Talk:Aleppo offensive (November–December 2016)

Joint Pro-gov Kurdish unit
It has been reported that a newly formed brigade called 'Syrian National Resistance' (SNR) which is "a predominately Kurdish pro-government unit which spearheaded the capture of Aleppo Infantry School exactly one month ago. Notably, the SNR is a key player in improving regional relations between the SAA and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)."

It seems kurds and army are unified against common foe in north east aleppo with joint armed units with even sub-branches :"The SNR is formed out of the 'Kafr Saghir Martyrs Brigade' " So I recommend adding orange in template and new allied units in battle pages .P.rafati (talk) 08:18, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

Tweet by The Inside Source regarding number of rebels being exaggerated
The Inside Source, which by the way is neutral and trustable, stated in a tweet that the real number of rebels might be 2-3,000 and the 10,000 is greatly exagerrated. Ofcourse, the infobox says 8,000. I think its possible that even that number is exaggerated, seeing as how there defences have collapsed. We can make the number in infobox as 2,000-8,000. But I don't know whether a tweet should be used. Their news website doesn't publish news anymore. 117.241.118.109 (talk) 00:33, 10 December 2016 (UTC)
 * If you look at an older version of the "Battle of Aleppo" article, there was an SAA claim that the true number of rebel fighters was 2,500. Someone has since removed it; I'm not sure why. Perhaps that's where The Inside Source got their estimate, as well? Esn (talk) 03:11, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Contradiction problem
Right now this article has been posted at In the news/Candidates as a blurb, meaning it is at the top of the Wikipedia news section as "Aleppo Captured". This article does not mention a victory in the info-box but has the status under the "Final stage" section. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 05:40, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Only one sentence in regard to this in that section, and its a Russian claim (not totally reliable) that the Army is in control of the city, while also noting the last rebels haven't evacuated yet. EkoGraf (talk) 05:56, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Take your concerns to WP:ITN/C they have the post that says "Aleppo Captured" with users being directed to this article. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 05:59, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Msakr99 (talk) 11:03, 14 December 2016 (UTC) msakr99 I would say the situation by itself is contradictory, as the evacuation collapsed, we get back tot he point that the city is not fully cleared, however strategically from a military perspective, the city have fallen.

"Children burned alive"
I have seen it mentioned again and again in news and even by politicians that civilians were "shot in their homes" and "children were burned alive", of course with no documentation at all. But seems an oversight these allegations are not mentioned here, at least they could be debunked if they turn out to be baseless propaganda to buy the rebels time (which I highly suspect). Many people probably come to this page to look that up. FunkMonk (talk) 09:20, 16 December 2016 (UTC)
 * sounds like propaganda from the new york times... DerElektriker (talk) 15:09, 17 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Babies thrown out of incubators stuff. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 15:42, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Alleged foreign spies supporting rebels in Aleppo
An editor added a list of nations that allegedly support the rebels to the infobox. To back these claims, the editor referenced two Arab news sites that show the Syrian UN ambassador reading off a list of "foreign intelligence agents" training rebels in Aleppo. The claims of Assad's government are usually ambiguous/biased to begin with, so the only confirmation of the presence of these agents is Assad's own accusations against NATO, Gulf States, and Israel (nations which Assad has always blamed for the war).

Furthermore, even if foreign spies are operating in Aleppo, it doesn't necessarily mean that they are providing support to the rebels; they could just be doing what intelligence agents usually do, which is gathering information. Confirmation of these claims should be supported with additional, more universally-accepted Western news sources, before concluding that both parts of this claim (that agents are present in Aleppo, and that they are training rebels) are true. 72.25.40.89 (talk) 02:05, 22 December 2016 (UTC)


 * It is "alleged support" because only the Syrian government and (according to ANHA, the SDF propaganda outlet) a number of other sources accuse these governments to support and train the rebels. While I agree that the reliability of these accusations is dubious at best, when the Syrian government officially claims their involvement in this battle that warrants mentioning. Meanwhile, by adding "alleged", it is made clear that these claims are not necessarily true. Applodion (talk) 11:25, 22 December 2016 (UTC)


 * "Confirmation of these claims should be supported with additional, more universally-accepted Western news sources" - well, I guess that the support would remain "alleged" - it's almost impossible to find "universally-accepted Western news sources", which are also neutral and aren't biased against the Syrian government.
 * That's just absolute nonsense. I'm embarrassed for you posting such tripe. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.111.2.50 (talk) 19:52, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Civilians left
The info box gives a number of 130,000 (sourced to the Bangkok Post, indirectly to SOHR) - can we get a better number? Can we give separate number for those who fled to government held territory, from those who evacuated to rebel-held territory? The distinction would be meaningful. Jd2718 (talk) 17:22, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

Sourced info in lede
This edit. Even if there is consensus about not including this material in another more general page (I am not sure), it still can be included on this page on the more narrowly defined subject. My very best wishes (talk) 17:45, 25 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't think the lede is the place for alleged events that one side of the conflict says is a total lie, while the other side relies on third-party reports and blames an unspecified Iraqi militia (not even the Syrian army). While it is very possibly something that happened, the death of 82 civilians is simply not a notable event compared to the capture of half a city with over 100,000 civilians and thousands of rebel fighters. Dozens of civilians in Western Aleppo also died from indiscriminate rocket attacks fired by the rebels into civilian areas, while rebels allegedly killed 100+ hostages in the final days before leaving the city. The lede should be for describing the broad strokes of what happened in the campaign. I'd be fine with including text saying that hundreds of civilians died, and that most of them were in the rebel-held side of the city, but I don't think that particular incident should be specified in the lede. It's not an important enough event by itself, and it is controversial (on the other hand, the facts of my proposed text to replace it with are not controversial). Esn (talk) 18:43, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

Civilian casualties
Now that the campaign is complete, what happened to civilians (both displacement and casualties) belong in the aftermath section. I attempted to introduce information about where the refugees from Aleppo went, and discovered that the 130,000 figure in the infobox is not the only number. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports over 88,000. Further, they indicated about 35,000 went to rebel-controlled territory, and some 53,000 registered in government-controlled territory. I included a malformed link. Perhaps someone could format this correctly: http://reliefweb.int/report/syrian-arab-republic/syrian-arab-republic-aleppo-situation-report-no-10-23-december-2016

Jd2718 (talk) 19:02, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

templates
Re - I thought my edit summaries were clear enough. The article utilizes non-reliable or, arguably, borderline reliable, sources such as al-Masdar news. At the very least text cited to such a source needs to be attributed and cannot be stated as fact in Wikipedia voice.

Furthermore, in the Reported massacre by pro-government forces more space is given to denials of these massacres than to covering the actual massacres. The Russian guy is quoted at length which is clearly UNDUE. The info on the Red Cross is cited to TASS, which is not a reliable source.

There's also other problems but this is just for starters.Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:21, 2 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Edit summaries are not sufficient. NPOV templates are expected to be accompanied by discussion on the talk page. Template:POV
 * If you know of cited text that is not attributed, please point it out.
 * In the Reported massacre by pro-government forces more space is given to the reports of massacres than to the denials. (7 lines vs 5 on my screen, 4 sources vs 2). If the Rudskoi quote is too long, trim it.  Further, I note your use of the word "actual" - when the alleged event(s) are disputed. In the current situation, where both sides are frequently actually (correct word here) lying, it is important that editors doubt easy narratives.
 * Is it the case that your concerns are not about the broad narrative of the battle, but the allegations of war crimes on either side? Then it would make sense to move the templates to the sections in question. Jd2718 (talk) 16:12, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Unless you can point us to the RS/N threads concluding that Al-Masdar and TASS are "non-reliable", there really is nothing to discuss here. Fitzcarmalan (talk) 18:49, 3 January 2017 (UTC)