The US come in and all of a sudden Iraqi’s are talking about different sects and religions. They forgot about unity, nationhood and prosperity but all of a sudden began dreaming of small Statelets. Divide and Conquer in its full glory.

Unity? Nationhood? Prosperity? So, the US just waves the magic wand and all this disappears? That’s a pretty naive and simplistic perspective. Or perhaps those things were never there to begin with? E.g. unity is often a pretty useful ideal to the privileged minority groups in charge.

sheytanelkebir just a few posts ago tried to explain how the Kurds for the most part never really wanted to be a part of the Arab Iraq (similar to the Kurds which ended up in Syria and Turkey when the lines were drawn by the French and the British after the Ottoman Empire collapsed).

Yet, you keep parroting the same nonsense which sums up as ‘everything was great before the evil US came and messed it all up for some fantasy pipelines’. Yes, they inadvertently triggered the whole thing with their regime change in Iraq, but the chances for a peaceful transition of power from the secular pan-Arabist regimes which ended up in the hands of minorities in Iraq and Syria were always rather slim given the established tradition of ruthless suppression of dissent.

And the SAA troops are following with a slow advance towards Deir ez-Zor.. Next stop T3 airbase perhaps.

Huh, Egyptian MiG-29M2 in a different scheme:

Wouldn’t this be a MiG-29M as I don’t see the second seat installed? Is Egypt getting both variants?

Well, the US “coordinated” (as in ‘gave notice’) with Russia as well, before their strike 🙂

Not all of the strikes are targeting suspected IRGC weapon deliveries intended for Hezb, but also Syrian weapons or installations they see as a threat. There is a list of some of these strikes on Wiki:

Jamraya airstrike (30 January 2013) – Alleged Israeli airstrike on a Syrian convoy transporting weapons to Hezbollah.[16] Other sources stated the targeted site was a military research center in Jamraya responsible for developing biological and chemical weapons.[17]
Airstrikes on Syria (May 3 and 5, 2013) – Airstrikes on Syria against long-ranged weapons sent from Iran to Hezbollah.[18][19]
Latakia explosion (5 July 2013) – Alleged Israeli airstrike on a Syrian depot containing Russian-made Yakhont anti-ship missiles.[20]
Snawbar airstrike (30 October 2013) – Alleged Israeli airstrike at an air defense site in Snawbar.[21]
Latakia attack (26 January 2014) – Alleged Israeli airstrike against a Syrian warehouse of S-300 missiles.[22]
Beqaa Valley airstrike (24 February 2014) – Two airstrikes against a Hezbollah missile base in Lebanon near the border with Syria.[23]
Rif Dimashq airstrikes (7 December 2014) – Alleged Israeli airstrikes in Syria against a warehouse of advanced S-300 missiles, which were en route to Hezbollah in Lebanon.[24]
Mazraat Amal airstrike (18 January 2015) – Alleged Israeli airstrike in Quneitra against Hezbollah and Iranian operatives.[25]
Qalamoun airstrike (25 April 2015) – Israeli airstrikes against Hezbollah camps and weapons convoys in two brigade bases of Qalamoun region.[26]
Bekaa Valley airstrike (21 June 2015) – Israeli airstrike against targets in Lebanon’s western Bekaa Valley.[27]
August 2015 Syria Airstrikes (August 20–21 2015) – Israel launched airstrikes in Syria, after four rockets hit the Golan Heights and Upper Galilee.[28]
Qalamoun airstrike (31 October 2015) – alleged Israeli airstrike on Hezbollah targets in southern Syria, including a weapons convoy.[29]
November 2015 Israeli airstrike (11 November 2015) – alleged Israeli airstrike near Damascus airport against Hezbollah weapons warehouses.[30]
November 2016 Israeli airstrike (30 November 2016) – alleged Israeli airstrike against a Syrian military compound in Damascus and a Hezbollah weapons convoy in the Damascus-Beirut highway.[31]
December 2016 Israeli airstrike (7 December 2016) – Alleged Israeli airstrike against the Mezzeh airbase near Damascus.[32] A Syrian opposition group said the target was a convoy of chemical weapons en route to Hezbollah.[33]
January 2017 Israeli airstrike (12 January 2017) – Another alleged Israeli airstrike against the Mezzeh airbase near Damascus, targeting an ammunition depot.[34]
February 2017 Israeli airstrike (22 February 2017) – Alleged Israeli airstrike on a Hezbollah weapons shipment near Damascus.[35]
March 2017 Israeli airstrike (17 March 2017) – Alleged incident in which several S-200 missiles were fired at Israeli jet fighters attacking targets in Syria, and one missile was shot down by an “aerial defense system”, likely the Arrow 3.[36][37]

Or simply a cueing repere. The wedge, as viewed from the IRST ball draw an arrow that can be used to align/re-align the ball in flight.

AFAIK, on the Su-27/33 you can’t see the direct IRST output in flight (e.g. like on the Tomcat); just the contacts which are presented on the HUD/HDD in the same way as the radar contacts.

Don’t the Russians have S400s there? If they knew about the strike with an hour’s warning, why didn’t they just knock down the missiles?

I’d expect the S400 cannot track/engage such low flying targets at that distance.

A pierced shelter is, of course, a hit, by all means.

Sorry, it seems I misunderstood what the holes in the dirt were referring to – i.e. not the pierced shelters, but presumably to those few shots of burned tarmac perhaps?

The type of helicopter was Bell 407.

Iraqi army helicopter shot down by IS militants over Mosul

Probably hit by another FN-6 and those small helicopters hardly stand a chance to survive a close hit.

As I read, the IA-407’s are equipped with MAWS supposedly which also can dispense flares automatically when a missile is detected. The video starts late so we don’t see the actual engagement to see if there were any flares dropped.