was a represenatitve from Syria's military making this claim that the rebels violated a cease-fire, how else would you describe it aside from an allegation? Takinginterest01 (talk) 22:40, 9 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Like I said, per WP policy WP: ALLEGED, we are instructed to avoid using the term, unless wrongdoing is asserted but undetermined. Using the word "claim" is also to be avoided as per WP:CLAIM. In these cases we attribute the information to the source (which was done) and use wording such as "stated", "said", "according to", etc. EkoGraf (talk) 00:08, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Third column for Khalid ibn al-Walid Army
Yesterday, SAA has also engaged Khalid ibn al-Walid Army (ISIL affiliate) in Tasil pocket, so perhaps a third column in the infobox for ISIL should be added with something like " (from 10 July 2018) ", since they didn't enter this battle from its beginning. 193.198.162.14 (talk) 12:39, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

They entered more around july 3rd Takinginterest01 (talk) 22:02, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Khalid Ibn Walid Army instead of ISIL
I noticed in the article whenever I write the "ISIL affiliated Khalid ibn al-Walid Army" it gets removed and shortened just to ISIL, the problem with this is, it shows a bit of inaccuracy as JKBW is an affiliate and not a full official branch of ISIS, for example ISIL doesn't address the area as "Wilayat Daraa" or address it as a province and the media outlets from JKBW also do show some difference in terms of how they refer to their men, JKBW calls their fighters 'Mujahideen' while ISIL in official statements refers to their fighters as 'Soldiers of the Caliphate' or the 'Caliphate's Army' and so on, yes JKBW did swear allegiance to ISIL and yes they do take orders from ISIL and refer to them in various maters but for the sake of accuracy it would be more proper to specifiy them as an affiliate. Takinginterest01 (talk) 22:08, 11 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Its a matter of how most sources regard them. And most sources regard them as actually being ISIL or alternatively said they are a part of ISIL (which is basically the same thing). When it boils down to it, they are basically a military formation of ISIL, like a Regiment or a Brigade (if we go by their size). EkoGraf (talk) 07:12, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Vandalism by Purijj
This user has a habbit of completely removing particpants from the infobox for no reason what so ever even if they are sourced and they rearrange them without any method or guideline but based purly on how they feel, and I would like to ask someone undoes his recent edit to the infobox. Specifically they removed The National Front for the Liberation of Syria which Jabhat Ansar al Islam is part of and just put Jabhat Ansar al Islam, the user also removed Army of the South for no reason at all. Takinginterest01 (talk) 17:38, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Some may think that there is some difference. 37.151.19.210 (talk) 04:23, 13 July 2018 (UTC)


 * There is no reliable source that confirms the involvement of Jabhat Ansar al-Islam. This article was cited for some reason, but it did not mention the group at all. There is also no evidence that the NFLS still exists, or that Jabhat Ansar al-Islam is still active under the NFLS banner. Editor abcdef (talk) 07:15, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Rename article to "Southern Syria Offensive (June-July 2018)"
Hello, I was thinking as this operation takes place in more than just one governorate, that the page should be renamed to the title mentioned above. Thought about this after coming across this wikipage: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Southern_Syria_offensive Thoughts? --Rr016 (talk) 20:58, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Notorious barrel bombs
This text: On 16 July, the Syrian military continued shelling western Daraa with SOHR estimating 230 shells hitting the area, SOHR added that barrel bombs have been deployed as well. There were reports that the Syrian Arab army had widely used barreled bombs in 2014-2015, before Russian intervention. And the only reason for this they called the lack of conventional bombs. Since October 2015, Russia has been supporting the Syrian government and the SAA is no shortage of ammunition now. Are there independent confirmation from neutral sources that the SAA continues to use the barrel bombs? Or the phrase "barrel bombs" is just a ritual phrase in the media, designed to emphasize the "brutality of the regime"? 37.151.19.210 (talk) 04:47, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Phases
Purijj, please read once more what I wrote in my edit summary. First, there has been no break in the operations (they are continues). Second, there have been no sources confirming different phases. Third, the operations have not shifted from the FSA to ISIS, the operations against the FSA still continue in a sliver of Quneitra, while the operations against ISIS are taking place concurrently. So the SAA is currently fighting both the FSA and ISIS. It should also be pointed out that the SAA didn't start fighting ISIS on 21 July, in fact, sporadic SAA shelling of the ISIS enclave took place ever since they reached their frontline about a week ago and air-strikes started on 19 July. So to summarize, we insert "phases" dates only if there are sources confirming different phases or if there was some kind of break in operations which was restarted later. This is the established template we have been following for years now. EkoGraf (talk) 19:17, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

How come no one will update the main map?
It hasn't been updated in over a week, and much has changed since then. Assad's troops are actually on the border with Golan, they didn't stop and leave a buffer zone as the map suggests 70.56.178.116 (talk) 01:21, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
 * There are still some rebel-held territory reconciles with Syrian government in Golan Heights and the Syrian Army assault on the ISIL-held pocket is shown on bottom map. 羽衣狐 (talk) 04:53, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Because I don't want to update it anymore. --Rr016 (talk) 22:49, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

should be decisive Syrian army and allies victory
Russia military played a major role with bombing ISIS.

45.74.75.2 (talk) 16:15, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 31 July 2018
Change "(1 month, 4 weeks and 2 days)" to "(1 month, 1 week and 6 days)". 72.80.147.212 (talk) 18:37, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Danski454 (talk) 19:44, 31 July 2018 (UTC)