Talk:Syrian National Army

SNA militants were never deployed in Yemen

Within the introduction it was added that SNA have been deployed by Turkey in Yemen. This is of course absolutely false, and the source used are biased and deeply dubious. I'll remove it. 22Chev22 (talk) 14:56, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

SOHR is regarded as reliable source, so if they report it, it is mentioned here. Applodion (talk) 15:14, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

No, SOHR is know by Syria watchers to be an unreliable source who often claims development that in no way have occured.

With a rapid dive in the web, both international and regional / local media, it's clear that SNA forces were never deployed in Yemen. 22Chev22 (talk) 09:28, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

This was discussed at length in several discussions on Wikipedia, and the consensus is that Wikipedia regards SOHR as reliable. Applodion (talk) 09:48, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

A tons of academics and experts do not think that, and I'm not talking of average regime supporters.

Also, this SOHR piece you're using as a source is itself citing "Islam Times", which is an online biased source affiliated to the Iranian State (just to prove as SOHR is NOT a reliable source).

Then, the other two sources you're using: 1) the one on turkiyegazetesi never mentions the SNA but a generic show of support by Ankara of Saudi operations in Yemen and 2) the Yemeni Press Agency is a biased media affiliated with the Houthi militia.

Please, stop adding this line, it simply NEVER happened. 22Chev22 (talk) 12:51, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

@22Chev22: You do not get to decide what is reliable and what is not (Also, what proof do you have that SOHR's sources are the ones you claim they are? "Islam Times" is not exactly an uncommon name. One google search provides several news agencies of that name). Wikipedia treats SOHR as a reliable source, thus its information will be kept in the article. I kindly ask you to revert your removal of this sourced content. Applodion (talk) 17:21, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

The proof was within the SOHR article you added.

Anyway, I will add back the mention of the Yemen deployment once you're capable of citing it with a strong source.

Regarding the SNA deployment in Libya or Azerbaijan there were tons of visual proofs (photos of fighers on planes, on foreign territory, dead fighters etc. etc.) + several MAJOR international and regional sources have covered the matter, like the Wapo, NYT, Reuters, al-Monitor, rferl, MEE, al-Jazeera etc. etc.

Pls, I'm kindly ask you to come back with a more solid sources like the ones I've cited above 22Chev22 (talk) 07:43, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

@22Chev22: Ok, I will look for other references. Regardless of what I am going to find, however, SOHR is still regarded as a valid source by Wikipedia. Perhaps it might be sensible to just directly attribute claims and counter-claims? I.e. "SOHR, based on reporting by Islam Times etc. etc. claims that the SNA was deployed to Yemen. Sources X, Y, Z disagreed, arguing that no proof for this deployment exists." What would you think about this wording? Applodion (talk) 09:44, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

@Applodion: The point is that I believe you won't even find sources that "disagreed", because the whole "SNA in Yemen" was nothing more than chatter on Twitter and Telegram for less than a week, than people stopped talking about it as soon as it was clear that Turkey wasn't stepping up its role in Yemen and no SNA militant would have ever been sent to Yemeni lands.

So nobody (big or little media) really talked about it. 22Chev22 (talk) 14:11, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

SOHR is regarded on Wikipedia as a borderline source. I don't believe this has been clarified by an RfC but the strong consensus in every discussion is that it should usually be attributed unless its claim is contributed, that it should ideally be used in triangulation with other sources, and that if no other source reports something it may not be noteworthy. I'd add that when we use it we should check who it attributes its claims to (e.g. their articles usually say something like "activists told us" or "according to government media"). In this case, the SOHR piece is reposted from Islam Times, an Indonesian website which seems to me a shady and highly partisan pro-Russian/pro-Iranian site on the model of SouthFront or Islamic World News. It quotes SOHR saying "The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a group monitoring the Syrian war since the beginning of the conflict in the Arab country in 2011, said that it had information that the Turkish forces operating in the Syrian city of Afrin are recruiting and transferring armed groups from Afrin to Qatar with thousands of dollars in pays to them for deployment to the war-devastated Yemen... If the information is true, it represents an important development." In other words, we definitely shouldn't report this without massive caveats, and there's no way it should be in the lead on the basis of SOHR. BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:25, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
The second source is Yemen Press Agency, which I've never heard of. Looks also shady and partisan (pro-Iran), and it caveats the story with "sources told Yemen Press Agency", which seems very shaky foundations. BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:28, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
The third source is Türkiye (newspaper) which might be an RS but the link is dead. In short, definitely not for the lead; if in body needs very careful account. BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:30, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

@Bobfrombrockley:@22Chev22: As far as I remembered it, we had a discussion a few years back where SOHR was confirmed to be generally reliable, whereas pro-government sources like al-Masdar should be used with attribution? Did I remember this wrongly?
Either way, I have looked for more sources. NPA claims that a "source from the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army", specifically the Sultan Suleiman Shah Brigade, told them that SNA troops were hired to guard the Yemen-Saudi border. However, NPA is very much an anti-Turkish news site, so any claim on their part is even more problematic than SOHR's. However, al-Monitor (which I would consider more reliable than both SOHR and NPA) also mentioned a report by the Violations Documentation Center (according to which the SNA recruited troops to be sent to Yemen), as well as similar claims by journalist Lindsey Snell (who interviewed a Sultan Murad Brigades commander who was reportedly involved in the recruitment for Yemen). So there are definitely more sources than SOHR and Yemen Press Agenc. Btw, the Türkiye source was archived here; it only says that Turkey supported the Hadi government, but gives no details. Applodion (talk) 17:24, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

@Applodion I will be cautious on quoting Lindsey Snell, at least not without context or additional sources for her being extremely anti-Turkey when it regards to Syria and Ankara's operations abroad. She also frequently refers to SNA forces as "terrorists" (it's absolutely ok to underline their poor record on human rights but they are not designated as terrorist organization by anyone) and she still refer to HTS as an al-Qaeda group. 22Chev22 (talk) 09:14, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Thank you Applodion. I may be misremembering SOHR discussions. I believe that Violations Documentation Center is considered massively more reliable than SOHR, and I believe that al-Monitor is one of the strongest sources there is. I would say that Snell is a very controversial and partisan reporter (personally I believe she is unreliable whether published by a good source or not) so we would need to heavily and carefully qualify any claims of this sort, and to do that properly we'd need to get it right in the body before summarising in the lead. It also seems that the reporting is of SNA fighters being recruited for Yemen; there's less evidence they were ever deployed. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:23, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

@Bobfrombrockley:@22Chev22: I generally agree with your concerns. Regarding the lacking information on their deployment, though, I would argue that this could be connected to the poor coverage on events at the Saudi-Yemeni border. We do know that the Saudis use non-Saudi mercenaries to patrol the area.
Either way, what should we do? Mention the claims of a possible Yemeni scheme as unconfirmed claim with attribution or exclude it completely from the article? Applodion (talk) 09:45, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

@Applodion @Bobfrombrockley My opinion is that we should exclude it from the article.

As you well say, we do know that Saudis use foreign mercenaries but we generally also know from where they come. Houthi forces have published plenty of evidence on the presence of mercenaries from Sudan, for example. Or there were credible reports about involvement of militants from South America countries.

Still, so far, there is zero visual evidence (corpses, ID, POW videos etc. etc.) of any SNA militant in Yemen. 22Chev22 (talk) 09:51, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

I think it would be fine to carefully mention allegations and reports in the body, but just be really clear that this is not verified. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:50, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Infighting and war crimes

The point by point listing is quite exhaustive to read. Seems to be WP:NOTNEWS, could be moved to a separate article called War crimes committed by SNA and infighting between SNA groups. The list is also quite incomplete as the sorting stops after 2018, despite clashes between the groups occurring almost everyday. Ecrusized (talk) 14:02, 7 December 2022 (UTC)